Chapter 7: Breakpaste, Plunch, and Dinner
The two kids came to a pair of metal doors. Sammy lurched through. He yanked Naomi to the right and they sprawled behind a glass case while the doors swung shut with a dull wunk, wunk.
They were on the main floor of the Pastery, crouched behind the round paste counter. A handful of lights were on, but it was mostly dark. Naomi stuck her head over the counter to get a better look.
“Get down,” Sammy said. Just as she ducked the double doors from the basement opened. People started flowing in through the doors Naomi and Sammy just exited. Each person was dressed entirely in white: white shirt, white trousers, white shoes, even a white-brimmed hat. Their faces were pale too, as though they had been born on the dark side of the moon. And they carried jugs and tubs and pushed paste barrels.
Naomi flattened against the counter trying to make herself as small and as close to invisible as possible.
“Who are they?” Naomi asked in a voice as slim as a toothpick.
“They work for the paste factory. These stock the shop, but the rumor is that they work in the factory, too. That there are thousands of them.” Sammy lay very still. Eventually people stopped coming in. Sammy got to his feet but remained crouching behind the counter.
“Look at them,” he said.
Naomi watched the people as they replaced paste jugs that were sold during the day. They did not speak or acknowledge each other but acted as though they had one mind. Working silently in the dim light, they were like ghosts, barely human.
Sammy said, “Stay.” He snaked away from behind the counter. He kept low, slinking toward the nearest aisle of shelves, just behind one of the slow-moving people.
Naomi nearly cried out when a white person, arms loaded with pastecream, almost tripped over Sammy crouching next to a refrigerator. Sammy sidestepped. The white person’s sleeve grazed Sammy’s head. The white person looked down, but Sammy had already disappeared around the next corner.
Naomi collapsed on the cold floor behind the counter. She drew her legs close and buried her head in her knees. She thought Sammy was going to get caught by one of the creepy white people and then she knew they would catch her, too. Then what? Would they throw her in jail for trespassing?
She started to shake, so she wrapped her arms around her legs and shut her eyes very tightly in an effort to stop her jitters. She waited for the white people to find her and take her away.
After what seemed like a long, long time, she heard something approach. She was ready to be captured.
“You okay?” It was Sammy crouched beside her. In each hand he carried a loaf of paste wrapped in paper.
Naomi grabbed Sammy and hugged him. She was never happier to see anybody in her entire life.
“Whoa,” he whispered. He teetered and almost fell over. “I’m going to drop these.”
Embarrassed, Naomi let go of him.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”
Sammy raised his eyebrows in a way that meant, “Yeah right,” but he didn’t say anything.
He handed her one of the loaves. He said, “Breakpaste, plunch, and dinner.”
Naomi said, “I thought they were going to catch you.”
“Who, me?” he whispered. “They ain’t fast enough. They don’t see nothing but what’s right in front of them.”
“Where do they come from?” she asked.
“The factory, people say,” he said, looking over both his shoulders. “We should go.”
Naomi handed the paste back to Sammy, who stuffed it into his overall pockets. Then he looked right, looked left, and snuck toward the metal doors.
When they reached the basement the trucks were still there but all the white people were upstairs in the Pastery.
Sammy turned towards the window where they came in. But as they passed the line of waiting trucks, Naomi saw something painted on one of them.
“Wait,” she said, approaching the truck.
“Where you going?” Sammy asked. Naomi did not turn back. When she came to the side of the truck it took her a minute to figure out what she was looking at.
Sammy came up next to her. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s the gypsy symbol.” Pointing to the three straight lines and the fourth line curved like a half moon, she said, “The curved line is a horseshoe. The straight lines represent the lute.”
“What’s a lute?” he said.
“It’s a musical instrument,” she said. “Like a guitar, or a ukulele. Somebody painted it on here for us to see.”
The rear door was open and Naomi looked in the back of the truck. It was filled with empty barrels. She scampered up and got in the back.
She held her hand out to Sammy. “Hop in,” she said.
“Why?” he said.
“Because…” Really, she didn’t know why. “Because of the gypsy symbol.”
“Everybody knows you can’t trust gypsies,” Sammy said.
“Are you coming up or not?”
Sammy crinkled his face and stuck out his bottom lip. “Mom is going to freak out, but okay,” he said finally, taking her hand.
They nestled themselves behind the barrels.
“What now?” Sammy asked.
“We wait for them to take us to the factory.”
Naomi heard footsteps. Before she knew it, the truck’s door came down. Again she heard the chorus of truck doors opening and closing, this time followed by a crescendo of buzzing motors. The truck slouched forward, swaying from side to side.
Naomi’s head felt heavy. She knew she should not fall asleep, but she could not resist the pull of gravity on the weight of her body. Her eyes closed and she floated downward toward the ground.