No Passengers Beyond This Point(27)

“They want her?” I repeat. “What for?”

“Skye didn’t know. She had to leave fast because she saw the cat and she was trying to catch it.”

“What cat? This was a visible person? Not one of Bing’s friends, right?”

Mouse nods.

Still I wonder. It sounds pretty weird to me. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor, Mouse,” I say firmly. “No matter what this Skye person says.

“We need help!” I call, half running across the street, waving my arms.

One tall shopkeeper switches his open sign to closed and goes in his store. Another shrugs at me and continues sweeping. The rest ignore me. Only the black birds look up.

“One thousand dollars for a second chance,” a man with a bushy beard calls hopefully.

“We need a doctor, please!” I tell him. “Or a cell phone.” Maybe it’s only India’s cell that doesn’t work. It could need to be charged or else my mom didn’t pay the bill.

Or maybe there’s a white courtesy phone. Sparky will know what to do!

I scout around until I spot a white phone tucked into a kiosk and I head for it. But when I pick up the receiver, all I get is a fast busy signal.

“Sparky?”

The line doesn’t connect. The fast beeps continue. Wait a minute. Sparky said something about the heart factor. I don’t want to accept his offer . . . could the phone know that?

I scoot back to Mouse. “Does it hurt a lot?” I ask.

“Only if I move it,” she says as I notice a woman with fuzzy black hair and a big hook nose go into her store and come out with a round metal bin.

The woman is heading toward us, the bin in her hand. I hurry to meet her. When I get close I see there are cell phones inside, maybe twenty in all.

She smiles at me, then launches into a long explanation in a foreign language—Russian, I think. The only words I recognize are my own name: Finn Tompkins. She gestures to the cell phones like I should take them.

“Thank you,” I say with a sudden, aching gratitude, searching my pockets for something to give her in return. All I have is my Rubik’s Cube and my house key—which isn’t any good to anyone except maybe the guy who took our house. I hand her the puzzle cube.

She stares at it with fascination. Then I see her digging in her pocket. She pulls out a big stack of laminated cards and riffles through them until she finds the one she wants.

She sees me watching her and hands me the card.

Century Awareness Training—Games, the card says in English and in Russian. It has pictures of dozens of games with instructions and tips for how to win.

Sure enough, the Rubik’s Cube is on there. I hand it back to her to read as I fish out a cell phone like my mom’s and push the on button. The display doesn’t light up. I push down longer and wait. Nothing happens. No beep. No lights. No digital display.

Dead as a can of tomato soup.

I grab another . . . it doesn’t respond either. And another and another. I look up at the woman, who is happily turning the yellow and red squares of my Rubik’s Cube.

If only I could call my mom. If only she could come.

I’m down to the bottom of the bin. There are only two cells left.

Hey, wait a minute. The heart factor. I really want to talk to my mom. Shouldn’t one of these work? I take a deep breath and try the second to last cell. I hold down the on button and it sputters to life. My hand shakes as I dial Mom’s number. “Please, please let her answer.”

The sound of connecting circuits is the most beautiful sound in the world. The digital display window flashes my mom’s cell number. The phone is calling Mom!

But when I blink the numbers rearrange. The new phone number is unfamiliar.

“Enter your name,” a mechanized voice commands.

I push the letters that spell Finn Tompkins and wait. The phone beeps again and the computerized voice informs me, “You are not an authorized user.”

The line is dead. The phone turns off. It will not turn on again no matter how many times I try.

I pick up the last phone, then look around for a tree like the McFaddens’. There is one that is sort of similar. I stand under it and push the on button, but this cell is dead too.

Mouse is across the way, watching me, trying to understand what’s going on. Where the heck is India? Wasn’t she supposed to be here?

What did that girl Skye mean when she said they wanted her? Was India offered a position too? Did she take it?

The Russian woman is still engrossed in my Rubik’s Cube, oblivious to what I’ve been doing.

“Hey,” I tell her, “I need help.”

She seems to understand the tone of my voice. She nods, her dark eyes thoughtful, her face genuinely sorry. She points to the phones hopefully.