Sherry tapped Michi's arm, trying to keep the movement small, and deliberately took her time packing up at the end of class.
"What's up?" Michi whispered, when the class was nearly empty and there was nobody near them.
"Don't publish."
"What?" Michi's voice rose a little.
"Ssh. Don't publish."
"Why the hell not?" Michi hissed. "It wasn't on the news, nothing's been said, it smells like a coverup to me."
"Exactly. But who is covering up and why?"
Sherry looked around at the crowded hall as they stepped out of the classroom. They walked slowly to their next class, waiting for the crowd to thin. Sherry leaned over.
"If you publish, you'll be hurting the seperatists," Sherry whispered. "The Averys told me."
"Do you believe them? They could be lying, trying to stop the seperatists themselves."
"UN inspectors raided Clockstopper Press last night and shut it down. I believe them."
The bell rang, and they ducked into class, earning them a disapproving look from the teacher.
Michi shot her a glance as they took their seats, chewing her lip and clearly thinking.
Halfway through the class, she nudged Sherry and nodded. "Talk later," she said, barely audible.
Sherry nodded back.
It was hard to concentrate, both from the thoughts circling in her head, trying to get her explanation to Michi in order, and from the rustling and whispering all around and the snatches of rumour she heard. Did you hear? ...closed too. No more lerkkal in town.
Finally, the class ended. Sherry headed for her locker. So many people hanging around, talking, chatting, listening--and how many were reporting back to the UN goons so they could harass more people? Sherry tried to look around surreptitiously, tried to watch people from the corner of her eye so she could see if they were watching her--without looking at them and catching their attention.
They talked about lunch, trying to act normal and find a spot where they could talk privately. Sherry tried to relax her shoulders, certain that all the spies could tell she was hiding something.
Kara and her friends--spies, too?--gathered around the same locker as they had yesterday afternoon, when Sherry had offered to print Michi's article. She saw Kara glance her way a few times, a half-smile sneaking out before she turned back to her friends.
They finally went outside to eat, since there wasn't any spot inside where they couldn't be overheard.
"And Kara is a spy or something," Sherry said when they were outside. "So was one of your roomies on the ship. She's always nearby when we talk about something that mysteriously gets derailed later."
Michi nodded. "So now what?"
"We keep our heads down and stay out of trouble, I guess. That's what Sue told me to do. And not talk about what happened at Zelks' shop, or at least not add any speculation if somebody else starts talking about it."
Michi sighed in frustration. "There's gotta be something we can do. I mean, even something small. But who do we talk to, to offer to help? Like, it would be pretty bad if we went up to someone on the wrong side and offered to help."
"And even on the right side, would they trust us? About the only people I can think of to ask are the Averys." Sherry looked down at the trampled grass and sighed. "And they told me to stay out of trouble. I think they want to keep me out of the whole thing."
"That's annoying. It's not like you can't take care of yourself."
The bell rang, calling everybody back from lunch.
"So I guess you won't be working after school. Want to hang out with me and Jess?"
"Sure. I'll just call the Averys to let them know where I'll be."
#
Michi looked sideways at Sherry, then at Jess. "This is nuts."
Sherry nodded, and tried not to stare at the number of businesses closed or boarded up.
They walked slowly down the street. A few people were out, but not as many as Sherry had gotten used to seeing on her way to Clockstopper in the afternoon. And this was a busier area than her usual walk--or was when the stores had all been open.
The glass on the ground in front of Zelks' shop had been cleaned up, and the broken window covered with a tarp. Sherry paused there, and tried to see in. The display cases all seemed empty, but had Zelks come back to clean them out, or had somebody else done it?
She frowned. "Has anybody seen Zelks at all?"
"Not that I've heard," Michi said. "I haven't seen any lerkkal at all, and I didn't see any yesterday, either."
"Same here," Jess said. "Some people in my class didn't get lunch because there was nowhere to buy food." She laughed, not happy. "I never thought I'd be glad for a lame packed lunch."
Sherry looked around. What people were out were all human. "Weird. I didn't think I'd gotten so used to seeing lerkkal around." Sherry hugged herself. "I hope they disappeared by choice."
They started walking again, looking at the closed stores. Closed, closed until further notice, closed pending investigation, closed by order of the health inspector, the safety inspector... So many reasons given, and she didn't believe a single one. Real problems like that wouldn't hit almost every business on the block at the same time, that just felt suspicious.
They reached the end of the block and looked down yet another one. Already, Sherry could see the closed signs in the nearest windows across the road.
"This sucks. Let's just go home or something. Besides, we still have homework." Michi made a face.
Sherry nodded, and they turned the corner, leaving Jess to turn in the opposite direction. A few blocks on, Sherry turned left and Michi kept going. They walked silently, waved silently, and went home silently.
Sue was already at home making dinner, her eyes a little red.
"Hi, Sherry, how was your day?"
