I didn’t know what to say so I kept quiet, but I couldn’t help wondering what was so wonderful about a society where the cops feel they have to watch what kids’re writing, and a guy gets scared for his reputation and his livelihood just because of something his child did. Another thing I wondered was, what would Dad and Mum and Pohlman think if they knew I meant to take the tunnel into town tomorrow?
DAZ
She sends this crazy noat.
Half nine saterday nite i’m on my tod in the black diamond. Guy shoves past, damnear nock me over. i rekernise the crewboss. he don’t say noffing but i find this paper in my pocket. i go in the bog 2 read it. shes only coming frou the tunnel tomorrow thats all. i groan. Zoe i sez, you barmy, i cant go 2 that tunnel no more. i got 1 toof missing plus 2 black eyes plus soar all over, i go near that tunnel 1 more tyme i’m ded.
i tear up the noat very littel. Frow it down the bog. i fink and fink but its no yuse i gotta go. i’m more scairtn i bin in my hoal lyfe but she be wayting down that tunnel 7 tomorrow nite so i gotta go.
Gudby world, so long our mam. sbin nise.
ZOE
I had spare batteries in case my torch gave out, and two enormous balls of knitting wool which I put in a plastic bag along with some of my cassettes. The story was that Tabby invited me over when I was there yesterday, but it nearly didn’t work.
The visit from DS had really shaken my parents up. Mum had even peeped into my room around three that morning to check I hadn’t slipped off somewhere, and all through Sunday if they couldn’t see me they kept calling to ask what I was doing.
I got worried. Suppose they wouldn’t let me out of the house. It seemed a distinct possibility. Daz would wait in the tunnel and I’d never show up, and he wouldn’t know why. He’d think I got caught or lost underground or was lying in the dark with a broken leg or something. He might try to find me, and he wouldn’t have the twine to guide him back.
The later it got the more nervous I felt. Daz had estimated the tunnel at around three miles long, and I’d planned on giving myself two hours to get through. I was meeting him at seven, so that meant I had to leave home around four-thirty. This was unusually early to be setting off for an evening with Tabby, and as the time drew near I wished I’d planned it differently.
Anyway, four twenty-five rolled around and my bag was packed and I couldn’t stall any longer. ‘Mum,’ I called, coming downstairs. ‘I’m going over to Tabby’s to listen to music. I won’t be late.’ Mum was in the kitchen. I was halfway to the door when she yelled ‘Hey – just a minute, young woman!’ and appeared behind me with flour on her hands. Two seconds later Dad came out the den. I stood dangling my bag, looking from one to another.
‘You’re not going anyplace young lady,’ said Dad. ‘Not tonight.’
‘Aw, but Dad – I promised.’
‘Doesn’t matter. You call Tabitha and tell her you won’t be over after all ’cause your dad won’t let you.’
‘I can’t tell Tabby that.’
‘Well, you think of something then, because you’re staying home and that’s final.’
‘Mum.’ I turned to her, desperate, as you can imagine. ‘Can’t I just -.’
‘You can just do as your father tells you, Zoe.’
This was it then. Disaster. I schlepped across to the phone with my heart in my socks. They stood watching me. I punched the Wentworth code and stood with the receiver in one hand and my bag in the other. I daren’t let go that bag.
There were a couple of clicks, and then a high-pitched screech that damn near blew my head off. I jerked the receiver away from my ear.
‘What’s wrong?’ This from Dad.
‘Dunno. Funny noise.’ He came over and took it and put it to his ear. ‘Hmm. Fault on the line, maybe.’ He re-dialled and got the same result. I clutched at this straw.
‘Mum – I can’t just not show up. Tabby’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do if she fell out with me.’ My voice had a catch in it which wasn’t entirely bogus.
Dad tried one more time and hung up. Mum said, ‘She’s right, Gerald – she can’t just not show up.’
He looked at her, then at me. He shrugged. ‘Okay, okay.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s four-thirty, Zoe. I want you back in this house at nine o’clock sharp. Sharp, d’you hear?’
