Riot Girls: Seven Books With Girls Who Don't Need A Hero

by Sara Roethle, Jill Nojack, Rachel Medhurst, Sarah Dalton, Pauline Creeden, Brad Magnarella, Stella Wilkinson

  “She’ll understand what?”

  The door was open and a boy stepped into the kitchen. He looked from me to Angela and back to me. He was a skinny thing with messy blond hair and piercing eyes the colour of the sea.

  “You,” he said to me. “I know you.”

  7

  THE BOY HELD my gaze, his intensity never fading, and the hairs on my arms lifted, giving me goose-bumps. I wanted to break away from his eyes, but I couldn’t, and instead my pulse quickened, blood thudding in my ears. Embarrassed – I blushed.

  “I’ve never met you before in my life,” I said, forcing myself to speak.

  “Where’s your mum?” Daniel said to Angela.

  “She’s upstairs sleeping. It’s okay.”

  Daniel nodded once and then dashed from the room. I heard his footsteps loud and clumsy on the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” I said, glancing towards the open door. Outside the sun was beginning to set and everything had been cast into a twilight gloom. I knew that I should get home before dark and part of me itched to leave. I knew that I should leave. I couldn’t trust these people. Angela’s friendship could be a ruse to kidnap me and harness my power or hand me over to the authorities. But another part of me didn’t believe that and I was intrigued. I still tingled from the intensity of Daniel’s eyes.

  Angela grabbed my arm, sensing my intentions. “No. Don’t go yet. Look I know this is weird.” She hesitated. “Have you ever thought that things happen for a reason? That people are brought together for a purpose?”

  I pulled away, fearful. Daniel burst through the door holding a leather bound notebook which he slammed down on the table. The binding creaked as he opened it.

  “Look at these,” he commanded.

  I moved towards the notebook and watched as he flipped the pages. Each one had been filled with intricate pencil diagrams of a girl. First she was young, often sat very primly, serious expressions in her eyes. I saw my mum in her face.

  “These are the pictures I drew years ago,” Daniel said. He kept on flicking the pages over and the girl grew up. Her hair grew and her features developed into a young woman. I gasped. My fingers trembled and I felt hot all over.

  “If this is some kind of joke it isn’t funny,” I said. The kitchen door rattled and my body flushed with heat. “Why do you have drawings of me? What are you? A stalker?” The table began to shake and the tea-cups shivered in their saucers. Stacks of plates trembled.

  “Mina, calm down,” said Angela.

  “Is that your name?” Daniel stared at me with fascination. “I’ve known your face for so long. But I never knew your name.”

  His voice was breathy and excited but with an intense undertone. I didn’t want to admit it but he grabbed my attention instantly. Our eyes met. His were a darker shade of blue than I’d ever seen. Like the sky before a thunder storm. They made me feel strange, as though I somehow knew him. It was all too much.

  “No,” I said, hot tears threatening. This had to be some sort of sick joke. It didn’t make any sense. “This is all wrong. I don’t understand.”

  The kitchen door slammed shut. It flapped open. I was out of control. Daniel and Angela glanced at each other nervously.

  “Mina, you need to calm down or you’re going to break something,” Angela begged. “Look, just sit down and we’ll tell you everything.”

  “It’s a really long story,” Daniel added. “I promise you that it isn’t creepy. I’m not a stalker. I know that we’ve never met.”

  I looked at the two of them in turn, disconcerted by their sincerity. They seemed prepared, as though they had been waiting for this moment.

  “You know what it’s like to experience something difficult to explain,” said Angela. “Listen to what Daniel has to say. Please.”

  I sighed and the table stopped shaking. “All right. Explain.”

  I sat down in one of the four kitchen chairs and Angela and Daniel did the same. He drummed his fingers on the table and looked at Angela as though for inspiration and she smiled with encouragement. He had worker’s fingers – blisters and cracks in his skin.

  “It started when I was just a kid. Mum didn’t know what the hell to do with me.” He laughed. “Think I must’ve driven her mad. That’s why she left.”

  “Don’t say that,” Angela interrupted.

  Daniel raked his fingers through his hair and leaned back on the chair. He was probably older than me by maybe a year but his eyes seemed older still, as though they had seen too much. He found it difficult to sit still and I wasn’t sure if it was the shock at seeing me or a constant nervous energy rattling around him. It made me want to grab his hand and tell him to calm down.

  “I get these headaches. Searing migraines that feel like something hot just got poked through my brain.” He pushed his fingers into his eye sockets and over his temples. “Sometimes I pass out. But when I come to I have this picture in my head and I draw it.” He pointed at the notebook. “I see you a lot. I don’t know why, but I see your face. Sometimes I see stuff that’s going to happen, bad things.”

  “You mean you see the future?” I asked, incredulously.

  “He gets a snapshot image,” Angela said. I noticed how she sat close to him, her arms leaning on the table top like a barrier between me and Daniel. “It’s usually something significant that happens in the near future. So yes, I guess you could say that Daniel can predict the future.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said.

  “Really?” Angela raised an eyebrow. “After the way you just made the entire kitchen dance?”

