“Who?”
The Consul leaned back and opened the door as his phone bleeped with an incoming message but Kizzie was paralysed
“Our friend the monk,” Alain said, in a too-loud voice, but nobody around them seemed to pay any attention
“Are you coming in or out?” asked the Consul
“What do you want?” Kizzie asked Verne
“Help.”
“No.”
“I think both of us need some help, and quickly.” He stared into her eyes and Kizzie could hear the good part of her screaming, Forget it! Go into the dining hall! You’re in enough trouble as it is!
“In!” Kizzie shouted, squeezing inside and watching the door close between her and Alain Verne
4
Angela ran out along her normal route and felt the usual tension in her calves and thighs as her cold body strained to wake up. Her mind was fully awake. Like Kizzie, she’d hardly slept
She looked down at the hard, dry pebbles on the path. Sometimes there were puddles here, sometimes even puddles filled with tadpoles. Now everything was rather dull, like the sky, although at least it wasn’t raining
She ran past the ponies in their field, swishing tails and ears against the flies, and wondered, as usual, if she would prefer to change places with them. Did they know they were stuck in a field? Probably. Did they know that if they leapt the low wooden fence and the two strings of electrified wire, they would be free? Probably
But then she always remembered a day at home, years ago, when she was seven or eight, and a friend of hers had told her to let the canary they had out of the cage and they’d opened the small door and beckoned the creature out, to fly away, to escape (even if it would have only been around the living room). The small, yellow bundle had remained cowering at the back of its perch, in the farthest corner of its cage, shaking with fear
Angela came out over the gravestones and soft mossy grass of the churchyard and looked up at the hills. Today she could see them in brilliant detail, all the different hues of the leaves and the dark, gnarled shapes of the branches and trunks. She breathed in the greenness and thought, everything is going to be all right today. Perhaps it was only the night. When you woke up in the night everything you’d been thinking of in the dead of night, alone, seemed exaggerated, didn’t it? Your mind made connections that seemed silly when illuminated by daylight
But what about the man? Go on, Angela – say it: What about William Shakespeare?
Well, of course it wasn’t Shakespeare. It was just some man wandering about the hills, lost. Perhaps the bloke had some kind of mental illness? Perhaps he was someone who dressed like Shakespeare, or people of that time. An actor, like Priya had said. Or maybe those sort of clothes were back in fashion for some people? Whatever it was, he was not someone who had lived and died over four hundred years ago because that sort of thing just didn’t happen. It was impossible
But, she thought, heading up the steep, winding, woody path towards The Gallops, maybe she would still try to talk to Leana again. It wasn’t just the Shakespeare thing – it was everything. Angela had been feeling strange recently. A lot of things she’d thought she’d liked were now odd to her, childish, even. Her body was changing: her face the most obvious thing to the outside world, but that was just one of her worries. Too many other, odd things. Strange new thoughts. She had started noticing the look in people’s eyes: people looking at her in a different way, with different intentions
And she trusted Leana. Leana was one of those people who seemed to understand everything. She’d heard the stories about her, but instead of scaring her, they only made Leana seem more real to her. Angela didn’t really feel that with anyone else, not anyone older than herself. Miss Bainbridge hardly noticed her, and when she did, she spoke to her like a child. In class she never met the teacher’s eye, for different reasons, face down in a book or face burning with potential shame at having to talk out loud. Her new greatest fear was that she would have to stand up in class and speak and that everyone would stare at her. Whenever she spoke to more than one person these days, Angela went to pieces
She ran along The Gallops and looked down at the bypass and, beyond, the lovely sunlit expanse of the playing fields and the school. It really was a gorgeous spot on mornings like this and Angela was happy she was there. She would have been like this anywhere, she knew, confused and strange. Here she was allowed out to run and people left her alone. At the moment she could control her thoughts and no one really knew what she was thinking and that’s how she liked it
But now, beginning to head downhill, she couldn’t help but think of the man. Say it! Of William Shakespeare.
But she didn’t see him
She expected him to pop out from behind the tree trunks or be standing in front of her on the narrow, winding dirt path but he never was and she got down to the bypass thinking: That’s it, it’s over. Whatever it was, it was all in my head and that’s it. Finished.
But then she noticed that the cars passing her by were largely silent. There was only the faint hum of wind and some sort of motor, a faint buzzing, like a bulb, as each vehicle passed by
Closer inspection revealed that each car – they were sleek, creamy, silvery designs, all of them, like small jets – had no drivers. Most of the windows were tinted and opaque but sometimes she caught sight of a person in the backseat and strange lights flickered from their eyes
A child – a girl – looked out at her, a metal-looking, claw-like hand pressed to the window, and it was only when she’d gone that Angela realised the girl had been completely bald
5
“What the hell did Verne want?” Sol Kerouac asked Kizzie as she and Priya came over to the boy’s table
“Nothing.” Kizzie wanted to sit next to Zak but had no choice but to take a seat on Zak’s far side, near the window, opposite her sister Athy. The seat next to Sol was saved for Priya. He had his cigarettes and lighter on it
As Priya sat down she took out her chewing gum long enough to kiss Sol, both of them with eyes tightly closed, tongues fighting, before popping it back in her mouth and chewing again
“So is that it, you two?” Zak asked. “Is it official now? Are we going to see some serious Facebook updating today?”
