The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy

CHAPTER

2

Two Years Later

WINSTON SAT IN the cafeteria of Subito School, ignoring his bologna sandwich and humming Darth Vader’s theme song.

Yesterday, he’d gotten inspired and composed some words to go along with the melody of “The Imperial March,” so now he was running through it in his head:

Pure poetry.

To be very clear, though, his love for the song had nothing to do with his own dad or the disappearance or the memory of ever watching Star Wars with his dad or literally anything at all like that. It was because Winston was a tuba player. And “The Imperial March” was like breathing to a tuba player.

That was all it was.

He was still humming to himself when, across the cafeteria, Frenchie LeGume stepped through the door to the hot lunch line and out of sight, and for a second, Winston had the distinct feeling that a black hole had just swallowed a star. Bloop. He blinked after her and then shook it off, feeling his cheeks go hot. It wasn’t like him to be so dramatic about… well… the hot lunch line.

Okay, fine.

It was.

It was like Winston to be dramatic about everything. Everything except Louise, because she didn’t like it and told him so.

But it wasn’t like he tried. Without meaning to, he could imagine the worst thing. Even the most ridiculous worst thing, like the time a bee flew past him on the walk to school, and he thought, What if I swallowed that bee? and then he spent the rest of the day not talking because of the imaginary bee-swallowing incident.

He’d been dramatic about the house. When they had to put the house up for sale, he’d spent entire weekends going from room to room, closing his eyes, and quizzing himself on what it looked like, just to make sure he wouldn’t forget. And when the doorbell rang one afternoon, and he answered to find a nice-looking man rubbing his hands together in the cold, a man who politely inquired after the For Sale by Owner sign taped to the window, Winston yelled, “IT’S MY HOUSE, YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!” and slammed the door in his face.

He felt bad about it later, when the house didn’t sell, and still didn’t sell, and he watched his mom get a wrinkle in the middle of her forehead that never went away anymore. It was probably hard enough being a real estate agent who couldn’t even sell your own house—it was definitely harder when your own kid was sabotaging you.

Winston liked using dramatic words like sabotage.

But he was probably most dramatic about the tuba. From the very first day, he’d felt like the tuba was a long-lost piece of himself that he’d finally found. In fact, he was so dramatic about the tuba that one time in band class while Mr. Manning had been working with the saxophones, Winston’s mind drifted and he thought to himself, This tuba has kept me alive for the last two years, and then almost burst into tears with the truth of it, and if the saxophones had not, at that moment, played a really horrible note all in unison, he might well have. Because really, if it weren’t for the tuba, he might have died of loneliness. Louise had disappeared into after-school activities. His mom had disappeared into being a real estate agent. His dad, of course, had just straight-up disappeared.

So he’d filled the empty house with the sound of the tuba. He’d lug the school loaner home most days of the week, sit in the kitchen, and practice. One of those days, he’d gotten up for some water and then turned at the sink to see his tuba right where he’d left it, sitting in the chair, waiting for him. The light from the window fell across the brass, and it shone there in the middle of the kitchen, alone, and golden, and perfect, and Winston felt his heart expand to the precise size of a tuba.

Somehow, the tuba understood what it meant to be alone.

So he named the tuba the Lonesome (it felt exactly dramatic enough), and that very afternoon he’d accidentally played the first few notes of “The Imperial March.” Then he’d picked out the next few notes, playing and playing and playing, filling the house with the velvety sounds of Vader’s empire until Louise had appeared in the doorway, hours before she was usually home.

She wandered in, leaning against the wall by the oven, absently picking at a singed bit of paint from long ago, and listened to him play.

“You sound like whale farts,” she said when he stopped.

“At least I don’t smell like whale farts,” he said brightly. Then, quickly, so she didn’t misunderstand, he said, “I mean, not that you do. As far as we know. Who even knows what whale farts smell like?”

“Fish, I guess.”

He considered that. “Fish know? Or the farts smell like fish?”

“Where’s Mom?” she asked, and for the billionth time, he wondered why she always felt like the older one.

He pointed toward the middle of the fridge, where the note their mom left had partially slid down. All their magnets were dying. “Scheduling showings for some other agent. Why’re you home so early?”

She opened the fridge door and grabbed some bologna. “Dr. O had a dentist appointment. She sent me home.”

“You’re the only one in Science Club now?”

“No,” she said, exasperated. “But the rest of them didn’t care enough to try to get her to move the appointment. They aren’t actual scientists. They just like setting hair spray on fire.”

“That sounds… kind of fun.”

“Science Club isn’t supposed to be fun,” she said, and without another word, she left, slamming into her room, and he hugged the Lonesome closer, wondering what he’d said wrong. He probably shouldn’t have said anything. Or maybe just stuck to whale farts.

If a whale farted in the ocean and nobody was around to hear it, did it make a noise?

Well, the whale heard it, at least.

He started playing again, quietly, so it wouldn’t bother Louise in her room. Sometimes, playing quietly was just as dramatic as playing loudly. When no one was home, though, which was nearly every day after school until the evening, he played his whole heart out. On the worst days, when the house seemed emptiest, the sound was inarguable proof he was, at the very least, still alive.

If he’d been a whale, this was him, hearing his own farts.

That was what the tuba had given him.

That and Frenchie.

