I get up to leave with my chin up. I avoid looking into any faces so I won’t have to talk to anyone. I walk with my bag of peas down so as to not bring attention to my injuries. As if people are likely to forget I’m the one who was fighting. If Raffe is in the lunch crowd, I don’t see him. Just as well. I hope he lost his argument with the bookie. He deserves to lose that bet.
I’m barely out and walking between the buildings on my way to the laundry area when two redheaded guys step out from behind the building. If they didn’t have matching boy-next-door smiles, I would have thought they were ambushing me.
They’re identical twins. Both look scrappy and strung-out in their dirty civilian clothes, but that’s not unusual these days. No doubt I look just as scrappy and strung-out, too. They’re barely out of their teens, tall and skinny with mischievous eyes.
“Great job out there, champ,” says the first guy.
“Oh, man, you really put old Jimmy Boden in his place,” says the second one. He’s practically beaming. “Couldn’t have happened to a better man.”
I stand there, nodding. I keep a polite grin on my face while still holding the frozen peas to my jaw.
“I’m Tweedledee,” says one.
“I’m Tweedledum,” says the other. “Most people call us Dee-Dum for short since they can’t tell us apart.”
“You’re joking, right?” They shake their heads in unison with identical friendly smiles. They look more like a couple of underfed scarecrows than the chubby Tweedledee and Tweedledum I remember from childhood. “Why would you call yourselves that?”
Dee shrugs. “New world, new names. We were going to be Gog and Magog”
“Those were our online names,” says Dum.
“But why go all doom and gloom?” asks Dee.
“Used to be fun being Gog and Magog when the world was Tiffany-twisted and suburban-simple,” says Dum. “But now…”
“Not so much,” says Dee. “Death and destruction are so blasé.”
“So mainstream.”
“So in with the popular crowd.”
“We’d rather be Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
I nod, because, what other response is there?
“I’m Penryn. I’m named after an exit off Interstate 80.”
“Nice.” They nod as if to say they understand what it’s like to have parents like that.
“Everyone’s talking about you,” says Dum.
Not sure I like that. That whole fight thing didn’t really go off the way I had planned. Then again, nothing in my life has gone the way I had planned.
“Great. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go hide now.” I tip my bag of frozen peas at them like a hat as I try to step between them.
“Wait,” says Dee. He lowers his voice to a dramatic whisper. “We have a business proposition for you.”
I pause and politely wait. Unless their proposition includes getting me out of here, there is nothing they can say to get me interested in any kind of business idea. But since they aren’t moving out of my way, I don’t have much of a choice but to listen.
“The crowd loved you,” says Dum.
“How about a repeat performance?” asks Dee. “Say, for a thirty-percent take of the winnings?”
“What are you talking about? Why would I risk my life for a measly thirty percent of the winnings? Besides, money doesn’t buy you anything anymore.”
“Oh, it’s not money,” says Dum. “We just use money as a shortcut for the relative value of the bet.”
His face becomes animated like he’s genuinely fascinated by the economics of post-apocalyptic gambling. “You put your name and the bet you’re making on, say, a five-dollar bill, and that just tells the bookie that you’re willing to bet something of greater value than a dollar bill, but less than a ten dollar bill. It’s the bookie who decides who gets what and who gives what. You know, like maybe someone loses a quarter of his rations and gets extra chores for a week. Or if he wins, then he gets someone else’s rations to add to his, and someone else scrubs the toilet for him for a week. Get it?”
“Got it. And the answer’s still no. Besides, there’s no guarantee I’ll win.”
“No.” Dee gives me an over-the-top used car salesman’s smile. “We’re looking for a guarantee that you’ll lose.”
I burst out laughing. “You want me to throw a fight?”
“Shhh!” Dee looks around dramatically. We’re standing in the shadows between two buildings, and no one seems to notice us.
“It’ll be great,” says Dum. His eyes shine with mischief. “After what you did to Boden, the odds will be so far in your favor when you fight Anita—.”
“You want me to fight a girl?” I cross my arms. “You just want to see a cat fight, don’t you?”
“It’s not just for us,” says Dee defensively. “It’ll be a gift to the whole camp.”
“Yeah,” says Dum. “Who needs television when you’ve got all that water and laundry suds?”
“Dream on.” I shove through them.
“We’ll help you get out,” says Dee in a sing-song cadence.
I stop. My brain runs through half a dozen scenarios based on what he just said.
“We can get the keys to your cell.”
“We can distract the guards.”
