by H. S. Valley
I want to roll my eyes but it’s actually pretty funny by Heather Te Maro standards, so I let myself smile. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Do you need me to do anything? I know you and Elliott don’t get on. If you don’t want to work with him, I can talk to Allie.’
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘It’s fine. He’s been OK so far.’
‘If you’re sure.’ She keeps staring at me, pale green eyes narrowed, like she’s not sure. ‘Would you rather have dinner here tonight? I can go get us a couple of plates, bring them back? We can watch X-Files or something?’
‘Nah, I don’t want to make a big deal of it. Thanks, though.’
Mum still lives in the same rooms I grew up in, that her and Dad used to share up until a few months ago, and that all of us shared until I moved into the student accommodation when I was thirteen. It’s not a big suite or anything, but it’s far nicer than the dorms or the dining hall. My parents brought a lot of what was in our old house with us, so it still felt like home – until Dad left. Mum always says they took jobs here because it was good for all of us as a family, but I have a sneaky feeling that I benefitted the most.
‘You know you’re always welcome back here. You still have a key?’
‘Yeah.’
She gets up and goes into the kitchenette area, rummaging in the chaos drawer for a moment before getting sick of it and summoning whatever she’s looking for straight into her hand. I can’t wait to be good enough to use basic magic without a mea or verbal incantation.
She comes back with a key – a chunky school one with DO NOT COPY stamped on it and a small dolphin-shaped bottle opener on the ring. ‘For your dad’s rooms, if you need it.’ She folds it into my palm. ‘I haven’t been in there since he left so I don’t know what’s still there, but if you need some time alone, the space is yours. I know you probably don’t get much chance to be by yourself.’
I don’t know what to say. I knew Dad had his separate rooms, obviously, but I didn’t think about them still just … being there. Empty. Maybe I assumed the new History teacher had taken them over, maybe I just didn’t want to think about him after he left us. It’s probably good Mum didn’t mention it until now, because four-and-a-half months ago, when he walked out, I’d probably have been mad enough at him to go in and trash the place. Now, it kinda just makes me sad. But if I’m sad anyway then going to visit what’s left of him might not be too bad. Maybe if I focus on missing him, it’ll fill up the empty space Lizzie’s left behind. Remind me what my priorities are.
‘Thanks,’ I tell Mum, and open my hand. It’s weird to think about how a two-dollar dolphin key ring can make my heart drop into my socks, but I guess that’s the peril of loving people who leave you; you develop disproportionate responses to inanimate objects they once touched.
‘Finish your tea,’ she says. ‘I’m going to make us a proper drink. I reckon you probably deserve it.’ She’s up again and into the cupboards, pulling out glasses and a can of –
‘You have Coke?’
‘I do,’ she says, wrapping her hand around it to make it cold. Condensation appears and there’s a slight crackle, and I once again lament how long it takes to get so good that it’s effortless.
‘Where did you get it?’
I came here looking for snacks a couple of days ago and found nothing but popcorn. Certainly not Coke – the school refuses to get a vending machine because they’ve decided it’s unhealthy, so if I crave it during the week, I look for it here. And if she’d had it, I’d have found it.
‘I went into town this morning,’ she says. ‘I needed to post something.’
‘Town’ is over-selling it. The minuscule micro-sub-hamlet of Fox Glacier isn’t that much more than the Four Square, which, other than being a convenience store, is also a post office and lotto shop. Other than that, there’s a pub, a couple of small hotels, a few cafes and a petrol station. Anything you need outside of the absolute basics means a two-anda-half-hour trip into Greymouth, where there’s at least The Warehouse. Still. It’s a change from spending all day in a concrete box hidden underground and only being allowed out on weekends.
‘You didn’t take me.’
‘You were in class. I had a free period and one of the cars was available.’
‘Mean,’ I pout, but she knows I’m kidding.
