Chapter Five - Wicked Blank

The boy sat crossed-legged, gazing out the broken door frame at the words JUST JUMP ALREADY QUIRKS painted with Hopper White on the planks outside. They didn’t even have the decency to put the comma. It seemed the neighbors would like them to kindly hurl themselves into the Domus Gulf. How unforgiving. They painted it right on the edge where the boy used to sit with Pa, listening to his stories about the lands beyond their crappy town, that this place wasn’t how life was meant to be; there was more. All they had to do was fight for it, he’d say. “After ya left, Pa,” Gai said in the broken home, his eyes glistened with tears. “All I wanted to do was fix us.”

That battered door on the floor and its shattered frame seemed like the most broken thing the boy had ever seen. Its splinters even had splinters. Maybe it was his imagination, just the culmination of all the destruction around him that painted it extra rough. “A lot’s broken since then,” he said, looking around the small first floor of 76 and all its patchwork character. The staircase rail that broke when eight-year-old Lynd got angry one morning because Ma wouldn’t let her play out on the Board. Gai replaced the rail with an old scooper handle and invented an indoor game where she had to find which hand the dust bunny was under. There was also the giant crack in the small kitchen table top from the time nine-year-old Lynd refused to eat watermoss balls for the fifth time in a week. Ma was particularly hurt about that one. Luckily Hopper White paint was so thick and sticky that when Gai painted over it, the paint filled the crack so that Ma could barely see it.

“But a lot’s been fixed, too,” Gai said, closing his eyes and letting the memories glide passed his mind’s eye. “Better than doin’ nothin’. I just try to fix it.” A buzzing grew in his belly again. It was a warm feeling. “But where do I even start, now? Everything’s in pieces. Not just the house . . . Ma, Pa, Lynd . . .”

His mother’s voice came to him, clear as a yelling horn. “Give our door a fix, yeah?”

Gai opened his eyes, got to his feet, and marched to the broken Izz door with its hinges strewn around it. He picked up their graffi‐ tied door and walked it back into the frame. As he set it in place, a smile came over him. The warmth in his belly grew. “Gotta have a fixed house for everyone to come back to.”

As he pressed the door firmly back to where it belonged, Gai felt a jolt cross between his palms and the wood. A brilliant blue spark lit up the edges of the frame like someone was outside, shining a light toward the door. He backed away, his nerves tingling, “S-Someone there?” he called. He bent down to peer through a keyhole. No one was there. He put his ear to the wood. No footsteps were running away. “Maybe storm lightnin’?”

The buzzing in his belly seemed even stronger. Assuming it was just because he was startled, he picked up the hinges to continue his work. He tried wiggling the bottom hinge back into place, but the frame was too torn up. “Balls at ya.” His brow sweating, the boy played with different angles, to no avail. “A’way! If I can’t fix a door, what chance to have of fixin’ my fami—Ah!” Another jolt erupted from his hands, with a lovely blue glow still surrounding his fingers. He let go of the hinge and scooted back, shaking his hands like the glowy light was Hopper White paint he wanted off as soon as possible.

The glowing ceased quickly. Strange as that was, Gai’s attention laid on the hinge he’d just let go. It didn’t fall. It was stuck in the frame as if it was never broken.

“What in Esa?” He felt the frame, expecting a good splinter prick in the pinky. But no. Smooth as it was before. Maybe even smoother. “By Zeea.” Gai’s mouth hung. “Was that me?”

The room was getting pretty dark, but it looked to him like the splintered wood had somehow reformed around the hinge. The boy was still in shock. He knew about Lynd’s destruction, but maybe there was another side to that power? Gai shot to his feet, ready to yell in celebration. But — gurgle grr — his stomach suddenly roared with an immense hunger. He bent over from the cramping and waddled into the kitchen. “Oh, please at ya, hope ya made some watermoss balls, Ma,” he said, frenziedly feeling the nearly bare cabinet shelves. He felt a group of the squishy morsels, “Thanks at ya!” and shoveled three of them in his mouth. “I’ve never been so hungry in all my life!” Then he swallowed three more.

