Box

by Penelope Todd

  But somehow our crowd was tightening up. The police were strung around us like a blue noose, squeezing us into a knot in front of the covered stage used for concerts. Their faces showed nothing. They were just doing a job.

  Something had been set up ready for us. I felt my skin go taut and wary. Here was the mayor — a strong advocate for Endorsement — coming onto the stage, backed by two other men smiling warmly, as he was. One wore a yellow jersey and I felt a shiver of unease that I didn’t understand just then. The mayor was holding out his hands to us, as if we were his children home after an absence. I glanced at Marti and she held my eye. A frown split her forehead as she hoisted her placard higher: Endorsement is XXX-Rated!

  A metre in front of us, the police joined elbows to make a chain-link fence around us.

  ‘Noooooo!’ It was a low moan. Beside Marti, Becka’s face had turned pale. She clutched her middle and sank down. ‘Bastard!’

  Marti bent over her. ‘Becka. What’s up? Are you hurt?’

  Becka straightened, her face stretched in pain. ‘That man. The one on the stage with the hanky in his pocket. You’ve stayed in his house. He was my friend!’

  BECKA SPAT OUT the word ‘friend’ and wiped it off her mouth. ‘See what he’s done? Brad.’ Her hands were flexing and stretching, her eyes casting around. Then her whole face became still, riveted to the stage.

  I was confused. I’d got the idea that Becka’s friend had come to speak on our behalf. So why was she upset?

  ‘Children, young people,’ the mayor was saying, ‘in coming here today you have shown us how brave and resourceful you are, how eager to do what you believe to be right and true. We salute your strength, your youthful energy, your integrity.’ The way he said it, the word sounded oily, soiled. ‘But you’re hungry too, and tired. Now it’s time for you to discover the good that we’ve had in mind for you all along. All your questions will be answered, all your needs for health and safety met.’

  Becka was working her way towards the edge of the stage. She slipped under the arms of the police in front of us. They exchanged a look but held their positions as her slight figure crossed the paving stones. She’d dropped her boots and jacket beside us. She leaped silently onto the stage. Her head was thrown back, her bare feet were arching. She was going to dance.

  Brad stepped in front of the mayor, holding his palms to her like someone trying to placate a menacing dog. ‘Becka, Becka,’ his words came whispering through his lapel mike.

  Becka’s arms flew up and quivered above her head. The three men seemed mesmerised, and for seconds no-one moved. She leaped forward — once, twice, three times — legs scissoring and snapping at the air. Her mouth grimaced with its lipstick like blood, her blue-black hair sparked. Her eyes slashed at the man called Brad. She was a crow, a sprite, a sharp weapon. She made the men cower in the front corner of the stage. The mayor stepped down to safety.

  ‘This is it,’ whispered Marti, excited. ‘Becka’s bad fairy dance.’

  Suddenly Brad lunged and grabbed a handful of Becka’s skirt and top. He tried to snatch her wrist, but she dropped over backwards. As her hands touched the stage, her knees jackknifed and we heard the clack of her foot on his jaw. She fell into two more back-folds, landing like a cat on the very edge of the platform. Arms up again, she shimmied towards him as he held his mouth. On tiptoes she shivered, her hands claws, her breath one long hiss.

  Then there was silence — longs seconds of silence — until all around, kids and adults erupted into boos and catcalls and cries of ‘Shame! Coward!’

  Becka let herself collapse with her cheek to the ground, one arm up in the air like a dying plant. Eventually, two police detached from the circle to fetch her, but the instant they touched the stage, Becka leaped up and slithered back to us. The mayor and his mates regrouped and talked urgently together.

  We all touched Becka, squeezed her arms and patted her back but she sank down on her boots as if all the life had gone from her. Marti and I crouched beside her. Becka’s eyes were full of tears. ‘See what they’ve done? They orchestrated this whole thing. I was just their puppet — so they could bring us all here. All this time.’ She sobbed. ‘I’m sorry!’

  ‘But this was our idea, coming here,’ I said.

