Orson Card - The Gate Thief

They’re all manmages, girls are. Every damn one of them.

Not Pat. Give her credit-she played no games.

But she also didn’t need any help with her homework.

Danny took Laurette’s hands in a brotherly way and set them on the table. “You just need to do it again. On the next problem. I’ll watch. Do the steps. You can get it right every time, Laurette. Just concentrate on the operations, not the numbers you’re plugging in.”

“I know you like Pat,” said Laurette. “But I just don’t see why.”

“Fortunately,” said Danny, “you don’t have to.”

He got up from the table and headed for the refrigerator. “Is there anything off limits in the fridge?”

“Everything in the fridge is off limits,” said Laurette. “My mom micro-menus. She calculates the family diet down to the microgram.”

“So doubtful,” said Danny. “You don’t own a scale that reports micrograms.”

“You can eat anything from the cookie jar,” said Laurette.

“But your mother’s vegan wheatless cookies are inedible,” said Danny. “None of you has a gluten allergy.”

“She read somewhere that wheat is bad. It’s just a phase, she’s probably already sneaking bread herself on the sly. Then she’ll feel guilty, confess to us all, and we’ll get bread again, too.”

“It’s amazing that your whole family doesn’t look like concentration camp victims.”

“We all cheat,” said Laurette. “Though in my case, it’s not for flavor or even hunger. It’s all about keeping the cleavage.”

“Yes, well,” said Danny.

“You never look anymore.”

“Don’t have to keep reading a book I’ve already memorized. Wasn’t Sin coming over, too?”

“No,” said Laurette.

“She said she was.”

“It’s my turn tonight,” said Laurette.

“I hate high school,” said Danny.

“I don’t want to have sex with you,” said Laurette. “I just want you to be interested in it. I know you’re not gay, because of what Pat said.”

Danny’s heart sank a little. “What did Pat say?”

“I asked her, ‘What was it like to kiss him?’ And she said, ‘I wonder whether we’re really going to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving or if my parents are going to call it off again this year.’”

“Oh,” said Danny.

“And then I said, ‘So you slept with him, is that it?’ And she said, ‘My parents always have these big plans but then they don’t do any of the jobs you have to do to make the plans come off.’”

“Her parents are very frustrating to her,” said Danny. “But I think if procrastination bordering on laziness is the worst thing wrong with your parents, you’re doing pretty well.”

“I don’t actually care about Pat’s parents, Danny,” said Laurette. “Boys are supposed to be constant horndogs. And mythological gods are supposed to be even worse.”

“Some of them are,” said Danny. “Maybe most of them.”

“Maybe you are, too, if you find girls you think are attractive.” She was crying again.

“What is this?” asked Danny. “We’re friends. You’re attractive. And funny and nice and I like you fine.”

“But you don’t want me.”

“Is that the only measure of … anything?” asked Danny. “And you need to get your homework done so I’m leaving.”

“Please don’t,” said Laurette. “Please just … can’t you just kiss me and see if you like it?”

“I’d like it just fine. I’d like it a lot. That’s why I’m not going to do it.”

“You can’t possibly be Christian ,” said Laurette. “Why can’t you ever do something because it’s fun ?”

“I do things for fun all the time,” said Danny. “But I don’t like hurting people.”

“Pat doesn’t own you! You’re not married .”

“Actually, I lied. I do like hurting people. I spent my whole childhood thinking up malicious pranks and playing them. Really nasty stuff. Involving poo and pain and bad smells and minor injuries. Plus a lot of humiliation. But that’s because I detested everyone in my family, and they detested me back. And my pranks were funny. There’s nothing funny about kissing you when I don’t mean it and when I know you’d talk about it and it would hurt Pat and it would also hurt Xena and Sin because I didn’t do anything with them.”

“What if I didn’t talk about it?” asked Laurette.

“I’m going now,” said Danny.

“You said that before, and yet you’re still here.” She got up from her chair and put her arms around him and leaned her head on his chest. “You really are physically fit, you know. Good health is so attractive.”

“Now you’re just being idiotic,” said Danny.

“And you’re still here,” said Laurette. She slid a hand down his back, under the waistband of his pants.

“All that’s down there is my butt,” said Danny. “You have one, too.”

She used her other hand to grab his wrist and plant his hand on her backside. “ That’s a butt,” she said, “and you don’t have one. That’s what I’m looking for. To see what holds your pants up.”

This had gone far enough. Because it was working exactly as she intended and he just didn’t understand why she was doing this. It seemed like a game among the girls, but they also seemed to mean it.

He gated back three paces.

She burst into tears. “I’m that repulsive.”

“The opposite. You won’t leave me alone and you are not repulsive and I’m grimly determined not to be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy who thinks he’s a god and impregnates women left and right.”

“I’m on the pill, if that’s what worries you. And I know you don’t have AIDS so you don’t have to use a condom.”

“I can’t believe you said that,” said Danny.

She was back in front of him, fiddling with his zipper.

“What happened to ‘No means no’?” he said, removing her hands from his jeans.

“That’s so eighties,” she said. “I wasn’t even born then. And it’s about girls saying no, anyway.”

But he had no snappy retort, because in that moment he felt something that could not be real.

He felt somebody using the Wild Gate.

He knew it was that gate because there were a dozen of his own gates woven into it in one direction, two dozen in the other, so the feeling of gate-use was that much stronger.

Hermia and Veevee used gates often and he knew what that felt like. It was part of the background noise of his life-though it was far more noticeable now, since he’d been through a Great Gate himself. This, though. This was someone he didn’t know. And then another person. And another.

“Excuse me,” said Danny. “Something’s happening. Nothing to do with you. Got to go.”

“What’s wrong? You look-”

But he didn’t get to hear how he looked. He had already gated to the Silvermans’ barn.

There was no one there.

There was also no Wild Gate. Someone had moved it. And he hadn’t even felt it.

No, he had felt it. That’s part of what drew his attention to the use of the gate. Someone moved it and then people started using it.

Someone? There were only two gatemages in the world, besides Danny. Unless it was the Westilian kid that Loki had dropped off with the Silvermans.

Danny gated to the house. The boys were sitting in the living room. The younger one was playing a videogame. The older one was staring into space. Both here, nothing changed.

“Danny,” said Leslie. She stood in the doorway that led to the hall. “What’s wrong?”

“Somebody’s using the gate.” He didn’t need to specify which one.