Crooks and Straights

by Masha du Toit

  The cadet said nothing, but her expression was not unfriendly. Gia was peripherally aware that the teacher and Captain Witbooi were looking at her, but she felt driven to ask her question.

  “I wondered— if you don’t mind me asking— do you ever, I mean—” She stopped, and tried again. “Do you ever see your parents?”

  The cadet blinked, and her eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “I mean,” said Gia, “now that you are, you know—” She felt her voice dry up, but before she could try again, there was a hand on her arm.

  “That’s quite enough now. Come along.”

  Miss Huisman was frowning down on her. “You are going to be late for class. Go on!” she said when Gia did not respond. At a push from Miss Huisman, Gia moved away. As she went out the door she took one last look, and saw Captain Witbooi staring after her.

  -oOo-

  For the next few hours, Gia struggled to pay attention to her lessons.

  The captain’s words kept coming back to her. “If you know of such a child, help us help them.”

  What if it were possible, what if Nico—

  Her mother would never let anyone take Nico away.

  And they would take him away, wouldn't they?

  Even if they did not, she winced at the thought of telling Saraswati about the captain’s speech. There had been too many doctors over the years, too many false hopes: too many miracle cures that worked only if you had faith in them. It had been a relief when her parents had at long last seemed to accept that Nico was just the way he was. “No such thing as normal” had become a mantra in their house.

  But it was hard to ignore the words of the cadet, and those photographs.

  What if there really was— not a cure, but a way to help Nico become what he was meant to be?

  The last lesson of the day was supernatural studies. This time, Gia sat next to Sonella.

  This turned out to be lucky, as Miss Huisman announced that the lesson would begin with a group-work exercise.

  “We will be discussing today’s Special Branch talk in a moment,” she said in reply to a student’s question.

  “But first, we will complete the homework I set for you yesterday. You were supposed to identify two examples of a creature or entity that has been re-classified, or that has some controversy over its classification. Now you will each fill in a worksheet answering questions about the creatures you have chosen.”

  Miss Huisman made available a pile of books from the school library, to supplement their reading of Brink and Moolman.

  Gia enjoyed paging through illustrated volumes such as Tobert’s Bestiary or Creatures of the Home and Hearth. It was a relief to be distracted from her thoughts. Both she and Sonella selected dust bunnies as one of their creatures. Gia decided on the haarskeerder for her second creature, and Sonella chose something called a gombaardjie, a creature that lived in filing cabinets and desk drawers.

  The class was buzzing with activity as the other groups made their way through the worksheet, with occasional flare-ups when there was a dispute over who would get the next look at one of the more popular books. Miss Huisman ignored most of these, quelling anyone who got too noisy with a chilly look and raised eyebrows.

  This was just as well, as Gia and Sonella kept having to fight down fits of giggles as they read up about the gombaardjie, which apparently sucked the ink out of ballpoint pens, and had an unfortunate habit of sneaking out at night to pee on computer keyboards or telephones.

  Haarskeerders also proved interesting. Gia learned that they were a kind of winged fae, indigenous to South Africa. The hypnotic trance that she’d experienced was triggered by the movement of their wings and was used to protect their nests from predators, particularly humans.

  Apparently their habit of collecting things led people to raid their nests. Rural haarskeerders, Gia read, were relatively harmless, as long as you avoided being hypnotised too often, which could result in brain damage. But in urban areas, haarskeerders could be a menace and a danger. If a colony grew large enough, they started swarming, forming large, aggressive groups that attacked without warning.

  At one point, while everyone still had their heads down over their worksheets, Gia glanced up just in time to see Miss Huisman fiddling with the grey intercom unit that was fixed partway up the wall at the front of the classroom. It looked as though she’d draped a handkerchief over it.

  “Right, time’s up!” said Miss Huisman, closing the classroom door. “Monitors, gather up the worksheets. Class, make sure that you have written your name, and the date, at the top of your sheet.”

