The Collar and the Cavvarach

by Annie Douglass Lima

  “I do my best,” he told Ellie, tugging out another weed, “but I can’t come here on the Sundays I’m in tournaments. Tell you what, though; I’ll try to stop by for a little while on Mondays from now on before I hire out, like today. Okay?”

  She scowled. That wasn’t the same, since she wouldn’t have the day off, and they both knew it. “Did you at least bring me a present this time?”

  “No. I haven’t had a chance to go out and buy anything. I told you, I’ve been busy with extra practice because of the tournament. I’ve barely been making it to my hire-out jobs on time most days. I almost didn’t have time to come here today, and I can’t stay too long. I have to work for someone at eleven, but I wanted to make sure I came to see you first.”

  “Then can you take me to buy a present today before you go?”

  He sighed again. As much as he loved his little sister, she could sure be a pain sometimes. “Fine. As soon as I finish up here, we’ll see if Mrs. Creghorn will let us go to the bookstore, okay? You can choose a book, and if it doesn’t take too long, I’ll read it to you before I have to leave.”

  Ellie chased after the baby as he crawled across the lawn, and Bensin pulled weeds as fast as he could. When she had dragged Willem back, she said softly, “Yesterday I was feeding the baby his dinner in the kitchen and I heard Mr. Creghorn talking to Mrs. Creghorn. He was asking if she thought they should sell me.”

  Bensin whirled around to face her. “What?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what did she say?”

  “She said the baby likes me, and they’ve spended three years training me, and I’m getting better around the house, and it would be a waste to sell me now. But Mr. Creghorn said I still can’t do all the housework like you used to and take care of the baby at the same time, and that’s why they had to hire in Becka. He said she’s a grownup and she can do the work and take care of the baby too, so why do they need two slaves to work for them when they could just have one.”

  Bensin couldn’t move. The morning was already warm, but he felt as though his bones had turned to ice. Were his worst fears about to come true? It took two tries before he could speak again.

  “So — so what did they decide?”

  “I don’t know. Baby Willem started fussing for his dinner, and I had to feed him again. I didn’t hear anything else.”

  “Gagagaga,” put in the baby, grabbing a handful of Ellie’s hair and trying to stuff it into his mouth.

  They can’t sell Ellie. They just can’t. Bensin stared at his little sister, trying to think what he could tell her. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with guilt for not finding a way to come see her more often. What if he had shown up today and she had been gone?

  “But they sold you and your new owner is nicer,” she reminded him, freeing her hair. “I’ll miss Baby Willem, but maybe my new owners will be nicer, too. And maybe they’ll live close to your new owner and you can come visit me every day. Maybe they’ll let me go to slave school and then I can learn how to read books.”

  Yeah, and maybe they’ll live further away. Maybe they’ll take you off to some province at the other end of the empire and we’ll never see each other again. Maybe they’ll work you to the bone and not give you your time off. Maybe they’ll abuse you like so many owners do.

  Bensin found his voice at last. “I won’t let them sell you.”

  “Maybe your owner could buy me, and then we can live together,” she suggested hopefully.

  He shook his head, hating to disappoint her. “My owner hardly has any money. There’s no way he could afford to buy another slave. Anyway, he doesn’t have any other work that you could do, and you’re too young to really hire out. Besides, I already told him I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so he’d be mad if he found out I was lying. I already got in trouble for that once. If he finds out I lied to him another time, he’ll probably sell me.” He took a deep breath. “No, I’m just going to make sure that one of these days you’re a free little girl living with a family that loves you and takes care of you and lets you go to a real school. Now I’d better get this yardwork done so we can go buy you that book.”

  He hurried through the rest of the weeding and pruning. When he had finished, he clipped off a handful of pink roses to stick in a vase, hoping the gesture would put Mrs. Creghorn in a good mood.

  She was busy in her study with the door shut, as usual, but Becka was dusting the furniture in the living room. She looked up with a smile when he entered. “How nice that you’ve come on your day off to spend time with Ellie. She’s such a sweet little girl. Talks about you all the time and how much she misses you.”

