The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

  “Now, of course, normally we’d keep you here for observation but in light of your windfall – and the disappearance of your guardian…” Madam Glassey reaches out and puts her hand on my arm. Is this care? The woman who has sold thousands of my brothers, and me, cares?

  I pull my arm away and wince as the sudden movement makes my back spasm. “She didn’t disappear, she escaped custody, right?”

  “Jude, please. The point is … you’re a free man.” Madam Glassey blinks. “The first in our history.”

  It takes a while to sink in. I’m not sure it ever will. A free man.

  “And if Ro comes back?”

  Madam Glassey closes the book in her lap. “Well, I mean the auction, it was truly a disaster as far as the Council is concerned,” she explains. “Given that your benefactor shot the Chancellor, we should arrest her and seize her assets.”

  “Does that include me?”

  “Unclear. The laws don’t really cover that eventuality.”

  “Ro was trying to help but you’d still arrest her?”

  “Yes, yes. Our dear Chancellor, a great woman, truly a great woman.” I don’t think she really believes that herself; she’s just trying to clean up the mess. “But we have a few candidates. Lots of changes we hope. My merits are on Madam Cramp. Talk of expanding living accommodation to the Outside, reinstating the House of Exploration, adjusting the population, maybe even allowing natural births. We haven’t had an election for so long! It’ll be a great show.”

  “A what?”

  “Oh, don’t worry your pretty head. Luckily you won’t have to concern yourself with the stress of voting and you can keep those merits safe. Spend them on nice things, a few suits, a haircut. Maybe you could decorate your rooms – wouldn’t that be fun?”

  I guess if merits give voting rights that only applies to women. Maybe I can persuade them otherwise?

  Free: to be able to act or be done as one intends; not under the control of another.

  I looked that up too.

  Release from confinement or slavery. Without cost or payment.

  I’m not sure what definition Madam Glassey is using. I feel like I paid a high price. I feel like freedom is just the start.

  As Glassey leaves, she says the stories are true. I can pick any name I want now I can afford to pay for the paperwork. She says it like it’s a small thing. It’s the hugest. If I’m not what they made me, the name they gave me, the debt I carried, then who am I?

  I roll over. Walker lies in the other infirmary bed. I watch him until I fall asleep. Ro brought him back.

  *

  I finished reading the dictionary yesterday. I give it to Stink before he leaves this morning. I invited him and Rodders up last night, paid double for their time and asked them to bring me my stash of stuff. I spent the evening telling my brothers everything that happened. I’m going to fill them up with stories.

  “You coming to visit?” Stink asks as he slips the heavy book into his bag.

  “You can book an appointment,” Rodders says, and I can’t tell if he’s serious.

  I laugh. “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

  He grins and punches me in the elbow. “You’ll figure it out.”

  As Stink gets up, he wonders out loud, “So what are you going to do with all those merits?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They say, you know, rumours, they say you’re richer than half the women.” Rod raises an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” Stink agrees. “They say you could pay off the debt of most the boys in the dorms. Just an idea.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” I tell them. If the merits I have don’t give me the power to vote, then what’s the point? Maybe more of us need to be free.

  Stink shrugs. “You know the Roids were sent to the Surrogacy to help, and the others that the Chancellor had pinned. No one wanted to book them for any appointments so they weren’t making their House Fathers any merits.”

  “That’s good, right? They won’t try it again?”

  “What name you going to pick?” Rodders keeps asking as I show them to the door. I can’t shut him up about it. He has a lot of terrible suggestions. Mostly rude ones.

  “I don’t know,” I say. But I do.

  “I’ll send up a list of suggestions from the boys.” Stink helps me usher Rodders out, laughing. “See you next week, Superstar! Get me a good story, won’t you?”

  *

  The doctors have been ordered by Madam Glassey to discharge me from the House of Life today. I’ll keep paying for Walker’s treatment. Maybe they can help. I tell Walker the name I chose as I get dressed to leave and dig his pass card out of my stash. I know what I’m going to do but there’s somewhere I need to go first.

  It looks so different in the sunlight. I squint and shade my eyes with one hand. Calls from the birds above, squawking, chittering. They don’t care about me. The leaves on the trees glisten with water. The damp heat clings to my cheeks. Life. It’s a deep breath. The greatest theatre of all. Even the silence up here sounds like hope. If the garden can survive, maybe we can too.

  Although the Chancellor had a private elevator, she wasn’t the only one with access to the garden.

  When the door to the maintenance elevator opens, my whole body collapses into the grass and I lie there a while, bathing in the light.

  And I know I should be afraid, sad maybe. The memories of the last time I was here aren’t gone, they’re woven into my skin, but I was a different person then.

  I follow the sounds of water. Where the Gardener died the grass is lush and thick. Someone, I’m guessing Vor, has planted something there, a tree sapling. The only thing that makes me nervous as I walk is the thought that the Chancellor’s dog will jump out at me but I can’t see her anywhere.

