On the Edge of Gone Read online

  I’m mulling that over and carefully repacking my bag when I hear footsteps. Multiple sets. I swallow the last crumbs of the spice bread, put my gloves back on, zip my backpack closed, and snatch up my flashlight. I slide into the hall and follow the sound of the footsteps. They’re joined by voices now, ones I recognize—Max and Mirjam.

  Good. I can ask about the tab.

  Before I can change my mind, I step around the corner, then stop dead in my tracks. Between my flashlight and the two they have, there’s plenty of light to see by. Even with their hoods drawn up, I recognize Max and Mirjam, but there’s also Sanne, another girl, and two younger boys who must be twins.

  “Denise! We were just coming to check on you.” Max smiles that languid smile of his, like nothing happened last night. “You OK? Couch OK?”

  “Comfy. Right?” Sanne says.

  “It was fine. Thank you.” My gaze flickers to Mirjam, but I choose to focus on Max. “I need a favor. Can you charge my tab for me?” I raise my arm, as though he wouldn’t know what I mean otherwise.

  “Well . . . we’re not supposed to. The ship can only generate so much power right now. Until we’re flying—”

  “Until you’re flying,” I correct him. A moment later, I realize that’s not the best way to ask for a favor. I take an automatic step back, the beam from my flashlight withdrawing from theirs.

  Mirjam closes the distance. “Why’d you get kicked off? Did you tell your sister about the ship?”

  She was already direct yesterday, but now that she’s turned accusatory, I don’t know where to look. Are they seeing me the same way Els did? Rude and difficult and flouting the rules? “No,” I say harshly. “My mother made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?” Sanne sounds skeptical.

  “She said there was a misunderstanding?” Max squints.

  “We weren’t—weren’t really on the ship as passengers.” I don’t want to explain the situation, but I need that favor. At least it doesn’t seem like Anke told either of her children about the state Mom was in before we left. Or the state I was in. It’s a small comfort.

  “Ohhh,” Max says once I’ve explained.

  Sanne whistles. “So you were wasting your own power last night, not the ship’s. That helps.”

  Max elbows her.

  “Jeez,” Mirjam says. “It’s normally something bad.”

  All Mirjam’s hostility is gone, replaced with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. The twins are arguing about something silly in the background, and the other girl hasn’t said a word, but I feel like I’ve passed some sort of test. I breathe easier.

  “So the captain has kicked off others?” Sanne says, eyeing Mirjam.

  “Yeah, before you came on board. One woman who told her brother the ship’s location. And a man who was caught sneaking into storage. When they searched his room, they found food he’d hoarded from dinner, too—enough for several days. That’s when they made that rule about not taking food from the dining halls.”

  The other girl adds, “I heard something about an entire family stowing away, but I was never clear on whether someone on board helped them.”

  “A shower does seem silly in comparison,” Max says.

  Mirjam nods. “Charging your tab is the least we can do.”

  “We do have energy rations for a reason,” he protests.

  “Ignore my brother. He’s easily scandalized. Hey, you want to tag along? We’ll take your tab back to the ship afterward.”

  “We can tell people that you helped, in case it makes a difference,” the other girl says. “They want more young people on board, anyway.”

  “Really?” I stand a little straighter. I still need to find Iris, but possibly having a spot on the ship to come back to—we’d need to find her before launch tomorrow, but—“Yes! Yes. Thank you. I’ll help. Thank you.”

  She offers a tentative smile. “I’m Fatima.”

  “Captain of our soccer team,” Mirjam chimes in.

  “It’ll be hard to convince the captain to let anyone else on,” Max says. “You know . . . the supplies . . .”

  “Oh, we know,” Sanne says.

  “Max, shut up.” Mirjam’s voice is mild; it doesn’t fit her hard eyes or the way she snapped at me yesterday. It’s as though she doesn’t even remember that. “Here, Denise. I have an extra crowbar.”

