How would a person look stupid?

“So you’re waiting for your dad, huh?” Seldom came close enough to touch Diamond but didn’t. He stared hard at the boy’s face and hands. “You’re in the open. Are you going to get sick?”

“Maybe,” said Diamond.

“Oh, I hope not,” Rima said.

Seldom bent down, his face level with Diamond’s face. “Do you know where he’s slaying?”

“What?”

With a slow, precise voice, he asked, “Do you know where your father is slaying today?”

Diamond knew very little about the world, yet this stranger expected him to know where his father was.

With different words, Seldom asked the question again. “Is he hunting the wilderness or near reef country?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t he tell you where he’s slaying?”

Diamond was nervous, wary.

Elata asked Diamond, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know that word,” the boy admitted.

“What word?” the children asked.

“ ‘Slaying.’ ”

Surprised, Seldom looked at his mother.

Rima leaned close to Diamond. “What are you saying? You don’t know what your father does for a living?”

He shook his head.

“Slayers are special hunters,” the woman said. “And your father’s very good at his job.”

Diamond absorbed the words, but they refused to make sense. Dipping his head, he confessed, “We don’t talk about those things.”

Everybody stared at him, puzzled and mute.

Then Seldom jumped into the silence. Happy to be the smart voice, he said, “Your father hunts the coronas. And that makes our district rich, and it keeps the world safe, and I don’t think there’s a better job anywhere.”

What was a corona?

Diamond knew the word and that perhaps a monster was attached to it. But if he said nothing else, nobody would realize just how foolish he was. That’s what he was thinking, looking at Elata. A little smile broke out on her face, and she took a deep breath. Then she began to answer the unasked question.

“A corona is,” she said.

Loud bells began ringing. The big house door was opening, and a familiar voice shouted, “Rima? Taff here. Where are you?”

“In the greeting room,” Rima called out.

Elata’s mother appeared. Her first chore was to give Diamond a careful stare. Then she told everybody, “I looked. Every room, every corner. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find his mother.”

Diamond nodded, accepting what he already knew.

The woman approached and bent over. Every face wanted to be too close to his. With a serious voice, she said, “Your room is in the back, with the toy soldiers. Is that right?”

He nodded.

“You said before . . . that you’ve never been outside . . . ?”

“No.”

“Until today.”

With authority, he said, “Never.”

She lowered her body, sitting on the floor. A long sigh was necessary. Then with a strong and quiet but distinctly furious voice, she asked, “What kinds of parents lock their child inside a big closet?”

She wasn’t talking to him.

Turning to Rima, she asked, “Did you know about this?”

Seldom’s mother straightened her back, hands on knees. “Yes,” she began. Then with a defensive tone, she said, “But they had to take precautions. He’s a very frail child.”

Taff shook her head doubtfully.

Rima leaned forward. “You haven’t lived here long, dear. You don’t realize. Those old people love their boy, but he’s so weak. The first time he got sick could be the last. So they did whatever they could to protect him.”

“Locking him inside that old storage chamber.”

“You make it sound horrible.”

“It is.”

“Good gracious, I visited this boy. Ask him, he’ll tell you. We’ve talked. He and I had some nice conversations. Really, he’s always seemed very happy, very bright. As good as any boy I know, and maybe better.”

Diamond dropped his head, feeling miserable.

Taff stared at him until he looked at her eyes. “How do you feel, Diamond?”

“All right.”

“Are you sick?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I’m sorry. If this is going to make you ill . . . ”

“I’m all right,” he insisted.

“Good.”

Elata touched his hand with hers. “You do feel warm.”

“I always am.”

Her mother pushed her hand against his forehead. “Warm like this?”

“Yes.”

Rima wanted any fresh topic. “We were just talking about Diamond’s father. You wouldn’t know where we could find him?”

“Between here and the sun,” said Taff. “And you’re right, I don’t know these people. Not like you do.”

Rima bristled.

Then Seldom laughed. “Guess what? Diamond doesn’t even know that his father hunts coronas.”

“Well, that is odd,” Taff agreed.

Diamond wanted to leave.

Taff touched the stubbornly warm forehead again. “What do you know about the world?”

He shrugged and practiced making silence.

“And they never let you look outside,” she whispered.

He said nothing.

Elata grabbed his hand again. “Leave him alone, Mother.”

“But I want to help him.”

“Everybody wants to help,” Rima said.

Taff pulled Diamond’s face to where their eyes met. “I stood inside your room. For a very long time, that’s what I did. It’s comfortable enough. I suppose. But it’s so isolated. I couldn’t hear the world outside. If I was child raised inside one dark room . . . well, I couldn’t have grown up normal.”

“Who’s normal?” Elata asked.

Taff ignored her daughter. “When we were standing on your landing, Diamond . . . I saw how you looked at everything. Every bird and bug was amazing. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a person as impressed as you were. The most ordinary things in the world, but you couldn’t stop staring. And now I know why.”

Elata looked at Diamond’s left hand. Then she reached across his lap and picked up his right hand, turning the thumb.

“Where’s the cut?” she asked.

He pulled the hand to his stomach.

“You could get infected,” she warned. “Maybe we should clean out that wound.”

“What wound?” Rima asked.

“On our way here,” Elata explained. “A fat splinter got into his thumb. I just don’t see it now.”

Diamond made fists, saying nothing.

Taff continued. “If you were my son, and if you really were frail and sickly, I’d make your room bright and full of color. I’d paint pictures of the world on your walls, and I would tell you about everything outside. And do you know why? The world is perfect. There’s nothing but the Creation. The world is enormous and wonderful, and you can’t be a person and not understand these things.”

Rima started to speak but thought better of it.

Taff slowly stood. “I don’t know your parents. That’s certainly true. Maybe they have spectacular reasons for what they do and don’t do. But I can’t just stand by and not complain. That’s not my way.”

There was a long, painful silence.

Then Rima rose from her chair, lightly touching the boy’s warm forehead before putting two fingers under his chin and lifting his eyes. “What do you know about the world, Diamond?”

“My parents love me.”

She let go. To the children, she said, “Stay here. Wait here.” Then to Taff, she said, “We need to talk to people, see what we can learn.”

The women left. Diamond watched the smooth golden-brown floor in the hallway, holding his breath while listening. Rima and Taff were inside another room. He heard them whispering, and an odd hum came and went and returned again. Then Elata turned to Seldom, saying, “You have a line?”

“Yes.”

“Our house has a line,” she reported. “But we can’t afford to connect it.”

With a loud voice, Rima said, “Ivory Station, please.”

There was a long pause, and then another voice answered. Diamond didn’t recognize the man’s crackling voice.

Elata was watching Diamond, not quite smiling. Then he looked at her, and she grabbed both of his hands, trying to turn them and open them up. He didn’t let her. He held his fists closed, and she laughed, saying, “You’re strong.”