The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

“Leener, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine,” he says. “Kimani, this is my daughter, Emmeline.” Emmeline hops out of his lap and helps him up, then shrinks back, hiding half behind him. Nervously, she takes one step toward Kimani.

“I’ve seen you before,” Emmeline says. “In the shiny room.”

“I saw you, too,” Kimani says. “Out on the edges. You should’ve come and said hi.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“You’ll learn,” Kimani says. She beckons Emmeline into the room, and Emmeline follows. For a split second, Avi is sure Kimani will close the door and take off without him, but he crosses the room and joins them.

“Where’s everyone else?” Avi asks.

“They’re meeting you there,” Kimani says. “I’m sure Kevin’s got your whole day planned out.”

Emmeline examines this room as she had the attic. The room is different from the day before. Avi might not have noticed if Emmeline wasn’t exploring it. All the furniture has been replaced. The harsh, knifelike corners on the tables are smooth, unthreatening curves. The couch is plush, cushy. The walls have been painted, a cooler blue, calming. Emmeline touches one of the silver sculptures lightly, and it shifts its shape, wriggling like a fish on a line. She gasps and pulls her hand back. The sculpture stops moving, held in a strange shape halfway between what it was and what it was trying to become.

“They don’t bite,” Kimani says. “My friend makes them. She’s a kid not much older than you. Look.” She lets the palm of her hand hover above the silver, and the sculpture reshapes itself, straining upward to form a ring around Kimani’s hand. Kimani removes her hand and holds it up to show Emmeline it’s unharmed. “I’ve got to tell you, though, it’s pretty disgusting to watch Isidra make them.” She leans over to Emmeline like they’re sharing a secret. “She pukes up all the silver stuff.”

“It’s a puke sculpture?” Emmeline asks. Kimani nods. “Gross.”

Kimani gets down to one knee and puts a light hand on Emmeline’s shoulder. “Some of us have abilities that aren’t too nice to look at,” she says. “They can’t all be as good-looking as the two of us, huh?” Emmeline smiles. “I wish you could spend all day with me here. But Mr. Bishop gets very upset when I’m late.”

“Where are we going?” Emmeline asks.

“New York City,” Kimani says. She opens the door again, this time onto an alleyway, behind a Dumpster. “Not the most scenic drop-off spot,” she says. “But it’s right out the alley and down the block: 136. Doesn’t look like much.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Emmeline says. Kimani smiles at her, and Avi is aware of an instant bond, something forged by unity in difference. Something he’s on the outside of.

Avi hasn’t spent much time in New York, but one of the things he loves about the city is the way every block is a mishmash of architectural styles, of eras. Chicago holds on to its past, keeping pockets of time preserved. New York discards yesterdays as soon as they’re useless. It molts, revealing shiny new skin beneath. Situated on 57th between Third and Lexington, the Bishop Academy for the Arts is one of those throwaway bits, a piece of late-sixties optimism that didn’t pan out. It sits, nondescript, sandwiched between two newer, sleeker dreams. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. Which must be the way Bishop wanted it.

A tall set of revolving doors lets Avi and Emmeline into the lobby. Doric columns line the walls, and the Deco tile floors have waves of dried salt tracked in from the sidewalks. The front desk is staffed by a broad-shouldered man with a body-builder physique and a name tag that reads SHEN in large gold letters.

“Can I help you?” he asks. He steps away from the desk, forming a second door between them and the rest of the building. Avi wonders if it’s possible he had increased his size. All things are possible here, he reminds himself.

“Avi Hirsch,” he says. “We’re here to see—”

“Shen, this is the gentleman we’ve been talking about,” says Bishop, hurrying across the lobby, straightening his tie, half the collar of his blazer folded up. The temporary disarray feels like an affect, a way to make himself seem softer. Avi thinks of military men he’s known, the two faces they keep for war and for family. The impulse is to try to determine which one is real, but the truth is always that both are real in equal measure. The best of them can switch on a moment’s notice. This is Bishop’s face for family, but Avi’s seen his war face.

“Avi, glad you could make it,” Bishop says, patting him on the shoulder with false chumminess. “And Emmeline.” He turns to her as if he’s forgotten Avi is there. “I’m so happy to have you join us.” With obvious discomfort, he lowers himself to one knee and extends his hand. Emmeline takes it. Avi imagines a rapid, massive flow of information between them. A mutual download. A Vulcan mind meld. Bishop lets go of Emmeline’s hand, and Emmeline continues to watch him, unsmiling. “This is a school I started for people like you and me,” Bishop says.

“It’s very nice,” Emmeline says quietly.

“This is only the lobby,” he says. “This is the part anyone gets to see. We keep all the best parts hidden. Would you like to see more?”

Emmeline nods, and once again Avi finds himself trailing behind, an afterthought, as Bishop leads them across the cavernous lobby. He can’t help but think about Willy Wonka opening up his factory to the public for the first time. The most memorable parts of the movie, the reasons Kay’s deemed it too grown up for Emmeline, are the ones in which Wonka’s facade of genial showman falls away to reveal something frightening underneath. Avi goes to put his arm around Emmeline, but she’s a step ahead with Bishop.

Before they get there, the doors of