The Grasshopper's Child

by Gwyneth Jones

  Tanya told the group off, mildly, for not delivering assigned academic work on time, and praised the plump boy, for being the exception to this rule. The girl with the tattooed face stuck her hand up, and said she wanted to submit her homework on paper. She was a Pagan and using a computer was against her religion. And anyway, Exempts should be able to go to a real school, with real teachers, not just send stuff to be marked by machines, and get a know-nothing child-minder on her day off as their only human contact.

  Tanya patiently listed the reasons why she was the only teacher assigned to Mehilhoc, and patiently reminded everyone that Though They Hadn’t Been Called Up they were Just As Vitally Needed In Their Own Community. Government stooges always talk in capitals, they can’t help it. Heidi had the feeling Tanya maybe wasn’t much good, but at least she knew not to react to attention-seekers. Tattoo Face had the potential to be a pain in everybody’s backside, if she was encouraged.

  ‘I see we have a couple of newcomers,’ added Tanya, with a big smile. ‘I know about you, Heidi. But I don’t know who you are, you in the brown jacket. Can you help me out?’

  ‘I’m Clancy,’ said the hooded boy, very quietly. ‘Just passing through.’

  He sloped to the front, his head well down, and handed Tanya an envelope. She took out a piece of paper, looked at it, nodded, handed it back and made a note on her tablet.

  ‘I see. Welcome to our sessions, Clancy. I hope you join us often.’

  ‘I’m interested in Astrology and Astronomy,’ muttered Clancy, who’d sloped back to his comfy chair. ‘I’d like to use your internet services sometimes, if that’s okay.’

  ‘No problem! You’ll have full use of the library whenever it’s open. I’ll get you and Heidi registered after this. Heidi, do you have special interests?’

  ‘I’d like to know how to mend leaded windows. And how to pronounce Me-hil-hoc.’

  That got a laugh.

  Tanya gave a stack of paper hand-outs to the Munchkin-boy, who went round dishing them out, while she told the people who’d done their homework what they were going to tackle next in their Core Virtual Learning Subjects. The Munchkin passed over the plump boy in the white shirt, and Tanya stepped in to make sure he got his piece of paper. The plump boy then became very upset, very quickly. The group had to remind Miss that Cyril was scared of paper if he didn’t have his gloves on. You had to put stuff in a plastic wallet for him, or else straight into his briefcase, so he could take it home without touching it.

  When that was sorted out they all looked at the hand-out, which was about Sharing the Care: advance warning of a refresher-exam coming up, practical and written. Tanya then gave the Hooded Boy an Assigned Elder sheet, but Heidi didn’t get one.

  Clancy read the name and address of his Elder, and smiled faintly. No real danger. He read further. A chill went through him, and settled in his belly . . . Call it fate.

  ‘Any new problems or insights to share, anybody?’ asked Tanya brightly.

  The muscular goon stuck up a hand.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Me and my old dears, Miss. It’s not working. I have to swop with someone.’

  ‘Jo, you’ve already asked me that. I’m afraid the answer’s still no. I realise this is a small community, not much changes and everyone knows everybody else, but the rules are the same. You can’t pick and choose the elders you’d like to support. That’s just totally unfair. Heidi? You have a question?’

  ‘You haven’t assigned me an Elder, Tanya.’

  Immediately Heidi wished she’d kept her mouth shut. The whole group went silent, and pebble-eyes Tanya was giving her the full-on pity-smile. Everyone knew who Heidi Ryan was, obviously. Her dad’s been murdered, her mum’s in the bin, she’s Indentured to pay off her parents’ debts—

  ‘You’re doing enough, Heidi. You won’t be asked to take on anything more.’

  ‘Oh. I see. All right.’

  After the session Heidi and the Hooded Boy stayed behind to get registered, and issued with non-biometric passwords. The Hooded Boy got through it as quickly as possible. Heidi lingered, thinking of questions to ask about her new identity, how she could access her mail; and whether Tanya had been sent her learning records (she had).

  ‘Heidi, I’m sure you’ve been told you’re entitled to time off for study? It might be hard to do academic work at the Garden House. If it’s er, a problem for you to get down here to the Centre, let me know and we’ll sort it out.’

  Heidi could not see herself writing essays and drawing graphs, now that she was a slave. She had a feeling, based on the fact that nobody had told her she had study time, that Angel Care shared this opinion. But she didn’t argue.