Despite the limited number of licensed drivers here, and the limited attractions of town, the booking sheet for the school’s vehicles is usually full, and if it isn’t, something’s usually broken down to make up for it. If students want to go to the shops, we’re at the mercy of Sam’s grandad, Murray, to drive us along in the shuttle to the tunnel’s pedestrian exit in the woods. Then we have to walk the rest of the way into town (and back again). There’s an oldfashioned phone mounted to the concrete wall where he drops us so we can call him to pick us up after. There’s no secret, magically hidden highway on-ramp for us unlicensed plebs, and no CCTV to keep an eye on comings and goings. There’s only Murray and his shitty van and his eidetic memory of who’s in and who’s out. Sometimes I think it’d be nice if everyone knew about magic, and we could have a normal school with fields and trees and stuff. And I could walk to the shops and back in less than three hours without having to navigate secret tunnels or muddy tracks through the bush.
‘Next time I’ll pull you out of class, Mitten, I promise.’ Mum hands me a glass of Coke with … I sniff it … rum. Nice. Not a lot of rum, but she’s my mother – she’s not meant to know what I can handle when it comes to alcohol. That was Dad’s area.
I guess that makes two things she doesn’t know: my patrilineal affection for spirits and what went wrong with Lizzie. Which is how it should be. We chat about safe topics while we sip and wait for dinner: school stuff, and uni applications, and who I might want to apprentice with in Wellington. She knows a few people but there’ll be more at the hui in a couple of months, when we’ve got our exam results back. I bring up the fact that I could just go into the military and be put straight into the apprenticeship program there. She frowns at that and reminds me (again) of Uncle Taika getting left in the mountains on a training exercise, and all but forbids it. He’s not even her brother, he’s Dad’s, but she acts like it’s a personal affront and that the military are all horrible bastards. I’ll probably end up going into the police – Dad used to be a cop, and Defence obviously suits it quite well – but I wouldn’t mind something a bit more outdoorsy. Physical combat training and protective magic is cool, but a part of me wants to be dropped in the bush and left to fend for myself. It’d be nice and quiet.
Mum and I walk to dinner together, shoulder to shoulder, and our conversation drifts back to the egg-babies. She tells me stories about when I was born and her and Dad had no idea what they were doing with me, but they managed because they worked as a team. I get the feeling she’s worried that I’ll fail my Life Skills assignment because Elliott and I don’t like each other and maybe I won’t be sensible enough to just deal with it.
I also get the feeling she hasn’t forgotten the time Elliott glued a picture of Nicholas Cage to the ceiling when she was first teaching us levitation in Year 9. He and I had a bit of a fight about it, because Mum had been really pleased with how she’d decorated the classroom, and he’d ruined it, so I’d felt the need to punch him. We both ended up with detention and Nicholas Cage ended up staying exactly where he was as a reminder for me to stay calm and let her deal with things. I expect she’s worried we’ll regress and start acting like thirteen-year-olds again, like the situation had been about me and Elliott specifically and not the fact I was awash with fighty hormones and a bit of a mummy’s boy. So it’s kind of excellent when Elliott meets us at the door of the dining hall and completely proves her wrong. He gives Mum a polite hello, and then gives me a quick and strangely thorough rundown of his last hour alone with our new eggchild. When he’s done, he passes Meggan to me, supporting her underneath like we were taught, before rushing off to the loo. I hold her close and she b
urbles contentedly.
‘He seems to have matured slightly,’ Mum says.
‘Perhaps we both have,’ I say, and look pointedly at her as I rearrange Meggan’s blanky. ‘I’m eighteen in a few months.’
‘Don’t, Mitten, you’re making me feel old. Go get your dinner.’ She ruffles my bun and nudges me towards the doors. ‘And we need to get your hair cut. Weekend.’
‘No,’ I say, for what might be the hundredth time. She never lets up.
‘Yes, I’ll drive you.’
‘No, you won’t.’ I head for my table, and call back over my shoulder, ‘Love you.’
She makes a scissor motion with her fingers and carries on to the staff tables in the corner.
‘Your mum trying to make you cut off your man-bun again?’ Silvia asks. ‘Can I do it?’
‘No,’ I give her a look; they’re as bad as each other, her and Mum. I’m surrounded by women trying to ruin my life (or at least my hair).