“We can make sure no one checks on you until morning.”
“One fight, that’s all we ask.”
I turn to look at them. “Why would you risk treason for a mud fight?”
“You have no idea how much I’d risk for an honest-to-God mud fight between two hot women,” says Dee.
“It’s not really treason anyway,” says Dum. “Obi’s gonna let you go, it’s just a matter of timing. We’re not here to keep human prisoners. He’s overemphasizing your risk to us.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he wants to recruit you and that guy you came with. Obi’s an only child, and he doesn’t understand,” says Dee. “He thinks keeping you around for a few days will get you to change your mind about leaving us.”
“But we know better. A few days of singing patriotic songs ain’t going to convince you to abandon your sister,” says Dum.
“Got that right, brother,” says Dee.
They touch fists in a fist bump. “Damn straight.”
I look at them. They really do understand. They’d never leave each other behind. Maybe I have a genuine ally. “Do I really have to do this silly fight to get your help?”
“Oh, yeah,” says Dee. “No question.” They both grin at me like mischievous little boys.
“How do you know all this stuff? About my sister? What Obi’s thinking?”
“It’s our job,” says Dum. “Some people call us Dee-Dum. Other people call us Spy Masters.” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down dramatically.
“Okay, Spymaster Dee-Dum, what did my friend bet on the fight?” It doesn’t matter of course, but I still want to know.
“Interesting.” Dee arches his brow in a knowing fashion. “Of all the things you could have asked when you found out we deal in information, you pick that one.”
My cheeks warm despite the frozen peas on my jaw. I try not to look like I wish I could take back my question. “What are you, in kindergarten? Just tell me already.”
“He bet that you’d last in the ring for at least seven minutes.” Dum rubs his freckled cheek. “We all thought he was crazy.” Seven minutes is a long, long time to get hammered by giant fists.
“Not crazy enough,” says Dee. His smile is so boyish and pre-disaster that it’s almost possible to forget we live in a world gone mad. “He should have bet that you’d win. He woulda raked it in. Man, the odds were so far against you.”
“I bet he could take down Boden in two minutes,” says Dum. “That guy’s got bad-ass written all over him.”
“Ninety seconds, flat,” says Dee.
I’ve seen Raffe fight. My bet would be on ten seconds, assuming Boden didn’t have a rifle like he did the night he caught us. But I don’t say that. Doesn’t make me feel any better that he didn’t jump in to play the hero.
“Get us out tonight and you’ve got a deal,” I say.
“Tonight’s awfully short notice,” says Dee.
“Maybe if you could promise you’ll rip Anita’s shirt off…” Dum gives me his little boy smile.
“Don’t push your luck.”
Dee holds up a slim leather case and dangles it like bait. “How about a bonus for ripping her shirt off?”
My hands fly to my pants pocket where my lock picking set should be. My pocket is flat and empty. “Hey, that’s mine!” I make a grab for it but it disappears from Dee’s hand. I hadn’t seen him move. “How’d you do that?”
“Now you see it,” says Dum, waving the case. How it got from Dee to Dum I have no idea. They’re standing next to each other but still, I should have seen something. Then it’s gone again. “Now you don’t.”
“Give it back, now, you thieving bastards. Or the whole thing’s off.”
Dum gives Dee a sad clown face. Dee arches his brow in a comic expression.
“Fine,” Dee sighs. He hands me back my lock picking set. This time, I was watching for it, but I still didn’t see it moving from Dum to Dee. “Tonight it is.”
Dee-Dum flash identical grins at me.
I shake my head and stomp off before they can steal any more of my things.
CHAPTER 20
My back snaps, crackles, and pops as I try to stand straight. It’s dusk, and my work day is almost over. I put my hand on the small of my back, my body craning slowly to straighten like an ancient crone.
My hands, after only one day of scrubbing clothes in the washtub, are swollen and red. I’ve heard of dry, cracked hands but never really knew what that meant until now. After only a few minutes of being out of the water, my palm has cracks that look like someone took a razor blade and sliced the skin. It’s freaky to see your hand all cut up, looking too dry to even bleed.
When the other laundry drudges offered me a pair of yellow rubber gloves this morning, I turned them down, thinking only prissy old people used those. They gave me such a know-it-all look when I turned them down that my pride wouldn’t let me ask for them at lunch.
Now, I’m beginning to consider getting up close and personal with the one humble bone in my body and asking for the gloves. Good thing I don’t plan on having to do this again tomorrow.