by Amy Lilwall
They’d waited in that gap for a line to open up in the door. It did. The two white biggerers walked through it.
‘They’ve gone behind the laundry basket. I knew he’d come out.’
Chips looked at Jinx and made his eyes big. He jerked his head towards the door.
‘We should have come back straight away.’
Jinx took Chips’s hand and peered out from behind the basket.
‘Come on… No harm in letting them have a little cuddle.’
‘Just because you stabbed her three times.’
Chips tapped Jinx on the shoulder and pointed for her to go. She held his cheek in her free hand and kissed him. Then they turned and ran, their hands breaking hold as they neared the door.
‘There they are!’
‘Shut the door.’
The doors drew together. Jinx ran ahead, glancing back at Chips. ‘Go,’ he mouthed.
‘She’s going to get through.’
‘She won’t get far.’
‘I just hope nobody else sees her…’
She slid through the gap and headed for a plant with branches that curled down towards the floor. Good, maybe they could climb one and hide in the leaves. It would look after them, like the one at home whenever that bot was swooshing about. She turned back.
She stopped running.
Her knees wobbled and she fell onto them.
The doors had closed. A white line still gleamed from the top. It got lost behind white fingers that tried to pull it wider, then was unbroken, all the way to her Chips. His head laid on its ear, his left arm stretched out towards her. His body stuck inside the line.
‘Oh God.’
‘Will we be sacked for this?’
‘No. But if he dies, there’ll be a stack of forms.’
‘Terence!’
Jinx’s eyes filled and blurred. She crossed her hands over her mouth.
‘Did he just say “Terence”?’
‘They do that when they’re about to…’
‘Stupid door… There, that’s got it.’
‘Terence.’
Four hands swooped down and cupped each end of the body. A red line ran up and over Chips’s new tummy.
‘I’ve got him… Go and get her, will you?’
Fists banged on cage doors. Jinx pressed her face further into her unbitten leg. Bonbon had told her about that, the name thing. She’d heard it at the doctor’s… Those others had said a name, just before they died, she’d said. What would Bonbon say when she heard about Chips? She thought about her Outside and her Chips, Bonbon and Blankey. Meeting every day. Even when they did get home, how would they be happy without ever seeing Chips again? Tears zipped down her leg and joined up between her feet. She would stay with those lovely thoughts of her Outside… Chips would be alive in her head if she didn’t start to get used to what was around her. She squeezed her eyelids together and covered her ears with her hands. Bonbon and the others would rescue her before she’d even had the time to make this place into memories, she thought, and then they would collect Chips, and lay him to sleep somewhere much nicer than this place. Maybe she could keep him with her, and cuddle him and talk to him and stroke his belly…
The banging continued.
Jinx peeled herself out of her body again and crawled under her chest bones. That had worked really well when she’d been with those two white-plastic he-ones. Maybe it would work now to block out the banging.
She sat like that for ages until she started to wonder when the others would come and if she should be making sure she could walk so she’d be ready for the rescue. Her stomach folded and bubbled. Chips would never be rescued. She sniffed. But he would want her to get out of there.
The banging was louder now. It seemed like more than one door was being banged against. It couldn’t hurt to take a little look at who was making all that noise. Especially as they were going to be rescued too.
Jinx opened her eyes, went to the front of the cage and peered through the bars. The banging stopped. She looked into the cage in front of her, then the one above that and the one above that. Then all the cages either side of the cages in front of her. She shook her head and stared again. Her legs were filling up with bath water so hot that she wanted to kick it out of them and as it got to her tummy she wanted to open her own belly button and let the water pour over the floor, but she didn’t. It filled her arms and squeezed her hands into fists, then rose up through her neck, pulled on her hair so hard that her head jerked back, stuck its fingers in her mouth, held on to her throat and squeezed: ‘NO!’ she screamed. ‘NO!’
The faces stared, eyes wide as the word was repeated over and over again.
