Box Page 8

  I found one and trotted and slithered along, stopping now and then to listen. A couple of times I thought I saw movement — once a flash of dark blue — but I wasn’t completely sure. I crossed streets, cheated with a bit of road walking, then headed back into the trees. I came upon little pockets of scented air like a paper trail: a boys’ locker-room smell, one like cheap aftershave, one that smelt more like girls’ deodorant. I wondered if living outside made your nose more sensitive to the smells that are usually so crammed into every house that you don’t notice them.

  Then up ahead was the girl I’d seen fixing her lace. She was doing it again, one foot on a fallen log. She didn’t move until I was right behind her.

  ‘Did you know flat laces don’t come undone the way round laces do?’

  ‘Is that so?’ She stood up and turned round. Her spiked black hair was streaked with blue, her face was white but her eyebrows and lashes were as dark as her hair. She was small and slim but the bulldog studs on her belt, wrist straps, and the tops of her boots let you know she was the sort of girl you didn’t try and tell how to wear her shoe laces.

  But she didn’t seem to mind. ‘Remind me to hammer them flat when we catch up with the others. You on your way to the meeting?’

  ‘Mee …?’ I didn’t say it. I said, ‘You bet. I’m right behind you.’ And I was, but I was raging inside as I clambered after her. What meeting was this and who’d set it up?

  ‘Mind the blackberry!’ the girl called out. She was way ahead. Just because she wore a short skirt and stockings (or they might have been black polyprops) didn’t mean she couldn’t hoof it. She climbed easily, silently, and stopped at the top of a rise to look around. ‘Becka, by the way.’ Her dark blue nails, black half-gloves and all the gear made her look mean but she had nice eyes.

  ‘Derik,’ I said, smiling. It might be fun, after all, turning up on the others with Becka beside me. ‘You know how to get there?’ I tested her.

  She looked hard at me a moment. ‘I reckon. You go first though, eh?’

  I should have kept my mouth shut. I went the way she’d just glanced and pretty soon I was back on those little pockets of smell — cigarette smoke now too. Then suddenly we ran out of ground. We were on the edge of a landslip where below us yellow mud curtained a theatre of empty air. On the far side upended trees had crashed like pickup-sticks into a heap. I scanned the mud. There were no footprints that I could see, but the slip wasn’t so fresh it’d just happened; you could see where the rain had smoothed off the surface. I could skirt it above or below. I glanced at Becka. She looked suddenly bored, like she didn’t have a thought in her head.

  ‘Down, d’you reckon?’ I said.

  Becka snapped to full alert. ‘You haven’t got a clue where you’re going have you?’

  I sucked in through my teeth. She was right of course and it occurred to me for the first time that this could be some kind of trap. I’d just assumed the meeting was for abstainers. What if it was for something else completely?

  I decided to keep bluffing. I’d make for the tree heap. ‘Let’s slide, eh? I strode out onto the mud, set the edge of my shoes into it and slid down and across. It clutched like dough onto my soles, but barely slowed me. I ran to keep up with my falling body — down, across — and every step skidded from under me. With two final giant leaps, I threw myself into the mass of wet, dying leaves at the end of a fallen tree.

  The landing was soft enough. I stood up in the waist-deep green and wiped my face. I heard a catcall and the slow clap of a dozen hands. When I looked up, there was Becka picking her way nimbly down the now-so-obvious track on the very edge of the slip. She shook her head at me.

  The clapping came from inside the tangle of trees and I picked out first one face, then another, then another: a whole bunch of guys and girls perched, squatting, lounging amongst the branches. Someone whistled and there was Disco nodding and grinning, still clapping.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I hunkered down beside him and sneaked a look around for Marti. I couldn’t see her.

  ‘Big meeting. A hundred or more, apparently.’ He handed me a stick of chewing gum. ‘I did my first trade. These for a mandarin from home.’

  There were voices coming from all over now. Heads appeared above us at the top of the slip, others were picking their way through the debris towards our cluster.

  Who’d organised it? I wondered again. What could they know, anyway. Whoever it was, I probably knew more. I’d just wait till the cracks appeared in their story then I’d quietly fill them in. I took out my bottle and drank.

