I don’t know what more to say, so I keep quiet.
“But first,” says Brer Magnus, “there’s something else we need to discuss.”
Here it comes. He’s going to ask me about the visitors’ book. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes from flicking down to the bag at my side.
CHAPTER 19
“I WANT TO talk to you about your parents,” says Brer Magnus. “I don’t know if the other pupils have asked you about them?”
“No. Not really.” He knows, he knows all about me.
Brer Magnus fixes me with his unmoving stare. “I was concerned that some students might have felt uncomfortable with your parents’ role in the bombing—”
I interrupt him. ‘My parents’ role?’
“Yes.” He gives me what I think he means to be a smile. “I just wanted to reassure you that I have nothing but admiration for your parents, whatever they did.”
“Whatever they did?”
“Yes. Times were very different then. In a sense, it was a war.”
He carries on talking, but I’m not listening anymore. It takes me a moment to remember that he isn’t talking about my parents at all. All this is about Verity Nekton’s imaginary parents. All the same, I need to be sure.
“Brer Magnus . . .” I interrupt him again. “Are you saying that you think . . . my parents . . . planted the bomb?”
“I assumed you would know.” He leans back in his chair, watching me. “Who can say?” he says. “However, that’s my understanding, yes. But I want you to know that I understand their motivation, their sacrifice. In no way does this make me think less highly of you. Far from it.”
My mind is reeling. I want to run out of the room and keep running and never come back. I feel dirty. Is this why Brer Magnus let me into the Institute? Does everyone know? They all think my parents were terrorists? Does Greg know?
But Brer Magnus is speaking again. “And now about your boots,” he says.
“My boots?”
“Yes. They’re men’s boots. I don’t believe it’s suitable for you to wear them here. It sets a bad example for the younger students. Girls should not dress like men.”
I can’t believe he’s talking about boots after all he’s just said. I’m so surprised that I start arguing. “They’re not men’s boots. They’re way too small.”
“Verity.” Brer Magnus frowns. “It’s not negotiable. The boots have to go. In fact, I’d like you to leave them here now.” He reaches under his desk and pulls out a pair of pink flip-flops with big red roses on them. “You can wear these back to the dormitory.”
I don’t move but I can feel my face going red. If I was K, I would get up and walk out in my boots. But I’m Verity now. I put my bag down carefully, then pull them off one by one and hand them silently to Brer Magnus.
He places them beside his desk, next to the bin. But he still isn’t finished. He stands up and looks down at me. “Verity, I had already decided to choose you and Gregory to represent the Institute at the Reconciliation youth event.” I feel my mouth drop open.
Brer Magnus makes the face that I think is his smile. “There’s going to be what they call a ‘Reconciliation Rally.’” His mouth twists in distaste. “On the day before the Reconciliation Agreement is signed, in five months. This youth event is in preparation for that. It’s tomorrow,” he continues. “In Yoremouth.”
There’s a silence. Brer Magnus looks at me. “Well?”
I start to stammer an answer, but Brer Magnus speaks first.
“Good. That’s settled, then,” he says. “I’ve already informed your social worker. You can go now. I’ll run through the arrangements later with Greg.”
I watch him pick up a sheaf of papers and turn his attention away from me. There’s nothing I can say. He’s like a cat with one paw on a sparrow’s wing, waiting. It’s hard to look dignified wearing socks and flip-flops with massive flowers. I thought Brer Magnus was going to tell me to leave. But instead I’m even more firmly entrenched here.
I try to walk away slowly. Everyone will still be in the library so the Art room is the only place I can think of where I can be alone at this time of day, and maybe even find somewhere to hide the visitors’ book. I should be worrying about that, but all I can think of is that Brer Magnus has chosen me to represent the Institute because he admires my “freedom fighter” parents. How could you have given me terrorist parents, Oskar? Even fake ones? But then I remember with a jolt what else Oskar has done.
“NICE SHOES,” SAYS Greg as I push open the door of the Art Room.