‘You were the only thing left to hope about!’ she cried at the faces. All those faces from the previous room. All those faces who’d now been crammed together into groups of four and five, forced to live silently in the same tiny cage. Loop and Mop and Lamb and Osmo and her Bonbon. Her Bonbon in a different cage; a cage high up from the floor and so far towards the right that Jinx almost couldn’t see her. ‘Bonbon!’ she shouted as she smacked the glass door in front of her. ‘Bonbon, get me out of here!’ She felt her way across the door to an airhole and pushed her mouth up against it. ‘Can’t we even get out?’
Bonbon shook her head and pointed to a big gold thing that hung from the lock of her cage. ‘Padlock,’ said the inside of Jinx’s head and realizing what this was she cried again.
‘But we can’t stay like this forever! What happened? What are you doing here?’
The faces stared back at her without blinking.
‘Tell me! Mop… tell me what happened!’
Mop pointed to his mouth and shook his head.
Jinx looked around her own cage, her mouth open and panting. Littlers that she’d never seen before sat rocking, or twisting their bodies weirdly or chewing their own hands.
The breaths stopped.
She flicked her gaze up to the other cages, one hand over her throat. ‘I can talk!’ she said aloud just to make sure. ‘I can talk, can’t I? Can all of you hear me?’
The rows of heads nodded.
Jinx was silent for a moment as she padded her fingertips over her throat and thought about her new voice. But what was the point in talking if no one could answer? ‘Irony,’ said the inside of her head. ‘Although that means I can talk to them? Do you think that means I can?’ She jumped to the front of the cage.
The heads nodded again.
Her eyes skipped over them… She tried to see up and down the corridor as far as she could. But who could she talk to? ‘But who can I talk to?’ she yelled.
The others shrugged, except for one who banged on his glass cage. She looked at him, Tuft, and watched as he pointed back towards the lift, then strolled up and down his cage with the thumb and baby finger of one hand held against his ear and mouth. Two others in his cage stopped eating their hands and watched him. He moved his lips as if he were talking to his finger. ‘I don’t understand.’ Jinx shook her head. ‘Who are you trying to be?’
Moira’s vacuum bot went zooming along the corridor before she’d had the chance to get out of the lift. She giggled. Funny little thing it was. In fact, she was really quite pleased to have it around sometimes, even though it wasn’t alive. Especially after what had happened this afternoon with poor Lewis; crikey! Who’d have thought it? They knocked him out completely, banging his head against the ground like that… He could have choked to death. What frightened her the most was the thought that had gone into it, quite frankly. It was all very premeditated. Rolling the flakes in the vinegar just after she’d cleaned… How had they managed to think that up? Good job she only ever used vinegar. She’d never forget Lewis’s video call from the basement corridors, looking into the screen with yellow crust all around his mouth and in his hair. She chuckled. He could be a real shit sometimes. And funnily enough, she was sure that they sensed it, the fact that he could be a shit. That was why they’d chosen him. It could have just as
easily been her… Ha ha, all that yellow gunge crusting around his nostrils! Poor little mites. She would have kicked off too if she’d been stuck underground and force-fed memory suppressants. Poor, poor things. And the worst thing was, they almost made it! She would have told them if she’d known what they were planning: you can only open the glass door with your chip and your thumb print. They should really have waited somewhere until someone opened the door; but then they would have been seen by that someone. Doomed from the start. Poor, poor things.
‘Moira?’
Moira jerked her head. The suction pack was on as well as the vacuum bot – maybe it had got something stuck in it? Sometimes it squeaked…
‘MOI-RA!’
She spun around. That was definitely her name, but… there was nobody there. Only those poor things chewing on their feet and dribbling onto the floor. One littler stood right up against her door with her lips pressed through the airhole. The one next to her sat rocking with her back to the glass.
‘Moira! I’m here, look!’
Her eyes flicked back to the one who was standing up. Her mouth dropped open.
‘Yes. Me. Jinx,’ said Jinx, standing back to rub her throat, wondering if Moira could really hear her. ‘Hello?’
Moira switched off the suction pack and blinked into the cage. ‘Hello?’ she tried, getting closer to the littler, her own voice bouncing off the glass doors all the way along the corridor. She looked back towards the lift, then reached behind her and turned the suction pack back on. ‘Are you talking? How… how can you talk?’
