Zenobia July Read online

  “Wait, what?” said the teacher.

  “Mr. Walker,” said Zen, forgetting to feel self-conscious at all. In her element. “You have malware on your computer. A keylogger. Someone is capturing all your keystrokes and sending them somewhere.”

  “You could tell that in one minute?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s easy to find if you know what to look for.”

  “And how did you know—” The bell rang. Mr. Walker’s face shifted. “All right, then, thank you, Zen,” he said. “What should I do?”

  “Um, the thing is, I’m late for my next class.”

  Mr. Walker tore a sheet off a notepad and scribbled something on it. “Right, of course,” he said, handing her the paper. “Give this to your next teacher.”

  “And don’t turn your computer on again until you know what to do,” Zen said.

  “But my lesson plan . . . all right.”

  “Okay. Thank you for this.” Holding up the note.

  “Thank you, Zen. Seriously, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  In the hall, bustling to second period, she peeked at the note. “Please excuse Zen’s lateness,” it read. “She was rescuing me from a Key Logger. Girl’s got chops.” Zen blushed again, this time from pleasure. So nice to have one’s talent recognized, even for such a simple and easy thing.

  SEVEN

  ENTERING THE CAFETERIA, Zen was relieved to see the same three people at the same table as yesterday. She started to weave her way toward them, but then saw a face pointed her way from another table. The girl from Mr. Walker’s class, what was her name? Melissa. She was sitting with a couple of other clean-cut kids.

  When their eyes met, Melissa did a wave that was clearly not just a greeting, but an invitation too. Zen did a lightning calculation, then smiled and waved back in a casual way that returned the greeting, but pretended she hadn’t noticed the invitation part. Then she continued on her original course. It had been a near thing, getting to school this morning. Almost, she had felt too afraid. And she was farther along in the possibly-making-friends department with the orphan misfits. They felt safer.

  Heys all around as she sat down, with an extra nod to Arli, acknowledging their new text connection. Then the talk that had been going on resumed, and she realized it was a language lesson. Dyna was teaching Clem the names of colors in French. “Vert,” Dyna said, pointing at the wall, which was green.

  “Vair,” Clem repeated.

  “Good,” said Dyna. “But the French R is different from how you say it here in America. You must make a sound in the back of your throat. Like, what do you call it when you put water in your mouth and . . .” She tipped her head back, made a noise.

  “Gargle,” said Arli.

  “Yes, thank you, that. You must gargle the R.”

  “Vair-r-r,” gargled Clem.

  “Yes, that is good! Now: Le mur est vert. The wall is green.”

  Clem repeated the phrase, and Zen and Arli exchanged a glance. His accent sounded really good.

  “Excellent!” said Dyna, smiling.

  “Language chima,” said Arli approvingly.

  Clem said, “Language what now?”

  “Chima,” said Arli. “It’s a word from the Nezel language. It’s sort of like a cross between ‘expert’ and ‘genius.’ Or like ‘geek.’ I say I’m a word geek, but I could also say I’m a word chima.”

  “Nezel?” said Zen.

  “Yeah. From Nezelia.”

  Zen squinched her face. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Lots of people haven’t. It doesn’t exist anymore. But my father’s family came from there. It’s my heritage.”

  “Cool,” said Clem.

  “That word you were saying made me think of it,” said Arli. “‘Veir’ is a word in Nezel too.”

  Clem opened his mouth to ask another question, but Zen interrupted. She had just popped the top on another Aunt Phil plasticware tub and was making ick-face at its contents: a viscous green liquid full of what looked like tiny beads. “Ew,” she said. “What is it?”

  Once again three pairs of eyes examined her lunch. This time, though, no one had any sure answers. “Is it maybe a kind of soup?” Dyna ventured. Clem said, “It looks like pond scum.” Zen tipped the tub and the green stuff oozed stickily up the side. Arli said, “Star fights back gag reflex star.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” said Zen.

  Arli said, “May I taste it?”

  “I guess? If you really want?”

  Arli dipped a delicate pinky-tip. Tasted. Made a face. Delivered a verdict: “It tastes the way lawn-mowing smells. Like grass clippings chopped up in a blender.”

  Zen scowled and put the lid back on the container. Her eyes stung, and she shook her head, berating herself silently. Seriously? Gonna cry about a yucky lunch? But as the table-chat moved on to other topics, she had to keep her head down. The green goop came as yet another blunt reminder of how far she was from everything she had ever known in her life before.

  The dry pita triangles that made up the rest of her lunch offered no comfort whatsoever.

  INTERLUDE: SEEING ZEN

  Aunt Phil

  Chickadee flew right into our hearts, gotta say. She hadn’t been here two weeks before Lu and I, we both just fell in love. Such a fierce bright morsel of humanity.

