The Biggerers

by Amy Lilwall

  Hamish sighed and smiled. ‘I’m going for a shower,’ he said, getting up and climbing up the stairs.

  Susan watched after him, her mouth open wanting to call him back and tell him that, well… Was that all he had to say to her? Surely he would turn around… He didn’t. She closed her mouth and let her eyes dance up the stairs. She knew it! She knew that she was setting herself up for disappointment. She sat down where he had been sitting, thinking that if he saw that she was still there after his shower, he would realize that something was wrong and that it was largely down to him. She leaned forward and closed her eyes against her knees looking at the inside of her eyelids; at whatever it was that made a gazillion little coloured stars whenever she put pressure on closed eyes. Was it only she that could do that or could everyone? If it was everyone, how come she’d never heard anybody talk about it? Maybe nobody had ever bothered looking. In that respect, she was special. She didn’t need much when all she had to do was close her eyes to see the stars. It would just be nice if other people realized that she was the type of person who could see stars like that.

  Below the stars, wet roofs pitched over empty houses with windows dark and still, like dead eyes. Mud splattered over mud as tethered dogs struggled to get out of the rain, or barked to be let into their houses by people who no longer lived there. Susan thought about taking the dogs and running with them to the wall, but today she found herself kicking through puddles. She imagined the town and the rain suspended in a kind of snow globe, where above was covered in stars, and the stars curved right around the top until they touched the pink flowers, and the pink flowers mattressed right across the underside until they found the stars again, and every direction would lead to somewhere better, yet she was loitering at the centre of the housing estate. She saw a dog barking in a nearby garden and thought that it would seem a lot fatter if its fur wasn’t so wet. She clicked her teeth at it and it walked to its fence. Its ears pricked up slowly under the weight of wet fur. It wasn’t tethered; it was just hoping for something to change.

  The shower hissed in her ears. She really should stop losing herself in shitty fantasies. Stop it, Susan! This was the tip of the downward spiral; the bit where she should collect her mat to sit on and slide down, but at the bottom there was nothing except one thoroughly miserable evening. And her eyes were starting to hurt. Turning her head to the side, she thought about that poor little dog that had cocked its head at her as if it already loved her; its tail all bedraggled. Maybe she would get a little dog like that. She could go to the dog shelter during the week and get a dog. But no, she couldn’t. It would scare the littlers…

  One flat hand slid under her cheek as she thought again about all the phone calls she’d made that day. She’d called Mini-Me’s to see if they would give her the company’s geographical address. They weren’t at liberty to give that information. She called Batch Mode; they couldn’t either. She called the doctor. The doctor was much nicer to her, even seemed to sympathize with her, but also, regrettably, could not give her the company’s geographical address. ‘I am desperate,’ Susan had said.

  ‘I know, I understand,’ the doctor replied. ‘But you can’t just go there. If you turn up at the front door, they’re going to wonder how you found the geographical address and they’ll have us all under interrogation. It’s already happened. It wasn’t pretty. People lost their jobs over it.’

  Eventually she found herself standing on tiptoes, reaching the box of flakes down from the fridge. She scanned the back for a phone number and dialled it straight away. The call was answered by the receptionist at Billbridge & Minxus. Shit! They made the fucking flakes too?

  ‘Hi. I’d like to speak to someone about visiting my littlers who were taken earlier in the week.’

  ‘I’m afraid that visiting is not permitted.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been led to believe. Would you mind telling me why this is?’

  ‘We are under no obligation to give you our geographical address.’

  ‘But you have something that’s mine.’

  ‘Your product has been recalled, Madam. If you read your terms of purchase you will see that product recall is one of the exceptional circumstances where we revoke ownership.’

  ‘Well, I have read my terms of agreement and this “recall” hasn’t been formally confirmed to me, which, as is clearly stated, it should be.’

  ‘You will receive an email in seven days.’

  ‘Why? Why seven days? How can it take you seven days to write an email?’

  ‘Your littler needs seven days for the treatment to become effective. We’ll be able to tell you if it’s worked in seven days.’

  ‘But you can’t send me an email to tell me all of this?’

  ‘You would have been told when the product was recalled that you would receive an email in seven days.’

  ‘Could you at least tell me how they are?’

  ‘All littlers in our care are in a stable situation.’

  ‘Are they together?’

  ‘—.’

  ‘Are they together?’

  ‘At this stage, they will most certainly be in the same holding corridor.’

  Susan swallowed, not wanting to think that there would be a stage after this stage. ‘But one of them didn’t even communicate. She just made a, kind of, squeaky noise.’

  ‘We observe protocol very seriously. Your littler wouldn’t have been taken without a valid reason.’

  ‘And if I want to dispute this?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Legally?’

  ‘You are fully entitled to take your purchase agreement to a lawyer.’

  Susan had curled her lip. Maybe she should just call their bluff. Surely any lawyer could see that what they were doing was completely out of line.

  ‘Listen. Based on your experience within the company, could you please just tell me if some of them do make it home?’

  The speaker paused for a moment. ‘I’m not at liberty to speak about individual cases.’