  ‘Thanks. What happens if I get personal mail from outside the area?’

  ‘It’s simple, but you need another password. I’ll show you how to create that folder.’

  She had failed to avoid the Exempt Teens. They were all lying in wait on the Learning Centre steps when she came out; only the Hooded Boy was missing. She steeled herself.

  Her dad’s dead, her mum’s in the bin, she’s been sold into slavery—

  The plump boy, his white shirt and hand-knitted tank top zipped away inside a shiny black jacket, came up with his briefcase under his arm, and thrust out his hand.

  ‘Cyril Staunton. I have Asperger’s. What’s happened to you is wrong. Me-hil-hoc means Mary’s Little Hill. It’s Anglo-Saxon. The village is called after the church which is called St Mary’s and stands on a little hill. You say it Maylock. See you next week.’

  He shook her hand, one brisk up and down, and marched away.

  The pair of girls came up next. ‘Challon’, said the red-gold one. ‘I snagged a place at Virtual Brit School, that’s why I’m an Exempt. What Cyril said: same here.’

  ‘Brooklyn,’ said her friend with the hat. ‘My lucky break is that I have heart disease, a crap kind that they can’t treat very well. I’m really sorry about your mum and dad. Are you still in shock, or have you started grieving?’

  ‘I cried and carried on a lot,’ said Heidi, ‘where they were assessing me for being Indentured. I’m okay now, I don’t cry anymore. But nothing seems real.’

  Brooklyn nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I mean, I can imagine.’

  ‘Are you on a tag?’ The tall boy and the tattooed girl moved in on Heidi together, Brooklyn and Challon swiftly making way for them.

  ‘George Carron-Knowells,’ said the boy, with a warm, wide smile. His grey eyes, under level brows, struck her like lightning. ‘No reason why I’m still here: it’s a mystery.’

  ‘He’s my brother.’ said Tattoo Face. ‘He means our dad fixed it. Didn’t ask us what we wanted, just made sure we stayed behind. He’s like that. I’m Sorrel. Can we see the tag?’

  Resignedly, Heidi rolled up her jeans and peeled down her sock.

  Sorrel gave a yelp. ‘That’s awful. How can you stand it?’

  ‘What happens if you run for it?’ said George. ‘You get hunted down and flung in Juvenile Detention Camp?’

  Heidi shrugged. ‘Nothing like that. It’s not a criminal tag. I get picked up, taken back to the Facility, and they find me another placement.’

  ‘What if you cut it off?’

  The others Exempts were listening but keeping back: as if Heidi was a choice piece of meat, and Dreadlocks and Tattoo Face were entitled to the juiciest bites. Why would I run? she thought. I’ve nowhere to go. I can visit Mum from here. Next time I might get placed hundreds of miles away. And why the hell would I cut the tag? That’s a serious crime.

  ‘With what?’ she said. ‘It’s super-tough designer material. And if I did, some way I can’t imagine, I’d be in worse trouble than I am now. I’m better off just getting on with it.’

  ‘So the SS can do what they like to you? You won’t fight back?’

  Heidi rolled down her jeans. Not on your life would she fight back. She had to keep on the right side of every authority, because she was Mum’s only hope. But she wasn�
�t going to explain that to this village prince.

  ‘It’s not the Social Services. I’m Indentured to a loan company. They sort of own me until I’m eighteen. Or twenty-five; I’m not sure. Sorry, got to go now, or I’ll be whipped.’

  Sometimes there’s a poem you can’t write but you write it anyway: to have something to remember the feeling by. Like taking a poor photo, to remember that beautiful spider web. On the path through Spooky Wood, Heidi stopped, shocked to the core because she’d been thinking about Dreadlocks Boy, his comments, his infuriating pity. When he meant nothing, and Mum meant everything, and she’d just had an incredibly important interview with the Inspector. She couldn’t help it. The poem in her head was all about George Carron-Knowells.

  ‘I don’t like guys like that,’ she muttered. ‘Him with his dad who fixes things for him, and his rich hippie country set clothes. I am not a pathetic victim. Thinks he’s so fine.’ So pleased with himself, yokel golden boy.

