‘Pleased to meet you,’ Dennis says.
Blaze laughs, but in a nice way.
Dennis goes, ‘What? Don’t you know that’s polite?’
‘Yeah?’ says Blaze. In typical Blaze fashion, he doesn’t seem to have a clue what to say next. Finally he manages, ‘You’re … um … you’re smart to know that.’
‘Everybody knows that.’ Dennis kind of pauses then, like something’s only just hitting him. ‘I’ve worked it out. You’re aliens. You’re from outer space.’
I have no idea whether Blaze knows what Dennis means by outer space.
‘Could be,’ Blaze says. ‘We’re not sure.’
I don’t know if Dennis gets Blaze. I wouldn’t blame him, because I don’t either.
Dennis fixes him with a puzzled look and says, ‘Well, maybe you’re not aliens. But you’re definitely not like anyone else in Woodend.’
‘That’s where you live?’
Now Blaze turns to me. ‘You found him?’
‘Last night, over by the lagoon.’
‘Told anyone?’
I shake my head.
‘No-one?’
Another shake.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s my fault he’s here. I mean … it’s because of me.’
Probably Blaze’s losing half of what I’m saying since I’m pretty much whisper-blurting it straight at the floorboards.
‘I’m not predotly, I swear. At least, I’m trying not to be. But I think what’s happening is … I think Dot’s testing me. I don’t know, maybe I …’
I trail off and sneak a glance at Blaze. What’s he going to think about Dot’s test? What’s he going to think about me now he knows Dot’s testing me?
I clear my throat. ‘Like I said, it’s a test. Plus, he’s going. Tonight. Then everything can just go back to the way it was.’
‘Won’t happen.’
‘It will. I’m going to make it. I’m going to pass Dot’s test and show her that I –’
Blaze is fully grinning now as he interrupts me. ‘If he’s here, then the Books are wrong.’
‘Don’t say that. It’s not true. That’s what this whole thing is all about. Dot’s sent Dennis to test how much I believe in her. I’ll never pass if you go around saying the Books are wrong. I’m not going to let you. It’s not even –’
‘Stop.’
‘Why should I? I don’t want to fail. Otherwise I’ll be predotly and I’ll never be chosen and –’
Blaze shakes his head, side to side, really slowly. ‘The Books aren’t real. Maybe even Dot herself isn’t.’
‘Don’t you get it? That’s what she’s testing!’ Then something occurs to me. ‘She could be testing you too.’
I fold my arms, thinking maybe that’s going to change his mind. But it seems like nothing’s going to stop Blaze. Apparently he hasn’t heard one single thing I’ve said.
‘It’s made up. The whole thing.’
That’s when I know for sure what I’d pretty much already guessed. ‘You’re not going to help me, are you? You’re planning on making everything worse.’ I can feel my eyes narrowing, daring Blaze to disagree.
Not that Blaze seems to notice or care. He just says, ‘We have to tell everyone.’
I’m struggling to comprehend this suggestion, to imagine myself announcing to the rest of creation how Dot’s testing me but how, in Blaze’s mind, that means everything we thought was true just so happens not to be.
Blaze seems to be handling the whole concept just fine, though. He’s gone from not knowing how to talk to Dennis to raining questions down on him. You know, like where we are, and how exactly Dennis got here.
Once Dennis gets over the fact Blaze doesn’t know where he is, he tells him that what we call ‘creation’ is actually Club Naturelle.
‘It’s like a resort. For weirdos. For people who want to walk around with their clothes off. Nudists. That’s what it said on the computer anyway.’
Then Blaze wants to know who’s in charge of Club Naturelle, which is when I have to interrupt.
‘Dot’s in charge,’ I remind Blaze. ‘There is no-one else.’
‘It doesn’t work like that out there.’
‘Oh, like you know so much about out there?’ In a rush I add, ‘If there even was such a thing.’
Blaze doesn’t exactly meet my eyes. Suddenly, I get the feeling Blaze has seen a whole lot more of out there than me. Or thinks he has, anyway. Not everything, obviously, because he didn’t know about the hand thing Dennis did. But a lot.
