Here, in its entirety, is the first chapter of

The Darling Undesirables….

Chapter 1

Heart stood in front of The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities. She looked up at the sable brownstone building, up and up she peered, until her eyes came to the lights of the Mechanical Aurora Borealis, pouring extraordinary, revolving images into the sky.

“My Darling Undesirables,” Keeper D said, “this is a great and glorious privilege you’ve been given by Father Inventor. Please show your appreciation.”

The small band of Darling Undesirables stood at quiet attention, without a clue what was expected of them. All of them, that is, except Heart, peeved by Keeper D’s pseudo-pious act for the benefit of people streaming past them into the museum.

Keeper D folded her hands as if in silent prayer. The Darling Undesirables imitated her gesture. But Eye didn’t and Heart didn’t. Eye didn’t because he couldn’t see. Heart didn’t because whatever she believed, it was private.

People poured around them on both sides, keeping a respectful distance while sneaking sidelong glances at Heart.

Her fury rose. She had eyes. She had ears. She had hands and arms and legs and feet. She had hair and a mouth. In short, she looked like an ordinary girl of eleven or twelve, although she’d recently turned fifteen.

There was the staring with sidelong glances at her, and the blatant staring when they saw Eye. He’d become the most famous Darling Undesirable. He had no eyes. No residual eyes. No eye sockets. No suggestion of eyes. His face was soft skin from forehead to cheek to chin, with a beautifully formed nose and mouth.

Heart saw Keeper D glimpse at her out of the corner of her eye. Quick as snake tongues, she reached out and grabbed Heart’s hands, clasped them together to her chest, then returned to her own position.

Heart tried to move her hands, but, strangely, a magnetic force held them gripped to her chest. As she gazed at the roiling lights in the sky above, the delicate pastel colors spun into a ball and became an intense, heavenly purple, forming an arch. Filmy pale green haloed out from the purple arch. Heart sensed a tugging at her entire body, as if she would pull up and soar right through that arch, five hundred feet above the ground.

Everyone around her stopped, stunned and mesmerized, watching the path that formed in the sky. Heart’s feet tingled, she felt light, certain she was about to leave the ground. Keeper D grabbed her hands and pulled them apart.

“That’s enough from you, Little Miss!” she hissed.

The lights of the Mechanical Aurora Borealis coalesced back to their calm patterns. Slowly people came out of their spellbound state and continued to file into the museum.

Stunned, shaken, weak, Heart stumbled. Keeper D caught her. “Whoopsie!” she said loud enough for those nearby to hear, grabbing Heart’s collar. “A little dizzy from all that looking up, are we?” She grabbed Eye’s forearm with her other hand, then shuffled all the Darling Undesirables forward. “Let us see the wonders within,” she exclaimed, a smile glued onto her features.

“What happened?” Eye whispered to Heart.

“I … I’m not sure.”

“Hush,” Keeper D warned.

“I’ll tell you later.” 

“There’s nothing to tell,” Keeper D said under her breath, “except more attention-getting from our little heartless wonder.”

“Oh!” Heart exclaimed but kept her retort to herself.

Keeper D’s sad band of young charges came up to a jovial man at the middle entrance, while everyone else flowed through large doors on either side. Although the Darling Undesirables never paid for anything, they must always have their identity chips scanned.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” The cheerful doorman said to Keeper D as he clicked each child’s wrist implant—except, of course, Arms, whose identity chip was in his neck.

Heart watched Keeper D’s smile fade, knowing how she loathed entering into conversation, especially pleasant chat. “What?” she replied brusquely.

“The Mechanical Aurora Borealis. I’ve never seen it do that. I’ve been here since The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities opened, and I’ve never seen that.”

Keeper D shrugged. “I didn’t notice anything—I was attending to my Darling Undesirables.”

The doorman nodded, subdued by Keeper D’s unpleasantness.

“Where do the lights come from?” Heart asked.

Keeper D gave her a warning look. Heart ignored her.

“Well, my little Darling, we do not know.”

“What are you trying to tell her?” Keeper D argued. “They come from the museum.”

