“You talk like you’re better than everyone else. Like you work harder,” Rowan says. “I’m sorry you had a crappy family, but I’ve been working in this Fieldhouse since I was seven years old, doing my training on top of it. I work hard. We all work hard, Violet.”
“I’m sure you do. But it’s not the same for you, Rowan, and you know it. You know you’ll get paid well. You’ll be out quick. Whether Josephine wants to admit it or not, it’s different for us,” she says.
I look down at the ground, wondering if what Violet says is true, if it will be hard for us to find good work after the academy.
“Elimina, why is it just them?” Josephine says, her voice small and shaky.
“Mr. Gregors just said he’s taking a small group and that I’m coming along to get some experience.”
“Am I going?” Rowan says.
“He said to make sure your schedule is clear so you can help with the luggage and stuff.”
“He always needs my muscles,” Rowan says with his dimpled smile, but no one laughs.
“So everyone’s going but me?”
“We’re coming back, Jose,” I say. “Rowan and I are just going for the day.”
Josephine looks up at David. “We’re supposed to go at the same time, to the same place.”
“I know, Jose. I know that’s what we wanted. But it doesn’t always work out,” David says, and I see a sadness in his face as he looks around the whole stall, like he doesn’t want to leave any of us.
“Elimina, can’t you do something?” Josephine says.
“She doesn’t have any control over that, Josephine,” Violet says.
“Can’t you suggest me to Mr. Gregors? Maybe they can make a deal with someone.”
“I . . .”
“Please, Elimina, you promised!” she says, and Violet rolls her eyes and sighs.
“We’ll be okay, Jose,” David says, but she shakes her head, burying her face in the curve of his shoulder and sobbing so hard we all sink back and close our eyes.
“Well, the good news for all of us is that Louis is going too,” Rowan says, raising his hands and smiling like this is a fact that’s worth celebrating.
“Can’t you be serious for once?” Violet says.
“I think everyone is being far too serious,” Rowan says. “You all need to lighten up.”
“We’re leaving, Rowan! This—all of this—it’s over. We may never see each other again,” Violet says, and Josephine sobs even harder.
“I don’t understand what all your fuss is about! I mean, I get why Josephine is sad. But you? I thought you’d be dying to get out of here,” Rowan says.
“It’s not that simple.”
“But it is. The sooner you get hired, the sooner you can get Redemption Freedom. Isn’t that what you want?” he says.
“Not if I get hired for housekeeping. I’d have to do that for the next forty-five years. I’d hate every minute,” she says. “And what if my employer is terrible, or what if the people I work with are like Louis? Or worse, what if it’s bad, really bad? We’ve all heard the rumors. What do I do if that happens?”
Josephine looks up at David and he squeezes her tightly, like he’s telling her everything will be okay.
“What rumors?” I say.
“That the debt managers keep money for themselves,” Violet says. “That the living conditions are terrible.”
“Those are just rumors, Violet,” David says. “There are good jobs and good employers and good debt managers out there. Just like there are good academies like Livingstone. Ida is happy enough . . . and Albert seems happy too. It doesn’t have to be terrible.”
Albert Cootes delivers mail to Livingstone Academy and is set for Redemption Freedom in just under a year, on his sixtieth birthday. Once his debt is paid, he’ll be the ninth Livingstone Academy graduate to achieve the honor.
Albert delivers mail to the academy every day, and when the weather is nice, he parks at the gate and walks to the front door, just for the exercise. If things are slow in the office, Miss Templeton lets me meet him partway, where he almost always gives me candy and tells me stories. He talks about the food they make back home and the places he drives to on the Mainland that remind him of his time in the Gutter.
“Albert loves what he does. I’m sure you will too, Violet,” I say.
“Well, I’m glad you’re so smart and confident,” she says.
“This is a new start, Violet,” Rowan says. “Out there, our debt will go down instead of up for the first time ever.”