‘Yessir.’ Never happen, I told myself, but it felt so good being off the hook I’d have promised anything.
It was scary in that tunnel even if you don’t believe in ghosts and monsters and skeletons that walk, but the worst part was getting to the tunnel in the first place. It wasn’t even properly dark yet, and I crept along expecting to be challenged any minute. DS could have the area staked out after Daz’s narrow escape, and they might be watching me, anyway. Maybe they’d installed extra cameras or found the tunnel and sealed it. I didn’t know what I’d say if some bouncer stopped me and searched my bag.
‘Oh, I thought I’d just sit inside this old sewer pipe awhile and knit some covers for my cassettes. Pretty colour, isn’t it?’
Anyway, I didn’t meet anybody and I set off through the tunnel, letting out my wool and trying to remember what Daz had told me about the trip. I reached the foot of the rusty ladder at six thirty-five. Either I’d made good time in the conditions or it wasn’t three miles.
I leaned on the ladder to wait. I thought I’d be smart and save my batteries by switching off. If you’re not moving you don’t need to see, right? Well, no, but it’s just amazing the noises you hear, the stuff you imagine when you’re alone in the dark. I kept switching on and off, and in the end I gave up and left it on, jammed in a crack in the wall. It was better, but it didn’t keep me from wondering if this was the right ladder.
He showed up four minutes early and I hardly recognised him, his face was such a mess. He was moving slow and he flinched and gasped when I squeezed him. ‘What the heck happened to you?’ I asked.
He told me. When he was through I said ‘I’m sorry. This whole thing is so dangerous for you. You shouldn’t have come.’
He laughed. ‘And what if I hadn’t? What would you have done – waited here till you died or what? Anyway, you know I can’t stay away from you.’
It was good for a while after that. I forgot where we were, and the danger we were in. I forgot the time too, until we came out of a long clinch and he said, ‘When d’you have to be home?’ as though we were on a regular date or something. I held my wrist in the torchlight so I could see my watch. It was eight o’clock.
‘I don’t want to go back, Daz,’ I said. ‘I want to be with you all the time.’
‘I know.’ He held me. ‘I want that too, but it can’t happen and that’s a fact. They’ve got us penned up in separate cages and there’s no way out. We can’t even see each other this way anymore.
I knew that. I’d been trying not to think about it. Now the realisation hit me like a truck. I broke away from him. ‘It’s not fair!’ I cried. Fair, fair, fair, went the echo. ‘Why should we live behind wire like something in a zoo?’
‘Hey – sssh!’ Daz caught hold of me, covered my mouth with hard fingers. ‘They’ll hear us up there.’
‘Okay.’ I shook my head and he took his hand away. ‘But it’s not right, Daz. It’s not. People’re just people, and when they love someone it’s wrong to keep them apart.’ I started to cry. I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t. ‘Who says, Daz? Who says we’ve got to live the way we do? Who are they, and what gives them the right?’
‘Sssh.’ He stroked my hair. For a husky guy he was surprisingly gentle. ‘They’re the government, Zoe, that’s who they are. Nothing gives ’em the right -nothing can – but you see they don’t need the right ’cause they’ve got the power. They’ve got it forever, too, ’cause only their friends get to vote.’ He laughed. ‘What d’you think Dred’s about? Why d’you think guys and women get theirselves kilt all the time like that?’
I shook my head and he said, ‘To break the power, Zoe. To get i
t away from them and give it to us.’ I shook my head again.
‘It doesn’t work, Daz. All it does is cause more wire. More lights. More cops. There’s got to be another way.’
‘Yeah?’ He looked down at me. ‘What other way?’
‘What about FAIR?’ I murmured.
‘FAIR?’ He laughed. ‘That bunch of nerds? What d’you think they’re gonna do, Zoe?’
‘They want us all to live together, don’t they?’
‘Oh, sure. And what do they do about it? I’ll tell you. They have secret meetings. They print handbills and stick ’em on subway walls. Oh – and they like to be nice to Chippies, only not too nice or the lornorders might get suspicious.’ He snorted. ‘What good d’you think that’ll do, Zoe?’