  Becka glanced at me and shook her head. ‘But I told him because he knew how to contact all these other kids. He’s had us all taped, the whole time. It was all a set-up, him making me think I was doing this vital work. Yeah, I was too — for him! He knew everything about the feeding network, the tides, and what details he didn’t have he got from me. From you.’

  Becka’s eyes were crazed with mascara. ‘I phoned him last night with the names of all the kids at the Nemeyevas!’

  For a minute or so we stared at one another, taking it in.

  But Marti refused to be thrown by the news. ‘We can take advantage of it now. Like you just did. Come on, don’t give up yet. Look at all of us here.’

  ‘We’d like you all to come on over to the town hall now,’ the mayor was saying. ‘There’ll be food there, phones to contact your parents. And you can have all your questions about Endorsement answered. You can take as long as you need.’

  ‘They can’t make us do that,’ I raged. ‘It’s not legal, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not. And Endorsement’s wrong. As wrong as it ever was.’ Marti pulled a piece of paper from her hoody. ‘Someone should read this.’ Disco scanned the page. He gripped us one each side of him. ‘Our turn. Come on.’

  At the line of police he said, ‘Excuse me, Sir, Madam, we’re expected up there, as representatives of this group.’ He used the moment of their uncertainty to roll his body onto their arms and we were through, walking around the stage, climbing the steps up behind the men.

  Brad was talking. ‘I know that many of you have met my friend, Becka.’ He glanced her way. ‘And I know it will seem at first that I have betrayed her trust — and she yours — but believe me, when you’ve fully understood Endorsement’s benefits you will come to thank us for today’s salvage.’

  ‘Salvage?’ Disco croaked. Who the hell does he think he is? A tow-truckie?’

  ‘Silence, please.’ The mayor turned to look at us. ‘Who have we here?’

  ‘I need to read this. Please.’ That was Marti.

  He looked at her. In her old ugly clothes, with a stripe of red marker pen on her cheek, she was a mess. To me she was brave and lovelier than ever, but definitely a mess. He looked at the crumpled paper in her hand, and sighed. ‘When Mr Trench has finished you may have thirty seconds. Boys, wait down there, please.’

  We shook our heads and held our ground.

  The mayor rolled his eyes and whispered to Brad.

  He adjusted the main microphone to Marti’s height. He smiled and said, ‘We don’t wish to be accused of stifling free speech.’

  Marti stepped up. Disco and I hovered close. She held back pieces of hair with one hand and clutched the paper with the other. What on earth had she found?

  ‘Here is a story that we can all get something from.’ Marti stepped closer and put her mouth right against the mike. ‘Once upon a time there were a king and a queen …’

  Some kids carried on talking. Some lay back on the grass to listen.

  ‘… The King said, “We have no riches for you; our kingdom has declined and is usurped by fools.”’

  The hairs moved on the back of my neck.

  Some people were trying to shush their neighbours. Others cupped their ears to hear better. The mayor was edging closer to us. Across the crowd I saw a woman with a movie camera have it knocked from her hands.

  Marti read on.

  The mayor spoke into his lapel mike. ‘Ten more seconds, sister.’

  Her cheeks flushed with anger. ‘The boy had been unaware that a journey was pending but he took from his parents’ hands a sealed box of balsa wood …’

  ‘Time’s up, my dear. Very pretty speech. Now down we go, back to our places.’

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nbsp; ‘Hang on,’ said Disco. ‘I want my thirty seconds.’ He patted Marti’s back and took the page from her.

  I saw Mr Blunt just then, hands in pockets, walking along the back of the crowd of kids and I felt cheered by the perfect timing, then worried. Did we have the right to read out his story?

  Disco was smiling grimly. ‘After the funerals and the crying …’

  As he read I watched the crowd in front of us. They were alert now, like the boy in the story, paying attention. A little hunger, a little cold and worry hadn’t hurt us. Maybe they’d woken us up.

  ‘He sometimes felt tired and wished to be free of his light but tricky burden …’

  Two women were climbing onto the stage behind us. They were lawyers — sisters, well-known, and people joked about the fact they had sixteen kids between them. But I knew at least four of those were in the crowd with us here. They were talking quietly to the three men, producing their own papers.