The boy looked back at their graffitied but almost fixed Izz door. He looked at his hand, where that blue glow had emerged. “Fixin’,” he said, as more memories flashed in. Images of Lynd breaking pieces of wood in her hand and tearing up Boulie Board came. “Breakin’.” He paused to chew over his own words as he picked some watermoss from his teeth. “Lynd and Pa had breakin’ tricks . . . I just did a fixin’ one.” Gai looked at his hand. “Can I use it to fix us?”

He walked back to the door, picking up the last hinge on the way. He ran two of his fingers over the fixed frame and slid the hinge easily into place. Two thin pins fastened it all together. As the Izz family’s fixed front door opened without a single creak, he said, “Not bad, for a sogg.”

Gai stepped out onto Boulie in the cooling night air. He looked down at the carnage left by the Lady Merry. Walking to the Board edge, he said, “A’kay, Ma. First, I’ll find out what happened on that ship and get ya free. Then, I’m gonna put us all back together.” Gurgle grr. “After I eat!” He immediately turned back inside to grab three more watermoss balls. “So hungry! Guess that blue fixin’ trick has a price. I don’t remember Lynd gettin’ this hungry with her tricks . . .”

Once his appetite was fixed, he went back outside and lowered his body back into the wooden matrix of the Under Board. Gai once again made his way toward the center under his neighbors’ homes with the rushing gulf water just a short fall beneath. Step. Pivot. Round to the next. By the time he was under Tanning’s Vice House, his mother was already inside with a packed crowd yelling and deciding how the trial should go down. I say drop her in the gulf, already!

“Hang in there, Ma. I’ll figure this out.” He trailed the destructive path caused by the unhelmed Lady Merry all the way to its resting spot in the mayor’s home. Of course, Tanning was out conducting a sham trial, but Gai politely knocked on a collapsed ceiling beam as he climbed in just in case. “Hello? Anyone here tonight?”

Silence. Just a big, open room with a ship stuck in it. There wasn’t even an attempt to lock the scene up. Perhaps Tanning thought he had nothing of value anymore and just left it all out for some scoopers to take. In fact, the boy suddenly wondered how in Esa the place wasn’t already crawling with scoopers? This was their favorite kind of salvage — free. Even though everything in there was wrecked, that wasn’t a bad deal. Gai put his hand over his stomach, thinking about how much his belly would growl if he tried to use that blue trick to fix everything in this place. And just what was that blue trick, anyway? He tiptoed through the crumbled mess inside, accidentally stepping his foot right on some of Tanning’s pointiest knickknacks. Yoow!

Gai then seamlessly limped from Tanning’s living room into the ship’s hull. Again, politely knocking as he officially entered the Merry. “Hello? Anyone in here?”

Clunk! A barrel fell somewhere in the shadows of the hull. Its cover rolled up and hit Gai’s knee before toppling over. Pins and needles rushed over his skin. He walked backward out of the ship, back into Tanning’s living room. He hit a wall this time, which was oddly cushiony. And moist.

A low voice roared, “Off my gut, quirk!”

Before he could even turn, a hand came and smacked Gai to the ground. Creepy laughter and thumping boot steps poured out of the hull as some more scruffy youngsters walked out, filling up Tanning’s living room. The boy pushed himself to his feet.

His attacker laughed and tapped an electri lamp, giving the room and everyone in it a yellow hue. “Funny. Ya know yer rich in Hop when ya can get Electri toys like these,” the young man who hit Gai said. “But my dad told me they used to get ‘em shipped by the hundreds back in Wiket.”

As the small, yellow light flickered, Gai counted at least fifteen other Wikets emerging from all over the wreckage. All of them had something in their hands they were rummaging through; a stack of crumbled paper, a drawer, and one was even inside a barrel.

“Juuse,” said the boy, pointing to the lamp. “Guess we’d all be happier if ya just left for Wiket. Thought it was just me.”