  Susan rubbed her hand down the side of her face so slowly that her cheek ached. It was as if this woman were reading from a script. Maybe the only way she could deal with having to do such awful things was to read everything she had to say and her body would become some sort of… some sort of reading machine, and she could hide in another part of it while it sat and read horrible things all day. That was quite a deep thought. How many people thought thoughts like that? Wouldn’t the world be nicer if everyone who didn’t want to do something would just say: fuck it! I’m not doing that.

  She’d tried this line of reasoning. ‘I don’t get it,’ she’d said. ‘It’s not as if I’m dealing with the managing director. You’re a human like everyone else, how can you bear to act so inhumanely?’

  There had been a short silence. ‘I would ask you to refrain from making personal attacks.’

  ‘But then we’re not equal,’ she’d said. ‘I’m calling you from my sofa with a towel wrapped around my head. I’m calling you because I have a personal problem. I personally am very sad, in fact I’ve not been to work today because I’m so sad; I’ve been crying all day because I’m so sad; how can you ask me not to be personal with you?’

  Another silence. Then: ‘Yes, but that’s not my fault personally, Madam.’

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘Please don’t talk about my children.’

  ‘You do have children.’

  ‘I asked you not to talk about my children.’

  ‘You see, I don’t have children but I tell anyone who asks me that I do have littlers. Two of them. And they are the closest thing I can imagine to having children. Now… Someone came and took them away from me, for reasons that I don’t really get, and now I have no idea where they are and if I’m ever going to see them again. Do you see what I’m trying to say here?’

  ‘—.’

  ‘Do you think that’s fair?’

  ‘I’m going to have to put you on to my superviso
r.’

  ‘Do you know what a pyramid is? Well, you, like me, are currently somewhere near the bottom with lots of other people just like you. If you gathered all of them up to tell your supervisor to “fuck off”, then maybe that would—’

  The line beeped and another voice cut in. ‘I’m the supervisor in charge, good afternoon.’

  ‘Oh hello. I was just talking about you to your—’

  ‘I know, I heard. I had to take over the call. Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes. I would just like to know when I can visit Bonbon and Jinx.’

  ‘And they are… your littlers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m afraid visiting is not allowed. We are under no obligation to give you our geographical address.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what your colleague told me. Could you give me an idea of when I’m likely to see them again?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Susan sat up straight on the sofa as screen pixels fizzed and whirred on the line. This was an answer she hadn’t yet had.

  The pixel fizzes stopped.

  ‘You’ll receive an email in six days.’

  She flopped back again. Bitch! Fucking bitch! How could they get away with this! They really were all reading from the same script. Well, two could play at that game. ‘Can I ask you, do you have children?’ she asked.

  ‘Excuse me, can I get by?’ Hamish asked as he stomped down the stairs with no shirt on.

  Susan stood up and looked at him. At the top of the downward spiral that led to the miserable evening, the mat-man told her to give this one last shot before sliding down.

  ‘Hamish, I’d really like to talk to you.’ She put her hands on her hips.

  He blinked. ‘Can I just get down, please?’ he said. ‘The shirt I want to put on is in the dryer.’

  Fuck. Of course she had to let him get his shirt. She stood aside to let him pass. He was always so bloody logical about everything. He was topless and needed to cover up, that was reasonable. How could she tell him that he couldn’t get his shirt? Especially when he’d said ‘please’. Yet she felt like she wanted to thump her fists on his belly; how uncalled for would that be? The headline flashed through her mind as she bit the nail on her little finger: ‘Man attacked by partner for asking to get shirt.’

  She looked towards the kitchen. Hamish’s shadow was doing up shirt buttons. ‘Hamish, please talk to me. I’m allowed to worry about you, aren’t I?’

  The shadow stepped aside to let the man fill the doorway. ‘You know I go quiet when I’ve got a problem.’

  Ah yes, she thought; of course he did. The woman needs comforting, the man needs space. She’d read that in a very old book a long time ago. He could still say hello to her; that wouldn’t make his problems any worse… No, Susan! Stop! Don’t take the mat yet; don’t sit on the slide. The man needs space, said the mat-man.

  She strode up to him, stood on tiptoes and put her hands over his eyes, slowly so he could let her do it. ‘Hamish? Can you see stars?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Giving you some space,’ she replied.

  He smiled. Just a little bit.

  ‘Can you really not see them?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he replied, taking hold of her wrists and moving her hands. ‘Oh! Now I can see one.’

  She grinned. That was probably the nicest thing he’d ever said to her, ever. The mat-man winked at her, then covered his pile of mats up with tarpaulin. The miserable evening was now closed.

  Hamish looked at her and breathed out slowly from his nose. Susan was sure there was an ‘I’m sorry for not saying hello’ hidden somewhere in that breath. She smiled back as if to say ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘How was your day? You seem brighter.’ The ‘brighter’ got deformed in the beginning of a yawn.

  ‘Okaaay,’ she said. ‘I was a bit teary this morning. Then I called everyone I could think of to try and get hold of a geographical address…’

  ‘Well, that was a lost cause.’

