The Boy in the Tunnel

Fall 1997, Chapter 32: Kenya

Somehow Sarah found a way to be annoying even when she was silent. The flip-flop hanging from her left foot lived up to its name as she joggled her foot up and down, sending the petite slab of purple rubber flipping this way and flopping that way, maddeningly just out of rhythm, almost but never quite working its way out from between the Little Princess's dainty toes.

"Could you stop that?" Sarah's foot froze. The flip-flop wobbled to a stop at the bottom of its arc.

"Sorry." Sarah uncrossed her legs and planted both feet on the floor. Her toenail polish was mismatched: pink on the left, silver on the right.

"It's just distracting, is all."

Sarah nodded but kept her mouth shut. Being in such close proximity to Charlie had rattled her, and every minute they waited in the cramped lobby of the Student Activities Office, staring at the "CHARLIE ST. JAMES" nameplate on her closed office door, only wound her mental springs tighter and tighter. Kenya would have liked to have seen what happened when those springs snapped, if she hadn't been hearing the protesting pings of stretched coils in her own body as well. She didn't want to see Charlie either, and she hadn't even done anything to piss her off. But they had to bring this to Charlie now, before it got out of hand.

You aren't supposed to be in here. That was it. This Alex idiot had gotten ahold of some gunpowder, or this synthetic gunpowder, and he'd communed with Joanie and fucked up her brain. The question was, did he do it on accident because he's a druggie asshole who thinks he's Kurt Cobain, or did he do it on purpose because he's trying to harm the Creatures?

She had no intention of telling Charlie that Joanie was missing, or why. That would only distract Charlie from the real problem.

The lobby door opened, letting a blast of hot air into the air-conditioned office. The air was followed by a guy in the unmistakable garb of a student who woke up at 7:45 for an 8:00 class – pale feet in flip-flops, baggy cargo shorts, a faded, frayed purple Ambassadors T-shirt. He looked like any other basic white guy on campus. His hair was two weeks overdue for a cut, his face two days overdue for a shave, his gut carrying fifteen extra pounds. But he nodded at Kenya as he passed between her and Sarah, and his eyes caught the light coming in through the glass door just right. She saw galaxies, green and gold and brown turning to black.

An office door down the hall opened as the guy approached, and a large bearish man in a blazer stepped out to greet him. "Mr. Moss," he said. "I appreciate you dressing up." The younger guy stepped inside the office, and the older cast a lingering look down the hall at Kenya before he followed and shut the door.

"Kenya." All of a sudden Charlie was there, standing in the open doorway of her office. "Sarah." Sarah wouldn't look at her. "Come inside."

You aren't supposed to be in here. The phrase lingered in Kenya's mind, whispered in Joanie's hollowed-out voice, as she entered the dim, cramped office. She wasn't supposed to be in here. You never wanted to meet Charlie on her home turf, if you could help it. She had a way of seeing you – the real you – and in this office, surrounded by the stacks of books and papers, the sagging shelves of magazine files full of old New Yorkers, and the lingering smell of Thai takeout, her powers increased fivefold. Like a dragon in its lair.

Charlie folded her body, hidden beneath the asymmetrical drape of a diaphanous burgundy garment, into the massive black leather chair behind her desk. There was nowhere for Kenya or Sarah to sit. The guest chairs were occupied by Styrofoam cartons stacked on manila folders stacked on newspapers stacked on books. Charlie stared at them through her huge glasses, opaque in the glare of her desk lamp, the only light in the room.