‘Erm… I don’t know,’ replied Jinx. ‘But I only found out today.’
‘Shit! You speak really well! You speak English like me! How’d you learn that in one day?’
Jinx thought for a moment as to what ‘English’ was. Hmmm… ‘I speak every day, but never in front of the biggerers…’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Can you really hear me? It feels a bit like I’m dreaming.’
‘Ha! You don’t say!’ laughed Moira, as quietly as she could. ‘Yes, yes. I can hear you. What was that word you used? Biggers?’
‘Big-ger-rers,’ Jinx pronounced carefully. ‘Don’t you know that word?’
Moira stuck her lips out and shook her head. ‘No. No I don’t. I guess it’s like littlers but bigger.’ She laughed again before repeating to herself. ‘Biggerers.’ Then: ‘Oh shit!’ she turned and pressed the black clippy square on the cage she had been cleaning. The shutter slid back up and four littlers stared at her, their pupils like portholes. ‘Sorry, guys,’ she said. ‘Wait, they can’t talk?’ She turned back to Jinx.
‘No… Only me, I think.’
‘But that’s amazing!’ Moira’s eyes gaped as she said ‘amazing’.
‘I need your help,’ said Jinx.
‘What happened to your belly?’
Jinx looked at her belly and felt her eyes go blurry again. ‘They did this.’ Sniff.
‘They did?’
Jinx nodded.
Moira covered her mouth and gasped. ‘Does it hurt?’
Another nod. ‘And then they… Then they…’
‘They what?’
‘They killed Chips.’
‘Who’s Chips?’
‘Chips is…’ sniff, ‘my… darling.’ She held her cheeks, her chest jumping as she breathed jerky breaths. ‘They shut him in a door.’
‘Who shut him in a door? The guys from here?’
A nod.
‘Oh, that’s awful.’ Moira’s gaze twinkled all over Jinx, her mouth moving without knowing what words to make. She hadn’t heard about a death… Maybe all the Lewis stuff had overshadowed it, but, even so… ‘I haven’t heard of anyone dying. Maybe he’ll be okay?’
Jinx shook her head. ‘He said something in front of them. He said “Terence”.’
Moira’s eyebrows made dents in her forehead. ‘I would have definitely heard about that…’
Jinx sniffed. ‘Really?’
‘I’m pretty sure, yes…’
‘But he spoke!’
The wrinkles deepened. ‘But you’re speaking!’ Moira shook her head, her stare travelling down to Jinx’s feet and back up again to the mouth. The talking mouth. Shit. Jinx really was like Moira. Exactly the same but much smaller, obviously.
Jinx’s eyes brightened. ‘I am speaking!’ She looked up at the others. Ed nodded at her, eyebrows raised.
Moira followed her gaze. Ed’s neck stiffened.
‘Does that mean he might be okay?’
Moira blinked back at her. ‘Like I said, I’m sure I would have heard about this. I’ve been here all day.’ Her eyes narrowed and got closer to the cage. ‘I really wish there was some way I could help you all to get out of here…’
‘That’s why I called out to you.’ Jinx wiped under an eye with the heel of her hand. ‘Please help us. It’s so nasty here.’
‘Oh you poor dear…’ Moira sighed, putting her head against the glass. ‘I just don’t know what I can do. They’re such a big company and… And I have a kid and…’ She tailed off and they looked at each other for a while, her head still resting against the bars. After a moment or two, she stood up straight and wiped her nose. ‘And he would be horrified by all this. What is it that you want me to do?’
Jinx scrunched her mouth up to one side of her face and let her gaze creep from Moira’s mouth to her ear.
‘Will you let me use your talky thing?’
‘My what?’
‘The thing that you talk into in the other room, while you’re cleaning.’
Moira realized what she was talking about and pointed towards the ceiling. ‘They’ll hear you,’ she mouthed. ‘Oh no, that’s not me,’ she winked. ‘I don’t have a talky thing.’ Winking again.
Jinx screwed up her face. ‘Yes you…’ then lowered her voice as Moira put her finger to her lips again. ‘Do,’ she breathed, wondering why that bit of the conversation was naughtier than the rest.
