Heart of Danger (3 page)

I
t was Ivor the Gorgeous who met the four of us at the station in New Plymouth. I did the introductions. ‘Sheen, my mother. Danyat, my grandfather and Hera, my sister. Meet Ivor, who has another name which I’ve forgotten.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Ivor’s fine.’ He spoke directly to Mother, giving the rest of us no more than a brief nod, as if he saw her worry and sought to reassure her that New Plymouth welcomed her and that she would be safe here. That was kind of him. ‘Is this all your luggage?’ His eyes flicked around the platform.

‘This is it,’ Mother said, smiling at him. ‘It makes moving easy.’

He carried her bag for her, tilting his head to talk to her as he led us out of the station to where our transport waited – Aussie the horse, harnessed to the farm trap. Hera was enchanted.

‘I want to ride on the big goat!’

Danyat picked her up. ‘He’s a horse. And you can’t ride him because it’s his job to pull the cart. Would you like to talk to him?’

She nodded, arms out and eyes shining. Ivor looked surprised that Hera didn’t know what a horse was, but I said, ‘No books on Taris, and the only livestock we had were goats, rabbits and chickens.’

‘That explains it. A big goat. Funny!’

We watched Hera pat Aussie’s nose, then she leaned forward to lay her head against his. ‘He likes me.’

‘Good,’ Danyat said. ‘That means he’ll be happy for you to ride in the cart. Time to go, honey child.’

She gave Aussie a final pat, and we climbed up onto the wooden benches of the trap. Hera demanded to sit in the front. Danyat put her on his knee and the two of them sat beside Ivor.

‘If everyone is so kind, we’ll be happy here,’ Mother whispered to me.

I just nodded. Ivor had barely acknowledged me. Not that it mattered, but why not at least be friendly? He’d been kind to me that last time I’d met him, and he couldn’t have forgotten talking to me. The way he was acting now didn’t make sense – not according to everything I understood about how friendship worked. He hadn’t smiled, or even said hello. I realised that, despite what I’d said to Silvern, the prospect of going to New Plymouth and Fairlands had been softened by knowing he would be there, that he would be a friend.

I turned my eyes away from him, wondering if he’d worn a sleeveless tee-shirt just so we could admire his muscular arms. Ah well, I’d have to disappoint Silvern and the girls – tell them Ivor the Gorgeous ignored me.

He was chatting away to Danyat, though. Yep, plenty of the old charm for my family – he even included Hera when we passed things he thought would interest her.

I switched off from his voice and turned my attention to the city around us. The day was hot and blue, the mountain beyond clear of snow. The air felt vibrant, or maybe it was just that the colours here were so vivid, the greenery lush and the flowers bright and generous.

‘It’s Taris, but more so,’ Mother said. She sounded relieved, as if she felt she could settle here and be at home.

That wasn’t how I felt. I didn’t want to live in a place that was a re-creation of Taris. I didn’t want to go to a school which would make me practise using the part of my mind that terrified me, and I wanted to run a million miles from anything to do with Hilto. But I was heading straight for the lot.

Ivor’s voice broke through my thoughts. ‘Yes,’ he was saying, ‘New Plymouth is a bit of a show town for the whole country. It’s thanks to Willem really. He persuaded people to set up communities within the town so that everybody knows everybody else in their patch. We watch out for each other, give help when it’s needed, grow most of our own food, share equipment – that sort of thing.’

I wanted to ask how friendships worked here, ask if we couldn’t be friends because he was in Year 13 and I was in Year 11. If so, that was stupid and I doubted that Willem would set up something with such daft rules. But the organisation of this place was Taris all over again, so maybe classes did stick together the way we had done.

Mother was smiling. For her it would feel like coming home. All I wanted to do was escape. Again.

We arrived at the gates of Fairlands, and I prepared myself to greet Thomas with a smile in case he was waiting for us. And there he was, at the front of the group of people gathered to welcome us. I just had time to warn Mother and Danyat. ‘The boy jumping around – that’s Thomas.’

Danyat’s spine stiffened and Mother drew in a breath. But Hera was shouting, ‘There’s Willem! Willem’s my friend. Here I am, Willem!’

He walked forward with his arms out for her and a smile for the rest of us. ‘Friends, it’s good to see you.’