  When everyone had settled down again, she continued. “Now, we had a most interesting visit from Special Branch this morning. As this is, after all, supernatural studies, and Special Branch is concerned primarily with supernatural phenomena, I thought we would put some time aside to discuss what we saw and heard.”

  A girl put up her hand. “Miss, why did they both say that thing?” She gestured with crossed wrists.

  “Pure and true?” said Miss Huisman, giving the salute, her wooden bracelets clattering. “Can anyone answer the question?”

  Several hands shot up.

  “Yes, you there by the window.”

  “That’s the Purist salute, Miss. They call it the Silver Cross.”

  The boy made the gesture, jaw jutting as he slammed his wrists together. “The Special Branch, they all do it.”

  “And who are the Purists?”

  “A political party, Miss.”

  “The army.”

  “Special Branch!”

  But Miss Huisman shook her head. “Any more attempts?”

  A tall boy had his hand up.

  “Your name?” asked Miss Huisman.

  “Justin February, Miss.”

  They boy was skinny in that lanky, teenaged way, but he had a quiet self-confidence that Gia admired.

  “So you can tell us all about the Purists, Mr February?” said Miss Huisman.

  “They're part of the New Rational Party, Miss. The Realists.”

  “Very good.” Miss Huisman nodded. “So does that mean that President Langa is a Purist?”

  “No, Miss,” said Justin seriously. “President Langa is a Realist in the old style. But some of his party are getting more extreme, and are forming their own group. Those are the Purists.”

  “That is correct,” said Miss Huisman, turning back to the rest of the class.

  “The Realists have recently developed a vocal sub-group that call themselves the Purists. They're not as yet a political party in their own right, but they're a significant force within the government. For example, the president’s own son, Luxulo Langa, is one of their leaders. They also have an inordinate amount of influence in Special Branch, which is somewhat worrying. And what do these Purists believe?”

  Justin had his hand up again. “They say all magicals are dangerous. Or only useful for fighting other magicals.”

  “Very good,” said Miss Huisman. “Another interesting thing about the Purists, and by extension, Special Branch, is their attitude to science. They are very rational. They believe that magic can be studied like any other phenomenon. ‘All will bend to reason’ is one of their slogans, as you’ve probably seen on the posters. Yes, Charlie?”

  “That’s what they do at Valkenberg, isn’t it, Miss?” said Charlie Wexton eagerly.

  “Valkenberg is the Special Branch headquarters,” acknowledged Miss Huisman. “It’s where they conduct much of their research.”

  Gia could feel the frisson of interest in the classroom. Valkenberg was a name often said in jest, but always with a tinge of fear. You’ll end up at Valkenberg! was a frequent playground insult.

  All children in the Cape went to Valkenberg for a government-sponsored field trip during their first year of school. It was one of the most vivid memories of Gia’s childhood. The first time she’d seen real, live, magicals.

  As Miss Huisman explained about the Purists, Gia’s attention wander
ed as she thought back on that visit.

  There had been a bus trip. All the children had to hold hands, probably to prevent any of them from wandering off and getting lost. There had been a strong scent of formaldehyde, and everything had been lit with a hard, white, fluorescent light.

  She could remember the creatures quite clearly. Most of them had been dead.

  Rows and rows of glass vessels, with shapes floating inside them. A tiny mermaid, its lacy gills spread out behind disturbingly human ears. Things that looked just like monkeys, but the teacher had explained that they were something else, Gia could not remember what.

  Then the live display.

  Small creatures in brightly lit boxes. Snaartjies, tiny things almost like butterflies, with filmy, rainbow-coloured wings. They had fluttered up and down, up and down, always staying at the back of their cages. The teacher explained that the wire that fronted their cages was silver, and that the touch of silver burnt them “like an electric shock”.

  She tried to remember how she’d felt about it all, but could not call up her long-ago feelings.

  “Gia! Attend.” Miss Huisman frowned down at her.