‘Who do you want me to call?’ Moira whispered.
Jinx opened her mouth and closed it again. This was the bit she wasn’t sure about. ‘Someone who can help?’
‘Someone who can help…’ repeated Moira, her eyes looking up to the side as she thought about who might be able to help.
‘My She-one maybe?’
‘Your what?’
‘My She-one.’
‘What’s a shiwan?’
‘The biggerer that I live with. My She-one.’
‘Oh… Right.’ The eyes twinkled. ‘It seems that some words are different. Do you have her number?’
‘Her what?’
‘The number of your shiwan?’
Jinx blinked.
‘What about her address?’
‘—.’
‘Her name?’
‘She-one.’
‘Oh, I get it. That’s her name?’
‘Yes.’
‘And her last name?’
‘I don’t know, Moira. I really don’t know.’
Moira smiled. It was nice to hear this little person say her name. It seemed so personal like, like if her pet cat were to call her by her name or even her dentist instead of saying ‘Mrs Croft’; if he said ‘Moira’, she’d be more comfortable about having his hands in her mouth. It was a bit like a hand-squeeze; or saying: ‘I’m not talking to anyone but you.’ Moira had a thought and flicked on the black box clipped to Jinx’s cage. ‘Here it is!’ she frowned. ‘Susan Marley, does that ring any bells?’
‘—.’
‘No?’
‘What’s a “bell”?’
‘Oh, I mean that I think your shiwan is actually called Susan.’
Jinx thought. ‘I’ve heard the word used at home but I never really knew what it meant.’
‘Well, that’s what it means!’
‘Susan.’
Moira pressed the screen on her wrist and bleeped it to the clippy thing.
Jinx watched the wrist and hand twist upwards and wondered what other things she could make
them do now that she could speak to their owner.
‘Can you put Bonbon in my cage?’
‘What?’
‘She’s up there.’
Moira turned around. Bonbon gazed down at her. ‘Oh right! You two came together a couple of days ago, didn’t you?’
Jinx nodded. ‘She’s my other darling.’ Her face crumpled again as she started to cry.
Moira looked between the two cages. ‘Why have you been separated?’
Jinx shrugged.
‘I can’t open these cages, I’m sorry…’
‘Okay… Doesn’t…’ sniff, ‘matter.’
‘Please don’t cry.’
Jinx held her breath and nodded until another sob pushed its way out of her.
‘This is awful. You know what? Don’t worry…’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’m gonna take care of everything.’ She put her hand flat against the glass door. ‘Just you be strong, okay?’
‘Yes.’ Jinx looked at the massive hand. ‘Be strong,’ she said.
‘Sure?’
More nodding.
Jinx watched Moira walk back to the lift until she couldn’t see her any more. When the lift doors closed, the cages opposite and beside her clapped so much that Jinx was sure Moira would turn around and come back again. Jinx put the back of her hand to her face – she must have looked so red, she thought, as she tried to smile up to the others, hoping with every thought in her head that Moira would find the She-one.
Susan had tried to go to work, spent three hours pretending not to cry at her desk and was eventually sent home by Lydia, her supervisor. She had once read a book at a library desk where a watcher sat at the end of each row to make sure the readers were wearing gloves and had masks over their noses and mouths. The book had been so sad that the watcher had asked her, ever so nicely, to either put on the goggles that he was holding out to her, or maybe come back when she was feeling better. She had taken the goggles. But after about ten minutes, the letters became all magnified and weird through the tears that were gathering inside the lenses. She decided that she would have to come back another time. It had taken her four more visits to read the last thirty-nine pages of that book. She couldn’t remember feeling so sad because of the written word. Until today. Today she sat on the kitchen floor and read the letter right to the end. She let her tears splash all over the paper that had been scrunched up by Mrs Lucas’s own hand. Mrs Lucas had refused to believe it. What a waste of ink, what a waste of paper, what a waste of words. She’d thrown it into her garden to waste it. To treat it with as much respect as it deserved. What a waste of time, she must have thought.