Box Page 5

  ‘Let’s go then.’ Food to Disco was like high octane fuel. He took the shallow steps four at a jump, double-footed. It was horrible to watch, the way his arms flung out, and his legs in mid-flight, but they always came back together and he didn’t miss once. Down on the street, Marti danced along beside him, leaping to keep up. Tagging behind, I noticed her slip something into a kerbside bin. I wish I’d skipped the nosy gene, but no, I had to look. And nearly gagged again. It was one of those crass rags, rolled up, but bled right through. How long did menstruation last? I couldn’t remember. But it didn’t seem fair that Marti should have to use car-cleaning, floor-wiping rags. Imagine walking around with those stuffed in your undies.

  At the library I split. I even handed over an Internet card so they could chase sites. ‘Meet you back here in fifteen,’ I said.

  I pulled my hood up, kept my eyes down. But I still felt like a worm sneaking across a lawn, waiting to be thrush-stabbed by anyone who knew me. George Street was really quiet though. Only ‘essential services’ were operating during Endorsement, but J-Mart was allowed to stay open. From the elevator I looked around. There was an old couple down there, and three teenagers comparing nu-skin, but it looked as if the security guards were keeping people moving. Most of the mall was shut behind iron grills. Just the chemist and the postal part of the bookshop were open.

  In J-mart no-one was wandering aimlessly because there was a woman at the entrance asking what you wanted, telling you exactly where to find it and to be quick please. ‘First aisle on the right, just past the buckets,’ she said to the man ahead of me.

  I had to think fast. My heart was already banging like a meat mallet.

  ‘Face stuff for my mother.’ My thirsty mouth was paper-dry.

  ‘Stuff? Like cream you mean?’

  ‘That’s it.’ I showed her my teeth. It was meant to be a smile.

  All the woman things were really near the entrance. I scanned the hair dye, false eyelashes, sunscreens.

  ‘The other side of that row.’ The commandant’s eyes burned my face.

  I sidled round and picked up this pot and that. I was so scared I couldn’t make sense of the labels: Eye Food, Nutrigessence … Exfoliate … wasn’t that what trees did? I kept my eyes sliding along the shelves. But I couldn’t see what I was looking for.

  ‘Do you know what brand?’ My ‘helper’ was at my side. Her face was thick pink powder. What did women think that stuff did for them?

  I thought of the name. It was time to play it straight. ‘I really wanted sanitary products.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ She tossed her head. ‘Boys. See the sign? Women’s Hygiene.’ She trotted back to her post.

  Phew. I had the aisle to myself but it wasn’t that simple to choose out of Maxi-Pads, Mini-Shields, Safe on a G-String, Big Day Out, All-Night with Wings. Yikes. And I still hadn’t figured how to hide them.

  I snatched a middle-sized package, without looking at the name, and slid it over my shoulder into the hood. Hoped my neck was wide enough to hide it. I pulled the drawstring tight.

  ‘Found what you wanted?’

  ‘Yeah, but I just remembered — I haven’t got Endorsed yet so I can’t have them, can I?’ It didn’t make sense, this compulsion to tell the truth while I was busy stealing. But all along, I figured I’d tell my parents later. Then they could pay — somehow — for what I’d taken. Call it borrowing in the meantime.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing here then? Empty your pockets, please.’ She pressed the pager on her belt.

  I pulled out a couple of long, flat stones, a green acorn, bunch of toilet paper, my old two cent piece, and started groping in my trousers. Oh no, the bread was still in my back pocket. I dangled that bag at her. It quivered. All this I did, trying to keep my head straight so the ‘sanitary products’ wouldn’t rustle.

  The commandant kept looking round for whoever she’d paged but after half a minute, watching me stuff everything back in and smooth my hands down my front, she ran her own over the top of my pants at the back and said, ‘You’re a pest, now get yourself down to the town hall and stop wasting my time.’

  ‘Yeah, I should.’ I walked carefully away, keeping my head tilted back. I ran down the elevator and into the toilets where I drank about a litre of water and refilled my bottle. Safe as Houses Panty-pads, said the packet I tore open so I could spread the things through my pockets. Shivers. Was Marti going to thank me for this?

  I found her and Disco hunched over a screen. I didn’t like the way Marti’s elbow was hanging off his shoulder. ‘Watcha found?’ I asked.