I glare at him.
Greg smiles. “Where have you been, then, Verity? I thought you said you were coming straight here?”
On the other side of the room Ms. Cobana has spread folders across three tables and is scribbling in her grade book. She must be the only teacher in today.
“I went to see Brer Magnus.” I take my Math book and pencil case out of my bag, keeping the visitors’ book hidden, and put them on the bench. “As if it’s anything to do with you.” I concentrate on delving in the bag until I find my paintbrushes.
Greg puts his hands up in an exaggerated back-off. “Hey! I was only asking.” He carries on drawing in his sketchbook.
Ms. Cobana goes over to the wall with some pictures and starts shooting staples into the board. I fetch inks and a sheet of paper from the closet trying to quell the panic rising up in my throat. I dip my brush—the one Greg gave me—into yellow ink and wash it over the whole surface. In the quiet my breathing is too loud and fast.
“Verity?” Greg has stopped drawing. “Are you all right?”
I get a grip on myself, and nod. Even shortish long hair is useful for hiding behind at times like this.
“OK,” he says. But under my hair I can see that he hasn’t picked up his charcoal pencil again He pulls a stool over, next to mine. “Verity?”
I look up. The afternoon sun is gold on his face. His eyes have a navy circle around the brown.
“You OK?” he says.
I wait for him to ask me again why I went to see Brer Magnus. Or what’s wrong. Wherever I go there is someone waiting to question me.
But instead he picks up my Math book.
I try to snatch it back, but he whisks it away. He opens it and looks at the fractions I can never remember. Now he’ll think I’m a total moron. He is probably up to the kind of Math where you can work out time travel.
“I was thinking,” he says.
“Oh dear. What will Brer Magnus say?”
Greg frowns. But he continues. “If you like, I could help you with your Math sometimes.”
“You don’t have time.”
“It’s OK,” he says. “I could spare half an hour a week. If you want.”
I think it over. “All right,” I say. “But just stop if you change your mind.”
“It’ll be OK.” He looks at his watch. “We could start now.”
I don’t feel like painting anymore. “OK.”
Greg writes quickly on my book. “You do this one.”
He looks at my answer. “Trial and error,” he says. “That’s no good.” He starts breaking it down. His sleeves are rolled up and the fine hairs on his arms catch the late sunshine. If I was drawing his arm, it would make a nice curve.
“Verity!” says Greg. “Pay attention.”
“Sorry,” I say. I try to concentrate, because it would be good to pass. “Not everyone is studying Math, Honors Math, Advanced Math, Statistics, and Quantum Physics, you know.”
Greg puts down his pencil. “Do you not want me to help you?”
“No. Yes. I do want you to.”
“All right, then. Engage your brain.”
I try to fill my mind with numbers. I watch them dancing on the page under Greg’s pencil. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the shape of his shoulder, and the sunlit line of his cheekbone, and the way his hair has grown just long enough to fall near his eyebrows as he leans forward. I stare at the white paper and try t
o breathe slowly. But it’s no good. I didn’t feel like this when I was drawing him.
I close my eyes, because if I look at him, I want to reach out and touch him. Even so, his voice is too close to my ear, sending a current through me. No, no, no! I can’t feel this for Greg. How did I let this happen? This mustn’t happen.
“OK.” Greg nudges me with his elbow. “You do this one.”
I jolt away.
“What?” Greg looks at me.
I stand up. “Isn’t it time for dinner?” I say, scooping my Math book up from under Greg’s elbow and stuffing it into my bag. I start clinking ink bottles into the tray. “I’m going to the library first,” I say. “I’ll see you in the canteen.”
THE LIBRARY IS empty now. I hurry to the Art section alcove and take down a large book. I kick off my flip-flops and curl up in an armchair, hiding the visitors’ book behind the book while I write down the names in the middle of my art pad. There are hundreds. I glance at the clock. Dinner will be in twenty minutes. But at last I’ve got them all.
