Elfling (U.S. Edition)

by Corinna Turner

  “HARRY!” roars Dad, then heads over to me. “Whoa girl, wait up. Come on, put the rifle away.”

  “What?” I turn an incredulous look on him. “We’re going OutSPARK, Dad.”

  “Carol’s nervous enough about the trip as it is, let alone living out here. If we turn up looking like Rambo-family, she’s going to freak out. I’ll have my rifle. Leave yours here. Just this once.”

  “But why have one rifle when you can have three?” I demand.

  “Most people don’t take any weapons when they travel, Darryl.”

  “City people. And sometimes when they break down or crash, they get eaten.”

  “Come on, Darryl, just this once. It will make Carol feel so much better.”

  His pleading tone is too much. I unsling my rifle from my shoulder and put it back in its place. “All right. But we’d better not end up Raptor Food.”

  “Of course we won’t.” He sounds downright cheerful with relief.

  Footsteps on the stairs. I glance at Harry as I finish slipping the HiPiRs into the mag. No point leaving it half full. Harry’s changed out of the clothes he was wearing for early morning chores. Was he really dragging his feet, or was he agonizing over what to wear? He’s thirteen, three years younger than me, but very fair-minded, and I thought he was finally trying to get into a welcoming frame of mind, this last week. He helped clean the whole house from top to bottom without a word of complaint, anyway.

  “You’ve missed breakfast,” says Dad. “Grab something to eat in the truck.”

  “I’m not hungry,” mutters Harry. Yeah, definitely freaking out about meeting her, not sulking. He joins me by the locker and takes his rifle from the rack. “How many mags are you taking, Rell?”

  “None,” I sigh, putting the now fully loaded mag back in and adding my ammo-sash.

  “Huh?”

  “Apparently Carol’s nervy and Dad reckons three guns will scare her. So he’s just taking his.”

  “What? But why take one gun when you could...”

  “You don’t want to traumatize your new step-mom, do you?” says Dad, taking Harry’s rifle firmly from his hands and replacing it, taking his own out, then sealing the locker again. “Come on, in the truck, chop-chop!” He moves to the House Control and taps the usual commands. The light level in the hall plummets as the stainless steel shutters slide over all the windows and lock into place with a reassuring snick.

  Heading for the front door, I check the ScreamerBand around my wrist, but the light glows green. Our fence has suffered no power loss; no alarms have been tripped since I came in for breakfast. All secure. I still scan the screens before opening the door—the yard is empty.

  Pausing to listen as soon as I’ve stepped outside is second nature, I don’t even think about it. But the Hum is there, the soothing sound of our twin fences, of safety. The quiet noises of the livestock in their barns, behind their own steel shutters. Our mammal-stock gets some time out at grass each day, but never while we’re away from home.

  I feel naked, though, as I walk around to the pick-up, parked where it won’t cause dead-space in the door cameras. I haven’t been OutSPARK without my own gun since I was old enough to have one. And living what most city-types would erroneously term ‘OutSPARK’ (I mean, what do they think that humming thing is if not an electric fence?) that’s quite a long time, now.

  Still, what Carol is doing is a big deal, and there’s no getting away from that. Leaving her nice safe city cocoon to come and live out here. She must be equally in love with Dad. Unless she hasn’t as much money as she’s clearly made out. I hope that’s not it. The thought of Dad giving himself for life to a gold digger. Ugh.

  Our farm’s not worth that much, anyway. Who wants to farm, nowadays? It used to be called ‘the good life’, according to my history TuteApp, and loads of people craved it. But that was before the scientists failed to grasp that just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to actually do it. Dad says mankind got too big for their breeches and the Almighty allowed us to take ourselves down a peg or two.

  It’s pretty boring when the older folk start going on about ‘how things used to be’, to be honest. We’re not at the top of the food chain any more, and that’s that. I’ve never known anything different. Even Dad hasn’t.

  I get in the front seat—this’ll be Carol’s seat from now on, no doubt—and touch the statue of St Desmond on the dash, murmuring the travelling prayer myself to save time. Dad circles the vehicle, gripping each window grille with both hands and shaking violently, checking the wheel shields, suddenly unhurried. Checks in haste are blank checks for raptors, as the saying goes.

  Harry’s piled in, and Dad finally gets in too. He reaches for the ignition and stops. His hands goes towards St Des...

  “I’ve said it, Dad.”

  “Good girl.” He gives St Des a quick pat anyway, and starts the engine. We barrel off between the barns and out through the empty mammal-stock pastures. Soon the fence looms up ahead. I reach for my ScreamerBand...

  “Can I do it?” Harry’s not quite too old to take pleasure in things like that. To be honest, I quite like opening the gates as well. Very dramatic. But...

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Harry presses his button and the inner gate swooshes open. No posturing slowness for modern gates—what use is that if something is chasing you?

  Dad drives straight through, then slows to a crawl while Harry shuts the inner gate—swoosh!—and opens the outer one—swoosh! I press the ‘record’ button on our WhatHap Box and say clearly, “William, Darryl, and Harold Franklyn, travelling to Exception City to pick up Carol Franklyn, to return same day. Now officially unSPARKed.”