  ‘I know, Hamish, but I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. Anyway, I eventually got hold of the company this afternoon and…’

  Hamish’s long yawn seemed to get sucked out of him and his mouth snapped shut. ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘Well… I was a bit rude actually. But they just make me so—’

  ‘Hang on!’ Hamish held his hands up to her. ‘I’ll go and get my ScreenJotta.’

  * * *

  ‘How does it feel? To be little.’

  She’d seen this look a thousand billion trillion bejillion times. The way they said ‘little’ then scrunched up their noses and almost twitched them like rodents.

  ‘It feels like I’m easily patronized.’

  The woman flicked her shiny, shit-coloured hair forward to cover up a largely uncovered boob, and grinned at Isabel; a little diamanté glinted from the bottom of one front tooth. ‘You’re actually very intelligent, aren’t you? I mean, you’ve been holding your own for quite a while now, behind the scenes. What is it you’re qualifying for? Vet-er-in-ary science?’

  ‘We’re all intelligent,’ replied Isabel.

  ‘Yeah but… You’re the first of your kind, everyone’s so curious about you, how does that feel?’

  ‘I just want my dad back now.’

  The woman turned her mouth upside down. ‘That’s upsetting… Do you visit him?’

  ‘Every other Tuesday. And I write to him daily. I feel it’s unfair that he should be punished for creating me when you all seem so pleased to have me around. I feel that punishing him for creating me is as good as saying I should never have been born. I feel that punishing him for creating me is total hypocrisy when hundreds of embryos just like mine were destroyed legally. I feel that punishing him for creating me has been done to use him as an example to everyone that you can be unethical as long as it’s legal. I feel that—’

  The woman pressed her ear with two different-coloured fake nails, before nodding and interrupting Isabel. ‘You’re so right,’ she gushed. ‘Tell me, is it true that you wear Barbie dresses?’

  ‘I feel it’s unfair that he should be punished for creating me when the government has funded a project to create a whole race like me.’

  ‘It’s sad about your daddy, Isabel.’ The woman nodded seriously then flicked the hair back off her boob. ‘That’s why today, at Teen-V, we wanted to focus more on you so that other young adults, who are also different, can be inspired by your courage.’

  Isabel resettled herself in her chair. ‘Alright then.’

  ‘So, what would you say to kids today who might have hang-ups about their bodies?’

  ‘As long as it works and doesn’t cause you pain, then you are in possession of a gift.’

  ‘Wow… Deep. Is that how you feel about your body?’

  ‘I try to.’ Isabel focused on the woman’s boobs. ‘Is that how you feel about yours?’

  ‘Yeah!’ The woman tittered. ‘Do you feel happier now that you’re out of hiding?’

  ‘Erm…’ Isabel thought for a moment. ‘If I could give it all up and have my dad back, then I’d do it without hesitating.’

  ‘Of course you would.’ The woman nodded seriously again before turning the corners of her mouth back up. ‘So where do you get your shoes?’

  Isabel rolled her eyes. ‘I have them made.’

  ‘Adorable! Every girl’s dream.’ Then: ‘And your teeth?’

  Isabel frowned. ‘They’re my own teeth,’ she replied as something hard fell onto her tongue.

  ‘But one’s just fallen into your lap.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Isabel, as bits of teeth fell into the space between her bottom lip and bottom teeth. ‘But they’re mine!’ she said, trying to pick them out and gather them up. ‘They’re my teeth!’

  The woman stared at her and curled her lip.

  Isabel jolted awake and looked towards the end of her bed for Jasper. Oh no, he wouldn’t be there any more, would
he? She lay on her side, tears spilling from one eye into the other as she tested each tooth with her thumb and forefinger.

  CHAPTER 17

  They woke up to the sound of metal being flicked. Jinx peered at the door; what was that? It couldn’t have been… It was!

  ‘How did you get up there?’ she asked, squinting as the cage door swung open; a skinny littler with short brown hair hung on to it.

  ‘Most of us know how to pick locks.’ One hand drifted outwards, gesturing for them to come outside. ‘I take it you two were never locked in?’

  ‘No.’ Chips waved at her from the hole in his dirty cupboard. She stopped crawling towards the door for a moment to watch him and think about him. Where was he? Was he there too?

  ‘We’re lucky that they keep us in old-fashioned boxes like this. If they were anything like the ones you get at the vet’s then we’d be well and truly stuck. The doors are made of glass and don’t have any locks on them. They lock automatically.’ He started to pick at the lock on Ed’s cage while he talked. Jinx noticed that he had a shadow on his face where his cheekbone was, just like Chips. ‘Have you ever been to the vet’s?’ he asked.

  ‘What is “vets”?’ asked Jinx. Although she was pretty sure she’d never been there.

  ‘The doctor’s… Or the hospital if you like.’

  ‘Oh… I haven’t, but Bonbon has.’

  He glanced at Bonbon as the other door clicked open in his hand. ‘You know the doors I’m talking about?’

  Bonbon nodded. ‘A vet is an animal doctor,’ she said.

  ‘They think we’re animals, Bonbon. They don’t say it, but that’s what they think,’ he said, shaking his head as he swung away. ‘You’ll learn a lot here.’

  ‘She already knows deep down,’ said another littler as he clambered onto their door.