Steven Gould - Jumper:Griffin _s Story

I sat down on the bed. The pillow pulled at me and I slumped over. I was asleep almost immediately after my head touched the pillowcase.

Sam brought home the San Diego News Daily and handed it to me in the living room. "They had this at the Stop-N-Go," he said.

They'd used the same photo.

The story was a little different but had pretty much the same facts, including the bit about drugs and the implication that Dad and Mum were criminals. I clenched my teeth as I read it.

"It's rubbish, you know, about the drugs. Not in our home-never. Mum had an uncle-he was an alcoholic and he died of it. We weren't very well off- Mum wasn't working because she was homeschooling me, and Dad couldn't get proper work because they're supposed to hire Americans first in his specialty. To make the rent we were stretching every penny of Dad's salary. If they'd been selling drugs, think we'd have to live like that?"

He tilted his head to one side. "I only know what I've read and what you've told me. And you ain't told me much. And what you did tell has some, well-what is your name again?"

My ears got hot and I looked away. "Sorry. The newspaper has it right. It's just it was me they were asking for when they came to the door. My name. I-" I looked at the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. "They weren't after Mum and Dad. They were after me!"

Never jump where someone can see me and never jump near home. I'd done both and Mum and Dad were dead.

"Really. They wanted to kill you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Did you see something you weren't supposed to? Or is there money involved? Do you stand to inherit something?" He pulled a wooden chair from the wall and straddled it backward, arms resting across the back. He gestured at the paper. "This wasn't your average sicko hunting little kids, was it? The paper said the neighbors saw multiple assailants leave, so there was more than one attacker, right?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"They came to the door asking for you? Not your dad or mom?"

"Didn't I just say that? It's not inheritance, though. And they weren't coming after me because I saw something I shouldn't."

"Then why? This isn't the Sudan. People don't just kill kids for no reason. Even the sickos have a reason."

"It's something I did." It just popped out of my mouth, without thought. My heart raced for a moment but I took a deep breath and said, "It's something I can do."

Consuelo, working on dinner in the kitchen, stepped into the living room and held up a plastic bag with a few pinto beans in the bottom. "Sam! Necesitamos habas. Okay?"

He glanced over his shoulder and said, "Okay. Manana compro?"

"Tempranito en la manana!"

"Okay-first thing." He shrugged and turned back to me. "What do you mean, something you did? You kill their dog or something? Piss in their pool? And you're going to do it again?"

It's against the rules. He'd never believe me without a demonstration. So why does it matter if he believes you?It just did. And they were Dad's and Mum's rules and they were dead. "Remember at the petrol stop, when you asked me where I'd gotten these?" I pointed at my shirt and pants.

His eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Thought maybe you'd stashed them near the station earlier."

I shook my head and stood up. "Consuelo needs beans."

"Yeah-I'll get 'em in the morning."

I jumped to the Safeway back in San Diego, where I'd gotten the crisps and salsa earlier. I got the twenty-pound burlap bag of pinto beans and paid for it in the quick-check line.

Four minutes after I'd disappeared from Sam's living room I reappeared. The chair he'd been sitting on was on the floor, on its side. He was in the corner, pouring something from a bottle into a glass, but air swept around the room as I arrived and his hand jerked, spilling the liquid. "Dammit!"

I hefted the bag. "Beans."

He stared for a moment then took a gulp from the glass.

I carried the beans into the kitchen and put them down on the counter.

Consuelo looked surprised, then pleased. "Bueno!" She rattled off a phrase in Spanish toward the living room and Sam's voice, hoarser than usual, answered, "Si. Yo se."

I went back in and sat down on the couch.

After a moment, Sam put the bottle away and brought his glass across the room. He picked up the chair and sat on it, forward this time, slumped a little.

"What was that?" he asked quietly, his voice still hoarse. The smell of whiskey came with his breath, reminding me of Dad's weekly scotch.

"I went to a Safeway, in San Diego, bought the beans, and came back."

"I got the bean part. You bought them?"

"The express line was empty."

"Well, yeah, I guess I see that. What I don't get is the traveling to San Diego part."

I nodded. "It's the thing I can do. I jumped. Teleported. Whatever you want to call it."

"Is that how you got those clothes?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I went back to my flat and got my allowance and my passport." My voice broke and convulsively I said, "The tape outlines were still there-and the blood. And someone started to come up the stairs and I jumped away."

"Deep breaths, kid. Slow it down."

I nodded and tried that, until my heart wasn't racing.

After a bit he asked, "How long have you been able to do this thing?"

"I did it for the first time when I was five, back in Oxford. In public. In front of witnesses. We've been moving ever since."

"Moving? Why?"

"Dad and Mum said it was the people who started showing up, asking questions at their work. Then there was a close call on the street-a car. I thought it was a careless driver. Anyway, I skipped back behind a postal box and he missed me but he kept driving. No harm done, I thought. But Mum saw it from upstairs. I heard her tell Dad he'd been waiting for me to cross."

He sucked on his teeth. "Can you go anywhere?"

"Anywhere I've been before that I can remember well enough."

He swallowed the last of his whiskey. "I can see why they'd want you-could be handy. But why do they want to kill you? If I could do what you do-if I was the sort of man… I'd want to capture you, to use what you do."

"Well, Dad talked about that, too. We read that Stephen King book about the girl who is kidnapped by the government."

"Firestarter" said Sam. "Didn't read it but I saw the movie."

"Yeah, with Drew Barrymore. We rented it after we read the book."

"But why not something like that? Why do they want to kill you instead?"

My heart started racing and I was breathing fast again. Before Sam said anything I deliberately took deep, slow breaths. Grief may have been one of the things that the gauze was muffling but I recognized the other thing now.

Fear.

They were going to kill me. They followed us for over five years until they found us and then they tried to kill me. Made me want to hide under a bed. Made me want to curl up in a ball and pull dirt over me.

I went back to just breathing. Sam's question still floated out there, though, like a falling glass of milk. You can't grab it in time, you just watch it as it drops, anticipating the spreading puddle of white liquid and jagged glass. "I don't know why they want to kill me."

Later, after supper, in the dusk after sunset, I told Sam I was going back to the flat. "Why?"

"Well, for one thing, my clothes are starting to stink. I want my things."

"And don't you think they'll be waiting?"

"Of course!" My voice was shrill and I clamped my mouth shut and concentrated on my breathing again. I wondered if I was getting asthma or something. After a bit I said, "I'm not going straight there. I'll jump to the neighborhood first and check it out."

"Clothes can be bought, kid."

I dug out my hoard and spread it out on the coffee table. There were sixty-three dollars and some change, fifteen francs, and seven pounds, eight shillings, four p. "Not really gonna last that long, is it?