Crooks and Straights

by Masha du Toit

  The box!

  It had fallen over on its side, one cardboard flap hanging open. Her heart beating, she tipped it back upright with a foot, listening for movement from within, but nothing happened.

  “Gia?” came her father’s voice from below. “You better be dressing!”

  “Yes Dad!” she called and started taking off her clothes, still staring at the box.

  She turned her back on it for an instant to dig for clean underwear. Luckily her uniform was within easy reach, draped over the back of a chair. A sniff-check told her the shirt was clean enough.

  Dressed, she prodded the box with one foot. Then she crouched next to it and peered inside. There was a jumble of towels, but no sign of any creature.

  Was it dead after all?

  Hesitantly at first, and then more boldly she reached inside, dreading what she might find. What if all that was left was a little heap of soil and leaves?

  As she pulled out the towels the saucer that had held the milk and honey fell out and bounced on the floorboards. It had been licked quite clean.

  “Gia!”

  She looked around the room as she put on the rest of her clothes, but could see no sign of the creature.

  It must have got out. But how—?

  The window was still firmly closed. And besides, it was warded. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was interesting that Pouf had managed to cross the wards with the creature in his mouth.

  But there was no time to look any further. She pushed her copy of Brink and Moolman back in her school bag and with one last look around her room, climbed down through the trapdoor and slid it shut behind her.

  Mandy intercepted her in the kitchen, gave her a lunch box and pointed out that her shirt was buttoned up wrong, and then she was downstairs, where her father waited in the car, the engine already running.

  “Good,” he said, and pulled off just as she had the door closed. “I’m hoping to miss the traffic.”

  Gia buckled herself in and turned round to check on Nico, who was bouncing on the back seat.

  “Hi Nico. You going to Mrs Winterbach today?”

  “Moses, Moses, Moses supposes!” chanted Nico. He rocked himself forward and backward as if listening to a marching band that only he could hear.

  “Calm down, Nico,” said Karel with a glance in the rear-view mirror.

  “Why’s Mom not taking him?” asked Gia.

  “She’s got a client coming for measurements. One of the dieting brides.”

  “That one with all the lace panels?”

  Karel nodded and slowed the car to allow a group of schoolchildren to cross. Then he shot down a small side street.

  “If that girl loses any more weight,” he said, “we’re going to have to use glue to keep the dress from falling off her. And she’s probably going to cry all over Saraswati again. I swear, we should start charging extra for the therapy sessions.”

  “Moses, supposes, supposes, supposes!” chanted Nico.

  “Oh, good,” said Karel. They’d reached the on-ramp, and although the traffic was heavy, it was still moving. “Looks like we’ll make your school on time.”

  He reached over and switched on the radio. “Find some music on there, won’t you?” he said as he merged into the flow of the traffic. “Calm the boy down a bit. I hate dropping him off when he’s like this.”

  Near the Good Hope Centre the traffic slowed to a complete stop, and her father grumbled his irritation, trying to see ahead. “What’s the holdup?”

  There was a noise up ahead, a noise like people chanting at a sports match. A moment later they saw them, a marching crowd, some holding up signs, others carrying large home-made banners.

  “No, no, no!” they shouted, shaking their signs in time to their chant. “Grey List must go!”

  Karel groaned. “A protest. These people could not just wait ’till the rush hour was over?”

  “No, no, no!”

  The traffic was moving again and Gia saw that there were policemen up ahead, directing the protesters away from the cars. The crowd moved back quite willingly, but they did not stop their chanting.

  Sentient rights! said one sign, and Impure and Proud of it! said another.

  Office workers and students, normal, everyday people. Gia saw a little girl with plastic fairy-wings riding on her father’s shoulders, smiling and waving at passing motorists.

  Not all of the protesters were as charming. Some way along, Gia saw a knot of people who stood, swaying, on the edge of the road. They had the air of sleepwalkers, and there was something disturbing in the way they held themselves, as if they were in pain, or cringing from some sound that only they could hear. Some of them had their hands over their faces, or their arms wrapped around themselves. One woman raked her fingers through her hair.

  They too, chanted, but it was a slow chant, and softer than the other protesters.

  “Oh, no, no,” came their voices. Or was it “Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow”?

  “Guilters,” said Karel, seeing where Gia was looking. “Those are guilters. They’ve been in the news lately.”

  Gia noticed that Nico was staring as well, and moving his lips in time with the chant.

  “Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.”

  Then they were past, and the car accelerated away from the last of the crowd. Nico looked back at them for as long as they were in sight.

  -oOo-

  Gia made it to school on time. The bell rang as she came through the gate, and she joined the students gathering outside the school hall before any teachers appeared. Sonella caught her eye and beckoned, and Gia slipped into line behind her.

  “Best not to stand right at the back,” explained Sonella. “Then you could end up sitting in front of the standard-nine boys, and they're forever pulling at your hair or trying to stick chewing gum into it.”

  The teachers checked that the last stragglers had joined the lines, and at the signal, they started walking, line by line, into the school hall. There was an air of suppressed excitement. On a normal day, they’d all be moving to their first-period lesson, and the change in routine had stirred up the whole school. There was more than the usual amount of noise. Everyone either craned to see who was on the stage, or turned toward their neighbour to ask what was going on.