  The Spider

  Around and round,

  Around and round

  My toil,

  Your sky puts glitter on it

  Spokes of a wheel

  Spokes of a wheel

  My hunger,

  Your eyes see lace

  7: The Running Girl and the Hooded Boy

  The sun vanished and the temperature plunged. On Saturday Heidi woke up to find thick frost inside her window, and snow heaped on the ivy outside. She’d made her replacement mend as tight as she could, but the cold was still desperate. The Bad Dream Cat showed no desire to get out of bed, so she left the door of her room open when she went down to work. She was worried about her sort-of adopted pet’s body-odour. Cats don’t normally smell of decomposing flesh, do they?

  But what could she do? She couldn’t take him to a vet.

  Nothing on the back step. The radiators were stone cold. She fetched fuel and made fires in the breakfast room; and in the unfurnished Verruca Room (where there was a working fireplace). When that was done there was still nothing on the back step. No back step at all: unbroken snow to the yard gate. The Old Wrecks weren’t going to starve, but she’d run out of fresh veg and milk, and was almost out of bread and butter. And the Inspector had not called.

  Heidi was beginning to panic. What if there was a message waiting on the server at the Centre, and she couldn’t get there to find out because she had no winter shoes? Breakfast will be porridge she thought, as she scrubbed the latest scrawls of slug slime, on her hands and knees. With toasted stale bread, the last of the butter, and fancy jam from their dirty rotten Stockpiler hoard. After that it’s powdered milk, crackers, long-life spread, and Old Wreck screaming at me—

  Where were the filthy things hiding? They must have a den somewhere indoors. The Steel Door loomed in her mind: a foul tide of slugs oozing from under it at midnight.

  She slammed open a pan drawer, grabbed the porridge pan, banged it on the hob and saw a massive live slug in the bottom of it, an instant before she poured in the last of the milk.

  Milk went everywhere. The pan flew. It hit the stone flags, ringing and spinning; the slug bounced out and landed squirming. Heidi grabbed the kitchen scissors and fell on it, teeth bared, wild-eyed, stabbing and stabbing as foul gobbets of ooze popped out—

  Die damn you! Die Die DIE—

  ‘Revolting, aren’t they?’

  Heidi looked up, through a tangle of hair. Old Wreck had appeared, in her dressing gown and bare feet as usual, a ragged bath towel huddled round her shoulders.

  She sat at the table. ‘I’d like a cup of tea.’

  Heidi rose from the floor with what dignity she could muster, put the kettle on and set the fouled pan in the sink. Old Wreck watched as she stirred water and milk powder in a jug.

  ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of using salt. It makes a most unpleasant mess.’

  Must’ve been one of your other personalities, thought Heidi, that left this whole kitchen in the most unpleasant mess I saw when I arrived—

  ‘I’m sorry. I just hate them, and they keep getting in. I don’t know what the answer is.’

  ‘Defeat and helpless disgust,’ said Old Wreck. ‘As so often in life. You had turned up the radiators again. I have restored the setting I prefer. Leave them alone.’

  Heidi made one mug of tea, preserving the teabag (she was running outof tea bags too). She was tempted to ask some questions, since Old Wreck seemed unusually sane. Where should she start? Did you know there’s been a stray cat living on the roof?

  Old Wreck gave a hollow groan, sipped her tea and groaned again.

  Nah, better leave her in peace. Heidi recommenced making the porridge. A rant could not be far off, she knew the signs. But she’d noticed the rants usually ended up telling you something, even if it was only how Roger liked his eggs. You just had to let her swoosh over you, raging but harmless, like a knee-high wave on the beach.

  There’s something gone very wrong with you, she thought, but you’re okay, really. And not as crazy as you look. Maybe I can be your knight in shining armour—

  ‘Would you mind if I got some Slug Bait?’ There was the shop in the village, though she didn’t know what she’d use for money.

  Old Wreck drew herself up, with a hiss of horrified indrawn breath, and glared in pop-eyed disbelief, as if Heidi had suggested boiling a baby.

  ‘NO! I FORBID YOU! The poison gets into the food chain, it kills songbirds! ’

  ‘Not nowadays. The only kind you can buy doesn’t hurt wildlife, honestly—’

  ‘SLUG BAIT!’ shrieked Old Wreck, shooting to her feet. ‘SLUUUG BAIT! MY GOD! MY GOD. YOU INSOLENT YOB! HOW DARE YOU—!’

