CHAPTER 41
Susan
Susan pulled her
scooter up to the entrance of the sewage-treatment plant. She
hadn’t exactly been shocked to hear from Evangelina that Ember’s
gang were holed up in the sewers beneath Winoka.
If movies and books have taught us anything, she
told herself as she pulled the keys out of the ignition,
it’s that villains are drawn to dank
underground caverns and, let’s not forget, the smell of
shit.
She popped the
kickstand so the scooter could stand. Strangely, she felt
optimistic about her chances here tonight. In fact, she began to
wish she’d trimmed her bangs before setting out. And possibly
shaved her armpits.
Readjusting her
backpack, she walked into the main building of the treatment plant.
It wasn’t locked—why would it be? Nobody knew they were holed up in
there except supercreepy Evangelina (and she sure hadn’t been talking . . . they’d had to
drag all this crap out of
her!).
As she had expected,
there wasn’t anyone in the office area . . . too small and confined
a space for three or four dragons to whomp around in. Also, their
tails would probably knock over the copier and the file
cabinet.
She’d tried to
imagine where Gautierre would be held in such a place. Not primary
or secondary treatment; too much crashy-bangy equipment. Not
tertiary and certainly not odor removal (thank
you, eighth-grade science report).
No, pretreatment was
the place to start. It was fairly close, it wasn’t especially
complicated or noisy, and, for funsies, Gautierre could suffer in a
smelly prison.
Her time in Big Blue
had given Susan new insight into weredragons: they were regular
people who could occasionally fly and belch fire. That was it. That
was all there was to them. Even Jennifer Scales.
Big Blue had wiped
away a lot of her awe. It wasn’t hard to be enchanted and thrilled
by something so magical and fairy-tale-esque as dragons when they
were rare and flashed by every hundred years; but when you saw them
be crabby and careless, or make dumb decisions based on fatigue or
too much caffeine, or get pissy when things didn’t go their way
(which had all the charm of watching someone blow their nose), it
got harder to stay impressed.
So she was cautious,
sure, and careful, yep, but mostly she was annoyed at Ember’s
intransigence and the cost everyone around her had to pay for it.
Susan had learned better in kindergarten.
What did it say for
the rest of Domeland if the grown-ups were acting like selfish
teenagers, and the teenagers had to be the adults?