“Rowan’s right,” David says, and Josephine pulls away, like he’s jabbed a knife in her stomach. “The sooner we get out of here, Jose, the sooner we can have what we really want. It’s why Mom and Dad sent us here. We always knew it could happen at some point.”
Violet closes her eyes, holding the palms of her hands against her face, like it’s all too much.
“We’re Livingstone Academy kids, Violet. The best of the best. You’ll be okay,” Rowan says.
We all sit quietly for a moment as Violet fidgets with her fingernails and Josephine sniffles and clings on to David.
“Do you think that place exists? The one where all the Gutter folks went after the war, the ones who didn’t go to the Gutter?” Violet says to Rowan.
I remember the book Mr. Gregors gave me and the small paragraph about the Sossi folks who paid their way out.
“The Hill definitely exists,” Rowan says. “Ma talked about it all the time. It’s where she wants to live when we get out. Fancy houses, clear water. Sossi people with real money and no debt just walking around everywhere.”
I try to imagine a place like that, filled with faces like mine, but even when I close my eyes, I can’t quite see it, like it’s too impossible to be real.
“I want it to be true more than anything,” Violet says as we all stare at the two lamps sitting on the concrete, fire bending and waving inside.
“Can we read one more poem?” Josephine says.
David nods and when Violet hands him the book from its spot underneath the blankets, he reads a poem about all of the things that can happen when you wait too long for a dream—a stench, a heaviness, an explosion.
“I knew you would read that one,” Josephine says when he’s finished, and David closes the book and smiles, holding it out to Violet.
She takes it and clutches it to her chest, instead of returning it to its hiding place, and I realize that in addition to losing Violet and David, we’re also losing the blue book of poems.
“That poem is my favorite too,” Rowan says, and we all just sit there quietly.
“We should go,” David finally says.
Everyone nods except Josephine, who sobs into David’s arm as he squeezes her close, carrying her out of the stall like a child.
Violet follows them, but I stay seated on the floor, thinking about the raisin that dried up, about the sweetness and the festering and the possible explosion. I wonder what will happen while I wait for my dreams—if I’ll dry up or explode without these friends and these nights reading poetry.
Rowan offers his hand to me and I look up, unable to move, like I’m stuck. “I need you to let me know if there are any changes. Tell me anything Louis or Mr. Gregors says about the fair. Okay?” he says, and he waits until I nod back before pulling me up.
When we reach the doors, Violet is standing in the shadows while Josephine continues to cry with David’s arms wrapped tightly around her. It’s the sound of heartache, and it reminds me of the way I felt when Mother suddenly got sick, like the whole world, the ground itself, was splitting apart and leaving me alone.
11
ON THE DAY OF THE EMPLOYER FAIR, JOSEPHINE WAKES up sweaty and pale, shivering and curled up in a ball of damp sheets, like her body’s too cold but also too warm. When she tries to get out of bed, I tell her to rest.
“It’s the stress that’s making you sick,” I say.
She shakes her head from side to side, like I’ve g
ot it all wrong. “I have to say goodbye.”
“Mr. Gregors will get suspicious if he sees you making a fuss over David. I’ll keep track of where he goes, and David will work with whoever hires him to get you there too. You won’t be apart for long. It’s going to be okay.”
Josephine looks up at the ceiling, sighing and nodding her head, like she doesn’t want to listen but knows she should.
“Stay in bed, Josephine. Rest. It’ll be okay,” I say again.
But I wonder if this is really true—if everything will be okay with David gone, or if she’ll end up broken like May Bennet, who still moves around campus like a ghost.
“Elly,” she says, grabbing the sleeve of my blouse as I head to the door. She pauses for a moment, biting her lip until it looks like it might burst. “You’ll tell Mr. Gregors and Miss Templeton I’m sick? I don’t think I can make it to Nurse Gretchen.”
“Of course. I’ll tell Miss Templeton on my way out.”
“You’re a good friend,” she says, voice wobbling.
