The Disappeared (15 page)

I go and get the book from my hiding place and bring it back to Kay. I open the book to the first page and point to the letter A.

‘That’s one,’ Kay says.

‘Yes, it’s the first letter of the alphabet.’

‘No, that goes with number one.’

She can see I don’t understand.

‘And this . . .’ she finds a B and points to it. ‘This is the two.’

‘Second letter, yes. How do you know that? Do you know the third?’

She points to a C.

‘Where—?’

‘On the door code thing.’

Of course. All of the doors have keypads with both letters and numbers on. A is on the same key as 1.

Kay carries on pointing out letters in order and I tell her their names and sounds. She goes right through the alphabet.

‘How did you do that?’ I say.

‘I just think-back the things, the letters, and how they go.’ She draws a line from left to right in the air.

‘You remembered what order they came in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just from looking at the door-code keypads? Even though you didn’t know the letter names?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though they must have looked like random symbols to you, some of them with only minor differences to differentiate them and even though there are twenty-six of them and you were mostly only close enough to see them in the night, when it’s dark?’

She laughs. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’ She smiles at me and my stomach flips over. ‘What is it you think?’ she says.

‘I’m thinking you won’t need too many lessons before you can read.’

I’m right. Kay is very quick and she’s soon sounding out words. When Ilex hears about the lessons he wants to learn too. So he and Ali join us for every session. We have to find quiet corners to hide in so that no one finds out. Ilex is plodding and methodical, but he’s getting there. It’s difficult with Ali as she still doesn’t talk. I have to ask her a lot of yes/no questions to gauge whether she has understood. I feel sure that she could speak. I try to get her just to make some noises to start with, but it doesn’t work. She gets frustrated and tearful.

‘It’s okay, Ali,’ Ilex says. ‘The thing you want to say is, “Ilex is the goodest”.’

‘You mean “best”,’ I say.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Ali wants to say, “Ilex is the best brother.” You don’t need saying it. I know it.’

This makes Ali laugh and smack her fist against her hand and then point two fingers downwards. It’s the ‘loser’ sign that she did to Urva. It gives me an idea.

‘Hey Ali, do you know any more signs?’

Ali’s eyes flick sideways to Ilex. She shakes her head.

‘I do. Shall I teach you some?’

When I was a baby my mother used to sign to me to encourage me to communicate before I could talk. It worked. She’s always going on about how I could ask for ‘more food’ in sign language before the other kids my age had said their first word. We kept it up even after I learned to talk; we’ve used it less and less as I’ve got older, but I still remember a lot and when I don’t know the correct sign to show Ali I just make one up. At first Ali is shy, but soon she’s joining in with our conversations.

‘You know what would really help us?’ I ask one night when we’re having a lesson crammed in a toilet cubicle just to be on the safe side.

More books?
signs Ali.

‘Burgers and chips?’ Kay says.

I look at her. She gets this look like a naughty elf when she’s taking the mickey. I pretend to scowl.

‘What?’ Ilex says.

‘What?’ I say absently, still looking at Kay.

‘What would help?’ Ilex says.

‘Oh. A pen. Or a pencil.’

What’s that?
signs Ali.

Turns out that none of them have ever seen, or even heard of, a pen or a pencil. Although I shouldn’t be surprised, they wouldn’t be much use here. It’s so strange what the Academies don’t have; things I’d taken for granted just don’t exist to Specials. At the Learning Community, pens were left lying around on desks. At home we had a fat clay pot stuffed with them. Sometimes my mother would stick one in her hair, to hold up her messy bun.

I do my best to describe what a pen looks like to the others, ‘We should all keep our eyes open for one. Then you could practise writing as well as reading.’

Ali nods.

‘Yes,’ Ilex says.

Kay looks at me solemnly.

I feel proud of my little class.

After Ilex drops Ali off at her dormitory he comes to sit on my bed. Kay is off chatting to Red girls who have just come back from one of their Red meetings.

