کتاب 02-10

DECEMBER

10

Two sisters, Gail and Gillian Neighbors, were having a spat.

They shared a single bottle of red nail polish, which had gone missing, and each accused the other of losing it or maybe hoarding it. They were twins and barbaric with each other by nature. Gillian already had a twisted nipple, and when Harper separated them, Gail was clutching a dirty sock to a bloody nose. Gillian had jammed her thumb at least an inch up one nostril.

Harper patrolled the dorm, asking around. It felt good to think about someone else’s problems. Better than worrying about lights-out, when she would lie in her cot, desperate to sleep and sick at the thought of what might happen when she did.

She figured Allie would know who, if anyone, might’ve helped themselves to the nail polish (the shade was called “Incendiary,” which the Neighbors twins didn’t seem to realize was funny). Allie and another girl were playing rummy on a stack of suitcases. Harper wandered over and stood behind this other girl, Jamie Close, and waited to be noticed.

“I’m glad I’m not sleeping next to her,” Jamie Close was saying to Allie.

Jamie was one of the older Lookouts, nineteen going on twenty. She had close-set eyes and an upturned nose, which conspired together to give her an unfortunate swinish mien.

“Sleeping next to who?” Allie asked absentmindedly over her cards.

“You know: Nurse Sunshine.” Jamie went on, “She woke up coughing smoke last night. Did you hear her? I’m, like, burn already, so some of us can sleep. I’m, like—”

Allie stepped on Jamie’s foot, hard. A child might’ve imagined it was an accident; a very small, very naive child. Jamie stiffened and went silent.

After a moment, Allie’s gaze drifted up and she appeared to see Harper for the first time. “Hey! What’s going on, Nurse Willowes?”

“The Neighbors twins lost a bottle of nail polish. Just asking around to see if either of you might have seen it.”

Jamie Close sat rigidly on an upturned bucket. Her T-shirt was hiked up to show the tramp stamp on the small of her back: a tattoo of the Confederate flag, above the word REBEL. She didn’t have the nerve to look back at Harper. “Sorry, ma’am. I don’t do nothin’ with my nails but chew on ’em.”

Allie looked like she wanted to say something—her eyes were apologetic and worried—but she just opened her mouth and closed it and shook her head.

Harper smiled effortfully, thanked them, and walked off. Her Dragonscale pulsed with a disagreeable warmth, in a way that made her think of someone breathing on coals.