Sherry shrugged. "Ok I guess. There are a lot of places closed downtown, so we all decided to come home early. Want a hand?"
Sue nodded and put Sherry to work peeling carrots.
"So where's Sean?"
"Still out talking to our customers. Those who are still in business, that is." She sniffed, and leaned over the cutting board. "He should be back soon."
Sherry nodded. "When do you think you'll be able to get up and running again?"
"I wish I knew. The UN inspectors didn't seem inclined to let us start up again anytime soon. We paid the fine, even though we had to sell a few things and take out a loan on the press to do it."
Sherry winced. "Ouch. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No." Sue looked up and turned to Sherry. "I want you to stay out of trouble. Because there's trouble coming."
"I should never have mentioned your company--they shut you down because of a silly article I wanted to see published."
"Oh no, it's not your fault, Sherry! They've been looking for excuses to shut us down since long before you came to Velfard. We had been publishing stuff for the seperatists, but they could never prove it." Sue shook her head. "They seem to have decided they don't need proof anymore."
The front door opened and slammed, and a few seconds later Sean stomped into the kitchen, swearing under his breath. "More who want their damn money back. One dipshit even threatened to sue if he didn't get his order by tomorrow morning."
Sherry swallowed.
"We have nothing he could get if he sued. We're broke!"
"Sell the house," Sean said, sitting down at the kitchen table. "The house and the press, and it would almost pay to sue us. I told him to break into Clockstopper and take his stuff, it was boxed and ready for delivery, and that he could take it up with the inspectors who shut us down if he was arrested trying to get at it."
Sherry smothered a laugh. "What did he say to that?"
Sean frowned. "That it was our problem, not his, and that he wouldn't stoop to illegal acts like we obviously had to warrant being shut down."
Sue sighed, looking at her hands. "Do they really think they won't get hit next? I swear, only the people who've been shut down themselves have shown any understanding."
"Some of them may be against independence. And I know for sure that a lot of them were pleased when what they called the 'alien loving nuts' were fined. If they support the UN, they probably won't get shut down."
Sherry nodded. "The UN types really don't seem to like the lerkkal. I don't see why, really, they haven't done anything to us."
"It's not what the lerkkal have done that worries them, it's what the lerkkal might do. They're scared because they don't understand the lerkkal language or psychology very well, even after a hundred years. And, frankly, we're invaders. They think about how humans would react to alien invaders and it terrifies them."
"Oh, like those cheesy old movies from before the first colony, where the humans lose and lose but don't give up, then magically find the one weakness that stops the entire invasion?"
Sean gave her a half-smile. "Something like that."
"Attention please, attention all students and staff," the loudspeaker cracked, interrupting everybody packing up their notes before the lunch break.
The class got a little quieter as everybody looked up.
"Due to safety concerns, nobody is to leave the building during the lunch break for any reason. All staff, please report to the staff room at once."
As soon as the announcement stopped, the talking and complaining started, and a few people rushed to the windows to see what was happening outside that was so dangerous. Michi followed, and grabbed the edge of a window.
Michi glanced back at Sherry, then out the window again.
"I wonder what's going on?" a short boy said, peering out the window next to Michi.
"Something big, I bet," the taller boy sharing his window said. "Everybody's there. Everybody but us."
Michi stepped away from the window, and walked back to Sherry. "The streets are empty, for as far as I could see. Even the two restaurants left down the block are empty, and they're always full."
Sherry nodded. "Must be really big." She tipped her head to the door.
There weren't many people in the hall. Sherry looked up and down its length, and shook her head. "Weird. Anyhow," she said, lowering her voice despite the empty hall, "remember I told you yesterday Sue said there was trouble coming? I think this might be it."
Michi nodded, and they started down the nearest stairwell. At the bottom, a teacher sat on a chair in front of the door to the outside, reading. Sherry turned to the inside door casually, and they went through. Every outside door they passed on the way to their lockers had a teacher guarding it.
At their lockers, Sherry whispered, "Now how are we going to find out what's going on?"
Michi shrugged. "Ask a teacher?"
"That's almost like asking for directions!" Sherry said, faking shock.
Michi laughed. "You're not a guy, you're allowed."
They grabbed their lunches and put their books away, then started wandering down the hall through the sea of speculation in search of a teacher they knew liked them. A few doors later, they saw their history teacher walking the halls, watching all the students.
"Excuse me, Miss Barnes?" Sherry said, falling into step beside her. "I was wondering if you could answer a question for me."
"Can it wait, Sherry?"
"Mmm. Not really."
She stopped walking. "What is it?"
"Do you have any idea what's going on out there? Why do we have to stay inside?"
"I'm told there's a riot in the city, a few blocks away."
Sherry's jaw dropped, and she snapped it shut. "Do you know who? or why?"
"Not yet. Just stay inside, please, and stay out of trouble."
"Yes, Miss Barnes." Sherry nodded and turned away.