“No, Miss Keeper, indeed, they do not. As I say, we don’t know where they come from. In the sky. Somewhere. Somehow. There is a mechanism that produces the aurora. I’ve watched the lights for years. Sometimes I’ve been fortunate enough to see truly beauteous forms—but I’ve never seen them do anything like what they just did. Opening up like that, making an arch, showing a path. Amazing! I wanted to walk on that path ….”

“Me too,” Heart said, nodding. “I felt ….” 

“You were not addressed,” Keeper D extended Heart’s wrist under the identity device.

The jovial man clicked Heart’s wrist, lowered his head and looked at her from under his brows, then winked at her. She felt herself grinning—as if her mouth would stretch right off her face. No one had ever winked at her!

“Have fun in The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities,” he said, turning her hand over and giving it a pat.

Keeper D’s hand went from Heart’s collar to the back of her neck, giving it a squeeze, not quite painful, but definitely an unspoken, “Don’t speak!”

Heart tried to wink back at the doorman, but having never seen anyone wink before, she blinked both eyes. The doorman chuckled. Keeper D’s grip increased. Heart didn’t care. She and the doorman shared a secret moment. Keeper D could do nothing about it.

Heart would never, never forget this moment.

Something continued to shift in her. It had started with the light path that opened in the sky and continued through to this moment when a gentle man had really, truly looked at her. Had really, truly seen her. Not staring at her because she was a Darling Undesirable, but looked at her because—because she was herself.

She’d be content to go home right now, having seen and felt more joy and happiness in ten minutes than altogether before in her life—other than, of course, her time with Eye.

Inside, the Darling Undesirables had gathered in a tight knot, waiting for Keeper D. Heart saw a round little woman with a round face, big round eyes, a little round button of a nose and a round happy smile hurrying up to them, moving gracefully as if her feet were on rollers.

“Sorry, sorry to be late, sorry. The change in the Mechanical Aurora Borealis has everyone aflutter. A group in the stargazer room was completely agog. Such a unique display! Did you see it?” The round woman nodded cheerily at each of the children in turn. 

“Some did, and some didn’t.” Keeper D’s frown deepened. “However, I fail to understand this big fuss over a mechanical light show.”

“Oh!” The round woman’s round smile turned to puzzlement. “It’s a very big deal. It’s a very big deal,” she repeated, as if she couldn’t believe she’d had to say it the first time. “I mean—do you not know your prophecy?”

“Prophecy? Oh no. No. Stop right there. The children are not to hear that. We at the Darling Undesirables Facility at Long Prairie do not believe in such things. And—and,” Keeper D was clearly brought to her absolute wit’s end, “and this is a science museum. This is science.”

“Oh dear,” the little museum docent said, clearly distressed. “I’m sorry to have upset you. I shall rephrase my talk.” The round “O” of her smile returned to her face. “I’m so fortunate to be the docent chosen to show you around today. I’m pleased to meet our special little Darlings, Heart, and Eye.” Her eyes squinted down into half-moons of delight.

Heart looked up at Keeper D, who rolled her eyes as if the docent’s sweetness was too saccharine to endure. “Let us move forward, shall we?” she said flatly.

“Yes, yes, of course. We’re going to have so much fun today!” The docent took Heart’s hand, pulling her away from Keeper D’s grip.

Heart reached out and grabbed Eye’s hand, and the three of them led the Darling Undesirables from the Facility at Long Prairie on their tour of The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities.

This day just gets more and more remarkable, Heart thought, giving Eye’s hand a squeeze.

“You happy?” he whispered.

“More than ever.”

“Wow!” he breathed.

“I wish you could see … well, everything. But most especially, the lights in the sky.”

“The lights in the sky,” he repeated. “You’ll show me—later. Tonight.”

“Oh yes. I’ll show you tonight. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, until you beg me to stop.” She would show him the amazing Mechanical Aurora Borealis when they were alone tonight, just like she showed him everything in the world, and all the things she made up not in the world. With words, words, words. All the pent up words she stored every day from the Keepers “shushing” her.

She would relive the lights, she would relive her feeling. She would relive how her feet tingled, and her body became light and pulled toward the Mechanical Aurora Borealis. She would tell him, and she would tell herself again and again, too, so that she’d never forget, how the Mechanical Aurora Borealis had surely responded when she clasped her hands over her chest. Strange coincidence.

But wait!