Part of me is wondering exactly what sort of things he’s seen in his head, and how long he’s been seeing them.
But I don’t ask. That would mean telling Blaze what I’ve seen. That would mean admitting it out loud.
Dennis has no idea who’s in charge of Club Naturelle anyway. He only found out about it on something called the Tech Specs forum. According to him, he logs onto it using something he calls a screen name. Not his, but Nathan’s, which I can tell from how he’s acting that he shouldn’t have done. From the way Dennis describes things, I’m guessing it was the Tech Specs forum I was reading when the device started to ring.
‘I could search Club Naturelle for you,’ Dennis goes. ‘I’m awesome with the internet.’
‘Yeah,’ Blaze says. ‘Search it.’
It’s clear even to me that Blaze doesn’t really know what this means.
Dennis’s proud smile collapses. ‘I can’t. She wrecked Nathe’s device.’
But Blaze doesn’t give up when he finds this out. Now he wants to know who wrote about Club Naturelle on the forum, and exactly what they said. He tells Dennis even that information might be useful.
‘Some of it had to do with her,’ is all Dennis will say, looking at me. He studies Blaze for a minute, his big build, twisted hair and red-brown skin. ‘And maybe you.’
He tells Blaze exactly what was written there, about how I’m the redhead who was up for it and how the big guy with the dreads looks like a choofer. For some reason, he seems to find it difficult to tell us.
Blaze just goes on asking questions. Next he asks who told Dennis about Club Naturelle.
Dennis says, ‘I only know the screen name. Someone who’s never posted before.’
‘What name?’ Blaze asks. ‘What was it?’ He’s talking quickly now, quicker than I’ve ever heard him talk before.
‘FancyVividBlue. I never forget stuff.’ For a second, Dennis looks pleased with himself. But then he says, ‘I’m not really meant to … Nathe would kill me if he knew I was posting on his forum.’
Blaze turns to me. ‘FancyVividBlue. That’s where we start. Dennis takes us out the gate and we look for FancyVividBlue, whoever that is. Maybe they know something.’
Inside my head, I’m practically screaming. What is Blaze even talking about?
Aloud, I say, ‘I can’t stay here.’
‘Inside the fringe? Me neither, not now we …’
‘No, as in, this hut. All this, it’s …’
‘Don’t say “predotly”.’
‘Why not? That’s what it is.’
‘There’s no point saying “predotly” if Dot doesn’t exist.’
‘She does. Dot created us. How else would we even be here?’
Blaze is perfectly still, perfectly steady. ‘Let’s find out.’
‘I can’t believe we’re even … obviously there’s a Dot. There has to be. This Dennis thing is a test and I don’t want to fail it.’
‘Say it isn’t a test. Say Dennis is real and Dot isn’t.’
My entire body is jittering.
Dot’s listening. She always is. And this is it, my big chance to show her my faith is never going to flag.
‘No.’
Without Dot, there’d be no way to know what to do or how to act. No Books. No fun. No kindness. No chosen ones. No way to know what’s good and what isn’t. No anything that means anything. Just this huge hole where Dot is meant to be.
&n
bsp; ‘Just try and …’
‘You’re serious? You literally think there’s no Dot?’
‘I want to know for sure. I want everyone to.’
‘No.’
N.O. Nonononononononono. If I fail this test, then I’ll never be dotly again. Maybe no-one could be. Has Blaze ever thought of that? If one of us starts doubting Dot, then we all might end up doing the same. This thing with Dennis is like a single drop of water in the waterfall crashing down the escarpment. But you don’t get just one drop in a waterfall. There’s always going to be other drops until the whole thing is gushing out of control.
Is the ground underneath me moving? It really feels like it. All creation’s kind of tilting and shifting and whirling around us. Nothing’s fixed. Around me, colours blur and blend until everything looks like one big, brown mess.