  “She said she heard the Creghorns talking about selling her,” Bensin confided, pulling a vase out of the kitchen cupboard. He filled it from the sink and poked the roses in before setting it on the dining room table. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  The woman nodded. “I’ve heard them bring it up a couple times. I don’t think they’ve decided for sure yet, but I know Mr. Creghorn wants to. And he did talk to my owners about possibly increasing my hours here, and he asked if I’ve had experience caring for young children.”

  Bensin felt cold inside again. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  He knocked on the study door. “Yes?” called a voice.

  “I’ve finished the weeding and pruning, ma’am,” he called back, “and I brought in some roses for the table. May Ellie and I please go out to the bookstore for a bit? We’ll bring the baby along in his stroller for some fresh air.”

  Mrs. Creghorn must have been preoccupied with her writing. “Fine,” she replied after a moment. “Come in and I’ll write her a pass. Make sure you take Willem’s bottle.”

  They rode the bus to the bookstore, the baby gurgling in enthusiasm at the outing and earning smiles from those seated nearby. As promised, Bensin let his sister pick any book she wanted, and she chose a collection of illustrated animal stories. It cost him six imps and ninety-five slivers, which he felt was more than a second-hand book with a dog-eared cover and purple crayon scribbles on half the pages was worth. But Ellie was delighted with the gift, and for today that was what mattered.

  The book was too long to get through the whole thing, but they sat on a bench outside and he read her one of the stories while little Willem tried to grab the pages. Ellie admired the pictures and together they laughed over the animals’ antics. Finally, a quick peek through the window at the clock by the counter told Bensin that he had better take her home if he didn’t want to be late to Officer Shigo’s.

  “I’ll try my best to visit you again soon,” he said as they walked back to the bus stop, “but my owner will probably keep me extra busy with practice again this week, and I don’t think I can come next weekend. Like I said, though, I’ll try to stop by again next Monday morning. And don’t tell anyone, but one of these days — or nights — I may just show up and take you away to freedom!”

  “Yeah.” But he could tell Ellie was skeptical. He still didn’t have an actual plan; it would be a lot harder to get into the Creghorns’ house at night and get her out than it had been for the two of them to sneak out together. And it wouldn’t be enough just to get her collar cut off if the Watch caught them again in the process.

  And what if the Creghorns did decide to sell her before the end of the tournament? Bensin still needed another thirteen hundred imps, and he needed it soon. And he couldn’t think of any quick way to get it.

  At least, any legal way.

  He pushed aside that troubling thought, hugged Ellie goodbye in the front yard, and jogged back down the street and around the corner to the bus stop. He had to get his mind on other things before he got to the Shigos’ house, otherwise he was certain the officer would figure out what he was thinking.

  “Nate and I were at Red Arena on Saturday,” Officer Shigo told him a few hours later as the two of them sat on his porch. As usual, he had called Bensin to come take a break from his work over a g
lass of lemonade. Bensin sat beside him, smelling the freshly-mown lawn and his own sweat, feeling as awkward as he did every time. “We didn’t make it Sunday, but we watched your next two matches on TV. Congratulations on getting this far through the Grand Imperial.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Bensin took a sip from his glass. “I stunk pretty bad on my first match.” How embarrassing to think that the officer had been there watching.

  The man chuckled. “We all mess up now and then. If you had to pick a match to lose, I suppose, strategically speaking, that would be the one to pick. So you’re back at it again this Saturday?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And how many matches are you fighting then?”

  “Two, sir, if I win the first one. There’s no more chances if I lose. And then two more on Sunday if I keep winning.”

  “Well, I have to work this weekend, but I’m sure Nate will be glued to the TV. You know, he’s been telling all his friends that he knows someone who’s in the Grand Imperial. They all think it’s pretty cool.”