  “As I was saying,” said Miss Huisman, turning away from Gia to address the rest of the class again, “we have yet to study the classification system used by the South African legal system, but shortly, it divides all magical beings into useful, neutral and harmful.

  “The Purists, however, are challenging this system of classification. They believe that there is no such thing as a neutral creature, and while they are willing to make use of magicals, they refuse to acknowledge that such creatures can be useful in any way other than in fighting the battle against the more dangerous creatures. And that is, partly, what the coming referendum is about. The establishment of the Grey List.

  “Now.” Miss Huisman strode to the blackboard, where the words she had written the previous day were still visible.

  “In a modern country such as ours, where magical beings, and people with magical abilities live together, it is necessary to have a more practical way to organise things than these categories.” She wiped away the day before’s headings.

  “Instead, we have the lists. The Red List, and the White List.” She wrote the words on the board as she spoke. “Red List is for dangerous creatures, that are to be destroyed on sight. A menace to society. White List is for useful creatures. They may be dangerous, but they're too valuable to destroy. Who can give me an example of a Red List creature?”

  “Blistermen!”

  “Vrekkers!”

  “Marrow Maids!”

  “Werewolves!”

  Miss Huisman wrote these down under the “Red List” heading, all except for werewolf. This, she wrote under “White List”.

  “Why are werewolves not red-listed?” she asked as she wrote.

  “They’re useful, Miss,” said a girl near the back of the class. “Special Branch use them. They neuter them with— arsenic or something, and tie them up all with muzzles and chains and stuff so they can’t bite.”

  “Well,” said Miss Huisman. “I’m not sure about the arsenic, but for the rest you are correct. Weres are used for their exceptional tracking abilities, especially for sniffing out other magical creatures. Here is another example.”

  She added the word “troll” to the White List.

  “Trolls. Exceptionally dangerous, but widely used for their strength and endurance. So. We will continue to add examples to these lists as we go on. But what about this one?”

  She wrote “Grey List” on the board.

  There was a hum of conversation from the class, but no hands went up.

  “The Grey List, or ‘Luxulo’s list’ as it’s also called, is different from the other lists. It is not just a list of types of creatures. It is an actual record of individual creatures, their names, if they have names, their descriptions, where they live, and their identity numbers, if any. Everything the government and Special Branch would need to keep track of each individual on the list.”

  Miss Huisman drew a circle around the word “Grey List”.

  “Unlike the Red or White lists, the Grey List will include all magical creatures, sentient or not, even creatures previously unlisted, such as all the neutral creatures. Including, by the way, humans with magical abilities.”

  “But that’s a good thing, right, Miss? Then we’ll know where we stand!” said the boy near the window.

  Miss Huisman stared at him grimly, and he wilted a little under her gaze. “That’s what they say,” she said at last. “But what did you learn in your homework, and in the worksheet you just completed?”

  Gia nodded to herself. It was true. The one thing that had emerged clearly from the reading she had done it was that categorising creatures according to their attributes was far from straightforward. Something that was considered useful to one person, was a menace to another. And if you tried to apply that reasoning to humans—

  Miss Huisman was following a similar train of thought. “If the Purists had their way, the young lady we saw today, Cadet Lee, would be a Grey Lister. And something that I’ve not mentioned yet, and which in my opinion, is overlooked too often when we discuss these things, are the implications of being listed.

  “A being on the proposed Grey List would no longer be a citizen. Did you know that?”

  There was a general shaking of heads.

  “They will not be able to vote. They won’t have the right to own property, or to sign a contract. Yes, Sonella?”

  “But, isn’t that against the constitution, Miss Huisman?” asked Sonella. “To take somebody’s vote away?”

  “Precisely, Miss Pretorius.” Miss Huisman nodded in approval. “But according to our laws, a listed being is by definition, not human. So human rights don’t apply to them.”

  The buzz of conversation grew louder, then quietened down at Miss Huisman’s raised eyebrows.

