by Ann Halam
“That’s a good idea,” said Mama. “I’ll have to see about that.”
I wasn’t angry. I didn’t care about any old toys, I only wanted to keep my Nivvy safe. I was trying to watch him without looking up, and I knew Mama was trying to watch him too. I prayed he would be scared and stay out of sight. But Nivvy had no fear. He was never, never afraid. He came to the edge of the shelf, by his grain jar. I saw him peering curiously at the top of the Nail Collector’s head, and had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from gasping with horror. I knew what Nivvy could see. He could see a big furry thing—the top of the Nail Collector’s hat—moving gently up and down as the Nail Collector sipped his tea. I knew what would happen next. Nivvy couldn’t possibly resist. He could never resist pouncing on anything that moved! He would have to attack the hat.
Nivvy jumped. I could see the hat jerk, and I knew he was twisting around up there, biting fiercely and gripping the enemy with his claws. I prayed harder, to all my mama’s magic. . . . It was no use. The Nail Collector got a very puzzled expression, he set down his cup, reached up and took his hat off. His head was round as a ball and smeared with black streaks of hair. He held the hat, his eyebrows coming together in a frown; his face, seamed with dirt in the creases, screwed up in amazement. Although I was terrified I had to bite my mouth harder, to stop myself from laughing. I prayed that Nivvy would not attack those tempting fat bare fingers.
Nivvy stared back at the man for two seconds, no fear in his bright eyes, and then he vanished: a streak of brown too fast for eyes to follow.
“What the devil was that?” cried the Nail Collector.
Mama was perfectly calm. “I don’t know. Some kind of rat that lives in the walls. Don’t all the huts have them?” She shrugged, as if this subject was completely boring. “I think it keeps the bugs down.” There were a lot of big, mean bugs in our hut. They bit us when we were asleep, and the bug poison you could get from the store was useless.
“I could get you rat bait,” said the Nail Collector, shrugging the same way, and putting his hat back on. “It would cost you, but good product, real poison, not like the store stuff. Only, we keep it quiet.”
Mama smiled again. “Thank you. Maybe next month.”
When he had gone, taking her boxes of nails, Mama came and sat with me on the planks by the bed, with her knees tucked up: there was just enough room for the two of us, on the warm wooden shore beside the icy concrete sea. The smell of Mr. Nail Collector lingered, almost stronger than the smell of an excited Nivvy. Mama put my princess doll’s tiara on my head, and pulled a funny face at me.
“Are you frightened of the Nail Collector?” I asked her.
“No,” said Mama, putting my red dressing-up cloak around her shoulders, and fastening the jeweled clasp, which would just about fasten around her neck. “He doesn’t mean us any harm, Rosita. This is the safest place in the world.”
I knew she had been terribly scared, but I didn’t blame her for lying.
“What does ‘increase your quota’ mean?”
I had heard the Nail Collector say that. He would increase Mama’s quota.
“It means I have to make more nails, and I get more scrip. It’s kind of him to offer. But it’s not true that it would help us to buy extra jam, the jam is rationed.”
I nodded, as if I knew what rationed meant. My mother put princess bracelets on her arms, looking at them carefully as she fastened them. Her wrists were thicker than mine, but the bracelets fitted. I thought she looked very beautiful. She raised her eyes, which were clear and dark like mine. “Toys and books,” she sighed, “toys and books. I brought what I thought was precious, and nothing that we needed. I didn’t know, I didn’t think. . . .You have a very silly mama, Rosita.”
“The guards were in a hurry,” I said. “They didn’t give you much time.”
Nivvy came bouncing up and skipped onto my knee. I could tell he knew he’d been naughty, so I told him off. “No biting hats! Don’t bite hats!” I said, shaking my finger at him. This was a dangerous thing to do (I think I was trying to distract Mama from her thoughts); but Nivvy was not in a biting mood. He grabbed my finger and wound himself around it, licking and purring and tickling with his whiskers.
“Mama,” I asked, “why did we call him Nivvy? Did I think of that?”
