Big Brother's Little Sister

by Mike Bursell

  “Yes. Look,” he brandished it at her. It was a biology text book – and, I was relieved to see, one which he might actually have a valid reason for getting.

  “And do you have permission to leave class?” She was still being very forceful.

  He had been looking a little cowed, but as she got closer, I saw him standing up a little straighter, ready to face her off. No! I wanted to shout it to him. Don't try to stand up to her: it's not a good idea.

  “What's it got to do with you?” he asked, looking her straight in the eye and holding his voice in check.

  “Don't you dare. Just don't you dare: I'll report you to...” she started, but then caught him looking over her shoulder at me. I hadn't moved from where I had been standing, and in the heat of the moment she seemed to have forgotten me. She half-turned, saw me there, and stopped dead.

  “To Mum and Dad?” suggested Mo.

  “Yes. Yes. To our parents. That's right.” She was clearly shaken, and I was both pleased and impressed that Mo had found her a way out of the hole that she was about to dig herself. And he'd even managed to keep his face straight, as well. She must be wondering why he’d helped her out like that.

  “Feel free,” he said. “But I do have permission, as it happens.” He made to go. “See you at home.” He walked carefully round Fliss and down the corridor towards me. “Hi, Lena,” he said, evenly. And although Fliss was staring in his direction, glowering, he was facing away from her, so she couldn't see the little wink he gave me just before he turned the corner.

  I followed her into the library, and we sat down again. She had just about managed to regain her composure. “I'm sorry about that,” she said.

  “No problem.”

  “We don't really get on, I'm afraid,” she confided in me.

  You're telling me! I thought. Out loud, I replied, “Family stuff, huh?”

  “Yes. Yes, something like that.” She gave herself a little shake, as if to throw off the last of the altercation. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked, though I was sure she knew the answer.

  “No. Just me and my Mum.”

  Just then the bell for the next lesson went. Fliss jumped, and half-laughed. “I'd forgotten how those bells rule your life,” she admitted. “Do you need to be heading off? I'd like to spend a little more time talking about these National Service schemes, if you can spare the time.”

  And trying to find a way to get back onto the subject of Ryan, I bet. “Sure. I had double PE: not much point in going back in halfway through.”

  She looked relieved.

  It took her another twenty minutes to get round back to the subject of Ryan, during which she had to find more to say about the National Service schemes – which was beginning to get awkward, as she didn't seem to have prepared quite enough material. She finally sat back in her seat. “So, any more questions, or have we covered everything?”

  “Nothing from me,” I replied.

  She sat back in her chair. “You know, we were talking about that thing that happened.”

  “When I called my Mum,” I replied, helping her out.

  “Yeah, that,” she confirmed. “And you... well, the way I heard it, you pretty much saved the life of the Young Enforcer.”

  “Ryan.” I was uncomfortable with where this had gone. But not as uncomfortable as I was about to be.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked.

  “He didn't deserve to get hurt. What they were doing was … wrong.” How far to go? I wondered. I think I need to be at least a bit honest. “He was stupid. He didn't treat people right, and he didn't think about what he was doing. But I don't think he was really a bad person. And even if he was, attacking him was horrible. So I called my mother.”

  She nodded, taking all this in. After a moment's thought, she said “Look, there's another scheme. I think you should consider it.”

  “Why's that?” I asked, confused. Why would she have kept something back? We've spent ages rehashing the same material for the past hour or so now.

  “It's not one that we mention to many people,” she explained, “but I think it might suit you. And I think you might get a lot from it. You're bright – I've seen your reports – you're active, you’re public-spirited and, well, I think you might bring something special to it, as well.” She paused. “Have you considered the Enforcers?”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Um, no,” I said, quite honestly, and rocked to the core.

  “You don't need to be like the Ryan,” she waved her hand, as if dismissing him and his behaviour. “I'm not sure the recruiters did a very good job there, to be honest. What the Enforcers are really looking for are people who can keep a low profile, and not upset people. That's what the information I've got says, anyway,” she added, quickly.

  She was right: the people who'd recruited Ryan had made a mistake. And so had he: lots of them. Then it occurred to me. Maybe I would be suited to it. If I were undercover, then nobody would know, and there would be some significant benefits. I'd been worrying, since discovering that the rest of Mo's family were Enforcers, how to keep him safe, and this could be the way.

  Fliss got up. “I'm just going to pop to the toilet. You have a bit of a think.” She left me and walked out of the library.

