DAY 7
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A LADY
The next morning, I could hardly look Jake in the eye. Caroline and Henry were my helpers for the day, and their chirpy good cheer was an excellent distraction.
Scrambled eggs sandwiched between chocolate chip waffles. Wow.
Niko had a change in plans for us. He rapped on his tray, to get our attention.
“You all did an excellent job of restocking the shelves and taking inventory of our assets and I want to thank you,” Niko said. “I know that you’re not all completely finished with your assignments, but we’re going to shift our routine a bit now.
“The big kids will work together on projects that we need to attend to and the little kids will be attending school.”
A rising chorus of
School. That was what the card tables and folding chairs in our new “living room” were about.
“Josie will tell you all about it.” He gestured for Josie to rise and address us.
“Now, listen, you guys,” she said. “It’s not going to be a drag, like real school. We’re going to learn fun things and do lots of art projects. Maybe Jake will even teach us some football, right, Jake?”
“Most probably, maybe,” he said, toasting her with a half-eaten waffle sandwich.
Josie sat down and Brayden put his arm around her. He tried to nuzzle her neck, but she shook her head slightly. A not-in-front-of-the-kids shake.
Niko took back the floor. He seemed steely now. Cold and efficient.
“Another thing that’s going to change is the way we are using electricity. Alex has worked hard to make an energy plan that conserves our resources as much as possible, and we need to put it into action right away.”
Alex stood up.
“Yeah, um, so during the day, we’ll have the lights on here in the kitchen and also in Living Room area —”
“The school,” Josie corrected.
“And besides that,” Alex continued, “the other parts of the store will be dark.”
“Dark?” asked Caroline.
“Like how dark?” said Henry.
“It will be pretty dark, I think. But don’t be scared because, remember, this store is completely sealed off from the outside. So nothing can get in here. Everything in the store is a known quantity,” Alex said.
He was half talking to himself, I knew. Telling himself not to be scared.
“Plus we can each have a flashlight,” Josie added.
Batiste, Ulysses, and Max seemed excited about having flashlights, but Henry and Caroline looked scared.
Chloe was just scratching her head. Scratching hard and with purpose.
Niko laid out the work plan for the day.
The big kids would be helping to consolidate the frozen food in the kitchen freezers, to save on power.
I could see the planning behind the big change in routine. We couldn’t waste the energy to have the kids scattered all around the store working. Niko wanted them in one place so we’d only have to light a certain area of the store.
It made sense. But the whole thing made me irritated and what I realized was that I was pissed that Alex hadn’t told me about it.
He knew the power was giving out and he didn’t tell me. He told Niko instead.
Niko had him off and running the store while I was stuck in the Kitchen. He and Niko were becoming best buddies while I was stuck hanging out with the kindergarteners.
I didn’t like Niko spending more time with Alex than I did. It didn’t feel right to me. We were brothers. I should know everything he knew and vice versa.
Now that I was aware of not hanging around with my brother, it was all I could think about. At afternoon free period I tried to get him to play Monopoly. He had a game of Stratego going with Niko. And at dinner Alex asked Niko to go with him off to look at a set of video walkie-talkies he had found and was working on in our Living Room area. So I cleaned the Kitchen.
I went to my hammock in a huff, determined to talk to Alex the next day.
It felt like I’d only been asleep for a moment when I was shaken awake.
It was Jake.
“Get up!” he whispered. “There’s a woman outside at the loading docks. She wants us to let her in.”
Niko, Josie, Brayden, Jake, and I all stumbled into the common hallway of the Train. Jake motioned for us to be quiet and to follow him.
Once we were out of earshot of the kids, Niko turned to Josie.
“Josie, please stay here and make sure the kids stay safe.”
“I want to come,” she whispered. “They’re asleep. They’ll be fine.”
“We need you here,” Niko said.
“Come on, dude, she wants to come,” Brayden argued.
Trying to win points with his new girlfriend.
“The answer is no. I need to know that the kids are safe and here,” Niko said. “The rest of you come on.”
Niko took off toward the storeroom, I followed with the other boys and Josie crossed her arms and stayed behind.
Niko had authority, there’s no denying.
“You’re so sexist,” Josie hissed after him. He sort of was, I guess.
In the storeroom we heard an electronically transmitted voice. A woman.
“Hello? Are you back? Please! You have to hurry.”
Jake pointed and we saw something we’d not seen before—there was a video intercom, right on the wall.
A woman’s face, head wrapped in a shawl, face covered by layers of material, took up the frame.
“I was doing my rounds and I saw her,” Jake said. “I didn’t even know there was an intercom.”
“Please let me in,” she begged.
Niko pressed a button on the intercom.
“Hello. We see you. How many of you are there?”
“Just me! Just me!” she whispered. You could see she was craning her neck to look behind her.
Niko took his finger off the button. He turned to us.
“Listen,” he said. “I want to let her in, but we can’t. We physically can’t. We don’t know how to retract the security gate
“I don’t trust her anyway,” Brayden said. “See how she’s looking behind her all the time? She’s got people with her. No question. It could be a trap.”
