“We’ve already changed the play to the point of breaking!” Elle waved her copy of the script. “It’s a classic. It’s like rewriting Shakespeare.”
“People are rewriting Shakespeare all the time,” Zahara said. “And making them newly arrived from some farm town kills the whole ‘not in Kansas’ angle we’re going for with the sets! Our audience will relate more to Wendy if she’s just a little freaked out about having some mental case show up in her bedroom.”
“Maybe Wendy is a mental case too.” Mason was looking pointedly at Elle. “Or maybe she’s retarded.”
“Mason!” Ms. Hamilton pointed at him and gave him “the look” that she used to control anyone that strayed over the line. As he ducked his head meekly, Ms. Hamilton waved Jillian down off the table. “School is over, it’s time for all of us to go home. We will discuss making changes to the script tomorrow.”
“Next week we will also be working on choreographing the fight scenes.” Mr. Howe got a cheer. He cut it short by whistling sharply. “Only people who email back signed permission slips this week will be allowed to participate. If your parents don’t reply to the email, you will be given a non-fighting role. And we will be checking against signatures on file, since the chances that one of your parents will sue the hell out of us is too high.”
Jillian had hopped down off the table and hurried over to Louise. Her eyes were full of questions that she couldn’t ask in front of everyone. Louise nodded to the most obvious one; the print job was started. They wouldn’t find out until tomorrow night if the generator worked and only if they managed to get it home unseen. Jillian grinned brightly and bounced in place.
Iggy fell into step with them going down the stairs to their lockers. He was still blushing and avoided Louise’s glance by focusing on Jillian. Strangely, Jillian shied slightly away from him, looking away. “You are going to be able to get permission from your parents, right?”
Jillian shook herself a little as if putting back on a mask. She looked up, full of confidence. “Of course I will. Our mom wants us to participate in class projects.”
“Are you?” Louise asked Iggy. She had gotten the impression that his parents were very protective of him. Certainly it explained why he’d be worried that someone else’s parents would refuse.
“I’m fairly sure my dad will sign it. Hook is da man!” Iggy waved his left hand with his fingers still in braces.
“How much longer before your fingers heal?”
Iggy eyed his left hand. “We see my doctor next Saturday. The doctor said four weeks, maybe five, so I might get it off Saturday.” He seemed doubtful. “Knowing my mom, though, even if the doctor says they’re healed, she’ll want me to wear it another week or two, just to be sure.”
Which meant it had been more than four weeks since they’d found out about their siblings. It didn’t seem possible that much time had already gone by. They had less than two months now to find the mythical box with mysterious nactka.
They got their jackets. Iggy’s locker was four down from theirs. As Louise activated Tesla, Iggy drifted back to pet the toy’s head.
“Good boy, Tesla, keep them safe.” Iggy waved his broken hand and headed back toward the stairs. “See you next week.”
“Bye!” Jillian called brightly. Louise forced herself to wave; that’s what friends did, wasn’t it?
Apparently the Chen family was still being paranoid after Iggy’s brush with violence; his sisters were waiting for him at the staircase so the family could go home together. His oldest sister was hunched as if carrying a great weight, head bowed, long bangs covering her face. As Iggy joined them, she looked up and for one brief moment, she was as beautiful as Iggy claimed. Then she ducked her head as if withdrawing into a shell, vanishing from sight.
“Who were you just now?” Louise asked Jillian.
“What?”
“When you said goodbye, who were you? Peter Pan?”
“Oh, no, not Peter. He wouldn’t think to say goodbye. He isn’t much on hello either. I kind of like that about him.”
Tesla tilted his head and said “Squirrel” in his little boy Welsh voice. Both of them jumped with surprise.
“What the hell?” Jillian laughed. “I forgot he could talk! Why did he say that?”
Louise squeaked with surprise. “Oh, I completely forgot!”
“Squirrel,” Tesla said again.
“Alarm off!” Louise pulled out her tablet. “I linked him to the box search so he could wake us up if the result came in during the night.” A squeal of excitement leaked out as a flashing icon on her screen confirmed a positive hit. “We found it! Dufae’s box! We found it!”