Movers

by Meaghan McIsaac

  Heat rushes to my cheeks. Quickly I throw on the sweatshirt.

  ‘You, uh, want to change?’

  She pulls at her shirt, letting the dust puff off it with each pull. She nods without looking at me.

  Beauty pecks at the window again. Damn bird. I lift it open for her, just to make the pecking stop.

  The bird makes a beeline for the bathroom door and slams into it so hard it knocks her to the floor.

  Gabby frowns, confused.

  ‘That’s Beauty.’ I shrug. ‘Can’t get rid of her.’

  Gabby nods, as if she gets it, and Beauty shakes her feathers and squawks at me.

  Stupid.

  Gabby’s eyes flick to me, expectantly.

  ‘Right! Clothes.’

  I open the drawer to Mom’s dresser and root through what she has. Mom clothes. Fitted work stuff. The heat in my cheeks gets warmer. This was a mistake. Nothing of Mom’s is gonna fit Gabby.

  I hear a creak and turn to see Gabby standing in the bedroom, leaning against Mom’s smartdesk. Her face is red. ‘It’s OK,’ she says.

  And I feel like it’s really not OK. I’m so uncomfortable and mad at myself for making the offer that I throw open drawer after drawer, throwing Mom’s clothes as Beauty rams herself into the bathroom door a couple more times. ‘I’m sure we have something,’ I say.

  But I’m not.

  Sweat prickles my forehead as I throw open the bottom drawer – my last shot – and the crisp folded clothes looking back at me make me freeze. Dad’s clothes. I didn’t even know Mom still had any.

  I reach for a blue checked button-up – I remember him wearing this.

  Gabby clears her throat, and I realise she’s waiting for me. Beneath the blue checked shirt is a paint-spattered T-shirt. His weekend work shirt. I snatch it. ‘This should do.’

  I spin round and toss the shirt to Gabby. She doesn’t catch it. She picks it up off the floor and opens it up, holding it against herself. It looks big enough. Her fingers run over the paint stains.

  ‘Sorry, it’s all I could find. My dad was kind of a messy painter.’

  She looks at the checked shirt still clutched in my left hand. ‘I didn’t know my mom kept any of this stuff.’ I fold it up quickly and place it gently back in the drawer. ‘I haven’t seen most of it since—’ I stop. I don’t talk about Dad to people. I don’t even like talking about Dad with Maggie.

  ‘—he was Shelved,’ Gabby finishes.

  She inhales suddenly, like she can’t believe what she’s just said. I can’t either.

  ‘You know about that?’ I mean, it’s not like what happened to Dad is a secret. But it was so long ago, and I don’t ever talk about it. I didn’t realise kids at school knew anything about my dad. Or cared to know anyway. But Gabby knows.

  ‘I just …’ She shifts on her feet, not daring to look at me. ‘I just, I remember reading about it.’

  ‘It happened forever ago.’

  ‘Yeah, but I read a lot, cos of my research.’ She waves a hand, like You know, that stuff. ‘I um, I saw your last name on an article and so I …’ She trails off, her cheeks as red as two stop signs. And she does stop. She bites her lip and glances at me quickly and then at the shirt in her hands.

  The two of us stand there, both of us staring awkwardly at the floor.

  Beauty rams against the bathroom door and the sound is deafening in the silence between me and Gabby.

  It’s too quiet in here.

  I reach over and swipe the surface of Mom’s desk and tap the TV icon. The screen is projected on the wall above the desk. Avin News.

  There it is. Romsey.

  Helicopter footage of a skyscraper in the middle of a chaotic city. It’s our school – sort of – if it had just been through a battle. Whole chunks have fallen away and pretty much all the windows are gone. The sky above it is cloudy, but the storm has definitely passed. Movement activity at the Romsey Institute for Academics flashes along the bottom of the screen.

  ‘… with the Eventualies reaching speeds of up to 182 kilometres per hour,’ says the newscaster. ‘The highest recorded wind speed of any Movement activity in history, beating the previous record of 174.’

  I flinch. 174 was Dad’s record.

  The damage looks even worse from the outside. I’ve never seen a Move do anything like that. Not even Dad’s. Busted windows, sure. But never that.

