Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

arm. It looked like she had cut herself on purpose, and I realized it must be some sort of code.

A couple walked by, and even though they looked somehow preoccupied, just like the woman in the booth, the waitress’s body stiffened and she looked to the ground, not speaking until they were past.

“We meet here at midnight. Hide that,” she said, referring to the dollar. “Don’t let them see it.”

Brady quickly stuffed the bill back into his pocket.

“You should go to the school until then. Walk to Mason Street and make a right. You’ll see it at the end.”

“Okay,” Brady said. “Won’t they notice two kids they’ve never seen before going to school?”

The waitress looked confused. “Well, it’s not a real school. Just do what everyone else is doing. No one will notice.”

A man walked into the diner then, and we all turned to hear the little door bells jingle.

“I have to go in. When you get here, you’ll need to know the code word.”

“Okay,” Brady said. “And what is that?”

She looked around again, making sure no one was listening.

“It’s Sage,” she said, before quickly retreating into the diner and closing the door behind her.

The school, if it could be called that, was easy enough to find. It was one of the only structures still standing at the end of the road, surrounded by rows of half-built houses that sat like empty birdcages on either side. I couldn’t tell by looking at them if they had been abandoned halfway through their construction, or if they had once been whole and later dismantled brick by brick until nothing was left but their skeletons.

But the school, which was swarming with people, still stood. Outside, vendors shouted that they had various goods—apples, diapers, even shoes, and long lines of people stood in front of them, waiting for what seemed like a very long time. The line for shoes had dozens of people in it, even though the booth that advertised them on a large sign seemed to be unmanned, and no shoes appeared to fill the empty stacked boxes behind it. I supposed that the people must have been hoping that whoever worked there would be back with an extra supply.

On the other side of the makeshift marketplace was a small outdoor area with a red cross above it. This seemed to be the clinic, and an even longer line of people were waiting there. As we drew closer to the school, I could see that there appeared to be only one woman working in the clinic. She was wearing a traditional nurse’s outfit, complete with a triangular white hat. Nearby stood a small table with a handful of prefilled syringes lined up in a neat fashion and nothing else. As each person sat down, she tied a rubber band around their upper arm and gave them a shot.

I slowed down to watch for a moment before we went into the building, and realized that the woman didn’t seem to be talking to any of the patients, nor did she have any other medicine. People simply sat down and she wordlessly gave them their shot.

“How does she know what’s wrong with them?” I asked Brady, but he only shrugged.

“Don’t stare,” he whispered. “We can’t call attention to ourselves.”

I agreed, and we walked in side by side. I was relieved that we seemed to be dressed the same as everyone else.

A man in a uniform, with some sort of machine gun dangling over his shoulder, approached us. We both froze. He said something in Russian and I quickly glanced at Brady, who shook his head.

“Why are you late?” the man repeated, this time in English.

“Sorry, sir,” Brady said.

“Go in, you’ll miss the lesson.”

Brady nodded and began to take my hand again.

“Eh-eh, none of that,” the man said, grabbing my hand away from Brady’s. He nodded in the direction of the end of the hallway. “Go, young man, or I’ll have to report you.”

He then quickly led me down a separate hall, and all I could do was stare back over my shoulder at Brady as we walked. He must have seen the sheer terror in my eyes as I was dragged farther and farther away.

“Meet you here after school, sis,” he called, trying to keep his voice on an even keel.

I could only nod before the man opened a door and all but pushed me into a classroom.

The room was packed with about thirty to forty students, all sitting in cramped little desks and writing in notebooks. It honestly didn’t look too different from a normal class, except that all the students were girls and there was no teacher in the front of the room. Instead, an old-fashioned tape recorder sat on a desk, reciting phrases in Russian and repeating them in English.

Nobody looked at me as I found a seat on the floor next to several other girls around my age. I pictured Brady being led into a similar room full of boys.

I didn’t have a notebook, so I just sat and listened. A girl next to me saw that I wasn’t writing and looked at me, confused.

“You’ll get in trouble,” she whispered, ripping several blank pages out of her notebook and handing them to me, along with an extra pencil.

“Thank you.” I glanced at her paper and realized she was transcribing everything said on the voice recorder, first the Russian phrase and then the English translation.

I didn’t know how to spell in Russian, of course, so I just scribbled the words phonetically. It was a weird assortment of information, mostly recipes. Apple pie, potato casserole, meatless lasagna, and all followed by details of what to substitute if you’re missing any of the ingredients. Rhubarb for apples. Canned syrup for vanilla. Ketchup for tomato sauce.

I wrote as quickly as I could, but couldn’t keep up with the pace of the recorder.

Another phrase in Russian was quickly etched by the girl to my side, followed by the English:

“President Koenig will rule for one