The air shuttle carrying my sister, Jennie, away from our home, away from me, shot into the sky and accelerated upward and forward until it was only a tiny point of light. I stood on the side of the mountain, not far from the cave where Jennie had fixed me and left me sleeping, and watched it fly until I wasn't sure the light that was the ship was still there. Then I stood some more. Tears wet my cheeks. I knew the government had taken her so she could spend her time fixing important people, not useless and dumb ones like me, but I also knew she hadn't wanted to go.
I vowed that one day I would rescue her, though I had no idea of how I might do that. I said the promise aloud, as if she could still hear me, as if what I said mattered.
I sat in the grass, closed my eyes, and let the wind from the ocean dry my face. I imagined she was next to me, already back from her trip, and when I opened my eyes she would smile and tell me everything was okay.
Except that couldn't happen. Before she'd fixed me a few hours ago, I might have been able to make myself believe that everything would go back to the way it was, but not now. She'd fixed me too well. Now, I knew she was gone for good, as she'd said she would be.
With a speed my brain could never have managed before, I instantly also deduced that her departure could cause more problems for me. I was the big useless kid, the dumb one who couldn't learn as much as the slowest of the six-year-olds, and now I didn't have Jennie to protect me. Even though I believed she had fixed my brain—it felt different, as if before my thinking had been crawling and now it was flying like a bird racing across the sky—I didn't know how to convince anyone else that I could do more than before. That I was valuable now.
I glanced down the hill and saw two men in uniform climbing toward me. They were taking their time, laughing and talking as they came, not even bothering to keep an eye on me. They knew I had nowhere to go. Jennie had taught me that Pinkelponker was nothing but islands, a world of them, thousands of them scattered all over a huge planet-covering ocean, and that Pinecone, our island, was one of the smallest that people bothered to live on. Though I was the biggest person here, I was also the stupidest. They had no reason to worry about me.
I thought about running back to the cave, but I decided not to bother. They'd find me eventually. For all that Jennie and I had treated it as our special, secret place, I now understood clearly that locating it would not be very hard. Besides, I might as well learn what they wanted.
I should also, I realized, not tell them about Jennie fixing me. It could get her in trouble, and I didn't want that.
I stretched out on the grass, stared at the clouds, and waited. I counted them and found the task easy, the numbers past ten coming readily and without effort. I had learned those numbers a long time ago and relearned them many times since then, but usually I could not easily bring them to mind. This fast thinking was nice. I smiled, silently thanked Jennie again, and went back to waiting.
The two men would be here soon enough.
They approached me from both sides at once. When they stopped, they were each at least two meters from me. I was bigger and probably stronger than either of them, but that was true of almost all the men I'd ever seen. I'd never, though, had any grown-ups act as if I might get violent with them; everyone on Pinecone knew I'd never hurt anyone. These two clearly weren't taking any chances.
I smiled first at the one on my right and then at the one on my left.
"Jon Moore?" the left guy said.
I wondered why he asked a question when he already knew the answer, but I figured that he was probably making sure. Even if he was just being stupid, I wasn't going to point that out to him; I knew how much it hurt to have someone do that to you. "Yes," I said.
"We'd like you to come with us," Left said.
I sat. Both men tensed slightly. I couldn't believe it. They were afraid of me. I'd never hit anyone. Jennie had always told me that fighting was bad and besides that, when you were as big as I am, you had to be careful not to take advantage of smaller people. I wanted to reassure them that everything was fine, but I figured the best way to do that would be to keep behaving nicely. "Okay," I said. "Where are we going?"
"To see your sister," Right said. "She's asked us to bring you to her."
I had a hard time continuing to smile, because I knew, without understanding why I knew, that he was lying and that I could only cause trouble by saying so. Besides, if I was wrong, I'd get to see Jennie, and nothing could be better than that.
I also didn't really have a choice. The way they watched me, the places they stood, everything about their actions made one clear statement: One way or another, I was going with them.
I stood. "I understand that part. I meant, where are we going: the village, the beach, where?"
They exchanged a quick glance. Both visibly relaxed.
Left said, "You know that she left on a government ship, right?"