"A riot?" Michi nodded. "That would explain the empty streets. Everybody's either in it, or hiding at home. At least the school has a good fence around it, if the rioters come this way they'll be more likely to keep going than to try to get through."
"Are you sure?"
"No, but since the school isn't the target, they probably won't try too hard to get in." She shrugged.
"Aren't you worried?" Sherry put her lunch on the table and sat down.
Michi sat, too. "Not too much. There was a riot every few months most of the places I lived. Some places, every month. You just get shatterproof glass, and wait them out. It there's guns, you stay away from the windows. There's not really anything you can do, so why worry?"
"I just hate not knowing." Sherry pushed her sandwich around on the table without unwrapping it.
"Yeah, that's the worst part. Is there anybody I know in the riot, are they ok, who is going to get hurt..."
"You're not helping."
#
Sherry sat at her desk doing homework, with everybody else in her last class, an hour after school had officially ended. The riot was apparently still not over, since the loudspeaker had given them the "safety concerns" announcement again at the end of the last class.
The loudspeaker crackled again. "All students--you may go home now. Go straight home and avoid downtown."
The classroom surged upwards as everybody jumped to their feet and started gathering their homework.
Sherry shuffled her work into her bag. "Call me when you get home?" she said to Michi.
They headed to opposite ends of the school, walking past all of the people who had left their bags in their lockers. She wasn't the first out the door, but there were a lot of people still at their lockers when she waved to the teacher as she walked past him.
The streets were eerily empty near the centre of town, once she had gotten away from the after school crowds, and not much less so as Sherry got closer to home. She glanced around, looking for other people--any other people--and only saw a few, alone, hurrying off to wherever they were going.
She had never noticed it before, but her footsteps were very loud.
Her own street was just as deserted. She glanced around before unlocking the front door, and quickly locked it behind her.
"Hello? Sue? Sean?"
One of them had always been there when she got home from school, the last couple of days. Sherry did a quick turn through the house, checking every room.
Empty.
She went back down to the kitchen and pulled out her homework. She had barely gotten started when the phone beeped, startling her right out of her seat, before she remembered she had asked Michi to call her.
"Avery residence," she said, just in case it wasn't Michi.
"Hi, Sherry?"
It was Michi. "Hey, did you find out anything on your walk home?"
"Not much. I looked down a couple of streets toward downtown as I walked past, and saw broken windows, an upside down car, and it looked like somebody had tried to set fire to at least one of the buildings. No people, though. Well, guys in uniforms with big guns, not our colony police, either. You?"
"Just dead quiet. Any idea what it was about?"
"Nope. I'll ask around, you do the same. Talk to you tomorrow? I'm being summoned for dinner."
"Ok, later." Sherry turned the phone off, and frowned.
Dinnertime, and the Averys still weren't home. Sherry went back to her homework, working with one eye on the clock.
At two hours past the Averys' normal dinnertime and hardly any homework done, Sherry gave up and started digging through the cupboards, searching for her dinner. It all seemed to need cooking. Sherry sighed and pulled out some of her lunch food, and dined on a granola bar, a carrot, and a jam sandwich.
She sat down to do her homework again. Two hours later, she realised she was still on the same question, flipping her pen around in her hands and staring toward the hall and chewing on her lower lip. They didn't usually get so caught up in what they were doing that they were this late.
Unless they were "caught up" in something in a different sense entirely. And couldn't come home.
Sherry stood up, shoving her chair back, and slammed her notes together. This was going nowhere. She couldn't stop thinking about Michi's comments earlier that day. Do I know anybody in the riot? Had they been in the riot? The streets were cleared of people, Michi said. So where were they?
Sherry shut off the lights and went up to her bedroom.
And stared at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity until she fell asleep.
#
Sherry yawned, tried to stifle it, and failed miserably. Beside her, Michi was watching the class with a puzzled expression. A few people were missing, and more than a few were just acting... odd. Sherry couldn't think of a better word to describe them. Odd. People who were normally chatty sat silent, and people who were normally keen stared off into space and jumped when the teacher caught their attention.
And everybody else was whispering, trading rumours about yesterday's riot. Who had been in it, why it had started, what had happened, who had been arrested, who the uniformed people were who patrolled the streets in threes, guns always out.
Who had been arrested.
Sherry hoped the Averys weren't included in that group, but could only think of one other reason they wouldn't come home--and it wasn't a reason she wanted to think about.
Everybody went through the motions of teaching and learning, but none of them, even the teacher, seemed to really mean it.
Every now and then, Sherry thought she heard "Avery," or "Sean," or "Sue." It was never her Averys. It usually wasn't even the name she thought it was.
The bell rang, class changed, the same time-wasting game of pretend started over, with a different listed subject. Sherry looked over the heads of her classmates and out the window. The streets were mostly empty again, but a different kind of emptiness than yesterday's. There were people out there, but they weren't ambling, socialising, weren't acting normal. All of them were moving quickly, as if they wanted to spend as little time as possible on the street.