  Although I speak calmly, I feel a shiver of nervous excitement in my gut as I say the word. The knowledge that there’s no longer high voltage steel between you and the nearest pack of hungry raptors will do that to anyone.

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  ePub ISBN: 978-1-910806-63-0

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  ~+~

  DON’T MISS

  I AM MARGARET

  IN MARGO’S WORLD, IF YOU DON’T PASS YOUR SORTING AT 18 YOU ARE RECYCLED.

  LITERALLY.

  “Great style … like The Hunger Games.”

  EOIN COLFER, author of Artemis Fowl

  Keep reading for Chapter 1!

  ~+~

  I AM MARGARET

  1

  SORTING

  The dragon roared, its jaws so close to Thane’s head that

  I waggled the page gently in the air, waiting for my writing to dry. One final, blank double spread remained. Good. I’d made the little book myself.

  The ink was dry. I turned to that last page and found the place on the computer printout I was copying from…

  he felt his eardrums burst. But the sword had done its work and, eviscerated, the beast began to topple.

  Thane rolled frantically to his feet and ran. The huge body obliterated where he’d been lying, but Thane wasn’t interested in that. He kept right on running to where Marigold was struggling to free herself.

  “That’s the last time I go riding without my spurs!” she told him. “I could’ve cut my way out of here by now…”

  Thane ignored her grumbles. He couldn’t hear properly anyway. He whipped out a dagger and freed her. “Marigold?” He could hardly hear himself. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. At least I had my rosary.”

  Thane thought of all the things he wanted to say to her. The way he felt about her, he wanted to do everything just right. Could he get down on one knee without losing his balance and would he be able to hear what she said in reply…?

  Then Marigold’s arms wrapped around him like vines around their supporting tree. And when she kissed him, he knew the answer to all his questions was a heartfelt,

  ‘Yes.’

  I wrote the last word w
ith great care and put the lid on the pen. All done. I smiled as I pictured Bane reading the tale. Where are the slain dragons? Where are the rescued maidens? he would complain after reading my stories. Just this once, in this tale just for him, there were all the dragons he could desire. But only one maiden.

  A funny way to declare your love, but I couldn’t leave it unsaid. And if I did pass my Sorting…well, we were both eighteen, we’d be leaving school at the end of the year and would be free to register, so perhaps it was time we were finally honest with each other.

  Picking up the printout of the story, I ripped it into small pieces and threw it in the bin, then closed the handwritten book, slipping it into the waterproof pouch I’d made for it. On my aged—but no less loved for that—laptop, I called up the file and pressed ‘delete’. Bane’s story was his alone.

  The pouch went into my bag as I checked its contents again. Clothes, underwear, sewing things, my precious bookReader—filled to capacity—and what little else was permitted. No laptop, alas, and no rosary beads for Margaret in this all too real world. I touched the waterproof pouch—must warn Bane not to show the story around. A dangerous word had slipped in there, near the end. A little bit of myself.

  The contents of the bag were all present and correct, as they’d been since last night. Zipping it up, I stood for a moment, looking around. This had been my room since I was born and how I wanted to believe I’d be back here this evening, unpacking my bag again. But I’d never been very good at fairy tales. Happy Ever After didn’t happen in real life. Not while you were alive.

  I kicked at my long purple skirt for a moment, then picked up my jacket and slipped it on. Sorting day was a home clothes day. No need for school uniform at the Facility. I was packed and ready—packed, anyway—and couldn’t delay any longer. I put my bag over my shoulder and headed downstairs.

  My parents were waiting in the hall. I almost wished they weren’t. That they were off with Kyle—gone.

  Mum’s face was so pale. “Margo, you can’t seriously intend to go today.” Her voice was hoarse with desperation. “You know the chances of…of…”

  “I know the chances of me passing are very small.” With great effort I kept my voice from shaking. “But you know why I have to go.”

  “It’s not too late…” Bleak hopelessness in Dad’s voice. “The Underground would hide you…”

  I had to get out of there. I had to get out before they wore down my resolve.

  “It’s too late to teach me to be selfish now,” I snapped, switching automatically from Latin to English as I opened the front door and stepped out onto the step.

  “Margo…”

  I turned to meet Mum’s embrace and I wanted to cling to her like a little girl, except that was how she was clinging to me. I stroked her hair and tried to comfort her. “It’ll be all right, Mum, really,” I whispered. “I might even pass, you know.”

  She released me at last, stepped back, mopping her eyes—trying to be strong for me. “Of course. You may pass. Keep the faith, darling.” Her voice shook; right here, right now, she could hardly get the familiar words out.

  “Keep the faith,” said Dad, and his voice shook too.

  I cupped my hand and made the Fish with finger and thumb, behind my bag so the neighbors couldn’t see. “Keep the faith.” It came out like an order. I blushed, smiled apologetically, took one last look at their faces and hurried down the steps.

