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  ‘So who didn’t remember you’re supposed to scrape the fish before you cook it?’ said Disco.

  ‘Who?’ I fired back. ‘You didn’t. Nor Marti.’ I wished Marti could have left her hand there, cool on my face. But I was amazed she’d touched me at all. Suddenly this evening I felt so dirty. It seemed like weeks since I’d showered. A few times I’d used Marti’s sliver of soap to wash my hands over the drinking fountain. That was all. Now there was fish to add to the smoky, soupy smell that rose off my clothes.

  Without a frying pan we’d gone with Disco’s brilliant idea of wrapping the fish in wet newspaper (the small community paper flogged from Dressing Gown’s letterbox; it was free, Marti argued, so it didn’t count as stealing). Except the paper didn’t stay wet and once it had burned up and the fire had burned out we were left with a mess of blackened, half-cooked fish. Too hungry to reject anything, we scooped at it with our fingers, peeling back the skin where we could, avoiding the too-pink, too-wet centre and the racks of bones. But the scales were everywhere; we must have looked as if we were doing a strange ritual afterwards as we peeled them off our lips and fingers, spat them out and flicked them from our clothes.

  Becka met us. She stepped from the shadows at the top of the steps as we approached the barracks, a shadow herself, with a black leather satchel slung on her back.

  ‘You guys have fish for dinner?’ she asked over her shoulder as she bounced away up and round the first corner. We bobbed along in her wake.

  ‘How did you know?’ Disco was genuinely curious.

  Becka swivelled her bag around to the front and pulled out a small bottle of Factor One. She swept up to Disco, pulled out the front of his sweatshirt and squirted it down his front. She buzzed the air as if we were flies, and laughed. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a shower where we’re going, as long as you tidy everything after you. It’ll help you stay awake, too.’

  I could see Marti wasn’t coping so well this evening with Becka-as-boss. Her mouth was pursed up small. When she thought no-one was looking, she sniffed her hands and sleeves.

  Becka led us round behind Girls’ High. ‘Let me go ahead for a minute, then follow me.’ She sailed away down the side path of a gray art deco house perched above a gully.

  ‘We can’t smell that bad, can we?’ said Disco.

  ‘Man, you smell bad all right,’ I said. ‘Like a perfume explosion in a fish-cake factory.’

  Disco flapped at his sweatshirt and rubbed his chest. ‘Marti?’ he asked.

  ‘There are worse things to worry about than how we smell,’ she said, ‘but I can’t think of any right now. Except I reckon we should run through Grandma’s Attic before we go cramming more names in.’

  ‘… the burping madonna; the wrong shoe …’ Disco was reeling off the list as we started down the concrete path,

  ‘Wait. Mary Belcher. What’s the next one?’ I asked.

  ‘Arthur Foote.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Arthur … other …’

  ‘Shhhh.’ Marti held up her finger at us. There were voices just through the hedge. We stopped dead and listened.

  ‘I put it off — all the fuss the teens are making, I thought it must really hurt. But I’m so relieved it’s done now. It was no worse than having a drop of blood taken.’

  ‘And it doesn’t look all that bad, the nu-skin. Matt wants to get his tattooed. You’re allowed as long as you don’t mess up the edge where they put the drugs in.’

  ‘Drugs? Oh, you mean the balancing substances. Calibration.’

  ‘Whatever. We decided to get that done right away and I feel good. Slept better last night than I have in years. No dreams for a change. Matt hasn’t so much as snapped at me since he got his.’

  I whispered to the others, ‘Yeah, but he might not laugh either, or cry.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Marti asked.

  ‘Might be. And no dreams, she said. What if that’s a side effect too?’

  ‘Who needs dreams,’ said Disco, running his thumb round the brass 23 on the door. ‘They just mess up a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘But you can get really good ideas out of dreams,’ I said. ‘Do things you’d never manage in real life.’

  Marti put her finger to her lips and shushed us.

  Suddenly the door opened a crack. ‘Come in if no-one can see you,’ Becka said quietly.

  We glanced up the path to the street and went inside.

  ‘Wow.’ We didn’t have to be told to shuck off our shoes on the square of polished parquet. We stared around the room with its deep, cream carpet and white leather sofas. Disco reached to touch the glass sculpture of two birds, a red and a blue one, taking off.