Juuse Toho was the notorious, thick-skulled, patchy-bearded leader of the Wicked Wiket scooper gang. He dressed like he only scooped rubber mats and smelled like an old fish net. His ghostly complexion meant he almost never left the Under Board, unless at night. He claimed to be sixteen, but rumor had it he was only fifteen. “Happy. That’s right. And while those ‘adults’ rattle on about who stunk up the Board last week, we’d actually like to do somethin’ about it. We want off this death heap!”

“We all do!”

“Where’s that annoying sister of yers, Izz? I owe her a kick for that mouth of hers.”

Gai said nothing.

Juuse laughed. “Relax, ya little sogg. We already heard ya killed her. Guess I’ll be givin’ that kick to ya, then?”

“I didn’t kill her!” Gai said as Juuse stepped closer. “Stop!” The boy raised his hand and clenched his teeth, hoping his little blue light trick would come and save him. Somehow. Anyhow. But nothing came out.

Juuse grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. “Or what?” “Ack!”

The leader of the Wikets threw him on the ground again, “Ya think anyone cares about anythin’ in Hop, quirk? Unforgivin’ as the sea we sit on.” He went to kick the boy, but stopped, seeming satisfied at making Gai flinch. “No. No. I need ya around. Yer gonna tell us how’d that daddy and sister of yers left here.”

Gai inhaled a bunch of floor dust and coughed it out. Apparently, he still had a lot to learn about those fixin’ tricks, — like how to use them when it mattered. Rising for the second time, he said, “Figure out the currents.”

“What do ya think we’re doin’ here, dumperhead? We’re here to figure out how they sailed outta here. There must be some trick to it!”

“I know how,” Gai said, almost unconsciously. He immediately regretted saying it, but couldn’t stop. Ma was counting on him. Time was ticking. “Uncle Baald and Pa thought they came up with a way. A bunch of maps called the Current Current maps. It was just an idea . . . until they were forced to try.”

“I won’t stay here. I won’t!” said Juuse. “Tell me where these stupid maps are or we’ll tie ya to the Under Board!”

“Tie me to the Under Board, and none of ya are goin’ anywhere.”

“Look,” Juuse relaxed his arms by his side, “we got families to look out for, too. How can ya know how to break out of a prison and not tell the rest of us?”

Gai sighed. Tick tock. “I’m in the middle of somethin’. If ya leave me alone, I promise to help ya later.”

Juuse pointed to the Merry’s exposed hull. “Ya march on in there. Fetch them Current whatevers. And bring ‘em here. Once we got ‘em, I could care less what ya get into.”

My, that certainly was a primitive odor coming from the Wicked Wiket leader. Sweat, dirt, and intimidation. Gai looked around the room. Not a single one of them moved. How was Ma’s trial going? Tick tock. “Fine,” he barked, stepping back out of the ship. “But they’re not inside.”

It was only by chance he knew where the Current Current maps were, anyway. Five years ago, before Baald left with sick Stav, Gai happened to catch his father shoving those maps into the Lady Merry’s figurehead. Anyone who knew Stav Izz, which was basically just his children, Mape and Uncle Baald, knew he had big dreams. No bigger dream of his was the one to get his family off Hop someday. If there was a way, he was going to find it.

Stav enlisted Baald, who was a solid sailor in his day, to examine the currents and how they changed during the year. Did they precede a storm? Did they get worse during the winter? They watched how junk passed by in the water. The result was their special Current Current maps. They figured out that once a year, a ship weighing a certain amount, and sailed just rightly around the gulf, could theoret‐ ically make it to an area close to Electri’s docks safely. It was an outrageous plan. And involved shifting sets of maps to use during different phases of the journey. When Gai saw Pa stuffing them secretly into the figurehead’s mouth, they weren’t ready to actually try the sail yet. But when Stav became ill, they must’ve been forced to take the risk and go.

Gai stepped out to the hole where Tanning’s living room and the Merry met. He squeezed himself between them, again wiggling his way outside the hull and the broken Under Board beams. As he shimmed down, the boy heard a noise in the gushing water below — Mrraaw.

