Chapter 9
Max comes up to me in the fading light, the chooks chasing after his feet–not out of the usual chook rage but because, as far as we can tell from their absolutely batshit-crazy Noise, they worship Max as some sort of chicken deity; his name is pretty much all they say, Max, Max, Max–and he says to me, “Ben.”
I wait for him to continue while I repair a fallen fence around the chook paddock. He doesn’t continue, though, so I look at him with a question on my face. He seems to change his mind, and asks, “Do you think we’re safe out here?”
I know what he means. There’s part of me that’s screaming for Mom to pack us all up in the fissioncar and drive as fast as we can back to the city.
Pop didn’t see the god, though, and no matter how much we tell him about it, I saw him thinking it’s something he can protect us from if it comes back.
He can’t. Nothing could. I mean, he’s even got us doing our chores, like if we act like things are normal, then they’re normal.
That’s what happens when you don’t see a god face-to-face.
“I keep thinking it’s going to come out of the woods,” Max says. “And it’ll be screaming and burning and it won’t miss us this time.”
I nod again, though I’m annoyed that he’s basically just saying my own thoughts. I think they believe us, I sign, but not enough to run.
He snorts at this, and I can tell he agrees.
We should be going to the city right now.
“Pop hates the city.”
Mom likes it there.
“Pop wouldn’t come. We can’t leave him alone.”
I’m going there next week anyway. We could all just–
“Pop will have a plan.”
You always think he has a plan.
“He always does.”
Mom always does. She’ll get a search party together or something. Or research it. Or get weapons.
“Pop won’t allow weapons.”
Mom would.
“And they’d have a big fight about it. Pop’s already asked the Land. They’ll know something. There’s all kinds of things on this planet we haven’t discovered yet.”
What were you actually going to ask me?
He stands up straight. “What?”
You were going to ask me something, but you asked me if we were safe here instead. I can tell when you’re hiding.
“Can you though?”
What does that mean?
He rubs his mouth like he’s thinking about something. He turns slightly, and the chooks all move with him. If Max came burning and skinless out of the trees at the chooks, it wouldn’t surprise them in the slightest.
“I’ve been dreaming,” Max says.
This isn’t what I was expecting. Dreaming what? I sign.
But Max doesn’t look at me. “Nothing. Just night-mares.”
Tell me, I sign.
“. . . I don’t want to say. It’s embarrassing.”
Then why bring it up?
He doesn’t answer.
Embarrassing how, Max?
He looks cornered now. Max is smaller than me, even though we’re only about six months apart.
I’m tall and too skinny. He’s closer to the ground and harder to move.
He’s tough, and he’s always been tough, but aside from when he told us we needed to call him Max and change a few of the words we used when we referred to him, he’s always been smiling, happy, kinda anxious Max.
I’ve never known a world without him. We grew up together, first in the little hill compound everyone lived in before it sprawled down into a city and then at the farm here, which Pop finished building around the time we started classes.
Except Max isn’t going to come to upper school next week with me.
He didn’t get in. And that’s okay, not even Max really wanted that.
He’s always been more of a farmer than I have and cares a whole lot less about fitting in with other people, which sounds brave but is actually kind of annoying.
You could make that easy and just say he’s more like our pop and I’m more like our mom, but that really is easy and it’s not accurate.
Even when it sort of is.
The point is, I know him. I can tell when he’s afraid, and he’s afraid now.
He still won’t answer, so I sign, Is it something you’re afraid I’ll judge? Like when you told us your new name?
He gets very huffy at that, and we’re about to have another one of our stupid arguments when we hear Mom and Pop come back into the house behind us.
They’re arguing, too.