  ‘Never seen so many pictures in one room.’ Marti stood in front of an old-fashioned girl kneeling by a river, tickling for fish maybe, while a man watched from the trees.

  ‘You’ll have time later to look around.’ Becka was opening an envelope, glancing at the hand-written note inside. ‘I can’t stay so I need to show you the ropes now. I’ll be back in the morning. Come through to the study.’

  ‘Whose house?’ Marti voiced the unease we all felt. Had Becka broken in here or what? You could tell it wasn’t the kind of place where a kid like her — any kid — had grown up.

  ‘Let’s just say it’s my uncle’s. I study here. Too many people at my place.’ She turned and grinned, deepening the mystery.

  The study was like no room I’d ever been in. Its curved glass wall was suspended over the bush-filled gully and the kidney-shaped desk with its two flat-screen computers seemed about to fly off into the dark. The other two walls were top-to-toe with books and DVDs.

  ‘Obviously you need to work flat out,’ said Becka. ‘We’ve heard all Internet activity will be ID-dependent from nine a.m. tomorrow. It’s much more dangerous to get info after that.’ She touched the two screens which hummed to life.

  ‘What’s the point of memorising? And why can’t we just write it all down?’ said Disco. ‘If they can’t find us, they can’t find the paper we’ve written on.’

  Becka stared at him. ‘Think how you’d feel if you put yourself at risk by helping abstainers, only to be caught because someone got careless with a piece of paper. This is about covering every track behind us. Nothing is to go in writing.’

  Disco shoved his hands way down in his pockets and wiped his grubby sock over the floorboards.

  ‘None of us has the right to be lazy or selfish with anything that could help. Last year, last month we could get away with it, but not now.’

  I stared back at our pale-faced, purple-lipped dictator. She went to the door. ‘If you want to shower, start soon. I’ve put towels and dressing gowns in the bathroom. Clean up after you.’ Becka was floating through the house in her socked feet, drawing us after her. ‘Put your clothes and towels through the wash and drier in here, but have it all done by eight, okay? I’ll be back then. This is the only light you can safely leave on once it’s dark. I’ve put candles in the bathroom and laundry, and on the kitchen bench. But keep to one per room, okay? There’s food on the bench you can have, make a cup of coffee, whatever.’

  ‘I need to ring my parents,’ said Marti.

  Becka bit her lip a moment. ‘Better use my cell phone. It’s a special untrackable one.’

  She looked again at her letter while Marti made her call from another room. ‘Okay?’ she asked when she’d finished.

  Marti nodded. ‘Yeah, they’re cool. More or less. Not really, but …’

  Becka was hoisting her satchel, backing out the door. ‘Don’t answer this phone if it rings.’ She blew us a kiss and was gone.

  ‘Man, how did we get ourselves into this?’ I asked. ‘She had stuff written down on that letter. One rule for her, another one for us. Talk about bossy.’

  ‘She isn’t at all. That’s the thing.’ Marti was pulling off her coat, sniffing her jersey, heading for the shower already. ‘She just assumes everyone’s going to play their part. And there’s perks.
’ She grinned. ‘Soap, hot water, here I come!’

  Disco and I sat at the computers, our grubbiness made grosser in this immaculate office. We heard the thump, splash of Marti’s shower starting up.

  ‘I don’t feel like doing this.’ Disco’s face sank onto his hand. ‘Don’t you hate people who are so good they make you feel really bad?’

  ‘Becka? Yeah.’ I was still struggling. I wanted to be the one swinging a satchel, marching into posh houses, telling people what to do — without even seeming to.

  ‘But you’re pretty good, Disco,’ I said, and I meant it.

  ‘Oh yes, so I am. I clean forgot. I am good, so veryvery good.’ Disco sat up with his knees pressed together, his mouth like a buttonhole. His hands pecked like beaks at the keyboard. ‘I am neat and sweet and I point all my fingers and toes.’

  I slid into the seat beside his and we became two prim ladies tip-tapping away, giggling, cackling, laughing so hard we cried, delving from website to website, link to link, making another list:

  ‘Eugene Shaw, Elgin Road.’

