“Do you know more stories?”
Lyra was startled. She’d thought 72 was asleep. His eyes were closed and one arm was thrown across his face, so his voice was muffled.
“What do you mean?”
He withdrew the arm but kept his eyes closed, so she was free to look at him. Again, his face looked very bare in the dark, as if during the day he wore a different face that only now, with his eyes closed, had rubbed away. She noticed the particular curve of his lips and nostrils, the smooth arrangement of his cheekbones, and wanted to touch and explore them with her fingers. “You can read. You told that story on the marshes. About the girl, Matilda. You must know more, then.”
She thought of The Little Prince and its soft cover, creased through the illustration, its smudgy papers and its smell, now lost forever. She squeezed her ribs hard, half wishing she would crack. “Only one more good one,” she said.
“Tell it,” he said.
Again she was surprised. “What?”
This time he opened his eyes, turning slightly to face her. “Tell it,” he said. And then: “Please.” His lashes were very long. His lips looked like fruit, something to suck on. Now he did smile. She saw his teeth flash white in the dark.
She looked away. The stars spun a little, dizzy above her. “There,” she said, lifting an arm to point. “See that star?”
“Which one?”
“That one. The little twinkly one, just next to the one that looks almost blue.”
It didn’t matter whether he was looking at exactly the same star as she was. But after a moment he said, “I see it.”
“That’s Planet B-612,” she said. “It’s an asteroid, actually. And that’s where the Little Prince comes from.” She closed her eyes, and in her head she heard echoes of Dr. O’Donnell’s voice, smelled lemon soap, watched a finger tracking across the page, pointing out different words. “It’s a small planet, but it’s his. There are three volcanoes on the surface, one active, two inactive. And there are baobab plants that try and overgrow everything. There’s a rose, too. The Little Prince loves the rose.” This was the part of the book that had most confused her, but she said it anyway, because she knew it was important.
“But who is the Little Prince?” 72 asked.
“The Little Prince has golden hair, a scarf, and a lovable laugh,” Lyra said, reciting from memory.
“What’s lovable?” 72 asked.
Lyra shifted. “It means . . .” She didn’t know. “I guess it means someone loves you.”
72 didn’t say anything. She was going to continue her story, but she felt a bad pressure in her chest, as if someone was feeding a tube into her lungs.
“How do you get to be loved?” 72 asked. His voice was quiet, slurred by sleep.
“I don’t know,” Lyra answered honestly. She was glad when he fell asleep, or at least pretended to. She didn’t feel like telling a story much after that.
Turn the page to continue reading Lyra’s story. Click here to read Chapter 11 of Gemma’s story.
TWELVE
IN THE MORNING THEY WERE woken by a shout. Lyra thought they must have been spotted. Instead she saw a man in thick gloves loading trash from the Dumpsters into an enormous truck. Momentarily hypnotized, she watched the trash flattened by machinery that looked like metal teeth. The smell was sweet and vaguely sickening. Still, she was hungry.
Then she remembered the money they’d stolen from Gemma’s wallet. 72 was awake now too, and the man in the gloves stared at them as they stood and rolled up the blanket, stuffing it in their backpack, but said nothing. Lyra was beginning to understand that humans outside Haven didn’t seem to care about them. Maybe their world was simply too big. They couldn’t pay attention to all of it.
72 was hungry too, so they went to the diner next to the gas station and took turns in the bathroom washing their faces and hands. Lyra even wet her scalp and brushed her teeth. There was a stack of small paper cups and electric-blue mouthwash in a dispenser above the sink. When she returned to the table, 72 was fumbling with Jake’s stolen phone.
“It won’t stop ringing,” he said. And in fact the phone lit up in his hands, sending out a tinny musical sound.
“Let me try,” she said. She’d seen cell phones before but had only ever handled one once, when Nurse Em, years ago, had shown Lyra pictures of her dog at home on the mainland. A Pomeranian. White and fluffy but otherwise ratlike, Lyra had thought, but hadn’t said so. Maybe the dog was still alive. She didn’t know how long dogs normally lived, and whether they outlasted replicas.
She managed to get the phone to stop ringing and returned it to 72, who put it in his pocket. She wondered why he liked carrying it around if they had no one to call. Maybe it was because of what he’d said and why he’d escaped: just to see what it was like. Just for a little.
The menu was so full of writing that Lyra’s head hurt looking at it. There was a whole section named Eggs. How many different ways could eggs be eaten? At Haven they were always scrambled, crispy and brown on the bottom.
“It’s a waste,” 72 said. He seemed angry about the menu. “All this food.” But she thought he was just angry about not being able to read. He made no mention of the story she’d started to tell him last night, of the Little Prince, and Lyra was glad. His question was still bothering her, as was the feeling she’d had afterward, a strange emptiness, as if she was already dead.
A woman came to ask them what they wanted to eat. Lyra had never been asked that question before, and in that moment she deeply missed the Haven mess hall and the food lit orange beneath heating lamps and the way it was deposited onto their plates by sour-faced women wearing hairnets. 72 ordered coffee and eggs. So she ordered the same thing. The eggs were burned on the bottom and tasted like they did at Haven, which made her feel better.