  Terrible what she had to go through to get here, though. Such a shame. Out there in that trailer, and her dad going deep loopy on the Bible-thumping and such toward the end, I guess. No doubt he had his reasons—as many different paths through life as people walkin’ ’em, and each one groovy in its way, I suppose. But all the same, keeping her locked down like that. It amounted to house arrest, it did. Child abuse, really. I mean, that’s awful to say, but, look at it. Locked away. That’s just wrong. And cruel. And . . . well, I can’t say all the way down to the bottom how dark that feels to me.

  But, Zen, our baby Zen, she has some fiber in her, know what I mean? To hold on to who she was and is through all of that, and come out still able to speak her truth on the other side. Never been a parent, but now I got a pretty good idea of what that pride feels like. To look at a young one in your charge when they face the trouble of the world with such grace. And, gosh, look at me leaking around the eyes. Got me all emotional.

  Anyway, we’re just so pleased to have her in our lives. What a treasure, that girl. What a treasure.

  EIGHT

  THURSDAY AT LUNCH, Arli and Clem were talking on banana phones. They kept glancing at Zen and Dyna, seeking response to their brilliant fruit-based sketch comedy. The two girls looked back, unsmiling. “Nothing?” said Arli.

  Dyna said, “Excuse me, please. I do not understand what you are doing.”

  “Being funny,” said Clem. “Or trying, anyway.”

  Zen would have laughed if she hadn’t been distracted. She was listening to the gamers two tables away. Of course she had already marked them. How could she not? The jargon. Easter egg. NPC. And that way of talking that never admits but is totally based on everyone caring who is better. From what she had been able to hear so far, they were all scrubs. No surprise there.

  Arli said, “What is the smallest possible unit of humor? A giggle? How about . . . Wait, I’ve got it. A snark!”

  Zen answered Arli’s eager-for-a-laugh expression with a movement of the head that said, I’m listening. Arli’s forehead furrowed. To what? Zen pointed with head and eyes back over her shoulder. Arli glanced, made a face. Who cares about them?

  Zen cared. Someone was describing a familiar-sounding gameplay moment, but she wasn’t sure yet if it was what she thought it was. She risked a peek. The speaker had wire-frame glasses and a button-down shirt. The others listened intently. But then talking kid stopped talking, because someone else had arrived at the table. The boy from Mr. Walker’s class. Robert.

&nbs
p; “Hey, Chopper,” someone said. Fists were bumped. Robert sat down and took over the story from Wire-Frame Glasses, and a word he said confirmed which gaming platform they were talking about. A word, it was fair to say, that nobody else in the whole school knew the meaning of better than Zen did. The whole state, for that matter. The whole country.

  The word was Lukematon.

  Only he was saying it wrong.

  “It’s the best platform in the world,” Robert said. Okay, that much was true. “It’s still pretty new, so it isn’t all that big yet, but it’s going to be huge.” Also true. “It’s named after the person who invented it.” Wrong. Zen gripped the table. Arli, Clem, and Dyna were all staring at her. “He’s a recluse, and he lives in a fortified compound in Montana.” Repeating one of the rumors Zen knew was going around the boards. Her brows bunched heavy and low. She shifted to rise.

  “What are you doing?” Clem whispered.

  “Mister Thinks He Knows Everything over there doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “So?” said Clem.

  “Yeah, what’s it to you?” said Arli.

  “So, he’s wrong.”

  “How do you know?” asked Clem.

  “It would take a long time to explain, but I know.”

  Arli said, “Okay, fine. Let him be wrong.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because for a second it looked like you were going to go over and talk to him.”

  “I was. I am.”

  Clem said, “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s a total dickwad, and he won’t take kindly to being shown up by a girl.”

  Zen relaxed her frown long enough to give Clem a quick ghost of a smile—for the assumption of her skill, but especially for girl. “That’s his problem.”

  “He’ll make it your problem,” said Clem.

  Arli said, “Star draws finger across throat star. What were you, homeschooled?”

  “Since you ask, yes.”

  That was good for a silence at the orphan misfit table. Robert could be heard spouting on. “It’s hosted out of Finland because he doesn’t want anyone to know where he is. The only thing anyone knows for sure is the name: Luke Maton.”

  This was more than Zen could bear. She bolted up and out of reach before Arli could restrain her. She strode to the gamer table. Robert cut off in the middle of a sentence. Zen found herself facing five or six pairs of unfriendly eyes. She didn’t care. Her voice came out loud, with a touch of a shake in it. Someone not paying enough attention might have thought she was close to tears. That someone would have been wrong. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Robert and his cronies sat unmoving. The situation was unprecedented. No one seemed sure what to do. At length Robert shook himself and said, “What? Who are you?”

  “It’s not Luke MATT-on. It’s LUKE-eh-mah-tohn. One word, four syllables, accent on the first. And it’s not a person’s name.”