  She slings her backpack around. My eyes flit over the rest of the group. The twins at the back seem impatient, but the others are focused on me. I don’t know how to act. All of a sudden, they’re being so . . . nice. My hand squirms around the flashlight, eager to tap or flap, and I settle for lightly swishing it past my thigh.

  “My brother is a handy dude,” Mirjam says, handing me the crowbar, “but he is a clueless dude.”

  “What did I do?” Max seems beyond confused.

  “First lesson,” Sanne announces. She steps forward, leaving Mirjam and Max to bicker. “Crowbar. Doors. We already pried these open the other day. Look.”

  I watch her demonstrate where they pried open the nearest office door. Is this her way of making amends? Or is she faking it to please Max?

  I focus on what she tells me. Afterward, I dart into Mom’s office and scribble a note, then catch up with the others to move farther into the airport. At the back of the group, the twins yell and balance atop piles of rubble where the ceiling caved in. Mirjam leads the way, Max and Sanne right behind her. Max shortens his stride to keep pace with Sanne. He tells her something I can’t quite hear and tugs at her hood. She laughs, muffled, and for the first time I wonder if maybe Sanne’s snarkiness was less about me and more about Max and her own jealousy.

  They take me halfway across the airport. The cracked-open doors show how much they’ve already covered. I linger at the back with the twins and Fatima, quiet, feeling only half there. I didn’t pay much attention to the airport last night. Aside from the glass, which is everywhere except in the actual window frames, the building isn’t too bad. It’s still standing, at least, though the ceiling has collapsed in places, and all over there’s dirt that must’ve blown in. At first, it feels like we’re breaking in and should be looking out for security guards. Then, it feels like VR, an apocalyptic world with zombies ready to burst from each gap in the wall.

  The weird part comes when I recognize things. Mirjam’s flashlight swoops over projector units, smashed to the ground. Stores, the windows broken and the stock gone, but the shelves still in place. Signs for passport control. Painted arrows on the floor, pointing at different concourses. Security domes. Body and luggage scanners.

  I’ve walked on these exact tiles, looked at those exact signs, Iris by my side, our bags packed for Dad’s home in sunny Paramaribo. I’d been nervous and excited, and I’d had not a single clue of what was waiting for us years down the line.

  Maybe Americans are used to this, having seen their cities destroyed a dozen times on film. I’ve just never seen it happen to my airport.

  The others are starting to fan out. I shake off my thoughts and get to work.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MIRJAM STANDS BY A DOOR, JAMMING the crowbar in place. Sanne and Fatima are already rummaging around inside an office, their lights occasionally flashing into the hallway. Max, for his part, has joined the twins jumping from one pile of rubble to the next.

  I end up following Mirjam, who seems content to work together and chat about soccer without bringing up what happened yesterday. She wedges open office doors and locked cabinets; I help empty them out, sort the contents, and gather whatever she points at. A lot of it is silly stuff, pens and blank paper, but there’s also tech left behind in abandoned corners that we pull apart and take parts of. We find emergency flashlights, a wind-up battery pack. It’s cold as hell without our gloves, but wearing them slows us down too much.

  “Didn’t the ship stock up on these beforehand?” I hold a lined notebook. A corner logo advertises a security firm.

  “Nassau again, I guess.”

  “What d
o you mean?”

  She snorts. “I mentioned the government discarded this ship, right, and that’s how Van Zand got his hands on it? Officially, the Nassau was too much of a risk and time investment for a ship that would only save a few hundred people. Van Zand took a chance on it—but he got a late start. All his time and effort went into finding the right people and equipment to repair the ship and set up a biosphere. You remember what my darling brother said yesterday about how no one minds us leaving the ship? He forgot to mention that so many people have to go in and out for the repairs that they can’t possibly check every entrance. Security is a mess. Admittedly, Van Zand is so antimilitary that everything is a damn mess.”

  Her words take a long time to settle in.

  Mirjam must take my silence for fear. “They know how to set priorities, is all. The ship’ll run just fine. But, yeah, we might be short on paper and furniture and other basics.” She plucks the notepad from my hands and stuffs it into the backpack we’re dragging around. “We won’t need half this stuff, but better to have it than not. Go check that drawer.”

