She carefully took the fragile book in her hands and turned to its back cover with curious eyes. She read the faded text and gasped.
“Told you it might be a bit strong for you.” He grinned at her.
“I’ll take it!” she quickly said as she opened her bag and searched for her purse. This was going to be a great book.
“Ah, money won’t be enough for this one, sweetheart.”
She paused on her quest for the missing purse, which was buried somewhere in the black hole of her schoolbag. She looked up from the bag toward Bob.
“What? Er … What do you mean?” she asked him as a bubble of panic expanded in her stomach.
“Well …” He began eagerly, and she had some awful images in her head until he continued. “I need to get hold of an ID card for Sparkle and Shine, and the word is that your daddy has one.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, she nodded. Her father did do some work for the Sparkle and Shine factory, something to do with productivity and happy workers. She was pretty sure he had lots of old ID cards from the factory laying around in his study.
“So?” Bob’s voice nudged her back to the present.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you need an ID card for?”
“Well …” He tried to look innocent. “Another client needs it, and I can’t go divulging my client’s secrets now, can I?” he asked. “I guess it depends on how much you want that book,” he added slyly.
She frowned and decided that the word ‘well’ before a sentence was a sign of someone up to no good, but she really wanted the book.
“I’ll need to steal an old one from my dad,” she said after a moment. There was no harm in giving Bob an out of date ID card. She was pretty certain it wouldn’t work. Ex-employee ID cards of Sparkle and Shine tended to be made void. So really, it would just be a useless piece of plastic.
She glanced at him.
He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. “Because I’m trusting you here, I’ll give you the book today if you get me the card by the end of the week.”
“Okay, you have a deal,” she said. She held out her hand for the ancient book with yellowing pages. Getting a card to Bob by the end of the week should be easy.
“As always, nice doing business with ya.” He winked, and then proceeded to slink away, no doubt to find an unsuspecting fool to buy the card she was going to get him.
She examined the ancient book. It was crumpled and tattered now, with deeply ingrained creases down the spine. She ran her fingers down the spine, thinking that someone hundreds of years ago had lovingly made those creases while they pored over the pages of this well-read novel. The pages themselves were yellowing and fragile. They reminded her of a butterfly’s wing, one touch and they would crumble away.
She didn’t know if it was true, but she’d once been told that if you touched a butterfly’s wing, they were so fragile, they would just crumble away. She’d never tried to catch one since. It was the beautiful and fragile things in life that should be protected.
With that thought, she carefully wrapped the book in a plastic bag to preserve its flaking pages, and decided to scan it into a less destructible format as soon as she got home.
She looked forward to an evening of reading the book, escaping her own crazy world to enter another.
Cole Denoir slumped on the lumpy mattress and stared around his dingy room, feeling exposed and vulnerable.
He had been safe in the mountains, just him and the wildlife concealed in the forest with nature covering his tracks from those who wished him harm. But when the winter came and the weather beat against him, he’d known he had to venture into the city, and he’d known they would be on his trail again.
Nevertheless, he had a mission to complete. He had to go or the people he’d protected for so long would be in danger.
What choice did he have? What choice had he ever had?
It seemed so long ago that this journey had begun. Had he known then what would happen to him, he might never have made the rash choices of youth.
Back then, it had all seemed so clear. Right and wrong had never blurred. There was a simple choice, to do the right thing.
After so many years running, hiding, waiting and missing out on all the simple pleasures of a normal life, he had to wonder if any of this was worth it.
The crimes he’d had to commit, the rules he’d had to break and the suffering he’d had to endure were an endless list of regrets.
He didn’t know if it was worth it anymore, but it was his path, and there was only one to follow. He knew he must see it through to the end, even if it meant his end.
He had tried to keep a low profile once he’d entered the city, but hiding wasn’t so easy in somewhere this clean.
They’d caught his trail when he arrived and chased him across the city. He’d only just escaped at the main station by jumping onto the back of a moving train. Even then, he thought they’d followed. But he’d had a lucky break at Different Shades, a rather disgusting bar in a dingy district of the city. Color didn’t matter there, and they’d had rooms for rent.
He nursed his purple arm. Cleaned and bandaged, it was still quite a mess from its graze with the train.
A cockroach scuttled across the grimy wooden floor of the dimly-lit room. Cole was too tired to chase it away. He lay back on the off-white sheets of the rickety bed.
This was a safe place. He could rest here for now, but he knew that soon he’d have to move on again. He always had to keep moving, he knew that.
At least the bomb had been dropped. Now, he just had to wait and see if it had worked. He knew innocent lives would be lost, and he knew it wasn’t fair to them, but he couldn’t care about that now. He’d given up everything in his life to protect his family. This was the only way to ensure they stayed safe.
A nagging feeling of guilt whispered to him that there must be another way, but he ignored it. The voice had always been there, but there wasn’t another way out of this mess. The bomb was the only option he had left.