  The garden doesn’t care that the Chancellor is dead. It was planted before her, it’ll survive her, and when we leave it will probably take over.

  Just one push, Walker said.

  I open up the balcony doors. Throw them wide.

  The air out here is cooler than at ground level and the wind pushes me back, whistling in my ears. I’m so far above the fog here. It’s as if I can see to the edge of the world.

  A small bird hops over my feet, out from the stuffy heat of the dome, and takes off. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe not.

  As I make my way to the pool at the far end, shielded from the whipping wind by high glass panels, I slip off my shoes, let my bare feet press into the cold stone. My shirt. The stick I use to help me walk. The rest of the journey is a limp but that’s OK.

  I can’t swim yet, but I can learn.

  I lower my bare legs into the water. It’s warm, smells clean. There’s a strange scent on the wind, peppery and sweet. Something from far away. Stink won’t believe me when I tell him the pool exists, or where it is.

  The water comes from a waterfall inside the garden and the pool passes under a gap in the glass dome. Half the pool is inside, the other half Outside. After years dreaming of some magical way to fly through the High House walls, the price of a deep breath under the water seems too small. Not that I could go far from here. It’s a long way down.

  The pool goes right up to the balcony edge, the high glass side reaching below the surface, almost invisible, sending streams down the building as if the Tower could weep and wash away the dunes below. When I close my eyes, I hear the babbling water, the hum of the vents, the peace of being alone. Free. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the word.

  There’s another sound too. Footsteps. The pad-pad-pad of soft paws, long nails on stone. The smell of the garden in fur. When I turn, fast, I slip and land with a splash in the cold water.

  My arms are flapping as I try not to swallow the whole pool, coughing it up and trying to find my feet until an arm reaches in and pulls me up.

  “This isn’t me saving you,” Ro says. “Please don’t drown, OK?”

  I spurt out the sharp water from my nose. “Then don’t snea
k up on me!”

  She looks at the water and jumps in. The Chancellor’s white dog barks and dives in after her, trying to save us both. When Ro bobs up, soaked, still dressed in the same ragged clothes she was wearing days ago, she laughs. “Needed a wash,” she says and tries to stop the dog from making too much noise. “Dee, shh, shh. We’d better get out or he’ll never shut up.”

  Funny, I’d assumed the dog was a girl. “You’re up here for the dog, right?” I ask.

  “Lorri said the Chancellor kept him in the garden – couldn’t let him starve. Needed to make sure he was OK.”

  “You’ve got to get out of here – they’ll arrest you.” I move my arms like her; it helps me float. We’re so high up I can almost imagine we’re flying. Another few birds take flight through the door I left open to the garden, disappearing into the distance.

  “You too,” she says. “If they catch me, that is. Or are they still debating whether you’re my property or not?”

  “You were listening to Glassey?”

  “I just know how this place works,” she jokes. “Worked.”

  We pull ourselves to the pool edge, wipe the water from our faces, watch the dog battle his way up to the steps. He shakes dry his fur.

  “You can make a difference, you know. Now,” Ro says, perching on the edge.

  We both look out into the blue sky. She’s going back out there. “Still looking for your mum?”

  She nods. “You don’t need me.”

  I want to go with her. Not today but maybe one day.

  “There’ll be another Chancellor, you know,” she adds. “Maybe not so bad. But this place won’t get better unless there’s people here to change it, to set an example, to keep fighting. I’ll find somewhere safe. I’ll come back.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re going to live, OK? Not just survive. You’re going to live. Promise?”

  “Promise.” She’s right – there are still monsters to fight inside the walls. Maybe, when she comes back, we’ll fight side by side. As friends. As equals.

  “You know, I didn’t come up here just for the dog.” She laughs. “I needed a way to see you.” She takes my hand.

  There was that time she took my hand in our appointments. Remember what he wanted to do, that boy, back then.

  “Can I – just once?”

  Any other girl wouldn’t wait to be asked. She nods, smiles. It doesn’t have a number but she blushes and looks awkward and shrugs sure-I’d-like-that.

  I thought it’d be difficult but kissing Romali Vor is easy. It’s dancing with my eyes closed.

  There’s a ladder that reaches over the balcony, which she heads for. “Look after Dee. He needs feeding, walking, a friend.” The dog stares at me, wide-eyed, and scratches behind his ears.

  I don’t know where the ladder over the edge of the roof leads but I know she’ll get out. It’s impossible for her to stay, even if I want her to.

  When she’s gone, I sink back under the water, holding my breath in the perfect silence.

  Maybe I’ll take a new name, maybe I won’t. Truth is, Jude Grant could be any one of a hundred boys. A name is a story that gets passed down and twisted by time. This has to be the start of more than one story, so it needs more than one name.

  I’ll be a boy. Just that.

  A boy that started something. A boy that went to Madam Glassey and insisted he pay off the debt of as many in the dorms that he could.

  They can ignore one boy.

  Not a hundred, more maybe.

  Freedom for as many of us as possible. There’s more power in that than anything.

  I’m not just going to live, I’m going to fight. We all are.

