"I'm worried they'll panic," Susan said to the older teacher. "Have to keep them together. If somebody runs, those assholes will hurt them."
With the audacity of an eight-year-old, Kielle Stone signed, "We have to run! There're more of us than them. We can get away!"
Susan and Mrs. Harstrawn ignored her, and the little girl's gray eyes flashed with anger.
All the while Melanie agonized: I don't know what to do. I don't know.
The men weren't paying much attention to the girls at the moment. Melanie rose and walked to the doorway. She watched them pull clothes out of canvas bags. Brutus stripped off his T-shirt and with a glance at her walked under the stream of water, letting it cascade over him as he gazed up at the murky ceiling, eyes closed. She saw his sinewy muscles, his hairless body, marred by a dozen pink scars. The other two men looked at him uncertainly and continued to change clothes. When they pulled off their workshirts she could read the names stenciled on their T-shirts. Stoat's said S. Wilcox. Bear's, R. Banner. But still, seeing Bear's fat, hairy body and Stoat's lean one, his slippery eyes, she thought of them only by the animal names that had instinctively occurred to her.
And, seeing the look of amused malice on his face as he stood under the cascading water, arms outstretched like Christ's, she understood that Brutus was a far better name for him than L. Handy.
He now stepped from the stream of water, dried off with his old shirt, and pulled on a new one, dark green flannel. He picked the pistol up from the oil drum and gazed at his captives, that curious smile on his face. He joined the other men. They looked cautiously out one of the front windows.
This can't be happening, Melanie said to herself. It's impossible. People were expecting her. Her parents. Danny, going into surgery tomorrow. She'd been in her brother's recovery rooms after every one of his half-dozen operations in the past year. She felt the absurd urge to tell these men that they had to let them go; she couldn't disappoint her brother.
Then there was her performance in Topeka.
And of course her plans afterwards.
Go say something to him. Now. Plead with him to release the little girls. The twins, at least. Or Kielle and Shannon. Emily.
Beverly, racked with asthma.
Go. Do it.
Melanie started forward then looked back. The others in the killing room – all nine of them – were staring at her.
Susan held her eyes for a moment then gestured for her to return. She did.
"Don't worry," Susan signed to the girls, then pulled the tiny, chestnut-haired twins to her. Smiling. "They're going to leave soon, let us out. We'll be in Topeka late, that's all. What do you want to do after Melanie's recital? Everybody tell me. Come on!"
Is she crazy? Melanie thought. We're not going to… Then realized that Susan was saying this to put them at ease. The girl was right. The truth didn't matter. Keeping the younger girls comforted did. Making sure there was no excuse for the men to get close to them; the memory of Bear gripping Susan's breasts, holding Shannon tight to his fat body came starkly to mind.
But no one wanted to play the game. Until Melanie signed, "Go out for dinner?"
" Arcade!" Shannon signed suddenly. "Mortal Kombat!"
Kielle sat up. "I want to go to real restaurant. I want steak medium rare and potatoes and pie -"
"Whole pie?" Susan asked, mock astonishment on her face.
Choking back tears, Melanie couldn't think of anything to say. Feebly she signed, "Yes. Whole pies for everyone!"
The girls glanced at her but their eyes returned immediately to Susan.
"Might get bellyaches." Mrs. Harstrawn gave an exaggerated frown.
"No," Kielle responded. "Whole pie would be crass." She gave an indignant glance to Susan. "Only Philistines eat whole pies. We'll order one piece each. And I'm going to have coffee."
"They don't let us drink coffee," Jocylyn stopped rubbing her tearful eyes long enough to sign.
"I'm having coffee. Black coffee," Shannon the knee-kicker signed.
"With cream," Kielle continued. "When my mother makes coffee she puts it in glass cup and pours cream in. It swirls like cloud. I'm going to have coffee in real restaurant."
"Coffee ice cream maybe." Beverly struggled to suck air into her lungs.
"With sprinkles," Suzie offered.
"With sprinkles and Reese's Pieces," echoed Anna, her junior by thirty-some seconds. "Like at Friendly's!"
And, once again, Melanie could think of nothing to say.
"Not that kind of restaurant. I mean fancy restaurant." Kielle didn't understand why nobody else was excited at the prospect.
A huge smile on Susan's face. "We're all decided. Fancy restaurant. Steak, pie, and coffee for everybody. No Philistines allowed!"
Suddenly twelve-year-old Jocylyn broke into hysterical tears and leapt to her feet. Mrs. Harstrawn was up in an instant, cradling the rotund girl, pulling her close. Slowly she calmed down. Melanie lifted her hands to say something comforting and witty. Finally she signed, "Whipped cream on everyone's pie."
Susan turned to Melanie. "You still ready to go on stage?"
The young teacher stared back at her student for a moment then smiled, nodding.
Mrs. Harstrawn, eyes flitting nervously to the main room of the slaughterhouse, where the men stood talking, their heads down, signed, "Maybe Melanie can recite her poems again."
Melanie nodded and her mind went blank. She had a repertoire of two dozen poems she'd been planning on performing. Now she could remember nothing but the first stanza of her "Birds on a Wire." Melanie lifted her hands, signed:
"Eight gray birds, sitting in dark.
"Cold wind blows, it isn't kind.
"Sitting on wire, they lift their wings
"and sail off into billowy clouds."
"Pretty, isn't it?" Susan asked, looking directly at Jocylyn. The girl wiped her face on the sleeve of her bulky blouse and nodded.
"I wrote some poems," Kielle signed emphatically. "Fifty of them.
No, more. They're about Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. And X-Men too. Jean Grey and Cyclops. Shannon's read them!"
Shannon nodded. On the girl's left forearm was a faux tattoo of another X-Man, Gambit, which she'd drawn with Pentel marker.
"Why don't you tell us one?" Susan asked her.
Kielle thought for a minute then confessed that her poems still needed some work.
"Why are birds gray in your poem?" Beverly asked Melanie. Her signing was abrupt, as if she had to finish every conversation before one of her wrenching asthma attacks.
"Because we all have a little gray in us," Melanie answered, amazed that the girls were actually rallying, distracted from the horror unfolding around them.
"If it's about us I'd rather be pretty bird," Suzie said, and her twin nodded.
"You could have made us red," suggested Emily, who was dressed in a Laura Ashley floral. She was more feminine than all the rest of the students combined.
Then Susan – who knew facts that even Melanie did not; Susan, who was going to attend Gallaudet College next year with straight A's – explained to the other girls' fascination that only male cardinals were red. The females were brownish gray.
"So, they're cardinals?" Kielle asked.
When Melanie didn't respond the little girl tapped her shoulder and repeated the question.
"Yes," Melanie answered. "Sure. It's about cardinals. You're all flock of pretty cardinals."
"Not archbishops?" Mrs. Harstrawn signed, and rolled her eyes. Susan laughed. Jocylyn nodded but seemed stymied that someone had once again beaten her to a punch line.
Tomboy Shannon, devourer of Christopher Pike books, asked why Melanie didn't make the birds hawks, with long silver beaks and claws that dripped blood.