“Eye, you had your hands clasped, did you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The lights—the pull of the lights.”

“Lights can pull? You’ve never said that lights can pull.”

“They can’t. I mean, they don’t, usually. But, did you feel a pull?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’m not sure I understand.”  

For a fleeting moment, Heart let herself feel a thrill of selfish exuberance. The strange pull must have been for her. If anyone was going to feel something, it would be Eye, whose sense of feeling substituted for vision. “Don’t worry. I’ll explain—tonight.”

“Be quiet!” Keeper D hissed, coming up to Heart, Eye, and the docent, herding the rest of the Darling Undesirables, each clinging to a fat golden rope strung along the aisles of the museum for them to hold onto. 

The docent, who had begun a brief overview of the hall they were about to explore, clapped her mouth shut at Keeper D’s command.

“Not you,” Keeper D said, only marginally civil. “I mean that one.” She pointed at Heart.

“Oh!” The docent exclaimed. “I didn’t hear her. Was she talking?”

“All the time.”

“I’m telling Eye what I’m seeing.” Heart dared to speak. They were in public. Keeper D was the only Keeper here. Heart thrilled at the opportunity to say what she always wanted to say. It wasn’t precisely accurate that she was describing the surroundings to Eye at that moment, but she was about to, and she wanted to be able to tell him what she saw without Keeper D constantly shushing her.

“I think it’s truly sweet of you to share with him what you see.” The little round woman gave Keeper D a disapproving look, which Keeper D returned with double interest upon it. The docent shrank back a step.

“It would be truly sweet,” Keeper D said with an edge of sarcasm, “if she’d stay in the realm of the real world. It’s tiresome having to reteach the poor little guy after she’s filled his head with ridiculous untruths.”

The docent raised her eyebrows almost into her hairline. “I can’t believe it! Look how sweet she is. And she holds onto Eye’s hand most conscientiously.”

“All an act.” Keeper D leveled her gaze at Heart, daring her to speak.

Heart felt tight in her head like she did when she became extremely upset. She returned a defiant look. “It. Is. Not. An. Act. And you know it. You know Eye is my only friend. You’re the actor. The First Directive is that Keepers love us—and you do not even like us!”

Almost all of the Darling Undesirables gasped, even the ones who had a hard time understanding anything.

The docent’s hand became sweaty in Heart’s hand. “Oh dear,” she muttered. “And I was so looking forward to today.”

Heart broke her stare-down with Keeper D. She knew she’d pay for her outburst for ever as long as she lived at the Darling Undesirables Facility at Long Prairie. Eye held her hand tightly, not making a sound or moving a muscle. Heart let her gaze fall to the plaid of her shirt sleeve. Brown-over, beige-under, dark green over-over, pale green under-over-under. She could hear Keeper D’s voice, but only as a faraway buzzing.

“Great. Just go into a fugue state. Fine, while the rest of us have some fun.” Her voice faded as she and the Darling Undesirables—all but Heart and Eye—went down the hall.

Seconds later the cheery little docent’s face blocked her view of the plaid. She had kneeled down on the floor in front of Heart. She stroked Heart’s arm, where she tried to stay with the traveling plaid. “Are you all right, honey? Are you okay?”

Heart wanted to answer, but she couldn’t talk while she was in the plaid.

“She follows the map in the plaid,” she heard Eye say. She wanted to smile. He made a good student. He couldn’t even see, had no idea what “plaid” was, but he understood what it was like for her when she went there.

“I see,” The docent said. “So—she’s all right?”

“Sure. She’ll come back out in a minute. You’re sure nice. What do you look like?”

The docent giggled. “Oh my goodness! How does one describe oneself? I’m round. I have a round face. I smile a lot. I have a tiny little nose and big round eyes. People think—because I’m very friendly and because I’m sweet and caring—that I’m kind of slow. There seems to be a weird idea that if you’re smart, you must be snotty and rude. But I’m actually quite intelligent and nice. I know a lot more than I let on.

“For instance, and I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this—I researched your group, and I knew who was coming. I know quite a lot about each of you little Darlings. I also researched your Keepers C and D and E. I know Keepers C and D are not very nice, and Keeper E is not very attentive. I was sort of prepared for anything to happen today. But not what the Mechanical Aurora Borealis did. No, I wasn’t prepared for that. Someone in your group has some kind of powerful energy.

