HELPER12, Jack Blaine [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

“I know.  I just want us to be on our way.”

Soon enough, we are; an announcement comes over the speaker set into the ceiling, telling us that the ship is departing the dock.  I think all three of us are exhausted, because as soon as I join Thomas and Jobee on the bed, we’re all asleep.

The trip takes over a week.  Much of it is a blur to me; I get seasick the first night and never really recover.  Thomas takes over all of Jobee’s care, and fetches me weak broth and protein crackers.  He helps me to the shower and helps me back to bed.  I have never felt so much like dying in my life.

Thomas goes up on deck with Jobee every day.  When they come back, they smell of salt and their faces are flushed from the wind.  Thomas tells me stories about the people on the ship; the old man who says he is a scientist, going to an island he won’t reveal the name of to do some sort of secret research; the crewman who plays the fiddle every afternoon for whoever will stop to listen; the elderly couple who walk the deck four times round each morning, holding hands.  I love listening to his voice, and picturing the people he’s describing in my mind.

When I’m not vomiting, that is.

Jobee doesn’t seem troubled at all by sea travel, or by the fact that I am not the one changing him or giving him his bottles.  He loves to grab Thomas’s hair and pull it, hard as he can.  Thomas just laughs, and gently untangles it from Jobee’s grasp.

He’s been loading a chip into his reader each day, studying the maps Deen got for him.  He’s also been trying to learn the language.  He practices on me, making me quiz him on how to say bird, or fish, or boat.

On the morning I finally feel like I could get up and walk on deck without vomiting every other step, we arrive in port.

Thomas has our things all packed back into our bags.  I have Jobee in the baby sling.  We make the reverse trek through the passageways and stairwells that got us to our cabin, and soon we’re standing at the gangway.

The air is warm and soft, and so is the light.  It seems so different from what I know.  The port is bustling below us, and there are brightly colored fabric awnings rippling in the breeze.  We descend the gangway, and at the bottom there are men, standing along the dock holding signs.  On the signs are what I assume are the names of the people they are hired to meet.  We start to walk by the men.

“Thomas,” I say.  “Where are we going now?”  I know we have to find a place to stay; we’ve talked about looking for a hostel of some sort at first.

Thomas doesn’t answer me.  He’s staring at one of the men, a tall, solidly built man about twenty years older than us.  The man is holding a sign like all the others.

The sign reads SLOANE-KITTERING.

I grab Thomas’s arm.  Seeing that name here—it can’t be a good thing.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say, and I start to tug him away from the dock.

He doesn’t budge.  In fact, he pulls me and Jobee with him, toward the man.

“Thomas!”  I pull hard on his arm and he stops.  He turns to me.  He looks so relieved, though I can’t understand why until he speaks.

“Deen’s last name is Kittering.”

Chapter Thirty Five

The man’s name is Luni.  After Thomas shows him his real identification papers, showing his name is Sloane, Luni tells us that he’s been coming to the docks for weeks, every time a big ship arrives.  He tells us he was paid to do so; that the people he was waiting for would be on one of the big ships.

He tells us that the man who paid him said there would be two young men.  When he saw us, he knew we weren’t the people he was waiting for, because we weren’t two young men.

“A woman, and a baby,” he keeps saying, shaking his head.  “But you are Sloane.”  He holds his hands out to Thomas as though he is surrendering.  “So what can I do?”  He starts to walk away.

“Wait, what man?” Thomas runs after him.  “What man told you this?”

Luni studies Thomas.  “He looks like you, the man.”  He turns to go.  “Come on,” he says to us.

Thomas stares at me.

“Your father,” I say.  He nods.

Luni keeps gesturing for us to follow him.  “Come, come.  We have a long way to go.”  He points to a cart parked near the dock.  A donkey is hitched to the cart by some sort of harness.  The donkey looks bored.

“Where would we be going?”  I don’t know what to think.  I’m not sure I trust Luni.

He looks at me as though the same thought has just occurred to him, too.

“Wait a minute,” he says, snapping his fingers.  “Wait.”  He turns to Thomas and fixes him with an appraising eye.

“Do you,” he says, “have the paper?”

Thomas cocks his head at the man.

“Do you have,” says Luni, “the paper?”  He narrows his eyes at Thomas.  “Or not?”

“What paper?”  Thomas shakes his head.  He looks at me and raises his shoulders.

“I don’t have a clue,” I say.

Luni puffs his cheeks out.  He snorts.  “The paper, man!”  He waves his hands at Thomas.  “The man say you will have the paper—the sealed deed.”

“Well I don’t have any paper, man, so—”

“Thomas.”  I know what it is.

“What?”  Thomas is pulling at his hair.  Jobee reaches out from the baby sling; he wants to pull Thomas’s hair, too.

“The paper Deen gave you, with the weird seal on it.”

Thomas digs around in his pocket.   He pulls it out and turns it over so Luni can see the seal on it.

“This?”

Luni nods.  “Yes!”  That is the deed to your house.  Come, now.  I take you