I Am Margaret

by Corinna Turner

  But I’m afraid if I waved to the bird it might frighten it, especially since there are a lot of birds of prey around the site. Your cousin certainly advises strongly against the excursion—thinks I can find something better to do. I suppose I’ve got a really good reason not to want to tangle with a bird of prey just now—you know what it is. Okay, okay, I’ll say it straight out, I’m not going to do it—I know you worry.

  I was so sorry I couldn’t see you off properly—I tried ever so hard as well. But when the fire alarm went off I saw this stupid year 7 running the wrong way and thought I’d better drag him outside just in case things really heated up inside school, and then I was just heading around to the front when I ran into Mr. Cornel and he grabbed me by the collar and said, ‘I saw what you just did, Marsden’—and I don’t think he was talking about the year 7!

  So I said, ‘Fine, but can’t it wait, I really want to see Margaret off,’ and his face went all funny and his voice went funny too and he said, ‘oh, of course,’ and let me go, just like that. So I sprinted round to the gates but as you probably saw I was too late. And I haven’t heard another word about it! So I think you must have an admirer—Mr. Cornel, who’d have thought he had a softer side! So, I’m not in trouble, just in case you’ve been worrying about that.

  You must write and tell me everything you think I could possibly want to know. Your mum and dad say I can have these middle pages normally ‘cause they haven’t really got much news anyway.

  I don’t suppose you know how Jon is getting on in there, do you? I’ve heard the girls and boys are kept apart, but I don’t know if it’s like, hermetic!

  Oh, I’ve included a flyer I thought you might find interesting, although of course you can’t enter now. I miss you loads.

  He’d folded the very bottom of his last page over. I smoothed it out and read,

  I love you.—I kissed that, but don’t tell anyone.

  Trying to keep too soppy a smile from my face, I just managed not to immediately kiss his ‘I love you’ as well. Best not be seen kissing letters when I supposedly had a nice new boyfriend right here in the Facility.

  With a little effort, I read the final page of the letter—it talked only about weather and the garden for the benefit of the censors and at the bottom my parents had both signed it—then devoured Bane’s pages again.

  He wanted to cycle out to the Facility and try to wave to me! My blood ran cold despite his assurances. Dear, dear Bane. I miss you so much, but I’d rather not see you than that you get yourself killed, you numpty! I wouldn’t put it past him to risk it, normally. But right now—thank goodness he wanted so much to be alive to rescue me! No surprise ‘Cousin’ Mark was arguing against such total insanity. Father Mark was a lot cooler headed than Bane.

  I re-read my mum’s page with mingled relief and unease. Rats—they’d seen pursuivants ‘around’ the house. Not in the house. So perhaps just in the area, because they weren’t worried about it. But they weren’t letting Father Mark stay with them right now, just in case. And there were a lot of pursuivants in Salperton. I bet there were, with Uncle Peter having just been caught there.

  Best if Father Mark stayed away entirely. But with Uncle Peter gone, Father Mark would want to spend more time there, not less. Whether it was safe or not, knowing him. I understood what my parents were trying to tell me, but nervous was the last word I’d actually use to describe Father Mark. He and Bane got on rather well.

  Still, on the whole it was good news. It sounded like they weren’t even close to being under suspicion and Father Mark was safe. I glanced at the piece of paper inserted after the last of Bane’s pages.

  The EuroBloc Genetics Department

  invites submissions for the

  83rd postSort Competition

  this year in the field of:

  CREATIVE WRITING

  Lip curling, I put the flyer to one side. Bane knew I’d already seen that! He knew I’d never support their foul program by sending in an entry, even if I had passed my Sorting!

  I re-read Bane’s letter, over and over, until Jonathan tilted his face up at me.

  “Can I come up?”

  “I can come down…”

  “It’s okay.”

  I uncrossed my legs to make more room as he pulled himself up and sat beside me on my clothes’ chest, laying his stick along the bunk. He rarely let it out of his reach. Just too useful to risk losing. He pulled his hood up against the chill. The weather was going back on its promise of spring with a vengeance this morning. I’d put a sweater on in the night.

  “Good letter?” he asked, his own letter in his hand.

  “The best.” I tried not to beam too noticeably.

  “Oh? How many pages did he manage?”

  “Almost three.”

  “Not bad. This is really going to test his love, though.”

  “Oh, shut up.” But he had a point. Bane didn’t exactly enjoy writing. “Anyway, would you like me to read your letter?”

  “Would you?”

  I took it, eased the pages out and began to read. If his parents were telling him anything secret, it fooled me, and he took it back so calmly there probably hadn’t been any hidden messages. Though with Jonathan Revan, it might’ve been quite hard to tell.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Even more quietly, I read him most of my letter, explaining the true meaning of some of the sentences.

  “Sounds like things are pretty sticky in Salperton at the moment, doesn’t it?” he said grimly.

  “Yes. Still, everyone’s all right at the moment. Let’s pray it remains so.”

  He nodded, then a smile crept across his face.

  “I’ll have to listen out for some of these beautiful birds. Brown plumage and green eyes? Brown and green are supposed to be two of the loveliest colors, aren’t they?”

