Olive ignored him. “Apparently, nothing unusual or out of the ordinary has ever happened there. Ever!”
“Not all of us find normal people as interesting as you do,” Horace said. “And anyway, I’m sure it’s crawling with peculiar tourists.”
Olive, who wasn’t wearing her leaded shoes, floated over the coffee table, to the couch, and dropped the book in my lap. It was open to a page describing the only peculiar-friendly accommodations near Muncie—a place called Clownmouth House in a loop on the outskirts of town. True to its name, it appeared to be a room inside a giant plaster clown’s head.
I shuddered a little and let the book fall closed.
“We don’t have to go all the way to Indiana to find unextraordinary places,” I said. “We’ve got plenty right here in Englewood, trust me.”
“The rest of you can do what you like,” said Enoch. “My only plan for the next few weeks is to sleep until noon and bury my toes in warm sand.”
“That does sound nice,” said Emma. “Is there a beach near here?”
“Across the street,” I said.
Emma’s eyes lit up.
“I hate beaches,” Olive said. “I can never take my stupid metal boots off, which ruins all the fun.”
“We could tie you to a rock near the water’s edge,” said Claire.
“Sounds magical,” Olive grumbled, then snatched Peculiar Planet out of my lap and floated into a corner. “I’ll just take a train to Muncie and fiddlywinks to the rest of you.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Miss Peregrine came into the room. I wondered whether she’d been eavesdropping on us from the hall, rather than doing an extra security round. “You children have earned a bit of a rest, certainly, but our responsibilities are such that we cannot simply while away the next several weeks in idleness.”
“What!” said Enoch. “I distinctly remember you saying we were here on holiday.”
“A working holiday. We can’t afford to waste the educational opportunities presented us by being here.”
At the word educational, groans went up around the room.
“Don’t we do enough lessons as it is?” Olive whined. “My brain may split open.”
Miss Peregrine shot Olive a warning look and stepped smartly to the center of the room. “I don’t want to hear another word of complaint,” she said. “With the extraordinary new freedom of movement you’ve been given, you’ll be invaluable to the reconstruction effort. With the right preparation, you could be ambassadors to other peculiar peoples one day. Explorers of new loops and territories. Planners and cartographers and leaders and builders—as crucial to the work of remaking our world as you were to the wights’ defeat. Don’t you want that?”
“Of course,” said Emma. “But what does that have to do with taking a holiday?”
“Before you become any of those things, you must first learn to navigate this world. The present day. America. You must familiarize yourselves with its idioms and customs and ultimately be able to pass as normal. If you cannot, you’ll be a danger to yourselves and all of us.”
“So you want us to . . . what?” said Horace. “Take normalling lessons?”
“Yes. I want you to learn what you can while you’re here, not just bake your brains in the sun. And I happen to know a very capable teacher.” Miss Peregrine turned to me and smiled. “Mr. Portman, would you accept the job?”
“Me?” I said. “I’m not exactly an expert on what’s normal. There’s a reason I feel so at home with you guys.”
“Miss P’s right,” said Emma. “You’re perfect for it. You’ve lived here all your life. You grew up thinking you were normal, but you’re one of us.”
“Well, I had planned on spending the next few weeks in a padded room,” I said, “but now that that’s not happening, I guess I could teach you guys a thing or two.”
“Normalling lessons!” said Olive. “Oh, how fun!”
“There’s so much to cover,” I said. “Where do we start?”
“In the morning,” Miss Peregrine said. “It’s getting late, and we should all find beds.”
She was right—it was nearly midnight, and my friends had begun their day in Devil’s Acre twenty-three hours (and one hundred thirty–odd years) ago. We were all exhausted. I found places for everyone to sleep—in our guest bedrooms, stretched out on couches, in a tangle of blankets in a broom closet for Enoch, who preferred his sleeping arrangements dark and nest-like. I offered my parents’ bed to Miss Peregrine, since they wouldn’t be using it, but she demurred. “I appreciate the offer, but let Bronwyn and Miss Bloom share it. I’ll be keeping watch tonight.” She flashed me a knowing look that said, And not just over the house, and it took a lot of effort not to roll my eyes at her. You don’t have to worry, I almost said, Emma and I are taking things slow. But what business was that of hers? I was so irritated that the minute she left to tuck Olive and Claire into bed I found Emma and said, “Want to see my room?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, and we snuck into the hall and up the stairs.
* * *
• • •
I could hear Miss Peregrine’s voice drifting up from one of the guest bedrooms, where she was singing a soft and sad lullaby. Like all peculiar lullabies it was mournful and long—this one a saga about a girl whose only friends were ghosts—which meant we had several minutes, at least, before Miss P came looking for Emma.
“My room’s kind of a mess,” I warned her.
“I’ve been sleeping in a dormitory with two dozen girls,” she said. “I am unshockable.”
We darted up the stairs and into my bedroom. I flipped on the lights. Emma’s mouth fell open.
“What is all this stuff?”
“Ah,” I said. “Right.” I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Explaining my room was going to eat up time we otherwise might have spent making out.
I didn’t have stuff. I had collections. And I had a lot of them, spread across bookshelves that lined my room. I wouldn’t have called myself a pack rat—and I wasn’t a hoarder—but collecting things was one of the ways I had dealt with loneliness as a kid. When your best friend is your seventy-five-year-old grandpa, you spend a lot of time doing what grandpas do, and for us that meant hitting garage sales every Saturday morning. (Grandpa Portman might have been a peculiar war hero and a badass hollowgast hunter, but few things thrilled him more than a bargain.)