  Bensin grinned. It was fun feeling sort of famous. Last year the excitement had been brief; he had lost in the second rung. This time, his name had been in the newspaper twice already, but only in the middle of long lists of competitors. The longer he stayed in, the greater the chance that there would be pictures, even whole articles about his fights. And if he placed, people all over the empire would know about him. Mom would be so proud of me if she were alive. Remembering her brought a momentary pang. He wondered if his dad, wherever he was, would see him in the newspaper and think of him.

  “Have you had a chance to visit your sister lately?” the officer inquired.

  Bensin shifted in his seat. “Uh, yes, sir. I stopped by this morning before I came here.” He took a long drink of lemonade, casting about for some way of changing the subject that wouldn’t seem totally obvious. He had to keep Officer Shigo from finding out that the Creghorns were thinking of selling Ellie. He just knew that if the officer heard about that, he would somehow figure out that Bensin still meant to try to free her.

  “And how is she doing?”

  “Okay, I guess, sir. She was sad I couldn’t stay longer. But I bought her a book and read part of it to her. She likes stories. This one was about animals.” If he talked enough about other things, perhaps it would take attention away from the topic he wanted to avoid. “She likes books about animals, and rabbits are her favorite. She has a stuffed rabbit named Bunny that our mom made her. She sleeps with it every night.”

  Officer Shigo was looking at him oddly, but Bensin didn’t look back. Watch officers are trained to know when people are lying. Were they also trained to know when people were avoiding the truth?

  He took another swig of his lemonade, staring out across the lawn at the fence he had helped to paint a couple months ago. It still looked pretty good. The hedge at the side was beginning to grow out, though. He’ll probably want me to trim it again this afternoon.

  He could tell the officer’s gaze was still on him, and Bensin was sure his face was growing red. He knows I’m hiding something. He took another sip, not daring to look up.

  “I see,” Officer Shigo said finally, and Bensin’s heart thudded. But the officer said nothing more.

  After an awkward silence, Bensin finally drained his glass. “Well, I — I guess I should get to work again, sir,” he ventured, pushing back his chair. “Should I trim the hedges now?”

  Bensin was on his way out the gate with money in hand, breathing a sigh of relief to be escaping at last, when the school bus pulled up. He watched as Nate and his sisters climbed out. The girls went right on in, but Nate stopped short.

  “Oh, hey, Bensin!” he exclaimed. “I was wondering if I’d see you here today. Did my dad tell you we saw you fight at Red Arena on Saturday? And we watched you on TV the next day. You’ve been doing so awesome! I can’t believe I know someone in the Grand Imperial!”

  Bensin grinned. “Thanks. Actually, I did pretty awful in the first round. I wish no one had to see that.”

  “Yeah, but you still stayed in the tournament! How many athletes in any sport wish they could qualify for an event that big and never do? It’s so cool that you’re actually in it. And rung four is coming up and you’re still in! Some of the guys at school didn’t even believe me when I said I knew someone personally who was fighting in the Grand Imperial. Oh, and that reminds me.” He grinned sheepishly. “I saved the program from Saturday. I was wondering if you’d mind signing it.”

  Bensin blinked. “Are you serious?” He wants my autograph? No one had ever asked for his autograph before.

  “Yeah. I keep stuff like that from sports events I go to. I’ve got a whole box in my room. A few things I’ve been able to get signed, but not many. It’s always more special when you can get one of the athletes to autograph it.”

  “Well, I guess so. Sure.”

  “Awesome! Come on in, then.”

  Bensin followed him back into the yard and up to the house. “I’ll wait out here,” he suggested by the steps.

  “Don’t you want to come inside? Come on, it’s hot out here.”

  “But I’m all sweaty. And my shoes are dirty.”

  “You can take them off right inside the door. That’s what we always do.”

  “I guess your dad probably wouldn’t want me inside, though,” he ventured.

  “Oh, Dad won’t care.” Nate opened the front door and stuck his head in. “Dad, you don’t mind if Bensin comes on back to my room, right?”

