She turned and started to walk again, a little faster than before. So the guy was a little strange; it didn’t mean he was dangerous. Maybe he just liked to be prepared.
From the backpack, a paw batted her ear. “Yeah,” Gurl whispered. Noodle tapped her again. “What is it?” The cat growled low in her throat, reared up from the backpack and nipped Gurl on the earlobe. “Ouch!” Gurl yelped.
Behind her, a gurgling voice said, “Ouch!”
Gurl whirled around so fast that Noodle almost fell from the pack. The man, who had been at least a block and a half away, now stood just a few feet from her. His overcoat, which had looked fine from a distance, was torn and stained with food and mud and things that Gurl didn’t want to think about. He wore two different shoes, one black, one brown, both slashed at the top to make room for long horny toenails. The umbrella, which he still held low over his face, was lacy with holes, as if someone had sprayed acid on it.
The man giggled, lifting the umbrella just a little, so that she could see the fine grey down that covered his cheeks, the teeth that he had filed to points. “Nice kitty,” he whispered. “Nice, nice kitty.”
And then he said: “Run.”
Gurl took off, running faster than she ever thought she could, Noodle bouncing in the pack on her back. But she could hear the man-thing panting and giggling, the slap-drag of his worn shoes on the sidewalk as he lurched after her. Frantic now, her heart pounding so hard that she thought it would pop out of her mouth, she feinted left but ran right. She could feel something tug at the backpack and heard Noodle’s hiss. “No!” she screamed and stumbled as the pack was wrenched from her shoulders. Reaching back to grab it, she fell to the ground, hitting her funny bone on the pavement and badly bruising her hip. She flipped to her back and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the giggling toothy thing to attack. She could smell his hot breath, stinking of trash and bones and rot.
“Nice?” said the thing. She opened her eyes to see him standing over her, cradling the backpack in one arm. He lifted the umbrella and sniffed the air with a nose that seemed unusually long and mobile, like the nose of a rat. And that’s when she felt the tingling in her hands, in her face, across her whole body, and knew that it had happened again. That the thing couldn’t see her any more.
Slowly and as quietly as she could, Gurl got to her feet. Noodle poked her face from the top of the pack and mewled. Burbling absently, the thing pulled the flap down, sniffing the air. Then he started to shamble back the way he came. Slapdrag, slap-drag. Gurl tiptoed behind him and gave his overcoat a rough tug. The thing grunted and twirled on its short leg, almost stumbling itself. “Bad,” he said. “Bad, bad, bad.”
He clutched the cat tighter and Gurl could hear Noodle’s plaintive mews through the canvas.
“Give me my cat!” said Gurl and she ripped the umbrella out of his hand.
The thing gasped and covered his red eyes with his forearm, as if against a strong light. Gurl dropped the umbrella and grabbed the backpack, which promptly disappeared in her grip. The thing gibbered and wailed, “Kitty! Kitty! Kitteeeee!” She could still hear him wailing two, three, five blocks away. And then she was standing at the gates of Hope House, chest heaving like a bellows, and she couldn’t hear him any more. But she could see herself again, her own arms and legs plainly visible in the dim light. She hugged Noodle close and the animal’s low purr filled her with joy.
“It was you,” she whispered in Noodle’s ear. “Every time I changed it was because I was afraid—not for me, but for you.”
Armed with this realisation, she opened the gate and crossed the yard. She had just slipped around the side of the dormitory when a hot white light blinded her. Someone snatched the backpack and then grabbed the lapel of her jacket.
“Hello, my dear,” Mrs Terwiliger said, reeling Gurl in close.
Chapter 6 Mrs Terwiliger’s Monkeys
MRS TERWILIGER HAD ONE HAND on the strap of the backpack and one hand on Gurl’s arm in a death grip as she half flew, half dragged Gurl across the yard to the main building. “I don’t know what gets into you children. After all I do for you, to just run off like that! And you can stop struggling,” she said. “I might lose sight of you, but I won’t lose you altogether.” She lifted the backpack so that Gurl could see it. “I won’t lose your little friend either.”
More worried for Noodle than herself, Gurl stopped struggling. “Where are you taking us?” Gurl squeaked.
“Where do you think?” snapped Mrs Terwiliger.
Another orphanage? The animal shelter? Jail? Gurl couldn’t imagine. Because of her fear, she tingled all over. It seemed that her body was as confused as her head and flashed an alarming array of colours and textures. One arm was striped like Mrs Terwiliger’s coat, the other arm seemed to be made of red brick. Both her legs somehow mimicked the shadows behind them, so that it appeared she had four instead of two. She kept silent until they reached the front door of the main building.
“Open the door and be quiet about it,” Mrs Terwiliger said. “We don’t want to wake anyone else now, do we? Children need their rest.”
Gurl clutched the brass door handle, noticing that her hand immediately turned the same bright yellow colour. Mrs Terwiliger noticed too. “That’s quite a talent. Better than flying, that talent is,” she said, not talking as much as muttering to herself as she led Gurl down a long dark hallway. At the end of it was a black door, upon which were five separate locks and the words Matron Geraldine Terwiliger in looping golden script.
“Reach into my right pocket,” said Mrs Terwiliger, “and remove the keyring.” Gurl did as she was told, the keys making a faint jingling noise as she pulled them from Mrs Terwiliger’s jacket.
“The silver key opens the top lock,” Mrs Terwiliger told her. “The red key opens the second, the blue key unlocks the third, the gold key opens the fourth and the tiny little key you use on the doorknob.”
Gurl fumbled with the keys, not because it was too dark to see, but because sometimes her hand would turn the colour of the key or the key would turn the colour of her hand.
“I’m waiting,” said Mrs Terwiliger, tapping her high-heeled shoe impatiently. Noodle mewled and Gurl’s hands shook.
Gurl finally managed to unlock the five locks and open the door. “Now,” said Mrs Terwiliger as they stepped inside, “close the door and return the keys to my pocket. Good. Use the chain to turn on the lamp. Ahhh, that’s better, isn’t it?”
The small lamp cast an eerie glow around the office and Gurl gasped when she saw a hundred pairs of eyes gaping at her from all around the room. “What are they?” Gurl asked. Mrs Terwiliger’s overlarge teeth flashed in a wicked smile, but she didn’t answer the question. “Have a seat,” she said, pushing Gurl into a chair next to a huge marble desk. She set the backpack on the desk and produced a set of handcuffs from her left pocket. As soon as she saw them, Gurl tried to rip her arm from Mrs Terwiliger’s grasp, but because of the bruised hip and elbow, she couldn’t move fast enough. One click and Gurl was cuffed to the chair, unable to get away. Mrs Terwiliger sighed, walked around to the other side of the desk, and sat in her own chair, a red velvet one the size and shape of a throne.
“Well,” she said. “Here we are. At least, here I am. If I didn’t know what you were capable of, I might think I was the only one here. I saw that you were starting to…er…fade this afternoon in the hallway. I got curious, so I kept an eye on you. I saw you sneaking in and out of the dorm to bring this animal”—she gestured to the backpack on the desk—“some of your dinner. And then I watched you sneak out this evening, and I waited for you to come back. Did you know that you simply appeared out of nowhere, right in front of the orphanage gate? Astonishing! And