“Was that?” In the dark, all he could see was what looked like a slightly darker circle peeking up from the surface near the lowest Under Board posts.

Mraaw!

“Em?” Gai gasped. “Emilie?” He quickly hurried down as close to the water as he could. It sounded like her, but whatever was in the water was not the little pet he held in his hand earlier that day. “It can’t be! Yer big as a boat!”

Mraw. A person-sized turtle head popped up.

Gai reached to pet her and felt the telltale scar near her mouth. “Ya are Em . . . How’d ya grow so fast?” He tried leaning off one of the beams to touch her big round shell, but the rise and fall of the heavy waves made it too risky.

Emilie cried out again and swam around quickly in a circle, weaving between the support beams.

“Wow, yer a good swimmer!”

Emilie began chomping at some of the trash that floated passed. He laughed, “Growin’ is hungry work, yeah?”

Mraaww.

The boy paused. “Don’t suppose ya found Lynd or Pa out there yet?”

Emilie turned her head out to sea and began swimming away from the Under Board.

“All’s a’kay,” he said, climbing back up. “I’ll keep lookin’, too. Come at 76, later!”

As the boy ventured back to the ship’s hull, a smile grew on his face. Emilie actually came back after being lost. A bond unmade then remade. It was reassuring to see that friendships could be fixed as well as doors could. What was to stop a family from being fixed, then?

Gai climbed to the Merry’s figurehead, a woman bursting with a wave and a mug of vice in her hand. The crash appeared to break her cheerful arm off, however. Lady lost her Merry. “Unc wouldn’t like seein’ her like this.” The boy reached into her mouth and felt around for the maps. He didn’t feel anything but an empty hole. “Balls at ya, they moved ‘em? Or they fell out. How can I get the Wikets to leave without ‘em?” Tick tock. The boy began wiggling his way back down to the hull’s hole through Tanning’s house, wondering if he could quickly draw some fake maps instead.

As soon as he stepped back inside the Merry, he saw the leader of the Wicked Wiket scooper gang sitting down with his head between his knees, “Juuse? Ya’kay?” The other Wikets were all still there, too. But some were touching the hull walls with a dazed look, like they were wondering if it was made of food or something. Others were walking in circles and staring at the floor. No one was talking.

“‘Ey!” Gai shook Juuse’s shoulder. “Zeea’s name’s gotten into ya?”

“Eh? Who’s askin’?” he said, glancing up and rubbing his fore‐ head. “The Wikets already claimed this ship, get out!”

Gai stood there, wondering if maybe he was the one who’d lost touch with reality. “We made a deal . . . The quirk. Remember?”

“Deal?” Juuse sat up slowly and blinked a few times. “I don’t even know how we got here . . .”

Gai then noticed a small black booklet right by Juuse’s leg. It said Loa on it in big Hopper White letters. He couldn’t believe his luck; that thing might have good information about where the ship had been. A perfect place to look for evidence that might convince the Hoppers to leave Ma alone.

He walked to the Wicked Wiket leader and said, “Ya wanted to get back home.” While doing so, he stealthily snatched the book and held it behind his back. “Ya made me go outside and check the ship’s condition. The quirk?”

“That . . . sounds like me,” Juuse mumbled. “Wikets!” he yelled, gesturing for everyone to get out of the Merry. “Grab what ya can outta Tanning’s on the way out!” Before he left through the cracked hull, Juuse turned and gave Gai another confused look.

“‘Ey,” the boy said to him. “Yer gonna get to yer family in Wiket someday.”

He blinked a few more times and left without another word.

With the ship empty, Gai sat on an uncomfortable barrel. What‐ ever insanity just struck the Wicked Wikets could wait. Mamma Mape’s trial was waiting for proof that she had nothing to do with what happened on the Lady Merry. He immediately opened up Baald’s log and flipped around. “It goes right from Day 234, when they docked in Electri, to . . . Day 1631? And that’s the last entry . . . Where were they all that time?”