I shrugged. ‘I dunno, Daz, but at least somebody’s trying to do something. I wish -.’
‘What?’
‘I wish something would happen right now, or real soon. I don’t want to wind up like Grandma, grieving for some guy she last saw eighty-eight years ago.’
We kissed then, and clung to each other but time was against us-and we knew we were only prolonging the agony. I’m not going to go on about it. If you love someone – really love them, and if you can imagine how it’d feel to leave them with a very strong chance you’d never meet again – ever – then you’ve got it. And if you don’t, and can’t, it’s no use my trying to put it into words.
I cried all the way back through the tunnel. All the way. Crying sounds real sad where there’s echoing. It’s the sound of total desolation. I didn’t care much if I got out or lost myself down there in the dark, but I guess I must’ve followed the wool because after what seemed a long time I felt moving air on my wet cheeks and there I was, back in the cage.
I walked in home around ten-fifteen and it must’ve been obvious to my parents I’d been weeping. I walked in expecting to catch hell, but I guess they thought something had happened between Tabby and me, because they didn’t say anything. When Mum asked was I all right and I burst into tears and ran up to my room, nobody followed.
Monday morning. School. Those used to be my two least favourite things. Now that Pohlman’s visit had screwed everything up at home I was glad it was Monday. Glad to be out the house and biking, wrapped in mist, the shiny wet roadway to school.
Not that school was a million laughs, mind. There was still the name-calling and the ostracizing and all that. Even the teachers seemed cool toward me, though that could be just psychological.
No. The reason I wanted to be in school was Tabby. When you’ve only one friend you worry about her. You need to know where she is and what she’s doing and if she’s still your friend. You get a bit obsessive, in fact. And that’s how I was about Tabby. You might think all this stuff with Daz would sort of push her into the background, and maybe it would have if he could be with me. As it was, the miles and the wire between him and me made me need her even more. I was afraid of this need. Afraid I might cling and that this clinging would smother her, drive her away. I wished she needed me.
What I wanted to do was tell her about Daz. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a secret. A really heavy one. If you have you’ll know what a relief it is to tell someone. And that’s what I was going to do that Monday morning.
Except she wasn’t there.
I searched the yard and the locker room and there was no sign of her. She wasn’t in Mr Pawley’s at registration. Right after registration I went along to the office and asked the secretary if anybody had called to say Tabby was sick. Mrs Corrigan gave me the sort of look everybody seemed to be giving me these days and said nobody had.
I went to my physics class. I’ve never liked physics and I couldn’t concentrate. I made a stupid mistake and Mr Collins humiliated me in front of the class. Some of the kids had guessed what was bugging me and snickered, casting meaningful glances at Tabby’s vacant seat. At breaktime I checked the office again, then went to the locker room.
Tabby’s locker was next to mine. As I approached, I saw with relief that its door was open. That meant she’d arrived and was somewhere around. I hurried forward.
The locker was empty. Somebody had cleaned it out and left the door wide open. They’d even torn down her Invaders picture. I checked around to make sure the thief hadn’t just dumped everything on the floor, then made my way back to the office and rapped on the glass.
Mrs Corrigan slid the panel aside. ‘Yes?’
‘Tabitha Wentworth’s locker, Mrs Corrigan. Somebody broke into it and took all her stuff.’
The secretary pursed up her lips and looked at me as though I was some kind of retard. ‘No, Zoe Askew, they have not. Lawson has removed Miss Wentworth’s property because she won’t be returning to school.’
‘Won’t be -?’ Lawson’s the janitor. He only empties your locker if you died or something. ‘Why?’ I stared at her. My heart was kicking so hard my chest hurt. I gripped the counter. ‘What’s happened to Tabby, Mrs Corrigan? Where is she?’
‘Don’t shout, child.’ She straightened some papers on her desk, not looking at me. ‘I imagine your friend is at home, and if you take my advice you’ll stay away from her.’
‘Why? Is she sick? Is she going to die?’
Mrs Corrigan secured the sheaf of papers with a clip. ‘I can tell you nothing more, Zoe. Tabitha Wentworth has left this school and will not return. And now if you’ll excuse me I have work to do.’ She reached out without looking at me and closed the panel.
