‘I was going to introduce you in the morning after you’d gotten some rest and I had a chance to explain you to the kids, but...’
He paused and knelt down before the two kids. ‘Petra,’ he said, cupping her small, heart-shaped face, ‘…and Sammy,’ he said to the boy, gently mussing his hair, ‘… meet our new friend, Lena. She’s going to be your teacher.’
The boy, Sammy, gazed up at me with fright. It hurt to be looked at like that, like I was something scary, so I mustered up a small smile.
‘That’s not a real girl, it’s a boy!’ cried the little girl in a tiny, bird-like voice, tears springing to her shiny blue eyes. The boy frowned and his chin began to quiver in a way that pinched at my heart.
‘She’s a boy!’ he howled, shuffling in close to his sister like I was some kind of monster.
Though I wanted to scowl at them for their boy comments, deep down my heart twisted for these little kids, for living in a world like this, without a mother and with only these rough-edged men around. So, despite my initial reservations, I crouched down to their level and smiled warmly, running my hand through my hair.
‘It’s really short now, but I’m growing it.’ Alice briefly danced inside my mind. Her long hair swinging as she danced around and around in circles. ‘I want it down to here.’ I smiled at Petra, and ran a hand across the lower part of my back. ‘Like my cousin used to have and like you have.’
The girl’s pinched up face seemed to relax a little now that she knew I hoped to grow my hair long like a ‘real girl’.
‘What’s a cousin?’ Petra asked, before shooting a timid glance in their father’s direction.
He stifled a yawn and shrugged, blue eyes blinking with tiredness. ‘May as well start the lessons now, I suppose.’
I threw him a frosty look and turned back to the children. ‘A cousin is the child of your father or mother’s brother or sister.’
They both stared at me with narrow eyes and sceptical, thin-lined mouths, as if they didn’t believe all this cousin talk, or maybe it was too difficult for them to imagine having extended family in this bleak world. Within seconds their eyes returned to my cropped hair and they shuddered in unison.
I sighed and stood up, turning my back to the kids.
‘They don’t like me,’ I whispered. ‘I’m not a teacher so you need to send me back out there and get a new one.’
Luke’s mouth set in a grim line, but it softened when he addressed his children.
‘Excuse us, kiddies, hop into bed and Lena will come read you a story in a minute.’
The little boy howled again — at the idea of me reading him a story. Real tears glistened at the corners of his eyes while his protective sister clasped his tiny hand in hers and ushered him down the hallway.
A lump formed in my throat, to see Petra mother her brother like that. She was only a child, a tiny child at that, and here she was doing her best against what life had thrown her. A sudden rush of maternal instinct urged me to sweep those kids up into my arms and keep them safe from the world.
As I watched them disappear into the softly lit hallway, I thought about the baby birds, and Emma.
‘Can you find out about my dingo, Emma, and the birds in my pack?’
Luke whistled a long sigh through his teeth and scratched his beard.
‘The birds are dead. Laurie removed them. The pack’s in your room. He’s tending to your dingo as we speak. She might lose a leg, but she’ll be alright. Laurie used to be a vet. She’s in good hands.’
I nodded, relieved to hear that Emma would live.
‘Can I see her now, and Patrick, just quickly?’
He eyed me, warily, before nodding. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem, tomorrow. Right now you need to get some sleep.’
‘Okay.’ There was no use fighting. I understood already that my only chance of leaving this place was through getting to know the area, and maybe earning trust. My gut told me Luke would keep his word. And anyway, tomorrow was only hours away. I could handle the wait.
Then I remembered something I’d overheard my captors say.
‘Someone said something about the Carriers not sleeping tonight because of something happening tomorrow.’ I shivered, recalling the way Laurie had called them, ‘poor bastards’, as though a truly horrible fate awaited them.
Luke swallowed thickly.
‘They’re all locked up and quarantined, so you don’t have to worry about them getting to you.’ He frowned and exhaled softly before meeting me square in the eyes. ‘Unfortunately you’re going to see something ugly tomorrow. But you need to see it. Then you’ll know how our army works and what we’re fighting for here.’