  The EuroBloc Genetics Department inspectors were waiting at the school gates to check off our names. I joined the line, looking into the boys’ schoolyard for Bane. A hotel car pulled up and a white-faced woman helped a tall boy from the back seat—who was he? His hair was like autumn leaves… Oh. He held a long thin white cane with a soft ball on one end. Blind. My insides clenched in sympathy. What must it be like to have no hope at all?

  “Name?” demanded the inspector on the boys’ gate.

  “Jonathan Revan,” said the boy in a very cold, collected voice. “And wouldn’t it be an awful lot simpler if my parents just dropped me at the Facility?”

  The inspector looked furious as everyone sniggered their appreciation at this show of courage.

  “Name?” It was my turn. The blind boy was passing through the gates, his shoulders hunched now, as though to block the sound of the woman’s weeping. A man was shepherding her back to the car.

  “Margaret Verrall.”

  The woman marked off my name and jerked the pen towards the girls’ yard. “In.”

  Inside, I headed straight for the wall between the schoolyards. Bane was there, his matte black hair waving slightly in the breeze. His mother used to keep it short, to hide its strangeness, but that’d only lasted ‘til he was fast enough to outrun her. The inspector on the boys’ gate was shooting a suspicious glance at him.

  “Looking forward to being an adult?” Bane asked savagely, watching Jonathan Revan picking his way across the schoolyard, his stick waving sinuously in front of him. Something clicked.

  “That’s your friend from out at Little Hazleton, isn’t it? The preKnown, who’s never had to come to school?”

  “Yeah.” Bane’s face was grim.

  “Did you hear what he said to the inspector? He’s got some nerve.”

  “He’s got that, all right. Shame he can’t see a thing.”

  “He’d have to see considerably more than a thing to pass.”

  “Yeah.” Bane kicked the wall, scuffing his boots. “Yeah, well, I always knew there was nothing doing.”

  “It was nice of you to be friends with him.”

  Bane looked embarrassed and kicked the wall even harder. “Well, he’s got a brain the size of the EuroBloc main server. He’d have been bored out of his mind with only the other preKnowns to talk to.”

  Oh no, perhaps I flattered myself, but...if Bane was preoccupied with Jonathan Revan...he really hadn’t realized I was in danger! Although I’d always tried so hard not to let him figure it out part of me had assumed he knew by now. I mean, how could he not have realized? We’d known each other since, well, forever. He’d always been there, along with Mum and Dad, Kyle, Uncle Peter…

  “Bane, I need to talk to you.”

  He looked around, his brown eyes surprised. He sat on the wall and rested his elbows on the railings. “Now? Not… after our Sorting?”

  Were his thoughts running along the same lines as mine earlier? I sat down as well, which brought our faces very close. “Bane…it may not be very easy to talk…after.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What d’you mean?”

  “Bane…” There was no easy way to say this. “Bane, I probably won’t pass.”

  His face froze into incredulous disbelief—he really hadn’t realized. He’d thought me Safe. Bane, I’m so sorry.

  “You…of course you’ll pass! You’re as smart as Jon, you can keep the whole class spellbound, hanging on your every word…”

  “But I can’t do math to save my life.”

  There was a long, sick silence.

  “Probably literally,” I added, quite unnecessarily.

  Bane remained silent. He saw the danger now. You only had to fail one single test. He looked at me at last and there was something strange in his eyes, something it took me a moment to recognize. Fear.

  “Is it really that bad, your math?”

  “It’s almost non-existent,” I said as gently as I could. “I have severe numerical dyslexia, you know that.”

  “I didn’t realize. I just never…” There was guilt in his eyes, now; guilt that he’d gone through life so happy and confident in his physical and mental perfection that he’d never noticed the shadow hanging over me. “Didn’t Fa… your Uncle Peter…teach you enough?”

  “Uncle Peter managed to teach me more than anyone else ever has, but I’m actually not sure it’s possible to teach me enough.”

  “I just never thought…”

  “Of course you didn’t think about it. Who thinks about Sorting unnecessarily? Anyway, this is for
you.” I put the pouch into his hand. “Don’t let anyone see it until you’ve read it; I don’t think you’ll want to flash it around.”

  His knuckles whitened around it. “Margo, what are you doing here? If you think you’re going to fail! Go, go now, I’ll climb over and distract the inspector; the Underground will hide you…”

  “Bane, stop, stop! I can’t miss my Sorting, don’t you understand? There was never any way I was going to get out of it—no one’s allowed to leave the department with preSort age children and after today I’ll show up as a SortEvader on every system in the EuroBloc…”

  “So go underground!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You of all people could do that in an instant!”

  “Yes, Bane, I could. And never mind spending the rest of my life running, can’t you see why I, of all people, cannot run?”

  He slammed his fist into the wall and blood sprung up on his knuckles. “This is because of the Underground stuff, isn’t it? Your family are in too deep.”

  “Bane…” I captured his hand before he could injure it any more. “You know the only way the sanctuary will stay hidden is if the house isn’t searched and if I run, what’s the first thing they’ll do?”

  “Search your house.”

  “Search my house. Arrest my parents. Lay a trap for the next Underground members who come calling. Catch the priests when they come. You know what they do to the priests?”