No Passengers Beyond This Point(8)

My blue plaid roller bag is going through the X-ray machine. The man with the green socks takes cuts. Hey . . . grown-ups are not supposed to take cuts . . . are they?

“Come on through.” A man in a uniform with an important yellow badge wiggles his bright blue-gloved fingers at me and I walk through the pretend door frame of the metal detector, which is also made of metal. This does not make sense. How come it doesn’t make its own self go off?

There’s an orange light over the X-ray machine like the lights on the police cars, and the lady looking at the X-ray pictures is smacking her gum.

I tried to get Mommy to let Bing take his own bag, but she said Bing doesn’t have a ticket. She should have gotten Bing his own ticket. He likes it better when he has his own seat.

“Marvin, open up the blue one,” the X-ray lady says.

I am on the land on the other side of the metal detector now. Mommy unties my blue sneakers so I can put them on again. Her fingers hold the dimes taped inside.

India is nowhere. Probably Mom let her go ahead to buy gum. India always gets to do the fun things.

“Do I need to show Bing’s wallet?” I ask.

Bing uses my dad’s old wallet. He has important stuff in there like identification and one real dollar.

My mom shakes her head.

Mommy had to show hers to get a special pass on account of she doesn’t have a ticket and she isn’t going anywhere. Marvin has my roller bag. I duck under the cord to have a little talk with him.

“Marvin,” I say. “There’s a little explosion stuff in there, which I need to show Uncle Red. He doesn’t have kids, you know.”

Marvin’s droopy red eyelids stop drooping.

“Mouse.” Mommy grabs my shirt. “You’re not supposed to be over there.”

“Call for backup. We’ve got a nine-one-one on the blue suitcase,” Marvin tells the X-ray lady. He points his finger in my face. “You come with me.”

I’m trying hard to subtract the time of our plane from the time on my mouse watch, but I don’t know how to carry over in my head. “Marvin,” I tell him, “our plane is leaving in forty-five or twenty minutes.”

But Marvin isn’t listening. More and more people with yellow badges are around us. I try to see if all the badges are the same or if it’s like when India was in Girl Scouts and they were all different.

My mommy holds tight to my hand. “She stays with me,” Mommy says.

Marvin shakes his head.

Mommy presses Finn’s fingers around my arm and motions to Marvin. She and Marvin move away so I can’t hear, but Mommy is talking in her big important teacher way. People do what Mommy wants.

Marvin shakes his head. Mommy tells him something else. Marvin shakes his head harder.

“Finn,” Mommy says, “let Mouse go. Mouse, this man is going to ask you some questions, that’s all.”

“Come with me,” Marvin commands.

I don’t want to go with Marvin, but Mommy is nodding like I need to help her on this. She wants me to straighten the problem out. This is what I explain to Bing.

Sometimes I talk to Bing out loud and sometimes I talk to him in my head. Bing doesn’t need sound to hear.

Bing and I follow Marvin to a small room in the back. Marvin takes a stack of magazines off the orange bucket chair and picks up his clipboard.

I do not like being way back here with Bing and Marvin. What is Marvin going to ask? I try to think of every answer I know.

“Name?” Marvin says.

“Geneva Tompkins, but everybody calls me Mouse on account of I’m good at squeaking. Want to hear?”

Marvin shakes his head. “You’re traveling with your mother.”

“No,” I say. “We’ve used up all our money. Mommy has to work because that’s how she gets more. Is that how you get more, Marvin?”

Marvin writes this down on his clipboard. “Who exactly are you traveling with?”

“My sister, India, and my brother, Finn. India, Geneva, and Finland. Two countries and a city. That’s me.” I raise my hand. “My mother wanted to travel, but instead she had kids.”

This is my one grown-up joke. I got it from India. Marvin doesn’t laugh.

“And your father?” Marvin asks.

“He died when I was in Mommy’s tummy. I couldn’t see him on account of there was skin in the way. But Bing saw him. He took a picture for me.”

“Who is Bing?”

“He’s my friend.”

“Did you pack your own suitcase?”

“My mom and India did, only I made a few corrections.”

“Which means?”

“I added the explosives,” I whisper.

His face looks suddenly the color of my snot when Mommy says I have to stay home from school. “Explosives?”