So I am thinking of armor. I am thinking of arrows and muskets and cannons. I am thinking of the longbow and the M16, armadas of ten thousand ships, rows of white crosses repeating into infinity, which is why when Mrs. Shriver calls on me to catch me out for daydreaming by the window instead of paying attention in class—“Mab, something on your mind?”—I accidentally blurt out the answer to that question.
“Why aren’t factories like museums?”
She’s amused. Bored maybe. Gives me an indulgent smile and decides to play along. “I don’t know, Mab. Why aren’t factories like museums?”
“No. It’s not a joke. Remember last month when you showed us all those pictures from the British Museum? Helmets. Guns. Swords. All that stuff?”
“Right. What does that have to do with factories?”
“Other artifacts of war go in museums. Why don’t punch clocks or conveyor belts or fake emergency exits? Why aren’t munitions factories and mill floors and chemical plants preserved the same way, like for tourists to wander around and have perspective on history and stuff?”
Mrs. Shriver looks at me for too long before answering. “No one would pay to go in,” she says finally. “Plus, what would you sell at the gift shop?”
But after class River steals up next to me and whispers, “You want to see the inside of a chemical plant?”
I am about to tell him that wasn’t the point I was making when I realize the point I was making was entirely beside the point. I nod mutely.
He smiles then blushes then smiles a little more widely. “I can totally get us a key.”
* * *
Two days later I am on my way to tutoring after school—Mrs. Radcliffe and Petra and I have compromised on once a week—when River takes my elbow and steers me to an old, disused classroom.
“Pick a hand.” He holds out both in closed fists. I hear Mirabel’s Voice intoning, Hand. Hand. Hand. Hand.
I pick a hand. He turns it over, peels it open. It’s inevitably empty. Obligingly, I tap his other fist. It’s empty too. He grins at me. I grin back. Can’t help it. He reaches behind my ear, comes out with a fist, opens it. Empty. I’m still grinning, waiting patiently for the reveal. He’s patting himself all over, looking confused and increasingly alarmed, but it’s not until he starts cursing under his breath that I realize this isn’t part of the trick. He takes both my shoulders in both his hands, looks into my eyes, and says very seriously, “Can I please turn you to face the wall?”
“Not a chance.”
He waves his arms in the air frantically like he’s walked into a swarm of gnats and, when that yields nothing, undoes his top two buttons, pulls both arms inside his shirt, and wriggles around like the weekend Monday and I spent trying to take off our bras without taking off our tops as if this were a necessary life skill. No luck. River looks at me dolefully. I smile.
And because I do, he smiles back. And because I do, or maybe just because he’s embarrassed already, he doubles down. He yanks off his belt dramatically, lassoes it in the air a few times, and wiggles his hips back and forth, around and around. But that’s as far as he can go.
“Please?” He twirls his finger in a circle and hopes I will follow suit. “The first rule of magic is misdirection.”
“Of the audience.”
“At least close your eyes.”
“If my eyes are closed, how will I see what happens next?”
River blazes red, unbuttons his khakis, starts excavating around down there, first in his pants, then in his underpants. I try to pretend the reason I’m blushing is because I’m laughing so hard.
Finally his hand reemerges from his underwear. “Ta-da!”
“Neat trick.”
“It’s all in the sleight of hand.”
“I can see that.”
“For you.” He holds it out to me gallantly, offering me the key to, well, everything.
“Thank you,” I say. “You carry it.”
So I skip tutoring.
* * *
It seems impossible, but it’s true: I have never before followed anyone on a bike. Petra has a car and even when we were little never had a bicycle. “You know how my mother feels about outside,” she always said when I complained. When I ride with Monday, I go first or at least alongside. When I don’t ride with Monday, I ride alone. So it’s all new to me: the way a person’s shoulders and back flex beneath his shirt as he shifts through gears on his handlebars, the way a person’s calf muscles ball like cookie dough and release, ball and release. I have to pedal hard to keep up.