  Everyone was drawing closer, clambering over branches, crawling under them. I saw a few faces from school but none I knew well. Everyone seemed to be about year nine to eleven — no-one older, though with girls it’s hard to tell. A few of the guys looked younger. A couple of them dragged logs together, laid branches between them, then sticks and ferns on top to make a kind of platform. They retreated into the crowd and sat, facing the ‘stage’. Who was it for?

  People fell silent. I looked again for Marti. When I saw her my ears began to burn. She was squeezed between two guys on a fallen log and one of them was teasing a twig from her hair. The only thing that stopped me getting up and leaving was her impatient swipe at his hand, the way she flung the stick away and pulled her jacket close around her. But what chance did I have when she was such a boy-magnet?

  I spat Disco’s chewing gum away and fixed my eyes ahead like everyone else was doing. Someone was coming up behind us. Kids twisted away to make room; branches jostled and bounced. Disco almost toppled me, leaning back, tucking in his legs like we were in the movie theatre. Someone was brushing past us, touching my shoulder, sweeping through the foliage with her black leggings.

  Becka stepped onto the platform, found firm places for her feet, tugged at her gloves. Then she looked up and took us all in. She seemed to fix briefly on each kid, as if she was counting, assessing, communicating with each. But it took her only seconds. This girl had power. I’d expected a guy to get up there, someone I could go head-to-head with if I had to. Becka was another kind of force altogether.

  Her voice was clear as water. ‘Apparently I’m wearing the wrong kind of shoe-laces today, but I hope that won’t stop you listening up.’

  She glanced at me as people muttered and looked down at their own shoes. Then their eyes snapped back to Becka. Even though she was holding a card, and reading from the inside, something about her poise and stance, the way she held her head and took us all in, had everyone riveted, in spite of the instinct alive in each of us to pull down anyone who put themselves out there like that. ‘Sorry I have to use notes here, but I don’t want to forget anything. Thanks for all coming, and especially those who’ve networked so hard to find fellow abstainers. Some of you have taken big risks, hanging out at Endorsement stations to make contacts, phoning round, taking responsibility for younger kids and the ones that’ve needed help getting here.’

  I followed the flick of her eyes and saw a girl in a neck brace, a boy with his leg in a half-plaster. I began to feel like a worm. It seemed like Marti, Disco and I had been playing, just having fun, while there were all these other serious abstainers out here. We’d hardly given a thought yet to other people. At least, I hadn’t.

  ‘But we can’t rest here,’ Becka was saying. ‘It’s imperative that we pull in every single abstaining, or yet-to-be endorsed college student. Tomorrow’s the government deadline to so-called ‘choose’. We need to step up our stake-out of Endorsement stations — here, in Mosgiel, at Anderson’s Bay, Waitati if we can, so no kid is left struggling on their own. If you want to be part of that operation see Michael after — stand up, Mike — see him up here later.’

  I glanced round at the guy in the red beanie, saw the rapt attention on every face. I was less than a worm. Nothing.

  Becka held the card in her teeth while she pulled off her gloves and stuck them in her belt. ‘Meanwhile every one of you please rake through your memory for al
l your friends, relatives our age, anyone turning thirteen soon. Make contact. Don’t assume someone’s done that already, and don’t assume just ’cause a person’s been done means they want to stay done. We’ve heard now of kids being strapped down, tranquillised, whatever it takes, and lots of those ones want to get rid of their wands. And we have to help them do that before their first stage two, or calibration.

  ‘We’ve got a medical team forming up now. We think we can remove the wands safely but want to hear from anyone with skills.’

  ‘That’ll be Marti,’ Disco said quietly. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hanging on every word. ‘This girl’s onto it, eh? Did you find out about her on the way here?’

  ‘Nah.’ I avoided his eyes. Of course I should have quizzed her, got the who, what and how. But I knew why I hadn’t. Because I hadn’t wanted to look stupid, to find out I knew less than she — or any kid — did, when it came to Endorsement.

  After a quick conference with Michael, Becka clapped a couple of times and everyone went silent again. I gritted my teeth.

