The Territory

by Sarah Govett

  I woke early from another nightmare. I’d been standing next to Jack in front of this massive clock. Marcus was facing us and had this psycho clown grin. He was pointing his gun from me to Jack and back again in time with this booming ‘tick tock tick tock’. Marcus kept on grinning throughout and saying, ‘Who shall I shoot, love?’

  To shut out the images I reached under my mattress and pulled out Uncle Max’s Discman. I listened to two whole discs before breakfast and by the time I met Daisy on the steps on the way into school, I had this weird faint ringing in my ears. We’ve started meeting on the steps most mornings so that we can at least catch up a bit before class. Her parents have banned us from even speaking on the phone at night, in case it, ‘distracts her from her studies’.

  I felt like I hadn’t spoken to her for ages. Not properly. Jack too. It’s like there’s this gulf between us now. I can’t tell them about Mum and the Laboratory as Raf and I had made a pact not to tell anyone. I didn’t want to get Mum into trouble and truthfully I’m too big a coward to risk upsetting the Ministry. I don’t want to disappear. Also the last thing Jack and Daisy need to worry about at the moment is becoming pustule-covered human experiments if they fail. Because they are likely victims after all. Neither of their parents would go with them. No one would know.

  I searched for something to say. ‘How’s the neek?’ I managed. Daisy just rolled her eyes and said, ‘Gugh.’ We both laughed but it was more for the sake of it than anything. There was no real joy in it.

  I noticed that Daisy had a new necklace on. A gold butterfly on a pink ribbon. It looked small and discrete. In other words, massively expensive. Normally Daisy would have been strutting about showing it off, but this time she looked a bit small. Like a little girl wearing her mum’s jewellery. When I asked her about it she said it was a present from her dad.

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘If he’s on side maybe he’ll make your mum sack Gugh and we’ll get to study together again for the final few days? It’ll be like old times.’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘It’s because he got a bonus,’ she almost whispered.

  I didn’t get it at first. Just stared at her like a complete denser.

  ‘A BIG bonus, Noa.’

  I finally computed what she’d meant. A big bonus meant that the unaffordable was now affordable. The unimaginable now an option. My joint best friend in the whole world was going to get a late upgrade.

  I stared a desperate, ‘No way,’ at her but Daisy just nodded.

  ‘When?’ was all I could manage.

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  It was like a blow to my stomach but much more painful than the actual blow Jack gave me that time. A sort of dull ache like a stone being lodged and twisted.

  ‘That’s soon.’ I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

  ‘It’s so they’ve got enough time to upload all the notes for the last five years. And then they do all these tests to check it’s worked and the stuff’s in my head.’ Daisy instinctively rubbed the back of her neck as she spoke, then caught herself and did a little shiver. ‘The surgeon’s supposed to be really good. Dad says he’s the best money can buy.’ Daisy’s voice was high and brittle with a trace of mania. ‘God, Noa. They’re actually going to make me one of them. They’re going to turn me into a freakoid and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.’

  Daisy started sobbing uncontrollably, her body doing these frightening little spasm shakes.

  I wanted to cry too. I wanted to rage and rant and scream. They were taking away my best friend. They were going to change her mind. Take the Daisy I knew and loved and leave a breathing shell with a computer brain. But I couldn’t say any of this. I knew I just had to comfort her.

  ‘Maybe it’s OK.’ I said, hugging her tight. ‘At least you’re going to pass now, right? Virtually guaranteed. No, stick that up your jumper. Actually guaranteed, as you’re really bright to start with so now you’ll be like super-you. And that’s better than failing and being a Fish right? And they might put all this information into your head, but you’ll still be Daisy. And I’ll still be Noa. And we’ll be best friends forever. And that will never change. OK?’

  ‘Promise,’ Daisy whispered. ‘Promise they won’t change me.’

  ‘I promise,’ I whispered back. What else could I say?

  ‘Raf’s a Childe and he’s not like the other freakoids, is he?’ Daisy’s eyes craved reassurance. So I couldn’t tell, could I? Couldn’t tell her that Raf didn’t upload. Couldn’t tell her about his sister Chloe. Couldn’t tell her anything.