“I only saw the lights change and do something unusual once before, and that was when ….”

“I felt it pulling on me,” Heart said, finally unweaving from the plaid.

“Did you?” The docent turned to Eye. “Did you feel it pulling on you, too?” The docent asked Eye.

“No. I don’t understand what Heart means when she says she felt it pull.”

“Magnetic,” Heart said. “Like I was a magnet, and it was a magnet. Strong, I thought my feet would leave the ground.”

“Very, very interesting.” The docent nodded, then stood. “I supposed we’d better catch up with your group. Try to stay out from under Keeper D’s radar, okay, my darling Heart?”

Heart nodded. “Okay. I don’t know what’s gotten into me! And I’m sorry I made you sad. I like your round smile very much.”

“Thank you, sweet thing. But you didn’t actually make me unhappy. It was a bit of an act on my part.”

“Oh!” Heart exclaimed. “Why?”

“For this very reason. I had hoped to be able to chat with the two of you without her big ears.”

Eye giggled. “Keeper Big Ears!” He whispered.

Heart and the docent giggled too. “Shush! Shush! You two, you’ll get me in trouble if you repeat that!”

“It’s our secret,” Heart said, kissing her index and middle fingers audibly and raising them.

“Our secret,” Eye said, kissing his fingers and raising them. They locked fingers. “Miss Round Face is our particular excellent friend.”

“Yes. All words between us remain secret.”

“All words secret,” Eye intoned.

“Well, I’m flattered. That’s a fascinating ritual you have.”

“Thank you,” Heart said shyly. “We have a book’s worth of ‘secret rituals.’ We have to at that crazy place we live.”

“Hmmm…” the docent took Heart’s hand.

They wandered down the empty hall completely by themselves. As the Darling Undesirables explored, museum guards went ahead, clearing out other patrons and roping off each wing in turn with fat golden ropes.

Their footsteps clicked against the marble floors, echoing off the glass cases.

“Marble,” Eye said. “Different kinds. Are there mosaics in the floor?”

“Yes! There are beautiful mosaics in the floor. You can ‘see’ the floor by the sound?” The docent asked.

“Sort of. But I can’t see the images.”

“Clever, clever child. Ah, here we are.”

The three of them came up to the Darling Undesirables, who stood, not moving, gathered around Keeper D.

“Here we are,” the docent said again, gaily. “Eye asked an important question. He could hear the different types of marble as we walked on them, and, clever boy that he is, asked if there are mosaics. He’s right, the museum has beautiful marble art embedded in the floors in every wing, made of the finest marble to be found anywhere.”

The docent moved to the middle of the group. “Each wing of The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities has marble mosaics in the floor that depict the types of items housed in that wing.” She gestured to the floor where they stood, “We are in the wing that explores what life would be like if the inventions using electricity had become our main means of energy. In the floor in this wing are the images of gigantic poles stuck in the ground, with wires strung from pole to pole.” She swept her hand in arcs, imitating the marble electric lines in the artwork under their feet.

Then she shuffled the group over to a showcase. “In these showcases, you will see many examples of numerous failed experiments attempting to get electricity to work universally.

“Inventors had come up with devices that they called “telephones” for communication, fragile glass bulbs that sparked electricity to make lights, and heaters that used electricity to blow heat through homes.” As she talked, the docent led the children from glass case to glass case, pointing to examples of the curious inventions.

“Even Father Inventor dabbled in electricity for a while. The biggest problem with electricity was that everyone shared this means of power. Everyone had to be on what was proposed as a ‘grid.’ So, if there was a problem with the grid, everyone would be without power—no lights, no heat, no communication, no cooking.”

A couple of the children who were following the docent’s talk gasped. Keeper D “tsked” as though the mere thought of the system was ridiculous.

“But everyone would have power most of the time?” Heart asked, her attention drawn to a charming little house, not quite as tall as she, demonstrating what a household run by electricity would be like. A little girl sitting in a rocking chair read by a yellow light. It looked cozy.

“That was the theory,” the docent said.