‘We call ourselves Terra’s Army — the land’s army. We’re not about to roll over and take it up the…’ he paused and cleared his throat, ‘…and just die. We’re going to fight whoever’s done this to us.’
‘So you think whoever brought the disease here is after our land, our country?’
He nodded.
I swallowed thickly while I digested his words, a discomforting feeling tracing my spine, like a cold fingertip, when my thoughts returned to the Carriers.
‘Are you going to execute them?’ There was a tremor in my voice that I couldn’t hide.
Luke sighed and motioned for me to follow him down the hall. The house was clean and had a woody scent to it.
He stood at an open doorway and flicked the light switch, illuminating the room. The bedroom was feminine and decorated in soft pinks and creamy whites. The double bed looked as soft as a cloud. I yawned, my body tired, but my mind alert.
‘Like I said, you’ll find out tomorrow,’ said Luke morosely. ‘You’ll see everything differently tomorrow.’
‘Can I see Patrick first thing?’
Luke shook his head. ‘Patrick will be up at dawn with the others, training. You’ll have to see him in the afternoon, when we all gather at the quadrangle.’
Two tiny faces peeked at us from around the bedroom door.
‘Sorry, love-bugs, Daddy’s talking too loud.’ He bent to kiss the tops of their heads. ‘Now hop into your beds and I’ll come tuck you both in.’
‘But you said that boy-girl was going to read us a story.’
‘I’m a girl, okay?’ I snapped, feeling tired and edgy all of a sudden. The puffy bed was calling me and I wanted it to swallow me up and make me disappear — make me forget everything.
‘We don’t like her!’ wailed the kids at the same time. The man glared at me and sent his kids down the hall with little pats on their bottoms.
‘They’re only kids,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You’ve got to be gentle with them and they’ll come around.’
I sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll try. But if they still don’t like me after say, about a week, then do you promise to set me and Patrick free?’
He swore beneath his breath and shut the door so his kids couldn’t hear. I moved and stood near the window, feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden.
‘You must be insane to want to leave a place like this, where you’ll be protected from Carriers and given food and a warm bed.’
Gosh, he was starting to sound like my mum. In fact, they’d make quite a team. Mum would actually be a perfect addition to Terra’s Army. She was probably tougher than a lot of the men here. Luke cleared his throat and stood waiting for me to respond.
‘Give us a choice,’ I finally said. ‘After we’ve seen how this place runs tomorrow, we’ll decide if we stay or not.’
‘You’ll die if you leave. Here we’ve got safety in numbers. We know where most of the Carriers are and we lock them away when we catch them. We’re making our own fuel, bio-diesel from emu fat. We’ve got a chicken and emu farm, stocks of salted roo meat and we’re getting closer to finding an antidote with each passing year. But none of this would have happened without order and without these fences protecting us. We need this army. You need this army. It’s our only chance at survival.’
‘What are y
ou training the men for?’
‘The circus,’ he said, before rolling his eyes. ‘What do you think? Enemy attack, of course.’ He rubbed his face and yawned. ‘Jesus I’m tired.’
‘Who do you think is attacking us?’
‘Go to bed.’ He opened the door and started to tiptoe towards the children’s room, looking about as graceful as a giant ogre.
‘I know some people who think that aliens planted the disease,’ I whispered, picturing the ghostly men who had appeared at the cave entrance the night before. Maybe Sapphire’s grandad was right after all.
Luke turned back around, held his breath for a moment, and then surprised me by chuckling, the spider-web tattoo on his face stretching with his smile.
‘Right,’ he said, clutching at the door handle. ‘An army of E.T.’s are coming for us.’ He laughed before turning serious. ‘Which people told you this, anyway?’
I remembered my promise to Sapphire and swore inwardly. ‘I meant just Patrick and me. I thought if I said “people” you’d take it more seriously.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s all.’