  ‘Oh, I know, my de-ah,’ Disco waved a circle in the air and spat the words out like tiny pips. ‘That’s Bottle Beach, Marbles in a Dinghy.’

  ‘Eh?’ I couldn’t keep up with him at this game.

  ‘Not eh.’ Disco peered at me over imaginary glasses. ‘Say what. You genie in a bottle … shore … beach. Haven’t you heard of the Elgin marbles, my de-ah? Being rowed away? Tee-hee.’

  I groaned and silently admired and gave him another name to work on.

  ‘Ta-da! Clean!’ Marti stood between us, hugged up in a huge pale pink bathrobe, wet hair falling round her face. In the movies, someone looking that good always gets kissed — or more. I could hardly stand it.

  ‘I’ve left the candle on in there.’

  ‘You next, Dek, ya horrible stinky cheese man.’ Disco nodded at the door. His face was suddenly flushed and he rattled his fingers over the keys like a demented pianist.

  The shower was ten minutes in paradise. I’m usually so busy thinking about something else I hardly notice what I’m doing, but this time in the candle glow, I experienced the hot water sluicing twigs and dirt from my hair, peeling scales and grime from my neck and wrists, stinging my scratched legs, smooching round my feet. The soap had grit in it that made your skin tingle, the shampoo smelled like something good for pudding as it puffed up like pavlova mix on your head. In the violet bathrobe I felt like brand new.

  We were a good team, lined up like three marshmallows at the desk. I followed the trail of sites through the computer; Marti copied me on the other keyboard so if one of us missed a page or got off-track we didn’t lose our place. Disco was even sharper and wackier after his shower, belting out similes and acronyms like he was skipping a fast rope.

  ‘Ducksworth!’

  ‘Explain,’ said Marti.

  ‘D-U-C: Down-under Café, beneath S for Southern Jewellers, that’s worth a lot, if you still don’t get it. Same address so that’s two ducks with one little stone.’

  ‘Look at him,’ Marti laughed. ‘He’s a maniac!’

  Disco’s red hair had dried in great sticking-up tufts. His yellow gown over huge bare feet made him look like a mad hospital patient.

  Marti was our memoriser extraordinaire. She managed to slot each name into its alphabetical place as it came off the screen, then every half hour she made us chant through the whole growing list. We stopped around three for toast and jam made with fat whole strawberries. We cut into a cheese that was as hard and dry as laundry soap, but tasted like nuts. Then we didn’t mind getting on with the job; staying awake all night seemed to take us into another dimension of our minds. We competed and found ways to help each other. We packed our memories full like big leather suitcases …

  … that were clipped shut and strapped down by the time Becka let herself back into the house.

  We’d noticed through the window the leaves becoming distinct in their fifty shapes and shades of green while the birds sang all about it. My head was swimming when finally I reached a website with no links; I backtracked a few and found we’d explored every option, opened every site we could. We had Dunedin sussed — as long as we could open those suitcases and find the names when we needed them. We took our clothes, still warm, out of the drier and dressed as our real selves again.

  Becka swept round the house, opening curtains and windows as if she lived here. Who knew, maybe she did. She dumped bananas and a bag of hot hash browns on the bench. ‘Help yourselves, then go and sleep — if you can with the light coming in. I will too.’

  ‘What have you been doing all night?’ Marti looked directly at her, the only one of us who didn’t flinch under Becka’s blackbird eye.

  ‘Well, I know where a lot of the kids are sleeping so I went round finding who needs help, running messages, sorting out some anxious parents.’

  ‘You talked to them?’ asked Marti.

  ‘A couple. The rest I left notes.’

  Becka’s black leggings were spattered with dirt, old leaves and twigs. A tiny yellow caterpillar was waving out from her thigh, groping for the hem of her skirt. She saw me looking and eased it onto her finger where it looped into a circle. ‘But we’ll eat then sleep now, eh? More talk later and, Marti, I’ll get you to come and help deal with the wrists, thanks for the offer. Disco, we’ll get you over to the Andy Bay Endorsement station — looking out for kids who want to change their minds.’ Becka tore open the oily bag and poured orange juice from the fridge. She wrote ‘juice’ and ‘rye bread’ in square letters on the shopping list under somebody else’s writing.