"Sure," I said. "She told me, before—" I paused as I realized that telling them the truth would be wrong but that I had no experience lying. Jennie had always told me she liked that about me, so I felt embarrassed at what I was about to do. "Before I took a nap."
"Of course she did," Left said. He smiled. "Follow me, and I'll lead you to our ship. It's in the government landing area on the other side of the island. You've never been in an air shuttle, have you?"
"No. I've never left Pinecone."
"You'll enjoy the ride," Right said. "It's fun."
"Yes it is," Left said. "You'll have a good time."
He turned his back to me and started down the mountain. Right stayed behind me. I stared at Pinecone spread out below me: the trail down, the small collections of five and six huts that filled the flat areas, the yellow sand beach far below, the blue-green ocean surrounding us, the birds soaring back and forth over land and sea as if they recognized no boundaries. I feared I'd never see this place again, and I wanted to hold it always in my memory, the way I held Jennie. I inhaled deeply and savored the rich scents of the ocean and the wheat we harvested from all over the mountain.
Left turned around and faced me. "Mr. Moore?" he said. "Jon?"
I forced myself to let go of the island and focus on him. "Sorry," I said.
He smiled again. "It's okay. I understand."
He didn't. He thought I'd forgotten to go, but I saw no point in correcting him. Instead, I turned and followed a couple of paces behind him.
We proceeded down the path in that little line, moving together, the way Jennie and I often had, but with no fun in it this time, no laughs, no pointing at the ocean or the clouds, no pausing to sniff any of the small, wild, white and blue-flecked flowers that dotted the hillside grasses here and there, as if someone had thrown blossoms into the air and let the wind carry them where it would. We walked without talking. They didn't seem to notice the beauty around them.
I thought of her the entire way down. I wanted to believe that they were telling me the truth and soon I'd be with her. I couldn't. Instead, I knew with a stomach-leadening certainty that wherever they were taking me, she would not be there.
I'd watched the flying ships carry Jennie away, but I'd never come close to one. From the mountainside where I'd spied on them, they'd always appeared perfect: smooth, sleek, silvery ships that pushed on the ground with huge roaring winds, rose into the sky, and shot away. As I approached this one, I saw dents and dings and discolored bits and all sorts of small scars. It was still impressive, but now I understood that the perfection had been only an illusion.
Two strides from the entrance to the ship, the lead man stopped, turned, and stared at me. I stopped, too. He studied my face for a long time, shook his head, and said, "You look normal enough."
I had no idea what I was supposed to say, so I stayed quiet.
"At your size, I'd have expected more facial hair, but other than that . . . ." His voice trailed off, but he kept staring at me.
Jennie had explained this part to me. "My sister told me it was because I wasn't really a teenager yet."
"As big as you are? And aren't you sixteen?"
I nodded. "I am, but that's what she told me, and she always tells me the truth."
He stepped closer, so close we were almost touching. "Did she explain what's wrong with you?"
I nodded again. "My brain doesn't work as well as most people's. Because of that, even though my body grew big, I wasn't a teenager yet. She said not to worry about it. She always told me that I had a smart heart, and that was enough." I thought again about letting him know that she had fixed me so I'd have a smart head, too, but I couldn't risk causing her trouble for helping me.
He signed. "Okay. It's just that you're not like most of them."
"Who?"
He smiled, but it was a sad expression, with not a trace of happiness in it. He turned, clapped me on the back, and pushed me toward the ship.
"Like your sister told you," he said, "don't worry about it."
He followed me inside. The other man came after him.
The door shut behind us.
"It's time for us to leave," Left said.
Being in the air ship was like being nowhere at all. They made me sit alone in a small room with no windows and no grass to rest on and no one to keep me company, and they left. The door had no handle, so I sat where they told me to sit, and I waited. The floor was metal and hard and even dirt would have been better, but I had no choice, so I tried to stay happy while I waited. I didn't mind being alone—I've always been good at that and have spent most of my life on my own—but I would have enjoyed seeing what Pinkelponker is like from the air. With nothing to do and nothing to look at, I finally decided I might as well nap. I stretched out on the floor, which was even less comfortable for resting than it was for sitting, even worse than the rock floor in Jennie's and my secret cave, and after a while I fell asleep.
