Fearless

by Tim Lott

  “Thank goodness you’ve come,” said the City Boss to the policeman. “The children are running wild. Round them up and put them back in their dormitories.”

  The place was in chaos. Girls everywhere were starting to tear down the ugly buildings where they had had to live and work and suffer all these years. Some had seized the matches that the X girls used to light cigarettes and had set alight the hated Control Block. Tongues of fire began to appear from the Controller’s headquarters.

  To the City Boss’s amazement, the policeman at the head of the crowd of demonstrators took no notice of his order and instead bellowed right back at him.

  “You told us this was a school, a place of re-education and faith. But it is a prison and a place of misery and hopelessness. You did not tell the truth.”

  The City Boss held his hands out in a gesture that was at once hopeless and desperate. “The truth has many faces,” he said.

  There was sorrow in the air, and rage, and the threat of violence. To his right, the City Boss was aware of flames rising higher from the Control Block. And all the time the vidcams watched him, broadcasting his every response to the people of the City. He could see that things were out of control, and struggled to find words that would placate the mob and restore his authority. He looked down at the crowd, his features arranged into a picture of regret and contrition. He smoothed down his jacket and patted his hair into place. He shot a long sorrowful glance at Little Fearless, prostrate on the podium a few feet away from him, and spoke to the crowd in a low, plangent voice that nevertheless echoed to the top of the walls.

  “Cityzens. A great wrong has been done here. And it is a great wrong for which I cannot shrug off all responsibility. You elected me as your leader. And I have failed you.”

  He left a long pause so the crowd could register the genuineness of his sorrow and the humility of his repentance.

  “Today, everything has changed. Everything has changed because of this poor, abandoned little girl. I confess – I have been guilty. Not of evil, but of something just as bad. Guilty of ignorance. Guilty of indifference. Guilty of seeing only what I wanted to see.”

  The crowd cheered, and many of them started to look smug and self-satisfied that they had defeated what they had now decided was the face of all wrongdoing.

  But the City Boss gathered himself and looked down at the crowd defiantly. “But before you hang me from the nearest tree and then walk off in triumph, listen to me.

  “If I am dirty, then you are not clean. And all the laundries in the world cannot wash our stains away. You voted for me because you were scared. You voted for me because you valued order more than justice. You voted for me because of the secret hatreds in your own hearts. You voted for me so I could carry your sins for you. So don’t suddenly tell me that you are all innocent. You wanted this. This is your doing as much as mine. What do you think politicians do? Do you think they are wicked and out to exploit you? You are wrong. They are here to give you what you want. That is how they keep their jobs.

  “What you wanted was to feel safe. What you wanted was to feel special. What you wanted was to feel like good people. And I gave you those things. Those illusions. Those lies. And now you crucify me for doing your bidding?”

  A silence fell over the crowd.

  “You are no better than me. I am leaving the City and shall not come back. Then you can elect someone who is as kind, upstanding and virtuous as you all are,” intoned the City Boss both magisterially and sarcastically.

  “There is one last thing for me to do, before I give up the chains of office and return to ordinary Cityzenship once more.”

  He turned to the Controller, who was huddled in a corner of the podium, his arms wrapped round himself, his face tight with what could have been either grief or terror. It seemed he feared the crowd would tear him to pieces.

  “Controller. You are relieved of your duties. You are no longer an employee of the City. You are finished. Just as I am.”

  The Controller fell to his knees. The City Boss walked slowly down from the podium and then out through the gates, his head held high, his hair sticking up. No one tried to stop him.

  The flames had spread now. A north wind had blown them over to the Work Block. The podium itself was in danger of catching fire. Everyone began to flee towards the shattered remains of the great gates.

  Stargazer, exhausted, lay slumped beside Little Fearless’s body. Stench picked up Little Fearless gently.

  “Come, Stargazer,” said Stench softly. “It isn’t safe here any more.”

  “I’m coming,” said Stargazer. “But there’s something I have to do first.”

  “Hurry then,” said Stench. “The whole Institute is going up in smoke.”

