Fierce September (11 page)

I smiled and tried to look knowledgeable.

He didn’t say anything for ages, and I was about to thank him and leave when suddenly he swooped down and pulled something from under the counter. ‘Ah! I knew it! There’s this if you’d like it. It’s battered and slightly torn, but it costs exactly five dollars.’

He held out a book of fairy tales.

I took it, barely able to speak. A dream come to reality – a book of my own to hold in my hands. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered as I handed over the money. ‘Thank you so very much.’

He slipped the book into a paper bag and presented it to me with a bow.

‘My very great pleasure, Madame.’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘Where are you from? Haven’t heard an accent like that before.’

I went cold. I glanced down at the parcel I held, but then made myself look up at him and grin. ‘Yeah, I know. Everyone tells me that. It’s my grandmother’s fault – she practically brought me up. Thanks for finding me the book.’

I got out of there as fast as I could without running. I was still shaking when I got back to the fountain. I sat down on an empty bench to wait for the boys, and it took me a few moments to realise the clouds had cleared to leave a faraway sky of blue. I was too afraid to stare at it.

No sign of the boys. I scrubbed at a mark on the footpath with the toe of my gorgeous new boots. They were made of a stretchy deep red that moulded to my feet and ankles. Many of the feet wandering past sported similar boots, but I’d got mine wrong – the tops of every boot I saw were sculpted into a different pattern. Some had been folded down, others were pleated, a few were scalloped like the petals of a flower. Nobody wore them straight up and skintight the way I did. I tucked my feet under me.

After ten minutes the boys still hadn’t returned.

I waited a few minutes longer, content to be alone and unnoticed, but the day grew colder and I shivered despite my jacket. Wretched boys! I got up. I’d have to drag them out of that shop after all.

It was warm inside the shop. I paused to look around. Okay, it was a bit interesting. I wondered if my grandfathers had come in here and seen the musicians playing inside what seemed to be soundproof booths. Maybe that was where the street music was coming from. As I watched, one group left their booth and another took their place. I didn’t recognise the instruments which had been left for the incoming group.

I wandered around for a while longer, marvelling at the variety of electronic stuff, watching the displays of how it all worked, before I found my bodyguards. The three of them, along with a couple of men in shop uniform, were bent over, staring at something lying on a bench. On the wall behind them was a screen which showed an enlarged picture of whatever they were studying. At least I guessed that’s what it was by the images of large fingers that shot across it every few seconds.

I drifted close enough to listen. Biddo was doing the talking – his fingers were the huge ones on the screen. ‘See, there. If you route that through this network it should overcome the interference. Worth giving it a go, I’d say.’

‘Okay, try it,’ said one of the men. ‘The damn thing’s freaking useless as it is. Won’t matter if you totally trash it.’

Biddo’s huge fingers picked up an oversized pair of tweezers. ‘Still not working,’ he grunted. ‘Trouble is we need some more of that.’ He pointed at a filament that, even magnified, was only as thick as a hair.

‘Why didn’t you say!’ the shop man said. ‘Got plenty of that.’

The three boys straightened up, stared at the man, then burst out laughing. ‘We’re not used to having access to new parts,’ Paz explained.

What! Tell the entire world who we are, why don’t you? I turned. I was going back to the Centre – let the boys worry when they discovered I wasn’t sitting compliantly by the fountain waiting for them to come and collect me.

I ran all the way back. Nobody glared at me, nobody withdrew. If I’d run in a fury like this on Taris, old Hilto would have been right behind me to moan to my parents about my wild behaviour. It looked like you could behave any way you pleased here, and that was fine with me.

Stupid, dumb, idiotic, useless boys. What had they done? Gone into that shop and said,
We’re from Taris.
Show us technology. Let us mend it for you
.
No matter what Willem said, I was not going out with them again. I’d be better off with Hera as a bodyguard. I slowed down and thought about that. Actually, I’d be a zillion times better off with Hera.

