Then I get up and begin to inspect the room. There are two doors. The big glass doors where the tram deposits people, and a smaller glass door at the back. I peer through the glass in the small door, but it’s smoky and I can’t see through. Of course it’s locked. No surprise there.
A girl who is about Finn’s age is watching me. She has freckles, serious blue eyes, and a head full of curls the color of cut mangos—a more yellowy red than Mouse’s paprika-colored hair. She smiles when she sees me test the door. “New people always do that,” she says.
“How do you get out of here?” I ask.
“I wish I knew. My name’s Skye,” she says, and waits for me to tell her mine, which I don’t feel like doing. But I hear my mom’s voice in my head. Just be polite whether you want to or not. “I’m India,” I say.
“Hi.” She smiles.
“I don’t get this place. How long do you have to stay here?” I ask.
“From what I’ve seen, we’re pretty much stuck. Everything’s stuck. Even my clock has stopped ticking. What about yours?”
“Yep, mine’s stopped too. Why? Why are we here?” I ask.
“We were supposed to make a decision about whether or not to become a citizen of Falling Bird, but we couldn’t, so they stuck us in Passengers Waiting.”
I think about this. Do I want to be a welcomer? Suddenly this seems like a totally new question, something I’ve never really asked myself before.
It might not be too late to change my mind. What are the consequences of my decision, that’s what my mom would ask. My mom is not always wrong. She’s not always right either.
Skye nods as if she understands I need time to think about this. “Just be careful of the lady over there in the yellow hat—Phyllis,” she whispers, and then walks over to talk to the little boy with the superpig.
I go back to my corner, sit on the floor with my back to the wall, and try to turn on my wrist screen. “Maddy, please, I have to talk to you about something,” I whisper.
“Hey!” a woman shouts. “Where’d you get that?”
“What? What?” A man’s booming voice.
“Let me see.” The woman, Phyllis, dives for me, her stale milk breath in my face.
“Hey, let me!”
Other voices chime in. The shouts come from all around, closing in on me.
“You’re not supposed to have that. It creates longing.”
“How’d you get it?”
A bald man puts his greasy hand on my arm.
Even Skye and the singing dude are watching me now, but it isn’t me they’re interested in. It’s the wrist screen.
“It’s broken,” I tell them.
Phyllis’s worn brown eyes light up. “I can fix it,” she announces.
“If it’s broken, it’s no use to you,” the bald man says. “Why not give it to me.”
“They don’t break,” someone else says. “You just don’t know how to use it. I’ll show you.”
“Hey, me! Me!” Another guy pushes forward.
There are no officer dudes in this room. I’m on my own here. These people are going to jump me and take this last thing, this only thing I have left. They’re going to rip it off my arm.
“Maddy,” I whisper to the screen. “I so need you right now.”
But Maddy does not appear. The screen is blank as a closed eye.
Phyllis is now fighting off the others. “She said she’s giving it to me,” she cries.
“No I didn’t.” A voice rises inside me. A loud, sure voice. It’s not me acting like a good student or a cool girl or a good welcomer or the girl Brendan has a crush on or anybody’s sister. It isn’t the voice of my mother or Maddy or Laird either. It isn’t me pretending at all. It’s the voice of India Tompkins, exactly as I am. “Get the heck away from me!”
Instantly, the bickering stops, the room is silent. Everyone watches me.
“This is mine! Leave me alone!” I shove the bald man with the greasy hands back.
That is when the loudspeaker calls another number, another number that no one has, that no one will ever have. No one needs to check their small raffle numbers. The numbers mean nothing.
“Five-four-nine-one-eight-eight-nine-eight-one-six-oh-oh-oh-five-four-one,” the mechanical voice repeats.
“Hey.” Skye is next to me. She whispers in my ear, “That’s you.”
I look down at the ticket in my hand. Five-four-nine-one-eight-eight-nine-eight-one-six-oh-oh-oh-five- four-one, it says.
Skye nods. “Go on,” she tells me.
“Impossible!” a fat man bellows. “One number’s off. They like to fool with us that way.”