  Marti turned round, pulling a face. ‘Checking our e-mails. But it says from the end of this week e-mail’s going to be available only to endorsed people. They’re going through every server, every address to check who they belong to. Under-eighteens have to use their parents’ addresses.’

  She should have just sluiced me with a cold hose. My parents. I hadn’t heard from them yet. I pulled out the other card and sat at the adjacent computer. I jabbed my way into my mailbox.

  ‘Yes!’ There was one. From lovedoves@readygo.net.nz.

  ‘Lovedoves? That’s cute.’ Marti was standing behind me. ‘Sorry, I kind of saw it without meaning to.’

  I blushed. ‘It’s our surname. Love.’

  ‘True? That’s neat.’

  Neat for a girl maybe. I always deepened my voice when I had to say my full name.

  Marti wandered off. Subject: Guten Tag. I double-clicked.

  Darling Love, fishing so early in the season? We heard it had started. Are they feeding you all right? And the others? I hope Pops takes well to his new medication. Are the girls behaving? We heard The Flight of the Bumblebee the other day. You should listen to it again. Your cardboard cut-out sounds novel but do you keep it in a safe place?

  We are doing WELL. We find everyone is fascinated with New Zealand.

  I’m going to come home early, before Dad. Tell you when next time.

  Send word while you can.

  Your Loving parents.

  I leaned in and touched the screen. The words were so small and brittle.

  But at least they were still out there somewhere. I pressed Reply. I had to make it snappy or we’d have to pinch another card. I’d done enough stealing for one day.

  Dear Mum and Dad, plenty of food for three of us now. Maybe I’ll visit G and P.

  What did she mean about The Bumblebee? My piano teacher had played it at his end-of-year concert. I’d never seen anyone’s fingers flying so fast over the keys. All of us were gaping. Did Mum mean there was some message in the music? Or did she just mean I should go and visit Mr Nemeyeva — as well as my grandparents, to check on the girls? Mum was scared her parents would lose the plot once calibration started.

  I wrote, Hope you can come home soon. Like a little kid I wanted to add, Hurry, hurry, I can’t wait. But instead I said I was doing fine and not to worry.

  Marti was looking at me sympathetically. ‘Okay?’

  I scraped the chair back and nodded. Sometimes it’s easier when people don’t show their concern. ‘Couple of things I have to do. Visit my grandparents. Except it’s a long way to walk, Mosgiel.’

  Disco tapped his teeth with a pen, then made a wide grimace and ran it over them like a stick along a paling fence. ‘Give me half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’ll figure something out.’

  ‘Meanwhile let’s get that thing out of your arm,’ said Marti, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder.

  ‘What about the tide chart?’ I asked.

  ‘Right here.’ Disco patted the backpack. ‘The bad news is there’s no feed-out till eight fifty-one tomorrow.’

  We walked three-abreast down the library steps. ‘I’ve got sausages for tonight,’ I said. ‘We can make a fire once it’s dark.’

  It was hot walking back up to the school. The wind had dropped and the afternoon sun was full in our faces. When we’d checked the playground was empty, Marti made Disco go in the bike shed. ‘
Sit on the carrier here and rest your arm up on the seat.’

  There was one old bike that looked like it’d been parked there for a hundred years, locked with a huge rusted chain, tyres squashed and split.

  ‘I’m gonna wash your tools in my earring solution,’ Marti said, matter-of-factly. ‘I got one done last week.’ She lifted the hair over the ear with the ruby stud at the top.

  ‘I’ll watch Dek entertaining me,’ said Disco, ‘else I’ll probably flake out, or scream. Do me a handstand, Derik.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ said Marti. ‘I’ll need him.’

  When she’d cleaned everything and tied the hair back off her face and washed her hands in the drinking fountain, Marti braced her foot in the V of the bike frame.

  I got to hang over the handlebars and hold Disco’s hand so he couldn’t flinch.

  ‘Hey, Derik, lean away. You’re blocking the light.’ Marti hunched over Disco’s wrist and began to peel back the loose flap of skin. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t help it.

  ‘Derik, you’ll have to hold the corner back,’ she said.

  She’d peeled back a triangle so it lay like a folded napkin. I went to put the tip of my finger on the corner.

  ‘Uh! Don’t. Your hand’s filthy.’ She pressed a folded piece of toilet paper onto the corner and let me put my finger on that.

