Free Pucker by Melanie Gideon Page B

parts?”
    â€œThe motor?”
    â€œWe’ve got no need for motors,” he says.
    Unable to help myself, I snort with derision. I have little nostalgia for a world with no flush toilets, no screens to keep the mosquitoes out, no hot showers.
    â€œYou’ll get used to it,” says Nigel.
    I won’t be here long enough to get used to it, I want to say. Instead I try and appear jaded. The truth is, I know more about this world than Nigel 581 ever will. I know all about the brutal control behind this pastoral simplicity.
    I wonder how Isaura will appear to my fellow Changed. Will they notice the small differences that set the two places apart? The way the grass in Isaura is more blue than green? The way the sky has a lavender cast? The way the air seems thicker, stuffed with more molecules? All of this I have forgotten until now.
    Four more immigrants arrive that day: Jerome and Jesse, co-joined twins who are fused at the chest; Michael, who weighs five hundred and eight pounds; and a girl named Emma, who has xeroderma pigmentosum, a hypersensitivity to ultraviolet light.
    Once we’re all settled in the wagon, Nigel clucks to the horses and we begin to move. A strange restlessness throbs inside me. It’s like I’ve grown a second heart, one for each world I’ve lived in. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Two hearts might come in handy if one of them fails. Then again, two hearts will mean twice the heart-break.
    I sit next to Emma, who has been allowed to keep the special clothing that protects her from the sun. She’s younger, maybe eleven, and she’s crying softly. All of us can hear her. I don’t reach out to comfort her. None of us do. Right at that moment, we can think only of ourselves.

SEVENTEEN
    â€œW HOA.” NIGEL PULLS ON THE reins and the horses toss their heads. “The Laundry,” he announces.
    We’ve been traveling for over an hour. Nigel has stopped at a large wooden building with sliding doors. The smell of bleach permeates the air.
    It’s our first look at the Changed and my group stares at them in silence. I can tell they’re taken aback at their beauty. They have a strange luminosity about them, as if the light around them is constantly being churned.
    â€œAngels,” whispers Emma.
    â€œNo,” says Rose. “People just like us.”
    Although my group is enthralled with the Changed, we don’t seem to inspire the same fascination. The Changed aren’t looking at us; in fact, most of them are looking beyond us with careful gazes. Are they doing that in order to make us feel welcome? Often people do that with us freaks. They pretend they don’t see our abnormalities. That’s the worst. It’s like pretending you don’t see a skyscraper on fire. At the same time, you don’t want someone screaming, “Call 911,” when they see you. But the Changed used to be us. Don’t they remember?
    â€œBack to work,” says Nigel, and the Changed obediently return to their giant cauldrons of steaming water.
    The wagon rolls on. The countryside gleams as if it’s been freshly scrubbed with Ajax and steel wool. Cardinals call to one another and locusts whir in the branches of the pine trees. There are meadows, furrowed potato fields, and manicured vegetable gardens. I can’t help but be moved by Isaura’s untouched beauty. That is, until I think about what this place did to my family.
    I glance at Emma, who’s curled up in a ball, no longer moving. Finally I shake off my self-absorption and place my hand on her back. She’s so skinny I can see her shoulder blades right through her jacket. She shudders at my touch.
    â€œWe’re almost there,” I tell her. What can it be like never to have stood in the sun?
    We drive by a lumberyard, a dairy, hay fields, and a barn. By the time the wagon arrives at the Compound, the rest of my group knows how they’ll be