  Disco read on. ‘The box took a few knocks. Cracks appeared …’

  The discussion behind us was hotting up. It sounded interesting. When Disco paused, I shushed him. The adults’ voices rang out through their mikes.

  ‘These are minors, Ms Lamond. None of this applies to minors.’

  ‘Do you have written permissions from every parent represented here?’

  ‘I act on behalf of our elected government …’

  ‘A government that in turn is acting out of panic over the unanticipated behaviour of our teenagers.’

  Hearing the voices in the air, the third man was looking around startled. He put one hand to Brad’s mouth, slapped the other over his own mike.

  Disco laughed, and since no-one stopped him, finished reading the story.

  ‘… Overcome by curiosity, as soon as they decently could, his attendants took it outside and broke it open.

  ‘The box was empty.’

  In my head words were forming, insistent and difficult. Out on the grass, some kids looked puzzled, one or two groaned, others nodded, or laughed. Mr Blunt, directly across the crowd from me, raised two thumbs. In spite of that I gulped with anxiety. The mayor had remembered we were there and made to shoo us back to our places, but now my heart was thumping up around my ears. I knew I had to speak.

  ‘I want my thirty seconds,’ I said in a strangled voice. I walked up to the mike, almost panting in terror. I stared at the only bare patch of grass I could see.

  ‘When I first heard that story I didn’t get it. Maybe I still don’t. But I think it’s about how you have to realise what you’ve got. You get this incredible life and it’s not like anyone else’s. You can’t ever forget about it.’ I clutched the mike stand. Damp broke out on my face. ‘You have to take care of it and you have to let it grow bigger, not smaller. That’s the choice. And everything you need is in there and only you can find it. But you can’t see it either, you just have to … to … live it. And you mustn’t ever let anyone else mess around with it. You might rather die.’

  The mike stand and the stage were swimming past each other. I bent over and dropped on one knee. I heard shouting and laughter and some clapping. I crawled to the edge of the stage and staggered back to my place with Marti and Disco beside me, saying, ‘Don’t worry, you did great.’

  Once I’d stopped feeling embarrassed and wondering what had possessed me to say all that, the next couple of hours were pretty boring. It seemed they couldn’t make up their minds what to do with hundreds of abstainers. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere, although, with the police loosening the ring around us, we were given room to spread out. After a while bottles of water were passed through the crowd, then huge parcels of fish and chips, cartons of oranges — the mayor announced that these were gifts from some of the city’s ‘business-folk’. We didn’t care where they came from.

  Well, Disco did. He mimed the grace: his hands prayed, they made wheat come from the ground, they chopped it down and threshed it, kneaded it into dough, held bread up to the sky. He bowed his head.

  ‘Amen,’ said Marti.

  ‘Amen,’ I said.

  Becka stayed with us. Now and then she’d look around for Brad and give him the evil eye as he talked to police and carried on his discussions with people in suits. We’d run out of ideas about what we could do. We toyed with the suggestion of getting everyone to stand and run for the trees again. But it was obvious that the lid had been blown off the feeding network and we couldn’t expect kind people like the Nemeyevas to look after us forever. Staying with them, hiding out, could only ever be short-term.

  I saw Mr Nemeyeva and Mirri, and we waved to each other. Mr Blunt still walked about with his hands in his pockets, watching. No-one was allowed to come near us until our fate had been decided. In fact lots of adults had settled in around the Octagon, sitting as we were, signalling to their kids or waiting to see what would happen. In spite of our full bellies, a sense of foreboding had enveloped us. The air was dense and too warm. Teenagers fidgeted and wiped their faces and fell silent.

  Then, somewhere, a decision was made and passed through the ranks. The police stood up from where they were sitting or leaning, and ordered us all to our feet. There were dozens of them, re-forming their lasso and tightening the noose around us. We were on the move, towards the town hall.

  On the fringes of the crowd we heard parents call out in protest. ‘You can’t do this!’ a woman shouted. But the police began a gruff, marching, ’One-two, one-two,’ that rose above the dissenting voices and became all we could hear as we shuffled forwards, kicking one another’s heels, bumping chests to backs, jostling shoulders in the squeeze.

