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11:59 PM

REVELATIONS

The walls were painted a deep purple that turned black during the secret hour A blackboard hung on one, where Dess did her calculations in red chalk on those rare occasions when she couldn&039;t do them in her head On another as a self-portrait Dess had ray, black, and white eleether, like the pixels on a co to do an updated picture, now that she had dyed her hair and cut it shorter, but the thought of breaking up all those Legos and starting over was too daunting Besides, unlike a coinal

In the center of the room was a music box, on which a motionless ballerina stood The ballerina&039;s pink tutu had long been replaced by dark purple gauze, her blond hair inked black, and tiny metal jewelry added to complete the outfit, which Dess had made out of soldered paper clips The ballerina&039;s nauts of the e Ada&039;s ears She had also filed off so dru it a little less sweet and predictable The altered tune had no beginning or end, just a randoraphy

Tonight the roo all day on a weapon It had started life as a microphone stand, which she&039;d found at a s for tracing out protective patterns on her doors and s But when she saw the stand, Dess had decided to blow all her suuaranteed that it was clean, untouched by inhuh a lot of thirteen-year-olds had probably played rock star with it (Dess herself hadin front of herwork)

The stand could be adjusted for short and tall singers, froht with the heavy round base re before, but its proportions were th, it feltshe&039;d ever s still had nighte hus had very longslyphs and clusters of carefully patterned dots She had even copied a few shapes fros, supposedly created to o She&039;d worked until she had coether, the ulti iron still s up to the ceiling froht blue around her, Dess watched the smoke freeze into place, its snakelike undulations suddenly arrested In the blue light it glowed against the black walls, as delicate and luht

Dess reached out one finger to touch it A finger-width segment of the s

"H caught in the ht freeze, the smoke particles were released by her touch But the hot s

She hefted the stand In the blue light it looked like a fine weapon

If tonight&039;s secret hour was anything like last night&039;s, she was going to need it

Only one ive the spear a thirty-nine-letter na to cut it She&039;d only ever found a few cheth, words used only by scientists, and they didn&039;t seem to have much kick in the blue time Not even slithers were afraid of names like benzohydroxypentalaenerally found aredients of Twinkies But maybe a phrase made up of three thirteen-letter words would do the trick Dess sat gazing into the tiny pictures along thewords roll through her hters had to use dictionaries, but for a polymath it was automatic For her, thirteen-letter words had their own smell, their own color, and stood out like ALL CAPITALS in her head It was only a few isms came into her mind

She held the weapon close and whispered to it, "Resplendently Scintillating Illustrations"

As agreed, Dess rode to meet Rex at his house He lived closer to Jess, and if one of theht alone, she could handle it best Melissa was staying hoet a feel for as happening out in the badlands

"You okay?" Rex said as Dess pulled up onto his threadbare lawn He&039;d been waiting outside in a sht&039;s not as bad as last At least, not here in town"

The lore site they&039;d been to the night before was very old, far out in the badlands The slithers had followed theround They&039;d seerow in nus had made appearances, their hideous and unfas had even tried tothe defenses she&039;d set up around the lore site Things ly, but about fifteen minutes beforean appoint

"Let&039;s get going," she urged Rex Dess didn&039;t like the idea of Jessica all alone Thuht

Of course, she ht with a quiet smile Wouldn&039;t that be a nice little surprise for Rex

Rex took a good look around before getting on his bike "I just hope it stays quiet I wonder where all those darklings ca ones"

Dess nodded "I&039;ve been thinking about that Want to hear a theory?"

"Sure"

"Okay Darklings look like panthers or tigers, right? Except when they get all freaky like they were last night"

"Yeah The lore says they&039;re related to the big cats - lions and tigers - like we are to apes"

"Okay," Dess continued "Well, my lore, which would be the Discovery Channel, says that cats spend a big percentage of the day sleeping Take lions They sleep twenty-two hours a day, lolling around, tails twitching to keep away flies,out the occasional territorial roar, but basically semiconscious"

"Twenty-two hours of sleep a day? That sounds like my dad&039;s cat"

"So that leaves just two hours awake, right? For one of those hours they do kitty ht other members of the pride, whatever They hunt for only one hour out of twenty-four"

Rex whistled "That&039;s the life A five-hour eek"

"Seven," Dess corrected "They don&039;t get weekends"

"Harsh"

"So here&039;s the thing If darklings are like big cats, then they probably only hunt for one hour a day"

"Sure," Rex agreed

"But what&039;s a day for a darkling?"

Rex pondered as he rode, recalling his precious lore "Well, the darklings only live one hour in twenty-five, the secret hour They&039;re frozen for the rest, like regular people are frozen during the blue tile day in their life That&039;s part of why they live so long"

"Right," Dess said "So, a darkling probably sleeps for twenty-three of our days in a row"

Rex&039;s bike wobbled She could tell he hadn&039;t thought this through before She shook her head People&039;s lives would be so much simpler if every once in a while they bothered to do the math

"And that means," he said slowly, "that they only hunt about once a y"

"Exactly Thatcos hunt once every 3571429 weeks, not every four But who&039;s counting? In any case, this ht, becauseFor every one hunting, another twenty-three are asleep"

Dess let Rex soak in this information for a while

Finally he said, "So the question isn&039;t, &039;Where did they all coht," she answered "The question is, &039;Why did they all wake up?&039; "

When Jessica answered the knock on her , she looked disappointed to see the someone else?" Dess asked

"Kind of," Jessica said quietly

Rex didn&039;t notice or thought she and Jess were kidding Dess wondered exactly what had happened last night

She had called Jonathan&039;s house today to see if he&039;d followed through on his threat to visit Jess during the blue time But no one had answered the phone all day She wasn&039;t worried - Jonathan could take care of himself better than any of them - but Dess wanted to hear the scoop

"Well, we&039;ve got big news for you," she said

"Co theopen Dess juive Rex a hand up It occurred to her that they could just use the front door, but so about the blue time made everyone want to whisper, plot, and sneak

Jessica sat slumped on her bed She looked tired and bummed Apparently it hadn&039;t been the best first date ever Maybe darklings had crashed the party

Dess noticed that Jess was rubbing her right hand, as if it was a bit sore She knew froone co

Dess put her questions aside She could ask Jess in study period too ballistic