‘Ali likes reading,’ Ilex says.

‘Yep, and she’s doing really well . . .’ I pause. It’s sweet the way Ilex cares for Ali – in the Learning Community no one took much notice of their siblings. But there’s something that has been bothering me about Ali. She’s a lot younger than Ilex; when he started at the Academy, at five, she wouldn’t have even been born. And it’s not like the Academy kids are ever let home for visits. ‘Ilex? How do you know that Ali is your sister?’

‘She is. I know it. She is my sister.’ His whole body has gone tense.

‘Okay, okay. I believe you, I do. I just wondered because, you know, when you left your parents she wouldn’t have been born – she wouldn’t have been a baby. Do you understand what I mean?’

He stares at me and I’m not sure whether he hasn’t understood what I’m asking or if he doesn’t want to answer. He looks around when a couple of boys walk past, as if he’s hoping for an interruption.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s none of my business, it doesn’t mat—’

‘It’s the name,’ he blurts out. ‘Ali has my name. Not the Ilex name but the Dalton name. Ilex Dalton and Ali Dalton. I know she’s my sister.’

That doesn’t really answer my question, but he looks so uncomfortable that I want to let it go. Ilex and Ali both have someone to care about them. That’s not the case for most Specials. ‘Of course she’s your sister,’ I say.

The next day in the grid something is different. Usually when we come in, Enforcer Tong shouts at us for pushing, then tells us to start our first task on the computer while she becomes absorbed in her own screen. But today she’s stood up in her cage waiting for us to settle. She’s going to say something.

‘Quiet,’ she says.

No one was talking anyway, but now no one moves.

‘Specials, I have a good thing to say.’

The thing I hate most about Tong is this simple way she talks to us. It’s like she thinks Specials are so low that she won’t even share her vocabulary with them.

‘Lots of people are happy with Academies. They like the good factory workers that we make at Academies. They say that our factory workers are the best. So twelve more Academies are being made. Soon they will be opened and there will be a . . .’

She searches for basic words. ‘A good time with food for you.’

There’s a murmur of excitement.

‘Quiet. The Leader is happy about the new Academies. On the good time day he wants to come to an Academy and talk to some of the Specials and put it on the Info.’ She pauses and flicks her eyes around the room like a searchlight to ensure that she has everyone’s attention. ‘It’s good because The Leader is coming to this Academy!’

Enforcer Tong looks at us expectantly. I don’t know what she’s expecting. If she wanted a round of applause she probably shouldn’t have taught us that the slightest noise earns an electric shock. I keep my face smooth, but inside I feel a surge of hope. If The Leader is coming here I can speak to him. Tell him what’s happened to me. He could sort it out. He can do anything.

‘Well, you should all think about how lucky you are,’ says Tong. She sits down and turns to her computer. ‘Now start your work.’

The room is quiet again.

‘MORE EFWURDING ACADEMIES?’ someone shouts.

I turn round in my seat. It came from the back.

‘Who said . . . ?’ Tong springs to her feet. She reaches for the shock controls.

There’s the sound of scraping metal as a compartment door is wrenched open. Tong must have forgotten to lock the doors.

‘We don’t want more Academies. We don’t want more efwurding enforcers . . .’

‘LANC! Sit down now!’ Tong is frantically stabbing the shock button, but Lanc must have taken off his EMDs because it doesn’t stop him talking.

‘Stupid, no ranker enforcers who hit kids . . .’

I can see Lanc’s head and shoulders above the walls of the grid now. He’s striding towards Tong’s cage. She shrinks back into the corner and hits the alarm.

Lanc reaches the front. Behind him someone else is out of their seat. It’s Ilex. He puts a hand on Lanc’s shoulder to stop him, but Lanc shrugs him off. Then Kay is there too, tying to talk to him. I scramble out of my compartment to help and some of the other Specials follow. Then everything happens very quickly.