“You’re my first friend, Josephine. My best friend. You’re my David,” I say, and she buries her face into her pillow and sobs as I head down the stairs.
WHEN I ARRIVE in front of the Main House with all of the paperwork for the fair, Violet is sitting on a bench wearing a yellow dress with a shiny white belt and a pair of white gloves. Her hair is pulled into a neat bun, and when I tell her she looks like the girls from the Mainland magazines, she smiles at me for the first time I can remember.
“I’m so nervous,” she says.
I think maybe she’s going to say sorry for being so awful to me from the moment I arrived, but when Rowan and David appear carrying the trunk with David’s belongings, she lets go and heads toward them instead.
Rowan whistles and Violet twirls at his command, her dress floating up in perfect waves as she holds her gloved hands against her chest.
When Mr. Gregors pulls the van up to the front of the academy, the boys load all of the crates and trunks in carefully. Rowan climbs into the middle row next to Violet, and David sits in the back row with me while Louis holds the map up in the front seat.
At our last meeting, Louis made a ceremony of his departure, entrusting Murray and me with information about where to store the keys for the leashes and how to submit Records of Mischief, which he always insisted on doing himself.
“We’re gonna keep things running, Louis. No worries here,” Murray said, placing his arm around my shoulder and squeezing me close. “We got this. Right, Junior?”
“Don’t call me Junior,” I said, stepping away from him with a shove. “You’re not a Red Coat. And if you do happen to become one, you’ll be my junior. Got it?”
“Okay, boss,” he said, raising his hands and smiling sarcastically, like it was only a matter of time before Mr. Gregors offered him the job.
David stares out the window as the van pulls away from Livingstone Academy, his mind somewhere else altogether as we maneuver down long country roads. On more than one occasion, he asks Mr. Gregors to slow the van down and take it easy on the curves, fearing he might be sick, and I wonder if he’s really unwell or if it’s his worry for Josephine that’s making him ill.
I place my hand on his, and he locks his fingers between mine, and this is how we stay for the rest of the drive, holding on for the last time.
MR. GREGORS PARKS the van on a gravel road beside an open field in the town of Haven, where a large white tent is pinned to the ground with tight ropes and wood pegs. Above the tent, a billboard displays shackled Gutter hands and a Mainland flag with large black letters: “Welcome to the Site of the Battle of Haven where Mainland Believers defeated Gutter Betrayers.”
I stare out at the field, then up again at the sign as Louis and Mr. Gregors continue toward the tent, leaving the rest of us behind.
“Remember what Ida always tells us,” Rowan says, leaning close. “This land was ours before it was theirs.”
I close my eyes and nod, but I can’t help thinking about the way Mainlanders in Capedown looked at Mother whenever I was around—like she had somehow betrayed them by taking me into her home.
At the fair, Mainland men in fancy suits mingle and laugh while students in academy uniforms set up markers and displays, pointing at Rowan as we pass.
“That’s the fighter, the one who’s going to fight on the Mainland,” one boy says.
“Saw him fight at an academy match. Busted a kid up so bad he could hardly see after,” another boy whispers.
“What I wouldn’t give to see him knock out one of them Mainland boys,” says another.
But when the students see me walk by in my red coat, all I hear is “rat.”
I PLACE THE graduate markers out on the Livingstone Academy tables, just like Miss Templeton instructed, while Louis, Violet and David unpack the items they brought for their displays.
LOUIS JOHN
LIVINGSTONE ACADEMY RED COAT, SEWING & TEXTILES
CREATIVE | ORGANIZED | DETAIL-ORIENTED
DAVID HAMBLE
LIVINGSTONE ACADEMY, GENERAL LABOR & CARPENTRY
STRONG | CAPABLE | DILIGENT
VIOLET MASTERS
LIVINGSTONE ACADEMY, HOUSE MANAGEMENT
INTELLIGENT | ARTICULATE | LOYAL
Violet arranges a color-coded filing system on the table alongside samples of her penmanship and calligraphy, while Louis displays a few vests and an assortment of ties in a variety of colors. David sets a log, some tools and four wood carvings on the table between them—a soldier, a moving car, a train that whistles and a statue of a woman with a child held close to her chest.