  I hardly noticed her leave, because an idea – a huge, engrossing, tempting idea – was blooming in my head. Maybe this would be a way of ensuring that what we were doing is less likely to be detected. And getting information that we could use. Working from the inside. All of a sudden, it made sense. What better way to change things than from attacking the Enforcers from inside their organisation? Floyd would have advantages that no other opposition or resistance group had: we would be working on the inside! I might be able to turn some of them, get them working for us. Maybe even Fliss! She could be such an asset to our work.

  And then I remembered Mo.

  How would he feel? If I joined the Enforcers, like his family? He would feel that I was betraying him. And everything we'd fought for.

  And I thought back to the exchange between him and Fliss. The impression that she had given that she considered herself better than him, and that she had power over him. Her fury that he dared defy her.

  I must remember that side of her, I reminded myself. I already know that she's lied to me at least once. I mustn't let myself be pulled into the way of thinking that she wants me in. Flattering me, feeding me what I want to hear: they're techniques she's using to try to make me like her, and to be impressed by what she's offering. And if I were to join them, it would be a betrayal of Mo.

  At which point, Fliss re-entered the library, and I realised not only that I mustn't take up her suggestion, but also that I mustn't even let Mo about it. If he has problems with her and their parents now, I thought, they're nothing to how he's going to feel about them if he finds out that they've tried to recruit me. It could tear the family apart. And it might make him say something really, really stupid. Which we can't afford. Not right now.

  I turned around as she approached me, trying to put a thoughtful look on my face.

  “So,” she said, smiling, “what do you reckon? Something you'd like to investigate? Find out a little more about?”

  “It … it was a bit of a shock,” I explained thuthfully. “I hadn't really thought of it before, and, well, I didn't think that I was the sort of person they wanted.” I had very, very nearly said 'you wanted', but stopped myself just in time.

  “Well, I think you probably are,” she said, “though I'm not exactly the expert!”

  Aren't you? I wondered. Sounds like another lie. “Look. I … I don't think it's something I'm ready for. Not yet. Maybe later: I don't know.” I was blabbering a little, so I shut up.

  A slight look of something – annoyance? disappointment? - crossed her face, but she closed it down a moment later, and replaced it with her standard smile instead.

  “Is there any more information I can give you?” she asked. “I can send you some if you wan
t.”

  “That's really kind,” I said, trying hard to sound sincere. “But not yet. It's something I need to think about.” I had an idea. “When I'm ready to find out more, what would be the best way to do that?”

  She brightened a little at this – I'd carefully said 'when', not 'if' – and replied enthusiastically: “If you go online, to the Enforcers' website, there's a section on 'recruitment'. When you're filling in the enquiry form, there's a section asking whether you've ever been invited to apply, and by whom. Put in my name, and I'm sure they'll take a look. But take your time: there's no hurry.”

  For someone who wasn't supposed to be an expert in this, she did seem to know an awful lot about the process. I nodded. “Thanks a lot. I ought to be getting back: it'll be lunch time soon.”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “So it is. Well, good luck, and don't forget the form on the website.”

  “I won't,” I assured her, and headed off out of the library, wondering what I was going to say to Mo, and how I was going to say it.

  At least I would have some time to prepare what I was going to say, because I had no easy way to contact him face-to-face. The first thing I wanted to understand was why he had come to the library in the first place. My suspicion was that he'd discovered from someone that Fliss had called me into the library, and had decided to check it out himself. I was really, really uncool with this, but if he was that worried about me, and that angry with his sister, then I wasn't sure that it was going to be a good idea to hassle him about it.

  I had less time than I'd expected, however, because the next morning I got a note – left according to protocol this time, I was pleased to see – to say that Fliss had gone back to her assignment and wasn't at home any more. This meant that we could use the land-lines again, which was good news. However, the more I thought about Fliss heading straight back to her assignment, the more horrified I was. Because I didn't believe that she had been sent to our school just to talk to a few girls about various “volunteering” options. Which mean that there were only three actual reasons I could think of:

  the Enforcers had some information about the school, and it if had been a link to Floyd, I was pretty sure they would have come down more hard on us.

  they were trying to track down the girls who had attacked Ryan, which seemed to be fairly likely, certainly according to Danni and Jenny, except for the fact that she hadn't asked me about them. At all.

  she had come to the school to recruit me.