  Disco was humming, not a tune, more a grinding chant to help keep his mind up in the trees where he was staring.

  Up close, I heard the sickening tiny click of metal on something hard: Marti touching the tweezers to the wand. Sweat sprang like dew on her lip and nose.

  ‘It’s really tough,’ she muttered. ‘Quite long, I think.’

  ‘Just pull it hard,’ said Disco.

  ‘I’m scared it’ll snap. I might have to cut a bit more old — I mean real — skin away.’

  ‘If you have to, just do it.’

  Marti wiped her forearm over her face and picked up the Stanley knife from the sheet of toilet paper.

  Blood, black as tar, sprang where she cut. Disco didn’t budge but our clenched hands were suddenly slippery. My back turned clammy.

  Marti wiped her face again. ‘I don’t like mopping with this toilet paper. Leaves fibres.’ She dabbed at the trickle running off Disco’s skin. ‘But I have to mop right in the cut or I can’t see what I’m doing.’

  ‘I know.’ I felt my face turn fiery as I fished from my sweatshirt pocket one individually wrapped Safe as Houses Panty-pad.

  ‘Omigawd. You’re a loony, Dek.’ Disco sucked in through his teeth and fixed his eyes back in the sky.

  Marti looked at me hard and made a tiny shake of her head. ‘Okay, so it’s perfect. Just don’t tell me where you got it.’ She shucked off the plastic wrapper with her teeth and I watched the miracle of blood being smooched up out of the wound, leaving, just for a moment, pink flesh. Then the black plum colour welled back in.

  ‘Derik, you’ll have to dab every couple of seconds.’

  So with one hand clutching Disco’s sweaty hand, the other one behaving like a terrified nurse’s, I watched that incredible girl called Marti make a couple more nicks, grasp the wand and ease out the long fibre that connected Disco to the National Monitor.

  That was the moment Disco and I fell in love. And I don’t mean with each other.

  Disco also fainted and fell off the bike, pulling me after him, flecking me and Marti with blood in a long red streak across our trousers.

  ‘Yeah, I got it.’ Disco’s eyes snapped open. I’d done the wetrag, face-slap, wake up, man routine while Marti pressed another Panty-pad to Disco’s wrist and tied it with a couple of shredded rags.

  ‘Got what?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, take that thing off my face! I figured how we get to Mosgiel.’ He lurched up to a sit. ‘We turn the operating table into a triple tandem.’

  I kicked at the tyre and made it crunch like no rubber ever crunched.

  ‘Nah, kidding. But my uncle does a bakery run out there twice a day. Pies, around four o’clock. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, stowing away …’ Disco looked at his wrist, at the pile of bloody wadding on the asphalt. He sank back down.

  ‘Man, he’s out cold again.’ I touched his face with the wet cloth. No response.

  ‘Let’s roll him on his side and stick a jacket under his head. He’s had a shock.’ While we watched him, Marti nodded at the pile of Panty-pads I’d put on her backpack. She blushed. ‘Where’d these come from?’

  I couldn’t look at her. ‘Pinched.’

  She shook her head. ‘Interfering.’ She thrust them into the bag. ‘But they’ll help. I didn’t know it’d be this … icky. Or sore. Have you got any more pills?’ She squatted to ease Disco’s string of treasures back over his head.

  Disco woke a second time, groggy as, but keen to try his uncle’s truck. Marti told us she wanted to stay while we went to Mosgiel. ‘I’ll hang out here, get a fire going, just up near the food tree, okay?’

  So Disco and I set out again. The streets were still quiet and I was alert, checking around constantly for officials looking for a chance to swoop on kids like us.

  Disco was pretty quiet on the half hour walk, touching his wrist, checking for blood, but he’d figured out exactly what we needed to do. ‘Great timing,’ he said, pointing out the Longlands Bakery sign ahead. ‘That’s our van, the red one. Soon as they’ve loaded the first stack, we leap in and get behind it.’ He jumped a chain-link fence and led us in a crouch through the used-car yard, pausing to stare through shiny windows at the adjacent bakery.

  ‘Couldn’t you just ask for a ride?’ I said. Today had been about a year long already. Everything had felt so tricky, it’d be so nice just to sit up in a warm cab and switch off. On the other hand, being half-buried by pies and bread couldn’t be all bad.

