Hanna and Peter

She took a package of cigarettes out of her pants pocket and held it out to him; he shook his head. Smoking was a serious offense, but she seemed perfectly comfortable as she pulled out a cigarette with her lips, lit the match with one hand and brought it to the tip of the cigarette, then flicked the match down in to the void ."Let's see," she continued, blowing out smoke. "The thing I can't figure out is, are we aboveground, underground, or what. I mean, if we knew we were aboveground, the way out would be down there; if we knew we were underground, the way out would be up. Could you tell, when they brought you here?"

"No."

"Neither could I. That must have been part of it, the rats; not to let us know where we are."

"What—" He hesitated, then went on. "What was the … the trick you said you did?"

"Huh? Oh, that!" She smiled. It was a conspiratorial smile; and her eyes, wrinkling at the corners, lost some of their wariness. "See, there's this big cow of a matron at the house I live in, and she really hates my guts. God, all the extra stuff I always have to do! And lectures, 'Young ladies don't do this, young ladies don't do that,' it all made me want to puke. So the other day …" She giggled, "I snuck into the science room (you can get past the electric eyes if you crawl, you know), and there's this snake there, in a cage. Just a black snake, scared to death of people. So I broke open the cage and took the snake—"

"You picked it up?"

"Sure. Why not? And I took it down the hall—I had to hide it under my shirt so they wouldn't see it on the video screens—and got into the matron's room. That was kind of tricky, I had to get in through the window by climbing out along this ledge with that snake squirming all over me. And then I put it in her bed, and got the hell out of there. Not that it made any difference; she knew it was me, of course."

"But what happened?"

"Well, I sort of wanted to hang around that end of the building, but of course there's bed check, and anyway, it would have been kind of suspicious. It didn't matter in the end, the way she yelled, the whole dormitory heard it. Everybody sat up in bed, saying, 'What's that? What's that?'" She mimicked mousy feminine voices. "But I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to give myself away." She took a deep drag on her cigarette and dropped it casually over the edge. "They dragged me into her office the next morning, and she didn't even bawl me out, she was just real quiet and tense, it was kind of scary. But worth it, to hear the old cow scream like that…. Anyway, that was two days ago, and now they blindfold me and bring me here. I thought it was because of that, but now, I don't know."

"Mmmm," Peter said.

"You sure don't talk much. What's your name? Mine's Hanna."

"Peter."

"How old are you? I'm sixteen."

"So am I."

"Hmmm, that's also kind of interesting. Both from state 'homes'"—she said the word with an ironic twist—"and both sixteen."

"I don't care if it's interesting or not," he forced himself to say. "I just want to get out of here. I hate it!"

"Well, if you hate it so much, kiddo, why don't you do something about it?"

"Oh, I don't know…." His voice trailed off again from its brief emotional burst, returning to the barely audible murmur in which he habitually spoke. "What is there to do? Just …" He sighed, "just wait until they come to get us out."

"But who says they're gonna come and get us out, huh? I'm not gonna wait around in this … this …" She gestured, "this … place till some administrator out there remembers we're here. I'm gonna find the way out. And if you don't want to stay here till you starve to death, I'd advise you to come with me. I don't know what they're trying to do, but I don't trust them, not one little bit. Come on!"

"But…." He remembered how confidently she had negotiated the steps, and his own fears. But she was probably right; his only hope was to go with her. He got to his feet, rather unsteadily, not looking down.

"Now, up or down? Don't you have any ideas?" She paused only briefly. "All right, I'll say … down. This place is just too big to be underground."

And she started down the steps at a quick pace. He began following her very slowly. It was horrible; every time he took a step he pictured himself plunging forward into empty space. He went carefully, setting both feet firmly on each step before descending to the next. Very soon she was far below him. She stopped to wait for him at another small landing.

"Can't you go any faster?" she said when he approached. "We'll never get anywhere at this rate."

"But I …" he began. It was useless; she, who was so unafraid, would never understand. The hopelessness of the situation rose up inside him in a wave of self-pity. He swallowed, unable to keep his eyes from filling with tears.

She was watching his face. "Oh, well," she said, her voice suddenly softer. "Big deal. It probably doesn't make any difference anyway. Go as slow as you want. I'll stay with you," She kept just ahead of him as they went on, turning back often to talk. "So what's your life story? What about your parents? Did you ever know them?"

"No. I … can't remember anything about them. They told me that my father … died in the war—"

"Same as everybody else."

"—and my mother … she died in a car crash."

"What kind of place they put you in?"

"Oh … different ones."

"Yeah? What were they like?"

He thought of the first place, the one they had moved him from just three years ago. It had been an old building, with windows that opened and every room a different shape, with beds and desks that weren't part of the wall and they let you move around the way you wanted. The one where the matron had especially liked him, and the teachers had been interesting and kind. The one where he and Jasper had been roommates, and best friends. Jasper, who had always taken care of him. He would probably never see Jasper again….

"Well?"

"Oh." He had forgotten where he was, losing himself in memories; but somehow he had managed to keep walking. "I was in one place … for a long time. It was … it was real good there."

She looked back, noticing the new sound in his voice, then turned quickly away.

"But then, they moved me, three years ago, to another place—"

"The rats!" she interrupted quietly, but with surprising vehemence.

"—that was real big, and … I didn't know anybody. Then they kept moving me to different ones, because I kept … not adjusting. And then, today I thought, I thought they were just taking me to another one."

"Yeah," she said, and stopped walking.

They had reached another landing, where the stairway divided into three parts: two flights going up, and a narrow bridge without railings fifteen feet long, connecting to another flight. There was still no bottom in sight, just more stairs crisscrossing below them.

"We're not getting anywhere," Hanna said, looking down. "Except it seems like there's more stairs down there, closer together." She turned to him. "Listen, we're gonna have to cross that bridge. I know you don't want to, but it's the only way to keep going down. I'll go first."

The bridge was only about a foot wide, arching slightly. Even Hanna seemed rather hesitant as she stepped onto it, and it took Peter nearly ten minutes to inch his way across. Down they continued, until suddenly Hanna stopped short and he almost bumped into her. "Wait a minute," she said slowly. "Something weird here…. It's getting harder and harder to go down. I mean, there's all those stairs down there but…."

From the landing below them, three flights went up, none went down.

"But it's like they don't want us to get to them." She looked behind her. "Sorry, kid, but we're gonna have to go back and take that bridge up there. This way goes nowhere."

Backtracking became more frequent, for it was difficult to see very far ahead, and any direction that looked promising seemed eventually to direct them upward again. Nevertheless there were always stairs below them to hide whatever bottom there might be. Their progress became more horizontal than vertical, with more bridges to negotiate, and these continued to be a trial for Peter. At last Hanna noticed his shaken condition.

"Hey, wanna sit down?" she said, as they stepped off a bridge onto a landing hardly big enough for them both.

"Oh, yes," he said gratefully, and immediately sat down on a step.

Hanna reclined across from him, stretching out her legs and resting her feet on either side of his. She lit another cigarette, then put her hands behind her head as she puffed, the cigarette dangling from her thin lips.

"Now I'm beginning to figure this place out," she said. "Maybe there is a way out down there, or up there," she jerked her head in that direction.

"But they don't want us to get to it. These cruddy stairs just don't connect. There's no way to get to those stairs down there."

"Mmm," he said.

Inside himself he knew that the situation was, of course, hopeless; and that it was only a matter of time until even she would have to give up. But in the meantime it was diverting to follow along after her; there was, after all, nothing else to do, except dream.