‘Just get some sleep. This is a busy place, Lena, as you’ll find out tomorrow morning. We have crops to tend to, animals to keep, a disease to cure and an impending war to fight. Goodnight.’
‘What about the story for the kids?’ I said, yawning as I spoke. I covered my mouth with my hand.
‘I think they’re asleep,’ he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. ‘So you get the night off.’ The door closed behind him.
Somebody had laid purple pyjamas on the end of the bed, but I ignored them and collapsed on top of the soft doona, burying my face into the nearest pillow.
Everything smelt lovely and fresh, but I missed the musty scent of my own pillow and my own bed.
I raised the doona and slipped between the sheets, my legs scissoring against the cool crispness of the clean cotton, before drowsiness settled over me like an invisible cloud and I fell asleep. Something told me I’d need as much sleep as I could get for whatever awaited me tomorrow.
Chapter 16
The next day, after lunch, during which I managed to bring a smile to Petra and Sammy’s faces by dangling a spoon on the end of my nose, Streak suggested I take the kids out into the backyard for a play.
The ‘ugly things’ I’d be witnessing today wouldn’t happen until this afternoon. Luke had gotten up and eaten his breakfast before dawn, leaving me in charge of the kids — whether I liked it or not — so here I was.
The backyard was about a half-acre of land secured by more razor-wired fences.
There were a couple of tall trees, from which a tyre swing dangled, a few rows of succulent plants and a small patch of lawn across which a couple of faded, bent hula hoops and an oddly shaped, oval ball rested — a football, I guessed.
Behind the fence, neat rows of crops, dotted with people bent over, their hands in green foliage, spanned as far as the horizon. There were greenhouses and what looked to be a chicken-run, dozens of identical dongas and a long row of rainwater tanks behind the larger sheds I’d seen last night. This must have been a true army barracks, prior to the Y-Carrier.
After settled the kids down on a grey, itchy blanket for a teddy bear’s picnic, I scoured the area for any sign of Patrick. But even if I did spot him out in the fields, with his bad sight there was no way he’d spot me from such a distance.
A couple of hours later, by the time the kids had eaten their cupcakes — little sweet, honey-coated treats Streak had made for the picnic — and played ten games of Ring-a-ring-a-Rosie, they warmed to me enough to call me by my first name.
‘I think you are a girl, Lena,’ Petra announced suddenly. ‘Because you’re small and you have a little voice, like a fairy.’
I smiled and hugged my knees to my chest. ‘Have you heard a fairy speak?’
Petra rolled her eyes. ‘Yes. Our mum is a fairy. That’s why she had to go away, because she had to go back to fairyland and help her people.’
‘Are her people in danger?’ I asked, plucking at a blade of grass between my fingers and then chewing on it.
‘Yes. Her people are getting sick and dying.’
I watched sadly as Petra wrapped a leaf around her teddy’s arm and then its leg.
‘There. You’ll be better soon.’ Then she added, ‘This disease won’t beat us,’ in a very adult voice. It hurt to hear. To think of all of the terrible things these kids had witnessed or overheard in their short lives. Just as Sammy started to imitate his sister by ‘bandaging’ his teddy’s limbs, Laurie burst through the back door. He was dressed in the same army fatigues he’d worn last night, with the addition of a cap on his head.
‘It’s time to take the kids inside. Settle them in the lounge with a movie. Streak will watch them until you’re back.’ He gave me a knowing look. ‘It’s time.’
My stomach dropped and my throat dried up.
A shrill siren sounded. I cupped my hands over my ears.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘It’s all general procedure. Because we’re getting the Carriers out, the entire place goes on high alert. You’ve got ten minutes to be ready at the front door.’
I nodded, wanting to be sick.
‘Time to go inside, kids,’ I said, scooping up the plate of cupcake crumbs.
The kids each seized their teddies and clutched them to their chests, forgetting about the bandages, which fluttered to the grass like feathers. As I shook the blanket and folded it over my arm, my heart hammered against my chest. The fields were empty now.