  ‘Uncle Bob’s not actually the boss. He used to drive this trip but he’s in the office now. They’re not supposed to take passengers and he’s the sort of guy who takes it seriously. You can bet if he sees me he’ll want to know exactly what I’m up to.’

  ‘Won’t your parents be wondering the same thing?’

  ‘Dad. Not yet. I told him I’d go home with Jarrod after Endorsement. You know him? But he didn’t even turn up.’ Disco bobbed down to check in the mirror of a red Saab. He spat on his fingers and tugged at his cowlick. ‘Dek, I thought we were mates. You never told me I was this ugly.’ He stood up with his lopsided grin, then he looked towards the bakery and his face set. ‘Now! Go-go-go!’

  We sprinted. Leaped the chain fence, ran, dodged, leaped again and there we were, inside the van.

  ‘Hey, these are frozen.’ Lying flat on the boards, heart squeezing hard, as if the blood was all banked up, I could feel the cold coming in waves off the boxes beside me. I rolled hard against them while Disco reached to re-stack the pile we’d clambered over.

  ‘Maybe they couldn’t make fresh ones today. Most people had to stay home, even bakers.’ He squashed in beside me and scrunched down low.

  The van suddenly bounced as someone stepped into it. A shadow fell over us. ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake. Call that hiding?’

  We couldn’t bring ourselves to look at the voice. A young man’s. There was silence for about fifteen seconds then he said, ‘I haven’t seen you but when we get to Mosgiel there’s something I have to do so you can unload this lot double quick — before I get back. Soon as we pull up. Then scram. Got it?’

  ‘Good plan, Disco,’ I said as boxes and red plastic crates shot across the floor at us, and were piled high, blocking the light. The doors slammed and we were off.

  ‘OI, I’VE LOST IT. Help, Derik, you’ve got the fork.’

  Disco’s sausage spat and flamed on the bed of embers. I wrapped the piece of bent wire in my cuff and stabbed. The rescued sausage made a red slice in the dark. I lifted it high and wrote, hey! against the leaves and stars then dropped it onto Disco’s piece of newspaper. ‘Have some charcoal.’

  ‘Thank you Goddess for this f
ood. Make us wise and make us good.’ Disco’s spit sizzled as he bit into it.

  Across from me Marti blinked at him then carried on laying a hatchwork of sticks over the fire. They smoked and sighed then flared up. ‘So, tell me how it went.’

  ‘Fast,’ Disco said between bites.

  ‘Frozen,’ I added.

  ‘Frustrating.’ Disco.

  ‘Fruitless.’

  ‘Free — and filthy.’

  ‘And finally … freaky.’ Disco and I rolled together, laughing.

  Marti tutted and sighed. ‘Come on, guys. Fair’s fair.’

  We groaned.

  ‘Come on, I’ve been sitting in the dark wondering if I’d seen the last of you. While you’ve obviously been having a hilarious time.’ She threw a thick branch on. ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about me.’

  That pulled us together. Disco glanced at me and began. ‘We caught the bread truck.’

  ‘And the bread truck caught us.’

  ‘Yeah. We weren’t that good at hiding. That was the fast frozen part. He was a maniac driver but at least it didn’t take long.’

  ‘Then he made us unload the whole thousand pies and loaves at Mosgiel.’

  Disco swallowed the last bit of sausage. His lips were black in the firelight. ‘But from there we walked to Derik’s grandparents’. That was the bit Dek found freaky.’

  Marti looked at me, head to one side.

  I said, ‘Did you know, a few people have done stage one and stage two, got endorsed and calibrated at the same time — if they wanted to? Most wait a week but Pops wanted to know right from the start what it would be like.’

  ‘And?’ Marti leaned forwards, spreading her hands against the fire.

  ‘Well, my gran was normal, like usual. And my sisters were fine.’ I gulped.

  I’d got a lump in my throat there, too, seeing Caro and Ella hunched at the computer, chattering over Sim City; their lives were going on as if nothing had changed. ‘It’s just another holiday for them,’ I said.

  ‘But your granddad,’ Disco prompted.

  ‘Yeah, he’d gone kind of … not exactly like a zombie, but … sort of ironed-out.’ I couldn’t think how else to put it. Pops usually cracks jokes, teases, pretends he’s going to cry. He gets irritated with my grandmother, then a minute later kisses her or pokes a flower in her hair. It’s never dull, seeing them together. If you had to graph Pops’s emotions they’d show permanent seismic activity. Until today.