The teachers Jethro and Christina came forward too, Jethro restraining Thomas with a hand on his shoulder. They helped Mother alight, and I jumped down quickly after her.

‘Hi, Thomas, how’s things?’ Best to get in first, to ask a question, to try to appear normal.

His eyes shone and words tumbled out of him. ‘I haven’t had one growling since the Silver girl yelled at me.’

That made me laugh – a real laugh and not one I had to work to produce. ‘She’ll be pleased.’ He’d been such an up-himself smug little know-all, and Silvern had told him exactly what she thought of him. I relaxed a little. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, being in the same school as Thomas.

Ivor took Aussie away, and Willem led the rest of us into the dining room where there were hot drinks and food waiting for us. The adults filled one table, so that I was left to join Thomas at another. Had they done that on purpose? I glared at them. Willem wore his usual inscrutable expression, Christina looked troubled and Jethro’s face was stern.

Oh joy. This was the reality of being in a school where they tuned in to your emotions. The only upside was that Thomas himself hadn’t picked up on my reluctance. I sat down beside him. Christina and Jethro smiled at me. Willem remained inscrutable.

‘How come you get out of class?’ I asked Thomas, my eyes on the muffin I was spreading with jam.

‘No school today,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s been working to get your house ready, but Willem said I could leave early so I could be here when you arrived.’

I stared at him. Just why was Willem so keen to throw us together? But Thomas was babbling on. ‘We don’t have school in the afternoons anyway. Did you have school in the afternoons?’

An easy topic. ‘We worked on the land,’ I said, ‘and we had meetings, games, sing-alongs or watched really old documentaries.’ Homesickness stabbed me and I tried to shake it off, not wanting to believe I could be longing for the home I’d been desperate to escape from.

I was searching for something else bland to say when a girl I’d not seen before came into the room.

‘That’s Ginevra,’ Thomas said.

She sat down opposite us and smiled at me. ‘Welcome, Juno.’ She reached across to press my hand. ‘You’ll soon feel at home. We’re all dying to meet you.’

I felt tears stinging – she was friendly, and there was warmth in her eyes, though it seemed to me she carried a deep sadness beneath it all, almost as if there was pain upon pain.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’ll be in my class. You’ll like them, they’re great.’ I thought she looked older than me, but Ginevra laughed as she said, ‘Yes, you’re quite right, I’m sixteen. But we’ve got the results of your entry tests from Otaki. Most impressive.’

I wasn’t all that keen on having others read my feelings so easily. And if Ginevra could read them, Ivor too must have known how ignoring me had made me feel.

Thomas jiggled in his chair. What was going on with him – all the fizzing, the jangling? I did my best to ignore him and leaned forward to ask Ginevra, ‘How many in our class? Do we just have one teacher?’

But instead of answering me, she turned to Thomas. ‘Take yourself off and chop some wood or something, why don’t you? You’ll explode if you have to sit still much longer.’

He bounced to his feet. ‘All right, I’ll go. But first I have to tell Juno.’

‘What? What do you have to tell me?’

I must have sounded alarmed, because he flapped his hands at me. ‘It’s not bad. It’s not.’ But he didn’t look all that sure of himself. ‘It’s my mum – she wants to meet you.’ He looked at Mother and Danyat. ‘All of you. But she said she’ll understand if you don’t want to see her.’

‘Of course we’ll meet her, Thomas,’ Mother said, shocked that his mother would think we’d shun her. ‘Tell her we’d love to.’

Danyat nodded. ‘We’ll be happy to.’

My turn. I said the words expected of me. ‘We’ll all be pleased to meet her.’

He clapped his hands. ‘Good. I’ll go home and tell her now.’

‘It will have to be tomorrow after you’ve finished the afternoon work,’ Willem said. ‘You can show Sheen and her family where to go,’

‘Okay,’ Thomas said, and he bounced from the room just as Ivor came in.

‘That Thomas!’ he said as he sat down beside me. ‘He’s been so much better since Silvern yelled at him.’ He flashed me a smile that spoke of shared memories. I stared at him. He was acting as if we were best friends. I just didn’t understand.