The big man who woke me was someone I hadn't seen before. He stayed in the doorway, pointed a gun at me, and yelled, "Get up, and get out!"
By habit, I shook my head to clear it. Thinking was always hard for me, and it was particularly difficult after I'd been sleeping. This time, though, I didn't need to do it; I snapped awake to instant awareness. I was more and more convinced that Jennie really had improved my mind.
I stood. "Is Jennie here?"
The man stepped back and pointed to his left with the gun. "Out."
I didn't move. "If Jennie's not here, I don't want to go."
"Here's how it works," the man said, his voice completely flat, like someone talking about whether the waves were big or small. "You move now, or I shoot you in the leg and drag you. No more talk. Got it?"
I shrugged; how could I not understand? I walked where he pointed. I'd known from the start that they were lying to me, but part of me had kept hoping they were taking me to Jennie. They weren't, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had never had a lot of choices, though, so that was fine. On Pinecone, each morning I got up and worked where they told me, planting and harvesting and clearing. When I had time to myself, I swam or sat on the mountain and always hoped for those hours when Jennie could be with me and we could again be our own little family, brother and sister, all either of us really had. It wasn't bad, living like that, not really, and I was good at it. Maybe whatever this was wouldn't be so bad, either—though the fact that the man used a gun to force me obey him made me think that wherever I was going was not good, not good at all.
He directed me down a short hall and to the doorway through which I had entered the ship. It slid open as I stood in front of it.
"Out," he said.
"Where are we?" All I could see was dirt and small bushes and the side of a mountain. It didn't look like Pinecone, so I figured we were on another island, but I had no idea which one.
The man chuckled briefly. "Dump," he said. "We call it Dump. Now, get out. Move away from the ship quickly, because we won't wait to take off."
I was afraid and very much didn't want to go. I didn't know anyone here. Jennie wasn't here. I didn't know who would take care of me.
I turned my head to say something else. Before I could speak, a hand pushed me in the center of my back, and I stumbled onto the ground.
"Run," the man said as the ship sealed itself.
Wind rushed downward from the ship's wings, and it roared. Dust swirled all around me. I stood, took two steps, and the ship began to rise. I ran a few more strides, tripped on something—I couldn't see the ground through the dust—and fell hard. I tasted blood and put my hands over my ears to protect them from the huge noise.
As the sound faded and the dust began to settle, I rolled onto my back and wiped the grime from my eyes and face. Small streaks of blood stained my hands; I'd split my lip in the fall.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where I was. I was alone.
I started crying, at first a few tears and then hard sobs, my chest tight from the effort. My heart hurt because I finally had to accept, really accept, that Jennie wasn't here, that I was alone, that nothing was right, nothing was the way it had been.
"Is that the biggest baby you've ever seen, Bob?"
I sat at the sound of the voice and stopped sobbing, though tears still mixed with the sand on my cheeks and my eyes burned. I wasn't alone!
Ten strides in front of me stood the tallest, thinnest man I'd ever seen. At least a head taller than I was, maybe more, he looked about as thick as one of my legs. His body appeared even thinner because his arms were barely bigger than twigs.
"I think it is, Benny," the tall man, Bob, said.
For a moment, I couldn't spot the other person, the one who'd spoken first. Then I looked down and saw him. He was on a small, rough cart with a dark wooden platform and wheels that looked like someone had carved them from hunks of rock. His body and head were normal, and he looked about my age, maybe a bit younger, definitely a whole lot smaller. Where he should have had hands and feet, though, were things that looked like thick bird wings or flippers. He used them to push on the ground and roll the cart closer.
"Welcome to Dump," he said. His voice was very deep, deeper than that of most grown-ups. "It's obvious why they put us here, but you look fine. What's your story?"
Before I could respond, he added, "Don't bother answering now. You'll have to explain it again to the others, and I don't want to hear it twice. Follow us."
As he rolled off, his flippers slapping the ground in unison to propel him forward, he added, "And cut that crying crap right now. Soldiers don't cry, and we're at war." He glanced back at me. "You just don't know it yet."