  “Says who?” I raised an eyebrow, bemused.

  Jonathan hesitated, then broke out laughing.

  “Says Bane, actually. So much for that as an unbiased opinion. So what’s your favorite color?”

  “Gold, I suppose.”

  “Is that really a color?”

  I shrugged, knowing he’d feel it. Gold was the color of Bane’s skin, of the Chalice, of the Host, of the sky at dawn, of my mother’s hair. Gold was the color of a lot of good things.

  The Chalice and the Host… Shouldn’t have thought of those. I’d only been here one Sunday but the need to receive Holy Communion was a growing ache inside. ‘Cause unless Bane pulled off some very impressive rescue, there was no prospect of Communion ever again, not in this earthly reality.

  ‘You know, sometimes I get very jealous of those bits of crisp bread,’ Bane would say, if I lamented too strenuously the missing of a Sunday Mass due to lack of priest.

  ‘It’s not bread, Bane, it’s Our Lord, you know that.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he’d reply. ‘Let’s go you-know-where in the Fellest, shall we?’

  “Gold’s like orange, isn’t it?” Jonathan’s voice jerked me back to the present.

  It took me a moment to remember what we’d been talking about.

  “No! They’re very different.”

  Orange. Now, that’s what I wanted. Okay, so they were expensive and they did have to be shipped from the Spanish Department, but the RWB required us to receive a healthy selection of fruit. Surely we’d get one sooner or later? But I wanted it now, because for several weeks the censors were going to be so busy looking for any mention of Jonathan’s presence in the dorm they’d hardly register anything else. Which made now a good time to try and slip any dangerous information past them, didn’t it?

  Opening the back of my notebook, I studied the plan I’d drawn there. It was as complete as I could make it—all I needed to do now, was get it to Bane.

  Easier said than done. How do you make a plan of the Facility look like something innocuous? You can’t. So Lord, send me an orange, because I think the chances of laying my h
ands on a raw onion are pretty slim.

  Shutting the pad, I straightened the pages of the letter. What would someone think if they read it? That I’d elevated two-timing to an art form? Unflattering, but hardly dangerous. Good, I could keep the letters.

  Picking up the flyer to put it back with the rest, I paused. Why did you send this to me, Bane? You know how I feel about it. And as you point out, of course I can’t enter now. The postSort Competition is only for those who pass. It’s meant to showcase the gradual improvement of the human race, a different field each year. Music last year, Math the year before, this year, Creative Writing. I cannot, and do not wish, to enter. So why did you send me this?

  I read the flyer in its entirety this time.

  The EuroBloc Genetics Department

  invites submissions for the

  83rd postSort Competition

  this year in the field of:

  CREATIVE WRITING

  This year’s New Adults are invited to submit original short stories up to 3,000 words on any suitable subject.

  SUBMISSION DEADLINE—31st MARCH

  Winner announced—30th April.

  This year’s GRAND PRIZE:

  FastTrac publication of the winner’s NOVEL

  by Fox & Wilson.

  The novel and the short story to be on the same theme.

  Novel’s publication date—1st July.

  All Entrants please note:

  The winner to submit the final draft of their novel (max. 100,000 words) to the publisher no later than 31st May.

  In the event of failure to keep this deadline, or submission of a work on a substantially different theme than the winning short story, Fox & Wilson reserve the right not to publish said work.

  Entrants are advised that all submissions must be typewritten, HOWEVER, no preference will be given to electronic over paper submissions.

  All entries and novels to be in ESPERANTO.

  Entrants are advised that all submissions in departmental languages will be disqualified.

  All New Adults to submit their entries via their secondary school.

  Exactly as it’d been when I read it at the beginning of the academic year, when the details were first released. All the Safe high-flyers with authorly aspirations would’ve been working on their novels ever since, as if any amount of work could produce a piece of decent literature in Esperanto. By now their novels would be sitting safely on hard discs and memory sticks, polished and complete, and they’d be putting the finishing touches to their short stories. The very most organized would be beginning to submit them, for the thirty-first was the Tuesday after next.

  No-questions-asked fastTrac publication with Fox & Wilson! Well, it was always a grand prize for the postSort Competition. Last year they’d judged single music tracks and the prize had been the worldwide release of an album. The year before, entrants had to submit original formulae or something, I hadn’t really understood. But the winner got an all expenses paid degree from a top Mathematics Institution of their choice, and it’d been all expenses, right down to a generous allowance of spending money.

  I’d put my flyer in the bin in September, though. Bane surely hadn’t kept his, so where had this come from? Sue Crofton, probably. Why send it to me when I couldn’t even enter? I read the letter again. ‘Of course you can’t enter’—and he’d underlined the of course. I went very still.

  “What is it?” asked Jonathan. He’d been sitting there beside me, smoothing the pages of his own letter absentmindedly in his hands.

  “Listen.” I read the flyer to him. “Do you think it would be crazy if I tried to enter?”

  He blinked.

  “You can’t. You’re a reAssignee, remember?”

