“It’s… incredible,” Sophie said and not even Sam, scornful of everything, disagreed.
They ran through the park, exploring. It was incredible. There was a garden, with the most beautiful flower beds Lillie had ever seen. A big grassy lawn. A woods at one end, thick with trees through which ran narrow winding paths. A pond, for God’s sake, big enough to swim in. A paved area with a basketball hoop; three balls sat neatly underneath its regulation ten-foot height. A second paved area was furnished with tables and chairs like a little outdoor cafe, surrounded by yet more glorious flower beds.
“This is where I’m going to be,” Derek said happily. “Just pull my bed off the wall and put it here.”
“No,” Pam said. “Another room is where you’ll spend most of your time. Come.”
It took a while for everyone to obey. Some were in the woods, some inspecting flowers. Jason, the showoff, had actually taken off his running shoes and socks and waded into the pond. Derek and Mike were checking out the basketball court.
Pam waited patiently while Jon, Lillie, and the energetic Madison rounded everyone up.
“This is the most important part of your ship,” Pam said, and Lillie noted the wording. Your ship. What was their ship? “Follow me. Come.”
“She sure is bossy,” Sajelle said, but not very loud.
Pam led them to a room reached through a door in the garden wall; Pete waited there. The room looked pretty boring. More metal tables and moldable tan chairs. Two walls were lined with closed cupboards.
Pam said, “This is the school.”
Lillie and Jon looked at each other. Derek said with comic exaggeration, “Say what?”
“The school,” Pam said.
Madison said, “We’re going to school here?”
“Yes, of course,” Pete said.
Lillie was the first to break a long silence. “What are we going to learn?” Somehow she couldn’t imagine Pam and Pete teaching American history or Great Expectations.
“You’re going to learn the right way. As much of it as you can.”
“The right way?” Lillie repeated, sounding to herself like an idiot. “You mean, we’re going to learn genetics?”
“Yes. But not until tomorrow. We have made the ship to follow your day-night patterns. In a few hours the lights will dim for sleep. They will come back on eight hours later for washing, breakfast, and then school. You have a great deal to learn, you know. But it will be fun.
“You’ll love it.”
CHAPTER 8
“No way,” Jessica said. “Not me. None of that school shit.”
They were all over the garden, in groups of two or three or four. Lillie had thrown herself full length on the grass, which had that wonderful just-mowed smell. Sajelle and Madison lounged with her, and Jessica had barged in.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Madison demanded. “Walk out into space?”
“Not going to do anything about it, just not go. Are you always such a good little follower, Maddy?”
“Don’t call me that. It’s not my name, Jess-sick.”
“I’ll call you what I want, bitch.”
Lillie sat up. “Stop it, Jessica. We can’t fight. We might need each other.”
“For what?” Jessica jeered, but she didn’t answer Madison. Sajelle said, “I don’t want to go to no school, neither.”
“Why not?” Lillie said. Sajelle wasn’t usually nasty.
“Just don’t want to.”
Lillie considered Sajelle. She knew Sajelle had come from what Uncle Keith called “a tough neighborhood.” Uncle Keith… she had hardly thought about him at all, hardly missed him. Was that right? Again the nagging doubt tugged at her mind, the same that had bothered her when she realized she couldn’t picture any of the kids that had died in the bombing.
Jessica said, “Sajelle doesn’t want to be bothered with school because she’s too busy missing DeWayne.”
“You shut up, bitch!”
“Come on, Sajelle. You know you and DeWayne were getting it on back at Andrews.”
Sajelle swung on Jessica, who ducked expertly. Instantly Lillie scrambled to her knees and thrust herself between them. “Stop it! We can’t afford to fight!”
“Little Mother Superior. You’re as bad as Elizabeth,” Jessica said, rose to her feet, and strolled toward the basketball court, where all the boys except Rafe, plus Bonnie Carson, had organized a game.
“She’s bad news,” Madison said. “I don’t know why the pribir engineered her.”
“They didn’t engineer her personality,” Lillie said. “Not any of our personalities or intelligence or stuff like that. We’re too different.”
“You can say that again.” Madison stood and stretched. “Sajelle, it’s none of my business, but were you getting it on with DeWayne?”
“You right. It’s none of your business.”
Madison didn’t look offended. “Well, I want a shower before dinner. Anybody coming?”
“Not yet,” Lillie said.
When Madison had gone, Lillie looked at Sajelle. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Sajelle, but why don’t you want to go to school here? Jessica’s just being an asshole, but not you.”
“Just don’t want to.”
“You went at Andrews.”
“That different.”
“How?”
“Just was.”
Lillie knew she was pushing, but something told her Sajelle did want to talk. Sajelle just didn’t want to look like she was willing.
“What classes were you in at Andrews? We didn’t have any together.”
“‘Course not!” Sajelle said with sudden energy.
“What do you mean? If you want to talk, I don’t blab.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Then what did you mean, of course we didn’t have any classes together?”
“Didn’t have classes with nobody. They give me a private tutor.” Sajelle stared at the grass.
Suddenly Lillie saw it. She said gently, “It’s your old school, isn’t it? It was probably… not too strong academically. So you’re a little bit behind.”
Sajelle looked up. Lillie was startled by the despair in her brown eyes. “Not that. Derek, he go to school in Harlem and he keep up with the rest of you. It be me.”
“What?” Lillie said quietly.
“Something in my brain. I can’t hardly even read!”
Dyslexia. Karen, her old best friend Jenny’s little sister, had it. Jenny—why didn’t Lillie ever think about Jenny any more?
“The tutor help me a lot,” Sajelle said, calmer now. “It start to make sense. But this Pam and Pete… they aliens. They can’t help me. And I going to look like an ass in front of everybody.”
“They’re not really aliens,” Lillie said, because she couldn’t think what else to say. “They’re as human as we are, only more advanced. Maybe you could talk to them about this.”
Sajelle snorted. “Would you?”
“No,” Lillie had to admit.
Sajelle looked at her. “You honest, Lillie. And you nice. But you not the one going to look stupid tomorrow in front of that bitch Jessica.”
“Actually, we’re probably all going to look stupid next to Rafe and Emily. They’re really brains.”
“Huh,” Sajelle snorted. She got to her feet and gazed toward the basketball court. Jessica had joined the game.
“She talk about me getting it on. Look at her… she going after that sorry ass Sam. That ‘ho ain’t going to be sleeping alone. Well, she do what she want. Me, too, and I ain’t going to no school.”
Sajelle walked off across the grass. Lillie lay back down again, troubled. What would Pam or Pete do if Sajelle and Jessica, or anybody else, just refused to go to the school room? Would they force them? How?