  ‘Now, a major issue for us all. Food. You’ll get a chance soon to tell us how you’re getting on but first I’ll outline the basics for those who don’t know them yet. Since Internet communication is going to be too risky very soon, we’ve simplified things. For anyone’s first feed, they can find where to go by checking the bottom left of any Fresh ’n’ Fast notice board. We’ll have someone changing that first venue every couple of hours. Tell people not to linger when they look. It’ll be like an ad to eat there.’ I watched a group on the far edge. They were sneering among themselves, working hard not to look at Becka, not to be drawn in. But she only had to stop and stare to hook their faces back her way, scowling but silent.

  ‘Everyone needs to follow instructions from feeder to feeder. If any of you cheat and try to go back to a place you’ve already been, you’ll ruin it for us all. Don’t forget, people are risking their jobs, incomes and freedom to do this for us.

  ‘If you’re checking tide charts, keep it hidden. Don’t mess up that page or do what some fool did already, tear it out of the paper. Memorise everything. We can’t leave clues lying around.’ Becka moved and the branches beneath her slid apart. As she went down, her feet juggled, one hand touched the ground, the other grasped the air and instantly she was back upright. No-one had time even to laugh — only to blink and wonder if it had really happened.

  ‘Now, lots of you are worried about parents. See me if you’ve got urgent messages for them. Don’t carry or use phones — if you don’t know that already. I happen to know that police are reassuring parents that they’re onto us all. Endorsement officers are out looking for us already, mostly students wearing navy and white,’ — Disco nudged me — ‘and you can bet they’re being paid a bomb for every kid they bring in. They’ll really step it up from tomorrow.

  ‘Hideouts. We’re gonna get a team going who’ll be checking them out for safety, finding new ones. After today, hiding starts for real and this kind of big meeting is too risky except for an emergency. See Hamish there with the glasses to register your hideout, or if you think you should be part of his team.’

  There was plenty more: questions and answers; stuff about moving in small groups; keeping safe; where to find, and how to spread, information; how to get help from trustworthy adults in an emergency. And this was all by word of mouth or hidden messages. It seemed like none of my precious computer knowledge was any good any more — Becka and her mates had moved beyond that; they were setting new rules and, I had to admit, rolling with the changes.

  Finally Becka pulled a watch on a chain from her pocket and said, ‘Forty minutes to high tide so could those of you who know where you’re going move off in small groups in as many directions as possible. If you don’t know about feeding yet come and see Crystal— with the green jacket — by this log.’

  Suddenly Marti was between me and Disco, pulling us up, one on each arm. ‘Some lady, eh?’ she laughed. ‘She’s only a year older than me, believe it or not. Goes to my school.’

  I took a last admiring, envious glance at Becka as we threaded our way through the foliage, planning to circle towards the Tui Café.

  A piercing whistle stopped us in our tracks: Becka, with a red dog whistle between her teeth, was waving us back.

  When we reached her, she beckoned us a little way down the track.

  ‘You’re Derik Love, aren’t you?’ she fixed me with her dark brown eyes. ‘And your parents are in this deep, eh?’

  I waggled my head, feeling the colour rise in my face. So she knew.

  ‘You probably know computer systems are going to be tagged and used to hunt us, eh? We need all the information you can get, Derik.’ Becka explained how she wanted all the names of adults and venues sympathetic to abstainers. She knew a good number of them but needed all the Dunedin contacts.

  ‘You guys are valuable,’ she said, nodding, too, at Disco and Marti. ‘Can you get into a PC and between you memorise all the info? Before tomorrow when things’ll really crack down. Can you access one?’

  Disco, Marti and I looked at one another. I wondered how Becka knew about me and my parents, but the truth of her statements rolled aside the questions for now. As for finding a computer, my home seemed too dangerous, and the library would close at five.

  ‘You mustn’t use one in an abstainer’s home,’ Becka said. ‘Preferably somewhere neutral. Failing all else, we know of two or three empty places.’ She scanned our faces. ‘Do what you can this afternoon then be on the steps of the King Edward barracks at eight tonight. Don’t expect to get a lot of sleep.’

