Kingdom Keepers III(8)

Finn and Amanda were sitting across from each other at the far end of the cafeteria normally reserved for Losers, over by where kids returned their dirty plates. But it was a place they could talk without fear of being overheard and recently they’d spent a lot of lunches there together.

“No way!” Finn said. He took a bite of cold pizza the texture of extruded plastic. He spoke with his mouth full and watched Amanda wince as he did.

“They can do whatever they want,” she said. She indicated her lip to signal to him that he had some cheese stuck on his.

He wiped it off—and then ate it. She winced again.

“We have no parents, no relatives to object,” she continued. “Never mind that we both like school here. Never mind that we have new friends.” She let that hang there a second. “We are at the mercy of a social worker from—you get the idea. From no place you want to be from. He’s decided that the paperwork is a whole lot easier if we go back to Maryland. Foster care isn’t about how to find the right home for a kid,” she said cynically, “but how to get rid of kids with the least amount of paperwork.”

“There is no way they’re sending you back.”

“You want to bet? And don’t even mention the word fair because Jess and I have this thing about fair: it’s the worst of all four-letter words, along with hope and trust.”

“Trust is five letters.”

“Yeah, but it’s just rust with a t added on to disguise it.”

“Aren’t we in a sunny mood?”

“Excuse me if I don’t want to leave here, if I don’t want to be moved against my will, if I don’t want to be treated like I’m always in the way and that I’m an expense someone has to justify. People get paid for taking kids in foster care. Did you know that? Jess and I are somebody’s paycheck. Nothing more.”

“But not with the Fairlies,” he said. “You didn’t feel like that there.”

“No, it’s more like a family there. That’s true. But it’s so far away from here. You know?” She looked at him levelly in a way that he knew he was supposed to understand, but he was back at the idea of people being paid to take kids into foster care, so he missed her meaning. “Don’t you care what happens to us?”

“Totally.”

“Because you don’t sound like it.”

“I totally care,” he said.

“How’d last night go?” she asked. When Amanda changed the topic you didn’t try to revisit the earlier subject matter.

Finn went with the flow. He debated trying to explain their search for Wayne and the sudden and surprising pursuit by pirates. Instead, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing the poorly bandaged cut.

“Yikes!” she said.

“A sword,” Finn said.

“First comes love, then comes marriage…” said Greg “Lousy” Luowski, returning a plate that had been licked clean.

“Then come morons,” said Finn.

Luowski, roughly the size of a soda machine and probably just about as smart, stepped toward Finn in what was intended to be a menacing gesture. But his running shoe hit some spilled tomato sauce and he slipped and nearly fell and ended up looking like the idiot he was. His threat destroyed, his crush on Amanda obvious, his face about the same color as the sauce, he retreated to plan another insult.

“He likes you,” Finn said.

“I don’t lose any sleep over it,” Amanda said. She reached out and touched Finn’s wounded arm at the wrist. He checked to see if the emergency defibrillator was still mounted to the cafeteria wall. It was.

“It got a little dicey,” he said, wondering how far he could play it.

“But you’ll survive,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

“No sign of…our friend.” He checked the immediate area to make sure no one could possibly be listening. Luowski, at a table with four other like specimens, seemed to be monitoring them closely.

“Don’t let the EMHs bother you,” she said.

“EMH?”

“Early Modern Human,” she answered. “We’re studying them in science. Cavemen.”

“I like it,” he said.

“You don’t want to mess with Greg,” she warned. “You heard about Sammy?”

Sammy Cravitz had had his nose broken by Greg in a fistfight that Greg had started. The whole school had heard about it, except the teachers, apparently. Only the thing was, the teachers probably had heard about it, but they were as scared of Greg Luowski as everyone else.

Finn had one thing going for him that no one else had: he’d learned how to briefly become his DHI while still awake. It still took concentration and practice, but he could suspend himself for a few seconds—sometimes for as long as a minute or two—becoming nothing but light. If a guy like Luowski took a swing at a hologram, he wouldn’t connect. He might even lose his balance and create an opening for a return punch. Finn was almost eager to test his theory. He liked Sammy Cravitz; and besides, Luowski had it coming.