“Your name is Sally?” Tick asked.
“Sally T. Jones, at yer service.” He bowed, sweeping his arms wide, then righting himself. His face had reddened from the blood rushing to his head; it matched his beard. “Named after my grandpappy, who was named after his grandpappy. See, Sally’s short for Sallivent, a name older than expired dirt, ya hear?”
“We hear,” Sofia said. “You have a woman’s name.”
Tick elbowed his friend. “Be nice,” he whispered.
“I like it,” Paul said. “Beats the heck out of being named Princess or Barbie, right?”
Sally gave Paul a confused look. “I’ll eat my own dandruff if you ain’t the strangest group of chirrun I ever done seen.”
“What’s a chirrun?” Tick asked.
Sally squinted in disbelief. “Chirrun. Ya know—you’s a kid, a child. More than one of ya—chirrun.”
“I think he means children,” Sofia said.
Sally took a step to the side, then motioned around the back of the metal block. “You kids wanna come back with me? Get ya sumthin’ to fill dem tummies?”
“Where’d you come from?” Paul asked, leaning to get a look around the metal wall. “Is there seriously a whole city under us? Under these roofs?”
“Like I said, boy, we standin’ on the Roofens. Probably done shaved purtin’ near six months off your life stayin’ out chere for so long. Dis dirty air’ll eat yer innards quicker than a beaver on balsa wood.”
“What’s wrong with the air?” Tick asked.
Sally did his funny squint again. “I reckon you folks ain’t lyin’ when you says yer lost. These parts ’bout as polluted as my granny’s toenails. Why do you think they built dem cities under all this here metal?”
“Why’d you come up here, then?” Sofia asked.
Sally paused, his eyes darting back and forth. “I, uh, well, ya see, the thing is . . .” He scratched his beard. “See, I done heard yer little twitter feet up on my ceilin’ there, so I come up to do some investigatin’. Yep, that’s what I reckon, far as I recall.”
Tick exchanged a baffled look with Sofia and Paul. It didn’t take a genius to realize they’d already caught Sally in his first lie.
“Well,” Tick said, “we need a minute to talk about what we’re gonna do.”
“Go on, then,” Sally said. “I ain’t got a mind to bother dem there bid’ness and matter, such as it were.”
“Huh?” Paul asked.
Tick quickly grabbed his friend by the shoulders and turned him away from Sally, pulling him into a huddle with Sofia.
“So what do we do?” Tick whispered.
“That guy’s something else, ain’t he?” Paul asked. “I can barely understand a word he says.”
“I’m already getting used to it,” Sofia said. “If you ignore every third word or so, it makes perfect sense.”
“But what do we do?” Tick insisted.
“What else?” Paul said. “Go with this dude and get something to eat.”
“How do we know he’s safe?” Tick asked.
“Dude, get off the sissy train. There are three of us and one of him.”
“He seems perfectly harmless,” Sofia said. “I vote we go with him. We can’t walk around up here for the rest of our lives.”
“Plus,” Paul said, “he said this air’s really polluted. I’m not real cool on the whole lung-cancer thing. Let’s do it.”
Sofia nodded. “I’m dying to see what’s down there.”
Tick thought for a second. He felt uneasy, but he knew it was because their lives had gone flat-out crazy the last couple of days. Sally was definitely holding something back, and that made Tick nervous, but Paul was right—they had him outnumbered.
“All right,” he whispered, then turned to Sally. “Sir, we really appreciate the offer to go to your house. We’re really hungry, and, uh, lost.”
Sally smiled and rubbed his belly. “I ain’t said nothing about goin’ to my house. But I know a restaurant’s got some good eatin’. Come on, den.” He waved his arm in a beckoning gesture as he turned and walked back the way he’d come.
Tick, Sofia, and Paul paused. But then they followed.
~
Sally led them through a small trapdoor and down a very long and steep set of wooden stairs, which looked out of place amidst all the surrounding metal. The way was dark and hot, humid and reeking of something rotten. Tick felt more nervous by the second, worried they were walking into a trap, but he didn’t know what else to do. Where could they go? Who could they trust?
For now, Sally was their only friend in the world. This world, anyway.