Ginevra said, ‘We only have to say
Silvern would yell at you for that
and it stops him dead.’ She didn’t look up, but started mashing her sandwich to a pulp on her plate. She didn’t seem to be as amused by the memory as Ivor was.

‘Silvern will be pleased,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell her next time I talk to her.’ I so wished she was with me now. I understood Silvern, and I didn’t have any notion about what was going on here.

Ginevra looked at me. ‘You’ll make friends here. I know it’s not the same – you’ll always miss those you’ve grown up with. But we welcome you, we really do.’

‘Thank you.’ But they could, if they chose to, read my emotions as easily as they read books. Being here was going to be difficult simply because I was so accustomed to being guarded, to hiding what I felt.

She asked, ‘Will it be so hard for you? This school, I mean?’ She was behaving as if Ivor wasn’t even in the room.

I fixed my mind on the question she’d asked and not on what might lie between them. I would have to tell them enough about how I felt or Willem would send me one of his inscrutable looks that somehow managed to dig right into my mind. ‘It will be hard,’ I said. ‘I didn’t fit in on Taris so I had to keep my ideas to myself. I had to fit in to survive.’

‘That’s a tad dramatic, isn’t it?’ Ivor said. ‘Like they would have killed you off if you weren’t the same as everyone else?’

Yes, actually
.

Ginevra flicked him a glance with daggers in it.

I lowered my voice. ‘Mother’s sister was killed because she asked questions. Dad’s five-year-old brother was killed because he spoke of a forbidden topic.’ I might as well let them know the rest. ‘Hilto, Majool and Lenna ordered those killings. And they wanted me dead too.’

Ginevra gasped and her face lost colour. Ivor stared at me, not disbelieving what I’d said – he must have felt the truth of it – but he looked as if he was striving to accept it. Eventually, he said, ‘Phew. Heavy, man.’

‘And Thomas is Hilto’s genetic son,’ Ginevra said. ‘I think you’re brave to say you’ll meet his mother.’

Ivor shrugged her words away. ‘She’s a nice woman. Very kind and loving. You won’t think of Hilto when you see her. Bet you.’

Ginevra changed the subject to school and our teachers. ‘Watch out for Visanthi – she teaches sustainability and she utterly shreds anybody who turns up with something that can’t be recycled.’

But before she could tell me more, Willem got to his feet. ‘Sheen, Juno, Hera – it’s time to show you your new home. We’ve been working to make it as comfortable for you as we can. We’ll walk there, it’s not far.’

I watched my sister running along beside Willem, who bent to talk to her whenever she demanded a reply. Perhaps life here wouldn’t be so bad after all. Willem was on our side, Ginevra would be a friend and Ivor was now smiling at me with promises in his eyes. I just wished with all my heart that the decision to come here hadn’t been forced on us. My sister was in danger.

T
he house delighted us. The rooms were light, with big windows and soft beds. Mother and I gasped at the riches in the kitchen – so much equipment. There were bowls for mixing, beaters for whipping eggs and cream, pots of all sizes for cooking, and so many sharp knives.

Danyat smiled when he saw where he’d be living. It was a caravan parked behind the house. ‘It will be a most comfortable home,’ he told Willem. ‘Thank you.’

Willem rested a hand on his shoulder but didn’t say anything. I felt words hovering between them, words of sorrow over Grif’s passing.

Hera had a room to herself, but before she could get too excited, I said, ‘We’ll both sleep in here, Hera. Just for a little while. Till you’re a bit bigger.’

‘But I’m big now. I will sleep here all by my own.’

‘Not yet,’ said Willem.

Hera heaved one of her dramatic sighs. ‘Okay, Willem.’ She pointed to the bed nearest the door. ‘Juno can sleep over there.’

I shook my head. ‘Nah. I’m bigger than you. I get to sleep by the window.’

Mother drew in a breath. Danyat took her arm and led her to a chair. ‘It’s as well to take all the precautions we can, my daughter.’

Willem quelled Hera’s objections with a single look, though it didn’t take a mind-expert to see they were bubbling around beneath the surface.

‘Let’s all go outside and look around,’ Danyat said, taking her hand.

Willem apologised for the neglected state of the garden, but Danyat was thrilled with it. ‘It’ll be good to knock it into shape. I’ll enjoy it.’