“It’s the first thing I made when we got to Livingstone,” David says when I pick up the statue of the woman and child, sliding my finger along the edges.
I examine the way the mother and child are joined, wondering if this is what it feels like to have a mother who carried you in her body and loved you from the start—forever connected and bonded, even when you’re apart.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, placing it back down and stepping away as an employer approaches David to talk about his work.
I stroll up and down the rows of tables and displays, studying each of the sixty graduates from the ten Mainland academies that have come to the fair. Half of the graduates are boys who are slated for maintenance, agriculture or general labor. Every girl other than Violet is slated for kitchen work or housekeeping—including all eight girls from North End Academy, the school Ida Mason graduated from and refuses to talk about.
The girls from North End Academy have torn shoes and patched uniforms. Their legs and arms are bony and thin, and all of them have short hair. A girl named Shanta Cinder shivers like she’s cold, her whole body quivering despite the warmth. I move closer to see if she’s okay, but when she sees me coming, she turns to the girls beside her, covering her face like she’s scared.
“Leave her alone,” one girl whispers as Shanta stands behind her. “We don’t like rats around here.”
“I just . . . I didn’t mean,” I say, stepping back and heading quickly for Mr. Gregors, who is looking out over the fair in a sharp gray suit, hands against his waist.
“It’s quite the turnout,” he says.
I nod, but I don’t look up because I can feel the North End Academy girls watching me as I stand with my headmaster.
“Sir, what’s wrong with the girls from North End Academy?” I whisper, turning my back to them. “Why do they look like that?”
Mr. Gregors looks over at the North End Academy tables, before returning his attention to the crowd. He shrugs like there’s nothing unusual about them at all. “Everyone will walk away happy today, Elimina. Don’t worry about appearances,” he says. “They remind me a bit of you when you first arrived, and look how well you’ve turned out.”
I frown at the comparison, tugging at the ends of my hair. “They don’t seem very happy, sir,” I say.
“Some schools don’t put much weight or care into the ha
ppiness of their students, Elimina,” Mr. Gregors says. “Happiness is not a very lucrative business model, at least when it comes to your employees. I can assure you that those girls will be very happy to be leaving North End Academy for good today. That is what I love about days like this,” he says, with his hands held out in front of him. “It’s the one place on earth where everyone wins. Students get work. Employers get workers. And everyone else gets paid. Win win win.”
“But, sir, I thought it wasn’t good for kids to start working so young. I thought that’s what all the Mainland studies said. That kids should enjoy being kids,” I say, looking around at the fair. “Some of these graduates look younger than me.”
“They probably are, and you’re absolutely right, Elimina. But it’s hard to enjoy life when you’re saddled with debt. So for Gutter children, perhaps it’s best to get right to it.”
We watch as a woman with curly black hair stops in front of Louis. He shows her his work, holding each piece up and turning it over, explaining all of his stitchwork.
“See how poised our students look? There’s no comparison,” Mr. Gregors says.
I look over at the North End Academy tables, where Shanta Cinder is responding to an employer by nodding and shaking her head.
“Imagine if I had sent you here right when you arrived? Imagine how much more confident you’ll be in a year or so. Especially as my top Red Coat.”
I stick my hands deep into my pockets as Mr. Gregors embraces an old friend. The two of them move farther away just as Rowan reappears for the first time since our arrival.
“Where have you been?”
“Around,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
We stand there for a while watching David, Violet and Louis talk with employers, smiling at the ones who look nice, as though it might help.
“Do you like coming to these things?” I say.
Rowan curls his mouth to the side, like he’s not sure how to answer. “I like seeing graduates get hired. I like the change of pace,” he says. “But it’s tough to be here and just watch it all happen, you know.”
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