“Believe in love now, do we, Zak?” Kizzie asked
“Where’s your mate Angela?” Sol asked, chewing toast with his mouth open. “Pointlessly running around and hallucinating?”
“Don’t be mean, Sol,” Athy piped up
“Oh! The dormouse speaks!” Sol said. He put his arm around Priya and squeezed her. “Missed you, babe.”
“I’m not in the mood for you being nasty,” Kizzie told Sol
“Oh, big sister stands up for little sister. That’s cute.”
Kizzie swore, something she usually didn’t do, and whipped her tray around to the table behind her. Two boys who were hunched up together playing on a small device looked up in horror, thinking she was a teacher. “Chill,” she told them
“You’re not going to tell?”
“No, no.” Kizzie looked down at her very dry scrambled egg and poked the hard, yellow mound with her fork. The rim of her green, steaming tea mug looked as if a toddler had been using it to soothe their teething pains. The tray under the mug and plate was greasy and the noise in the dining hall was horrendous
“Are you all right?” Zak asked, placing a hand on her shoulder
“Yes,” Kizzie replied. “No.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No, no. Just leave me alone. I’ll be fine. Give me ten minutes.”
“All right. Sure?”
“Sure?”
“Just realised you look like a sheep?” Sol shouted from the middle of the hall where he was waiting for Zak. Kizzie flipped him the finger and gritted her teeth. Why did Sol have to be like that? What did Priya see in him? When Kizzie had asked her, the reply had been, “He’s such a man.” As if that excused everything. But then, Kizzie couldn’t he
lp thinking that there was one of the problems between men and women summed up in one, clear example. A pretty girl like Priya, who could have any man she wanted (not that she needed to have any man), chose the biggest, most aggressive beast of the group
It’s nature, she almost heard Sol say
Well, I don’t like aggressive, horrible, alpha, King Kong idiots, she replied in her mind
“Priya left her phone,” Athy said, come around to sit opposite her sister. “I’ve got two exams today, can you believe that?”
“Really?” Kizzie looked up and sympathised. “Have you revised?”
“More or less.” Athy couldn’t help looking at the screen of Priya’s phone. She wasn’t allowed her own yet. “I don’t get this thing of having the weather on your phone. Can people not just look out of the window?”
“People like reading it on their phones.” Kizzie pushed away the plate. Her stomach felt as though it had shrunk. She couldn’t eat
“But it’s crazy. Mr Yahudi was telling us that these days Facebook and Google and people like that know more about us than we do. They can read your mails, you know, see what you buy, what you like, process all this information.”
“Big data.” Kizzie yawned. “Oh God, when are the holidays?”
“I keep hearing that, but I don’t get it. What is it? Big data?”
“It’s everything. It’s information. All the information about everything you do.”
“So?”
“So that’s how they know about you.”
“So?”
“So –” Kizzie shrugged – “I don’t know. So they can sell you things. Know what you’re doing. Guess where you’re going to go, where you’re going to be. Bad stuff, I guess.”
“But how can they know what I’m going to do if I don’t even know what I’m going to do?” Athy asked. “That’s dumb.”
“You think you’re in control of your own life?” Kizzie said aloud. It was really a rhetorical question. “I think the idea that you have any control over your own life is dumb.”
“Oh, soh-ree. What’s up with you today?”
Kizzie stared at Athy but she couldn’t say anything. What could she say? “Ah, nothing. Ignore me.”
“Yeah, well, I have to go.” Athy slid Priya’s phone across the table towards Kizzie. “Give this to P when you see her.”
Kizzie looked down at Sol’s grinning, gormless face. “Oh God.”
The bell rang and Kizzie knew she had to get up, drop off her tray and move on to the next activity. This is like prison, Kizzie thought. This is so like prison.
But if you’d have asked her she wouldn’t have known if she was talking about the school or her life
6
“Angela?”
Angela opened her eyes and saw Leana
The Head Girl had long, dark hair, parted in the centre, just like her own, which always looked marvellously clean, unlike her own. Angela thought the other girl had a weird, woollen, housey smell, which reminded her of the Senior Girls dorms in the boarding house she’d only ever been into once. It made her stomach feel funny and she backed up against the headboard, slightly overwhelmed by Leana being right then, on the edge of her bed, so close
“I can come back later?”
“No, no.”
Angela sat up. She noticed she was still wearing her running gear, her muddy trainers on a stool behind Leana. She was in Sick Bay, the curtains drawn, the radiators humming. It was warm and balmy. There was a sink in the room and, on the floor, an old telephone you had to use your finger to dial with, its cord wrapped around the base
“Do you remember anything?” Leana asked. As she spoke her own phone buzzed and she looked down, checked the message, and then turned it off. “Sorry. Go on.”
Angela was thinking about the cars: about the girl in the car with the metal hand against the window. “I don’t know. What happened to me?”