  “Which brings me back to Captain Witbooi and his young friend. Both are Purists, as you saw. They believe that all magical beings, human or otherwise, must be listed. That they're either useful in the war against magicals— or they're harmful, and must be destroyed.”

  A boy sitting behind Gia had his hand up, and she nodded at him to speak.

  “Why did Captain Witbooi say that a Special Brancher is more like a soldier than a cop?” he asked. “What’s the difference?”

  But the bell rang before Miss Huisman could respond.

  “An excellent question,” she said when the noise died down. “Remind me of it in tomorrow’s class. And that brings us to the end of today’s lesson. Your homework for tomorrow—” She raised her voice to drown out the protest. “Your homework for tomorrow is to find some item in the news that pertains to magic or magical beings. For classroom discussion.”

  “Well, that’s easy, with all this stuff going on about the half-orcs in the rugby team,” said the boy behind Gia.

  “Save it for tomorrow,” said Miss Huisman, smiling. “Class dismissed.”

  She caught Gia’s eye. “Miss Grobbelaar, could you stay behind for a minute?”

  Gia, surprised, stood by her desk. While the students trooped out, Miss Huisman started sorting through the stack of worksheets. As the last student left, she drew back her chair and sat down at her table. “Just close the door, please, Gia.”

  Gia closed the door, then walked over to Miss Huisman’s table, unsure what was expected of her.

  Miss Huisman was rapidly dividing the worksheets into several piles, counting under her breath. Looking up and seeing Gia standing in front of her, she gave a quick nod.

  “Don’t worry, girl, I’m not going to eat you. I just wanted a quick word.” She took off her glasses and peered at Gia, her naked eyes looking unexpectedly tired. “You are Carlo Gotti’s child, not so?”

  Gia nodded.

  “I’ve met your father. And your mother. At an art opening or two. Lovely people.” She put her glasses back on, picked up a red pen, and drew one of the w
orksheets closer.

  “Gia, a word of advice.” She started marking, the pen darting rapidly over the sheet. “It may be a mistake to draw attention to yourself, particularly—” She paused to count through the marks she’d made, then jotted down the total. “Particularly when dealing with the Special Branch.”

  Miss Huisman picked up another worksheet, and shot Gia a glance over the top of her glasses. “Captain Witbooi is an admirable man, and, no doubt, excellent at his job. But his interests and yours may not, shall we say, coincide?”

  Gia looked at her blankly.

  Miss Huisman put down her pen, and sighed.

  “Gia, I don’t know why you went to speak to the cadet. But I’ve found that some things are easier to put into motion than to stop. We live in uncertain times. Also, I must warn you not to trust— ” She turned to look at the door, as if a sound had attracted her attention, but Gia had heard nothing.

  Miss Huisman pushed back her chair, then walked calmly over to the intercom unit. She reached up and snatched the handkerchief from it, folded it, and tucked it in her sleeve. There was a knock on the door, and before anyone had a chance to respond the door opened to reveal the headmaster.

  “Ah, Mr Peterson,” said Miss Huisman, quite unruffled. “We were just talking about you. A moment.” She turned back to Gia.

  “So, Gia,” she said. “We have an understanding then? We will have no more of these excuses about homework being forgotten or lost, or whatever it was this time. Agreed?”

  Gia met Miss Huisman’s steady gaze, nodded, and looked down at her shoes.

  “Yes, Miss. Sorry, Miss.”

  “Good girl,” said Miss Huisman. “Well, run along then, child.”

  “Good afternoon, Miss, Sir,” said Gia, and left as quickly as she dared. Outside, the corridors were rapidly emptying as students and teachers left for the day. She walked quickly to the exit, her mind whirling.

  What had just happened? Miss Huisman was warning her against Special Branch— but why?

  -oOo-

  It was only when she got home that Gia remembered about the missing haarskeerder. The events of the day had driven it clear out of her mind.

  “Mandy!” she called, as she let the front door slam behind her. “Mandy, have you been up in my room?”