Everyone would be meeting in the quadrangle, like Luke had said.
Once inside, the kids directed me to the lounge room where thick maroon curtains blocked out the late afternoon sun. They surprised me with their ability to operate the television and the DVD player, and for a second I forgot I had to be ready at the front door in ten minutes — ready to witness something ugly.
After Sammy inserted a thin, shiny disc into the machine, the television screen exploded into colour. I leaped back and fell onto a beanbag, sending the kids into fits of giggles.
Four men wearing colourful shirts danced onto the screen, singing and smiling so wide I could see their teeth. It was the most fascinating and oddest thing I’d ever seen.
Eyes riveted, I remained on the beanbag and watched alongside the kids, who were now sprawled on the lounges like little lizards, their teddy bears serving as pillows.
So this was TV. So this was a movie.
Just when an enormous green dinosaur appeared on the screen, somebody shouted from the front door.
‘Lena!’
I scrambled to my feet, horrified that I’d forgotten. The television had been so distracting. At that moment Streak appeared, carrying a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, some carrot sticks and two glasses of water for the kids.
‘Go on, you’d better not be late, I’ve got them,’ he said, before setting the food and drink on the coffee table in front of the couch.
Goose bumps prickled my skin as I made my way to the front door. Luke stood there waiting, wearing faded army fatigues and black boots, a rifle slung over his shoulder.
‘How are the kids? They still think you’re a boy?’ He winked.
I whistled a nervous laugh between my teeth and shook my head. ‘No. I’m officially a girl.’
He led me down the steps and along the same, well worn, garden path I treaded last night. It was strange to think of it as only last night, because I felt as though days had passed since Patrick and I had arrived.
We passed a line of snarling, snapping, mongrel dogs, tied to a metal pole fixed along the shed wall. They were so motley looking there was no way to determine which had more of any particular breed, and yet they were almost similar in their mongrelness.
‘They are trained to sniff out Carriers and kill them if needed.’
‘So they wouldn’t kill me or Patrick?’
He shook his head.
I said nothing more, for fear he would
explain how he’d trained these dogs to kill Carriers in particular. My gut told me cruelty was involved.
Through the gap between the first two sheds, I spied emus in a distant paddock, wading their way through long, dried grass, their long necks stretching tall to catch the last rays of sun.
The first five sheds were empty, including shed two, where Patrick had been sent last night. Perhaps I’d see him at the quadrangle.
But the very last shed, the biggest and the one that stood alone away from the others, was full of men. As we passed, they banged at the tin walls with their fists and screamed for help in a horrible, hair prickling way; a way that no human should ever have to scream.
I stepped back and landed against Luke’s burly frame, before leaping away from him and cupping my ears with my hands.
Luke seemed unaffected and stood waiting, sighing with impatience while I collected myself.
‘The Carriers don’t like confinement, but we have to confine them, end of story.’
‘It’s horrible,’ I said, my voice barely registering. Confinement was something I knew inside out. Shaking my head from side to side, I glared at Luke, wanting to be as far away from him as possible. ‘They’re still human beings.’
Luke stared at the shed wall as though he had X-ray vision.
‘They’re already doomed, Lena. The only part they have in our future is helping us to secure it, not to exist in it. You’ll see how they are helping us in a couple of minutes.’
‘Whatever it is I’m sure it’s cruel.’
‘So you’d rather they walk around free, so they can kill you and Petra with their disease?’
He had a point, and yet, the way those men had screamed...
‘I want to see Patrick.’
‘You’ll see him. He’ll be at the quadrangle.’
Quickening my steps at the prospect of seeing Patrick, I followed Luke as he rounded the Carrier shed to where a clearing opened up. In the distance two long lines of men filed into a huge bitumen area surrounded by more razor wire fencing.
They were silent, except for the sounds of shuffling feet and I got the feeling that hearing the men cry inside the sheds was only the beginning of the horrible stuff I was going to witness this afternoon.
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