by Ruth Fox
“Well,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “Well, that’s what he is . . .”
“He is not a child, Mrs. Morgenstern. He is not a young man. He’s not a boy. He is a monster.”
Mr. Morgenstern stood up so quickly that the mugs of tea rattled on the tray. “Excuse me, Ms. Cutter.” It was the coldest and angriest voice Zach had ever heard his father use. “I won’t have prejudiced comments made in this house.”
The pointed corners of Ms. Cutter’s lips were twitching, and Zach thought she was secretly delighted that Mr. Morgenstern had lost his temper. She had been deliberately trying to provoke him so that she could put it in her report.
Zach felt that if his dad hadn’t said something, he might have—and probably not something so reasonable and restrained. Most likely, his reaction would have involved some swear words.
“I think this discussion is over,” Mr. Morgenstern said, and though he wasn’t a tall man, at that moment he towered over Ms. Cutter. Taking the hint, the woman gathered her belongings.
“Well, I suppose I have enough material for my report,” she said, standing.
Mrs. Morgenstern showed her to the door, then shut it firmly as soon as those sharp heels stepped onto the porch.
“That woman is everything that’s wrong with this world,” Mrs. Morgenstern said.
“Never mind,” said Mr. Morgenstern, his voice returning to its usual calm tone. “I’m sure everything will be fine. Now, why don’t we have some of these delicious lamingtons?”
They sat down and bit into the sugary cakes. But not even coconut could wipe the sour taste from Zach’s mouth.
Chapter Ten
Trying to dispel the negative feelings leftover from Ms. Cutter’s visit, Zach’s parents decided to take them to Lucky Lanes Bowling Alley the next evening.
“Can I invite Ryder?” Zach asked.
His mum pursed her lips. “Zach, this is supposed to be a family activity.”
“I don’t really know much about bowling,” said Monster-boy quietly.
“You don’t have to be good. It’s about having fun and wearing silly shoes,” said Mr. Morgenstern. He always said this, but he was usually the first to start crowing whenever he got a strike. “Come on. Bowling has always been a great Morgenstern activity.”
Monster-boy looked down uncertainly at his rented shoes as the family crossed to their lane, but he seemed to enjoy the idea of choosing from all the different-coloured balls. Mr. Morgenstern was busy explaining about weights and sizes, so Zach sat down at the computer and typed in their names.
His mum was “Queen M,” and his dad, as always, was “Phantom.”
Zach named himself “Ace.”
When his dad came back with Morton and three different-sized balls, he took one look at the screen and growled.
“Zach!”
Zach looked up. In the fourth row was the blinking green name “Monster-boy.”
He hadn’t intended to type in the name he called Morton in his private thoughts, but now it looked like he’d done it on purpose.
“It was just a joke,” he said.
“It’s a nasty kind of joke,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. She looked disappointed, and that made Zach’s heart ache.
“It’s what he is, isn’t it?” he said, defensively.
Morton spoke up. “It’s true,” he said. “I am a monster-boy. I’m not ashamed of it.”
Zach glanced at Morton, surprised. The other boy shrugged as if it was no big deal. Zach looked away, feeling ashamed. “Can I get some snacks?” he asked.
Mrs. Morgenstern still looked angry, but Zach could tell she was doing her best not to make a scene. She wanted this outing to be a success. She gave Zach some money, and he heard her offering to change Morton’s name for him as he headed off.
“No, it’s okay,” said Morton. “I’m happy being Monster-boy.”
Zach bought Morton a packet of bite-sized Krispy Krunch’s. It was an apology in the form of chocolate. He knew he’d be doing the real thing later.
It soon became clear that Monster-boy wasn’t just bad at bowling. He’d actually never bowled before in his life. Zach thought about the run-down buildings he’d seen through the gap in the Wall. He had imagined most of South Silvershine looked like it did on Beyond the Wall, and that that little glimpse was just a bad neighbourhood. (They had bad neighbourhoods on the North Side, too, after all—places that you avoided going after dark, and your parents warned you away from.) And Chris Cambert, as Derek, went bowling with his friends all the time.