Sam senses the argument and heads us off with a comment about how we’re being graded on the egg-babies. It gets involved enough that other people join in, and my personal grooming is forgotten. The conversation dies off when the servery opens, but by the time we’re heading back to the senior student lounge it’s picked up again. Silvia decides the whole school should be updated every morning over the tannoy and Matt is making a predictions spreadsheet on his phone. I reckon we’re about five minutes away from an illegal betting ring that uses Skittles for currency, which sounds about right for our friends. At least it’s safer than the last one we did – no-one has to run full tilt into a pitch-black tunnel this time, so we might manage to stay out of the sick bay. Like I said, Defensives and avoidable injuries. Silvia, as an Alchemist, was obviously too smart to join in. Sam’s a Philosopher, but he has the heart of a Defensive, and Matt’s just a liability in all regards. The tunnel runs had been fun despite the bruising.
Lorraine, the senior-dorm supervisor, suggests a family movie to fill up the hours before bed and a large group of us pile in front of the TV to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, since it’s the only movie anyone can think of with eggs in it and someone decided our children needed to be exposed to positive representation in media. It’s odd, people mostly stick to their own small groups in the evenings, but most of the Year 13s are together tonight. I get wedged between Sam and Elliott on a two-seater, and while it’s not weird to be squashed up next to Sam, it’s definitely far closer than I ever expected to be to Elliott without punching him again. This assignment is already changing things, and I don’t know how I feel about it.
CHAPTER 4
EVERYTHING IS GOOD FOR YOU IF IT DOESN’T KILL YOU
The first ‘night’s watch’ is decided by coin toss and I lose. Fortunately, so does Sam, so we’ll be together in our hapless attempts to settle our new egg-daughters. Mine and Elliott’s is back to making her weirdly authentic burbling sound and I’m super glad it’s the only realistic thing about her. She seems like a weird mixture of mechanical and magical and about what you’d expect from something designed in Norway. I’m glad they went for something whimsical instead of fully anthropomorphic; I was dreading nappies.
Silvia has lectured us on a bunch of baby stuff but she still looks worried. She almost follows us as we pad away from the student lounge and off down the boys’ corridor to our shared room, warm bundles of fake egg-daughter clutched to our chests. Elliott looks dubious rather than worried, but he can shove it up his arse, because it’s a magic egg, not his heir.
Mine and Sam’s room is the same as all the other senior doubles, hidden away in the southern corner of the school’s west wing, far from the junior dorms and the weird smell of socks, body spray, and new magic. We have the middle room along the corridor, so we’re the same distance from the shared bathroom at one end and the modestly sized, drably decorated student lounge at the other. They’re weird bedrooms though, wide from left to right but sort of … shallow. Either side of the door is exactly the right size to fit a queen-sized bed pushed into the corner, which is a nice nod to our senior status, but there’s not much remaining floorspace because of that. There aren’t even bedside tables – not that we need anywhere to put lamps or alarm clocks, since everyone can conjure their own light and phones are a thing, even if cell reception down here isn’t. At least the wi-fi is good.
Other than the beds, there’s a large, shared wardrobe, a set of drawers, and one small table that serves as a desk. (There used to be a chair, but then they taught us how to superheat things, so now there’s not.) It’s like the rooms were built for one-and-a-half people. And also weirdos who don’t mind having the head of their bed right by the door. I lasted two nights before I picked up all my bedding and started sleeping with my head at the foot. Sam didn’t even last one. He’s more superstitious than I am.
When we walk in, we see that two tiny purple cots have appeared, one by each bed, just the right height to be level with the mattresses. It’s impossible not to notice, because the already-narrow space between the beds is now only half the size of the doorway and even less user-friendly than before. There’s a soft cushion in each cot, but it’s not shaped to the curve of an egg and I immediately worry that Meggan’s gonna roll off onto the floor and die if I forget to latch the gate thingies. I don’t need our chances of doing well in the assignment to be ruined before even one day has passed. I roll up a couple of clean T-shirts and wedge the egg in place. Safe. She makes a soft cooing sound. Sam’s one farts. We laugh as silently as we can and fall into bed feeling pretty smug, relaxed, and with no idea we’re going to be awake again in two hours.
