“So we won’t,” Red sighs. “So? The Hole is going to feature nice broom arrangements. And then—nice Rat arrangements. Like a wax museum, only with live people.”
Rat shrugs and goes off in the direction of the girls’ stairs. A slender figure in heavy boots too large for her. Red shouts “Bye!” but she doesn’t look back. He purses his lips and turns toward the canteen. Giggling Birds run past him.
GHOST
Noble floats in a kind of sparkly black void. He has pulled the covers over his face and is now suffocating in the stifling heat, surrounded by apparitions. Her eyes. Her hair. The slender arm in the grasp of the woven strap of bracelet. Noble is barely breathing, afraid of spooking the phantom, but it grows more and more impatient, restless, melting like wax and soon disappearing. He pushes the blanket off and takes deep breaths. He’s wet as a mouse that’s just been fished out of a puddle.
The sounds return, now that the air is back. The sniffling and breathing of the sleepers. Black’s snores, waves of aggression rising up to the ceiling. Closer by are the birdlike whistles of Tabaqui and the rustling of the bodies as they turn. Smoker, still fast asleep, pulls a pillow from under Tabaqui and aims to cover Noble with it. Noble manages to avoid it by shifting closer to the edge of the bed. There’s a nightlight on in Lary’s corner. Also in Alexander’s, shielded by a piece of newspaper. Noble looks up into the ceiling, and it seems to pull him in. It grows closer, closer, and now he’s almost level with the wheel, the birdcage, and the narrow eyes of the kite. It’s strange, what’s happening to Noble. He is lying on his back and at the same time standing up. The standing Noble is light as a feather. He sees the ceiling, Lary’s mushroom-shaped nightlight, and the sleeping Bandar-Log with a pink halo around his hair. And also himself, down there, under the crumpled blanket. He sees it all from the height where he’s never been before. His own height. As soon as he thinks about the window and the fresh breeze wafting through it, he’s transported across to the windowsill. Night air soothes his burning face. The air also brings with it a blast of distant noise—the squealing laughter of Rats, having their raunchy fun.
Noble stretches out his arm. It flows away into the black emptiness, probing, searching, sweeping through the doors on the way. He falls behind, and when his hand is feeling for
The red-haired girl, the strap of the tank top fallen off her shoulder, sits up on the mattress and peers into the darkness.
“What’s that? Hey! Get out! Get out of here!”
Noble startles, back on the bed, gasping for breath.
There are groans, stirrings, and sighs around him. He lies perfectly still.
Black is snoring. Lary has a light on. Alexander has a light on. On the hotplate down on the floor, the kettle is preparing to boil. Someone seems intent on having tea.
“Fat chance! Choke on it!” Black enunciates clearly between two snores.
It’s funny, but no one’s there to hear it and laugh. Noble’s sweaty back clings to the mattress. His face is on fire, his legs are pure ice. It’s happened before, but tonight he knows that it is a payment being exacted for that strange something he has allowed himself to perpetrate. Someone is reminding him what he is. Half a man, with the legs of a corpse.
“No,” Noble whispers. “I will not think about this.”
And immediately imagines his legs actually dead, bluish-white, covered in spots of decay. He’s running out of air.
Someone’s quiet steps.
Alexander sits down on the bed next to him and inserts a hot bottle under the blanket.
“I was waiting for the water to boil.”
Noble is silent while the hot bottle works to melt the ice and a faint warmth trickles to his feet. Warmth that would have burned his hands.