The mayor had always said that monsters had access to all the things they needed, and, of course, they could always cross the Wall; but Zach wasn’t sure that was true anymore. He started to wonder about the South Side in a way he hadn’t before. What was their world really like?
Mr. Morgenstern thought all his birthdays had come at once. He considered himself an expert bowler, and happily explained all the tips and tricks to Morton.
“Don’t worry,” he said, when Morton’s ball went into the gutter, having spun sideways thanks to his claws. “It’s all in the wrist. Soon you’ll be bowling like a pro.”
Sure enough, Morton picked up the technique quickly. By the next frame, he had managed to knock over seven pins on the first roll and two on the next.
Zach’s competitiveness had been roused. He managed a perfect strike, much to his satisfaction. Morton concentrated very hard on his next roll, and smiled when he achieved a strike as well.
Zach gave him a glare as he grabbed his dad’s heavier ball, bowling it so hard and fast that the boards in the alley groaned.
The next frame put him and Morton on-par, and the following one put Morton one point behind.
Mrs. Morgenstern realised what was happening. “Isn’t this fun?” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “It’s all such a laugh, isn’t it?”
“Yeah!” said Zach, though his shoulder was hurting from using the heavier ball. “It’s great, isn’t it, Morton?”
A few people were looking over at their alley, now. Monster-boy’s rapidly improving abilities were attracting attention. Zach’s friend Vincent had arrived along with his numerous cousins, and was cheering his head off. Why was he cheering for Monster-boy? He’d been in the same class as Zach for years, and they’d always been friends. It felt like a betrayal.
Mrs. Morgenstern’s smile slipped. “It doesn’t really matter who wins . . .”
“Well, of course it does. Isn’t that the point?” said Zach, annoyed as the screen showed Monster-boy’s latest score. He was three points ahead of Zach, and some people were calling out in support. “Go, Monster-boy!”
Zach was seething. “You’re cheating!” he hissed as he passed Morton on his way to take his turn. “I know it.”
Behind them, everyone was chanting, “Mon-ster-boy! Mon-ster-boy!”
Zach took his turn next; he threw too fast, and his ball went into the gutter. There was no question about it now. He’d well and truly lost.
Morton didn’t get a perfect strike on his next roll, but it didn’t matter. The kid behind the counter walked over with a balloon shaped like a bowling pin, presenting it to Morton. It was standard procedure for anyone who scored over 250 at Lucky Lanes, and Zach had gotten a whole heap of those stupid balloons, but he had never wanted one as much as he did tonight.
Mr. Morgenstern looked proud as he led the way out to the car. “We could make this a weekly outing,” he said as they walked into the night, heading back to the car, with Morton’s balloon bobbing along behind them. “What do you think, Morton?”
Morton smiled. “It was fun.”
❖ ❖ ❖
Philip Nielson informed them the next morning, on a Channel Twelve News Special, that another boy, named Tommy Granger, was officially missing. “Tommy and
his Aunty Sadie were at Frankie’s Pizza last night when Tommy vanished. Just like the case of Bella Campbell, and the earlier disappearances, this case has no leads, no motive, and no apparent solution. Police are now referring to these cases as Vanishings—a name which has caught on with the general public, who are all greatly concerned.”
Philip Nielson took them to another interview with Mr. Majewski then, who sprayed a lot of spittle at the camera and shoved his red face right in close. “I say we need action. But no action will be taken by those who are in power now! Our mayor is useless! Useless!”
When they got to school the next morning, Lex was ecstatic.
“This is a huge mystery. It’s a riddle, an enigma!”
“I babysat for the Grangers,” said Fiona. “Tommy threw a water-bomb at me. But he’s a nice kid—when you bribe him with Red Raspberry Gummy Frogs. I hope they find him.”
“You know what else this means?” Lex replied, scribbling this information down in her newest notebook. “It means that if I can solve the case of these Vanishings, I’ll be famous.”
“Maybe you should leave it to the police,” Ida cautioned quietly. “If this is a case of kidnapping, it might be dangerous to go poking around.”