  ‘No, you’ll be just like him, Daisy. Normal, just like him.’ The lie almost stuck in my throat.

  The only faintly OK thing was that Daisy was allowed out that evening. To come and study at mine. A bit like a last supper. I guess her mum thought that there was no need to keep her prisoner anymore, chained to her desk and a neek. Not now passing was in the bag. The worst that could happen is that her daughter would distract me, but Daisy’s mum was way too selfish to let that concern her.

  And Daisy and I did have an amazing evening. Well, as amazing as an evening could be that also contained three hours of Maths revision. Daisy was massively strict with me and made sure I studied with little breaks to chat to her. But those breaks were ACE. I felt closer to her than I have for ages. Since Raf turned up. We got out all these photo albums from way back and laughed at how tragic and young we used to look. Me, Daisy and Jack. Our three faces peering out again and again and again. Grinning, grinning, grinning. Three grinning monkeys.

  ‘You know what?’ Daisy said as we closed the final album and sat, curled up on my bed. ‘I really thought you’d end up with Jack.’

  ‘I guess I kind of did too,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not sure how or when or anything, but then Raf turned up and, well, you know.’

  ‘Raf’s cool too,’ Daisy added.

  ‘Yeah. He really is.’

  ‘You so lurrrve him.’ And I’d never been so pleased to hear one hundred per cent pure Daisy.

  Maybe the late upgrade is actually a good thing. I mean, maybe it doesn’t totally alter personality. Chloe could have been weird before, maybe Raf just didn’t notice and Barnaby and Hugo are so massively different that it can’t totally control behaviour. And Daisy was heading towards failing otherwise and then she could have ended up in the Laboratory down some horrific corridor being experimented on. Lying there like Neil and Rosie. A lab rat with a number. As soon as I’d conjured up the image I had to try and block it but it just kept on eating into my thoughts.

  I couldn’t concentrate on anything today. Daisy’s operation was at 11 am. That was in the middle of double Chemistry so I obviously took in none of that. I couldn’t even talk to Raf at break. Raf’s a big fan of Daisy and everything but he’s not got the same connection, the same history, so the waiting just isn’t the same for him. Jack looked about as worried as me and so we sort of agreed without talking, not to talk about it. Neither of us could face it. Maybe that’s how telepathic powers develop.

  I had lunch by myself. Surrounded by a sea of chattering voices, I had never felt more alone.

  Hugo was out to provoke me. He’d made sure there was an empty stool next to him and he’d put a ‘Reserved for Daisy’ sign on it. I blinked back and breathed through the tears and managed to walk past him without the mask collapsing. Thankfully, Jack didn’t see it or there’d have been a proper fight. And I’m talking broken jaws and everything.

  Daisy said the operation would only take a couple of hours and then there’d be recovery from the anaesthetic and then the tests. She reckoned she’d be done by early evening and home tomorrow.

  Mum made me lasagne for dinner as special comfort food as she knew how difficult today was for me. It was comforting, although not quite the same as when we used to be able to put actual beef in it.

  I tried to call the hospital after dinner and this was the weirdest. There was this really awkward pause and then they said Dais
y had already been signed out. When I tried to ask how come she’d gone home so early, they just turned really cold and dismissive and said, ‘We do not discuss our patients.’

  But if Daisy was home she’d have called me, wouldn’t she? I mean it’s slightly different, but when she had her appendix out three years ago, she called me literally as soon as she got through the door.

  I tried calling Jack to see if he’d heard anything. He hadn’t. He’d tried the hospital too and got the same response.

  ‘Maybe she’s home but still a bit out of it from the operation,’ he suggested, but I could tell from his voice that he realised how lame this sounded.

  ‘If it was something like that, she’d still be in hospital. They don’t just send you home early when you’re still drugged up,’ I insisted. ‘Not when you’ve spent that amount of money. And, anyway, they can’t send you home till they’ve done all the tests to check it’s worked and they couldn’t do that if she was at all out of it.’