I stand up and hide the visitors’ book behind the art tome and then push it back in. I’ll have to return it to Brer Magnus’s office soon, but for now it’s safer here than in the Sisters’ house. Better borrow a book, I think, as cover. I find one on printmaking and head for the door. When I open it I see Ms. Cobana coming up the stairs.
“Hello, Verity.” She stops, glancing at my feet in their ridiculous flowery flip-flops. “Verity? I hope you don’t mind,” she begins, “but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Greg.”
“Oh,” I say. Here we go again.
“I was just wondering—you’re not in some kind of trouble, are you?”
I pretend to consider her question. I’m still here, at least. “I don’t think so.”
“You’ve gotten very friendly with Greg.”
I let my hair fall across to hide my face. “Not particularly Greg; it’s the whole group, really.”
She nods, as if I haven’t spoken. “He’s a lovely boy,” she says. “Very thick with Brer Magnus, of course.”
“Oh. Is he?” Like I haven’t noticed.
She nods again, emphatically. It’s almost as though she’s trying to warn me about something. But then she says, “I’m glad you’ve made friends. I hope you get to stay on here with them all next year.”
“I do too,” I say. And I do. Don’t I? Because I’ve never had friends like these before. And if I don’t stay on, where will I go? Who will I be?
“I also hope you don’t mind me saying,” Ms. Cobana goes on. “It’s just that you seem a bit . . . adrift. And I’d like you to know that if you ever need help, you can ask me.”
“Thanks.”
But now she’s handing me a little card. “No, I really mean it, Verity.” She frowns. “Here’s my number.”
I take the card.
“If you ever need help, I’ll be there for you,” she says. “OK?”
I look at her. She looks steadily back at me from behind her big glasses. There’s something in her eyes that makes me want to believe she does mean it.
“OK,” I say. “OK.” I put the card in my wallet. “Thanks,” I add.
It doesn’t have her name on it, just a number.
CHAPTER 20
THE NEXT MORNING, Greg is waiting at the caretaker’s lodge. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees me. “You look like Celestina.”
I think that’s a good thing, or is it? I look down at the clothes I’ve borrowed. A swishy skirt and a cropped jacket, and a silk scarf around my neck. And pointy pumps that are too tight.
Greg is in full red check. Red-checked jacket, red-checked shirt. But he looks lovely. “You’re late. We’d better run.”
But we miss the next bus into the New City and then we have to run across the square toward Central Station. There’s no time to think about the last time I went inside. The first time I saw Greg. I expect our bags to be searched as we enter. But instead the policeman takes Greg to one side. He has to stand with his arms and legs outstretched to be frisked.
“Go behind there.” The other policeman jerks his head toward a screen.
Now it’s my turn. A policewoman runs her hands up and down my body, arms, and legs. She doesn’t speak or make eye contact.
And then we find that we’ve missed the Yoremouth train after all and there isn’t another one for an hour.
An hour is all I need to check out Oskar’s story.
“Let’s split up and meet back here,” I say to Greg. “I want to go around the shops.”
He looks at me with his usual expression of distrust. “Don’t be late again,” he says.
It doesn’t take me long to walk to the crematorium. I stop at the flower stall outside the station and buy a white rose. Three black cars drive slowly through the stone gateway as I jog up to it. The gleaming black paintwork and the cloud reflections in the windows fill me with dread. I lean against the wall, catching my breath and waiting for the cars to disappear up the drive and behind some fir trees. I don’t want to go in now. But I have to see for myself. So I slip through, past the stone pillars and the open wrought-iron gates. The Garden of Remembrance is on the left.
Trees line the path, their bark black with rain, silver drops dotting every leaf. They’re poplars, like the trees beside the playing field at the Institute. Emanuel told me. He studies plants.
On my left there is a wall checkered with small brass plaques. Most only have a name, but some have messages too. I feel sick now. This is a place to come and remember loved ones. Each plaque has a metal vase below, some holding flowers and others withered remains. On the opposite wall I see a tap for filling the vases. I look back along the lines of new names, the shinier plaques.
