She Heard Nothing novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Empty Duffel

Abby works out that Sabina only ever repeats what she says out loud. A false line whispered to a bathroom wall is reported to the whole field, and the duffel search comes up empty. The star on Abby's chain is warm.

I finished the last lap after the sun had gone behind the equipment sheds.

My shirt was soaked through, and my legs were shaking.

A paper cup of water appeared in front of my face.

"Drink," Lottie said. "I stole it from the officers' cooler. If anyone asks, I tripped over it."

She was the girl from row three, with curly red hair stuffed under her cap and a face that went pink at the slightest push.

I drank the whole cup standing up.

"You fell right before he yelled at me again," she said. "Did you do that on purpose?"

"Yes."

"Good," Lottie said. "I was about to cry, and I don't do that in front of people."

I laughed, and it hurt my ribs.

She sat down on the curb beside me and kept her voice low.

"Everybody in my bunk room is talking about you. Half of them think you're a faker, and half think you're a spy."

"A spy for who?"

"I don't know. They think it's cooler."

"What do you think?" I asked.

Lottie picked at the edge of her sleeve.

"I think nobody reads minds," she said. "And I think she knew about the candy."

That was the question I had been running with for an hour.

I had gone back over every report Sabina had made about me in my first life.

She had never named anything I'd only thought.

She had named a sigh I let out in the shower line, a swear word I muttered over a dropped tray, and the number of a bus I read aloud off a schedule.

Every single time, I had been talking.

Quietly, to myself, but with my mouth.

"Nobody can hear my thoughts," I told Lottie. "But something can hear me when I talk to myself, and I talk to myself a lot."

Her eyes went wide.

"Who was in the bunk room at five this morning?"

"Nobody. I checked the beds twice."

"So someone's hiding a microphone?"

"Maybe. I don't know yet." I turned the paper cup in my hands. "Tonight I'm going to find out. I'll say something in the bath stall that isn't true, and I'll say it to nobody."

"What kind of something?"

"Something bad enough that she can't resist telling the instructor."

Lottie grinned slowly.

"I'll stand outside the door and make sure nobody's in there."

The bath stall at the end of the girls' building had a leaking tap and one flickering bulb.

I turned the tap on for noise and stood with my forehead against the cold tile.

I felt ridiculous.

"I took the spare whistle from the supply tent," I said to the wall, in a low, clear voice. "It's in my duffel bag, under the socks."

Nothing happened.

The tap dripped.

Outside, Lottie coughed twice, which was our signal that the hall was empty.

I didn't have a whistle, or any reason to take one.

I washed my face and went to dinner.

Sabina sat two tables away with a ring of girls around her.

She waved at me.

It was a small, apologetic wave, and three of her friends turned to look at me with pity.

I waved back.

I ate a bowl of cold pasta and watched her hands.

She was calm.

She laughed at something and stirred her tea.

When the evening formation was called, all four hundred of us lined up in the floodlights.

The drill instructor walked the rows with a clipboard, looking tired.

"Sir," Sabina said.

Her voice carried across the whole field.

He stopped.

"Pelham."

"I'm so sorry to bring this up again." She took a step out of line, her hands clasped in front of her. "But I can't help it. Abby is thinking about the supply tent."

My heart gave one hard, slow knock.

"She took the spare whistle," Sabina said. "She's got it in her duffel, under her socks. And she's worried you'll check."

The rows turned to look at me.

"Wrenfield," the instructor said. "Is that true?"

"No, sir."

"Open your bag."

Two girls from my bunk room went in with him.

They came out carrying my duffel, and he dumped it on the grass under the floodlights.

Shirts, socks, my toothbrush in a bag, a paperback with a cracked spine.

He lifted every pair of socks and shook it out.

No whistle.

It was very quiet.

"Pelham," the instructor said slowly.

Sabina's face had not changed, but her hands were holding each other too hard.

"She must have moved it," she said. "Before I could say anything. She knew I'd tell you."

"That's two lemon drops and one empty duffel," a boy muttered in the second row.

Nobody laughed, but the rows shifted.

The instructor looked at Sabina a moment longer than he had at noon.

"Everyone back in line," he said. "That's enough for today."

Sabina's eyes found mine over the heads of the girls between us.

They were not soft.

For one second they were flat and hard and calculating, and then the sympathy slid back over her face.

I stood there with my hand pressed flat against my chest.

She hadn't heard my mind.

She had heard my mouth, in an empty bathroom, with the water running.

Under my palm, the little silver star she'd given me lay warm against my skin.

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