  Heidi, stirring the porridge and letting Tallis swoosh, heard a key grate. Somebody was at the back door, which they opened, letting in a gust of icy cold. Who was it? Before Heidi could turn to look, Old Wreck’s tea went flying. The rant ended in a wordless howl, and Tallis, in a mad terror scarier than any shrieking, threw her towel over her head and fled—

  Heidi looked round, cautiously. The flesh-eating zombie was a woman in wellies and dungarees, snow in her curly brown hair: clutching keys, a loaf wrapped in paper and two bottles of milk; and smiling awkwardly.

  ‘You must be Heidi. I’m Rose, Rose Healey, Brooklyn’s mum.’ She eyed the door through which Old Wreck had departed, looking guilty. ‘I should have knocked. Tallis is so nervous. I didn’t expect her to be in here. I’ll bring the rest.’

  She set the milk and bread down, and fetched the vegetable box.

  ‘So sorry I didn’t make it on Thursday. My round takes forever when the lanes ice up. And the milk order’s short today I’m afraid. It’s the same for everyone. I ought to say welcome to Mehilhoc. You’re getting on all right? Well, I can imagine. I suppose we just had a sample. I am so sorry for what’s happened to you, Heidi. I’m running late, but shall I sit down for a moment, and explain a few things?’

  ‘Please. I’ll make fresh tea.’

  Heidi wiped up Tallis’s tea, collected the mug-fragments and filled two more mugs.

  ‘What weather,’ said Mrs Healey, looking around. ‘You’ve been working hard, I can see. And just when we thought that awful winter was over. When are we ever going to have a normal Spring again, do you think? You must want to know lots of things. Fire away.’

  ‘How do I pay for stuff, the vegetables and everything?’ said Heidi at once. ‘I’m new to this. Am I supposed to ask them for housekeeping?’

  Mrs Healey looked shocked. ‘Goodness, no! You don’t pay. We do things differently in Mehilhoc, we don’t use money. The Carron-Knowells are splendid, and we just share and share alike, everyone mucks in. Oh, but I don’t mean you. I mean, I hope you’ll consider coming along to the vegetable sorting at Knowells Farm, to meet everyone, but you’re not expected to do anything. Whatever you need, add it to the Garden House List. Oh, what am I thinking? Is there anything right now? Personal things, toiletries, er, tampons?’

  Heidi needed clothes. The purple suitcase ha
d not yet turned up. She needed socks, underwear, jumpers. But she was too ashamed: she couldn’t make herself say it.

  ‘Not really, thanks. I won’t need tampons. They give you a long-term contraceptive injection at the Indentured Teens Facility. It stops your periods too. ’

  ‘Oh!’ Brooklyn’s mum swallowed tea as if it hurt her throat. ‘Heidi, I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to say. The way you’ve ended up here, it’s so awful.’

  ‘I’m fine. What’s the Garden House List? I don’t know what you mean.’

  Mrs Healey frowned. ‘You’re registered on the WiMax now, aren’t you?’

  ‘I think so. I can’t really tell, as I haven’t had any calls or messages.’

  ‘No messages? Well, that isn’t right! Let me see your phone.’

  Heidi handed it over. Mrs Healey put on her reading glasses, flicked and tweaked like a pro, and finally sighed in relief. ‘Ah, just a step missed in the activation. Here you are. You have mail! Your access to the Garden House domain, my invitation to the vegetable sorting, and I don’t know what else—’

  The kitchen was warmer and brighter, when Heidi looked up from the little screen. The roots and greens in the vegetable box actually glowed.

  ‘Thanks. That’s great Mrs Healey. I’ll be happy to come to the veg sorting; I’d like to pull my weight. As long as it’s okay with Tallis. Who looked after them before?’

  ‘Please call me Rose. I suppose it was me. I wouldn’t say Tallis and I were friends, but I did what I could, and, well, I noticed things were getting beyond a joke. Poor woman, she’s only seventy or so. She was always eccentric. Had some kind of arty career in London, before she came back here, but I don’t know about that. Anyway, her mind had started to go. Something had to be done.’

  So it was you, thought Heidi. You grassed on her, that’s why she hates you. You told someone she needed help, and Angel Care sent me. You are the actual reason I’m here.

  Mrs Healey was welling up, brown eyes swimming. ‘I’m so sorry, Heidi. How could I have known? Truly, I never thought they’d send a fifteen year old girl!’