She blinked. “Cool. Is that where you work—the library?”
“I, uh . . . I spend a lot of time there.”
“I work at the pet store downtown. The one with the weird snakes and exotic birds? I basically just clean up all kinds of abnormal animal crap. You should come by and see these really freaky giant lizards we’ve got. Monitors.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them.” Dylan gazed out past the raindrops at shining sidewalks sliding past. “I used to go in that shop as a kid and try to draw them. All my old school artwork looks like it was copied from cave paintings of dinosaurs.”
He turned back to find her confused expression.
“That place used to be a comic shop when we were kids,” she said. “The pet store moved in only a few years ago.”
Dylan gripped the rail, suddenly unsteady. “You sure?” His heart pounded. Did that mean he’d seen those animals in the Other Place? He reached up and yanked the cord. “Uh, this is my stop.” The cord was wet. No, his palms were sweating.
The girl moved aside to let Dylan stand. “Hey, you want to go to a party Friday?” she asked. “Bunch of Drury kids, no tie needed.” She flashed a smile.
Dylan turned toward the door as the bus lurched to a stop.
“Or do you have plans with your Hevlen friends?” the girl asked.
“No, no plans.” He imagined calling them up: Hey, guys, remember me? The guy who got kicked out? Then he imagined himself at a basement party with Drury kids. Yeah, I left Hevlen. I guess they got sick of me—must have been all those math awards.
“It’s at that puke-green house behind the high school,” the girl said. “You know the one?”
Dylan just nodded, waited for the door to whoosh open, and then barreled down the steps. He crossed the street toward his house, then froze. His mom had just stepped out onto the porch. “What are you doing home so early?” she asked.
Dylan tucked the fish-girl book behind his back so his mom wouldn’t see it. He definitely couldn’t tell her he’d gone to the library instead of to Drury. “Fast learner?” he tried.
His mom glowered at him. Clearly not in a joking mood.
“Early release day,” Dylan said quickly. He reached tentatively with his vorpal and tried to gauge whether she believed him. Maybe they could go for fish and chips, just the two of them. It’d been ages since they’d done anything like that. Here’s an Impossible Question: How does a mom forget she has two sons?
“If I find out you’re still cutting classes—”
“I know, Mom.”
“—you’re off to your dad’s, I don’t care at which end of Puget Sound he’s got that houseboat parked.”
“Okay.” Dylan rubbed a hand over his eyes. They’d had this conversation one too many times.
His mom studied him in silence for a moment. Her vorpal ticked back and forth like a metronome. “I just came home to take Hunter to the doctor,” she said. “And now I’m heading back to the pawnshop.”
No fish and chips, then. “They find a way to stop his ego from swelling?”
“Very funny. Jumper’s knee. And he’s fine,” she added in a way that said Dylan should have asked. She walked past him toward the car Dylan hadn’t noticed. But then she stopped, turned to look at the book in Dylan’s hand.
Dylan felt a surge of panic—she’d freak if she found out where he’d been all afternoon. He imagined the novel as a chemistry textbook and tried to send the same thought out to her.
“You know what?” she said, moving her eyes to Dylan’s face. She chewed her lip. “You get a good report card this semester, maybe we’ll go to the lake for Thanksgiving.”
The book felt heavy as lead now. Dylan squashed his rising guilt. He nodded, and then she headed to the car.
As he stepped into his living room, he squeezed his eyes shut like he sometimes did when he walked into a room, and prayed he would step into a different world.
He opened his eyes to find darkness.
The air was close and warm and stale. This wasn’t his living room—where was he? He reached out and knocked his elbow against wood, brushed his hands over linen and soft velvet. A crack of light showed between double doors. He was trapped in a wardrobe.
He breathed in. He knew that smell—her, the Girl Queen. These were her clothes, her wardrobe. He was in the palace. In the Other Place.
“Hello?” he called, and pushed at the doors. Locked. He pounded his fists on the wood. “Let me out!” He was like a maniac. “I’m here! I’m here! Let me out!” She would be there any moment, her face glowing with surprise at seeing him. “Let me out!”
Finally—footsteps. Rushing to meet him. It was her. The doors shuddered.
Dylan blinked in the yellow light of the living room. The wardrobe was gone. He was only scrabbling at the inside of his own front door.
Hunter eyed him from a doorway upstairs. “Where’d you come from?”