She kept socking him, punctuating each word: “Don’t you EVER say ANYTHING bad about MONKEYS or GIRLS again!”
And then she hugged them both as if she would never let them go, as if she hadn’t just proven that very thing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Theo
Theo let Tess hug him for as long as he could stand it; he was still too shocked to move. But she was squeezing him so hard his eyes popped open, and what he saw all around them was nothing but blue sky, as if the train were suspended in midair by the clouds alone.
“Yo,” said Jaime, apparently noticing the same nothing. “Where’s the station?”
Tess let go. The three of them carefully slid to the edge of the train and looked down. The train was stopped next to a narrow, uncovered platform many, many stories off the ground, with a spindly staircase that zigzagged down to street level. It was so windy that Tess’s braid kept smacking Theo and Jaime in the face.
“That platform doesn’t seem big enough to unload more than one person at a time,” said Jaime.
“Doesn’t even seem finished,” Tess said. “Maybe they abandoned it before it was done? The city does that.”
“Why would they build a platform so high up anyway? They’d need forty escalators to get everyone back to earth,” said Jaime.
“Or solarpods.”
“Or parachutes.”
There was a brief shudder beneath them. Theo grabbed for Tess and Tess grabbed for Jaime. They all held their breath, sure that the train was about to take off again, heading straight up to the moon.
But no. The train didn’t move. A faint whish sounded from below.
“The doors,” Tess whispered.
As they watched, the metal caterpillar scuttled from inside the train out to the narrow platform.
“What’s it doing?” Jaime said.
The caterpillar stopped. It rose up on its hind legs, scanning, or sniffing, or . . . ?
It seemed to be looking right at them, swaying just a little. Then it scuttled its way across the narrow platform toward a lone metal lamppost missing a bulb, skittering up the post till it reached the empty socket at the top. Somehow, it attached itself to the socket, leaving most of its metal body dangling like a streamer in the wind. More faint noises—the scrape of metal against metal, the clicking of dozens of tiny feet—more twitching.
“What’s . . . what’s wrong with it?” Jaime said.
Its metal skin seemed to be rippling somehow, as if it were made of liquid and not metal. It expanded, then contracted, expanded again, rounding into a great silvery ball. But cold metal couldn’t do that.
Could it?
The ball that once was a caterpillar quivered and clanged against the pole. A thin buzz cut through the air, a buzz that turned into a high-pitched whine that made Theo’s teeth ache.
“What the—” Tess began.
The ball burst in a shower of sparks. They mashed their faces against the top of the train as fine bits of metal rained down like glitter. When the whining and sparking and raining subsided, Theo risked a peek.
Where the caterpillar had been, a sphinx moth the size of an eagle perched. It rested for a moment, cooling its molten metal wings, then took off toward Manhattan in a fluttering, silvery blur.
“It’s official,” Jaime said. “Things have gotten really weird.”
“And scary,” said Tess. “Those stairs look like the only way to get down from the platform.”
“Scary or not, I’m not staying up here another second.” Jaime carefully slid down onto the platform, walked over to the flimsy staircase, and tested his weight on the first step. When it held, he started down. Tess and Theo followed. Theo focused on his hands gripping the rails and his feet connecting with the treads; he didn’t look left or right, up or down. He didn’t focus on the ground or how far away it was.
They’d been zigzagging for what seemed like forever and had almost reached the street when a cop’s angry, reddened face appeared between the treads below.
“Sweet peanut butter and jelly! What in the name of Starrbucks do you kids think you’re doing up there?”
It had been a while since Theo and his sister had been in police car.
He remembered it being more fun. That last time, Tess and Theo had been around nine years old. His mother and her partner, Syd, drove them around Manhattan, telling them wild stories about crazy crimes, like the guy who tried to use a burrito to beat up his cousin, or the woman who got caught dragging a big blue mailbox down the street, or the car thief who crashed into a news van, or the teenager who tried to steal a Roller only to get rolled to the nearest police station, or the burglar who fell asleep on the couch of the apartment he was attempting to burgle, with the family’s fer-otter curled up on his chest.
This time, there were no stories. Just a lot of questions that they really didn’t want to answer. The three of them sat in the backseat with one officer crouched in the open door on one side of the car, and his partner crouched in the open door of the other side.
“So,” said the red-faced officer, whose name was Clarkson. He was white and doughy and blond. “What you’re telling me is that this train was a runaway train, and you three were stuck on it alone? And the only way you thought you could escape was by jumping off that train onto the top of a building?”
“Yes,” said Tess.
“And you’re telling me that you saw a man, a Guildman no less, jump off the top of the train onto the top of a building?”
“Yes,” said Tess.
“Except we checked with the guild,” said Clarkson’s partner, a small, lean Asian officer named Chin. “And they tell us that this particular train has been waiting on that particular abandoned track for repairs since last night. Hasn’t been in operation all day. And to their knowledge, no GM, and I quote, ‘would be so stupid as to jump off a moving train,’ end quote.”
“Huh,” said Theo.
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” said Clarkson.
“Just thinking,” said Theo.
“Thinking of a better story?” said Clarkson. “Because this one’s full of applesauce.” Clarkson was making Theo hungry. He continued, “Are you kids going to tell us what the butterscotch you were doing up on top of that train or do we have to take you down to the station?”
Jaime wriggled between them. If they sat here with the two officers, there was a good chance their parents would be called. If they were taken to the station, their parents definitely would be called.
Chin added, “Look, we know who you are. At least, we know that you and this girl over here belong to a certain member of New York City’s finest. You think she’d be happy to hear about this?”
Tess blurted, “It was a dare.”
Theo turned to stare at her.
“Theo is always talking about how much stronger and braver and more adventurous he is than me, just because he’s seven minutes older.” She stared back at him. “It’s not true.”