  ‘OK, Noa, OK.’ I guess I’d made my point a bit too clearly.

  There was a long pause. I needed to search for strength to share my next thoughts. ‘It’s happened, hasn’t it, Jack? They’ve got to her. They’ve turned her into a proper freakoid like Logan and now she doesn’t want anything to do with us.’

  Jack’s silent agreement was more than I could take and I hung up and threw the phone to the floor. It bounced up and down on its coiled cord before hanging, lifeless, from its socket in the corridor.

  Mum started to get worried about the level of crying coming from my room. She knows there isn’t exactly time to have a night off revision.

  ‘Call her, Noa-bean. If you’re this worried, stop over-analysing it and just call her home. I’m sure everything will be OK. And at least you’ll know.’ But maybe I didn’t want to. Not if it was as bad as I thought.

  I knew Mum was right though and I picked up the phone again, a slight tremor in my right hand. It rang eleven times. Then there was Daisy’s mum’s clipped voice as the answerphone message kicked in.

  ‘The best that money can buy’ is a malc phrase that means nothing.

  The surgeon’s hand slipped.

  He’d been drinking the night before and still had alcohol in his system. Ten times the Medical Council limit. Which doesn’t actually make sense if you think about it, as surely the limit if you’re putting a massively sharp scalpel next to someone’s massively important spinal cord should be a big fat zero and ten times zero is still zero.

  It’s an ‘open and shut case of medical negligence’ according to Dad. Daisy’s family will get compensation: the cost of the upgrade refunded plus twenty thousand Golds in damages. And that’s what most people seem concerned with. How much money her family will get. As if it’s something good. A lottery win. Not the fact that Daisy’s been turned into a vegetable. Not that she was completely and totally brain-damaged. Not that Daisy’s parents decided there and then to switch off life support so I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

  And the worst thing is that I bet Daisy’s mum is probably actually quite pleased. Not that she’d admit it. But in private, if she was sure no one was looking, she’d probably allow herself as much of a smile as her overly botoxed face would allow. More money, less responsibility. One pure freakoid child with impeccable credentials. No slightly embarrassing lesser model late upgrade. Logan too wouldn’t care less as he’s incapable of any human emotion. Daisy’s dad would be upset for a millisecond, but then he’d just go back to working twenty hours a day and forget she even existed. No one would really miss her. No one but me and Jack. And this thought pushed my despair to anger. And anger’s better. I can hold onto in. Burn with it.

  I went to Raf’s after school. I needed to be held, to be kissed, to forget, if just for a second. Raf probably thinks I’m seriously weird and psycho now, as in the middle of kissing him, I slapped his face, then grabbed him close, then bit his lip and then grabbed him again and then broke down into tears, rocking on the floor and moaning quietly.

  He picked me up and held me tight, rocking me and singing to me while stroking my hair. Mid sobs I tried to tell him that I loved him.

  He just put his finger over my lips and kept singing.

  When I got home, Mum said Jack had called about ten times. I know I should be there for him. Shouldn’t leave him all alone with his grief. He hasn’t got a Raf equivalent to cry on. But I can’t reopen the wound. My body just can’t handle more crying. I’m numb. Empty. I crawled into bed, my Geography notes on the Arable Lands untouched on my desk. For the first time I’m behind on my revision schedule.

  And the thing is I really don’t care.

  I hadn’t been to church since a school trip in Year Three.

  Mum and Dad are massive atheists and for some weird reason, spires used to creep me out. I think they reminded me of pointy witches’ fingers clawing at the sky. I used to have a real phobia about witches. Witches and big fish.

  Anyway, I couldn’t study however much I stared at the page. Words were just like pointless symbols my brain couldn’t deal with. I needed to say goodbye to Daisy, to go somewhere to mourn her. There wasn’t even going to be a proper funeral and I was starting to feel claustrophobic in my room.

