Frustration was my constant companion. I wanted to scream. “What the he-eck are we supposed to do now?” I asked Fang.
He looked at me, and I could tell he was mulling over the problem. He held out a small waxed-paper bag. “Peanut?”
We kept walking and eating, gazing in constant amazement at the store windows. Everything you could buy in the world was for sale on Fourteenth Street in New York. Of course, we couldn’t afford any of it. Still, it was awesome.
“Smile, you’re on Candid Camera,” said Fang, pointing at a window.
In an electronics store, a short-circuit camera was displaying passersby on a handful of TV screens. Automatically, we ducked our heads and turned away, instinctively paranoid about anyone having our images.
Suddenly, I winced as a single sharp pain hit my temple. At the same time, words scrolling across the TV screens caught my eye. I stared in disbelief as Good morning, Max, filled every screen.
“Jeez,” Fang breathed, stopping dead in his tracks.
Iggy bumped into him, saying, “What? What is it?”
“Is that you?” the Gasman asked me. “How do they know you?”
Playing is learning, Max, said the Voice inside my head. It was the same one as last night, and I realized I couldn’t tell if it was adult or child, male or female, friend or foe. Great.
Games test your abilities. Fun is crucial to human development. Go have fun, Max.
I halted, oblivious to the gobs of people streaming around us on the street. “I don’t want to have fun! I want some answers!” I blurted without meaning to—the crazy girl talking back to her little Voice.
Get on the Madison Avenue bus, said the Voice. Get off when it looks fun.
89
I don’t know about the rest of you who have little voices, but something about mine made me feel completely compelled to listen to it.
I blinked and discovered the flock gazing at me solemnly, watching me sink further into total insanity right before their eyes.
“Max, are you okay?” Nudge asked.
I nodded. “I think we should get on the Madison Avenue bus,” I said, looking for a street sign.
Fang looked at me thoughtfully. “Why?”
I turned slightly so the others couldn’t see me and mouthed, “The Voice.”
He nodded. “But Max,” he whispered, barely audible, “what if this is all a trap?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “But maybe we should do what it says for a while—to see.”
“Do what what says?” the Gasman demanded.
I had started walking toward the corner. I heard Fang say, “Max has been hearing a voice, inside her. We don’t know what it is.” So much for not worrying the others.
“Like her conscience?” Nudge asked. “Do the TVs have anything to do with it?”
“We don’t know,” said Fang. “Right now it wants us to get on the Madison Avenue bus, apparently.”
The bus stop was fourteen blocks away. We got on, and I pushed our fares into the machine. The driver waved us through, saying, “Pass, pass, pass” in a bored voice.
I hoped the Voice didn’t want me to keep spending money—we were dangerously low.
For people who get nervous in small, confined spaces or surrounded by other people, riding a bus is pretty much a living nightmare. It was so crowded we had to stand in the aisle with people pressed up against us. I figured we could always kick a window
out and jump, but the whole thing frayed my few remaining nerves. My head was swiveling constantly, scanning for Erasers suddenly morphing out of our fellow passengers.