“She’s a mutant,” Max said. “That’s my theory.”
Jean scratched at a mosquito bite on her arm, and Susan watched her dig her nail into it, trying to get the itching to stop.
“A mutant?” she asked.
“Something got changed around in her genes. Make sure you don’t stare at her. It’s not nice.”
Jean gave her arm one final, vigorous scratch and looked up at him.
“I wasn’t staring. She was.”
“Yeah, well, either way. She’s crazy. Just wanted to warn you.”
Kate looked dismayed.
“So how come we’re following her?”
Good question, Susan thought. But she said, “Well, even crazy people can know where the city is, can’t they?”
“I guess.”
“So we’ll get there, and find a phone, and call home. That’s the plan, okay?”
“Okay,” Kate said.
“And in the meanwhile, try to be nice to her. Think what it would be to have a face like that. You wouldn’t like it, would you?”
Kate shook her head vehemently and Jean sighed. “No.”
“Right. Neither would I. So just keep that in mind.”
Susan would have liked that to be the last word, but of course it wasn’t.
“Is she crazy enough to have made up a whole geography of crazy? You know, a city no one’s ever heard of, and songs?” Nell asked. “That’s a lot of crazy for one person.”
Max sighed. “It’s called a delusion,” he told Nell. “They can be very elaborate.”
The forest was leveling out now, and a faint footpath appeared among the weeds. Susan thought that a good sign. Civilization, she told herself. Roads, telephones, and air-conditioning. She was looking forward to it.
Jean had been pondering Max’s explanation. “Delusion,” she said. “So she’s singing it right now?”
Max nodded. “Exactly.”
Ahead, the singing stopped. “Hey! Plums!” Liyla called back. “Hurry now — we’re almost there!”
They hurried. A few minutes later, the trees thinned, and the children emerged into view of what Liyla proudly announced was the city, the Domain of the Genius, marvelous capital of all Ganbihar, greatest city on the face of Loam. Max opened his mouth to say something, then promptly shut it.
“Interesting delusion,” Nell whispered beside Susan. “Who’s having it — us or her?”
And Susan thought: Criminations.
The greatest city in the world was made of sticks and mud. The greatest city in Ganbihar, actually, Susan reminded herself, or maybe Loam, whatever that was. Five minutes ago, she’d been telling herself Liyla had just made that up. But the city was real enough, or at least the collection of dirty, badly made houses on the edge of it was. They’d come out of the woods into a weedy field, where the forest path gradually widened into a road. The houses here were less lined up than thrown down, as if some giant child had tossed his toys in a fit. They sat at all angles, squatting in bald yards, their brown walls sweating in the humid afternoon. Some seemed to sag in the heat, straw roofs dipping toward mucky patches that had dried to dust where the sun hit them. Goats tugged at the weeds here and there, and a couple of mean-looking cats fought in the shade of a parched tree, but Susan couldn’t see a single person.
“Laundry day,” Liyla said, in answer to her unspoken question. “They’re all down by the smoke blowers. But that’s the better for us, isn’t it?”
Susan didn’t see why it would be, until they came to a forlorn market square, several blocks in. Flat stones marked it off, and dusty stalls sat around it. All but one was empty.
Liyla jogged over to that booth, and reluctantly, the children followed.
The fruit seller sat hunched between two piles of browning apples, snoring with gusto.
“Hey, Pull!” Liyla yelled. “Got wares for you!” She slapped a hand against the side of the stall. An apple rolled off and broke softly in the dirt. The man lifted his head blearily.
Susan stopped. She heard Max draw a sharp breath, and Nell nearly tripped.
The man had the same ferocious features as Liyla.
“I thought you said she was different,” Jean whispered to Max.
“I thought she was,” he said.
The words waxed and filed became suddenly clear as Susan stared at the man. His face had the look of a skinned knee. All but his eyebrows seemed to have been ripped out by the roots, and as he yawned mightily, she could see that his long teeth had been blunted at the ends, filed artificially flat, like his nails.
He caught sight of the children and stood up so fast his head hit the dirty canopy and his chair hit the ground.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Is it rally day, then?”
Liyla waved the kids closer. “Every day will be soon,” she said. “Found these out in the wilds, and they stick this way.”
The man came out from behind his stall to look at them. Despite the sharp lines of his face, the rest of him was all soft dough. The tattered woolen undershirt he wore was patterned with what looked like fruit stains. They definitely were, Susan decided as he closed in on them. The man smelled of sweat and the sick-sweet perfume of rotten apples. Beneath the unraveling hem of his shirt, one strip of stomach peeked out, a hairy belt.
“Workshops,” he said. He reached for Max’s face, but Max ducked out of the way.
“Oh, let him touch,” Liyla said. “So he knows it’s real.”
Reluctantly, Max let the man reach for him. Susan shuddered in sympathy as the merchant ran a blunted finger down the side of her brother’s face.
“By all that’s new,” he said. “He’s done it, hasn’t he?”
Liyla puffed up like a rooster.
“Yes, he has. And I’m the one found them, aren’t I? Next you’ll see me standing beside the Genius on rally day.”
The fruit seller looked at her swiftly and frowned.
“You watch that, girl. Clever enough to find me plums doesn’t make you clever enough to keep out of the workshops yourself.”
Liyla deflated slightly. “I’m an only,” she said. “You know it.”
He shook his head, and a few drops of sweat went flying. “That’s