  ‘While BMAC has acknowledged the irregularity of such a violent Move,’ the anchor drones on, ‘they have yet to comment on what could have accounted for the change. Some Movement experts have theorised that this could be evidence of a new, more powerful phase.’

  I nearly choke.

  A new phase?

  Gabby practically collapses, taking a seat on the bed, mouth gaping at the screen.

  What does that mean? A ‘new phase’? Is that even possible?

  And then Gabby gasps.

  Because her face is on the screen. And my gut drops into my feet. Her face is on the screen next to mine. ‘BMAC has provided these images of the suspects and has asked that anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Gabriela Vargas and Patrick Mermick contact the BMAC hotline.’

  Suspects?! They’re calling us suspects? They think Gabby’s this new phase? Is that what they think?

  I remember what she said in the alley, about her Shadow being two places at once. Is that part of it? This new phase? Could that explain it? She said she thought he messed with her pungits things. Could this be some new phase where your Shadow can Move without your permission?

  I think I’m going to throw up.

  Mom needs to get home. Now.

  Something cool spreads across my mind, my Shadow, feeling the terror that’s firing through my head like firecrackers.

  I am going to throw up.

  I scramble out of the chair and throw open the bathroom door, lifting the lid on the toilet. Beauty flaps in behind me and rests on the tap. I stare into the still, clear water, the sloshy stomach juices rising and falling but nothing comes out. Suspect. What does BMAC do to suspects?

  They’ll come for me. This is the first place they’ll look.

  ‘Pat?’ A new voice takes me by surprise, and I fall back as the cupboard under the sink opens up.

  Beauty lets out a triumphant squawk.

  There’s Maggie, covered in dirt, her hair a mess of tangles.

  ‘Mags!’ All I want is for Mom to open the front door. ‘What are you doing here!? Where’s Mom!’

  Her eyes are swollen and her face is blotchy. She’s been crying. A lot.

  ‘They took her,’ she says.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Officer Kelley.’

  BMAC.

  My brain seizes and I can’t even think.

  Maggie starts pulling on her braid, nervously. Mom’s not coming.

  Maggie’s chin starts to quiver and she squeaks out, ‘I think I’m in big trouble.’

  EIGHT

  I hurry into the kitchen and grab a pink cup. Maggie’s melting down. She can’t even speak through the gasps and the tears and I need for her to keep it together long enough to tell me what happened to Mom. I fling open the fridge and there it is – Pretty Pruny’s Princess Juice. With my thumb I flick off the cap and pour half a cup’s worth, nearly spilling it as I sprint back to my sobbing sister.

  Gabby’s standing in front of the bathroom door, and I shoulder past her and join Maggie on the floor.

  ‘Here, Mags.’ She’s shaking too much and I have to hold the cup to her lips. ‘It’s Pruny’s.’

  She guzzles, eventually calming down enough to hold the cup herself.

  Her little throat throbs with each glug and her cheeks are filthy. Her hair is a mess too, still in her braid but the rich bronzy brown is dull.

  She puts down the cup and gasps like she’s just come up from the deepest dive of all time.

  ‘OK, Mags,’ I say, sounding entirely more steady than I feel, ‘what happened?’

  Her eyes
are still glossy, but she’s got her breath back. ‘Officer Kelley was at the school with Mr Sibichendosh. They said I had to go for tests.’

  ‘Tests?’

  ‘Tests for what?’ asks Gabby, standing in the doorway.

  The blue envelope and Sibichendosh’s handwriting flash across my brain. ‘For an upgrade?’

  She nods. ‘Mom said no, she wouldn’t let me. But … but Officer Kelley said she had to take me, said it was the law.’

  Variety of behaviours.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Mom – Mom said she’d take me to BMAC herself, but Officer Kelley said no. That’s when Mom picked me up. She never picks me up!’ It’s true. Mom always told her she was too big for that. ‘So Mom told Officer Kelley she was coming with me, no matter what.

  ‘Officer Kelley put us in the back of her car and was going to drive us to BMAC. The car slowed down. We stopped at a light. Mom – Mom told me to run.’