  My main hope was that the reason was the second one, but that when she talked to me, she had decided that it was worth trying to recruit me, and that once she had, I might have been happier to give up the names of Ryan's attackers.

  But I had to be very careful not to mention the recruitment bit to Mo.

  This was easier than I expected, because as soon as I mentioned that Jenny and Danni had been asked about the attack on Ryan, he almost lost it.

  “How dare she?”

  “It's her job! I can't say I like it, but it is her job,” I found myself saying, actually defending her.

  “I don't care. It's my school, and my life, and finally she leaves, and then she comes back and … tries to intervene.”

  I didn't have much to say in response to this. It was clear that he had had serious problems with her before she even became an Enforcer. I didn't think that it would be a good idea to mention that Danni and Jenny had guessed about that, as well.

  “And you – what about you? I expect that's what she wanted to talk to you as, as well? Did she ask you about that?”

  “Yes. Yes, she did,” I confirmed.

  “When she's next back … When she's next back … I'm going … I'm going to ...”

  “To do nothing. You're going to keep quiet. You're going to say nothing. You're going to be careful, and hide what you know, and keep safe.”

  “But … how dare she?”

  “Did you come to find me?” I asked, quietly, trying to move him on from the subject of Fliss, which he was seeming to obsess on.

  “Yes. Of course. I had to find you, see what she was doing, check you were OK.”

  And suddenly, I was angry, and I wasn't even sure why. “And don't you think I can take care of myself? Wasn't it more dangerous coming around, looking for me, giving her reasons to get suspicious? And what exactly were you going to do if I wasn't 'OK'?” I filled my voice with sarcasm for the last word. “This is me. I wasn't going to do anything stupid, was I? I wasn't the one who broke protocol. I wasn't the one who talked back to an Enforcer!”

  He was silent. I expected that he would come back at me, defending himself, attacking his sister or similar. But he didn't. And then finally, he said, in a rather hurt tone, “I was worried about you. I wanted to check you were OK. That was all. I'm sorry.”

  Don't you just hate it when people just shoot your anger out from under you? There was no way that I could continue being cross with him after that: just no way.

  “Look, are you OK?” I asked.

  “Not really,” he admitted.

  “What's up, then? Is there something else going on?”

  He was quiet for a beat or two. “We had a huge row. Last night, before Mum and Dad went off with Fliss. They'd been planning to put her on the train, but I think they were so angry at me that they decided drive her down to Cornwall last night, stay over in a Bed & Breakfast or hotel somewhere, take today off work and then come back tonight.” Mo managed a little smile. “There's one funny thing, though: guess what?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I'm grounded. I'm allowed to go to school, but other than that I have to stay in my room. 'No TV for you, no going out for any reason except to go to the toilet or eat.' It's like they don't know me at all. Haven't they noticed that going out is the last thing that I want to be doing anyway? Telling me to stay in my room all the time is pretty perfect.”

  He was trying to make light of it by directing my attention away from the argument he had mentioned, but I could tell that he was still upset about it. “What did you argue about?” I asked. No point in letting the feelings fester.

  “Oh, you know: me. Fliss. Them. Me, Fliss and them. They want me to be an Enforcer, and Fliss made such a fuss about how I'd 'defied her' outside the library.”

  I made appreciative umming noises and he carried on.

  “I just kept telling them that I needed to get the book, and that I had permission from a teacher, and they just kept going on about how I should have shown her more respect, given that she's my senior, and she's an Enforcer. They were shouting. I was shouting. In the end I couldn't take it anymore, so I turned round and walked out of the house. Got back to a note. Two notes. One from them, telling me I was grounded. Like I care.”

  “And the other one?”

  “From her. From Fliss.”

  “Saying what?”

  “That unless I 'pulled my socks up' and 'got a grip on life' by joining the Enforcers, then she didn't want to see me ever again. And that I wasn't her brother any more, as far as she's concerned.”

  “Oh, Floyd,” I said, quietly.

  “I know. I shouldn't care. But I do. She's still my sister. And I kind of love her anyway. It's weird, and I hate it.”

  Poor Mo. He's really, really messed up. And all he's got is me, sitting at the other end of a telephone line, getting the wrong end of the stick and making his life even more difficult. I resolved to be nicer from now on, so I gave him the chance to bore me with some technical details of any attacks he was planning. After a while he seemed to cheer up, and we finished the call on a positive, with both of us promising to think of more attacks.