But it was my struggle, and I would find a way to deal with it. The easiest thing for me would be to tell them the truth—but again, I couldn’t. My parents would never understand this part of my life, and to try and force them to could land them in a mental hospital.
My dad already knew more about the peculiar children than was good for him. He’d met them all on Cairnholm, though he’d thought he was dreaming. Then Emma had left him that letter and a photo of herself with my grandfather. As if that weren’t bad enough, over the phone I’d actually told my dad I was peculiar. That had been a mistake, I realized, and selfish. And now here I was heading to meet them with Emma and Miss Peregrine at my side.
“On second thought,” I said, turning to them in the boat, “Maybe you shouldn’t come with me.”
“Why not?” Emma said. “We won’t age forward that quickly …”
“I don’t think my parents should see me with you. This is all going to be hard enough to explain as it is.”
“I’ve given some thought to this,” said Miss Peregrine.
“To what? My parents?”
“Yes. I can help you with them, if you like.”
“How?”
“One of an ymbryne’s myriad duties is dealing with normals who become problematically curious about us, or otherwise troublesome. We have ways of making them uncurious, of making them forget they’ve seen certain things.”
“Did you know about this?” I asked Emma.
“Sure. If it wasn’t for the wipe, peculiars would be in the news every other day.”
“So it … wipes people’s memories?”
“It’s more a selective cherry-picking of certain inconvenient recollections,” said Miss Peregrine. “It’s quite painless and has no side effects. Still, it may strike you as extreme. I leave it to your discretion.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay what?” said Emma.
“Okay, please do the memory wipe thing to my parents. That sounds amazing. And while you’re at it, there was this time when I was twelve that I crashed my mom’s car into the garage door …”
“Let’s not get carried away, Mr. Portman.”
“Just kidding,” I said, though I’d only sort of been. Either way, I was hugely relieved. Now I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my adolescence apologizing for the time I ran away, made my parents think I was dead, and nearly ruined their lives forever. Which was nice.
CHAPTER XI
Sharon dropped us off at the same dark, rat-infested under-jetty where we’d first met him. Stepping off his boat there gave me a twinge of bittersweet nostalgia. I may have been terrified and filthy and in various exotic forms of pain every second of the last several days, but I would probably never have an adventure like this again. I would miss it—not so much the trials I’d endured as the person I’d been while I endured them. There was an iron will inside me, I knew that now, and I hoped I could hang on to it even as my life grew softer.
“So long,” Sharon said. “I’m glad I met you, despite all the endless trouble you caused me.”
“Yeah, me too.” We shook hands. “It’s been interesting.”
“Wait here for us,” Miss Peregrine said to him. “Miss Bloom and I will be back within an hour or two.”
Finding my parents turned out to be easy. It would’ve been even easier if I’d still had my phone, but as it was, all we had to do was report to a police station. I was a known missing person, and within half an hour of giving an officer my name and sitting down on a bench to wait, my mother and father arrived. They were wearing rumpled clothes that had clearly been slept in, my mother’s normally perfect makeup was a mess, my dad had a three-day beard, and they were both holding stacks of MISSING posters with my face on them. I felt instantly and comprehensively awful for what I’d put them through. But as I tried to apologize, they dropped the posters and wrapped me in a two-way hug, and my words were lost in the folds of my dad’s sweater.
“Jake, Jake, ohmygod, my little Jake,” my mother cried.
“It’s him, it’s really him,” my father said. “We were so worried, we were so worried …”
How long had I been gone? A week? Something like that, though it seemed like an eternity.
“Where were you?” my mother said. “What were you doing?”
The hug broke but still I couldn’t get a word in.
“Why did you run away like that?” my father demanded. “What were you thinking, Jacob?”
“You gave me gray hairs!” my mother said, then threw her arms around me a second time.
My dad looked me over. “Where are your clothes? What’s this you’re wearing?”
I was still in my black adventure clothes. Oops. They’d be easier to explain than nineteenth-century clothes, though, and thankfully Mother Dust had healed all the cuts on my face …
“Jacob, say something!” my father demanded.
“I’m really, really sorry,” I said. “I would never have put you through this if I could’ve helped it, but everything’s okay now. Things are going to be fine. You won’t understand, and that’s okay, too. I love you guys.”
“You’re right about one thing,” my dad said. “We don’t understand. At all.”
“But it’s not okay,” said my mom. “You will give us an explanation.”
“We’ll need one, too,” said a police officer who’d been standing by. “And a drug test.”
Things were slipping beyond my control. It was time to pull the rip cord.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said, “but first I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Mom, Dad, this is Miss Peregrine.”
I saw my dad’s eyes go to Miss P, then to Emma. He must’ve recognized her, because he looked like he’d seen a ghost. But it was okay—he would forget soon enough.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Miss Peregrine, shaking both my parents’ hands. “You have a terrific son, just a topnotch boy. Not only is Jacob a perfect gentleman, he’s even more talented than his grandfather.”
“His grandfather?” said my dad. “How do you …”
“Who is this bizarre woman?” my mother said. “How do you know our son?”
Miss Peregrine gripped their hands and stared deeply into their eyes. “Alma Peregrine, Alma LeFay Peregrine. Now, I understand you’ve had a dreadful time here in the British Isles. Just an awful trip. I think it would be best for everyone involved if you just forgot it ever happened. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” my mother said, a faraway look in her eyes.
“I agree,” said my father, sounding slightly hypnotized.
Miss Peregrine had paused their brains.
“Fantastic, wonderful,” she said. “Now cast your eyes upon this, please.” She let go of their hands and drew a long, blue-spotted falcon feather from her pocket. And then a hot wave of guilt flashed through me, and I stopped her.
“Wait,” I said. “I don’t think I want you to do it, after all.”
“Are you sure?” She looked a bit disappointed. “It could get very complicated for you.”
“It feels like cheating,” I said.
“Then what will you tell them?” Emma asked.
“I don’t know yet. But it doesn’t seem right to just … wipe their brains.”
If telling them the truth was selfish, it seemed doubly so to simply erase the need for an explanation. And what about the police? My extended family? My parents’ friends? Surely they all knew I’d been missing, and for my parents to forget what had happened … it would’ve been a mess.
“That’s up to you,” said Miss Peregrine. “But I think it would be wise to at least let me wipe the past two or three minutes, so they’ll forget Miss Bloom and me.”
“Well … okay,” I said. “So long as they don’t lose the English language along with it.”
“I’m very precise,” said Miss Peregrine.
“What’s all this about wiping brains?” said the police officer. “Who are you?”
“Alma Peregrine,” said Miss Peregrine, rushing over to shake his hand. “Alma Peregrine, Alma LeFay Peregrine.”
The officer’s head dropped, and he was suddenly fascinated by a spot on the floor.
“I can think of a few wights you might’ve done that to,” said Emma.
“Unfortunately, it only works on the pliable minds of normals,” Miss Peregrine said. “Speaking of which.” She held up the feather.