And Frenchie was… also a big part of currently being alive.

Now, in the cafeteria, he watched as she threaded her way over to where he sat. Her high ponytail switched as she dodged someone with a teetering tray of milks. Someone, probably a new kid, stared a little too long as she passed. When Winston had first met her, he thought she’d had birthmarks scattered across her face and arms—later she told him, just once, with the matter-of-factness she might have told him her class schedule, that it was a whole thing, that her skin lost pigment in the sun, here and there, without any pattern or reason. Permanently.

It was one of two things they didn’t talk about. The disappearance was the other.

She slid into the seat next to him, her tray fitting neatly beside his, so that the two of them looked out at the cafeteria in front of them. It was the way they always sat, Frenchie on the left, Winston on the right, a habit they picked up from band, where she was first chair tuba and he was second chair tuba.

Frenchie was the only person who knew he’d named his tuba the Lonesome. He’d told her at this exact table.

She’d dropped a carrot at the news, and it rolled all the way under the table. “You named your tuba?”

“Why not?” he’d said. “People name spaceships all the time. Is a tuba that different?”

“From a spaceship? Yes. But also…” She’d been trying to rescue the carrot with her foot, but now she gave up and turned to him. “But also, you’re right. Tubas deserve names.”

It took her a couple days to come up with a name that felt right, but she nailed it.

“In honor of how it sings,” she announced with a grin, “I’m calling it the Canary.”

Later, for her birthday, he’d gotten the librarian to let him use the laminating machine, and made her a luggage tag with a yellow bird on it. She put it on her case immediately, beaming. “I don’t think it’s really a canary,” he’d said apologetically. “I think it might be a parakeet or something.”

“It’s perfect. And hilarious.”

Winston thought she was hilarious.

Also talented and smart and very pretty, and now he was having dramatic thoughts about her and, frankly, it was very confusing.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she cleared her throat and then said, “I’m going to tell you something, and I need you to act natural.”

She hadn’t even finished the sentence, and he was already sitting on the edge of his seat. “I’ve never acted more natural.”

Frenchie nodded. “Great. Maybe also don’t move your mouth when you talk.”

“Like this?” he said, talking through his teeth and not moving his lips at all. It was harder than it looked.

“Perfect,” she said, doing the same thing. “Now. What do you know about the criminal element?”

He spoke slowly. “Do you mean, do I know any criminals?” Then he pretended to take a bite out of his bologna sandwich, just for an excuse to move his mouth again.

“Sure,” she said.

“Not personally,” he said, talking as he fake-chewed. “But I’ve watched a lot of movies. What sort of criminal are you looking for?”

“I’m not looking for a criminal. I think I’ve found one. Actually, a bunch of them.” She quickly scanned the cafeteria. “There’s a criminal ring here at Subito.”

“A criminal ring?” Winston asked, so surprised that he accidentally didn’t disguise the question in any way.

“It’s the teachers.”

His jaw dropped.

“Look at them.” She was very good at talking without moving her mouth. Winston wondered if she practiced it. “They’ve started wearing all black. Every one of them. That’s weird, right? But okay, you say, maybe it’s just a widespread fashion coincidence. Except also, they’re having secret meetings after school. Almost every day. In the gym. The first time I noticed was by accident, and then I went back four times last week, pretending to wait for someone down the hall, and they go in, two or three at a time, but not casually, not innocently. They look behind them before the door shuts. To make sure they aren’t being watched. They all do it.” She paused.

“That is suspicious.”

“I don’t actually have any other evidence. Yet. So, what do you think?”

Winston took another fake bite of his sandwich while he thought. As he chewed, Frenchie nodded toward the center of the cafeteria. The two of them watched as Mr. DuBard, dressed all in black, slowly walked across the cafeteria, talking to himself. Directly in front of him, the kid who’d had the massive tray of milk cartons smashed one on his forehead, the milk spurting all over, and everyone around him squealing. DuBard walked right past, not even looking down, then spun in a complete circle, threw his hands up, and kept walking.

“He’s brainwashed,” Frenchie said. “That’s a thing in organized crime.”

“You know I want to believe you,” Winston began, “but… I’ve never seen the teachers be organized.”

Frenchie was silent for a minute. “Fair. Just promise me that you’ll pay attention.”

Over the next two periods, Winston watched carefully for signs that the teachers looked like criminals or that they were organized in any way. He watched as Mr. Colvin dropped a stapler and the staples fell out, scattering across the floor. He watched as Ms. Jardine cuddled the class hamster. He watched between classes, as teachers stood in their doorways and chatted happily with students.

And soon it was the last period of the day. Band.

Frenchie got there before him, so this time, he slid into place next to her, depositing the Lonesome carefully next to the Canary.

The band-and-orchestra room was too small for the number of kids crowded into it. The air clanged with the sound of metal music stands. There was a mural on one wall of the room, a giant piece of music, but instead of normal music notes, the round part at the bottom of each note was actually the head of a famous musician. Every note was a different musician, and each one had been painted by a different student from art class.

In the center, there was one extra-large music note, five feet high, made up of the smiling head of Yo-Yo Ma. Just above him was the definitely made-up quote:

Winston loved the mural. He, too, felt that when music called, he had said, “Cello!”

Or more accurately, “Tuba!” but, well, that didn’t make any sense.