  I blink. ‘What!?’

  ‘I didn’t know what she meant at first. She went like this—’

  Maggie opens her mouth really wide and says, Run! without making a sound.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do, so I – so I just sat there. Officer Kelley’s our friend, BMAC is our friend!’

  She’s young enough to still buy BMAC’s stupid primary song.

  ‘The light turned green,’ Maggie continues. ‘The crowds started moving out of the way, and she reached over me. She opened the door and she shoved me out. It hurt. I scraped my hands on the road.’ She inspects her palms and I can see they’re scraped up and red. ‘And then Mom screamed, Run, Maggie girl! Run! And Officer – Officer Kelley – shouted at me to stop. I got scared. And Mom kept yelling, “Run!” So I did. I ran.’ She’s gasping again, the tears overwhelming her. ‘I saw your school and I ran inside to find you. I didn’t know what else to do! But your school was too big and some teacher yelled at me so I went and hid in a locker.’

  ‘You came to my school?’

  She nods. ‘That’s when the storm started, and I got so afraid. Everyone was running and screaming and saying we had to get out of the building. So I came here.’ She gasps a few times between sobs. ‘It’s all my fault! This is all my fault!’

  The rest of her words are drowned in phlegmy sputters and I grab her and hug her tightly to me. She cries on my shoulder and I feel a lump rising in my throat. Mom’s not coming. She’s really not coming.

  ‘Do you think Mom got Shelved?’ Maggie wails.

  I hope not. I mean, she’s not a Mover, so why would they? But she’s definitely done something really bad. And BMAC isn’t going to be happy about it.

  ‘Why would she do that?’ The question tumbles out of my mouth all on its own. ‘Why would she make Maggie run away from BMAC? Running is so much worse than being upgraded, isn’t it?’

  Maggie just goes on crying and Beauty perches protectively on my sister’s head.

  ‘Maybe she was afraid of the tests,’ says Gabby. ‘Afraid BMAC would discover something.’

  I look up at Gabby, who’s leaning against the door frame, staring at her finger.

  ‘Discover what?’

  Gabby shrugs. ‘Something scarier than an upgrade.’

  The tremor in my bones feels like a quake, and it’s like I’m back on the roof yard. ‘What’s scarier than an upgrade?’

  She shrugs again. ‘I don’t know.’

  Gabby turns back to the news, completely oblivious to the tornado of questions she’s set off in my head.

  Maggie lifts her head off my shoulder, wiping away stray strands of hair from her eyes as Beauty pecks lovingly through her tangled curls.

  ‘What do we do, Pat?’

  I have no idea. No Mom means no plan. We’re on our own. I bite my lip and try not to scream, pulling my hat over my face.

  BMAC has Mom.

  BMAC’s calling me a suspect.

  And Maggie.

  BMAC’s looking for Maggie.

  They’ll come looking for us. They are probably already on their way.

  Dad’s voice echoes through my head. You need to take care of her …

  It’s up to me now.

  ‘Pat—’ Maggie’s cut off by a knock at the door. Beauty screeches.

  The muffled sound of a man’s voice is on the other side. ‘Patrick Mermick—’

  My breath catches on my ribs.

  ‘Maggie, sweetie—’ a woman’s voice now – ‘it’s Officer Kelley.’

  My blood drains down into my feet.

  BMAC’s already here.

  NINE

  ‘If you’re in there, open the door, honey,’ says Officer Kelley’s singsong voice.

  Open the door. I glance at the screen, my face, Gabby’s face, PHASE 4??????? scrolling across the whole of it. BMAC will Shelve us for this.

  ‘Maggie, please open the door.’

  I hear a snap of fingers and look over at Gabby. Droidlet, she mouths, and points at my sister.

  That’s how BMAC monitors you.

  Beauty flaps her wings anxiously as Maggie pulls the little purple device out of her pocket.

  ‘They know Maggie’s in here,’ Gabby whispers.

  I snatch it out of her hand, creep over to the window and chuck the droidlet out onto the street below.

  ‘Patrick Mermick?’ The door-knocking turns to banging and this time the man speaks. ‘This is Officer Simpson with the Bureau of Movement Activity Control. This is your first warning.’

