When we got to Divine's,
it was brightly lit. Usually Divine's wasn't open after the dinner hour, but Angela
made an exception for the start and end of the school year, and during Christmas
shopping season. She had hung lights on the wrought iron fence that ran along the
sidewalk. They looked like strings of Christmas tree lights, until we got close
enough to see something spinning slowly inside the tiny glass globes. Stars and
comets and planets.
The gate hung open, and
as I started up the flagstone walk, the front door swung open. A couple people noticed
there was no one visible in the doorway, and they made "Huh?" and "Whoa!"
and other sounds. Nobody freaked out. Maybe they were such movie geeks, so used
to special effects and watching behind-the-scenes specials, they just assumed that
was another special effect.
Nope, just Divine's Emporium
welcoming the new students. I took that as a good sign. The door probably wouldn't
have opened automatically like that if there was even one person in the group who
didn't quite fit with the spirit of Neighborlee.
I was relieved when the
reactions of the people spilling through the doorway into Divine's and immediately
spreading out through the rooms were completely positive. No freaking out. No mutters
or frowns of disdain. No one giving the telltale signs of discomfort that meant
they were already getting hit with the subliminal "go away, you don't belong,
we don't want you here" message. Divine's Emporium liked these kids.
The best sign? No one
flinched or got wide-eyed or even blinked when Angela just seemed to appear from
nowhere. One minute the area behind the counter was empty, the next she was there.
Maybe they just assumed she had been behind the counter, bent down and working on
something.
Looking back, the signs
that everyone belonged should have been a warning. Angela sensed something unusual
about us, and I can't fault her for not warning us of impending trouble. All she
sensed was the potential, and she spilled out the welcome from Divine's. At that
point, the very first day we were all in the dorm, everything was potential and
possibility. The choices we made going forward would refine our path for the rest
of the year.
"Aren't you supposed
to be busy with college activities?" She stepped up and rested her arms on
the thick marble counter.
"All moved in and
free for the evening." Zach fluttered his eyelashes at her and made his good-doggy-begging
gesture, with his hands curved up under his chin.
Angela laughed and reached
back for one of the enormous old-fashioned candy jars, where Zach's favorite candy
waited. Semi-hard diamonds of salted black licorice. Yeah, sounds kind of yech,
doesn't it? I finally gave in and tasted some. Surprisingly good, but still an acquired
taste. That broke the ice. Angela got everyone's name as they stepped up and spotted
a jar of the candy they liked the best. In all the noise and laughter and chatter,
nobody noticed when she reached for a jar before someone asked for it, or knew someone's
name before they told her. She asked a few questions and directed people to various
rooms where "you might just find something you'll like."
"Very interesting,"
she commented as she settled down at the little bistro table with me and Clarice
and Tyrone after about twenty minutes.
Voices rang through the
shop, people calling out to each other that they just had to come see something.
I was positive at least one new room had appeared since the last time I was at Divine’s,
a week ago, looking for a really cool backpack for going to class. Of course I found
it, a combination of army surplus olive canvass with colorful embroidered patches
all over it, looking like I had been all over the world. I had the hope that it
would turn out like Mary Poppins' bag and hold everything I wanted and needed to
put into it. Hopefully with the added benefit of not being any heavier.
"Do I want to know
how you gathered so many like spirits in just a few hours, before orientation even
officially started?" Angela nodded her thanks as Tyrone took over to empty
the tray of our floats made with caramel ice cream and cream soda.
"They're all on the
same floor with us," Clarice said.
"Really? What are
the odds of that?"
"Pretty big odds,"
I said, meeting Clarice's gaze. She nodded. As if I really needed permission to
tell Angela?
I went on to relate what
Pop had learned from Mrs. A, and shared with me, because I had a right to know what
people were doing to me and my classmates. Even if that knowledge might skew the
results of whatever research the psych professors were doing. Maybe lab rats didn't
know what was happening when they ran through mazes and suffered through all sorts
of tests and experiments, but we weren't lab rats.
Our club members among
the freshmen had discussed the experiment, whether it was weird or dangerous. I
thought about pretending to be an anonymous tipster and let the Neighborlee Tattler
know what was up. We agreed not to tell anyone before school started, because honestly,
what could anyone do about it? Demand to change floors within the dorm? Try to get
into different dorms? We basically, and vaguely, agreed to wait to see what happened
with the people on our floor and in the dorm before we said anything.
However, this was the
perfect time to take the conundrum to Angela. As a guardian of Neighborlee, I had
a responsibility to take questionable circumstances to her, or at least present
them to other known guardians. Just in case weird things happened from fiddling
with demographics, and I was too close to the middle to notice.
"Okay, now that we
can see what they did to us, it's kind of weird," Tyrone said. "They sure
weren't putting us together with the other geeks and nerds to be nice, so what do
they think will happen? Why not other statistics or similarities or whatever you
call it? Other than the art and drama kids, we're not grouped together by our majors,
like on the other floors and the other dorm. Is it just me, or do you feel like
we're being singled out?"
"If you are…"
Angela's gaze went unfocused and her eyelids half-lowered.
I could almost hear that
sound I sometimes caught just on the edge of sleep, or when it got very quiet inside
Divine's Emporium.
Sometimes it was the hint
of wind chimes playing in some incredible, vast garden in the very core of the house,
as if the walls were thinner than paper, thinner than air. If I turned at just the
right angle, I might finally see the garden, and wind chimes made of incredible
jewels, with sunshades made of tapestries woven to show otherworldly, ancient scenes.
Other times, like now, I had a sense of music being played somewhere far away, just
below the audible level, on instruments I had never imagined. This was basically
the sound of Angela thinking very hard, and the magic of Divine's Emporium coming
into play.
"I must believe that if anything is to come of having
so many similar, imaginative souls gathered in one place," Angela said slowly,
"then Neighborlee itself might be very glad that several of our own are among
them."