  Stench made her way down the steps carrying Little Fearless’s body. Now only Stargazer remained on the podium – along with a broken, slumped figure that sat, head in hands, a few feet away from her.

  Stargazer stared at the Controller in astonishment, and even sorrow. There was ash from the fire in his hair, and coating his skin, making him appear even more like a ghost than before. By now the fire had reached the Living Block and was creeping towards the rubbish tips. The Controller was shaking. Stargazer could not help but pity him. She reached out and touched his arm. He shrank back as if he had been burnt.

  “It isn’t safe here,” said Stargazer softly. “You need to leave.”

  The Controller didn’t respond.

  “Your what-must-be is now in your own hands. It is your choice. But I just want to know one thing before I go,” said Stargazer.

  There was a great crack as the central support of the Control Block broke in the heat, and the roof began to fall in. Ashes and sparks were everywhere now.

  “Go, girl, go,” said the Controller, suddenly breaking his silence urgently. “You must not stay here.” He had taken his hands away from his face now.

  “Just answer me this,” said Stargazer steadily. “Stench – Lila – told me something I didn’t understand. She said Little Fearless survived longer than anyone else ever kept in the Pit. She said it was as if you were trying to keep her alive. And you always took a special interest in her – always. Why, Controller? She was just another little girl among hundreds. What made her special to you? Why was she different?”

  Now flames sprang from the roofs of all five buildings in the Institute. Stargazer could hear Stench, and Tattle, and Beauty, and Soapdish, all yelling at her to leave the podium, and the Institute, before it was too late.

  The Controller, still slumped on the floor of the podium, raised his head slightly. He seemed to be looking directly at her. But he said nothing. Stargazer shook her head. It seemed that she was never going to find out this secret. She rose to her feet and moved slowly towards the steps. Flames were licking at the podium’s struts.

  She threw one last glance at the Controller before she made her escape. And in that final moment, he raised his right hand to his face and slowly, deliberately, removed his tinted spectacles. Orange flames danced in the lenses.

  Stargazer stared. In the flickering light she saw for the first time his eyes, the eyes he had concealed all the years he had been at the Institute.

  And one was brown. And the other was blue.

  Stargazer just stood there, dumbfounded.

  The Controller nodded. “It is true,” he muttered. “I tried to protect her. But I had to follow the rules, you see. The rules … the rules…”

  Now he was babbling. His face was obscured by a pall of grey smoke. He coughed and spluttered.

  “Mary was – is – my sister. She was more than a sister – she was a friend to myself and Little Fearless’s mother. She promised to look after her and bring her up as her own. But years later they found her and tortured me by bringing her here, saying that unless she followed the rules she would be sent away and I would never see her again. But she wouldn’t … she wouldn’t follow them … she wouldn’t do it … she was so brave … and now she’s …
and now she’s…”

  His face appeared like a spectre through the smoke. Stargazer did not know whether it was that which was making his eyes water, or whether he was truly crying. Then the fumes and burning ash made it too hard for her to see anything at all.

  “How can you love someone when you need to crush them… How can you crush someone … when you cannot help but love them?”

  This question was left hanging in the smoke and air. Because Stargazer suddenly felt the strong arms of Stench around her waist, and she was carried quickly down the collapsing stairs.

  “The Controller … the Controller!” shouted Stargazer.

  But Stench took no notice. “Too late for that. It is his what-must-be.”

  And she ran, with Stargazer under her arm, towards the great collapsing zero of the gates. Just as she made it outside, the walls themselves fell, and all was flames, and rubble, and smoke.

  Within an hour the Institute was little more than a mound of ash.

  And the Controller, Oroborous – Little Fearless’s father – was never seen or heard of again.

  Epilogue

  Atonement

  In the warm embrace of the Sunlands, five girls sat on a beach staring at the sea. A middle-aged woman with grey-flecked hair was with them. She was quite tall, with pale freckled skin. There was a dark birthmark the size of a fingernail and shaped like a star just visible below her hairline. Her name was Mary. Each of the six figures held a single white rose.

