Nobody said anything, but both Jill and Casimir turned around and looked at me. Taks’ arms tightened around my waist again, Hix many-footed up my chest and wrapped herself back around my neck—and Mongo started wagging his tail, till I grabbed it and held on. He looked at me reproachfully.
“It’s not a very good plan,” I said.
“Good would be too much to ask,” said Jill. “Although if I wreck this car I’d better have Arnie to show for it, or I’ll be in so much trouble I probably won’t see you again till I’m eighty.”
“I don’t think wrecking the Ma—the car is part of the plan,” I said. “Do you know how much farther to the gate?”
“Nearly two miles,” said Casimir at the same moment that Jill said, “Two miles, give or take,” and Takahiro said, “About two miles.”
“What?” I said. “Have you all been here or something?”
They were looking at each other. “No,” said Jill. “It’s the picking-up thing I do. More of it lately.”
“The wolf knows,” said Takahiro. “The rest of me just translates.”
“It is one of the little skills my mother sewed into the hem of my coat,” said Casimir.
“It’s a pity we couldn’t have spread all this talent around a little more,” I said. “Like one of you could rip chain-link fence apart with your bare hands and somebody else could hypnotize army guys into opening the doors and letting everyone go.”
“We’d still have a transportation problem,” said Jill, giving Dov’s butt a shove back through the gap between the seats. Dov’s entire butt didn’t anything like fit through that gap, but you could almost see the edges of the seat bowing under the strain. He shifted forward again, had nowhere to go, and collapsed on Bella. Bella sighed.
“And a winged chariot drawn by flying horses in your pocket,” I said.
“I’ll work on it,” said Jill.
“Okay,” I said. “Does anyone’s radar tell them when the army guys are going to start noticing our car?”
“No,” said Casimir. “But not yet. There is little to make an unremarkable car—”
“Unremarkable!” said Jill.
“Their scans will not care that it is large and full of animals,” amended Casimir. “They will not think it remarkable till it comes too close.”
“Okay,” said Jill. “Less far to walk.” She started the car again. “Keep talking,” she said over her shoulder.
“Don’t hit any sheep,” I said.
“That this road is being left to go to pieces is bogus,” said Takahiro. “There’ve been a lot of vehicles over it recently.”
“Wolf?” I said.
“Wolf,” he agreed.
“Do you always know this stuff?”
Takahiro hesitated. “I’m not sure. It’s not usually very relevant. Mostly I try to ignore it. It’s harder to ignore when I’ve been wolf lately.”
I was starting to feel seasick as the car jolted over the increasingly bumpy road past the perimeter fence—despite the fact that the armydar pressure dropped off abruptly and there were fewer silverbugs. Which told you something, although I wasn’t sure what. I should have felt better, not worse. But it wasn’t the road, it was the plan. It was bad enough that I was putting my human friends in danger. I was putting the critters in danger too, whose only crime had been a willingness to trust me and get in the car. But we were going to need the distraction—just as Taks had needed them for a different kind of distraction.
“It depends on if I have figured out how to talk to the gruuaa,” I said. “Or . . .” I pulled a little on the glowing network in my mind, and there was a kind of chirrup, as inaudible as the gruuaa were insubstantial, in reply.
“Okay,” said Jill. “Then what?”
I was watching the network. There was a shimmer, like Hix’s wiggle only more so—and it was getting stronger, or I was getting more able to pick it out. Something, like the way Whilp’s name had, drifted across my mind. The shimmer was Val, I guessed. Val surrounded by a lot of gruuaa. Now if only I knew what was left and right out here in the real world. “Hey, can you stop again? A minute,” I said, staring at the gruuaa web.
The Mammoth stopped. “What—” began Jill.
“Wait,” I said.
There was silence, except for a lot of breathing. The eleven of us weren’t breathing anything like together or to any kind of pattern, but as I stared at the invisible glowing web the breathing began to make sort of chords with the subtle pulse of the network. It was something like what the passing wash of streetlights did to a black and white border collie’s fur, which was creepily a little like the checkerboard of a mass of silverbugs.
. . . Um . . . Hix?
Then there was the worst rubbing-your-tummy-and-patting-the-top-of-your-head-at-the-same-time exercise that you can imagine—with your other arm (what other arm) you’re slaying a dragon with a rubber sword, and I think you’re probably juggling a hoop around one ankle. Or maybe there’s a pogo stick involved. I felt like a piece of origami paper being folded by clumsy hands. . . .
But for a moment something—something distracting and confusing—flickered into this world.
“Sugoi,” murmured Jill.
“Holy hot electricity,” said Takahiro.
“Yeah,” I said, and it all snapped off again . . . or slid back where it belonged. I was panting worse than any of the dogs. “Val is being held—somewhere—I think off to our right. I hope I’ll know better as we get closer. . . .” and I plucked at the web like a guitarist who’s lost her A string. Or her magic-loophead-other-world string. “But that disappearing thing the gruuaa do . . . it’s variable.”
“That was gruuaa, just now?” said Jill.
“Yes,” I said. “So the idea is that while the army guys are all falling out the front door to see what the giant glowing weirdness on their doorstep is, we’re, or some of us, are going to be having a look around the side where they’re holding Val. And maybe one of you will suddenly discover an ability to melt holes in the sides of buildings by pointing your finger.”
“That’s your plan,” said Jill.
“Yes.”
There was a pause. I listened to all the breathing.
“This is probably a good place to leave the car,” said Jill eventually. “It might even be here when we get back.”
I could have gone upstate with Mom and Ran. . . . But I knew I couldn’t. And the gruuaa would have prevented me if I’d tried. I held onto that thought, and tried not to think of the ten other people (two- and four-legged) that I’d dragged into my dangerous insanity. The feeling in my stomach was familiar. This was how I felt when I had been the last kid chosen for the volleyball team in seventh grade. Or when I’d seen that F on that pre-algebra exam.
We were so squashed up in the back that when Casimir opened our door Mongo and I spilled out. Takahiro unfolded himself behind me and stood up straight, like he never did at school, and sniffed the air. Sniffed the air. I turned back to the car. Bella was holding them in check, but looking at me hopefully. I groped for leads, and snapped them all on. I didn’t want to lose anybody, and things were only going to get more confusing from here. “Okay, you guys. Out.”