‘Rough night, Te Maro?’ Elliott asks as he walks in late for breakfast. ‘Was our daughter too much for you to handle?’ He smirks as he slides easily into the seat opposite me at my usual table and holds out his arms, expectant.
I hand the egg over, gladly, and finally get to pour myself a drink now that I don’t have to be worried about spilling it on her head.
‘It’s loud,’ I say. ‘It’s loud a lot. Approximately every two to three hours.’
I take a sip of my tea and it’s lukewarm. Yuck. I pull my pencil case out of my bag, then the pouch that has all my mea in it, looking for something that reminds me of heat. I skip over a blue marble that’s good for water but not right for tea, and a charred piece of what used to be our desk chair – it’s obviously good for fire, but impractical if I don’t want to accidentally set the table alight.
‘Maybe your company isn’t very relaxing,’ Elliott says, poking shamelessly at the pouch, his manicured fingernails and shiny silver-and-onyx ring making my cheap little trinkets look a bit sad.
Everyone’s mea are different, usually, with some obvious overlaps, and they can say a lot about you. Sam’s are mostly hand-me-downs from his dad and granddad – cool old bits of machinery and polished carvings. Ana’s are weird; a lot of them are scraps of paper with book quotes on them. I bet Elliott’s are all expensive tat – he’s probably above the standard aluminium can tab people use for cooling things down.
‘I look forward to hearing about how relaxing Meggan finds your company tomorrow morning,’ I say, and glare at him for a second before I realise how much extra effort that takes. I need caffeine.
I find my melted Lego brick tucked in the corner of the pouch and hold it in my left hand, wrapping my right around the cup. I close my eyes to focus, since Elliott is bouncing Meggan on his knee and it’s distracting. I whisper the incantation and push my magic into the tea, willing it to be warmer. The cup tingles and starts to feel hot under my fingers and I pull my magic back before it boils over.
‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Meggan?’ Elliott says to the egg, and his unabashed dedication to acting like it’s a real child surprises me.
He got in trouble a fair bit when he got here; he and his little troupe of self-important city kids seemed hellbent on making sure everyone knew they considered this place below them. Understandably, their passive-aggressive drama
tics about the cold and the decor and the lack of frappes and phone signal didn’t win them any popularity contests. In hindsight I guess he’s always been a theatrical shit and it’s a shame he put all that effort into making people hate him.
‘Do you want anything to eat?’ I ask, because I’ve handed the egg-baby over before he could fix himself anything and I definitely don’t want her back for at least an hour. I run a trained eye over what’s left on the table between us. ‘Bacon and egg roll?’
‘OK.’ He gives me a weird look. ‘Thank you.’
It’s at some point while trying to decide if Elliott’s the sort of person who prefers moist, juicy bacon or dry, crispy bacon that I realise I’m making one of my childhood nemeses a sandwich and I marvel at the unending weirdness of my life. ‘Sauce?’ I ask, sighing.
‘Aioli, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not tomato?’
‘Tomato sauce is for children and truck drivers,’ he says. Twat.
‘I’ve seen you eat lasagne,’ I counter. ‘That has tomato sauce in it.’
‘That’s – Te Maro, really, were you born on a public bus? Do you have no idea about anything?’
‘I know what tomatoes are.’
‘The sauce in lasagne is called Napoletana. Not “tomato sauce”. Should you be touching my breakfast if you don’t know anything about food?’
‘I know what Napoletana is, I just didn’t know it had a wanky Italian name. And I can make a rather good one, if the need arises. Luckily your breakfast doesn’t need it, since I’d be inclined to give it to you dry.’
‘You’d give it to me dry?’ He raises his eyebrow with a smirk, and in my slow and unslept state I can’t figure out why, and I don’t care. If he’s trying to make a joke, then I’ll take some pleasure in not reacting to it.
‘I hate you,’ I say instead, but without the venom it needs to mean anything. It comes out sounding as though I’m completely OK with it, and maybe I am. I guess, if I think about it, it’s simmered down to a nice easy sort of dislike this year, now that his dear friends Tim Holt (who ruined my name), Cooper (who ruined my school jumper in Year 10), and Kane (who ruined everything in a one-metre radius) have all been expelled.