York: The Shadow Cipher

CHAPTER THREE

JAMIE

While Tess Biedermann was trying to keep her monster cat from eating Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher and Theo Biedermann was losing his head, Jaime Cruz remained blissfully unaware that anything had changed. Despite the commotion in the hallway and Mozart's Fortieth Symphony blasting inside his own apartment, he was fast asleep, big brown feet hanging over the edge of his twin bed. And he would have stayed asleep if his grandmother hadn't thrown open his bedroom door, waded through the piles of clothes and comic books, and given one big toe a hard pinch.

Jaime shot up. "WATCH OUT FOR THE ZOMBIES!"

His grandmother, who he called Mima because shewas like a mother to him, put her hands on her hips, raised one brow. "I am looking at a zombie right now." "Mima?" Jaime said, blinking away dream-images of the shambling undead.

"No," she said. "It's the secretary of state. I'm declaring your room a disaster area." 

Jaime found his glasses on his nightstand and put them on. His grandmother came into focus—short and wiry, thick dark curls shot with silver, her expression the usual mixture of fondness and exasperation.

"What time is it?" he said.

"Time to admit to your long-suffering grandmother that you spent the entire night playing video games. Again."

"Not the entire night," Jaime said, yawning.

"Jaime," she began, pronouncing his name the Cuban way, the J curling like smoke from the back of her throat. In addition to her native Spanish, she spoke five other languages fluently and another three well enough to make polite conversation, and she could ask for the ladies' room or a cup of coffee in a dozen more.

"Mima, it's the first week of summer vacation," Jaime said. "Kids are allowed to stay up playing video games during summer vacation."

"Says who?"

"It's in the Bill of Rights."

"Not the one I read. After breakfast, you can clean up all these books and papers and junk. It's a fire hazard. I won't have a fire hazard in my building, let alone in my own apartment."

"Okay, Mima."

She turned to walk out, stopped, and picked up a drawing from Jaime's desk. He had a Lion-powered tablet his father had sent him but preferred draw-ing on paper. The tablet had a stylus and all sorts of fancy settings, but the smooth, pliable screen seemed so indifferent to his efforts. Paper soaked up the ink, drank it in as if it were thirsty for it.

"Is this a zombie fighter?" said Mima, inspecting the drawing.

"Yeah," said Jaime.

"Not bad. I like the sword. And these are some fancy boots he's wearing."

"See, I told you I wasn't playing games the whole night."

"No, you were drawing cartoons," she said, putting the sketch back on the desk.

"What's wrong with that?"

She looked at that Spider-Man movie poster over his bed—Miles Morales leaping from top of the Morningstarr Tower, shooting webs in both directions. "As long as you keep your grades up," she said, "there's nothing wrong with it."

Jaime didn't answer; he didn't need to. They had this conversation all the time. Jaime would stay up too late with his computer games and his drawings; Mima would worry he was wasting his brains on foolishness and more foolishness; Jaime would point out his straight As; Mima would say that foolishness always catches up to a person sooner or later. Usually, she would launch into a lecture about his mother and the groundbreaking work she had done so many years ago, and his father and all the sacrifices he'd made. But not today. Maybe because it was summer vacation. Maybe because she knew that his best friends, Dash Ursu and Eli Avasthi, were both already at camp and Jaime would be alone till school started again. Maybe she really did like the zombie fighter and his awesome boots.