Surviving Minimized: A Novel

by Andrea White

  As he stepped off the stairs and onto the hard ground, he again worked to keep his voice normal. “What’s the tomato soup can for, Don G.?”

  “The kids push each other down the hill,” Don G. said. “They call it the Roll-er-ato. The inside of it is padded.” He pointed at other items on the playground. “That globe there is a climbing wall, the kids use the bottle caps as sleds, and for art class, they sometimes carve soap sculptures. Let me call Beth. She can tell you the rest.”

  Don G. put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

  A girl popped out of a knothole in the base of a tall aspen tree. Zert couldn’t see much of her, except that she had two arms, two legs, and a head. As she drew closer, he noticed that she was barefoot and had on overalls covered in pockets. She reminded him of farm kids he’d seen in Western holomovies, the kind that prompted him to change the channel in search of a good adventure program to watch.

  Zert had never met a kid that didn’t live in the city before. Whether he and his dad got to stay here or not, he felt as if he wouldn’t find any friends. Certainly not as good as the ones he had lost. “Oh, Cribbie,” he whispered under his breath.

  18

  THIS IS THE REAL WORLD

  “This is my daughter, Zert. Beth will show you around,” Don G. said.

  The girl faced him. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t have met her before. She was born here. Wait a minute. Trying not to stare, he realized that the girl resembled Isal Diyvik—his archenemy at St. Lulu’s—the guy who once tried to dunk his head into a toilet before Cribbie rescued him.

  Both Beth and Isal had bulging eyes. Bug eyes. And bulging biceps. And lank brown hair. His father had been wrong. You couldn’t escape from anything, ever. The bad his father thought they’d be able to leave behind had followed them here, only the Rosie version seemed worse.

  Beth held out her hand, even though kids never greeted each other like this, not even in the old days.

  He gripped her hand. It was coarse, as if she wore a scratchy glove. “Hello,” he said, careful to keep his voice even.

  “Hi,” Beth said.

  He pulled his hand back and glanced down to see if her grip had dirtied his fingers.

  Beth narrowed her eyes and looked at him closely.

  His face grew hot.

  “I’m going to go with Don G. to look at the cave, Zert,” his father called.

  As Don G. and his father walked away, Zert thought, Don’t leave me alone with her.

  As he heard the adults’ footsteps set off, Zert took stock of this girl who was born here. Beth was about his height, maybe a little taller. She had a square jaw that made you not notice whether she was pretty or not. Her hair went every which way, like a mismatched pile of brown and gold socks. Outsized hands and knuckles dangled on the ends of her long arms. Her feet were bare and muddy.

  She frowned a little at Zert, surveying him in much the same way. When she finished her once-over, she said, “So, what do you want to see?”

  “Everything, I guess,” he said. He wanted to know exactly how bad living here was going to be. At the same time, he wanted to dribble out the sights over the next twenty years so the shock wouldn’t be so great as to leave him numb. A numb thumb. “I haven’t seen very much yet.”

  “Where are you from?” she said.

  “Low City DC,” Zert said.

  “You weren’t born here?” Beth’s voice rose. But Zert couldn’t tell if she was excited or wary. “You’re minimized?”

  “Yeah,” Zert said. He couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit proud.

  “We just had a kid like you,” Beth said. “His name was Abbot.”

  “What happened to Abbot?” he asked.

  Beth looked directly at Zert. “We got rid of him.”

  “Great,” Zert said.

  “Abbot was always bragging about things we don’t know anything about, things we don’t need to know about,” Beth said.

  Zert would give anything to get to meet this braggart. “Where is Abbot now?”

  Beth shrugged and just kept looking at him. Zert waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, his mind began to race. Abbot and his dad could be lying dead in the wilderness somewhere. Beth didn’t seem to care.

  “I’ll show you the trickle,” she said suddenly.

  “The trickle?”

  “The first rule is that we call everything the same name as the BIGS do.” Rule? There were rules? Before Zert could ask about the second or third rule, she started running. He had seen kids run before. Every once in a while, he ran himself. But he had never seen anyone who accelerated to a sprint as fast as this girl did. She’d have been in the Youth Olympics if she lived in the real world. He paused.