‘Hera,’ Willem said, ‘you’ll go to school in the mornings. Will you like that?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I’m perfectly big enough for school.’

Mother was laughing as she asked, ‘What can I do, Willem? Is there something I can help with?’

He smiled at her. ‘The spinning and weaving workshop always needs people. So does the shoe workshop.’

It was easy for her to choose weaving and spinning, work she’d done on Taris with Grif and Leebar.

We were settled, we were organised, and the next day we would meet Thomas’s mother, the woman who had agreed to carry Hilto’s child.

My first day of school was different from my first day in Otaki. It began predictably, with somebody coming to show me the way – but it was Ivor who came, not a girl. He smiled at me and I took a step backwards – that smile was intense … intimate even, and meant just for me. ‘Are you ready, Juno? Let’s go, shall we?’

‘Huh, yes, I mean okay …’ I turned away to escape the force of his smile and all that I suspected might be behind it. Thank goodness it wouldn’t be just the two of us walking to school. ‘I’m taking Hera too, and Danyat is coming with us for extra security. He’ll come to take her home at midday too.’

Ivor raised his eyebrows, but all he said was, ‘Sure. Good idea. Let’s hit the road, folks.’ He hadn’t been pleased, though, just for half a second.

I’d intended to walk with Danyat and keep Hera between us, but somehow it came about that she and Danyat walked ahead of me and Ivor. It was a formation that offered even better security, because I could now see behind her as well as in front. But walking beside Ivor felt strange – wrong, too. If we’d been seen like this on Taris, walking closer than I found comfortable, his head bent to mine, the gossip would have flown around the island that we were a couple, that we would marry.

I tried to pin down the sense I was getting about him – it wasn’t the solid dependability that came from the boys in my stratum or from Oban. But I couldn’t work him out – he was too changeable. I did sense that he liked to get his own way, though. As did Hera.

He moved so that he was even closer to me. How come he wasn’t aware that I didn’t want him so near?

‘Ivor. Please. We need some distance here.’

Again, I caught a flash of annoyance. He stepped to the side, leaving a metre wide space between us, and said, ‘You’re both to go to the kindy class for the morning.’

My heart thumped. ‘Does Willem want me to stay there because …’ I gestured at my sister skipping along just in front of us.

Now he was contrite. ‘No, of course not. Sorry, I was just teasing you. It’s because if the little kids don’t like somebody they’re not allowed to come to the school.’

I nodded in Hera’s direction. ‘She yells when she’s near somebody who’s evil.’

He closed the gap between us again and reached for my hand, but I snatched it away. I thought about telling him that on Taris, hand-holding meant a couple would marry. But Ivor was persistent. He grabbed hold of my hand and spun me around in a dance move. I was so startled that I lost my balance and nearly fell. My face flamed as his arms went round me, and I shoved him away. He just laughed and let me go.

‘I’m relieved she’s not yelling at me. How terrible if I couldn’t come near you!’

I gave him what I hoped was a very cool look. I wished he’d take himself off and leave me to the task of keeping Hera safe. It was plain that he had no intention of helping us do so.

I was glad to get to Fairlands. Danyat left us before we went inside, and he gave me a rather searching look as he walked away.

Ivor beamed a smile at me before he ran off to class. ‘I think you’ll pass the little kids’ scrutiny. Enjoy!’

I watched him go. He ran with a loping stride, a picture of grace and strength – all aimed at impressing me. I couldn’t work him out.

Hera was tugging my jacket. ‘Come
on
, Juno. I want to hurry.’

I’d taken my attention off her for … how long? I wasn’t sure, but knew it mustn’t happen again. I tried to calm myself. What was Ivor up to? Was this how courtship happened Outside? You just saw somebody and, if you liked the look of them, that was it – you were a couple? Well, he was out of luck. I didn’t want to be the other half of his couple.

I took Hera’s hand and we went into the foyer where Ginevra was waiting to show us the way to the kindy class. ‘You’ll either be with my class tomorrow,’ she told me, ‘or out on your ear.’ She blew me a kiss. ‘But Noni and I are saving you a seat. See you tomorrow.’ Unlike Ivor, she was restful to be with. We would be friends, and there would be no undercurrents, no complications.

