Tim Wynne-Jones - Blink & Caution

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2011 by Tim Wynne-Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First electronic edition 2011

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Wynne-Jones, Tim.
Blink & Caution / by Tim Wynne-Jones. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Two teenagers who are living on the streets and barely getting by become involved in a complicated criminal plot, and make an unexpected connection with each other.
ISBN 978-0-7636-3983-9 (hardcover)
[1. Runaways Fiction. 2. Crime Fiction. 3. Emotional problems Fiction. 4. Guilt Fiction. 5. Canada Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Blink and Caution.
PZ7.W993Bl 2011
[Fic] dc22 2010013563

ISBN 978-0-7636-5455-9 (electronic)

Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

visit us at www.candlewick.com

L ook up at the Plaza Regent, Blink, in the shivery morning light. Count the floors take your pick.

Youre wearing the Blessed Breakfast Uniform: the Adidas, sparkly white; the tan Gap cargos; the yellow Banana Republic polo; the red cotton hooded full-zip. Lifted, all of it, from a gym locker at Jarvis Collegiate, where the posh children drift down from Rosedale on shining bikes or are disgorged from BMWs. You picked a boy about your size. You followed him to school one day, which was against the rules. Its never hard to find a locker room; your nose shows you the way. These fine clothes of young master Rosedale were doused with Eternity when first you put them on, though that fragrance has been lost with repeated wear.

The BBU lifts you up. You are no street punk now. Just look at your fine self: your hair plastered down, your hands clean. Curl your fingers up, boy, so they dont see the nails, ragged from scratching out an existence in this anxious city on the edge of winter. Youre uptown and hungry. Farther uptown than you have ever ventured before, driven to this new hunting ground. The edge of winter, the edge of the world. The brink of something. Because thats what edges are.

Wear the uniform like you own it, Blink. Walk like you mean it. No gazing at the ground as though theres a dime there with your name on it. Nothing in this whole wide world has your name on it.

Shoulders back now, so that the lobby guys say, Good morning, sir, like you just stepped out for a morning walk to get your appetite up to speed. Hes opening the door for you, the tall fella in the long black coat with the red stripes on the shoulders and the little red monkey hat. Smile nice now, Blink, but not so much that you look like the monkey holding the door.

Theres another one inside, with cheeks so shiny pink youd swear his mama just scrubbed them with a toothbrush. He tips his hat like youre a king, and you acknowledge him with your chin, as if youd say, Good morning, right back at him if you werent so busy being rich.

Youre on your way, Blink, you clever monkey, you.

Youve played this breakfast game for a month or so, but it only ever lasts a few days. The smiles soon dim; the good mornings wither; then some suit strides your way wearing his good-bye face, and out you fly through the revolving door, quick as a wink.

But not this day, Blink. Youre good to go.

Just dont hurry and, Christ, dont gawk like youve never seen the inside of a hotel before.

But, oh, look at this lobby, will you? Drink it in. You want to skate across it, so shiny wide. Look at those urns with the exotic plants stuck in them and those chairs just sitting around on the thick carpet discussing important matters. Keep the jitters pressed way down in your empty belly. Stroll like youre heading up to room... pick a number with your left hand holding on to an imagined key.

No one asks. No one cares. In the Blessed BU, you are a guest.

The elevator doors shine like theyve been through the car wash.

Ding.

Theres a camera in this thing, but resist the urge to wave. Look steady at your reflection in the golden door; comb back that sandy-brown hair sprung loose over your brow. Convince those brown-as-hot-tea eyes to calm themselves. Youre here to eat thats all. A boys got to eat.

Blink. Blink. Blink. A blink for every floor.

Ding.

The carpet is like the floor of an enchanted glade, as if the sun has somehow found its way into this windowless place and seeps down the walls in thin streams. Little green bags hang from every morning doorknob, with a newspaper inside, like its Christmas. But you arent here for the news, my friend.

Do you remember the fairy tales Granda told you? Enchanted glades can be a problem. This one here is not as wide as the Westin, or as long as the Sheraton, where you could see trouble coming a mile away. It feels more like you have stolen your way into someones house.

You round the corner, and ah! a black tray with domes on it like some tiny silver city sits outside a sleeping doorway. Theres a wilted carnation and a bottle lying on its side. What your stepdaddy calls a dead soldier.

What have we here? Half a gnawed pork chop, mashed potatoes with a cigarette sticking out the top like a chimney on an igloo. Hell, you can do better than this.

There two doors down. See it, boyo?

You feel the luck oozing up from those one-size-too-small track shoes. Youre just full of fairy dust, Blink. It comes on like that sometimes, the good feeling on the heels of the bad. Someone might even fall in love with a boy like you on a day this lucky.

Then you hear your stepdaddys voice, and you wilt like last nights carnation. You shake him out of your head. You hang on to that sunny disposition, boy. You hang on tight.

Kneel silently before tray number two, like it is a prayerful thing. And, yes! Your prayers are answered. Scrambled egg, hardly touched, a couple of sausages, home fries, and jiggle, jiggle coffee still hot in the thermos. Amen.

Then the crash.

Youre up off that floor like some wild thing on the Discovery Channel, eyes looking every which way, claws out, listening to... nothing. Nothing. You brush your knees off, like you mightve picked up some enchantment, kneeling there, sniffing at the tray. You listen closely. Theres talk somewhere behind a door. Not this one, the next.

But no one comes out. Theres just you and this seven-a-empty hallway. Your breath returns to normal.

Then thump something big falls over. Something real.

What are you waiting for, child? The next shoe to drop? An invitation to the party?

Youre stiff with un-motion. But youre not brain-dead, are you? Theres no shouting. No ones calling anyone a liar. No ones saying,