  I waited until the 11am main service had finished and then crept in through the church’s side entrance, feeling like an intruder. The chill coming off the stone pillars was somehow comforting and the massively high ceiling seemed to give space to think. There was a row of candles down one end, with a lighter, a knife to trim the wax and a donations box. I put half a Gold in the box and reached for the lighter. The flame looked so gentle above the white candle. Graceful and beautiful. Like Daisy? No, Daisy was more than that. She was cool and fun and sparky and loyal. She kicked beautiful and graceful’s ass.

  I didn’t know how to pray. How to even start to go about it. So I just sat the candle in the rack and gazed at it while thinking back through my favourite memories of Daisy. I thought of the moment we first claimed best friends status when we were ten. We’d spent the day at the Park learning to hula hoop and blow bubble gum. Daisy was obviously way better than me at hula-ing but my bubbles aced hers. That is until I blew one so big that it burst and went all over my face and fringe. It wouldn’t come out of my fringe and so Daisy decided we’d have to cut out the gum. She produced this pair of scissors from her bag and hacked a big chunk out of my fringe. I started going mental, knowing that I now looked like a complete denser, but Daisy just laughed and hacked a matching chunk out of her own fringe, saying, ‘We’ll look ridiculous together, best friends forever.’

  I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea, but something made me reach out for the knife by the candles. Trembling slightly, I used it to cut off a lock of my hair, sawing as the blade was so blunt. I held my hair in the flame and watched it burn from golden to charred black, tears streaming down my face.

  I know I should have gone to Jack’s then. Or at least include him in my improvised memorial service. I even started walking to his house when I left the church. But then my feet almost automatically took a right instead of a left and I ended up back at Raf’s. In his arms.

  I did the most terrible thing today. I betrayed Raf and I can’t do anything to take it back.

  I hadn’t talked to Jack since Daisy’s death and I knew things were going to be difficult. As soon as I saw him enter the classroom, I could tell he was in the foulest mood ever. From the frown criss-crossing his forehead, to his searchlight eyes, to the way he was hunching his shoulders, it was as if a dark vortex of anger was spiralling above his head, ready to engulf us all. OK, that sounds massively dramatic and it wasn’t quite like that, but looking back, it should have been.

  He caught my eye and then looked away. Determined to talk to him and massively guilt-driven at having abandoned him over the weekend, I went up to his desk. He was sat facing away from me, staring at a knot of wood in front of him. I ruffled his hair. He normally likes this. It’s one of
our things. He didn’t like it today, just pushed me away.

  ‘Where were you?’ Jack spat, turning to face me. ‘I needed you. I needed to talk. About Daisy. I called. I kept on calling.’ Anger started to turn to overwhelming sadness. Which was even worse. ‘Where were you, Noa?’ He sounded like Rex when he’d had this huge splinter in his paw. His eyes were the same too.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I should have called. I know I should have called. I’m so, so sorry. But I’m here now.’

  ‘Were you with him?’ Jack’s voice was scarily neutral.

  Silence.

  ‘Well were you?’ His eyes were now more Ms Jones on a caffeine pill than Rex.

  I nodded.

  Jack half snorted, half bark-laughed. ‘That’s SO typical, you know, Noa. You act like you’re this GREAT friend. Like you’re SO concerned. Like you’ll help your STUPID friends revise when it suits you as it makes you feel better and cleverer. But at the end of the day, you really don’t give a crap. It’s all about you, always has been. You’re like a freakoid. No, I take it back. You’re worse than a freakoid. At least they don’t pretend to care and then throw it all back in your face.’

  I couldn’t quite believe I was hearing this. I’d never heard Jack speak like this. Never. Tears started forming behind my eyes but I manically blinked them back.

  ‘I guess I should have seen it coming. I mean when it comes down to it, no Norm is good enough for you. Not me, who you treat like some kind of toy. And certainly not Daisy. I mean Noa, seriously, Daisy’s been there for you your whole life, but you don’t even have time to mourn her as you’re too busy snogging your new freakoid boyfriend.’

  Maybe anger’s catching. Either way, I could feel it flow through me, cell by cell. I was aware we had quite an audience by now, but it was like the play button was jammed and I couldn’t stop.