Blaze takes a step towards me. His arms are stretched like he’s about to try hugging me or something. The thing is, he doesn’t know where to put his arms. I put my hands up, as if I can hold him back physically as well as stop all the stuff he’s been saying. But naturally my hands don’t do a thing. It’s way too late. Already about a bazillion thoughts are forming inside my head. Merging into each other in one huge unstoppable, formless glob.
… what if there is a Woodend what if the books are wrong where do we go when we go beyond or don’t we even go beyond do we just stop that’s it over what are the rules then how do we act what’s the point of us who’s watching over us if Dot isn’t who’s going to love us for always no matter who we are or what we’ve done …
‘She’s lost it,’ I hear Dennis say at the same moment I use my raised arms to shove Blaze out of my way. I’m out the door of the hut, soaked already and practically at the path before Blaze reaches me.
‘Come back.’
I still have my arms up, only now they’re kind of twisted in front of me and I can’t do anything to stop them. My breath is coming in these little gasps and in between those are yip-yip-yip sounds I don’t even recognise as my own.
‘It was like this for me too,’ Blaze tells me.
I want to shut Blaze up, but he doesn’t stop.
‘I was precalm too. You get used to it.’
Never.
No way.
I never, ever will.
If Blaze happens to be right, then we’re all alone. No-one looking after us or helping us or loving us. Even if a person could get used to that, who would ever want to? Not me.
Blaze sighs. ‘Do you remember if you’ve ever been to the beach?’
I stare blankly at him.
‘I was little when I first went. There were other kids there. Splashing and laughing, all of us trying to drag each other in. I used to dig my toes into the wet sand. I was happy, you know? In the waves, I was happy.’
I swear, tonight Blaze has probably said more than he ever has since he was created. Over the roaring sound of the rain he asks me, ‘What have you seen?’
‘Nothing.’ I’m thinking about Julius and his fuzzy sungarb warm against my leg, his springing curls.
‘Right. Everything’s just like it says in the Books. Dennis isn’t real. All this is one big test designed just for you.’
When I nod, Blaze turns for the hut. But suddenly, he spins back around.
‘Why would Dot test you?’
I say, ‘Why’s the sky blue? Why does that one pond glow? Why does Dot do anything she does? We’re not supposed to know. We’re too presmart.’
‘Why you, though? You’ve never done anything pregood. And isn’t Dot meant to love you?’
‘She does.’ I falter. ‘I guess … um … she just wants to make sure I love her back.’
But even as I’m saying this, Blaze’s words are hooking into me, a burr in my skin.
Yes. Why me?
Blaze is saying, ‘The others can make their own decisions. I’m telling everyone about Dennis, first thing.’
‘You can’t. He’s disappearing tonight. I’m helping him.’
We’re locked like that, me on the path and Blaze on the stairs.
‘Maybe the others don’t want to know. Normal people just want to have fun. Do dotly things. Hook up. Be happy.’
He shakes his head. ‘You can’t be happy about something that isn’t true.’
‘But if you don’t have Dot there’s no possible way of being happy even. There just isn’t.’
16
I SEE ME and Julius again and it’s more than a jumble of images this time. Now everything feels way more real. As in, I don’t just see a little scene unfolding. I can feel it, smell it, taste it practically.
This time, we’re standing on some gritty-soft yellowy stuff and at our feet water is curling and rolling its way towards us. It’s hot but it’s a dry heat, nothing like here. There’s a smell of salt and way out in the water I see creations with slick black backs and wet heads bobbing up and down.
Surfers.
‘Viva, can I get an ice-cream?’
I’m wrapped in a towel, trying to wriggle out of one set of sungarb and into another, something impossibly small and red and stretchy. For some reason it really seems to matter that no-one sees me without my sungarb on.
‘We just got here.’
‘Please?’
Julius is grinning so wide that I start smiling too.
‘Okay.’
Then me and Julius climb a huge, long staircase fixed to a kind of rock wall that reminds me of the escarpment. We go to this little hut thing with a window in the side. We come away with cool, frozen blocks on sticks that melt all over our fingers.
‘Lick it. It’s going all over your clothes.’
