‘Santee?’
Shit.
‘Just a sec,’ I said, and flushed the toilet as if I’d been doing what people were meant to do in there. I unlocked the door and there was Imara.
‘Thought that was you,’ she said.
I washed my hands, splashed some water on my face.
‘I was gonna chill in the library, you want to come with?’ she said, like it was no big deal. Perhaps it wasn’t a big deal to her. But to me, at that moment, it was kinda like Mum’s hot chocolate.
On our way to the library we almost collided with Mr Lo. He was storming down the corridor, red-faced, angry, satchel banging by his side. We watched him as he shoved everyone out of the way and yelled at the security guards to let him through and disappeared out of the school.
‘What was that about?’ Imara said.
Mr Lo wasn’t there the next day, or the day after that. And he wasn’t the only one. There were rumours that they’d quit, that they hated the New Beginning and had argued with Mrs Rook and walked out. Or been fired.
‘I hope he’s just gone on holiday,’ Imara said during one lunchtime. We had been hanging out more often and I was grateful for her company. Even if she sometimes said the dumbest things. ‘Hawaii or something, have you been? We love it there. As soon as our papers are in order we’re going, maybe you could come with?’
She was clueless. Absolutely clueless. Like so many of the people at that school. I saw Z across the courtyard. Kicking the soccer ball with Riley and Gen and Will and pretending I didn’t exist. Z would have got it. My heart ached as I watched him, and I longed to talk to him.
‘Here,’ Imara said, and shoved a muffin into my hand.
‘How the hell did you get these?’ I said. Muffins were like gold. With the lack of supplies and stores closing down and people full-on fighting over the last carton of milk, it was crazy to see Imara’s full lunchbox.
‘Your face!’ she laughed, not in a cruel way, but in her out-of-touch-with-the-real-world way.
‘Imara’s got muffins!’ someone shouted, and suddenly she was surrounded by people all pushing and shouting and bargaining for a muffin. She was like a queen handing out gold to the peasants. If it wasn’t so shitty it could have been funny. I gave my muffin to a couple of younger kids who stood back from the pack. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
Varick had promised everyone that things would get better. And once, people would have accepted that. But when I watched him on the big screen in the city, I overheard people mumbling about how much money he was spending and words like corruption and power-hungry were thrown around and even though I knew the Unit Officers must have heard them, too, they stood back and did nothing.
CHAPTER 39
Pip made us all gather in front of the television way before the News began. Which was strange. Even for Pip.
‘We can’t miss it,’ she said. And she sounded like she was kinda looking forward to it, which was weird, cos we never looked forward to the News.
The TV show Real Life was on. Mila pretended to vomit. ‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘This is the worst.’
She was right. It was this stupid show everyone watched except, it seemed, our little family. Along with whatever they’d seen on the News, Real Life was all anyone talked about at school. This stupid show about idiotic people going about their Extraordinary Lives. Cameras followed them everywhere, these rich people who were pretty awful to each other but totally loving life in Region One (their words, not mine). People were obsessed with it. Although I reckon Mum and Astrid would have hated it as much I did. Just imagining Astrid trying to watch Real Life made me smile.
The show ended with a close-up of one of the characters crying and it looked so fake we all burst into laughter. I snuck a look at Z but he wasn’t looking at me. As usual.
I was still trying hard to prove to him (and me) that I wasn’t a brat anymore. I helped Pip with housework and chores and cooked dinner with Mila and even talked her back into regular music practice and we did our homework together every single night and I promised Pip I’d get a job to pay my own way. Not that there were any jobs, but still. I was trying. Z wasn’t. Sometimes I wanted to shake him: I AM HERE. But what would be the point?
The News began the way it always did and I closed my eyes and let the droning voices wash over me. The reports were always the same. Something about the Threats contained on the other side, something about how successful the Regions were and then something cutesy and sweet and not really news at all.
‘Good Citizens,’ I heard Magnus Varick say.
‘Our Leader.’ I said it without thinking, along with everyone else.
But Varick’s voice suddenly cut out and I opened my eyes as the screen went black. And then, suddenly, there were images of a mass of people walking beside the wall, all of them holding candles. They looked like a thousand fireflies. There was no sound, but you could tell they were chanting and shouting something. And I held my chest cos I thought my heart was going to explode right out of it when I realised where they were. They were marching on the other side. My side. My home. I frantically scanned all the faces in the crowd, trying to spot Mum or Astrid or even one of our annoying neighbours. But as quickly as the scene appeared, it disappeared. To nothing. A high-pitched buzz rang out through the television.
‘That was home. My home. What were they …’ I couldn’t keep talking because I was crying. Mila put her arm around me. Leaned her head on my shoulder.
‘They were protesting. That was a protest!’ Z leapt to his feet.
‘OK, OK,’ Pip said. ‘Let’s get rid of this awful noise, huh?’ And she turned off the TV but it still felt as if everything was buzzing and humming around me.