There was no room for failure.
Carla glanced up at the old clock embedded into the spire of the town hall. It sparkled in the sunlight due to the thorough cleaning it received, twice a day. Everything in Derobmi sparkled in the sunlight, causing an array of accidents from temporary light blindness.
Many colonies presumed the Derobmis had an eye defect when in reality it was more of a sparkly-reflection defect.
It was half past three, and time for Carla to make her way home. She would need to pretend that she had just finished a normal day at school.
She attempted to look like any other student walking home, but soon discovered she was drawing quite a few stares as she hurried through the town center.
Her purple skin usually brought a fair amount of unwanted attention her way, although the inhabitants of Betterware—the capital city of Derobmi—were pretty used to seeing her by now.
However today, not only was she purple, she was also a mess.
She glanced down at the streaks of mud that were caked all over her clothes. With a sigh, she ran her fingers through her hair, pausing when she encountered twigs and leaves tangled into her wild mass of black curls.
She had attempted to clean herself up when she jumped in front of the sprinklers in the park. Unfortunately, the only change the spray of icy water had made was to expand the mud stains and make her walk home a cold and shivery one.
It was with a familiar dread that she entered the narrow alleyway to Chutney Close. Going home in such a mess was a highly punishable offense, and her mother would not be amused.
She stumbled into the tranquil little close and hid behind a large bush while she examined the activity in the area.
It was a small clearing with five detached houses contained within. Each house was perfectly presented with beautifully manicured front lawns, clean gravel driveways and immaculate windows.
Mrs. Wendle’s house at number three was home to the most sparkling d
riveway, but—as Mrs. Mainston had once informed her wayward daughter—only a woman with no children would find the time to individually polish every piece of gravel.
The competition was high in the close for the most orderly and clean house. Each household judged the next harshly if a lawn was left unmown or a window had not been expertly cleaned.
When his wife was ill, the poor man who lived at number one had suffered weeks of humiliation because he had left a huge streak across his ground-floor window. There had been a petition and a lot of name-calling until he finally caved in and hired a man to come in and fix the esthetic disaster.
Carla shook her head at the memory of it.
These people need to get a bloody hobby.
She carefully scanned the close before stepping out from behind the bush. Once she was certain that all the windows were clear, with no people and no prying eyes watching her, she made a mad dash across the lawns.
She raced toward her house, diving into the small alcove between her house and garage. Safely hidden, she paused and studied the tranquil suburban street, checking she had made it home unnoticed. So far, so good.
Now came the difficult part, getting into her house unseen.
First, she would have to get past her mother, who would be in the kitchen. Therefore, the back door was not an option because it opened into the kitchen. It would also be a hard task to get in through the front door and past her brother, who might be upstairs in his room, but was more likely in the living room. If he was in the living room, then she’d be seen going in the front door.
She leaned around the corner of the house and peered through the gap in the blinds of the bay window, staring into her living room.
She saw Joe sitting in his favorite chair, watching something on the television. He started to turn toward the window, and she quickly pulled her head back around the corner of the house.
Okay, the ground floor was covered. She’d have to find another way in.
She straightened up and turned around, examining the garage door behind her. It was a strange contraption, which joined in the middle of the door and flipped over instead of opening. A car could get under it when it was flipped open, but people had to bend down. She had no idea why such a door was on a garage, but all the houses in Chutney Close came equipped with the odd contraptions.
It was currently open and ideally located to get to her bedroom window, which she’d learnt not to lock a very long time ago.
If she climbed onto the door and did a strange balancing act on it—with one foot at either side of the hinges—she knew she could boost herself onto the garage roof and then get into her room through her window. Then she could get washed and changed before coming back out to go back in through the front door.
She gripped the top of the nearby wall that bordered the garden and boosted herself up before climbing on top of it. After pulling herself up, she stood on the wall and studied her target—the garage door.
She leapt across onto the door, landing with her feet straddled on each side of the hinges. She tried to balance like a surfer on the unstable door. However, her over-confidence sent it spinning, and she was thrown—well, shot-putted—into the garage with quite some force.
She cried out as she crash landed into the back shelf, which unfortunately held a range of colorful paints and varnishes.
Her eyes widened in horror as the garage door spun until it slammed shut and locked her inside. Oh, crap!
She slumped against the broken shelves with wet paint dripping into her hair and rolling down her face.
I’m doomed.
When her mother eventually found her—a few hours later—the varnish and paints had dried on her skin into a multicolored mess, and her purple skin was stained with a rainbow of colors.
Her mother—appalled at the technicoloured marvel that was her daughter—proceeded to spend the next three hours scrubbing her with white spirit until it had all come off.
“You know, once we clean this up, maybe we should paint you green,” her mother said.
Carla narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you should kiss my ass instead.”
Carla shivered as a deadly silence filled the garage. She glanced at her mother’s steely glare and gulped. There weren’t many things that scared her, but her mother going silent was a sure sign of danger.
