“That’s just his way, Todd. You know that.”
“So you keep saying.” I pick a blade of young wheat and stick the end in my mouth, not quite looking at him.
“Left the apples at the house, didja?”
I look at him. I chew on the wheat. He knows I didn’t. He can tell.
“And there’s a reason,” he says, still scratching Manchee. “There’s a reason which ain’t coming clear.” He’s trying to read my Noise, see what truth he can sift from it, which most men think is a good enough excuse for starting a fight, but I don’t mind with Ben. He cocks his head and stops scratching Manchee. “Aaron?”
“Yeah, I saw Aaron.”
“He did that to yer lip?”
“Yeah.”
“That sunuvahoor.” He frowns and steps forward. “I just might have to have words with that man.”
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t. It’ll just be more trouble and it don’t hurt that much.”
He takes my chin into his fingers and lifts my head so he can see the cut. “That sunuvahoor,” he says again, quietly. He touches the cut with his fingers and I flinch away.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“You stay away from that man, Todd Hewitt.”
“Oh, like I went running to the swamp hoping to run into him?”
“He ain’t right.”
“Well, holy crap, thanks for that bit of info, Ben,” I say and then I catch a bit of his Noise that says One month and it’s a new thing, a whole new bit of something that he quickly covers up with other Noise.
“What’s going on, Ben?” I say. “What’s going on with my birthday?”
He smiles and for a second it’s not an entirely true smile, for a second it’s a worried smile, but after that it’s a smile true enough. “It’s a surprise,” he says, “so don’t go looking.”
Even tho I’m nearly a man and even tho I’m nearly getting on up to his height now, he still bends down a little so his face is level with mine, not too close to be uncomfortable, just close enough so that it’s safe and I look away a little bit. And even tho it’s Ben, even tho I trust Ben more than anyone else in this crappy little town, even tho it’s Ben who saved my life and who I know would do it again, I still find myself reluctant to open up my Noise about what happened in the swamp, mainly cuz I can start to feel it pressing on my chest again whenever the thought gets near.
“Todd?” Ben says, looking at me closely.
“Quiet,” Manchee barks softly. “Quiet in swamp.”
Ben looks at Manchee, then back at me, his eyes going all soft and asking and full of concern. “What’s he talking about, Todd?”
I sigh. “We saw something,” I say. “Out there in the swamp. Well, we didn’t see it, it hid, but it was like a rip in the Noise, like a tear–”
I stop talking cuz he’s stopped listening to my voice. I’ve opened up my Noise for him and am remembering it as truthfully as I can and he’s looking at me something fierce and from way behind me I can hear Cillian coming and he’s calling “Ben?” and “Todd?” and there’s concern in his voice and in his Noise and Ben’s is starting to buzz a little, too, and I just keep thinking as truthfully as I can about the hole we found in the Noise but quietly, too, quietly, quietly, so as to keep the town from hearing if I can and here comes Cillian still and Ben’s just looking at me and looking at me till finally I have to ask.
“Is it spacks?” I say. “Is it the Spackle? Are they back?”
“Ben?” Cillian’s yelling it now as he’s coming across the fields.
“Are we in danger?” I ask Ben. “Will there be another war?”
But all Ben says is, “Oh, my God,” real quiet like, and then he says it again, “Oh, my God,” and then, without even moving or looking away, he says, “We have to get you outta here. We have to get you outta here right now.”
Cillian comes running up but before he says anything to us, Ben cuts him off and says, “Don’t think it!”
Ben turns to me. “Don’t you think it neither. You cover it up with yer Noise. You hide it. You hide it as best you can.” And he’s grabbing my shoulders as he’s saying it and squeezing tight enough to make my blood jump even more than it already is.
“What’s going on?” I say.
“Did you walk home thru town?” Cillian asks.
“Course I walked home thru town,” I snap. “What other effing way is there to get home?”
Cillian’s face tightens up but it’s not with being pissed off at me snapping, it’s tightening up with fear, fear I can hear loud as a shout in his Noise. They don’t yell at me for “effing” neither, which makes it all somehow worse. Manchee’s barking his head off by this point, “Cillian! Quiet! Effing! Todd!” but nobody’s bothering to tell him to shut up.
Cillian looks at Ben. “We’re gonna have to do it now.”
“I know,” Ben says.
“What’s going on?” I say again, all loud like. “Do what now?” I twist away from Ben and stand looking at them both.
Ben and Cillian take another look at each other and then back at me. “You have to leave Prentisstown,” Ben says.
My eyeballs go back and forth twixt theirs but they’re not letting nothing go in their Noise ’cept general worry. “What do you mean I have to leave Prentisstown?” I say. “There ain’t nowhere else on New World but Prentisstown.”
They take yet another look at each other.
“Stop doing that!” I say.
“Come on,” Cillian says. “We’ve already got yer bag packed.”
“How can you already have my bag packed?”
Cillian says to Ben, “We probably don’t have much time.”
And Ben says to Cillian, “He can go down by the river.”
And Cillian says to Ben, “You know what this means.”
And Ben says to Cillian, “It doesn’t change the plan.”
“WHAT THE EFF IS GOING ON?” I roar, but I don’t say “eff”, now do I? Cuz it seems the situashun calls for something a little stronger. “WHAT EFFING PLAN?”
But they’re still not getting mad.
Ben lowers his voice and I can see him try to get his Noise into some kinda order and he says to me, “It’s very, very important you keep what happened in the swamp outta yer Noise as best you can.”