  This is the real world. This world is as real as can be.

  Beth tore down the path, hurdling over small boulders that Zert knew, in his former world, were mere pebbles. She raced down slopes without sliding or slipping, plunging though long patches of yellow grass, jumping over large, lacy ferns that sometimes blocked her path.

  At first, Zert struggled to keep Beth in his sight. But it wasn’t only the bottoms of his feet that hurt; every muscle in his whole body was sore. The effort burned his lungs, and his head ached from too much sun. When sweat poured down and stung his eyes, he gave up and began walking.

  The roar of the water grew louder and louder, sounding like the inside of a lifter-bus terminal. His dad was right. Water was noisy.

  Zert reached the bank. Beth had called this a trickle, but it looked like a raging stream. Green-and-white water splashed over rocks and crashed into boulders. Zert never knew how noisy water could be.

  Fishing nets lined the sandy bank, and the place stunk. Beth wasn’t there. He looked for her around some jumbled wooden boxes on the shore, but she wasn’t anywhere.

  He took a few more steps toward the water. He was parched but wasn’t sure he could drink it. It couldn’t be healthy, and he might die if he drank it. But maybe he could at least cool off by sticking his head in it.

  Beth popped out from behind a nearby boulder. “Surprise!”

  Zert jumped. “Why’d you do that?”

  Beth shrugged and pointed at a swimming pool–sized body of still water close to shore. With her hands on her hips, she demanded, “What are those?” in a test-the-new-kid voice.

  Zert looked down in the deep water and saw hundreds of shapes. “Fish.”

  “I already told you the first rule.” Beth folded her arms across her chest. Pointing at the stream—wait, the “trickle”—she said, “Those are minnows.”

  The giant minnows darted around in the water. Zert could see their beady eyes, their mouths opening and closing. Minnows used to be just tiny squiggles to him. Now they looked substantial.

  Beth gestured toward the nets. “We catch the minnows with those.”

  “You eat them?” Zert said.

  “The water’s not contaminated here,” Beth said.

  Zert pointed at the boxes lined up on the bank. The boxes were fashioned from twigs and mud and smelled like stinky cat food. “What are those?”

  “Frog traps,” Beth explained. “We eat frogs, and turtles, too.” She paused. “We use the turtle shells for our baths. In the wet season, we flip a few of them and use them for hail shelters. In the dry season, they’re barbecue pits.”

  Low City DC had only one season—it was hot year-round. Zert had never seen hail before. “Do you get lots of hail? Or snow?” he asked hopefully.

  Beth squatted next to the trickle, poking a stick into the surging water. No, not a stick, Zert realized, a twig. She looked over her shoulder to grin at him. It was peculiar to see her with a smile on her face. “We get snow. But not as early as Third Halloween,” she said.

  “Halloween?” Zert asked. “It’s Halloween here? But it’s only September.”

  “We have the same holidays as the BIG world, but it’s much better here because we celebrate them whenever we want. We might have another Halloween again
in a week or month,” Beth said. She scuffed her boot into the dirt. “What did you do for fun in that boring city you came from?”

  Boring city? Zert felt a pang of homesickness as he answered, “Played zoink ball and stuff like that.”

  Beth threw her stick into the water. “Oh, yeah?” she said. “Tell me about that.”

  “OK,” Zert said. “Uh, there’s a pitcher who controls the jets of air and three batters who bat the balls.” He took a swing at the air. “It’s like 3-D Ping-Pong.”

  Beth shook her head, a blank expression on her face.

  “It’s hard to explain if you’ve never seen a game.”

  “If you!” Beth rolled her eyes. “Aaagh. That’s what Abbot always said.”

  “What …?”

  “‘If you haven’t used the Internet, don’t ask. I can’t explain it to you.’ ‘If you haven’t seen a holomovie, don’t ask. It’s impossible to describe it.’” She shrugged. Beth moved so close to Zert that he could see her crooked bottom teeth. “We don’t like it,” she said with a glare.