“No, it’s his proper name,” said Mama. She touched my darling Nivvy’s sleek nose with her fingertip, and he purred louder. He loved my mother. “His whole true name is Mustela nivalis vulgaris, it means he’s the king of the snow.”
“But he must never tell anyone his true name,” I whispered. “Except us.” I knew, from the fairy tales Mama used to tell me at bedtime, that true names are magic.
“That’s right. He must never tell, and neither must you, Rosita.”
That night, or maybe the night after (I know it was before I had my boots), Mama woke me up long after I had gone to sleep: and this is the fourth treasure. She made me put on my coat over my pajamas, took a blanket from our bed, and carried me into the dark workshop. She set me on the floor, wrapped in the blanket.
“Now,” she said. “Remember how you asked me if I had made Nivvy? I’m going to show you. Are you ready, Rosita?”
Sometimes Nivvy slept with me, but he was sleeping in his grain jar that night.
“Are you going to hurt him?” I whispered.
Really, I was sure my mama would never hurt Nivvy, but I was frightened.
“Of course not. You stay there.”
Mama went and fetched our oil lamp and set it by me on the floor, turned low. Then she reached under the workshop bench, and pulled out a nail box from under the other battered boxes that were piled there. It looked like all the rest. When she opened it I saw the round white shining case.
I didn’t say a word. I was shivering in awe. Mama looked at me and nodded, so I knew I should keep quiet. She did something to the case and it unfolded, making a flat, white shining flower. Mama started taking things from inside, showing them to me and setting them out on the spread petals. There was an envelope, which was full of slim white packets that had a clean sort of smell. I got an odd feeling from that smell, like a memory trying to be born: about another time, another place, my mama and my dadda. . . . Then came the doll’s house droppers and tubes and dishes, in a little rack just the right size for them, and last of all a small box shaped like a wrinkled nut, a nut big enough to fit snugly in the palm of my mama’s hand.
The other things were city things that brought fuzzy memories of our old home. I was so little, everything before our tractor ride was already dim and long ago. But I knew the nutshell was magic. It was exactly like something in a fairy tale.
There was a thin dark line around the middle of it. Mama ran her fingertips around there: the nut came open in two halves, and inside, snuggled in a nest of silky stuff, I saw tiny, furry living creatures. They looked up at me, with eyes no bigger than pinheads. The boldest stood on its hind legs and reached up its miniature paws, whiskers that you could hardly see quivering with excitement.
They were so tiny, like pets for a doll’s house! They couldn’t get out, there was a clear barrier in the way. But I wanted to touch them. I wanted to hold them, and I knew they wanted me to stroke them, with the tiniest tip of my finger.
I stared, my heart beating hard with longing.
“Do you like them?” came my mama’s voice.
“I love them.”
“Good,” she said. “It’s good that you love them.”
“What are they?”
“That’s what I’m going to tell you. But first you have to know that one day you might be their guardian. I’m their guardian now, one day it might be you.”
She closed the nutshell, and set it down. I was terribly disappointed, but I trusted my mama. I knew she wouldn’t tease me. She would let me touch those little fairy-pets soon, if I was good and kept quiet and listened.
“Now,” she said. “Do you know why there are hardly any wild ani
mals?”
Of course there were no wild animals in the city, it was all indoors. But I had been told there were no nice ones in the wilderness either. There were only vermin, and muties: nasty names of nasty things. I had heard about them at my crêche.
“Is it because of the vermin and muties?”
Muties were horrible creatures, ugly monsters that would eat you or give you diseases. I had never seen one. I’d never seen a rat or a cat or a gull (these were the vermin) in the city either: but I was scared of them.
“No, though that’s a good guess. You’re a very clever little girl, Rosita. It’s because of the cold, and because of other things that people did, a while ago, that took away all the places where wild animals could live freely. The only animals that thrive now are the ones that can survive on our garbage. But the spring will come again; the true spring. The little creatures in the incubator, that’s the case I just showed you, are like seeds. They are the seeds of all the wild animals that once lived in our land.”