“You fainted on the pavement by the bypass.”
“Fainted?”
“Do you eat before you run, Angela? The other girls said you normally have breakfast when you come back.”
“I prefer to run on an empty stomach.”
Leana pursed her lips. “Oh, come on. That can’t be good for you.”
“I’ve always done it.”
“Yes, but you’ve not always run as much as this, have you?”
Angela shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“What are you training for now?”
“Nationals.”
“Wow.”
“It’s not, you know, that exciting. I’m not that good.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.”
Angela propped herself up on her pillows. “Can I ask, miss – I mean, Leana – can I call you Leana?”
“Of course.”
“Can I ask why you’re here? I mean – have you been talking to someone? The girls, you said, just now. Do you mean Kizzie and Athy? Priya?”
“Priya.” Leana nodded. “She told me everything. I know all about the strange man.”
A blush broke out over Angela’s face and neck. “Oh God.”
Leana reached out and touched her hands which were folded on top of the sheets. “You’re not mad.”
“I tried to tell you before.”
Leana leaned forwards and took Angela’s hands, which shocked the other girl. “I know, I know and I’m sorry.” She let Angela withdraw her hands and waved her own. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just so sorry. It’s been a really tough few weeks for you from what I can gather.”
Angela, her mind in turmoil, rolled her eyes. “So, what? It’s real, is it? He’s real?”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t see him this time.”
“This morning, you mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you’re pretty sure you saw him before?”
“I think so.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you did too.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Not him.” Leana blew a jet of breath up into her fringe. “But I’ve seen things. Things that other people haven’t seen. Can’t see.”
“Am I mad?”
“If you’re mad, I’m mad,” Leana replied
“I feel mad.”
Leana examined Angela. She was a strange creature, in the middle of a kind of metamorphosis between her girlish self and the woman she’d become. Her face was spotted red, her long hair was greasy and her body was too thin and wiry. She was changing, changing everywhere, physically and mentally. “You’re at a very important time in your life, Angela,” Leana told her. “A lot of things are happening to you, and around you, and you’re very sensitive to everything. Pain hurts you a lot more than it ever has done before. You get very happy sometimes - too happy really. It can be hard to really know what you’re thinking because what you’re thinking seems to change so quickly.”
Angela’s eyes were now locked on Leana’s. “You some kind of mind reader, too?”
“No,” shrugged Leana, smiling. “I’ve been there, that’s all.”
“Sometimes everything makes sense.”
“The most sensitive part of you is now very near the surface, Angela,” Leana said. “That means you’re picking up on everything, noticing everything, feeling everything. But you can also get hurt very easily. You are unprotected right now. You’re like a snail that’s come popping out of her shell.”
“I just want to get back in it.”
“I know, and you will. You will.” Leana took off the green cardigan she was wearing and folded it over her knees. “One day you’ll look back on this time as special, which is strange, I know. But you’ll never feel some emotions quite so deeply again.”
“Ugly is what I feel,” Angela said, closing her eyes. “I look like a freak.”
“You don’t.” Leana shook her head
“I’ve got weird ears. And feet. Ridged nails. Spots in my nose and throat, even on my eyelids. Fat ankle
s even if I don’t eat.” Angela stopped. She knew she was going too far. Telling all her secrets
“Haven’t they explained to you what’s happening, Angela? Your body is changing. Everyone goes through this.”
“I saw flying cars,” Angela declared quietly, her eyes clenched closed. “On the bypass. I guess that’s why I fainted. I saw flying cars with no drivers. And some people, in the backseats, looked like robots, maybe, or half-robots. And I saw a girl who waved at me. She had a metal hand. I think that was the end. That was when I fell over, fainted or whatever.”
After a long pause, Leana replied, in a calm voice, “It sounds like you saw the future this morning instead of the past.”
Angela opened one eye. She did indeed have a spot on the inside of one eyelid, a painful little volcano which hurt every time she blinked. “What?”
“That’s what I think happened. You saw the future. A future. Some variant of it.”
“How could I see the future? That’s impossible.”
“You saw a version of the future, I said. Your future, perhaps. Or a future someone here has written.” Leana said this as if reminding Angela to do up her shoelaces
Angela was getting a glimpse into a side of Leana – and the school – which she’d heard about from time to time, late at night, in whispers, in corners, but had hoped was exaggerated. “What can I do to stop seeing this stuff?”
“Have you been tested?”
“Yes. I think so. Same as everyone else.”
“Hmm.” Leana bit her thumb. “Do you have any brothers and sisters here?”
“No. Just me.”
Leana shrugged. “Maybe you’re going to develop The Power,” she said
“Oh God.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad. You’ll be trained. Instructed. Guided.”
“I don’t want to see that sort of stuff all the time.”
“Do you write? Stories? Poems?”
“No! Nothing! I’ve got no imagination!”
“Impossible.” But Leana thought about things. “It could be interference.” She leaned across and touched the back of her hand against Angela’s forehead. “The pill you took is working. How do you feel? See if you can stand up.” She helped Angela out of bed
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