  Zert nodded.

  “Have you ever ridden in a lifter?” Beth asked.

  “Lots of times,” Zert said. BIG Zert had dreamed about taking driver’s ed and learning to drive.

  “What’s that like?” Beth asked.

  Water raced past him in the stream. No, he corrected himself, the trickle. “Can you swim?” he asked Beth.

  She nodded.

  “Riding in a lifter is like floating in water,” Zert said. “Only—”

  “But you can’t float in the air,” Beth interrupted. “It’s dry.”

  “I know, but—”

  Beth flicked her unruly hair as she interrupted. “Been to an anti-gravity fun house?”

  “A … A few times. A long time ago. A fun house once offered to buy my dad’s store.”

  “You had a store?” Beth burst out. “What kind?”

  “My dad’s an exterminator.”

  “What’s that?” Beth said.

  Even Rosies ought to have exterminators. “He kills pests.”

  “Pests?”

  “You know, roaches, ants, termites …”

  Beth’s mouth dropped open, and she gaped at him. “Roaches aren’t pests.”

  “Yeah, they are. And my dad has this machine that vacuums them up and cuts them into little pieces,” Zert said proudly. “It’s called the Ultimate Xterminator.”

  “What does he do with the food?” Beth said.

  “What are you talking about?” Zert asked.

  “So, he’s got this big machine and it catches roaches, and then who does he give the food to?” Beth said.

  Zert shook his head. “What food?” he repeated.

  “F-o-o-d,” she spelled out, using a mocking voice.

  “If you!” Zert said. That would teach her to treat him as if he were dumb.

  Her eyes bulged as if they might pop out. Then she turned and started running away.

  “Hey, wait up,” Zert yelled as she disappeared underneath a bush.

  In Low City DC, the streets were never empty. Some Flayhead who had drunk too much of the powerful drug was always sleeping on a moving sidewalk. Or a lifter was always revving for takeoff. Someone was always there.

  But now that Beth had left, the bushes, rocks, and grass were his only company.

  He felt all alone. In Paradise. In Rosieland. In Rocky Mountain National Park. On the North American continent. On Planet Earth. In the whole entire universe.

  19

  DOODLEBUG GOLF

  Although Beth had disappeared, Zert knew he could find his way back. Pancake Rock stuck out from the landscape as much as the holostatues of liberty did in front of the souvenir shop.

  “Hey, Zert.”

  Beth’s voice came from the trail to his right. “Where are you?” he called out, looking into the thicket.

  “Keep walking,” Beth said. “You BIGS do know how to walk, don’t you?”

  Zert headed toward the sound of her voice. The trail dead-ended into a rickety twig hut. Magazine photos resembling store windows plastered the front. In one glamour shot, a woman with implanted cheekbones wore a long black dress. The script said, “Naturally beautiful.”

  Beth waited on the rickety front porch. “This is Shack Fifth Avenue.”

  At least Rosies had a sense of humor.

  Zert stepped up onto the porch and examined the second photo. It was a silver-and-red tube with a string attached to it. On New Worlds, Uncle Marin had used a fly rod in an episode about fishing in Antarctica.

  Uncle Marin. Zert flared his nostrils.

  Beth turned and went inside. “Hello,” she hollered.

  No one answered.

  Zert followed her into a room stuffed with goods. A lot of the stuff was labeled: Ant Pudding, Rat Jerky, Honey, Ants’ Eggs, Dried Minnows, Toasted Fleas, and most awful of all, Rat Brain Pickles. All of the products were unpackaged and naked looking, as if they had forgotten to get dressed that morning.

  “Everyone must be at Pancake Rock already,” Beth said. “It’s nearly time for dinner.”

  Zert walked up to the closest shelf. Buckets of crispy fried grasshopper and cricket legs were the only foods that looked even remotely tasty. Feathers stuck out of every available space.

  “Come over here,” Beth said. She stood next to the wall at the back of the store.

  Zert wound around piles of black-and-gray furs to join her.

