The Walls Have Eyes by Clare B. Dunkle

Author:Clare B. Dunkle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416996415
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Twelve women walked into the cafeteria and fanned out in a half circle around Martin. They were copies of one another; or rather, they were one woman, multiplied twelve times. They—or she—stood seven feet tall and were bulky to match, so that Martin felt like a preschooler beside them. They—the shes—wore navy blue military jumpsuits, a style of clothing that seemed like somebody’s idea of a cruel joke, emphasizing just how out of shape they were. Their figures were the sort euphemistically described as pear-shaped, with a cellulite jiggle around the thighs.

The faces of the twelve women—one face multiplied twelve times—were the kind Martin saw with his mom at school meetings and immediately forgot. Their hair was cut into a particularly unfashionable pageboy, mostly blond with half an inch of brown roots. Their eyes were small and patient and half-buried in wrinkles, and their cheeks drooped into their jaws and pulled their cupid’s-bow mouths into sad little lines. Martin wasn’t sure they could smile even if they wanted to.

“The Ursulas!” Martin whispered.

Chip addressed them in bot, and then they addressed one another. They didn’t vibrate—at least, not as far as Martin could tell—but they conveyed by tiny gestures and glances the idea of a conversation rapidly transmitted.

“You need to come with us, Martin Glass,” the first one said again, towering over him.

“Okay,” he said, conscious of how high his voice sounded after hers. “I just—well, I just gotta check this one thing.”

He turned to Lieutenant Tango. Next to the Ursulas, the soldier seemed silly and artificial, like an inflated action figure. “Is it true what the agents said about them?” Martin whispered. “About ripping people apart with their bare hands?”

The lead Ursula spoke up. “We generally dislocate or fracture the cervical vertebrae. Body fluids stain carpets and wall coverings.” Her expression was as bland and long-suffering as if she were complaining that she couldn’t get her shirt collars white.

“Oh!” Martin’s voice was very high now. It seemed to have gone up an octave. “Oh, wow. That’s all I needed to know. Thanks, ma’am.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“You bet,” Martin said. So she hoisted his knapsack and held out her hand, and he took it as if he were three.

They walked down the hall, past broken handhelds and sheets of paper that swirled by the open doors. Outside was the gray hush that comes just before dawn. White tendrils of cloud seemed to have drifted down from the sky and woven a net among the trunks of the dripping fir trees. The Ursulas walked into the net of cloud, and Martin found that it was chilly.

The cold air helped to focus his thoughts and free him from the feeling of awe that the Ursulas had inspired. The important thing, he reminded himself, was that the prototypes had done it. They had moved the school. That means Cassie’s safe, he thought, and that means the plan is still on. I have to find them and get them to help Mom.

But that meant getting away from the Secretary of State.

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