Eleanor was another story. Of course she’s the youngest, so that’s a big thing right there—she’s always trying to be older. But Eleanor has to be out there. Martha and me, if we’re told to go away and leave the grown-ups alone, find a book to read or baby orphan to feed (ha ha). Eleanor hates being shut out of anything. Which is why, since she got old enough to be usefully and sort of applied-ly a brat instead of just a general brat sort of brat, Martha and I knew more stuff about the Institute than we used to, because she’s always generous (to the other members of our oppressed race, the children) with her info. And this time whatever they weren’t being told bothered Martha too, because I was in on it. I think Martha might have been kind of bracing herself for this to happen—that I would suddenly become one of the grown-ups, or at least not a kid like her and Eleanor any more—and maybe she thought my solo overnight really had been it, the place where I crossed the line. But this was kind of more spectacular than she expected. And it drove Eleanor insane.
I’ve already told you I felt bad about not really being friends any more. Friends with Martha anyway, interactions with Eleanor don’t really come under that heading. It’s like I’d barely seen Martha and Eleanor except for my fifteenth birthday party which after the first hour I just wanted to be over with because I had to get back to Lois who I knew would be starting to shred the bedclothes. That’s not too flattering to the people at your party. It was already a strange party because Grace hadn’t come—but someone had to stay home and make not-alone noises for Lois. Billy brought the cake she’d made but it was still strange. And I saw Martha and Eleanor when the school testers came, but none of us was at our best then. That was one thing we had totally in common. All three of us hated the grown-ups who came to prod us and take notes like we were some kind of science project or field survey. I felt like giving them tips. Our Rangers did it so much better.
But while it was Eleanor’s idea, I think in this case Martha went along with it. And so one afternoon when Lois was about seven months old and I was home alone doing extra schoolwork so I could sit still longer and let Lois sleep on my (bare) feet for longer, first because any time she was asleep I wanted to keep her that way as long as possible and second because I’d been over three hours at the Institute the day before and she’d been pretty panicked and crazy by the time I got back. (Panicked and crazy was getting bigger and heavier too, she was going to be leaving bruises some day soon, as well as eczema, never mind the grisly idea of her giving the slip to Billy or Grace or whoever her jailer was that day, and galumphing up to the Institute to look for me. Or just getting hopelessly lost in the woods. This really was not likely—at least not until she was big enough to keep galumphing with Billy or Grace hanging around her neck—but it was still another thing that worried me.)
Also…this is another of those things I don’t know how to explain, even in hindsight, although I have a much better idea what was going on now than I did then…my stupid permanent headache was sort of better when I was thinking about stuff. I’ve said it was easier to live with if I was doing something, but that’s not quite right. It’s like it liked certain kinds of brainwork. It liked educational stuff, not worry stuff. It didn’t exactly hurt less, but it hurt better. Remember I said, about when I first had it, that it sometimes seemed like it was trying to fit inside my head and couldn’t figure out why it couldn’t make itself comfortable? Well now it was like something in my head that was interested in some of the same things I was interested in. Headline in the National Stupid People Press: Boy Believes He Was Kidnapped by Aliens and Has an Alien Spy Thingy Implanted in His Brain. Photos on page seven. I didn’t—didn’t think I’d been kidnapped by aliens, I mean—but I did start to sort of half think of my headache as almost another thing—like me, Lois, Billy, Grace, the Smell, and the Headache—but without finishing the other half of thinking about it, because it was too weird.
Anyway. So Headache and I were deep in this afternoon when I heard the door bang and I had about five seconds to jerk myself out of what I was doing and think that the bang didn’t sound right and that neither Billy nor Grace was due back till later, and then a voice I knew only too well said, “What is that smell?” and I was on my feet and would have been out of my bedroom door and closing it behind me in another five seconds but Eleanor was too fast for me.
“Oh, shit,” I said. If Dad had been there that would have been my allowance for that week. (Sure I have an allowance, even in Smokehill. How do you think I paid for all those on-line hours of Annihilate?) But if he’d been there he’d’ve stopped it from happening somehow, I don’t know how, put a bag over Eleanor’s head and said three magic words or something. Dad copes. It hasn’t been good for his temper but he copes.
Lois poked her nose around the desk leg, not happy at the abrupt removal of my feet, but generally speaking always ready to be thrilled at meeting someone else so long as I was there too. She did one of her peeps. Not that I could ever say for sure what happy was in Lois terms, but her spine plates, now that they were big enough to do anything, tended to erect themselves when she was what I would call happy and interested. They stiffened now. And her nostrils flared, and she did a kind of ooonnngg-peeEEEeep-oooonnngggg. I told you about my dad suddenly believing Billy’s story was real when he heard the weird noises coming from under his son’s shirt. Sound and smell are very convincing. Just seeing something that looks like a low-level goblin out of a bad computer game isn’t so convincing.
“What is that?” Eleanor said, in that way you do when you’re really surprised: Whaaaaat is thaaaaaat? It takes a lot to surprise Eleanor. By this time Martha had joined Eleanor in the doorway, except by then Eleanor was out of the doorway and going toward Lois. I grabbed her arm. “Leave her alone,” I said.
“Her?” said Eleanor. “Ow. You’re hurting me.”
“Tough eggs,” I said. I was so shocked it was taking me a little while to get angry but I was going to be spectacularly angry when I got there. “What are you doing here?” I looked at Martha, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Eleanor wouldn’t meet them either, but that was because she was staring at Lois. Eleanor has no conscience. And Martha was pretty fascinated too. Who wouldn’t be?