The threat of danger was the last thing in the world to stop Lex, and everyone in class 7A knew it.
“So, do you have any leads?” Fiona asked her.
“Yes,” said Lex. “Alien abduction.”
Fiona guffawed, but Lex looked perfectly serious.
“What do you think, Morton? Vincent said you were at Lucky Lanes last night—that’s not far from Frankie’s Pizza.”
Zach watched jealously as Lex interviewed Morton, who had been “on the scene,” thinking I was there too. Morton gave short half-answers to her questions. He didn’t know Tommy, or anything about the vanishing children. It was clear that Lex was trying to get Monster-boy to open up to her.
Zach thought maybe she was developing some kind of crazy crush on him. He would have said this was ridiculous if anyone had asked him two weeks ago, but he’d seen how Monster-boy attracted people to him. No one seemed to notice the little yellow permit card clipped to his shirt or jacket anymore.
❖ ❖ ❖
Another Vanishing was reported on the news that night. Philip Nielson was having a great time with this, looking deeply troubled and very serious about the whole matter. But Lex would have recognised the glimmer in his eyes. Tragic, yes; but it was also exciting news. The kind of news people wanted to hear—and they would hear it from him.
“Mischka Midlands,” said Philip Nielson, “is the youngest daughter in a family of seven . . .”
Monster-boy was sitting next to him, diligently reading a chapter in their Science textbook and scribbling bits of information in his exercise book.
“You know, you don’t need to make notes unless we’ve got a test,” Zach pointed out.
“I just think it’s interesting, that’s all,” said Morton. “I want to make sure I remember.”
Zach leaned over and looked at Monster-boy’s neat handwriting. He held his pen awkwardly, because his claws got in the way, and he wrote very slowly, but Zach could see he’d been taking down everything about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
“We haven’t even started that chapter yet!” he said.
“I was reading ahead,” Monster-boy admitted.
Zach read over his shoulder:
. . . Traits amongst offspring will vary. These differences are heritable. When members of a population die they are replaced by those most suited to survive and reproduce in their particular environment.
“So where do monsters come into it?” Zach said.
Morton looked up at him, his hairless brow furrowing over his slitted eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” said Zach. “It’s pretty clear we’re not the same species. Monsters aren’t human, and humans aren’t monsters.” He held his hand out next to Monster-boy’s. The difference in size, shape and colour was all the explanation he needed. “We’re similar, but we’re not the same.”
Morton nodded. “That’s true. And there’s nothing in here about where monsters came from.”
Mr. Morgenstern, who’d been listening in, spoke up: “No one in the outside world knows monsters exist, thanks to the Mayor’s Edict. And no one in Silvershine knew that there were monsters beyond the Wall until the Opening. The mayor had his yellow permits ready for people to cross the Wall. He wasn’t expecting the South Silvershiners to be monsters. Nobody questioned anything until the Opening—and even afterward, if they did, well, they didn’t try too hard to find out more. I must admit, there’s a lot about South Silvershine even I don’t know.” He looked at Morton as he said this, as if hoping that Monster-boy would open up, and tell him a little bit about his life beyond the Wall. But Monster-boy sat silent, absorbing this information.
It was the first time Zach had actually felt like he and Monster-boy were on the same side. It puzzled both of them. Zach asked if he could duck into Mr. Morgenstern’s study. There were hundreds of books lining the shelves. Most of the books centred on Mr. Morgenstern’s specialty of language, but there were a lot about history, too.
There were one or two topographical studies of “Region R4,” which was really just a chain of lonely islands between Australia and New Zealand; but those were only full of numbers and figures and incomprehensible charts, usually followed by the conclusion that “due to a range of influences from magnetic deposits, the pollution left over from both the silver mining process and volcanic disturbances, this area of the Southern Hemisphere is unable to be studied further.”
The smog cloud that kept most modern conveniences from working properly over the South Side of the Wall deterred most people from even considering the possibility that anyone would still be living in the volcanically active string of islands known as Region R4.