Joe was very angry with his parents. They were being too harsh.
“Dad, you can’t send her to that place. She doesn’t belong there.”
His father—a weak-chinned man called Herb Mainston—shook his head at Joe. “She’s had her chances, many chances to get her act together. She can’t behave like a child anymore. You and your mother coddling her like this won’t do her any good.”
“Herb,” Emily Mainston spoke up for her daughter. “Carla is different from most people. Will sending her to the workhouse really help her? Perhaps there’s another solution.”
“It’s only for a few days!” Herb snapped. “And it’ll be a few days free of trouble for us. Think of it as a vacation from disaster.”
“That’s not fair,” Joe shouted, clenching his fists in anger. “She tries her best, and what Saunderson said was well out of order.”
“What about the garage or her attacking the school nurse?” Herb shouted back at Joe. “What about explaining it to the neighbors? No, she’s done it this time. She’s going to the workhouse, and she’s going to come out of it a normal girl!” Herb put his foot down. Literally, he stamped it on the floor when he said, ‘normal girl’.
“She’s going and that’s the end of it.” Herb stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Emily sighed. “She’ll be okay, Joe. Your father has made up his mind, and it might do her some good,” Emily added with a hopeful smile. “Go and get some rest. You look tired.”
Joe stared at his mother, and his anger began to evaporate. “She doesn’t mean to get into trouble, you know.”
“I know,” Emily said with a sigh. “But she always manages to, even when she tries not to. This might be a good thing for her, somewhere she can sort herself out.”
Joe was unconvinced. “It’s too harsh,” he said. “She’d better be okay,” he added before he stormed away into the living room.
He slumped onto the couch and blankly stared at the television. For the first time in his life, he hated his parents for being so unreasonable.
Carla narrowed her eyes at the gates of the Sparkle and Shine factory, eyeing up the drab gray buildings behind the wrought iron fence with a sense of foreboding.
This is going to suck.
She gritted her teeth and walked toward the small open gate at the side of the massive pillars that flanked the entrance.
Stepping through the opening, she headed for the security cabin while gripping the letter Herb had given her in a sweaty palm. Ever since the vaccination, she’d felt too warm.
Am I getting a fever or something?
The security guard behind the desk glanced up at her as she approached, offering her a look of distain.
She handed him the letter and waited for him to read it.
He grunted and pointed behind them, across the road. “Report to the team leader in the factory,” he said as he handed her a clear plastic bag with a hat and a white lab coat in it.
She took the bag and turned around to face a large building with many windows. It matched the drab gray buildings surrounding it that were industrial-looking.
She opened the bag and hurried across the road, pulling out the white lab coat and disposable hat contained within. She glanced down at them and sighed before she shrugged and headed toward the factory building.
Thick plastic sheets curtained the open bay doors. She brushed through them while tugging the white lab coat over her shoulders and fastening it over her clothes. Next, she rolled up her hair into a ball and pulled the awful, shower-cap-looking hat over her head.
“Move out of the bloody way!” A coarse male voice caused her to jump.
/> She glanced at the man ahead of her, who was driving a mini tractor toward the doors that was loaded with pallets.
She jumped to the side as he nearly mowed her down on his way out of the building.
Unsure of where to go, she hurried toward a second opening. Once inside, she stared at the factory floor. Five long conveyer belts lined the room. Each one had at least fifty workers on it.
“Get yer knob out!” A rough female voice shouted from the middle conveyer.
Carla glanced up to see a hard-faced woman in a matching lab coat and hat shouting down the central conveyer belt. She had a blue stripe on her hat, making her appear different from all the other employees.
Is that the team leader?
She watched the worker at the end of the large machine pull out a stop button, and the conveyer belt began moving.
Rolling her eyes at the use of the word ‘knob’, Carla headed toward the hard-faced woman. She was almost certain that this was the person she was supposed to report to.
She paused when standing behind the team leader, unsure of how to announce her presence as she watched the woman shove boxes through a cellophane machine.
“You gunna stand there all day or do some work?” The woman spun around and glared at her.
“Er,” Carla said. She didn’t really want to be here at all. “I guess I’ll work.”
“BREAK!” The woman screeched before slamming her hand onto a red stop button above her head.
The conveyer belt grinded to a halt and the workers all quickly left it, hurrying away toward a door at the far end of the room.
The woman turned to face Carla. “Right, let’s train you. Come ‘ere.” The team leader pointed to a seat on the conveyer belt.
“Okay.” Carla sat down on the chair and peered at the line of washing-up-liquid bottles in front of her.
“You take these labels.” She handed a roll of labels to Carla. “You peel them off, and you stick them on the front of the bottle.” She peeled of a label and slapped it on the front of a plastic bottle in front of Carla. “Got it?”
Science Fiction and Fantasy Box Set 1: The Squishies Series Page 6