All Good Children - Catherine Austen [74]
“Summer? Dallas, we’ve been doing this for eight weeks and we’re barely hanging on. How are you ever going to make it through another six months?”
“I can do it. I’m good at it.”
“You’re falling apart! You’ll have nothing left when I’m gone.”
He shoulders his pack. “I can do it, Max. I still have my thoughts. I just can’t say them out loud. I still have my feelings. I just can’t show them. I still have all the things that used to matter. They’re inside me. They can’t take that away.”
I smack his arm. “Yes, they can! They can take anything away! They just took everything from Ally. They took it from Pepper and Xavier. And they sure took it from Tyler Wilkins, didn’t they? If they get their hands on you, Dallas, you will line up and ask them to take those things away.”
“Shh!” Mom peeks into the living room, half asleep. “Keep your voices down. Is everything all right?”
“Fine, Mrs. Connors. I’m just leaving.” Dallas waits till she’s gone, then whispers, “I’ll be caught at the border. And I don’t want to be caught, Max. I don’t want to take that chance. I cannot take the stress of hoping for something that’s not going to happen. I’d rather stay here and be hopeless. Then I might be able to hang on.”
“To what?”
He doesn’t answer. He just leaves.
Mom stomps back in, ready to give us hell for keeping her awake. She softens when she sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Dallas is scared to come. He thinks he’ll get caught.”
She nods. “It’s risky.”
She holds up her hand to stop me from interrupting, but I interrupt anyway. “Maybe we should all stay,” I say. “What if things are worse in Canada? Isn’t that a theme through history—people go off in search of a better land but they end up in some nightmare and wish they’d never left in the first place?”
“There’s also the theme of people going off in search of a better land and finding a better land.”
“But if we’re the only ones—”
“You’re not.” She takes my face in her hands. “There is a whole world out there full of normal children, Max. We think because we’re trapped here that this is our only choice, but it’s not. We’ll be okay. Like you said, I’m a nurse. I can find work. We can go anywhere.” She kisses my forehead. “We can’t stay here for Dallas.”
“You’re leaving him?”
“No.” She nods as she repeats the word. “No.”
“I won’t leave him, Mom. The teachers and his father? I won’t leave him to that. We’re taking Dallas or we’re not going.”
Montgomery limps into history class wearing a crisp white shirt under his gray uniform. His right arm hangs limp at his side, no rings or dangling bracelets. He holds his neck stiffly, head cocked to the right, the muscles of his face pulled tight, partially paralyzed. I’ve seen a few kids like that since the shots. I think it’s temporary.
Mr. Reese looks up and follows Montgomery with sad dark eyes. Mr. Reese is a mess of sighs and pauses and coffee stains these days. The classroom tiles are spattered with French roast from the door to his desk. He arrives early every morning and projects his instructions so he doesn’t have to hear his voice shake while he speaks. He used to be my favorite teacher and I guess he still is, but that’s not saying much. Every time I look up, he’s on the verge of tears, his eyes fixed on one of us, swimming in memories of better days. There’s no outrage in his gaze. No petition, no protest, no hand up for clarification. Just a dull resignation. Like my mother must have shown when she first started drugging her patients. Sad but self-interested, waiting on a bright side.
I can’t think of a single adult that I admire.
“Please begin item one,” Mr. Reese says quietly. “Keep your voices low, please.” He does a lot of unnecessary begging.
We’re supposed to pair up and ask review questions. I turn to Dallas, who sits in the row beside me. He looks away from me and taps Brennan’s shoulder. “I need a partner,” he says.
Brennan glances at me for a moment before he nods, rises, straddles the back of his seat. He and Dallas stare into their RIGs and murmur answers to each other. They look like they were born best