  I looked at them, trying to decide whether I truly believed them or not. “This is all way too crazy to make up,” I mumbled half to myself. “I’ve just… I’ve never met anyone else who can… who has…” I gave up, realising I was lost for words.

  “There’s a reason why I keep seeing you.” Daniel spoke slowly and in a low, almost hypnotic, voice. He was handsome, in a rough way, with dishevelled hair and dark circles under his eyes. There was a striking contrast between his looks and Sebastian’s chiselled features. He smiled and his mouth moved crookedly. “You’ve been haunting my dreams for years. Always your face. We were meant to find each other.”

  “But why?”

  Daniel looked at me as though he couldn’t believe I was really there, his eyes trailing my face, searching every crevice. His gaze was magnetic, drawing my attention.

  “Mina, tell Daniel about your gift,” Angela said, interrupting the silence.

  “There’s nothing much else to tell. You’ve seen it.” I tried to smile at Angela but found myself pulled to Daniel. “When I get upset or emotional the things around me start to move.”

  “She flipped a tray and whacked Elena Darcey around the head with it yesterday,” Angela said with a large grin.

  Daniel laughed. “I bet she deserved it.”

  “She made me sniff mashed potato in front of the entire canteen,” I replied.

  Daniel and Angela both laughed and I joined them which felt good. My muscles relaxed and I stopped expecting kidnappers to run through the open door.

  “Did you have to move because of your gift?” Daniel asked.

  I nodded. “I find it hard to control sometimes. When I was a kid it wasn’t as bad because it was easier to miss school then, before they introduced the Operation and the new system.” I noted how Angela’s eyes flashed, she felt the same way about the schooling system that I did. “But as a teenager I had to go. I tried to keep to myself and not speak to anyone. I tried so hard not to get angry or feel any emotions but…” I trailed off, feeling the same tingle in my fingertips even as I relived the memories.

  “But you can’t stop being who you are,” Daniel finished for me.

  I looked up, surprised. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

  “Do you think there are more of you?” Angela asked. “I mean more people with super-powers like you two.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “I th
ought I was the only person on the planet who could do anything weird like that. But then, there are two of us, so maybe.”

  “So what are we? Genetic freaks?” Daniel said. “Do you think the Ministry know about people like us?”

  “I really hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “My dad always tells me that he thinks it’s a higher stage in evolution. He thinks the GEM project is stopping us from evolving any further and that if they just left things alone we’d all be born with gifts like mine… ours.”

  “That’s nice,” said Daniel. “My mum just thought I was the devil.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. She was messed up from the Operation,” he said with a forced but breezy tone of voice. His facial expression clouded, showing his true feelings. “Whatever happened to us, I don’t think it’s natural.” He smiled thinly.

  “What do you think it is?” I said.

  “I think it’s the Ministry messing with us,” he said. “I think we’re just the same as them out there.” He meant the GEMs. “I think they did something to our genes.”

  “Then why aren’t we in some lab?” I said.

  “I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Are you going to tell your dad about me?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “You know, I’m building a training room for him in your basement. He seems nice.”

  “Yeah, I thought that might be you. Small world.” I fingered with the sleeve on my tunic.

  “Maybe we’re going to save the world,” Daniel said with a laugh.

  “Like a genetic freak uprising?” I replied.

  “Stranger things have happened,” Angela added.

  8

  I WALKED HOME as the sun set, leaving in its trail a bruised, purple-orange sky. As I followed degraded streets the sky turned to black in shadowy degrees as though God pulled a dark cloak above my head, except I knew that it was impossible because this world was Godless. It had to be. I folded my arms around my shoulders against the chill.

  The events of the evening played over in my mind like a film on loop, and part of me refused to believe it was real. Did they really just convince me that Daniel could see the future? Why would I be in that future? It was all so strange that I was frightened. I was frightened of them, of the implications, and of the fact that we’d found each other. I’d never been superstitious. I didn’t believe in fate. But even I had to admit that this was a pretty huge coincidence.

  On top of everything, despite how afraid it made me feel to think of Daniel and Angela, the way they ambushed me and the book of drawings, I was relieved. Now I knew there was someone who understood what I go through every day. Someone who had been through even worse, whose own mother had abandoned him. Perhaps we could figure things out together.

  After getting lost in my own thoughts I realised that I’d made a wrong turn. The barely distinguishable streets of the Area 14 ghettos were even more identical in the night-time, and instead of making my way to the outskirts, between the ghetto and the town road, I’d turned inwards and headed towards the neglected fields which separated the ghettos and the GEM district. Somehow, after the Fracture, the settlers in the town Areas had segregated themselves. Dad once told me that the un-Blemished rich people had bought Children of the GEM to try and get into favour with the Ministry. It worked. And now, fifteen years later, they had the world at their feet whilst the rest of us could only watch from the ghettos.

  I stared out at the fields wondering what it would be like to live on the other side, when behind me the gravel crunched.

