AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Johnnie-O smirked. "And your face won't?"
He had a point. "Okay," said Nick, "but you've got to lose that scowl. I want you to smile like an idiot. Can you do that?"
Johnnie-O took a deep breath and smiled like the best of idiots. He did it so well, it was scary. Probably scary enough for the kids outside to throw bricks. So Nick pulled Johnnie-O aside and whispered to him. "Actually, I'm more worried about Charlie panicking. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on him."
The grin left Johnnie-O's face, and he nodded, accepting this new security detail. "On second thought," he said loudly, "maybe I'll stay here and keep my buddy Charlie company."
Charlie seemed relieved to know he wasn't being left alone.
Nick opened the door and stepped down from the engine. Around him the Afterlights of Atlanta backed away, cautious and guarded. He didn't know whether they had heard of the so-called Chocolate Ogre, but even if they hadn't, seeing a face such as his gave him a psychological advantage. A kind of authority of the uncanny.
"Who's in charge here?" Nick asked them. No one answered right away.
"C'mon--a group this big has to have someone in charge."
There were murmurs in the crowd, and then someone spoke, Nick couldn't be sure who it was. "You mean in charge of us, or all Atlanta?"
Interesting, thought Nick. That meant that there was some sort of structure here. Maybe even a government.
"When I say in charge, I mean in charge," he answered.
The crowd murmured again, and once the murmurs had died down, Nick said, "I'll be waiting." Then he strode back to the train, and prepared for a meeting with the eminent ruler of Atlanta.
They kept Nick waiting in the parlor car for more than an hour. It could have been intentional, or it simply could have taken that long to retrieve the kid in charge. Nick gave them the benefit of the doubt. The kid who finally climbed into the parlor car was a tall and gangly African-American Afterlight, about sixteen or so. The torn, shabby clothes he wore made Nick wonder if perhaps he had been a slave when he was alive, and yet there was a confidence to his stride that bristled with powerful independence. Whatever this boy had been forced to endure in life, he had certainly risen above it here.
He looked Nick over and said, "What's wrong with your face?"
Apparently stories of the Chocolate Ogre had not reached Atlanta after all. He didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed. Either way, he didn't feel like answering the question. "Please sit down," he said. "Let's talk."
;Uh ... uh ... It's not for you." Allie cleared her throat, startled by the way she sounded. She could never get used to the masculine timbre of her voice when she cross-jacked. It was one of several troubling things that came with being temporarily male.
"Well, if it's not for us, then who is it for?"
"The Johnson family."
"Who?" she asked, then realized. "Oh, right. We got things for them every once in a while, once the forwarding order expired."
They had moved--but that could just be her mother and sister, who weren't in the car. She still had no way of knowing if her father had survived.
"Any idea where they went?"
"No," the woman said.
"Wasn't there an accident?" Allie asked. "I heard about it--they lost a daughter."
"I wouldn't know about that. Sorry."
And then Allie asked the big question. "How long have you been living here?"
"Almost three years now."
Allie closed her eyes, and tried to take that in. She had been in Everlost for three years. Unchanged, never aging. Still fourteen. How could so much time have passed?
"Wait a second," the woman said. "Of course, I can't be sure, but I seem to recall something about Memphis. I think that's where they went."
It made sense--her mother had family there ... but did that mean her father had died in the crash, and her mother had sold the house? There were so many questions still unanswered.
The woman shifted the baby to her other hip, getting impatient. "The neighbors might know more, but then a lot of them are just summer renters."
