Outside In by Sarah Ellis Page A

windows. A few tables dotted the sidewalk outside.
    â€œSit down and blend in,” said Blossom, producing a pair of to-go coffee cups from her pack. “This is your invisibility mug.”
    They placed their cups on the table and settled into the metal chairs.
    â€œOkay,” said Blossom, pointing at a corner of the window, half hidden by a shrub in a pot. “This one is still here.”
    Lynn peered behind the leaves. A tiny sign in perfect black lettering: Best seat in the house .
    â€œYou guys did this?”
    Blossom nodded. “That was from the appreciate-where-you-are series. It might be a bit too hidden.” She retrieved the empty coffee cups. “Come on, let’s post some new ones.”
    Once you started to look at the city as a collection of places to post tiny signs, the possibilities were rich. They rode around posting. Blossom checked on previous posts. Some had disappeared, some had been ripped. A few had been scribbled over with the usual obscenities. Blossom picked those off.
    â€œCleanup.”
    The invisibility mugs gave them table room at a coffee shop whenever they wanted a break.
    Blossom’s idea of chat was sometimes almost as strange as Larch’s.
    â€œWhat do you think about the discovery of the Higgs boson?”
    â€œUm … what?”
    â€œYou know, in particle physics.”
    â€œBlossom, if you don’t go to school, even home school, how do you know so much?”
    â€œI read. You can get anything from the library. Just-in-case Rainy let us use her address to get library cards. At the library you can stay and stay and you don’t even need invisibility mugs. You can go there and watch things on the computer. If I don’t understand things, Fossick and Tron explain them to me and I try to explain them to Larch. And I go to the university.”
    â€œYou go to university ?”
    â€œYes. They have these huge classes out there. You can just go and sit down. Nobody pays any attention to you. Tron does it. He showed me how.”
    â€œBut don’t they notice that you look kind of young?”
    â€œNot really. Maybe they think I’m one of those child prodigies.”
    â€œWhat subjects are you taking?”
    â€œArt history. That’s the best. The professor shows pictures and talks about them. I tried math but it was too hard. I need to do more on my own first. Fossick loves math but I don’t think it’s my best thing. What’s your best thing?”
    â€œI don’t think I have a best thing. I get okay marks in science, when I do my homework. But mostly school’s kind of boring, except for choir and friends.”
    â€œThen why do you go?”
    â€œI have to go. It’s the law. You know what Fossick said. Citizens like rules.”
    â€œI’m sorry that you have to go to boring school,” said Blossom. “Uh-oh. People are looking for places to sit. Time to go.”
    The day ended at a playground. Lynn posted her final rule, No Lingering, No Loitering, No Looming, on the underside of some kids’ swings and then plunked herself down.
    â€œWhat’s the point of all this?”
    Blossom shrugged. “It’s our work.”
    â€œI know, but it’s not exactly like a job at McDonald’s, is it?”
    Blossom moved into the next-door swing. “Fossick says that Underlanders rearrange the world. We reorder things. We collect recycling and take it back to where it is useful. We pull up weeds and put them in the compost where they turn into dirt to grow more things. And sometimes we just fancy things up.”
    â€œYou mean, like graffiti?”
    â€œNot usually. That’s one kind of fancy but that kind of paint is a hard find.”
    â€œWell, plus it’s illegal.”
    â€œYes, we try not to be illegal. Although, if you walk down a shopping street there are words and pictures everywhere, trying to get you to buy things. And that’s allowed. But