Mila started to say something but Pip gestured for her to wait and switched on her little stereo. Dramatic piano music blasted from the speaker. My heart thumped, thumped, thumped out of time. A protest? Like the ones Dad had tried to organise? I needed to know more, but my brain was scattered and no words would come.
Finally, Pip turned to us. In the glow of the lamplight I could see tears running down her face. But she didn’t look sad. ‘I can’t believe they did it,’ she said, more to herself than us.
‘Who? What?’ Mila was bursting with questions. What had we seen? Why had we seen it?
I closed my eyes and replayed the footage in my mind: the crowd, the candles, the wall. I added Mum and Astrid into the images. Imagined I’d seen them there next to an old man with a walking stick and young parents pushing their baby in a pram. I had to believe they had been there.
Pip cleared her throat as if she was ready to tell us something important. I could feel us all move in closer to her. ‘Your dad should’ve been here,’ she said. ‘Diggs should have seen that.’
‘Why?’ Z said.
‘He made that happen,’ Pip said quietly.
It felt like everything tilted a little bit. What? Diggs did that? Mila and Z started talking over each other, demanding that Pip tell them more.
‘Nope.’ Pip smiled. ‘I’ve said too much as it is.’
‘You’ve said nothing!’ Mila said.
‘The less you know the better.’ And that was all she’d say about it.
The next morning, Pip announced we were going to do something fun.
‘What did you used to do? Before all this?’ she asked.
We were sitting around the apartment. That excited, hopeful feeling from the night before had disappeared with the new day and the realisation that everything was exactly the same. I don’t know what I’d expected – to wake and find they’d removed the wall, apologised for the whole experiment, put things right, and that everything was OK with me and Z again too, oh and maybe even Dad and Diggs had returned home? Yeah. Sure.
I tried to tell Pip I didn’t feel like doing anything, but she wouldn’t listen.
‘Find a picnic blanket would you, Santee,’ she said. ‘Please? It’s a beautiful day so we’ll eat outdoors.’
I didn’t want to go
on a picnic. I wanted to go back to sleep. But I dragged myself up and pretended to be enthusiastic about it for Pip’s sake.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it,’ Mila whispered to me and I flopped back onto the mattress and watched her rush around gathering whatever crap she could find. She actually got pretty psyched about the picnic and started going through her things cos she was sure there was a frisbee in there. Why she’d kept a frisbee I didn’t know but, sure enough, she had one.
She found some big, floppy hats in the back of Pip’s wardrobe and said, Please, please, please can we wear them? and Pip thought that was the greatest thing she’d ever heard and so we all had to put on a stupid hat. Mila chose the ugliest one for me. It was covered in bright flowers and had a stupid feather thing on one side and it was way too big and kept slipping down my forehead but Mila said I looked beautiful.
‘You are evil,’ I told her.
I caught Z’s eye, under the big straw hat Mila had put on him.
‘You laughing at me?’ he said. The first thing he’d said to me since calling me a brat.
I felt my heart flip-flop but tried real hard to play it cool.
‘Never,’ I said. Why did he have to be so cute? It was infuriating.
Our neighbours were returning home as we were leaving. It felt so weird seeing them head into the Drivers’ old place. I could only imagine how awful it must have been for Z and Mila. The neighbours were quiet and perfect and obviously in favour with the government cos they never seemed to be without food or petrol or bright shiny uniforms for their bright shiny school.
‘Bastards,’ Pip whispered in my ear and then turned brightly to them with a very fake, Good afternoon.
They smiled a little but didn’t say anything. Mila kept her eyes on the ground, as if she couldn’t bring herself to look at them.
‘Race you to the park,’ I said, and started running.
‘You got a head start! Not fair!’ Mila called behind me.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Pip was right; it was a nice day for a picnic. If you were into that kinda thing. And maybe I was. The sky was that perfect blue that seemed to go on forever and you could almost forget there was a wall splitting it in two. It felt good to be out of the tiny apartment and strolling in the sunshine, even with drones shooting across the sky and Unit patrol cars cruising down the streets.
It was as we were trying to find the perfect spot (Mila had a very strong opinion on it) that the officer approached. ‘It’s unlawful to gather in groups of four or more,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to break this up.’
‘Sorry, officer,’ Pip said. ‘We’re just having a family picnic.’
We all motioned to our bags and outfits and smiled at the officer, who didn’t smile back.
‘This is a punishable offence,’ she said.
It felt like it had suddenly dropped ten degrees. We all looked at each other like, What are we supposed to do now? It was Mila who stepped up. Of course.
‘Terribly sorry, officer. We were unforgivably ignorant of that fact,’ she said. She was good. All sweetness and smarts. And it worked. I actually saw a bit of a smile on the officer’s face. Maybe Mila reminded her of her own kid sister or her daughter, or maybe that was just the effect Mila had on everyone. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Right, well, all right then,’ the officer stumbled. ‘It better not.’ And she shuffled away to harass another group heading into the park.
‘You guys should still have your picnic,’ I said, and walked away quickly. This wasn’t my family. If anyone should leave, it should be me. It would always be me.