  Part of me stupidly hoped they’d just disappear as soon as the droidlet did.

  ‘It’s in your best interest to co-operate, young man.’

  But they’re still here.

  BMAC is here.

  I’m seven years old, BMAC swarming our tiny apartment. They took Dad. They Shelved him.

  You have to protect her …

  ‘This is the last chance I am giving you, young man. Open this door.’

  Run. That’s what Mom told Maggie to do.

  We have to run.

  Run where?

  ‘If you do not comply in the next five seconds, we have the authority to open this door ourselves.’

  I glance at the window – maybe we could climb down the fire escape. Head down to the street, make a run for the underground.

  No. The fire escape is the only way out of here. It’s the first place they’ll check.

  We can’t run.

  ‘One …’

  We need to hide.

  ‘Two …’

  I lunge for the closet, pushing through the hanging clothes and storage boxes, running my hands along the back wall. My heart hammers in my chest so hard it might explode. It’s too dark, I can’t see. But the panel’s here, I know it is.

  ‘Three …’

  My Shadow’s picking through my brain, annoyed and nervous because I’m radiating panic again. My fingernails catch in a narrow slit and I dig in, the panel coming away with a quiet crack.

  ‘Four …’

  I turn back to Maggie, whose eyes are wide with surprise. Mom managed to keep the second closet a secret from Mags at least.

  ‘Five!’

  The sound of the bangs gets louder. BMAC is ramming the door with what I assume is Officer Simpson’s shoulder.

  Gabby’s the first to move, squeezing herself into the little space behind the panel.

  There’s a sound, like a drill, back at our front door and Maggie jumps. A ping as the hinges fall to the floor. BMAC’s coming in.

  ‘Mags,’ I whisper, calling her attention back from the door.

  She reaches out for my hand, ducking into the closet, Beauty flapping in after her. I’m not sure that’s a good idea but there’s no time. I nearly trip over the boxes on the floor as I squish myself between my sister and Gabby. I grab hold of the closet door and close it carefully as the front door falls in with a bang.

  BMAC’s inside.

  My head screams with panic and I breathe in too quick and too fast, in time with my rapid heartbe
at, and pull the panel closed. It’s pitch black. My sister’s hand is hot, wrapped around my index and middle fingers. Gabby’s breath brushes my cheek in short fast bursts. And my Shadow, he’s pinging against the walls of my skull like a nervous fish in a bowl. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He can’t understand. I shove him out of the front of my mind, all my focus devoted to breathing as quietly as I can.

  The three of us listen, but there’s nothing to hear except for the nervous clucking coming from Beauty, who’s sitting on my sister’s shoulder. I’m not sure how much we can hear from outside, hidden in the wall. I’m not sure about a lot of things. And they all come rushing at once. I’m not sure how long we’ll have to hide here. Not sure how long it will be before Officer Kelley and her friend figure out where we’ve gone. I’m not sure what BMAC does to suspects. What they’ll do to us if we’re caught. Would they take us to Mom? I doubt it. And what’s worst of all is I don’t know what they’ve done with her.

  No. That’s not worst of all. What’s worst of all right now is not understanding why Mom made Maggie run away. And Mom’s not here to explain it to me.

  Maggie squeezes my fingers tight as we hear a soft thudding. Feet on the carpet. BMAC’s in the bedroom.

  Beauty’s clucking stops.

  I hear voices. Officer Simpson’s hums through the walls, along with a higher-sounding voice – Officer Kelley. It’s a muffled conversation but I can just make it out.

  ‘Someone’s been watching the news,’ announces Officer Kelley.

  ‘Because they’re here. The signal from the girl’s droidlet was coming from inside,’ growls Simpson.

  There’s the sound of footsteps as BMAC steps further into the room. Officer Kelley’s calling out for Maggie while the footsteps move ever closer.

  ‘It seems to be coming from outside.’ Officer Kelley’s voice is easy to hear now and Gabby’s noisy breathing has stopped. ‘No one out on the fire escape.’

  ‘Message the street unit,’ snaps Officer Simpson. ‘If they are already outside I don’t want them getting away.’