And below that was a red stamp.
RECOMMENDATION APPROVED.
He read it again.
Approved.
Approved.
Approved.
This was—
He could—
Did he have enough to see his plan through?
He thought he did.
He stood from his desk, the chair scraping loudly against the cold cement floor.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Ms. Jenkins walked out from her office again, Gunther trailing after.
Approved.
The orphanage would stay as is.
He heard the ocean.
Don’t you wish you were here? it whispered.
Yes.
Yes, he did.
But that was the funny thing about wishes. Sometimes all it took to make them come true was a first step.
He lifted his head.
He looked around.
“What are we doing?” he asked, his voice echoing loudly around the room.
No one answered, but that was okay. He didn’t expect them to.
“Why are we doing this? What’s the point?”
Silence.
“We’re doing it wrong,” he said, raising his voice. “All of this. It’s wrong. We’re feeding a machine that will eat us all. I can’t be the only one who sees that.”
Apparently, he was.
If he were a braver man, maybe he would have said more. Maybe he would have picked up his copy of the RULES AND REGULATIONS and thrown it in the trash, announcing grandly that it was time to toss out all the rules. Literally, but also figuratively.
By then, Ms. Jenkins would be demanding his silence. And, if he were a much braver man, he would have told her no. He would have shouted for all to hear that he’d seen what a world looks like with color in it. With happiness. With joy. This world they lived in here wasn’t it, and they were all fools if they thought otherwise.
If he were a braver man, he would climb up on the desks and crow that he was Commander Linus, and it was time to go on an adventure.
They would come for him, but he’d hop from desk to desk, Gunther squawking as he tried to reach for Linus’s legs but missing.
He would land near the door, this brave man. Ms. Jenkins would scream at him that he was fired, but he’d laugh at her and shout that he couldn’t be fired because he quit.
But Linus Baker was a soft man with a heart longing for home.
And so he went as quietly as he’d arrived.
He picked up his briefcase, opening it on his desk. He placed the photograph inside lovingly before closing it. There were no more files to smuggle out of DICOMY. He had everything he needed.
He took a deep breath.
And began to walk through the aisles toward the exit.
The other caseworkers began to whisper feverishly.
He ignored them, head held high. He barely bumped into any desks.
And just as he reached the exit, Ms. Jenkins shouted his name.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
The expression on her face was thunderous. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“Home,” he said simply. “I’m going home.”
And then he left the Department in Charge of Magical Youth for the last time.
* * *
It was raining.
He’d forgotten his umbrella inside.
He turned his face toward the gray sky and laughed and laughed and laughed.
* * *
Calliope looked surprised to see him when he burst through the front door. It made sense; it wasn’t even noon.
“I may have lost my mind,” he told her. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
She meowed a question, the first time she’d spoken since they’d left the island.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Yes.”
* * *
Life, Linus Baker knew, came down to what we made from it. It was about the choices, both big and small.
Bright and early the next morning—a Wednesday, as it turned out—Linus closed the door to one life in pursuit of another.
“Another trip?” Ms. Klapper asked from across the way.
“Another trip,” Linus agreed.
“How long this time?”
“I hope forever. If they’ll have me.”
Her eyes widened. “Come again?”
“I’m leaving,” he said, and he’d never been so sure of anything in all his years.
“But—but,” she spluttered. “What about your house? What about your job?”
He grinned at her. “I quit my job. As for the house, well. Perhaps your grandson and his lovely fiancé would like to live next door to you. Consider it a wedding gift. But it doesn’t matter right now. I’ll figure that all out later. I have to go home.”
“You are home, you fool!”
He shook his head as he lifted Calliope’s crate and his suitcase. “Not yet. But I will be soon.”
“Of all the—have you lost your mind? And what on earth are you wearing?”
He looked down at himself. Tan button-up shirt, tan shorts, brown socks. Atop his head sat a helmet-style hat. He laughed again. “It’s what you’re supposed to wear when you’re going on an adventure. Looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? But there might be cannibals and man-eating snakes and bugs that burrow their way under my skin and eat my eyes from the inside out. When faced with such things, you have to dress the part. Toodles, Mrs. Klapper. I don’t know if we’ll see each other again. Your squirrels will know only peace from this point on. I forgive you for the sunflowers.”
He stepped off the porch into the rain, leaving 86 Hermes Way behind.
* * *
“Going on a trip?” the train attendant asked, looking down at his ticket. “All the way to the end of the line, I see. A bit out of season, isn’t it?”
Linus looked out the train car window, rain dripping down the glass. “No,” he said. “I’m going back to where I belong.”
* * *
Four hours later, the rain stopped.
An hour after that, he saw the first blue through the clouds.
In two more hours, he thought he smelled salt in the air.
* * *
He was the only one to get off the train. Which made sense, seeing as how he was the only one left.
“Oh dear,” he said, looking at the empty stretch of road next to the platform. “I might not have thought this through.” He shook his head. “No matter. Time waits for no man.”
He picked up the suitcase and the crate, and began to walk toward the village as the train pulled away.
* * *
He was drenched with sweat by the time he saw the first buildings. His face was red, and his suitcase felt as if he’d packed nothing but rocks.
He was sure he was about to collapse when he reached the sidewalk on the main street of the village. He thought about having a lie-down (perhaps permanently) when he heard someone gasp his name.
He squinted up.
Standing in front of her shop, a watering can in her hand, was Helen.
“Hello,” he managed to say. “How nice it is to see you again.”
She dropped the watering can, and it spilled its contents onto the concrete. She rushed toward him as he sat heavily on his suitcase.