  Dear Reader,

  I’m so excited for you to hold The Boy I Am in your hands.

  I came to this story wondering what kind of feminist I wanted to be. Writing this book helped me process my own experiences from years working in a male‑dominated industry. There have been so many great times, but they’re pierced by moments when some men I worked for reduced me to something to flirt with, dismiss, or sideline when unwanted advances were met with polite declines.

  Each moment sticks with me. I over analyze whether I dealt with them the right way, then wonder if there is a right way, then doubt my memory, then beat myself up for taking the burden of anxiety on myself, and so on… Sound familiar? You don’t need to be a woman to know these feelings, far from it, they come wherever there is disparity in power. And there’s a lot of that today.

  The proverb ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ kept circling my mind as I found Jude’s story. If we are all equal, are we all equally capable of abusing the power we have? If so, how do we choose to be better?

  See, I told you I over analyze.

  From where it began, soon my research took me to some places full of sadness:

  To forums teaching men how to manipulate women, where young men believe their worth is only in relation to their ability to be with a woman, or where they are radicalized and pressed into dark causes to compensate.

  To charities raising awareness of the hidden problem of child marriage for both girls and boys in a world where thirty seven countries have no real minimum age of marriage, including the USA, and where the rules can be exploited, not only for straight and cis people, but often to force young LGBTQI people into marriage.

  I saw the worst extremes of both gender rights movements and questioned my own identity and beliefs.

  But…

  And it’s a really important but…

  I came out the other side with hope because of people I met along the way, working together despite their differences: activists for gender diversity and equality, for disability and anti-racism. I also came out with the comfort that things are, slowly, getting better. But it will take all of us working together to stop them from getting worse.

  The realization I came to is that I am an unfinished feminist. And that’s how I want to be, always learning about the power I have, the systems I am a part of, and how I can work with those around me to strive for a better, more compassionate world.

  I hope your journey of discovery is as powerful as mine.

  K.

  Here are different perspectives on some of the themes in The Boy I Am:

  The Burning by Laura Bates

  A Change is Gonna Come, collection by various authors

  The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

  Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew

  Wonderland, Clean and Meat Market – London Trilogy by Juno Dawson

  Proud, collection by various authors

  I Will Not Be Erased by gal-dem

  And the Stars Were Burning Brightly by Danielle Jawando

  Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen

  A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

  Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill

  All The Lonely People by David Owen

  Gloves Off by Louisa Reid

  Gender Explorers by Juno Roche

  Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass

  The Boxer by Nikesh Shukla

  The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

  Long before I was offered any chance to publish I used to lie awake thinking of all the people who had supported me and helped me learn and hone my writing. You are holding up every word on these pages, I’m so sorry I can’t acknowledge every one of you.

  To Alice Sutherland-Hawes, for your courage in me and this strange story. Rachel Boden, Katie Jennings, Mattie Whitehead, Charlie Morris and Lauren Ace, Tom Truong, Kimberley Chen and Marg Hope, you are the champions and passionate partners I could only dream of working with.

  To Vanessa Harbour, you were the first person in the professional publishing world to take a risk on me, and you remain my guiding light. To Imogen Cooper for the Golden Egg Academy, and all it does. And to Lucy Coats and your incredible support.

  To Sara Grant, and the Undiscovered Voices team. Since my knees gave in on the day you called to tell me I had been shortlist
ed, they have not grown back. Your commitment to new writing is phenomenal.

  To all of my friends who invested time and patience into early drafts of this and other stories: Amy Carpenter, Will and Charlotte Cohu, Kasha Shana-Turner, Emma and Sophie Cox, John Smith, Kate Brewer, Athena Stevens and the KEHS green sofa crew. To my writing family from WordTheatre, GEA, and SCBWI (particularly my zoomies). A special love to my Boot & Floggers – Mandy Rabin, Charlotte Teeple-Salas, Jenny Rees, Helen Simmons, and Olivia Wakeford – this book simply would not exist without you. And to Miss Warne, Mrs Moule and librarian Mrs. Maloney who nurtured my love of the literary.

  To my parents, who have endured me being hunched over a laptop or notebook on too many family occasions; my brother who encouraged me not to ‘give [my] writing away’; my best sister Sian; and to my fabulous husband, who read an early draft of this book before our third date, and didn’t dump me.

  And to my Apple and my Rain. You are every reason why.

  Made in Birmingham, K. L. Kettle lives, works and writes in London. The Boy I Am was shortlisted for the SCBWI 2018 Undiscovered Voices competition. She has won competitions and been highly commended for her flash fiction, including being longlisted as part of the 2017 Bath Flash Fiction Award.

  When not writing Kathryn can be found traveling and working around the world working to solve big technology problems. Kathryn has a husband and twin children.

  @klkettle

  STRIPES PUBLISHING LIMITED

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  First published in Great Britain by Stripes Publishing Limited in 2021

  Text copyright © K. L. Kettle, 2021

  Cover copyright © Stripes Publishing Limited, 2021