  “They just . . . tell you this?” I ask finally.

  “Of course. Full transparency means more trust and less panic.” The roll of her eyes shows how much stock she places in that.

  “About yesterday—” I start.

  “What about it?” She tucks a lock of hair into her hood. “Everyone’s having a hard time.”

  I suppose she’s right. I only had to set foot outside or turn on the news to see people struggling. In my own house, though, I was the only one to seem affected—Mom and Iris rarely cried.

  Around me, anyway.

  A few minutes later, Mirjam has pried off a plate bolted to a wall. Behind it are tubes, wires, a metal container. “Some kind of fire-safety thing?” she guesses, then shouts for Max, who lights up when he sees it. He instantly starts pulling things apart.

  “And that is why we bring Flaky Boy,” she says, smirking.

  “Shhh. Gimme that crowbar.”

  I hold open the backpack for Max to deposit parts in while Mirjam runs to grab some empty bottles Max says he needs. We go on like that, from room to room, until I know what I’m doing enough to hack open offices of my own. Each time, I take a second to check the windows for that wildfire Mom mentioned, but I must be on the wrong side of the airport, or there are buildings in the way, because I see no trace of it. Then I refocus on the office. I find a lot of the same items Mirjam and I gathered, and check with the others when I find items I’m unsure about. It’s embarrassing to have to ask, but they’re nice about it—sort of, in Sanne’s case—and I sort the items into mental Yes and No boxes easily enough.

  It’s still slow going on my own, though. Even the twins are faster than I am, but no one comes close to Fatima and Sanne.

  “It’s not a contest, you two!” Mirjam calls when they cross each other in the hallway.

  Max laughs his abrupt, loud laugh. He’s been trotting from room to room, providing technical support, musing aloud about dusty security posters, and marking the rooms we’ve covered with a fat pen.

  Sanne absentmindedly offers Mirjam her middle finger and follows Fatima into a different office. I pause by the door, peeking inside. I don’t know if they’re going so fast because they don’t inspect their finds properly, or because they’re just plain fast—but standing at the door for even twenty seconds tells me it’s the latter. They go through each room like a very precise, very organized hurricane. Point flashlight, crack a cabinet, toss out the contents, pluck out this and that as though the necessary items are lit like beacons. Sanne walks past a bookshelf and grabs three books without hesitation.

  “Max! Books!” She slides them to the door, where my feet stop them. By the time Sanne realizes I’m here, she’s already across the room, bending by a desk to pry open the drawers. The flashlight lights her up perfectly. Again I’m reminded of how small she is: I guessed fourteen last night, but from the right angle, she might be twelve just as easily. The tip of her tongue sticks out in concentration. Then she slams the hammer onto the pick wedged into the office drawer, and for that split second, her face is all anger.

  “If it were a contest,” I say, recalling Mirjam’s words, “you two would win hands down. Wow.” I manage to smile, though it’s awkward complimenting Sanne.

  “They’re kinda badass,” Max marvels as he crouches to pick up the books Sanne slid toward my feet. He grins up at me, quick and self-conscious, and I think, If he is flirting, it’s starting to work.

  Maybe I’m just attention-starved: no one’s flirted with me since the smooth, friendly Surinamese boys at Iris’s festivals, and most of them weren’t half as sincere as Max. They just saw a pretty light-skinned girl sitting off to the side and figured they’d try their luck, and they’d do the exact same with the next girl over when I wasn’t what they’d hoped for. The cocky white guys at school weren’t sincere, either—they’d never ask out the awkward Black girl—but every now and then would still leer and comment to get a reaction out of me.

  It’s not that I don’t realize I’m pretty. I do, and I am. It’s just that people have certain expectations of girls who look like I do—confidence and extroversion and sass—and that’s not me. I’ve dressed up in Iris’s clothes and makeup before, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought, I look good; I look like a fraud.

  Baggy sweaters help manage expectations, but they don’t make it any easier to react when boys approach me, anyway.