I hadn’t gotten very far when I heard Z call my name. I turned around and there he was, out of breath, but smiling. ‘I’d rather hang with you,’ Z said. ‘If that’s cool?’ And my heart soared.
We sat in Red because Z said he’d been neglecting her and he felt bad. She was almost out of petrol and we had no way of getting any more. Petrol, like lots of things, was way too expensive now. But even if we could have filled her tank there was no way I’d trust Red to get us anywhere. So we just sat out the front of the apartment block, going nowhere. Me in the driver’s seat cos I wanted to at least pretend I could drive her, and Z next to me, his feet on the dashboard.
‘So, it’s groups of four now,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah, those groups of four terrorizing the Regions. Gotta get them under control.’ I laughed nervously. It was a relief to be talking with him again like that but something had shifted. I put my foot on the clutch and jammed the gearstick from first to second, from second to third and back to first.
Things always seemed to sneak up on us. Stuff we could do one day was suddenly unlawful the next. Like the gathering in groups of four, or the banning of certain movies and music and websites and words. Like Curfew. And we all just went along with it. Except, I realised as I stared through the windscreen, those thousands of people on the other side with their candles and marching and chanting.
‘The fireflies!’ The words burst out of me.
‘What?’ Z said.
‘The protest on the other side. All those people. I reckon it got the Regime scared. Scared of groups getting together and protesting like they were.’
‘So, no more groups?’ he said.
‘And no more protests.’
‘I don’t reckon it’d be that easy to stop them.’ He had that same sort of look he used to get before we went out on our morning runs. ‘Anyone who’s gonna protest won’t let something like that get in their way. I mean, graffiti isn’t exactly lawful, is it? Didn’t stop us.’
I felt the butterflies come back to my stomach, only now I didn’t think of them as butterflies, but fireflies. All bright and glowing. We sat in silence. Me with my fireflies and Z with whatever went on in his head.
Then he took my hand. Just like that. Like it was the easiest thing in the world to do. I pulled away.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘OK.’ I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say.
‘I’ve been a jerk.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, cos it was true. He had been. I’d apologised my guts out and tried to show him how sorry I was, and he’d ignored me. At school. At home. At times when I really needed him.
‘I blamed you and it wasn’t your fault and I was angry, and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t …’ his voice trailed off. The fireflies stopped dancing in my stomach and in their place sat this weird, twisty feeling. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said again.
‘It wasn’t my fault what happened with your dad,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I think it was probably my fault …’
‘Ever think maybe it was Diggs’s fault?’ I said, and went to get out of the car.
I felt his hand on my shoulder but didn’t turn around. ‘You’re not a brat,’ he said to my back.
‘I know,’ I said as I got out the car. My eyes felt hot and I hated myself for even thinking about crying. I was not going to cry. And I didn’t. I closed the car door gently behind me and went back inside the apartment. Alone.
CHAPTER 40
The weeks rolled by and Z stopped avoiding me and we talked more and started holding hands again and it felt like things were kinda getting back to how they’d been. But no more fireflies appeared on our screens or in my stomach.
The new law banning people from gathering in groups of four or more meant no-one could queue outside the Futures Office, or wait at Unit HQ for news about a loved one … or protest. Our school took it seriously, too.
‘We support the Government,’ Mrs Rook said, ‘and this shall always be reflected in our rules and policies.’
Being in class with thirty other people was acceptable. Sitting in assembly with the whole school was fine. But hanging out with more than three friends at lunchtime? That, according to Mrs Rook and her New Beginning, was prohibited.
And then there were the blackouts. They said they were forced to do it, To conserve en
ergy, but Pip called them liars and worried about food going off in the fridge.
Every night after the News the power would go out. Mila would light candles and say, Isn’t this cosy? It made me think of how Mum had liked to light candles that smelled like vanilla even when Dad would tell her not to. It stinks up the place, he’d say, and she’d say, Don’t be such a grump – it’s nice and cosy. The candles here didn’t smell like anything, but they still reminded me of home.
I’d scrunch up on a lumpy armchair and try to get some homework done by candlelight. I had to be a good role model for Mila (but it was far more likely that she was a good role model for me, to be honest). Z would sit near us with his sketchbook. I hadn’t felt like drawing in the longest time. It felt kinda pointless now. Plus, I was all out of blank pages and sketchbooks weren’t really a priority. Anyway, doing homework made me feel like I was actually achieving something, and even though she couldn’t see me I knew Astrid would be proud. There was something nice about that.
Our lives had become so much quieter without Diggs. There were times I’d expect him to burst through the door with some crazy story about where he’d been. Mila would sometimes cry out for him in the night. I’d tell her it was, Just a nightmare, just a nightmare, and soothe her back to sleep. Just like my big sister had always done for me.
It felt as if things would go on like this forever. Like this was our life now. Curfew, blackouts, boredom, fear. The blue skies disappeared and the days got shorter and colder and there didn’t seem to be any point. To anything.
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