  It was late afternoon, and already the sun was slipping beneath the horizon. The sky was a darkening blue, and waves lapped and bubbled a few yards away from where they sat. A sand crab scuttled past and disappeared into a tiny hole.

  “Are you OK, Stargazer?” said Jamila, the girl they had once called Beauty, to the delicate girl with the beautiful yellow hair.

  She nodded. “Did I ever tell you that I found out what Little Fearless’s real name was?” said Stargazer quietly, who had never found out what her own real name was. She liked being called Stargazer anyway.

  “You never told me,” said the dark-skinned girl holding her small black rag doll. Her name was Maya.

  “Or me,” said Abigail, the girl they had once known as Tattle.

  All the girls fixed their eyes on Stargazer. “She told me,” Stargazer said, nodding towards Mary. Mary caught Stargazer’s eye and smiled. Stargazer had lived with her ever since she had left the Institute, and they had come to love one another like mother and daughter. Stargazer smiled back, and continued with her story. She had become a wonderful storyteller, almost as good as Little Fearless herself.

  “It’s an incredible name. Her mother and her father gave it to her when they were freedom fighters. They thought her name would be her destiny. And they were right.”

  “What was it, Stargazer?” asked Lila, stroking the petals of her white rose.

  Stargazer smiled wryly. “It was Hero,” she said softly. “Her real name was Hero.”

  “She was named after the Hero of the ancient tales,” added Mary. She looked around at them all kindly, and put her hand gently on Stargazer’s shoulder.

  The group fell silent. The last rays of the sun illuminated the sea, staining it the colour of rubies.

  “It is time,” said Stargazer softly.

  Slowly, one by one, they made their way to the edge of the sea. Eddies and rivulets of glittering water lapped at their feet.

  “It has been a beautiful day,” said Mary.

  “And like all days for us, now and for ever, it was a gift from Little Fearless. From a true hero,” said Stargazer.

  As Stargazer said this, Mary took a deep breath and cast the white rose she was holding into the gently lapping waves. One by one the girls followed suit. By now they were all crying – tears of happiness and gratitude and grief mixed together.

  Finally Stargazer took her white rose, kissed it once, twice, three times, then threw it into the sea, where it floated gracefully in formation with the others.

  “Goodbye, Little Fearless,” she said, almost to herself. “You will never be forgotten.”

  The waves curled into a crest and carried the white roses, away along a red river of light towards the setting sun. The girls joined hands and walked slowly away, back to their families and their homes, back to a city where, if you listened carefully, the voices of the angels of truth, courage and compassion could be heard once more, like a secret refrain whispered by every human heart.

  Acknowledgements

  First to my god-daughter Sadie Kitson (“Sadie Strongheart”), who nagged me into starting this story back in 2000. Also to my father, Jack; my stepmother, Lee; and my brother Jeff; and my friends Paul and Judy Stafford, who all encouraged me to keep going when I had almost given up. Likewise to Mark Haddon and Jacqueline Wilson, voices in the wilderness as precious as rain for my often faltering imagination and willpower. To Caroline Walsh at David Higham Associates, who finally found a publisher willing to take a risk. To my brilliant editor at Walker Books, Denise Johnstone-Burt, who had the vision and skill to help me to turn Fearless into a real book rather than a patchwork of ideas and images. To Christina Østrem at the Portixol Hotel in Mallorca and to Andrew Milton at the Prince Maurice Hotel in Mauritius, who gave me space and time to work. And finally, as always, to Rachael Newberry for just about everything else good in my life.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

  First published 2007 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  This edition published 2013

  Text © 2007 Tim Lott

  Cover images (pb) Robert Daly/Stone/Getty Images (girl) and Jeanene Scott/Photonica/Getty Images (rose) (hb) Christ in the Sepulchre, guarded by Angels by Blake, William (1757–1827)

  © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library

  Illustrations © 2007 Clifford Harper/Agraphia.co.uk

  The right of Tim Lott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-4894-1 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk