One of Us

by Jeannie Waudby

  We follow the crowd into the hall. Journalists line the entrance, filming and shouting out questions: “How do you feel about sitting with nonbelievers?”

  “Could you go to school with them?”

  “Are you worried that Brotherhood extremists will use violence against this meeting?”

  We filter into the huge hall, where there’s no girls’ side or boys’ side, no special seats for Brotherhood or citizens. Everyone sits down wherever they like.

  GREG AND I do lose each other, because the youth event is not a speech. Instead, we are all split up into mixed groups to talk about the changes in the Reconciliation Agreement. How do we feel about mixed schooling? Should we be able to have normal social contact between Brotherhood and citizens? Would it be better if we didn’t live in segregated areas? What do we think of paramilitaries on either side?

  I can say what I really think and feel here, and for the first time since I became Verity Nekton that’s the only lie I tell—my name. And then I think of the list of names I stole yesterday, how they’re hiding in my art pad.

  I can’t find Greg afterward, so I go down to the station on my own. We shouldn’t have arranged to meet so late. Almost everyone else from the Reconciliation event seems to have left already. There are two policemen outside the station but inside the station concourse it’s quiet. I look at the clock. Six forty-five. Time to go to the platform. I hobble over in Celestina’s tight shoes. I hope they don’t have bloodstains in them when I give them back. There’s no sign of Greg. The train is waiting, creaking and hissing.

  Maybe I’ve been in the safe world of the Institute for too long. Normally I would be aware of who was around me. But this evening I’m busy looking for Greg, and I don’t take notice. Until I hear a voice in my ear.

  “Hood.”

  I spin around. There are three boys, two behind me and now one in front of me. They are all wearing baseball caps with the peaks shading their faces.

  I step back, gripping my bag like a shield.

  The boy facing me steps forward so that I’m backed up against the side of the train. I’m next to the open door, just where I was when the Gatesbrooke bomb went off.

  I fight down the panic and ram my bag hard into him, twisting sideways to jump onto the train. In the train car I turn to see if they’ve followed me, but through the dusky glass of the window I see them sauntering off down the platform, toward the concourse. Where is Greg? I know he won’t get on the train without me.

  If any of the other passengers have noticed, they’re pretending they haven’t seen a thing. I stand watching through the window, getting my breath back.

  There’s no sign of Greg. I take out my ticket to see what car our seats are in. Maybe he thought I would go straight there? So I walk quickly through the train until I find our car. He’s not there.

  I step down onto the platform. The citizen thugs have come back this way. They’re barging into each other, and there seem to be more of them. I work my keys into my hand, like I used to do walking in the city at night. Each key sticks out between my knuckles.

  They’re coming closer. I see something red in the middle of them. I peer down the platform in the fading light. Then I realize what it is. Greg’s jacket. They’ve surrounded him and they’re all shoving and pushing. I catch sight of his face for a second, and there’s red there too. Then I see red.

  “Hey!” I fly down the platform. “Leave him alone!”

  There’s a moment when they all look at me in surprise—Greg too. Then he sprints free of them, grabs my hand, and leaps into the train, pulling me with him. We run through the car and into the next one, our car. Greg puts his face close to the darkened window so that he can look out.

  “Still there,” he says. There’s a thump on the window and a muffled shout. “Don’t worry, they’ve stayed on the platform.”

  The train lurches and vibrates into motion. We sit down in our seats. We’re the only ones at this end of the car.

  Greg looks down at my hand, with my keys sticking up between my knuckles.

  “Wow,” he says. “Would you have used those? Where did you learn that?”

  I uncurl my fingers and put the keys back in my bag. “I’ve never had to use them.” I don’t want him to think I’m a violent person. “The police came to my old school to teach some self-defense techniques,” I say. “They said it would give you a chance to get away.”

  Greg is bleeding under his left eye.

  “We need to clean your face.” I take out a new packet of tissues and a bottle of water I had in my bag. Then I trickle some water onto one tissue and reach across to dab the blood away. It’s only a small cut after all, right on the edge of Greg’s cheekbone. He has nice cheekbones. I know their shape from drawing him. I must stop thinking like this. Concentrate on the task at hand. I wet another tissue. Now I’m cleaning the wound, so I lean across and put my other hand behind Greg’s head to hold it steady. I can feel the bones under the softness of his hair. He’s so close that his breath is warm on my face. He doesn’t wince. The cut’s still bleeding.

  “Keep still for a minute.” I press the tissue pad against Greg’s cheek. We stay like that for a long moment.

  “One of them punched me,” he says. “I think he had a sharp ring.” He looks at my hand with a little half smile. “Or a knuckleduster.”

  “Were they trying to mug you?”

  “I don’t think so,” says Greg. “They were saying things.”

  “‘Hood’?” I ask.

  “And the rest.” Greg looks into my eyes briefly.

  I’m still holding the tissue against his cut, so our faces are close. Greg is still breathing quickly. So am I.

  I lift the corner of the tissue. “It’s stopped bleeding, I think.”

  I remove it slowly and take my hand away from the back of Greg’s head.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss it better?” says Greg suddenly.

  I look at him in surprise. He’s joking, of course. I wish he wasn’t. But I touch my fingertips to my lips and then to Greg’s face, below the cut, very lightly. “There you go,” I say.

  The train is pulling into a station on the edge of the city. It’s not really stopping here, just slowing down to roll silently past the platform. Greg stares over my head toward the far end of the car.

  “Oh no,” he says.

  I look around. The baseball cap boys are coming into the vestibule outside our car.

  CHAPTER 21

  “VERITY!” GREG GRABS my hand and pulls me out toward the passage at the opposite end of the car. He yanks down the window and opens the door from outside, then leaps off, pulling me after him. We’re traveling so slowly that we only stagger for a few steps, but we’re very near the end of the platform. The train glides smoothly past and picks up speed.

  We look at each other, gasping for breath, still holding hands. The sign over the platform says Limbourne. It’s suspiciously empty.

  I pull my hand away. Blood has started dripping down Greg’s face again. I give him another tissue.

  In the last light of dusk, I can see trees all around, just trees and more trees, with their branches full of new leaves. There’s a waiting room in the middle of the platform, with a vending machine outside it.

  Greg studies the timetable on the wall. “There isn’t another stopping train until seven-fifteen tomorrow morning.”

  “Hmm,” I say. “This wasn’t one of your best ideas.”

  “And my phone’s dead.”

  “You don’t have a wind-up charger? To go with your wind-up flashlight?” I smile in spite of myself.

  Greg looks sheepish. “Not with me.”

  We walk to the end of the platform, where steps lead up to a pedestrian bridge and the station concourse. But when we get there, it’s clear that the station is closed for the night. Not only that, the doors to the street are locked.

  “Looks like we’re stuck here until morning. We’ll be breaking the curfew.” Greg frowns. “Brer Magnus w
ill be worried.” He notices me looking down at the track. “Don’t even think about it. There might be a live rail.”

  There’s a rush below us as an intercity train streams past. We go back downstairs to the platform. The waiting room is open. It’s cold, but at least there are benches to sit on.

  I shrug. “It’s no big deal. We’ll just wait, then. I like being out at night anyway.”

  “On your broomstick?” murmurs Greg. He raises his eyebrow, but now it looks teasing rather than disapproving.

  “Hey!” I say. “I was trying to be positive.”

  “Have you got any food?”

  I shake my head. “You?”

  Greg holds up an apple.

  “We’ll have to eat chocolate.”

  We tip all our cash onto the bench. His fingers brush against mine as we sort the coins. I want to hold his hand again. But I don’t think he noticed. There’s enough money for just one bar and we each have a bottle of water from the Reconciliation event. The chocolate falls into the tray with a thunk and Greg is so pleased he laughs.

  We go back into the waiting room. I sit down in the far corner. Greg shuffles up so that I am wedged right in. “Huddling together for warmth,” he says. “It’s what you have to do to prevent exposure.”

  “Crushing me to death, more like.”

  He moves away and I wish I hadn’t said anything. Then he puts the chocolate bar and the apple on the bench. “Dinner.” He takes a small penknife out of his backpack, and cuts the apple in half. I take the knife from him and pull open all the gadgets. It has a pair of scissors, a saw, a screwdriver, and a corkscrew.

  “What’s this for?” I tap a spikelike thing.

  “It’s for taking stones out of horses’ hooves.”

  I nod. “Handy.” I close it up and pass it back to him.

  He opens the chocolate bar. It has five pieces and he gives me three. I break off one and try to snap it in two. But it’s far too cold, so I bite it in half and stick the other half in his mouth. My finger touches his lower lip and I look away.

  “Fair shares,” I say quickly, to hide my embarrassment.

  “If you could have anything you wanted to eat, what would you have?” asks Greg.

  “A cup of tea,” I say. “What about you?”

  “Chicken and rice,” says Greg. “Hot chocolate.”

  “Hot chocolate would be good.”

  “And one of those serious camping sleeping bags people use on mountains.” He looks at me, smiling his half smile. “Two, I mean.”

  “And woolly hats,” I add, feeling guilty. I left Celestina’s hat on the train.

  Greg shifts over and looks at me. Then he unties my scarf and knots it around my head and under my chin like a bonnet. I remember that’s how I tied the scarf he gave me in that first meeting at the Institute.

  But I sit very still and stop myself from putting my hands up and pulling him toward me.

  He laughs. He’s just messing about. “There you go,” he says. “Woolly hat. Cover your ears.”

  “What?” I say, pretending not to hear.

  “Very funny. Will you stay on at the Institute?” Greg asks me, more seriously.

  “If I can.” It’s the only home I have now.

  “What will you do if you don’t?”

  “I don’t know.” I don’t want to think about that. “What about you?” I ask quickly.

  “I’m changing schools. The Institute’s really good for Arts, but not so great for Science. So if I want to be a doctor . . .”

  “Oh yeah, you said.”

  Outside, the main lamp goes out, leaving just a dim maintenance light. In the sudden darkness I look sideways up at Greg. My hand reaches up and touches his face.

  He turns toward me.

  “Just checking,” I say quickly, pulling back my hand and looking down. “The bleeding’s stopped.”

  “Verity?” says Greg. His voice is close to my ear.

  First my heart lifts, but then it sinks, because he’s going to start with all the questions, all the questions I don’t have answers for, and he’s being friendlier than he’s ever been, and it will be hard to put him off with flippant one-liners the way I usually do.

  “Tell me about your family,” I ask before he has a chance to speak. “How many sisters do you have again?”

  “Two.”

  “And brothers?”

  “None.” He doesn’t ask me back, because he already knows I don’t have any.

  “I’d like to have brothers and sisters,” I say. I can’t let him see how I feel about him, I shouldn’t be feeling it. “You wouldn’t be a bad brother. Maybe I’ll borrow you.”

  Greg is silent. Then he says, “You are my Sister.”

  I don’t know what to say. It feels like he accepts me.

  Greg speaks again. “Angelina’s nine, and Meredith is fourteen. They’re abroad, with our parents.”

  “Do you miss them?” I’m glad the conversation has turned away from me and toward Greg.

  “I’m used to it now. And I’m going this summer.” All the same, his voice sounds sad.

  “What’s it like there?”

  “Hot,” he says. “Different animals, different plants. We don’t have apples in our garden; we have pineapples and pawpaws and guavas.”

  “We had an apple tree,” I begin. But then I stiffen, remembering that that tree was in Grandma’s garden in Yoremouth. I can’t talk about Grandma to Greg.

  He turns his head toward me.

  “Um, my old foster family.”

  But I’m thinking of Grandma’s house, with its dark hallway and silver mirror. And how there were no pictures in that house, not even photos.

  “You’ve had a hard life,” says Greg. “But maybe it’s made you strong.”

  I don’t know what to say. “Mmm.”

  “Or maybe it’s just made you snarky?” He gives me a nudge with his elbow.

  “Huh!” I need to change the subject. “Did you always live abroad?” I ask. “Before the Institute?”

  “Pretty much,” says Greg. “What about you? Did you always live in Gatesbrooke?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Mostly in the New City. In fact, you know that time we went there? With Emanuel and Celestina, you had your Math lesson? That was the first time I went right into the Old City.”

  “To the Meeting Hall,” says Greg.

  A chill sinks through me. “Yes.”

  We sit there quietly for a while. Why did you have to bring that up now, Greg? I want to ask. But it’s no surprise. I suspected he was following me that day, and now I know for sure. It’s good that he’s reminded me of how far from being friends we really are. I’ve known all along that these feelings have got to stop. Even if he liked me too, it could never work. One of us a liar, and the other a spy.

  Greg’s arm feels warm against mine, but the rest of me is getting colder and colder. I can’t even feel my hands or feet anymore.

  “What do you want to do, when you’re older?” Greg asks me.

  I think about this. I can tell the truth, because it’s all just air. “I’d like to be an artist.” I think of my walk around the Old City. “I’d like to live on a canal boat, with my dog.”

  “Let me guess,” says Greg. “A scruffy brown-and-white spaniel?”

  That makes me smile. Raymond. It’s nice talking to Greg when I can’t see his quizzical raised eyebrow. “What about you?”

  “Maybe travel?” he says. “I might have a yacht and sail around the world.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I say. “I’d like to see the world.”

  “What about your dog?”

  “He can come too. Dogs like swimming.” I move my hands about to try and get the circulation going.

  Greg picks up my hand. “You have very, very cold hands,” he says, in his frowning voice. He cups both my hands in his and rubs them gently. His hands are so warm. He puts his arm around me and pulls me close. “You’re shivering.” He starts taking his jacket off.


  “I’m not taking your coat again,” I say.

  “You’re very stubborn.” Greg pulls his backpack over. “Look, I’ve got my blazer in here. What about that?” He takes it out.

  “All right.” I stand up and put it on over Celestina’s thin navy one.

  Greg looks at me in the darkness. “Very elegant.”

  I sit down again, close to Greg, but only because it’s warmer that way.

  “You’re still shivering,” he says. “It’s too cold to sleep.”

  “Mmm,” I say. “Better not to try.”

  We sit there in silence for a while.

  “Poor cold little Verity,” says Greg at last. He puts his arm around me.

  “Poor cold little Gregory,” I say back. I can’t believe how normal my voice sounds.

  I don’t move. I know Greg doesn’t mean anything by it. All the same, when he pulls me close to his side I let myself slip toward him, so near that I can feel his face against my hair. I close my eyes, even though it’s already dark. This is just one moment, that’s all. I can have this one moment.

  We sit in the dark tucked up in the corner waiting for the night to pass. I don’t mind how long it lasts. My head is against Greg’s neck. I can feel his breath in my hair. I wish. I wish I could tell him. I wish I could tell him everything.

  “Greg?”

  “Are you not asleep?” Greg says quickly.

  “Night,” I say.

  “Night,” says Greg. And something lightly touches the top of my head.

  Did Greg just give me a good-night kiss? But I don’t say anything, because if he did, it was only like my kiss-it-better kiss. A little bit of nothing.

  CHAPTER 22

  IT’S 9:15 IN the morning when we get back from Limbourne. We walk up the drive. Already the closeness of the night is evaporating. I look sideways at Greg, and a kind of pain takes hold of me. We walk carefully apart from each other. Greg, the things I say to you aren’t the things I think about you.

  Brer Magnus is standing at the window of his office watching us walk up the drive. He knows exactly who comes in and who goes out. I think Greg is nervous too.