The laughs many of us had been holding in burst out.
“Did you see her face?” said Enoch. “She was ready to kill you, Nullings!”
The dynamic between the kids and Miss Peregrine had shifted a bit. They seemed more like teenagers now—real ones, beginning to chafe against her authority.
“You’re all being rude!” said Claire. “Stop it right now!”
Well, not all of them were chafing.
“Don’t you find it wearying, being lectured about every little thing?” said Millard.
“Little thing!” Enoch said, then burst out laughing all over again. “Millard has a—oww!”
Claire had bit him on the shoulder with her backmouth, and while Enoch was rubbing the spot, she said, “No, I don’t find it wearying. And it is strange for you to be nude in mixed company for no good reason.”
“Ahh, balderclap,” said Millard. “Does it bother anyone else?”
All the girls raised their hands.
Millard sighed. “Well, then. I shall endeavor to be fully dressed at all times, lest anyone be made uncomfortable by basic facts of biology.”
* * *
• • •
We talked and talked. There was so much to catch up on. We slipped back into easy familiarity so quickly that it felt like we’d only been apart a few days, but it had been almost six weeks. A lot had happened in that time—to them, anyway—though I’d gotten only occasional updates in the letters Emma sent. They took turns describing adventures they’d had exploring peculiar places via the Panloopticon—though only loops that had been pre-scouted and deemed safe by the ymbrynes, since it was not well-known what lay waiting behind all of the Panloopticon’s doors.
They had visited a loop in ancient Mongolia and watched a peculiar shepherd speak the language of sheep, tending his flock without a stick or a dog, just the sound of his own voice. Olive’s favorite had been a trip to a loop in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, where in a certain little town every peculiar could float just like she did. They had strung nets everywhere above the town so the people could go about their days without weighing themselves down, and they bounced from place to place like acrobats in zero gravity. There was a loop in Amazonia, too, that had become a popular place to visit: a fantastic city in the jungle made from trees, the roots and branches all knotted together to form roads and bridges and houses. The peculiars there could manipulate plants much the way Fiona did—which Hugh had found so distressing and overwhelming that he had scurried out of the loop and back to Devil’s Acre almost immediately.
“It was hot and the insects were terrible,” said Millard, “but the locals were exceedingly nice, and they showed us how they make fantastic medicines from plants.”
“And they go fishing with a special poison that stuns the fish, but doesn’t kill them,” said Emma, “so they can just scoop the ones they want out of the water. Absolutely brilliant.”
“We did some other trips, too,” Bronwyn said. “Em, show Jacob your snaps!”
Emma hopped up from the couch beside me and ran to retrieve them from her luggage. She returned a minute later with the photos in her hand, and we gathered around a floor lamp’s glow to look at them.
“I only recently started taking pictures, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing . . .”
“Don’t be so modest,” I said. “You sent some of your photos along with your letters, and they were great.”
“Eek, I forgot about that.”
Emma was anything but boastful, but neither was she afraid to trumpet her achievements when it came to things she did well. So the fact that she was shy about her photos meant she had high standards and aspired to live up to them. Lucky for both of us—since I have a hard time faking enthusiasm—she was a natural talent. But while the composition and exposure and all that were nice (not that I’m an expert), it was the subject matter that really made them interesting—and terrible.
The first photo showed a dozen or so Victorians posing, casual as picnic-goers, on the crazily slanted roofs of houses that looked like they’d been smashed by an angry giant.
“An earthquake in Chile,” Emma explained. “Printed on non-archival paper that aged badly after we left Devil’s Acre, unfortunately.”
She flipped to the next picture: a train that had jumped its tracks and tipped over sideways. There were children—peculiar ones, presumably—sitting and standing all around it, smiling like they were having a grand old time.
“A train disaster,” said Millard. “It was carrying some sort of volatile chemical, and a few minutes after this picture was taken, we retreated to a safe distance and watched it catch fire and explode in the most terrific way.”
“What was the point of these trips?” I asked. “Seems a lot less fun than visiting some cool loop in the Amazon.”
“We were helping Sharon,” said Millard. “You remember him—tall, cloaked boatman from Devil’s Acre? Rats for friends?”
“How could I forget?”
“He’s developing a new and improved version of his Famine ’n’ Flames Disaster Tour using the Panloopticon’s loops, and he asked us to test out an early version. Besides the Chilean earthquake and the train wreck, there was a town in Portugal where it rained blood.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“I didn’t go along for that one,” Emma said.
“Good thing, too,” said Horace. “Our clothes were irreparably stained.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve all had a much more exciting time than I have,” I said. “I think I’ve left my house about six times since I last saw you.”
“I hope that’s about to change,” said Bronwyn. “I’ve always wanted to see America—and the present day, especially. Is New York City very far?”
“I’m afraid it is,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, sinking down into the couch cushions.
“I’d like to visit Muncie, Indiana,” said Olive. “The guidebook says you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Muncie.”
“What guidebook?”
“Peculiar Planet: North America,” Olive said, and held up a book with a tattered green cover. “It’s a travel guide for peculiars. It named Muncie America’s Most Normal Town six years running. Totally average in every way.”
“That book is horribly out-of-date,” said Millard. “In all likelihood useless.”