I’m looking for it, but I don’t really expect to see it, so when I do, it’s as if it punches me in the chest.
K CHILD
There it is, in black and gold. The letters reach out and hold me. I no longer exist.
But I didn’t come here for me. I came for the girl who ended up here in my name. I have to believe Oskar was telling the truth when he swore that she wasn’t the real Verity Nekton. I do believe it. But all the same I’m so shocked that I can hardly breathe. What else would Oskar do to further the cause, if he thought it necessary? I was right to decide never to talk to him about my friends at the Institute.
This girl must have been someone like me. Someone who could disappear without anyone noticing. It could have been me.
I lay the palm of my hand against the brass. The flower vase below is empty, and I pour some water in and place the white rose inside. Then I wait until my tears stop before I leave the Garden of Remembrance.
I don’t cry as I run back to the station because I’ll have to face Greg in a minute. But there is a soreness in my heart.
GREG IS WAITING inside the station, looking at his watch.
“Sorry!” I pant as I run up.
He doesn’t say anything; instead he makes his way toward the platform. I follow him, but as we reach the ticket barrier, my feet slow down. I can see the train waiting on the other side. It’s going to leave in six minutes. It doesn’t even look like the train that was bombed, yet I still can’t make myself move forward. Greg stops and turns back. His eyes search my face. Then he reaches out and takes my hand. His clasps mine as if we always hold hands.
“You were there that day,” he says. “Before the bomb.” He gives my hand a little tug. “Ready?”
We jump onto the train just before it rolls out of the station. I look down at our hands and let go of Greg’s. The blood springs back where I was gripping his fingers so tightly. “Sorry.”
But he doesn’t say anything. He gives me a little smile. It didn’t mean anything, he was just being kind. The train is full of young people, some citizens and some Brotherhood. Now that we’ve left the station, I start enjoying the trip. Celestina’s shoes are biting my toes, so I kick them off and put my feet up under me on the seat. Greg’s legs
don’t really fit in the space. His knees are wedged up against the seat in front. He opens his backpack and gets out two packed lunches in white paper bags.
A strong smell of boiled egg leaps out as I open mine. But that’s OK. I like eggs, Grandma’s favorite sandwich filling. “Very organized,” I say. I can’t imagine Oskar or Col making a packed lunch for anyone.
“I ordered them from Georgette last night,” he says. He gets out his book, so we don’t talk again until we get there. But I steal secret glances at him as he reads.
WE MAKE OUR way slowly out of the station, in the middle of the crowd. I see Greg glancing around him carefully at the citizens. It’s different for me—I feel comfortable with both now. In any case, it’s a nice crowd, with an excited buzz. Although I was here the other day as a citizen, I feel sure that nobody will recognize me under my hat. I still can’t quite believe that after being gone for so long, I’ve come home to Yoremouth twice in just the past few days.
When we come out of the station into the gray afternoon, there’s a bank of journalists waiting, cameras clicking. It’s a breezy day. At the end of the road to the station, I know that the sea will be dashing pebbles against the promenade. The Reconciliation meeting is in the Yoremouth school, up the hill.
“This way,” I say, pointing to the right.
“You know Yoremouth?”
“Um, no. I just thought we might as well follow everyone else.”
But Greg is checking a map on his phone. “Well, you’re right,” he says.
It isn’t possible to walk fast in this crowd. Greg is looking around him. He turns to me, his face lit up. “Everyone looks so happy,” he says. “We should always be like this”—and he pauses as we inch forward—“together.”
There’s no way Greg would have anything to do with a militant cell. I’m sure of it. Even I feel excited now. For the first time I wonder if it could really work, if all these years of hate could end. But how can I ever forget that a Brotherhood bomb killed my parents?
Greg turns to me when we reach the school. “If we get split up, let’s arrange a meeting place, OK?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply. “On the platform for the seven o’clock train?” Then he adds, “You look nice.”
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