  I lightly tap my thighs and ask, “Is that . . . I mean, is it necessary to go through the offices this fast?”

  Fatima laughs. She plucks a handful of pens from the mess in front of her. “We do have a hypothetical contest to win.”

  “Won and done.” Max scans the book spines. They’re research, how-tos. “We’ve got all this in the databases . . . Ah, this one, maybe! Nice going, Denise.”

  “I didn’t . . .” But he’s already taken the book and left.

  “S’ OK. You can have the credit,” Sanne says. “You need it more.”

  I think she’s being bitchy again, but then—is that a smile? It’s gone again immediately, but I saw it. She must’ve meant it.

  I get back to cracking open doors and searching rooms, a little faster each time. Whenever I pass through the hallway, though, I see them glancing at me, all nice again. I recognize something else now. Pity. Concern. I might not have noticed if not for Sanne earlier and all my experience with Mom.

  With so many people raiding the offices, I have to walk by at least one or two open doors before I find one that isn’t already being worked on. Every time people see me, there’s that pang of Oh, poor Denise.

  Finally, I half jog until I see Max, sitting slouched against the wall by an open storage closet, as if waiting for one of us to summon him. As I approach, he sits up straighter and shakes off a yawn. “Look what I found.” He roots around for something, then holds up a big plastic container. “Cleaning supplies!”

  I’ve never heard anyone sound so cheerful about cleaning supplies. “I’m going to check out another part of the airport. OK?”

  “We might need the chemicals,” he clarifies. “Meet you here in an hour?”

  “One hour, by the cleaning supply closet.”

  “Do you want to swap bags until then?” He stands and lifts his backpack, letting it dangle in his hand. It’s too small for the jugs of chemicals he found, and the twins are responsible for carrying the books, so the bag is almost empty. “Mine’s lighter.”

  I glance sideways, where Sanne is prying open the nearest office. She’s a head shorter and easily fifteen kilos lighter than I am.

  “Don’t even dare,” she says, though she practically disappears under her backpack, like she’s carrying a kid for a piggyback ride.

  Max shrugs. “I’ve stopped asking.”

  My face feels hot as we swap bags. “Thanks.”

  “And, uh, I don’t know if vouching for you will actually make a differenc
e, but I’ll try.” He eyes me guiltily as he steps closer, as though he needs permission. Glass shards on the ground reflect sparks of light onto his face from below.

  I’m not sure why I think he might kiss me—I’ve been nothing but unapproachable and awkward—but there’s a reason he stands so close all of a sudden. There’s less than half a meter between us. I hear his breath even through the noise of Sanne turning over the nearest office.

  I’ve never kissed anyone. I’m nailed to the floor, wondering what I’ll do if he does lean in. Don’t freak out, I tell myself, and, He’s not a classmate, he’s safe, just calm down, you’re sixteen, this is normal, and, Do I even want this? Shit, I don’t even know if I want this, I can’t think about this right now, I should—

  Sanne calls out for Max’s help. If there was a moment, it’s gone.

  “I’m gonna . . .” I force a one-second smile. Then I scramble away until Max is out of my sight and I can’t even hear the others. I break through a door that takes me into a different hallway, then up a level and another one, with a bunch of knocked-over chairs. My flashlight creeps over the floor, illuminating dirt and glass and leaves, until it drops into black nothing. A moment later, the wind gusting inside almost knocks me off my feet.

  Stay away from where the windows used to be, I note. Glass crunches dangerously under my soles. I try not to think about what just did or didn’t happen with Max. Nerdy white boys don’t usually hit on me. I know what to expect from the boys at the festivals and the boys from school—and what they expect from me—but I can’t slot Max into either category. I don’t know how he sees me.

  I edge my way through the rubble, here, there, until I reach a counter to climb over. Even behind the counter, the wind wakes shivers under my skin. Maybe the dust and dirt blocking the sun are already starting to lower the temperature. Or maybe it’s just January 31 and freezing cold. I crouch and jam the crowbar into cabinets with more force than is needed.