I nodded solemnly, although I didn’t understand.
“We must look after them, and tend them, until it’s the season for their return. They’re safe here for the moment. One day, maybe quite soon, or maybe years and years from now, when you are grown up, it will be time to take them to the city. . . . Not our city, another city; where the sun always shines. It’s a long journey, hundreds of miles to the north and west, through the wilderness and the forest, through the forests to the sea, and across the ice to the other side.”
I was overjoyed. There was nothing I wanted more than to go running into the roaring silence of the wilderness. Then my heart sank.
“Oh . . . But we can’t walk that far, Mama.”
“We won’t have to walk, Rosy. The country out there looks empty, but it isn’t. There are many people living in it, and some of them will help us.”
I was doubtful about this. I believed that the only people who lived in the wilderness were the ugly Toyland people in these huts.
“Will the ice on the sea be strong enough?”
“There’s always ice on that strait. In the summer, special ships can sometimes get through it. But we wouldn’t get tickets. If we cross in winter, the ice will be safe.”
“When can we go? Tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow. I don’t know how long.” She smiled at me. “But I’m going to teach you how to look after the Lindquist kits, that’s what we call the seed creatures. Only, you must promise never to tell anyone else. You must never, never talk about these things to anyone except me. You understand that, don’t you?”
I nodded firmly. “I won’t tell.”
“Good girl.” She looked at me, with that solemn, magical expression again, the same as when I had asked her did she make Nivvy. Then she raised her hands, and opened the collar of her nightgown (shrugging aside her coat, which she was wearing over her nightclothes the same as me). “Look here, Rosita.”
I got up and looked, holding on to my blanket, and I saw a pattern, marked on her white skin by the base of her throat. There was a pretty circlet of green feathery leaves, spoiled by a black cross.
“That’s the Chervil Ring tattoo,” said my mama. “Chervil is the herb that old-time people used to plant first in the spring, or when they came to live somewhere new. It’s the sign of life. It means that I’m from the Institute, a place for people who have vowed to learn about life, and serve and protect all living things.”
“What is the black crossing-out for?”
“It’s not for anything,” said Mama. “It’s to show that I don’t belong there anymore.” She spoke so calmly that the loss in her voice didn’t worry me.
“Can I have the life mark?”
Mama smiled. “Maybe, one day, who knows. . . . Remember to keep secret the things that are secret, Rosita, and we can live here. I think no one means to hurt us, not even the Nail Collector. We’ll have to be careful, and no one must know about Nivvy, but I will quietly teach you what you need to learn, and all will be well.”
When I had my boots and I could play outdoors, I didn’t mention Nivvy to the other children I met, and I never spoke of Mama’s magic. There are things small children understand better than most grown-ups think. I didn’t know why we had come to live here, but I knew we were in hostile territory, my mama and I. And though I was not naturally a good little girl (I was often very naughty, I couldn’t help it), I knew that a promise is a promise.
Nivvy was my best friend and dear companion. I would wake up on the coldest nights, when the heat was so low it barely made a thread of red on the stove’s dial, with a warm silken weight in the hollow of my collarbone, and it would be Nivvy, snuggled tight. He made tunnels behind the planks of our walls and I would chase him, tapping and whispering, “Where’s Nivvy?”; until I pretended to give up. “Oh well,” I’d say, in a mournful voice, “Nivvy’s gone! Bye-bye, Nivvy.” Immediately his head would pop out of one of the cracks. He’d laugh at me with his chirring noise, come jumping across the room, and bounce into my hand—and curl up there, cuddling my finger and purring like a kitten.
The months passed, with no incident except for the supply trucks, that arrived with troops of armed guards and brought food and goods to our stores, and visits from Nicolai the Nail Collector: who was our “Brigade Chief,” and the nearest thing our Settlement had to a prison officer. The spring blizzards came, and at last the thaw; and again I couldn’t go outdoors, because the mud made our street into a disgusting oozy river. I cried because the beautiful snow had gone, and then I was astonished to see the blank emptiness grow green, and dance with the flowers of a wilderness spring. We had gardens in the city, but I had thought it was always winter outside. Nicolai the Nail Collector gave Mama and me a vegetable plot, out on the edge of the Settlement where people were allowed to grow extra food. We didn’t have much success, not that first year, but we tried. Then in a few weeks summer was over, and another long, hungry winter began.
