Then we are racing down corridors. The fluorescent lighting after the cold darkness of the walk, the sudden warmth of being indoors again, our nearness, finally, after being so far away for so long, the hurtling speed of us—it makes every part of me tingle. I think Slow down. I think Be careful. I think we have only one shot at this, less than one, the smallest fraction of a shot, and it is now, and it’s been coming, and it is now. I think she will have forgotten what’s where. I think we will get caught before we find what we’re looking for. I think You are Mab, queen of the fairies, deliverer of dreams. I think Remember, remember everything.
And she does. She remembers which hallway, which door, which garage even, and she opens it with her magic master key. And there they all are, machines to demolish, which we will use to build instead, some dirt-spattered and mud-stained and ill-used, some spotless, unridden, and begging to go.
But Mab says, “Shit.”
“What?” Monday is dancing a little on her toes.
Mab is red-faced, openmouthed, panting. She is shaking her head. Under her breath, almost too soft to hear, she says, “We don’t know how to drive a backhoe.”
I have thought of that, of course, but imagined there might be a manual attached in one of those plastic sheaths, or maybe that it might be self-explanatory. But now, faced with it, I realize that is not, in fact, what I imagined. What I imagined was that operating a backhoe would be hard if you wanted to do a good job, if you cared what the finished project looked like, if you needed to keep any surrounding structures intact. I thought it would be hard if you wanted to make something work, but we want to do the opposite, render something useless. I thought driving a backhoe would be hard if the paramount stipulation were operator survival. If you were willing to sacrifice that for other goals, I had imagined it would be easy, at least something we could figure out as we went along. Now I have that sinking horrible feeling of having come so far and not nearly far enough.
Then Monday says, simply, “I know how to drive a backhoe.”
“You do not.” Mab doesn’t even look at her. Mab can’t take her eyes off these machines.
“Do so.”
“How could you possibly know how to drive a backhoe?”
“I have read Operating Techniques for Construction and Demolition Equipment, Eighth Edition,” Monday says. “I have also read The Model TF14 5VC 1985 and Later Owners’ Manual: Tractor, Loader, Backhoe, and Attachments. I have also read Site Safety and User Techniques: The Complete Guide to Backhoes, Bulldozers, and Excavators.”
Mab knows there is no way Monday could be joking, but she cannot imagine that Monday is not joking. “Whyyy?”
“They are in my library,” Monday says. “And they are yellow.”
Never before has it occurred to me how odd it is that most heavy machinery is yellow, and never before has that fact seemed miraculous grace, but the covers of these books picture yellow equipment, and therefore—despite the fact that as far as things like plot and character go, these stories must be pretty boring—Monday has read them all.
It turns out the ones Nathan has ready and waiting are yellow as well.
It turns out there are keys in the ignitions and fuel in the tanks, which makes sense since half these machines are brand-new from the factory, since there’s a gas pump in the corner, and since no one expects us to be anywhere near here.
It turns out sometimes, once every few decades or so, you get lucky.
Mab presses the button on the wall, and the door of the garage glides open at once with a quiet murmur. We choose the backhoe closest to outside, the one with the fewest barriers to navigate around, the one with what Monday helpfully identifies as a hydraulic hammer attachment on the back. She clambers aboard.
And Mab stops suddenly and looks at me, and I stop and look at her.
The sensible thing, the sane thing, would be to leave me here. The backhoe’s cab is tiny—however yellow it is, Monday’s going to have a hard enough time driving it without being squished against both sisters. Even if it were large enough, its seat is not built to hold my head still or my airway open or my body upright. And besides, if we get caught, if we’ve triggered a silent alarm or security’s night shift is about to report, if someone shows up here screaming and raging and demanding to know what the hell is going on, I am an excellent diversionary tactic, the slowest of stalls.
Plus, you know how one of the cabinet secretaries always sits out the State of the Union, and the guys who know the recipe for Coke are never all in the same room together, and some parents fly home from vacation on separate airplanes just in case? If two of us are plunging heedless into this night, one of us should stay behind. Someone has to take care of Nora.