The buzzer sounded end of break. I had an English class but I knew I was going to cut it. I had to. I’d die if I didn’t find out what had happened to Tabby, and it was obvious nobody around here was going to tell me.
I sneaked off. That isn’t hard to do when a school’s got a thousand kids in it. I left my bike and just walked away across the playing field, keeping some outbuildings between me and the admin block, and got through a hole in the fence. I followed the fence along till I hit the road and headed for Tabby’s place.
I turned into Wentworth Drive and stopped dead. There was a cop at the bottom of Tabby’s driveway. He was standing with his hands behind his back, looking across the street. My first thought was murder. Not long ago in a place called Summerhill a whole family had been murdered by the maid and the gardener, but surely there’d be more than one cop if it was something like that. Whole place’d be crawling. There’d be cars and an ambulance and the usual crowd of media ghouls.
Not murder, then. Some sort of accident? No, for the same reasons. And I could see there hadn’t been a fire.
The house nearest to me – the corner house – looked quiet. The door was shut, and so were all the windows I could see. The garage door stood open and it was empty. No vehicle was parked in the driveway or at the curb. The cop was still looking in front of him. I set off up the driveway and was glad when I put the house between us.
I crossed the backyards. Five of them. I had to climb two fences, skirt three empty pools and crawl through a lot of wet bushes. I scared a cat and heard a dog and saw a Chippy maid in the window of house number four. She didn’t see me.
Tabby was on the backporch, sitting on the step. She stayed there when I walked out of the shrubbery, and that’s when I knew it must be bad. I went over and she squinted up at me and I saw she’d been crying.
‘What’re you doing here, Zoe? Why aren’t you in school?’
I looked at her. ‘I don’t – what’s up, Tabby? What’s happened? They said you left.’
She nodded glumly. ‘I did.’
‘But why? Are your folks moving or what? You never said anything and I thought we were friends.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t need friends like me, Zoe. I’d fade if I were you, before somebody sees you here.’
‘What’re you talking about, Tabby?’ I hunkered down and gripped her shoulders. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here? Tell me.’
She shook her head, avoiding my eyes. Her mouth twisted up.‘We are moving Zoe, but not through choi
ce. We have to go tomorrow because -.’ Her control snapped. She howled and threw her arms round me. ‘They’ve kicked us out, Zoe. We can’t stay here anymore.’
‘I held her while she wept, her face buried in my shoulder. I stroked her hair as things started coming together in my mind.
‘Your parents?’ I said softly, ‘They’re in FAIR, right?’
She moved her head in mute affirmation. I didn’t know what to say after that so I just held her. Little by little she grew quiet, and after a while she whispered, ‘Go away, Zoe. There’s a cop out front. If they find you here they’ll think you’re one of us.’
I hugged her. ‘I am, Tabby. I know that now. I think I always was. That’s been my trouble all along. What I can’t understand is why your dad – I mean he’s rich, important, all that. Why’d he want to change things, Tab?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Zoe. Conscience? I mean, we all know what’s right and what isn’t, don’t we? Even if we don’t want to. I guess maybe he couldn’t just sit back and enjoy all the good things he had, knowing there are people out there starving. And he’s right, Zoe. They can kick us out and do whatever they want to do, but it won’t alter the fact that he’s right and they’re wrong.’
‘Listen!’ I squeezed her and she lifted her head. ‘I want to tell you something, Tabby.’
I told her everything. How Grandma’d always talked to me about the way it used to be. How I’d fallen for Daz that night at the Blue Moon. Our meetings and letters. Pohlman’s visit. Everything. By the time I’d finished she’d dried her eyes and blown her nose and got herself pretty much together. She looked at me.
‘I’m glad you told me, Zoe,’ she said. ‘I had no idea. But you certainly shouldn’t be here when you know the police are watching you. They could decide to kick you and your parents out too, y’know.’
‘I don’t care, Tabby. I don’t know if I want to go on living here anyway, now that you’re going.’
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