  I froze. It wasn’t late at night but very few Blemished stay out after dark. My heart pounded against my chest while I hesitated, unsure of whether to turn around or run. Thoughts ran through my head. Where would I run? Through the fields? Or through the ghettos? It would be easier to hide in the fields, under the tall grasses and weeds, but there was no one who could help me. Maybe I wasn’t in danger. Maybe I should fight them. I ran through every martial arts move I’d ever been taught by my dad. I made my decision. I turned around.

  “Who’s there,” I said, my voice little more than a tremble in the cold air.

  The gravel crunched again as the intruder came closer. Panicked, I backed up towards the fields, looking out for something I could move – rocks or heavy wood. But the tingle in my fingers wouldn’t come. I tried to focus on something, anything, but that flash in my mind refused to appear. It was fight or run. I cursed myself for not taking Daniel up on his offer to walk me home. Now I was screwed.

  “Mina?”

  The sound of my own name made me jump. I gasped. The voice sounded familiar.

  “Sebastian?” I answered.

  He stepped forward into the moonlight, the angles of his face casting shadows over his eyes and cheeks. He wore running shoes and black shorts.

  “Thank goodness it’s you,” he said between panting breaths. “I was running and listening to my music,” he removed a tiny plug from his ear and held it up in the moonlight, “not really paying much attention to where I was going. I was in the fields you see, and I kind of blocked everything out. You know how it is when you get into the zone.”

  I nodded. I did know.

  “Then I didn’t know where I was and I could just see a shape up ahead.” He laughed. “I thought you were going to attack me!” He stepped forward again so I could see his eyes, they smiled along with his face and I felt safe.

  “I thought you were an attacker too,” I said. “I was about to run and hide in the fields.”

  “I’m sorry! It must have been even more nerve-wracking for you. Hey, what are you doing out after dark? I thought Blemished girls weren’t allowed to…” his voice trailed off.

  I looked down at my shoes. “No. You’re right. I must get home. And I’m not supposed to talk to you either, so.”

  “I can’t leave you alone in the dark,” he said, his eyes shining in the moonlight. “Let me walk you home.”

  “I don’t know if I should,” I said.

  He moved closer to me and all of my worries disappeared. I felt his warm breath and forgot about Angela and Daniel, getting home before my dad worried or even how I should not talk to a GEM. I remembered how his touch made me tingle and the way heat travelled up my arms. I remembered how my gift had been uncontrollable because of the way he made me feel. Despite everything – Billie’s warning, Mrs Murgatroyd’s disapproving eyes – I wanted to get to know him. And I didn’t want to be parted from him. Not yet. “All right.”

  We walked side by side, our shoulders almost touching. Even just his close proximity made me feel like static ran through my body.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you’re out here alone?” he asked.

  “There’s no big story,” I said, smiling into the dark. “I went to a friend’s after tea and we lost track of time. We were talking.” I left out the part about super-human powers.

  “Your friend, her name is Angela, right?”

  “Yes,” I said surprised. “That’s right.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Because GEMs don’t usually remember our names. You don’t even notice us.”

  There was a pause and I almost felt him cringe. I’d offended him and could kick myself for it.

  “I hate the term GEM. It makes us sound like we aren’t even human,” he said eventually.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re not. You’re better than human. At least you aren’t less than human like the Blemished.”

  “We’re clones, not cyborgs,” he said with a laugh, “and Mina, you are definitely not less than human.”

  I like the way he said my name, like a sigh. “Tell that to the Ministry.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Anyway, it’s a good thing. The GEM project eradicated all––”

  “––genetic predispositions to illness and disease,” he finished. “Yeah, we learn that stuff in Sex-Ed too.”

  “Can I let you into a little
secret?” I said.

  I felt like he smiled even though I couldn’t see it. “Please do.”

  “We call it No-Sex-Ed. Because all they ever teach us is that we can’t mate.”

  He laughed.

  “And we call Mrs Murgatroyd Murder-Troll.”

  He laughed again, more loudly. “It suits her.”

  We went quiet, the only noises coming from arguments in the houses around us and the gritty pavement beneath our feet. Ghetto houses have thin walls, and many of the windows are smashed and never replaced. It meant you could easily hear the workings of a household, the shouts and swears. The ghettos are the same no matter what Area you were in. We turned right, heading home.

  “Why do you think Elena picks on you?”

  “Because I’m new?” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I think she’s jealous.”

  I snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It isn’t,” he said shortly. “You have something she can never have. You have uniqueness. You’re natural.”

  For a moment I thought he knew my secret but then I understood that he was talking about our looks. “I don’t know about that.” The thought of Elena, the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen being jealous of me was completely ridiculous. “All of the Blemished are unique, I guess. So why me? Why not Angela or Billie?”

  Sebastian laughed but didn’t answer. “I’ll tell you one day.” He shuffled his feet along the pavement awkwardly.

  “Is it true that she’s almost identical to a film star from years ago?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “It is true. I saw a picture. Her name was Angelina something. But Elena looks different to her, crueller I think.”

  I nodded. I could believe it.

  “Why are you Blemished?”

  His question was so sudden that my blood froze in my veins. No one ever asks you why you were Blemished. Especially not a GEM.

  “I… erm,” I stuttered.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve crossed a line. You don’t have to tell me,” he said.