Hera knocked when we reached her classroom door, and opened it when we heard the call to come in. A tumble of little kids roared around the room but the teacher didn’t look worried. She got up from her desk and came to meet me. I called Hera back. ‘Come and say hello to your teacher.’

Hera hopped on one foot, then the other. We eyeballed each other and she sighed but came back. ‘Hello, my teacher. I am Hera.’

The woman knelt beside her. ‘My name is Atarangi. Welcome Hera, and now you can go and play.’

‘Hera!’ I called as she ran off.

She spun around, sent Atarangi a blinder of a smile and said, ‘Thank you, Atarangi. I like you.’

Atarangi straightened up, laughing. ‘A tricky customer then?’

‘She’s got a will of titanium,’ I said. ‘I’m relieved she likes you.’

Atarangi smiled. ‘And you’ve passed the test too, Juno. Not one of them is taking the slightest notice of you. If they’d picked up anything unkind or wicked about you, they’d all be running for cover already. They rush to me, or hide under the nearest table. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so serious.’

‘Useful though.’ We would all feel much more secure with Hera being in the middle of a set of midget bodyguards.

 

The morning was so different from anything I’d experienced before. There were so many children – more than I’d seen in one place before, twenty of them at least. And they were very high energy, even though Atarangi could bring them to order with a single note played on a violin. Every now and again Hera would rush up to me, her face all lit up. ‘I’ve got friends. Lots and lots and lots.’

Both of us ended the morning covered in paint and clay. ‘That was such fun,’ I told Atarangi as we left.

‘Come back any time, Juno. You’ll be more than welcome.’

‘I will come tomorrow,’ Hera said. ‘Please.’

Atarangi hugged her. ‘Yes, you can come tomorrow. Not on Saturdays or Sundays. On the other days, there is school every morning.’

‘Good,’ said Hera.

I handed her over to Danyat, then went to face an afternoon of hard work on the Fairlands property. I was looking forward to meeting others in my class, but Ivor appeared beside me, pushed some gloves into my hands, took hold of my elbow and started walking.

I hung back, wishing I knew the rules of the place – why wasn’t I to work with my class? I wasn’t pleased with the way Ivor was trying to take over my life.

But he bent to whisper, ‘Quick! Before Jethro sees you – your class are mucking out the pig sties.’ He hustled me along, a hand on my back. I didn’t at all fancy mucking out the sties, so I gave in and went with him.

We spent the afternoon painting the north wall of his classroom with others from his year group. None of them was too concerned about the work, and they spent most of the time chatting and teasing each other. Sometimes they included me, but mostly they left me alone. It took me a while to realise that Ivor was the one who got them to do any work at all, although not once did he issue any orders or nag at them. He was their unofficial leader. The others would groan as, amidst jokes and laughter, he shifted a ladder to start on the next part of the wall, but they followed him, and however much they mucked around somehow the task got finished. It was a whole different side of him, and I liked him much better. If he’d always act this way around me, then we could be good friends. He caught my eye and gave me an uncomplicated grin, and I found myself smiling back.

When it was time to finish, we walked together to put away the gear. ‘Is this a respectful distance, Miss Juno of Taris?’ he asked, stretching out his arm to measure the space between us.

‘It’ll do,’ I said.

Ivor laughed, but then he changed his tone. ‘Don’t worry about Ginevra, Juno.’

‘What do you mean, don’t worry about her?’ I stopped walking. I wanted to see his expression. ‘I like her. Of course I’m going to be concerned for her. And I can’t help noticing how uncomfortable she looks when you’re around.’

He rubbed his face. ‘Okay, I see I’ll have to tell you, but don’t go talking about it, will you? The thing is, she’s a bit upset with me at the moment. She sort of fell for me but I couldn’t reciprocate.’

He looked as though he was telling the truth, all earnest and sorry. I wished I was more skilled at reading feelings – I was sure there was more to it than he was saying, just as there was more to Ginevra’s sadness than the boy she liked not liking her back. ‘It’s none of my business,’ I said, walking away from him. ‘But it isn’t kind of you to talk about Ginevra’s private affairs.’

He caught me up. ‘You don’t get it, do you Juno?’

But I got enough of it. ‘Maybe I just don’t want it.’

I felt his glare bore into my back as I left him behind.