  “Who are you?” Conversations had fallen silent at other tables. A good part of the cafeteria watched and listened.

  “And the creator doesn’t live in Montana. Dot F I is for Finland—you got that part right at least—but it’s not a routing. The creator lives there.”

  Robert had his hands open now, looking around, like, You all saw, I was just sitting here and this crazy girl came up and attacked me.

  “LUKE-eh-mah-tohn,” Zen repeated, voice still shaking. “Put it into any good translator. It’s a Finnish word. It means ‘countless.’” Then she stood there, breathing hard and staring at him.

  Robert stared back. Other people stared too. Zen’s gaze wavered first. She looked around. So many eyes. Suddenly she quailed, turned, and scuttered back to Arli’s table. A ripple of laughter followed her. One more quick glance. The gamers were chattering and scoffing, except for Wire-Frame Glasses, who was gaping.

  “What got into you?” Arli asked, looking appalled.

  Zen had no answer except hands up to hide her burning cheeks.

  NINE

  THERE WERE OTHER frictiony things with the Aunties besides weird lunch food. For example, it felt like they had company over practically every evening. The apartment was small. The room they had given Zen was right off the living room. There was no easy way to avoid hearing. And all of the Auntie-friends liked to talk, and some of them laughed really loudly. Zen felt bad that it bothered her, but it did. The noise pressed on her. After a while the walls started to loom in and her breath came short.

  She didn’t feel like she could complain, though. The Aunties had been so kind, making space for her in their previously child-free lives. She felt like she already owed them more than she could ever pay back.

  Also, growing up in the family she had, she feared anger. Back home in Arizona, her father had set the tone. Life had consisted of long, simmering silences punctuated by sudden explosions. She had hated it . . . even though she had also participated in it herself. Unable to avoid picking up the routine, immersed in it as she was. And it did express a never-tamed thing inside her. Like today in the cafeteria. When the rage welled up, she felt like she had no choice except to surrender and let it carry her where it would.

  To be fair, neither of the Aunties had ever blown up at her. Zen kept getting drawn back to Aunt Phil’s eyes. She had been unable to find any anger in them. But she didn’t feel ready to trust that yet. As for Aunt Lucy, she was harder to read. She had an edge to her, for sure. And she was Zen’s father’s sister. They had grown up in the same family. She seemed like she could explode too, in the right circumstances.

  Thank God, then, for Cyberlandium. The place she had discovered her natural genius. The place she had still been able to be someone when she had not been allowed to be someone in the actual world.

  In her room, homework done for the evening, Zen sat down in front of her laptop, put headphones on to shut out the racket of Auntie-friends over for dinner, and brought up a stream of vintage country. Pining for the old days, even though they sucked so bad. She opened the Lukematon portal. The confrontation with Robert had awakened a desire to walk the secret tunnels once again. Before she could sign in, though, a chat window popped up. Arli.

  Zen sat back for a second. Tammy Wynette twanged in her ears. Did she want to engage? Yeah, okay, sure. Lukematon could wait.

  I repeat: What got into you?

  You again.

  Well, hello to you too.

  Neener neener.

  What are you, five years old?

  Of course not.

  Well, act your age.

  Jeezum, you’re bossy.

  *nods*

  *shrugs*

  I repeat: I repeat: What got into you?

  You think that’s cute.

  But it’s not.

  And don’t even think of doing three.

  Fine

  But you should know, I don’t erase half-typed texts for just anyone. Why so crabby?

  Are you there?

  Yes

  Uh-oh, your punctuation is disappearing.

  This is serious.

  You are so annoying.

  Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.

  And I really do want to know.

  Want to know what?

  What got into you.

  He just thinks he’s so smart, is all.

  But he doesn’t have a clue.

  So?

  It just makes me mad.

  Why?

  I can’t explain. It just does.

  All right, let me ask you this instead: How come you know so much about Lukematon?

  Long st
ory.

  I love long stories.

  Also, none of your business.

  Wow, you really are crabby, aren’t you?

  So what if I am?

  Good thing I’m so unrufflable.

  I don’t think that’s a word.

  OK, then, how about equanimitous?

  I don’t think that’s a word either.

  It is now.

  I have to go.

  Was it something I said?

  No. Aunt Phil just called dinner.

  Don’t you mean Uncle Phil?

  Now that you mention it, sort of.

  Big-eyes face.

  I’d like to meet this rentsib.

  Rentsib?

  You totally made that up.

  Yes, I did.

  What does it mean?

  Parent Sibling.

  It’s a way to say aunt or uncle without gender.

  Oh. Cool.

  I really do have to go now.

  OK, bye.

  But, thank you.

  You’re welcome.

  Um, for what?

  You were right, I was crabby.