  “Obviously I can’t enter under my own name, but if I got someone else to enter for me?”

  “Well, I don’t see how they could prevent that, but what’d it gain?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Unless I won.”

  “It’s creative writing. You could win that.”

  He sounded so certain I couldn’t contain a faint snort.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but it’s unlikely. Still, just say I did, I get a novel published…”

  “And that would mean a lot to you?” His tone was cynical.

  “How often, Jon,” I murmured, right into his face, “does a reAssignee get a voice?”

  ***+***

  12

  THE MORTIFYING BUSINESS OF THE NIGHT

  It was Jonathan’s turn to go very still.

  “Well, well, well,” he murmured back. “I’m impressed, Margo. It is a good idea, after all.”

  “It’s not my idea, it’s Bane’s. He sent me the flyer and I wasn’t quite stupid enough to chuck it straight away.”

  “Well, it’s a good idea. Though… do you happen to have a hundred thousand word novel highlighting the plight of reAssignees lying around somewhere?”

  “No. But that’s not even the first problem. I need a winning short story to send to Bane by next Friday or we’ll miss the deadline. That’s number one. Bane needs to persuade Sue to submit it for me, that’s number two. Lack of novel is a distant third and I’ve got two months to worry about that.”

  “Can’t Bane submit it?”

  “The teachers aren’t completely stupid.”

  “I suppose not. I doubt he’s written a short story in his life.”

  “Oh, they’ve forced him to write one or two, but somehow I think they might smell a rat. But Sue writes, and she writes quite well. It’s the holidays, so it’s only the school receptionist we have to fool to get the entry in, but the Head will see the list.”

  “Isn’t Sue entering herself?”

  “Um… I don’t think she writes… quite that well. But I doubt the Head knows that.”

  “Ah. Well, you’d better get busy, hadn’t you?”

  “Margo? Margo, are you here?” Mum’s voice, urgent but not panicked. She’d seen the wellies in the hall.

  “I’m up here, Mum.”

  Rapid steps up the stairs, then Mum looked in.

  “Margo, why didn’t you come back to us? Your dad stayed at the sports ground in case you were still there... And I really think Bane’s a bit big to be in your bed, you know.”

  “Sorry, Mum. Bane, er, wasn’t feeling so good, so we had to go. And please don’t make him move, I can sleep in the spare room.”

  “What’s up with him?” Mum asked, as Bane opened an eye and grimaced something that was probably supposed to be a smile.

  “Urm, I think perhaps you’d better take a look, actually.” Mum worked in the pharmacy, so she was more likely than most people to know what to do about broken ribs. “He, um, fell. Sort of. Hurt his back.”

  Mum strode over and drew back the duvet. Gasped.

  “Why didn’t you take him to hospit...?” She broke off, bending to scrutinize Bane’s pink face and singed eyebrows. Her breath went out in a dismayed huff. “Right. I see why not. He hit something pretty hard, I take it?”

  “A wall. We think he’s broken some ribs or something.”

  “Bruised ribs can hurt like anything.”

  “It’s worse than bruises, Mum, seriously.” Bane didn’t easily show pain, so I was sure of that.

  “Right, well, there’s only one way to find out.” She sat on the bed, placed her fingers on his first rib and pressed firmly. Bane gave a strangled yelp and sank his teeth into the pillow.

  “Well, I don’t think they’re broken,” said Mum, when she’d poked each one. “But from all that whimpering and thrashing around, some of them are cracked. Good job it’s your mid-semester break. Now, did you tell your mum you were coming here?”

  “No,” growled Bane.

  “Right, I’ll give her a ring, then,” she sighed, rising. At the sound of the front door, she called, “We’re up here, dear.”

  “We—good!” exclaimed Dad, as he took the stairs two at a time. “Margo, why didn’t you... Heavens above, young man, what have you don
e to yourself?”

  “The secret’s in the eyebrows,” said Mum dryly, sweeping out of the room. Dad reached the bed and peered down at Bane’s face. Relief was suddenly wiped from his own.

  “Gracious, boy, what did you do to those fireworks?”

  “Poured petrol on them and lit it,” Bane muttered. “Thought it would make sure they all went off and it meant I didn’t have to worry about getting the door open...”

  “A large quantity of gunpowder when lit, will for all practical purposes go off like a large quantity of gunpowder, even if there are a few thin cardboard tubes in between,” stated Dad, in a rather patient voice. Dad was a trained engineer, though mostly he worked construction with Mr. Marsden, since there was far more of that work available.

  “Really?” retorted Bane, “You know, I think I noticed!”

  “Yes, I imagine you did. You know, boy,” Dad put his hands on his hips and stared down at Bane in exasperation, “if they catch you, you’ve done it this time.”

  “Yeah, well, when they execute you, they give you that stuff first to put you under and I have to say that would feel pretty good right now.”

  I smacked him on the head.

  “Joke, Margo!” he protested.

  “That wasn’t by any definition, any relation whatsoever of funny.”

  “She’s quite right, you reckless fool. Why don’t you ever listen to her when you have these crazy ideas?”