Mother was watching out, and ran to meet me as soon as I came through the door from the street. ‘Thank you for coming back so promptly, darling.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t fuss, but …’

‘It’s okay, Mother.’ I hugged her briefly. ‘I’ll try not to worry you, I really will.’ But I felt guilty. I hadn’t thought of my parents or how worried they’d be about my safety all the time I’d been out.

‘Where are the boys?’ Dad asked.

I made light of their perfidy. ‘Got stuck in a techno store. I left them to it.’

‘Come with me,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll get you a snack to tide you over till dinner.’ But Dad was less interested in my hunger than in finding out the truth of why I’d come home alone. ‘I think,’ he said, when I’d told him everything, ‘that we have to be careful. You particularly. Please don’t walk alone in the streets again, Juno.’

I sighed. It was like Taris all over again.

When the rest of my stratum returned in good time, the three idiots still hadn’t appeared.

‘Where are they?’ Brex asked.

‘I hope they’re waiting for me beside the fountain and freezing their butts off,’ I said. ‘Some guards they turned out to be.’

‘Well,’ Silvern said, ‘you shouldn’t have gone off by yourself either. What did you expect? Biddo – techno gear. Wake up, Juno.’

I glared at her. ‘It’s all very well for you to talk! How would you have liked to spend the entire afternoon looking at tech stuff?’

But she was in one of her maddening moods. ‘I wouldn’t. Any more than they’d like to look at clothes.’

I jumped up and stormed off, furious because she was right. I shouldn’t have gone off by myself, but it wasn’t fair. Three against one. Besides, I knew perfectly well she would have done exactly what I did.

Back at our apartment I read my new book to Hera while Mother and my grandparents prepared the evening meal. I chose the story of Rapunzel that Grif had written on leaves for me on Taris.

Hera studied the illustrations, tracing them with a finger. ‘Pretty,’ she said. When we got to the end, she demanded I read the story again. We finished it just as dinner was ready.

‘Beef stew,’ Danyat said as he mopped up gravy with a chunk of bread. ‘Delicious.’

Mother sighed. ‘It’s different, having to choose what to cook. Buying provisions, instead of growing them.’ She smoothed a hand across the frown lines on her face. ‘How will we earn the money we’ll need once we leave here?’

Grif took her hand. ‘Don’t fret, my daughter. One day at a time. It’s all you can do right now.’

After we’d tidied up and tucked Hera into bed, we turned on the television to watch the news. All we had to do was click an icon and there it was, even though the live broadcast had been earlier. ‘Amazing,’ Leebar said.

The explosion at the wharf was again the first item. The police had laid charges against the people in black, who were being held in custody. The next item was about a rail tunnel north of Wellington that had been blocked by a landslip. The reporter interviewed some of the passengers who’d had to wait for hours till the line was cleared. One woman snarled and said, ‘The bloody government would have got this sorted if they hadn’t used the money to bring back that bloody Taris lot.’

We flinched but kept watching. The next item was about preparations for a national football tournament the following week.

‘Do people still play rugby, I wonder?’ Bazin said. ‘There’s nothing like a good game of rugby. I really missed it when we went to Taris.’

Just then, somebody knocked on the door. Danyat went to open it and there, looking shame-faced, were my dauntless guardians.

‘We’ve come to apologise,’ Marba said. ‘May we come in?’

Mother smiled at them. ‘Of course you may. Can you all fit on the window seat?’

Paz said, ‘We won’t stay, thanks. Just wanted to say we should have taken better care of Juno.’ He looked at me and frowned. ‘Sorry, Juno.’

Damn Silvern! If she’d kept her mouth shut I could have yelled at them, but as it was … ‘My fault,’ I muttered. ‘Should have stayed with you.’ Then I remembered an unassailable grievance. ‘But why, for goodness’ sake, did you tell those shop people you were from Taris?’

‘They guessed,’ Marba said. ‘The accent. It’s a dead giveaway apparently.’

Of course. The man in the bookshop had picked my accent too, but I’d had the sense to run away before he could get the truth out of me. I took a deep breath and managed to smile at Biddo. ‘Did you fix the gizmo?’