Heart had heard of electricity, but she hadn’t known of its many useful inventions. She thought about the people in The Periphery, living without power, in poverty and darkness. “But—couldn’t the people who live in The Periphery use these inventions? This ‘grid‘ of power, even if it quit sometimes, would be better than the way they’re living now, with no power, wouldn’t it?”

The docent exchanged a quick glance with Keeper D. Heart saw Keeper D frown and shake her head with a small, but extremely emphatic “No!”

“Well,” the docent said slowly, thoughtfully, nodding at Heart, “I guess I’ve never really thought about it in that way. It’s certainly an interesting idea. A very interesting idea,” she mused, moving down the hall. Heart could see that the docent utterly wished she could get away from Keeper D. But that would not happen until the tour of the Darling Undesirables in The Museum of Scientific Improbabilities and Unpredictable Oddities was over.

Heart scurried ahead to come alongside the docent, even abandoning Eye. “But what …?”

She glanced at Heart out of the corner of her eye with a look that said, “not now!” And then she winked at her. Too! Just like the doorman. Heart wished and wished she could share this remarkable secret code with Eye.

But, it could never be.

Keeper D came up to them with the rest of the Darling Undesirables in tow. “We don’t even need to think about electricity,” she exclaimed as if there was a raging argument. “Ever since Father Inventor harnessed Dark Energy, we have more power than we can use. Electricity—pah!”

“If that’s true,” Heart argued, “why don’t the people in The Periphery have power? Why do they live in darkness and cold? Dark Energy must not be enough for everyone.”

“Oh—you are so exasperating!” Keeper D said, her voice grinding in a quiet, simmering anger.

“I don’t care if I am. I just don’t want those people to be in the cold and dark, and hungry too. I saw the children, huddling together at night in darkness on my 3-D. That’s wrong!”

Keeper D sighed, clearly resigned. “I will tell you. Those people are being punished.”

“Bun-ished?” Heart asked. She looked at the docent, who looked away.

“Punished,” Keeper D corrected. “P-u-n-i-s-h-e-d,” she spelled.

“What is ‘punished?’” Heart looked at the other Darling Undesirables. They were getting bored. Some had wandered a few feet away. Some were putting their hands on the glass of the showcases, which Heart knew Keeper D would never permit. So this subject was very big, to completely take Keeper D’s mind.

“When you do wrong, you get punished. The people in The Periphery have been sent out of the cities. They are exiled from our Dark Energy advantages. They have a difficult life because they have hurt society. They have hurt others, and they cannot live with those of us who live in harmony, and who care for one another.”

Heart, who had just said that Keeper D did not care about the Darling Undesirables, wondered what things the people living in The Periphery could possibly have done that were even worse than how Keeper D was all the time. “But there are children! That’s not right! Why are there children in The Periphery?”

“People make children, Heart. The people in The Periphery are free to live their lives as they choose. People used to be put in prisons. That punishment was so much worse than now. In these days, we are humane. People who act against society are simply removed from society and its advantages,” Keeper D preached. “The Wall keeps them from entering where we live, and from having the numerous advantages of harnessed Dark Energy.

“You wouldn’t have us take the children from their mothers and fathers, would you? If they choose to have children, those children, too, live in The Periphery. It’s not so bad for them. They don’t know what they’ve never had.” Keeper D moved pointedly away from Heart, taking up the hands of two of the other Darling Undesirables. “Let’s continue with our tour, shall we? Our docent had been very patient with us.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the docent began, “ I don’t m ….”

“Still,” Keeper D interrupted, “I think it best that we keep moving. The children are restless. Other people are here as well, wanting to see the exhibits. I’m sure we’ve kept this wing closed more than long enough.” She moved down the hall swiftly, with the feet of the two Darling Undesirables in her grip pedaling rapidly to try to match her long stride.

“We’d better keep up with her,” the docent said, herding the rest of the group, while Heart took Eye’s hand in her own.

“Such a lot ….” he said.

“Going on,” she completed.

“Yes.”

Heart thought she would never have anything as big and terrible to think about as those children in The Periphery. Not like she was, and Eye, and all the other Darling Undesirables, who had no parents, who were just faulty test tube experiments, but lived a life of luxury. Those sad, real, young people living in darkness and cold and hunger, hurt her in a deep, sacred place.

But she didn’t know what would soon befall her.

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