  “Silence, please!” That was Mrs Kemp, standing at the back of the hall. “Settle down. Prefects, keep your classes in order, please!”

  The noise gradually died down, but the atmosphere remained charged. Gia could see Mr Peterson, the headmaster, standing at the lectern and fussing with the microphone. On the chairs behind him sat two people she did not recognise— a middle-aged man and a young boy, both dressed in grey uniforms.

  The man sat comfortably, taking in the crowd with an air of unconscious command, his booted legs stretched out in front of him. The boy sat tensely upright, eyes down.

  When the last of the students were settled, Mr Peterson gave a nod to Miss Rademan, who sat ready at the piano, and the first chords of the school song crashed out.

  Everyone got to their feet again. As she sang, Gia tried to get a better look at the visitors, but it was difficult to see around the row of boys in front of her. The chords changed, and they sang the national anthem. At last, the singing was over and everybody sat down again.

  “Good morning, boys and girls!” said Mr Peterson, waking a squeal of feedback from his microphone.

  “Today we have some very special visitors for you.”

  Gia had a better view now. The man was short but powerfully built. His companion, Gia realised, was not a boy. She was a girl— no, a young woman. It was her hands that gave her away: slim, delicate hands, one placed precisely on each knee. Otherwise she seemed almost sexless, her hair cropped close to her skull, no feminine curves visible under her shirt.

  “And with no more delay, let me hand over to Captain Witbooi.”

  Captain Witbooi rose from his chair, nodding to acknowledge the applause. Ignoring Mr Peterson’s attempt to h
erd him towards the lectern, he strode to the front of the stage. He lifted his arms, wrists crossed, and hands balled into fists. His sleeves drew back, revealing two wide silver bracelets, bright against his dark skin.

  “Pure and true!” He settled back on his heels and looked out over the audience. Then he nodded in satisfaction. “Ladies. Gentlemen.” His unamplified voice carried easily across the hall.

  “It is easy to forget, these days, how lucky we are, all of us, here in South Africa. Here in this hall. I see you, young men and young women, black and white together under the same roof, and it’s easy to forget that only a few years ago, this was not possible. Only a few years ago, this would have been an illegal gathering. Only a few years ago, we were fighting for our freedom.”

  He smiled out at them. “But I see what you are thinking. Another old fart droning on about the past.”

  The students giggled obediently.

  “Who cares? Isn’t that what you are thinking? That is all the past. We are safe now. We have our freedom.”

  He stopped and scanned them again, seeming to look at each of them in turn, one by one. Gia felt the magnetism of his look, found herself hoping to catch his eye.

  “But you are wrong. We’re not safe. We’re not free. Or— let me rather say, our freedom is under threat.”

  He started pacing across the stage.

  “Something you learn, when you are a soldier— and make no mistake, a Special Branch member may be called a policeman, but we are soldiers— is that nothing is guaranteed. The fight for freedom is never over. There is always someone who has to be out there, at night, in the dark, so that the rest of you can sleep safely in your warm beds. While you are dreaming, we're out there fighting the nightmares: the werewolves, the ghasts, the ghouls, creatures that would make your blood run cold.”

  Gia felt herself yearning to be out there with Captain Witbooi, facing unknown dangers, and scornful of those who curled up in the safety of those warm bedrooms.

  “But what can you do, you ask me. You are young. Still at school.”

  A lone voice from somewhere in the audience yelled “First Exit!” causing a ripple of nervous conversation.

  “True,” said Captain Witbooi, holding up a hand for silence. “Those of you in standard eight are approaching that time now, I believe. You can leave school early, take First Exit and join the working world. Some of you may take that chance to join us in Special Branch! And I would be proud to welcome you. We can always use new recruits!

  “But for most of you— what can you do? That is what I am here to tell you.”

  He looked out over the audience, once again holding their full attention. “There is something that each and every one of you can do to keep your country safe. To keep your freedom, safe.”

  He gave a signal and an image appeared on the screen at the back of the stage. It was a photograph of a boy’s face. He had a strangely vacant expression, and Gia could immediately see that there was something wrong with him.

  Captain Witbooi looked at it, and nodded to himself. He turned back to his audience. “I’m sure that all of you have heard of the term ‘changeling’?”

  The school murmured in agreement.

  “Now in the past, the ignorant and superstitious believed that the Faery, the ‘fair folk’, as they called them, could steal human babies and replace them with their own. I’ve never understood why they’d want to do this, but that was what people believed.

  “Any child who was a little— shall we say— different, was thought to be a changeling. Some of these children were killed. Some died of simple neglect. A terrible thing. Terrible.” Captain Witbooi shook his head gravely. “These days, in these more enlightened times, we know better. We have terms for these children. We say they have Down’s syndrome. We say they're autistic. We say they have ‘special needs’. But our scientists are still unable to tell us what causes these—” He gestured at the image of the boy. “These children. Now, I’m here to tell you today of another reason for the changelings.