  I stared down at Becka’s muddy boots restlessly moving. For some reason I recalled Pops’s slippers, and the careful way he’d slid his feet in as he’d come in from the garden, then bent to flick from one a piece of fluff.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, as Becka turned to go. ‘Have you met any kids who’ve been calibrated yet?’

  She looked hard at me then Marti said, ‘It’s what you wonder every time you get hungry, or you want to go home — what it actually does to you.’

  ‘No-one our age has been calibrated yet — that starts in a few days — and only a few adults so far, but I’ve heard that they’ll get kind of … even. They’ll have enough hormones to get through the physical changes, but not enough to have mood swings and that.’

  ‘And that?’ said Marti. ‘And what exactly?’

  ‘Anger, strong sexual feelings, depression. Cynics say maybe even love.’

  Disco and I glanced at Marti. She was staring at Becka. But it was official between him and me and we both knew it. We’d die before we got endorsed.

  WE TOOK FOOD from the Tui Café back to ‘our place’. The playground felt too exposed so we dragged the box up into the trees. It was strangely soothing to spread the cardboard out flat on the leaves, to sit on it with the paper parcel open between us while Disco said,

  ‘Be present at our table, Lord,

  Be here and everywhere adored.

  These creatures bless, and grant that we may feast in paradise with thee.’

  ‘Creatures?’ I said. ‘You mean the animals in the food?’ Along with chips we had overcooked spring rolls and hot-dogs, meat patties, and dented pottles of tomato sauce.

  ‘Us, silly.’ Marti was unpicking the seam of a spring roll. ‘Funny how you could put the verb after the noun in the old days.’

  ‘Well, I reckon we’re feasting in paradise already.’ Disco had a spring roll in one hand, leaves in the other.

  ‘God, sorry to be ungrateful, but I need veges, fruit.’ Marti dropped her nibbled roll on the paper. ‘Real vegetables, not minced-up boiled cabbage.

  ‘Can I …?’ Disco poked the tail end of his roll into his mouth and reached for Marti’s. ‘While it’s warm.’

  ‘And the rest of mine, help yourself.’

  ‘You have to eat. Nothing else till ten tomorrow,’ I said. ‘And we’ll have a long night.’

 
She sniffed. ‘I’ll wrap up a pattie in case I’m starving but it’ll be gross cold. Look at that puddle of fat.’ Marti crossed her legs and dropped her head in her hands.

  Instantly I was planning another raid on home. I didn’t care if the tenants knew someone was pinching stuff; I’d empty the fruit bowl, check out Dad’s garden. Meanwhile there were carrots up in the tree, and apples. If Marti wanted fruit and veg, I was her man.

  Disco was groping through his sweatshirt pockets. He opened his hand and a mandarin wobbled across the cardboard and stopped by Marti’s knee. Her face lit up like a sunflower and I could’ve killed Disco.

  ‘So what information does Becka want, Derik?’ said Marti when the mandarin skin was a little pile beside her.

  ‘Names of all the feeders and sympathisers and their addresses, I guess.’

  ‘Whatsa matter?’ Disco snapped his empty hot-dog stick in half. ‘You look like she’s asked you to go off and knife them all.’ He broke the two pieces into four.

  ‘My parents and others spent ages sussing people out, getting them on their side, building up the networks, encoding everything on the computer.’ I peeled the batter off my hot-dog. The fat pink saveloy was embarrassing. I wasn’t very hungry either, but I tore off a piece and dunked it in sauce. ‘They made it all sweet-as so kids like Becka can survive the Endorsement regime, for weeks — maybe years if they have to.’

  ‘Cheers to them.’ Disco raised his water bottle.

  ‘Yeah, but where does Becka get the … the nerve to tell me to hand over all that information? Okay, I know we’re not going to be able to use computers soon but …’ I flung the end of the sausage to the sparrows.

  ‘Who’s Becka you mean?’ said Marti.

  I looked at her, relieved but feeling the sting in the back of my eyes. ‘I suppose. How did she get all those kids mobilised? She’s got her own organisation already, nothing to do with computers, and she knows how to get people onto the feeding network.’