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Shortly after Toby found himself on the docks at Anchorhead, Toby once more found himself in handcuffs. The customs agent behind him pushed him against the wall of the customs hall, pulling the boy’s arms behind his back and applying the cuffs. The agent had come out of nowhere, and with a swift, practiced movements, he completely subdued Toby. It hadn’t hurt, not too much, the agent’s skilled movements calculated to put out exactly the right amount of pressure, but Toby fought back his tears all the same.
The agent pulled Toby away from the wall, turned the boy to face him, and gave a quick examination. He then turned him towards a small, entirely uninteresting door off to the side of the hall, and began a slow but consistent march towards it. Those waiting in line to pass through to Anchorhead watched, occasionally leaning over to whisper to their partners in voyeurism, fixing their eyes on the frightened boy. The agent had almost made to the door when he stopped, interrupted by the soft, assured voice of a girl.
“Excuse me,” she said, and the customs agent turned the kind of turn that said he could probably make overtime off if he did this right. And then, Toby felt the agent tense, and that maybe the man stood up a little straighter.
“Miss Molyneux!” The agent said. “My apologies! I had not noticed you.”
Toby turned to find Nina standing just on the other side of an empty customs bay, underneath a large sign that read “No Waiting” in three languages. She leaned on the gate separating the docklands from the rest of the country, focused on the customs officer and his charge. “That one’s mine,” she said, pointing to Toby. “He’s a hand on Captain Cait’s boat.”
The customs agent made a tiny, nervous sound in his throat. He unlocked the cuffs on Toby’s wrists, fumbling the key in the locks. He pushed Toby up to the gate with the same calculated motion he had made before, reached into the customs bay, and opened the gate to let Toby through.
“I am very sorry, Miss Molyneux,” the officer said, bowing to Nina. “If I had known-”
“No worries. What’s your name?”
“Hsu, miss. Geoffry Hsu.”
“Agent Hsu, please. We’ve been tardy with our paperwork. We’ll send it down as soon as we can.”
“Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.”
Nina waved the agent off, but he remained bowed until she left the customs hall.
Outside, Nina put her arm around Toby’s shoulders and led him to what looked like a bus stop in the middle of the street. “Are you alright?”
Toby nodded, wiping a stray tear away with his finger. “Fine,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Xiphos left you,” Nina said, her ears flattening out. “If I hadn’t come back, you could have sat in the customs jail for a couple of days. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Toby nodded.
Nina sighed. “Okay.” She patted his shoulder, and then, hands in her pockets, she leaned up against a lamp post.
Toby took a moment to look around. Anchorhead. This was unreal. Anchorhead was one of those places, the kind of place people in the Colony talked about, but had never actually been, save a rare classmate who had grown up on one of the islands, and then moved away. It was a mythical place where things were manufactured, where movies and pop stars and world champion sailors came from. And from where he stood, it looked nothing like Toby had imagined it. Where were the rows upon rows of giant tenement buildings? Where was the ferry terminal? He had expected all of the signs to be in Linian, but all he could see was traditional Latanian.
An old tram sidled up to the stop, and Nina led Toby on, and up to the top deck. The interior was wooded, its benches stained to match the paneling around the open windows. There was no air conditioning in the trams, and it was hot. Toby hadn’t been prepared for the heat; he had come from winter in the northern hemisphere, to summer in the southern. Nina sat down on one of the benches, and when Toby hesitated, she giggled and pulled him down next to her.
The tram whirred to life, starting a slow but steady climb up a hill. Toby watched out the window at the buildings that passed, taking all of the city in. Nina sat quietly next to him, her head propped up on the sill of the window, staring off to somewhere past the city.
“That man,” Toby said.
“Yes,” Nina said.
“How did he know you? I mean, why would he care if the captain has me on board?”
“That’s how it is on the island,” Nina said, still staring out the window.
Toby, somewhat satisfied, folded his arms over his chest and sat back on the bench. “Anchorhead is weird.”
“This isn’t Anchorhead,” Nina said, sitting back with him.
Toby struggled with this a moment. “The captain said we were going to Anchorhead…”
“Yes,” Nina said. “And we did certainly pass through Anchorhead waters.”
The wall of buildings outside the tram suddenly broke away, the tram leaving them behind on its climb up the hill. Below them, the bay expanded out from the island, stretching towards the horizon, carrying freighters and ferries on its back. It ran up against a mountain that had pushed its way out of the sea, green and round, mist settled like a crown around its peak. Thousands of high rises crowded around its base, piers radiating from its shores like feelers, sending and receiving hundreds of boats every second. To Toby, it looked noisy and cramped, and he could imagine the smell from here, of dried fish and hamburgers, discarded beer and tea, of people and the sea all mixed together. In the distance, a few islands sat on the periphery, encircling both the island they were on, and the island in front of him.