The little king of the snows lived with us in secret for a year and a half, then he got old and died. Mama had given me several lessons in magic by then. She tried to tell me that Nivvy, the real Nivvy, was not gone forever, no more than a plant is gone forever when it sets its seed and withers at the end of the growing season. But I cried and cried, and wouldn’t listen. It was summertime. Mama wrapped the poor little remains in one of my city mittens, and we buried him among the dwarf willows, out by the vegetable patches. And life went on, day after day: a hard, empty, and hungry life, but the only one I knew.
* 2 *
The year after Nivvy died, at the end of the summer, I had to go to school. I didn’t want to. Mama told me it would be like my crêche, but I’d forgotten all about the city, and I knew the Settlement children would pick on me. I got on with them all right playing in the street, but that was because I could run home when they started calling me names. But Mama had kept me at home as long as she dared. I was six, and I must be schooled. When she told me she would get into trouble if I stayed at home, I had to give in. If a grown-up “got into trouble,” Nicolai the Nail Collector would make a call on his radio. Guards would come and take the person away, and they would never be seen again. . . .
It turned out that the children weren’t so bad. They would say, You’re not so special, now, are you, snottyboots?, because I had lived in the city: and hit me, or spoil my work, or steal my food. But I had friends as well as enemies. I was small, but I didn’t mind hitting back if I had to, and I could run like the wind. The worst thing was Miss Malik, the teacher of the junior class. She was tall and thin and dried-up looking, she had bushy black hair and she wore red lipstick, which made her different from most of the women in the Settlement, but didn’t make her any prettier. I hated her. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know the earth went round the sun, she didn’t know there had once been dinosaurs. She was stupid as mud, and she knew I despised her, so she punished me whenever she had the chance. She had a metal ruler, called the rule, which was her f
avorite weapon. She would call you out, and you had to stand with your hand spread so she could whack you on the palm. If you’d been really naughty, it was both palms.
I trudged back to our hut after one of my tussles with Miss, feeling very bitter. It was the beginning of winter, a fairy time: everything ugly hidden under a cloak of new snow. The smoke from the power station turned the murky air of the afternoon into a mysterious gloom, in which our few, yellow streetlights were hovering globes of gold. . . . I didn’t care. I was only wondering how I could bear another day with Miss Malik. I couldn’t understand why my mama wouldn’t stick up for me, why she was on Miss Malik’s side. One day, I thought, I’ll be big enough and I’ll run away.
Mama was working, as always. I knew she couldn’t stop to come and greet me. She had to be where the red light could see her, all through her working hours, or we got no scrip, even if she had filled her quota. I still couldn’t forgive her. I opened the sliding doors of our bed and sat there staring at the cold, miserable, lonely room, until the blood all rushed to my head.
“I hate this place!” I screamed, as loud as I could, and flopped down and howled, kicking at the wall at the back of the bed until the planks rattled.
“I want Nivvy! I want my Nivvy, I want to go, go, go away!”
Mama came out of the workshop. When I opened my eyes, which were screwed up tight in misery, she was standing there with her dirty apron wrapped round her, and her greasy work gloves on her hands. I had broken two of my big promises (the one that said I wouldn’t be naughty when she had to work, and the one where I would never, never talk about Nivvy so people could hear). But she didn’t look angry, at least not with me.
I sat up, ashamed of myself.
“Mama,” I said, “I’m sorry I screamed his name, but please make Nivvy come back. I can’t bear it here without him.”
She sat on the bed, and pulled off her gloves. “I can’t, Rosita. I can’t let another kit grow. We got away with it once, but remember when Nicolai saw him? What if people thought we had a mutie in our hut?”