  “Of course not,” Officer Shigo’s voice replied from inside.

  “See? Come on!”

  Reluctantly, Bensin pulled off his shoes and followed the other boy into the house.

  The living room was very different from Coach Steene’s, with its real furniture and no cardboard boxes in sight. Unlike at the Creghorns’, the furniture looked like it was designed more to be comfortable than to impress people with how perfectly everything matched.

  Through a doorway, he glimpsed Officer Shigo and the girls talking over glasses of milk in the kitchen. But Nate led the way down the hall and into the second room on the right.

  The walls were covered with sports posters, including one showing two gladiators battling with cavvarachs. A miniature basketball hoop hung above the door. Almost everything in the room had a sports theme, even the bedspread, which was round and patterned like a giant soccer ball.

  Nate dropped his backpack on the desk and rummaged around in the closet. “Aha. Here it is.” He produced a large shoebox, pulled out the program from Saturday, and fished a pen out of a pocket in his backpack.

  “I, uh, I’ve never written an autograph before,” Bensin admitted. “Where am I supposed to sign it?”

  “Oh, anywhere. How about on the front right under where it says Grand Imperial Cavvara Shil Tourney.”

  Bensin carefully wrote his name in cursive the way his teacher had taught him to do years ago. He couldn’t help thinking how embarrassing it would have been if, like a lot of slaves he knew, he had never been sent to slave school and didn’t know how to write. “I only have one name,” he apologized. “I guess it looks kind of lame there by itself.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It’s your name; who cares if you have one or two or three?” Nate examined it with satisfaction and replaced the program in its box. “You want to see some of the others I’ve got here? This one’s my favorite.” He pulled out a booklet titled Annual Imperial Gun Show in bold black letters. “Dad took me last year for my birthday. It isn’t exactly sports, and I didn’t get any autographs there, but it was so awesome.”

  He handed the booklet to Bensin, who flipped through the pages dutifully. They were full of pictures of more types of firearms than he had known existed.

  “We saw all these close up.” Nate grinned at the memory. “I even got to fire some of them!”

  “Wow.” Bensin wondered what it felt like to fire a gun. He knew he would never find out, since it was illegal for
slaves even to touch a firearm. Just examining the pictures like this made him feel a little guilty, and he glanced over his shoulder, wondering if Officer Shigo would walk in and see him looking at them. But it can’t be wrong to just look, or Nate wouldn’t be showing them to me.

  He wondered which kinds of guns Watch officers used. A lot of the weapons in here looked almost exactly alike to him.

  “I’ll show you my favorite.” Nate took the booklet from him and turned a few pages. “Here it is: the Stinger 700. One of my uncles has one, and they’re so cool! I’ve been begging and begging my parents, and they finally said they’ll get me one if I can earn straight As for a whole year.”

  “What makes that one so much cooler than the others?” Bensin ventured, hoping his question wouldn’t reveal his utter ignorance of all things firearm-related.

  “Lots of stuff. See, here are the other Stinger models on this page, and they all hold twelve rounds in the magazine plus one in the chamber, but the Stinger 700 holds fifteen plus one.”

  Rounds? Magazine? Chamber? Was he talking about bullets? Bensin nodded as though it made perfect sense. “Wow, fifteen.”

  “And the grip is only a little longer than most of these others,” Nate went on, “so you can still carry it around in your pocket, but it’s got more power and great range. I love the slide serrations, too. Don’t they make it look awesome?” He pointed to what seemed to be a series of slits in the top part of the gun, arranged in overlapping concentric patterns.

  “Yeah. Awesome decorations.”

  “Well, they’re not really for decoration. It’s to make the gun lighter. But I think the pattern of cuts on the slide looks cooler than any of the others. And I love how the S700 is imprinted there on the barrel in silver. And look how awesome the grip is, polished wood instead of just metal like those ones. It’s really comfortable to hold and easy to fire. Of course, it’s the most expensive one, but hey, my parents would be paying, not me.” He chuckled.