“That’s Anchorhead,” Nina said. “This,” she pointed out the other side of the tram, to the side of an over-grown hill, “is the sovereign nation of Molyneux Island.”
Toby gaped, the wheels in his head spinning as fast as they could go. “The captain…”
Nina’s ears dropped. “Yes, she is. And myself, too, just to save you the trouble of having to-”
“You’re a Molyneux!” Toby blurted. He covered his mouth, ears flat against his head.
The few people on the top deck with them turned suddenly, looking back at Nina. When they recognized her, they all stood quickly, and with a bow, filed down to the bottom level of the tram. Nina returned a little wave as the people left, and then scrubbed her face with her hands.
“Yes,” Nina said. “Can we still be friends?”
“We’re friends?”
“I thought so.”
Toby struggled to find a comfortable position on the bench, clasping his hands together in front of him. “We’ve only known each other for four days.”
Nina shrugged. She sighed again. “I’m sorry about Xiphos. She was supposed to get you through customs.”
Toby took a moment to adjust to this sudden change. “She wouldn’t wait for me.”
The red panda folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes. “She’s being a twat to you, and I shouldn’t be letting her. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not that bad…” Toby said, dropping his voice.
“It’s mean. I’ll speak with her about it.” She scratched her ear. “She’ll get better. It takes her a while to get used to people. I’m sure you’ll have something to bring you two together.”
The tramway flattened out, and the trip wound them through sparsely populated streets, carrying only a stray taxi or two, and the shadows from the canopy of trees above. Toby watched out the opposite window, catching a housing development that stood out from the blanket of trees that spread across the island, twenty stories tall, like shiny white pencils jammed in the ground. When the tram turned a corner, Toby could make out half a dozen of these tenements scattered among the trees, and each stop close to the developments shed the tram of more people. It was a short time before Toby and Nina were alone.
And very soon after that, the tram pulled into a big loop at the end of the road. It stopped at a weathered stone bench, cut into a wall that ran as far as Toby could see either way. Next to the little alcove, carved into the stone, were the words “Buan Chuimhne.” Nina lead Toby off the tram, giving a little bow to the driver, and turned towards a little road that led to a gate.
Nina stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the gate at the end of the drive. She gave a heavy sigh, her ears slowly sliding flat against her head. Toby stepped up behind her, poking his fingers together, looking through the gate, then over at Nina, and back to the gate.
“Where are we?”
“Buan Chuimhne,” Nina said. “The Molyneux family estate.”
“Oh.” Toby shifted his weight back and forth on his feet.
“Yes.” She turned back to Toby, her gaze still distant. “Do you want to go back to dock towns?”
Toby looked through the gate again, and then back to Nina. He nodded.
“Brilliant,” she said, brightening. “I know this little bookshop that has this wizard coffee shop next to it.”
They turned back to the tram loop and waited for a distant tram to make its way to them.
“Wizard?” Toby asked. “Like broomsticks and owls and teen angst?”
“Like, it’s good,” Nina laughed, hitting Toby in the shoulder.
“I don’t think you’re saying that right.” Toby rubbed his arm.
Nina stuck her tongue out at Toby, and swatted at his ear. Toby flailed a poor defense, reducing Nina into a body-shaking giggle fit. Toby folded his arms, staring off into the trees on the side of the road, his ears slicked back against his head.
Nina stifled a giggle. “Oh, I’m sorry, Toby.” She took his arm in his, and watching the tram with him, said, “You should tell me all about your home.”
Toby narrowed her eyes at her, checking her face for her intentions, and when he registered she was serious, started to tell her of the Red River Valley, back home in the Colonies.
It would be dark, many hours later, before they made it back to the estate.
[g]
There might be a comma splice and a missed question mark here:
“Xiphos left you,” Nina said, her ears flattening out. “If I hadn’t come back, you could have sat in the customs jail for a couple of days. Are you sure you’re alright.”
The question mark I got. I’m not sure about the comma, and my copy of Strunk and White isn’t handy. My gut says conditional sentence, split the two parts.
I actually meant the one after “left you,” and thought I found an example of the way I expected, but on further review you’re quite consistent the other way when splitting quotes. I’m no English major, so when I hedge my bets on grammar nitpicks like that it means I’m expecting to be wrong at least half the time. You’re right about the 2nd one, tho.