“We’ll call you something proper. A real name for a real girl. May will do. May Weathers.”
“But I’m…”
“May.” She shoos me out the door, the other kids dragging along with me. Camellia gets warned again not to do anything except sit quiet in the hallway.
The little ones whine and whimper like puppies as I try to skin them off and set them down. Up the stairs, the two boys are gone. Somewhere outside, kids play Red Rover. I know that game from the schools we’ve gone to. When it’s the school year, Queenie and Briny usually try to tie up someplace near a river town so Camellia and me, and now Lark, can go. The rest of the time, we read books, and Briny teaches us arithmetic. He can make a cipher out of almost anything. Camellia’s a whiz at numbers. Even Fern knows her alphabet already, and she’s still too young for school. Next fall, Lark will start the first grade….
Lark looks up at me now, with her big mouse eyes, and a sick feeling bubbles in me like a black-water eddy. It’s got no place to go. It just spins round and round in circles.
“Are they takin’ us to jail?” the little girl—the one whose name I don’t even know—whispers.
“No. ’Course not,” I say. “They don’t put little kids in jail.” Do they?
Camellia’s eyes slant toward the front door. She’s wondering whether she can light out of here and get away with it.
“Don’t,” I spit under my breath. Mrs. Murphy told us not to make noise. The better we are, the more chance they’ll take us where we want to go, I figure. “We need to stay together. Briny’s gonna come get us soon’s he knows we’re not on the Arcadia. Soon’s Silas tells him what happened. We’ve gotta be all in one place when he shows up. You hear me?” I sound like Queenie when there’s breaking ice on the water and she won’t let us hang over the rail in case a floe might hit the boat and shake us off into the river. Times like that, she wants us to know she means it when she says no. She don’t get that way too often.
Everybody nods but Camellia. Even the other little girl and boy nod.
“Mellia?”
“Mmmm-hmm.” She gives in and pulls her knees up and crosses her arms and sticks her face in the middle, letting her head bump hard enough to make sure we know she ain’t happy about it.
I ask the other kids’ names, and neither one will say a word. Big tears roll down the little boy’s cheeks, and his sister hugs him close.
A bird flies into the front-door glass and hits with a thud, and all of us jump. I stretch to see if it got up and flew off okay. It’s a pretty little redbird. Maybe he’s the one we heard by the river, and he followed us here. Now he staggers around, his feathers glittery bright in the long, lazy afternoon sun. I wish I could scoop him up before a cat can get him—we saw at least three in the bushes on the way in—but I’m afraid to. Miss Tann will think I’m trying to run.
Lark gets up on her knees to see, her lip trembling.
“He’ll be all right,” I whisper. “Sit down. Be good.”
She does like she’s told.
The bird wobbles off toward the steps so that I have to crawl away from the wall a little to see him. Fly, I think. Hurry up. Fly off before they get you.
But he just stays there, his beak hanging open, his whole body panting.
Fly away. Go on home.
I keep watch. If a cat comes, maybe I can scare it off through the window.
Words drift from under the door across the hall. I stand up real careful, tiptoe closer.
I catch bits and pieces of what Miss Tann and Mrs. Murphy are saying, but none of it makes any sense. “…surrender papers right at the hospital on the five siblings. Simple and straightforward. The easiest way to sever ties. The most difficult thing was finding the exact location of their shantyboat, actually. It was moored by itself across from Mud Island, the police tell me. The little freckle-faced one tried to swim out through the loo. That’s more than just the river you caught a whiff of.”
Laughter twitters, but it’s sharp like a raven’s call.
“And the other two?”
“Found them picking flowers near a hive of shantyboat vermin. We’ll have their papers issued soon enough. Certainly it won’t be any trouble. They seem quite mild mannered too. Hmmm…Sherry and Stevie. Those should do for names. Best to begin retraining them to them immediately. They are darling, aren’t they? And young. They might not stay long. We’ve a viewing party planned next month. I’ll expect them to be ready.”
“Oh, they will be.”
“May, Iris, Bonnie…Beth…and Robby for the other five, I think. Weathers should do for the last name. May Weathers, Iris Weathers, Bonnie Weathers…It has a ring to it.” Laughter comes again. It rises high and loud so that it pushes me back from the door.
The last words I hear are Mrs. Murphy’s. “I’ll see to it. You can rest assured that they’ll be properly prepared.”
By the time they come out, I’ve scooted into my place and checked that everyone is lined real neat along the wall. Even Camellia picks up her head and sits Indian style, the way we do in school.
We wait, still as statues, while Mrs. Murphy walks Miss Tann to the door. Only our eyes turn to watch them talk on the porch.
The little redbird has hopped to the stairs, but he just sits there helpless. Neither one of them notices.
Fly away.
I think of Queenie’s red hat. Fly all the way to Queenie, and tell her where to find us.
Fly.
Miss Tann limps a few steps, almost hitting the bird. My breath turns solid and Lark gasps. Then Miss Tann stops to say something else.
When she starts off again, the redbird finally flies away.
He’ll let Briny know where we are.
Mrs. Murphy comes back inside, but she’s not smiling. She goes into the room across the hall and closes the door.
We sit and wait. Camellia buries her face again.
Fern lays on my shoulder. The little girl—Sherry, Miss Tann called her—holds her baby brother’s hand. “I’m hungwee,” he whispers.
“I ’ungee,” Gabion echoes, way too loud.
“Ssshhh.” His hair feels soft under my hand as I rub his head. “We have to be quiet. Like hide-and-seek. Like a game.”
He clamps his mouth and tries his best. Being only two, he’s always left out of our “Let’s pretend” games on the Arcadia, so he’s happy to be part of it this time.
I wish this was a good game. I wish I knew the rules and what we get if we win.
Right now, all we can do is sit and wait for whatever happens next.
We sit, and sit, and sit.
It seems like forever before Mrs. Murphy comes out. I’m hungry too, but I can tell by her face we’d best not ask.
She stands over us with her fists poked into her sides, her hip bones sticking out under her flowered black dress. “Seven more…” she says, frowning and looking up the stairs. A breath comes out and sinks like fog. It smells bad. “Well, there isn’t any choice about it, what with your parents unable to care for you.”
“Where’s Briny? Where’s Queenie?” Camellia blurts out.
“You will be silent!” Mrs. Murphy teeters on her feet as she moves down the line of us, and now I know what I smelled when she came out the door. Whiskey. I’ve been around enough pool halls to recognize it.
Mrs. Murphy stabs a finger toward Camellia. “You are the reason everyone must sit here rather than going outside to play.” She stomps off down the hall, her steps drawing a crooked line.
We sit. The little ones finally sleep, and Gabion falls flat out on the floor. A few other kids pass by—older and younger, boys and girls. Most wear clothes that are too big or too small. Not a single one looks our way. They walk through like they don’t notice we’re there. Women in white dresses with white aprons move up and down the hall in a hurry. They don’t see us either.
I wrap my fingers around my ankles and squeeze hard to make sure I’m still there. I almost think I’ve turned into the Invisible Man, like Mr. H. G. Wells wrote about. Briny loves that story. He’s read it to us a lot and Camellia and me play it with the kids in the river camps. Nobody can see the Invisible Man.