“Would they practice today, in pouring rain?”
“I guess not.”
“If you’re going to wait until five or five-thirty,” Tessa said, “then you might as well wait just a little while longer and head over there after dark.”
Sam nodded. “I guess so.”
“Sam, you’re forgetting,” Harry said.
“What?”
“Sometime shortly after you leave here, maybe as early as six o’clock sharp, they’ll be coming to convert me.”
“Jesus, that’s right!” Sam said.
Moose lifted his head off his master’s lap and from beneath the arm of the wheelchair. He sat erect, black ears pricked, as if he understood what had been said and was already anticipating the doorbell or listening for a knock downstairs.
“I believe you do have to wait for nightfall before you go, you’ll have a better chance,” Harry said, “but then you’ll have to take Tessa and Chrissie with you. It won’t be safe to leave them here.”
“We’ll have to take you too,” Chrissie said at once. “You and Moose. I don’t know if they convert dogs, but we have to take Moose just to be sure. We wouldn’t want to have to worry about him being turned into a machine or something.”
Moose chuffed.
“Can he be trusted not to bark?” Chrissie asked. “wouldn’t want him to yap at something at a crucial moment. I guess we could always wind a long strip of gauze bandage around his snout, muzzle him, which is sort of cruel and would probably hurt his feelings, since muzzling him would mean we don’t emtirely trust him, but it wouldn’t hurt him physically, of course and I’m sure we could make it up to him later with a juicy steak or—”
Suddenly recognizing an unusual solemnity in the silence of her companions, the girl fell silent too. She blinked at Harry, Sam, and frowned at Tessa, who still sat on the bed beside her.
Darker clouds had begun to plate the sky since they had come upstairs, and the room was receding deeper into shadows. But at the moment Tessa could see Harry Talbot’s face almost clearly in the gray dimness. She was aware of how he was struggling to conceal his fear, succeeding for the most part, managing a genuine smile and an unruffled tone of voice, betrayed only by his expressive eyes.
To Chrissie, Harry said, “I won’t be going with you, honey.”
“Oh,” the girl said. She looked at him again, her gaze slipping down from Harry to the wheelchair on which he sat. “But you came to our school that day to talk to us. You leave the house sometimes. You must have a way to get out.”
Harry smiled. “The elevator goes down to the garage on the cellar level. I don’t drive any more, so there’s no car down there and I can easily roll out into the driveway, to the sidewalk.”
“Well, then!” Chrissie said.
Harry looked at Sam and said, “But I can’t go anywhere on these streets, steep as they are in some places, without somone along. The chair has brakes, and the motor has quite a lot of power, but half the time not enough for these slopes.”
“We’ll be with you,” Chrissie said earnestly. “We can help.”
“Dear girl, you can’t sneak quickly through three blocks of occupied territory and drag me with you at the same time,” Harry said firmly. “For one thing, you’ll have to stay off the streets as much as possible, move from yard to yard and between as much as you can, while I can only roll on pavement, especially in this weather, with the ground so soggy.”
“We can carry you.”
“No,” Sam said. “We can’t. Not if we hope to get to the school and get assistance and get a message out to the Bureau. It’s a short distance, but full of danger, and we’ve got to travel light. Sorry, Harry.”
“No need to apologize, ” Harry said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. You think I want to be dragged or shoulder-carried like a bag of cement across half the town?”
In obvious distress, Chrissie got off the bed and stood with her small hands fisted at her sides. She looked from Tessa to Sam to Tessa again, silently pleading with them to think of a way to save Harry.