Perhaps they didn’t have trash collectors. Ofelia opened the cabinet under the sink, and got out the trash collector. She took it over to the creature and mimed putting the broken pieces in. It stared at her a moment, then dropped them in. Ofelia smiled, and it stepped back, its pupils dilating. Was it scared? Ofelia looked away, and found the others watching. Was it embarrassed? She couldn’t tell. And she wanted to go home and take a nap, before she tackled the rest of the cleaning. Although she really should get that soggy mattress up off the floor. Her joints ached at the thought of heaving it up.
She started back down the passage, and heard behind her the clicking of many toenails. Drat. She couldn’t leave them here alone in the center. What if they got into the control rooms and started pushing buttons? What if they broke the machines she depended on? She turned around, and there they were, close behind her, bright-eyed and bouncy.
Go away, she wanted to say. Go away and let me sleep and maybe later I can think how to deal with you. Go away and leave everything as it is, don’t touch anything . . . It wouldn’t work. It didn’t work with toddlers, who never cared how sleepy you were, or how much you needed to get done, or how dangerous the machine was they were determined to explore. These creatures were not toddlers to themselves, but they were as dangerous, even if they didn’t mean to kill her.
She would have to stay awake. She wondered if she could make locks for the doors she didn’t want them to open. Their hands were not as dexterous as hers; they had fumbled at first with the water faucets. She suspected that they would interfere if they saw her blocking their way. Even as she thought that, one of them opened the door to the control room and squawked loudly.
“NO!” Ofelia stamped her foot; they stopped as if she’d hit them with something heavy and stared at her. “This is not for you,” she said. “You’ll break it. You’ll ruin it.”
The one in front gave a long rolling churr and waved its forelimb at the room.
Ofelia shook her head. “No. Not. For. You. Dangerous.” She wondered how to mime danger to them. Did they know about electricity? “Zzzzt!” she said, pretending to touch something and then jerking back, shaking her hand.
“Zzzzt . . .” It was the first sound of hers any of them had copied. What did zzzzt mean in their language? More importantly, would it stop them from poking around in here and destroying things? Ofelia tried to remember childhood lessons in electricity. Lightning was also electricity; they had to know about lightning. Could she get that across?
The one in front slowly extended its long dark nails toward one of the control boards. “Zzzzt . . .” it uttered, more softly than Ofelia had, and yanked its limb back as if stung. Ofelia nodded; at least they had that right.
“Yes—zzzzt. Hurts you. Big ouch.” She felt silly, talking to them as if they were babies just reaching for trouble, but it had worked.
The creature extended its limb to her, not quite touching. It tilted its head to one side, presenting her with more of one eye than the other. “Zzzzt . . .” it uttered again, and then touched her very gently on the chest.
Ofelia frowned. It meant something, she was sure of it. It wanted to say something to her . . . but she could not think what that meant. She rehearsed it in her head. She had tried to convey that the things in here could hurt if you touched them—and the creature had copied her actions, which might mean it understood, although she had known plenty of children who couldn’t learn from a pretense like that, who had to be hurt themselves before they understood that fire would burn. Then it had uttered the sound, while almost touching her, and then had touched her.
Was it saying that she might hurt it, the same way as the machines? That she did hurt? But no—they had touched her already, and as near as she could tell, it hadn’t hurt them. They hadn’t jerked or jumped back or shown any other sign of pain. If they showed pain the way people did.
“Zzzzt . . .” the creature uttered, repeating its earlier sequence. Then it seemed to point to the machines behind her, with an emphatic little stab on the end of the gesture. “Zzzzt.” Then it pointed at her again.
Oh. Ofelia laughed aloud before she could stop herself. Of course. It wanted to know if the machines would