His face lit up like a neon display. ‘Yes – and guess what? They want me to work there after school. They’ll even pay me.’

I gave up being furious. I’d never seen him so alive, so excited. ‘Hey, that’s great. You can use your first pay to take us all on the monorail.’

I don’t think he heard. I doubted his mind was even in the building – by the look of him he’d left it behind in the techno store.

‘Biddo’s a nice boy,’ Mother said dreamily, once the boys had left. ‘I’ve not seen him so animated.’

I rolled my eyes. She was doing it again – planning who I would marry. But we weren’t on Taris now, and I didn’t have to marry Biddo or any of the boys of my stratum. That alone was worth a bit of danger.

I didn’t say so to Mother.

W
ILLEM CALLED US ALL TO an evening meeting to find out how our first day had gone.

‘Overwhelming,’ old Mallin said. ‘Astonishing. So many things have changed.’

‘Exhilarating,’ Inva called out.

‘Mind-blowing,’ said Prin.

Marba stood up to speak. ‘It’s fantastic but we – Paz, Biddo and me – started talking to the people in a techno shop. We’d hardly got out more than a couple of words when they said,
Weird accent, lads, you wouldn’t be from Taris
by any chance?
’

‘Ah, I should have thought of that,’ Willem said, then shrugged. ‘Oh well, there’s not much we could have done to disguise the way you speak.’ He considered for a moment. ‘In a way, this makes things easier. From now on you might as well just go out when you want to – but be careful, and I suggest you don’t ever go alone.’

He turned the next part of the meeting over to the adults, who bombarded him with questions.

What work was available? How could they earn money? They asked about all the things we had taken for granted on Taris – housing, a hundred questions about what the schools were like, medical care and food. Every aspect of our lives had changed, and we were ill-prepared.

I occupied myself with my own plans. I wanted to join a dance school, and had found a place called a performing arts centre on one of the maps Fergus had given us. I had no idea how to enrol, or whether it would even accept new pupils, but I was determined to find out. The trouble was, if I wasn’t allowed out by myself, I would have to persuade someone to come with me. But who?

I almost laughed aloud as the answer came to me. Vima. I would ask Vima to come.

As soon as the meeting ended, I ran along the third-floor corridor to her family’s rooms.

‘Please!’ I begged her. ‘We can take Wilfred. We’ll put him in that pram in the lobby. He’d love to find a dance school, I know he would!’

She didn’t need persuading, and the next day as we strode along streets washed in weak sunshine she told me why. ‘It’s bliss to escape. Mum and Dad mean it for the best, but they just don’t get it.’

I looked at her, my eyebrows raised.

The words burst out of her. ‘They say Wilfred has to know his father.’ She banged a fist against the pram handle. ‘And he does. I know he does. I know Jov longs to know him. But I just can’t do it, Juno. I have to keep away. It’s too hard otherwise.’

So. She loved him still.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘How dumb is that?’

There was no comfort I could offer. ‘Couldn’t Jov see him when you’re not around? Go out with the rest of your stratum. Get away while Jov visits Wilfred.’

She began to walk so fast I had to jog to keep up with her. ‘They’re all paired off. All holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes. I’d feel like a …’ She shook her head. ‘I’d be the odd one out. The one they have to be careful of, the one they have to take care of.’

Neither of us mentioned Oban who loved her and wanted to marry her.

We walked on in silence. ‘Then there’s Sina,’ Vima said at last.

I waited. She’d tell me in her own good time. I well knew how useless it was to try to hurry her.

‘I think I make her sick to her stomach.’ Vima sighed. ‘I can understand it. I have to work hard not to hate her too. It’s not her fault. None of this mess is her fault. I have to keep away.’

We left the busy part of the city behind as we headed south.

‘You’re going to leave, aren’t you?’ I asked. ‘Go away just as soon as you can.’

‘Yes. I’ve asked Willem. He says the university in Dunedin would be a good place for me. He’s got contacts there. I should hear sometime next week if I can go.’