Laura Martin - Edge of Extinction

Trying not to get my hopes up, I grabbed my towel and dashed out of the door for the bathroom. Three minutes later I was back, and I found Shawn frowning at the screen of his makeshift port.

“Found anything?” I asked, plopping down beside him. I ran my fingers through my wet curls, and he made a face at me as the motion sent droplets of water over his screen. He gingerly wiped them away with his sleeve.

“It looks like the mandatory assembly in a couple of days will be about the compound entrances.”

I waved my hand impatiently. “I meant anything about my dad.”

“Nope,” Shawn said.

I sagged in disappointment. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he nodded, shutting down the port. He glanced at me, taking in the disappointment on my face, and frowned. “Don’t look so down,” he said.

“But I am,” I whined, flopping backwards on the bed to stare glumly at the ceiling. “It’s been five years. I’m never going to know what happened to him. He left me a stupid blank journal and a stupid broken compass, and I was stupid for thinking I could find out anything from the compound’s stupid information boxes.”

“That’s a whole lot of stupid you’re slinging around,” Shawn quipped.

“I feel like a whole lot of stupid.”

Shawn reached over to snatch my journal off my bed. He opened it and paged through as I stared moodily at my ceiling. My rusted light still hung garishly from it, like an eyeball loose in its socket. Shawn had known about my journal for years. I’d thought my journal was so special, but he’d informed me that most people in the compound owned at least one thing. He had his recycled port and an old music box from his mum, and I’d been shocked to hear that even his aunt had a silver wristwatch. I guess it was human nature to want something to be yours and no one else’s. When I finally sat up and peered over Shawn’s shoulder, he was looking at a drawing of Stegosaurus I’d done a few weeks ago. It was one of my better drawings. I’d even drawn a person standing next to it for scale.

“Is that me?” Shawn asked, pointing at the tiny figure.

“No,” I said, but then I paused. There was something about the nonchalant way the figure was standing, with the shaggy hair and arm positioning that was vaguely Shawn.

“Oh,” Shawn said. “It looked a little like me.”

“I should just throw it away,” I groaned, throwing myself back on my bed.

“Let me guess,” Shawn laughed. “Because it’s stupid?”

“Yes,” I frowned, as the bell rang, signalling we needed to be on our way to school.

“Well,” Shawn said, “let’s get going to that stupid school of ours.”

“You aren’t funny,” I grumbled.

He stuffed my journal, the scan plug and the flashlight back into their hiding spot before screwing the light back in place. “I am, actually,” he countered. “You’re just in a bad mood.”

“You can say that again,” I said, sighing as I followed him out of the door for another day in North Compound.

I woke up a few days later to the sound of a lock pick working at my door.

I got out of bed and shivered in the damp chill of the room as I hurried to let Shawn in.

“Go away,” I moaned, when I opened the door to see him standing on my doorstep, way too alert and happy for this time of the morning. “I’m going to tell the guardians I’m sick today and skip school.”

“And give up spending your birthday with me?” he asked, pretending to be hurt. “Never. Besides, we don’t even have first period this morning.” When I just stared at him blankly, he sighed in exasperation. “Why are you giving me that look? Because you forgot it was your birthday or because you forgot about the compound-wide assembly?”

I smacked my head.

“So both,” Shawn said. “Impressive. Even for you.”

“You are the only one who cares about birthdays,” I grumbled. “I do my best to forget about mine.”

Shawn grinned crookedly. “Congratulations. You succeeded.”

“But I can’t believe I forgot about the assembly,” I groaned as I hunted around my room for my towel and soap. “They’ve been announcing it for days!”

I bolted for the bathroom. Five minutes later I was showered and dressed and back in my room. Shawn sat on my bed staring at his feet like they were the most interesting things in the world, and I paused for a second in my doorway, studying him. There was something off about his expression, and in my fog of sleepy shock over the forgotten assembly I hadn’t noticed before. Shawn had always been horrible at secrets, and it was obvious in the worried lines of his forehead and crooked set of his mouth that he was hiding something.

“OK, spill it,” I commanded. “You’re hiding something. What is it?” He looked back down, nervously pulling at the fraying edge of his grey uniform sleeve. Finally he sighed and looked up at me with worried blue eyes. “It’s big.” He glanced back down at his sleeve, and I gritted my teeth impatiently, wishing I could yank the truth from him. “I just wanted to do something nice for your birthday, and then I found something.”

Hope surged in my chest. “Did you find something about my dad on the scan plug after all?”

He shook his head. “No.” A frown twisted his lips, and I knew he was lying. When I just stared at him, he looked down at his hands guiltily. “And yes,” he mumbled.

“Yes?” My heart slammed to a startled stop in my chest. Had he really just said yes?

“But it wasn’t on the scan plug,” Shawn added quickly. “It was in this.” He held up my dad’s compass, and I snatched it from his hands.

“How did you get this?” I searched my memory, trying to remember the last time I’d looked at it. I’d assumed it was resting in its hiding place above my head, safe and sound in my journal.

“Remember when I was looking at your journal the other day? Well, I kind of borrowed it. I had this idea that I would fix it for your birthday.”

I glanced down at the face of the compass and gaped in surprise to see that the little arm was no longer stuck; now it swung back and forth, finally settling to point north.

“Shawn,” I gasped, “this is incredible.” I looked up at him in confusion. “But I don’t understand. Why did you think you could fix it? You’ve tried before. Remember? Right after I moved into the Guardian Wing.”

He nodded in agreement. “Right. But I’ve learned a lot since then. So I thought I’d take another crack at it. And, well, I managed to get the back off it this time. That’s what stopped me the last time, remember?”

I nodded, recalling a seven-year-old Shawn sweating as he tried to unscrew the back of the compass. I’d finally stopped him, afraid he would break it.

“You said you found information about my dad?” I prompted.

“I did.” He sighed. “And to be honest, I kind of thought about throwing it away and not showing you.”

“Shawn!”

He held up his hands in defence. “I didn’t throw it away.”

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw popped. “You need to explain, and explain quickly.”

“I got the back off, and this was inside,” Shawn said, pulling two small pieces of folded paper out of his pocket. My hands shook as I took them from him. Not really believing that this was happening, I unfolded the first one to reveal my dad’s handwriting.

Sky,

It is my greatest hope that you never find what I’ve hidden inside my compass. That I will have fixed things and returned to North Compound to be with you long before your eleventh birthday, which is when I’ve programmed the port plug to reveal itself. Even at eleven, you will be young to do what I need you to do. But time is running out, and there is no one else I can trust.