Only one map had ever been drawn of Silvershine Island, which was roughly 2,000 kilometres square. The map showed the city, which was the only one on the island. Beyond its edges were the wilderness reserve and farmland, the airport, quarry, a prison, and, of course, Craggy Beach, which was a small town of its own on the opposite side of the island to the city. The beach was a favourite destination for families in summer, and a popular place of retirement for old folks.
The North Side streets lay in pretty much the same order as they’d been laid down over a hundred years ago. They circled the base of Jagged Peak, thinning out towards the wilderness reserve at its base. South Silvershine was marked in, too, a rounded crescent surrounding the harbour that was no longer accessible—nor needed, since no ships docked there anymore—by North Silvershine. The whole city took up a third of the island, but the area where South Silvershine had been marked in was vague, crosshatched with red. The human population was around 35,000, but there was no estimate of how many monsters there were.
There was one version of events in a textbook, A Concise History of Silvershine Island, that was required reading for every Grade Six child.
The discovery of the Region R4 isles was recorded by the Dutch navigator, Aloysius De Vries, in 1789.
The largest and only habitable of this chain of small islands would become known to us as Silvershine Island. He discovered a primitive agricultural culture amidst the ruins of a much older civilization. De Vries imagined he had stumbled upon a great scientific discovery; however, he was met with indifference. Australia was being explored—and the British Empire had little reason to believe these small islands were of any value. A few settlers made it their home, running sheep on the grassy slopes between the ruins, but even De Vries himself grew bored with the place and sailed on to more exciting adventures.
At around the same time as the gold rushes of the mid-19th century, a descendant of the settlers stumbled over a large rock in a sheep f
ield. Taking a closer look, he found it wasn’t a rock at all, but a lump of silver.
The silver that is mined in most of the world is either found in small amounts alongside gold, or made as a by-product of various refining processes. But this silver was pure and ran in thick veins through the bedrock. When he began to dig, the shepherd found nuggets that practically fell into his hands.
What had been a small, quiet island in the ocean between Australia and New Zealand quickly turned into a bustling centre of commerce. The grass was churned, the hills were flattened, and the fields were dug up. Workers built a town around the mine, bringing their families and friends to live in the city they had named Silvershine. This also became the name of the island itself.
The silver deposits were nearing depletion at the turn of the century, and by 1912 were almost completely gone. Economic unease settled on the population, and the end of this boom era was signaled by an industrial accident, which caused a thick gaseous emission to swamp the mines and began to spread into the air. With a rebellion imminent, the Prime Minister, Algernon Innes, immediately ordered a wall built to stop the spread of this fog, which was attracted to technology and had unusual properties. The Wall has stood ever since.”
Just like their history lessons at school, this was where the story ended. The outside world had slowly forgotten about Silvershine Island after the silver had run out. Any information about the silver rush that had been recorded in books or newspapers in the outside world seemed to have been lost in obscurity. In any case, Silvershine Island didn’t need much from the outside world. They had their own mobile phone service, their own car factories, and even a few of their own TV shows. All of these things were financed by the wealthy descendants of silver-mine magnates, the Very Important Business People, who flew in and out dealing with new technologies and advancements made overseas, which Silvershine’s scientists could then use to create their own versions (which usually worked, better, faster, and more smoothly since they weren’t competing against the rest of the world to release new products before they’d been fully tested). There really wasn’t much that wasn’t available in Silvershine itself—building materials could be recycled, including metal, and there were factories that offered that service. There was an oil rig about a kilometre off the shore that supplied them with oil along a long pipeline to a refinery. There was a quarry that supplied stone. Timber was grown in a plantation on the other side of the wilderness reserve. Cows and sheep were raised on the farms. Occasionally something that couldn’t be sourced on the island had to be brought in from overseas, and would be done so via one of the helicopters Silvershine Airlines kept in their hangars, since the harbor, which had been on the South Side, was blocked off by the wall—but this didn’t happen very often. Silvershiners had found that they were quite happy keeping to themselves, which probably had something to do with the unrest they’d experienced after the supplies of silver had started to run out and the economic unease they’d experienced as a result. But there was no one alive today who’d been alive during that time.