  I wondered what Becka had in mind for me, but I wasn’t going to ask and put myself at her disposal.

  ‘There’s no point going to sleep, is there?’ Disco said through a mouthful. ‘We’ll have to go and get food in an hour or two.’

  Marti rolled her eyes and went on trying to peel the crispy skin off her hash brown. Disco helped himself to her scraps.

  ‘Don’t worry about it today,’ said Becka. ‘I’ll make sure you get another feed before we go out.’

  I wondered where from. I couldn’t imagine this girl rubbing her nose outside a seedy café, hiding in the bushes to eat from a greasy shoebox. Dad had said that besides the feeding network, within a few days of Endorsement, there would be a thriving black market — guaranteed. Trust Becka to be one step ahead of us.

  I slept on one of the white sofas while the others found beds. I rolled myself in the lavender bathrobe and pulled a floppy cushion over my head to keep out the light. I dreamt that my parents returned, proudly waving something at me from the aircraft steps. When they came close I could see the multicoloured tubing, like thick electrical wires, sprouting from grotesque craters in their wrists. I woke feeling sick — but that might have been because a white, long-haired cat with a squashed-in brown face had come and settled itself on my stomach.

  DISCO HAD GONE by the time I woke, Becka having arranged for someone to drive him ‘to work’.

  ‘Derik, you’ll have to be out of here by one.’ Becka and Marti were ready to go too. Marti at least looked apologetic but no-one was saying when or where we’d meet up again. And no-one was telling me what I was supposed to do all day. ‘Just deadlock the door behind you. The cat’s got its own flap, and I’ve got the key.’ Becka tossed and caught it and they were gone.

  I felt revolting: not enough sleep, the sun hurting my eyes, and when I sat up the cat draped itself round my neck like a collar. It purred and dribbled down my chest. I almost dribbled too then. Cried, I mean. Damn Becka, hauling away my two buddies like she had the right to everything.

  I’d lost track of time. Would my mother be home in a day or two or next week? Ever? I thought of the students filling our house with their fatty plates and smelly bedding, inviting their friends in and flashing their nu-skin at each other. I was sick of everything. I wanted my own place, my own family, my own old friends — things the way they used to be.

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sp; I wondered if Pops had made Gran join up yet. I needed to ring them and check my sisters were okay. The idea that I could go and crash there flitted in and out of my head. Too bad if phones were being tapped. I’d be ready to step out of here the second I’d finished the call and I was mad enough at Becka not to care if they caught her.

  First I unhooked the cat, folded the robe back in the bathroom, drank a glass of orange juice and rinsed the glass. I dropped into my backpack the banana with ‘Dek’ on it in black felt pen.

  ‘Gran?’ I stopped breathing so I could hear her voice exactly.

  ‘Derik, is that you? Where are you, dear? I’ve rung your place but the students said you’d come to me.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t get done!’ I almost cried again in relief, hearing all the tones in her voice: worry, warmth, the something that told you she was smiling.

  ‘You bet your bottom boots, I didn’t! The girls and I have hidden away twice when the officer turned up with his list. And I’ve taken Brian’s car keys and locked him in the shed a couple of times when he’s talked about taking me to get done. But I’m sure it’ll wear off soon, won’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know how soon. Are Ella and Caro okay?’

  ‘Of course. Apart from being a big help to me, they’ve expanded their city and are trying out a whole new government system, bless their cotton singlets. Your Pops can hardly stand it but I don’t think he’s quite sure why. It’s very odd. Anyway, darling, where are you? Can you tell me?’

  ‘Not really, but I’m okay. There are lots of us sticking together.’ I rolled my eyes at the silent room. ‘And Mum’s coming home soon.’

  ‘Yes, we had an e-mail but Ella tells me we can’t use it now without an Endorsement code so I’m a bit wary.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ I traced a parquet trail with my toe. What a hopeless way to live — cut off from my family, not sure if it was safe to visit my own grandparents, nor whether my parents’ return would improve anything, except that I’d be able to dump this heavy, responsible feeling. I glanced at the clock. Five to.