Julius’s mouth is ringed with brown. His pink tongue circles the frozen block.
‘I love the beach,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I tell him. I bite into my own frozen block, sweet like the ripest mango. ‘Me too.’
____________________
When I come out of it, I’m inside Dennis’s hut. I’m sort of paralysed, lying there in the prelight shot through with silver from the moon. I can make out Dennis’s sleeping shape on the bed. Blaze is curled up on the floor, asleep too. His chest is rising and falling and his eyelashes make crescents on his cheeks.
Did I mention Blaze’s eyelashes? They’re really long and just a little bit curly at the tips.
Studying them, I wonder why Dot would bother giving someone like Blaze lashes like those. Blaze with his questions and theories. Blaze who hardly talks but then won’t drop a subject when you want him to. Even now I keep hearing what he said to me last night: but why you?
I’m pretty sure of the answer.
Dot’s testing me because I’m predotly. I must be, otherwise I wouldn’t enjoy those scenes with Julius the way I do. I mean, they’re unsettling but they’re sweet and tender too. The feel of his little hand in mine, the thumb all dry from too much sucking. If I’m being really honest, I like it.
The whole time I’ve been awake, I’ve sort of been plucking at my thighs. You know, just above where my sungarb finishes, without really realising it. Now I take a fingerful of skin and I twist. Hard. I figure it’s only what I deserve for being predotly.
The skin goes white then red and it stays that way as a hot, sharp feeling rises up all around the pinched part. It sounds prenormal, but that little jab makes me feel a tiny bit better, at least for as long as it lasts. It’s comforting and, even though I’ve never done anything like that before, it’s kind of familiar too.
The only thing is, the feeling wears off too quickly, which means I have to keep doing it.
I twist.
I’ll never be a chosen creation.
Another twist, a harder one, and then I try clawing my skin too. Bright red welts appear, which has to be good.
Maybe I can rip this predotliness out of myself. I like that idea, so I claw myself a second time, drawing blood out from under the skin.
I’ll make it better, I swear. More clawing, more blood. It feels prehea
lthy and precomfortable but good too, if that makes sense. This way, Dot has physical proof of how much I want to be good. How much I care about being chosen when completion night comes. It could be that this twisting, clawing thing is the only way Dot’s going to realise I’m serious.
It’s only when my legs are meshed with lines, streaked with blood, that I realise I’ve taken it too far. If anyone sees my legs, they’re going to know something’s up. I jump up, wash myself off with water from the jug.
Then I fold my legs under me, curl up on the floor and try to sleep.
17
WHEN I WAKE up, the sun’s already climbing the sky. It hits the shutters at just the right angle to send this shaft of light stabbing into my eyes. I have to get moving. I should have done something last night but I was too shocked, too unsure, too full of prehappiness to know it. Now, I don’t have a whole lot of time.
Dennis’s still asleep on the bed, only a few steps away. If I wake him up now, maybe we can make it to the fringe and to the so-called gate before anyone –
‘Leaving?’
I guess the pressure of my feet on the floorboards was all it took to wake Blaze. He’s sitting now, getting ready to scramble onto his feet.
‘Just going for a walk. You know, if that’s okay with you.’
I straighten my sungarb over my scratched-up legs. No way I’m letting Blaze see that.
‘You were going to take Dennis.’
Does my face look as hot and red as it feels right now? Is there any way in creation Blaze will believe my best casual ‘No’?
A snore rumbles from Dennis’s nose.
‘I’ll come for a walk,’ says Blaze.
‘You’re not telling everyone already, are you?’
‘Not yet. When they’re up.’
I go to the back window but naturally Blaze uses the door. I mean, what does he care if anyone sees us? He wants everyone to know about out there, about Dennis and FancyVividBlue.
No-one sees us, thank Dot. All over the place there are towels and chairs and Books and sungarb, still scattered where the wind and rain dropped them last night. The hut next to Dennis’s is totally crumpled. Where the roof should be there’s just a big, wet, jagged hole.
State of Grace Page 10