  Squirrels. Rats. Maybe even some cuddly rabbits. He passed shelves holding acorn cups, twig hiking staffs, leaf tents, wasp nest paper, and mud skates. One area was crammed with weapons. The daggers, spears, and swords looked as if they had been carved out of teeth.

  Eek! Zert felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

  Beth stopped in front of a section labeled Games. She grabbed a stick and held it up. “What’s this?” she asked.

  Another test. Zert gazed down at the bin and read the label, “Putter for Doodlebug Golf.”

  “This game is the bee’s knees,” Beth said, smiling. Zert stifled a giggle. Bee’s knees. Did that mean crunchy in the Rosie world?

  “It’s a lot more fun than zoink ball,” Beth bragged as she swung the stick. “And I’m good at it.”

  It was easy to imagine Beth smacking the doodlebug with a stick and the gray bug sailing toward the sun. “Are the doodlebugs alive or dead during the game?” he asked.

  She swung the stick at him. It barely missed his head.

  “Hey, watch out,” he said.

  “Dead, of course.” She pulled a jar from the shelf, but this time, she covered the label with her hand. “What about this?”

  The jar was full of green powder. “I don’t know.”

  “Firefly powder.” She glanced at him with a gleam in her eye that said you don’t know everything, do you? “We use it for light.”

  The light in the base of the light pole had been an eerie green. Same with the light in Ellis Log.

  “What’s this?” Beth held up a jar full of something that looked like ypersteroid pellets.

  “I don’t know,” Zert snapped.

  Beth smirked. “I wish I could explain it, but I can’t. If you!” she taunted him.

  Zert looked her in the eyes. “I get it,” he said.

  “Zert, Beth,” Don G. called from a distance. “Time for dinner.”

  “I gotta go. I have to put on my costume.” Beth turned toward the door.

  “My dad said that you don’t study Chinese here?” Zert said. Ever since the Chinese had won the Antarctica Wars, every student had had to study Chinese. It was part of the treaty.

  “That’s right,” Beth said.

  Hurrah. “What do you study?” She had her broad back to him, and he stared at her brown hair that trailed down like a shaggy horse’s mane. He had never met a girl who didn’t brush her hair before.

  “Insects and society, insects and art, insects and history,” Beth said.

  “Insect history?” Zert in
terrupted. Heroic mosquitoes and brave flies. “What about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and stuff like that?”

  “Yeah.” Beth turned to face him. “Our teacher makes us study the BIG world, but I don’t understand why. We’ll never get to go there.”

  Never get to go there. Zert gasped, but Beth wasn’t around to hear. She had already set off in a run.

  He had been rude to stare at her hand to see if it was dirty. But she had been rude too, and I’m a guest here. He limped after her.

  As Zert approached Pancake Rock, he smelled a delicious smell, and his mouth began to water.

  Above him, on the rock’s shelf, Rosies stirred pots over fires. Two women had tied green-and-pink scarves around their heads. The BIG clothes discarded on the trail were made of the same material. One man wore a blue-jean apron.

  Everyone in the entire village could dress themselves from just the jeans and clothes he and his father had dropped on the floor of Dr. Brown’s office—and these clothes would probably last them for the rest of their lives.

  Don G. stood on Pancake Rock near the buffalo chip pile.

  “Don G.,” Zert hollered up, “where’s my dad?”

  Don G. pointed down a trail that led toward a cliff. “Take a right turn at the Hat. And follow that trail until it dead-ends. You can’t miss him.”

  “What kind of hat?” Zert yelled.

  But Don G. had gone back to tending the fire and didn’t answer.

  Zert started down the dirt trail. It was lined with green stalks topped with see-through cotton balls. Soft white stars floated off the top of the plants and caressed his arms and chest—a nature tickle.

  Ahead of him, a black, shiny rock rose out of the ground. It looked like a top hat with a wide brim, the kind a magician would wear. He took a right, and twenty or so paces away, the trail dead-ended into a structure, a sort of hut constructed between two moss-covered rocks that backed up to the cliff.