  “As you may know, Special Branch has its own research division. We have our own scientists. Scientists who risk their lives every day, who get their hands dirty. They do not dabble with theory— they deal in fact. With rational, measurable fact.”

  The school hall was utterly silent now, everyone present focused on the speaker.

  “I suppose it’s possible that some of these children are autistic. That some of them have some syndrome, some neurological condition. But in case after case, we’ve found the cause.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, intense. “The cause is magic.”

  The audience murmured, but fell instantly silent as he continued speaking.

  “Changelings are magical beings. They have special abilities. Some of these are inherited. Some come from we don’t know where. It doesn’t really matter what the cause is. It’s the result that matters. And here is where you come in— each and every one of you. It is important— no, it is essential that we identify these changelings.”

  He held up his hand, as though to stop an interruption.

  “Not to arrest them. Not to hurt or frighten them. But to help them. With our help, with the help of our scientists, we can rescue these children from their mental prisons. We can free them. Not to become normal citizens, I won't lie to you; in most cases, that is impossible. But to become better than normal. To become warriors in the fight against evil.”

  Captain Witbooi nodded again, looking from student to student. “And now, I present you to somebody who can tell you better than anyone else, why we need your help.”

  He turned to face the girl, who had sat unmoving throughout his speech.

  “Cadet.”

  The young woman rose, and took a step forward. She raised her arms in the crossed-fist salute, revealing the flash of twin silver bracelets. “Pure and true.” Her voice was as clear as the captain’s, but low, a beautiful, singer’s voice, surprising from that spare, straight body.

  “Cadet Lee is a changeling,” said Captain Witbooi. A gasp swept through the hall, then all was silent again. “She will now tell you her story.” He nodded to her. “Cadet.”

  Cadet Lee bowed slightly to her captain. “What the captain says, is true.” She spoke as confidently as Captain Witbooi, but unlike him, she did not look at her audience. Instead, she kept her eyes unfocused, standing as stiffly as if she were on a parade ground.

  The picture on the screen behind her changed. Now it showed a slightly blurred image of a woman and a little girl. The woman smiled at the camera, but the girl’s face was expressionless, mouth slack, one eyelid drooping.

  “Until the age of twelve, I could not speak. I could not write, or read. I was ‘on the spectrum’, diagnosed as autistic. My parents believed that I would spend my life a burden on society. I had no friends. I did not know how to feed myself, or dress myself.”

  The picture changed to show the girl, older now and painfully thin, face turned away from the camera.

  “On my twelfth birthday, by chance, my mother enrolled me in a new program. She did not know that it was a Special Branch experiment, but so it was. The scientists of Special Branch did their tests, and discovered that I was not autistic, as my parents had always believed. I am a telepath.”

  Another gasp from the audience, and a rustle of murmured conversation. The cadet waited until it died away.

  “My mind was wide open. I had no filters, no way of blocking out the thoughts of everyone around me. It was only with the help of Special Branch that I learnt to control the input. Because I no longer had to fight every second, waking and sleeping, to shut out the barrage of emotion, I could hear and see my world. For the first time, I could see.”

  A new picture. The girl, clutching a pencil, eyes focused on her drawing, tongue out in concentration.

  “I became human.”

  A group photograph of many children with their hands up and waving. The girl, now finally recognisable as Cadet Lee, was in the middle
, smiling directly at the camera, her eyes sparkling with excitement and intelligence.

  The cadet’s voice was without emotion, but Gia felt tears starting in her own eyes.

  “Special Branch rescued me from hell. I beg you. If you know of anyone else who is like I used to be— help them. Let us know, so we can help them become— human.”

  She bowed again, and sat.

  There was a moment of awed silence, then somebody started clapping. In a moment, the entire school was applauding. Gia saw girls weeping openly and felt a lump in her throat. Some of the boys were on their feet, giving the crossed-wrist salute. When the noise subsided, Captain Witbooi spoke again.

  “Thank you, Cadet. So. Ladies and gentlemen, teachers— we rely on you. It is essential that we get to these children before it is too late, while they're still young. By the time they become teenagers, it is often too late for us to do anything.

  “We have given leaflets to all your teachers, with a contact number for the Special Branch Children’s Unit. If you know of such a child, help us help them. Thank you, Mr Peterson, for allowing us to speak today.”

  There was more applause. Then everyone sat, uncertain what to do, and the noise of conversation grew until one of the prefects shouted, “All rise! Everyone go back to your second period class. Your second period class.”

  The bell rang and then everyone was getting up, talking and laughing. A teacher tried to make an announcement, but was drowned out in the noise.

  Gia sat where she was, letting the others in her row squeeze past her, hardly aware that they were leaving. Only when Sonella touched her shoulder did she come to herself and get up.

  Captain Witbooi and the cadet were standing in the front near the doors, talking to one of the teachers. Gia hesitated near them, and then, hardly knowing what she was doing, she walked up to the cadet.

  Up close, Cadet Lee was slighter than she had seemed on stage. Her face was pale, and she had a delicate scar that bisected one eyebrow, and cut down over her cheek. She stared coolly as Gia approached.

  “Um,” said Gia, her mouth dry. “I just wanted— I just wanted to say thank you. For telling us your story.”