  Then my heart leaped. My sister Ella was worming her way towards me, as Becka had done earlier, completely ignoring the restraining police arms, disappearing now and then as she ducked under elbows, between knees.

  ‘Gran got this!’ She gave me a letter and standing on tiptoes pointed out my grandmother outside the pharmacy. ‘We heard about the rally on the student radio. This is horrible, isn’t it? Are you okay?’

  I looked at my smart, brave sister and half-wished she’d been part of the whole adventure. But no, I hoped she’d never have to face anything like this.

  ‘I’d better go back,’ she said. ‘If I can.’ And she wriggled and wormed off the way she’d come.

  I opened the pink envelope.

  Darling boy. It was Gran’s writing. Heard from your parents. Susie in Auckland — arriving later today — heard about the rally and sends this message. Consider it a news leak.

  Mum and Dad had news of the rally. Did everyone know everything? I scanned the faxed message again and knew there was one last announcement to be made. I turned around and started forcing my way against the flow. Some kids protested and fought me while others oozed aside. Then the police noticed me coming and tightened up their cordon. I couldn’t move. I handed the page to a girl I’d never set eyes on before and said, ‘Someone has to read this out. Pass it on.’ And I watched the letter get engulfed and disappear. I was forced back to shuffling with the crowd. Across the heads, Disco and I managed to exchange looks — angry, resigned, despairing, frustrated. And pointing, he lifted Marti’s arm in a wave to let me know she was with him. We shuffled on.

  But shortly there was a stir behind us and I turned in time to see a boy about my age leap and bear-hug a policewoman. She fell out of line, the boy let her go and ran for the stage. As he blew on the mike, someone shouted at him from across the Octagon; a man in a suit semaphored and yelled, ‘Get down, now! There’s no more …’

  ‘Listen up everyone.’ The boy had a big, deep voice. ‘Darling boy.’

  The crowd stopped and turned, laughing. I could have died. Men were running at the stage.

  The boy was excited. He laughed and boomed into the mike, ‘Consider this a news leak. According to Reuters News Agency in London, the New Zealand experiment is under fire …’

  The men were shouting, roaring, trying to drown out the words the unknown boy was reading.
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br />   Then someone with red hair — Disco — was leading a charge of teenagers. I swam along with them. We broke through the police line. The men were swallowed up like bacteria being ingested by phagocytes. Jackets went over their heads as they were wrestled to the ground by maybe two dozen kids. I threw myself onto the scrum. For a few seconds their yelling was muffled and we lay still, breathing hard.

  ‘A halt has been called on the so-named New Zealand experiment, while the world court investigates its legality. In the meantime, no citizen may be made to accept Endorsement and the government of New Zealand is being advised to suspend its operations.’

  It took a few moments for the reality to take hold, for us to understand that we were no longer prisoners, that the police had no reason to be here, the three men no need to be buried beneath us. We were no longer on our way to the town hall.

  Cheers and whistling began to ripple out and spread over the crowd as we got to our feet, grinning and laughing. They caught fire on the fringes as the news was passed on. Someone began to clap, a rhythmic clap, clap, clap-clap-clap that we joined in. We stood and held our hands up and clapped at the police — clap, clap, clap-clap-clap — at the three men scrambling up from the ground — clap, clap, clap-clap-clap — at each other, at the sky, as the police began to disband and cluster around the fleet of cars parked outside the art gallery. Still clapping and stomping in time, we spilled through the Octagon.

  After hugs all round — Marti, Disco and Becka got kissed and hugged, too, by my excited grandmother — I told Gran we didn’t need a ride, that I’d see her and Pops when they brought Mum home at dinner time. Marti and Disco were coming with me. Marti was going to ring her parents and Disco was going to have a bath. I was going to try and evict our tenants and start cleaning up the house for my mother’s return.

  Mr Nemeyeva and Mirri blew us kisses as they walked away. Mr Blunt had disappeared. We said goodbye to Becka.