I see Tong’s face stretched in fear. Lanc turns sideways and slides something out of his sleeve. A stick. With something shining on the end. He thrusts it through one of the gaps in the cage and Tong screams. She’s got blood on her hands. The door slams open. The classroom fills with impeccables and a bellowing Rice. Most of the class have climbed out of their seats. I try to pull an impeccable wielding a truncheon off of Ilex. I take a hit on the shoulder and fall backwards into the narrow aisle. Someone crashes down on top of me. Rice. I put out my hands to push his chest away from me. He scrambles to his feet, pulls me up by my collar and hands me to an impeccable, who hauls me out of the class. At the door I twist back and see that there are only a handful of Specials left fighting. In the centre, balanced on top of the grid wall is Lanc. He swings his weapon at the two impeccables trying to bring him down.

‘NO MORE ACADEMIES!’ he screams. His eyes are blazing. I think he’s lost his mind.

I’m dragged down the corridors and taken through a door next to the LER room. It leads to a long narrow passage with what look like animal cages branching off on either side. I’m thrown in one of these cages. There’s barely room to sit down. I can’t see any of my classmates, but I can hear them shouting and swearing.

The absurdity of my situation suddenly strikes me like a blow between the eyes. What is happening to me? I’m a Learning Community student with an AEP score of 98.5 being trained to be part of the Leadership. What the efwurd am I doing in a cage? I’ve been in this awful place for weeks. This mess should have been sorted out by now. What’s happened to my mother? Isn’t she ever coming to get me? I’m so angry that I do what the other Specials around me are doing and kick the door of the cage over and over again.

When my rage is finally spent I’m horribly tired. The Specials have quietened down too. While I’m slumped there, waiting to find out what Rice will do to us, I make a decision: I’ll hang on for one more week for my mother and then I simply have to think of my own escape plan.

Hours later, two impeccables return and start taking us out of the cages one by one. When it’s my turn, they push and shove me through the Academy until we reach Rice’s office. He keeps his back turned while the impeccables sit me in a chair facing his desk and stuff my hands through EMD bracelets. I can feel sweat forming under my arms. He’s going to hurt me.

‘Specials must not leave the grid during a lesson,’ Rice says. He’s not even looking at me. He taps the control pad. It’s like being hit by a truck. A thousand needles of pain fizz through me. When it stops, my teeth are ringing.

‘Specials must not fight.’ He hits the button.

I’m smacked back in my chair again. I think I’m going to be sick.

He puts down the pad and starts to turn away, but stops and looks at me full on for the first time. He picks up the pad.

‘And I told you to keep out of trouble.’ He hits the button.

And then he hits it again.

I stagger up to the dormitory. I feel like my wrists have been in a vice. Kay is lying motionless on top of her blanket. She’s even paler than usual. How could anyone shock Kay?

‘Are you all right?’ I ask, sitting down on her bed. It’s a stupid question.

She doesn’t answer.

‘You know Rice landed on top of me during that fight? He weighs a ton. Really sharp elbows. And his jacket pocket was right in my face and . . .’ I’m rambling. ‘Well, look. I got this for you.’ I hold out the biro that I grabbed from Rice’s pocket during our grapple.

Kay takes it and turns it over in her hands.

‘It’s nice,’ she says, but she doesn’t look at me.

‘What is it, Kay?’

‘Lanc’s not back.’

‘I guess his punishment will be lasting a bit longer,’ I say.

‘No. Rice told Ilex that Lanc won’t come back.’

I struggle to imagine what exactly this means. Will he be sent to another Academy? Or to the Wilderness?

Kay puts a hand on mine. ‘Give me a lesson,’ she says.

‘You want a reading lesson now?’

‘I need one.’

Kay is right. We don’t see Lanc again. And nobody tells us where he’s gone. I sink into a depression after the whole incident dies down. I’d been kidding myself that somehow everything would get sorted out. But now I feel like everything is wrong. Why doesn’t my mother come? I’m starting to doubt that she’ll be able to help. I don’t even know if The Leader can help.