Who Runs the World?

by Virginia Bergin

  That bit became boring because, after I’d studied the quite interesting building adaptations, all that happened was talk – and as they talked I remembered: I am missing very, very important classes for this.

  The creature, though it tries to hide it, seems shaken by all it sees. It hides it very badly, I decide. This is my room, Mumma says. The creature won’t even step inside. It backs away. This is the bathroom, Mumma says. The creature . . . It cannot seem to help itself; it shambles in. Our bathroom is normally such a tip. Thanks to the Granmummas’ anxiety it is sparkling clean and super-tidy. The creature shambles straight for the bath.

  ‘This is a bath,’ it mutters.

  ‘Yes,’ Kate answers, Mumma and I being speechless. ‘You can have one any time you like.’

  WHAT?! No, you can’t! I’m thinking. Who takes baths?! No one takes baths! I mean! Even the grumbling Granmummas have got used to not taking them! Baths are for emergencies – and birthdays! Baths are special!

  ‘And when you use the loo, put the seat down afterwards,’ says Kate.

  Me, Mumma and the creature all look at Kate: What?!

  Kate draws so deep a breath I have thoughts about her inhaler. ‘I’ll explain later,’ she says.

  ‘Would you like to go back to bed now, Mason?’ my Mumma asks.

  It looks at me.

  What does it have to look at me for? I shrug an ‘up-to-you’ shrug.

  It shambles out of the bathroom; me in front – just wishing it’d go back to bed and we can nail the door shut and all get some sleep – Mumma and Kate hovering behind it, like it’s a first-steps baby about to fall. And then it pauses – and looks down the stairs.

  ‘Do you want to see downstairs?’ Kate asks.

  Please, I’m thinking. NO!

  ‘Or just wait until tomorrow,’ Mumma says.

  Apparently, the ‘guy’ wants to see right now.

  As it starts down the stairs, hand on banister to steady itself, Mumma darts past. It’s what you’d do with any shaky first-steps: get in front to catch a fall. With Mumma ahead of him, the creature stops.

  ‘You need to leave him be,’ Kate says from the top of the stairs.

  ‘But –’ Mumma says.

  I mean, really, that creature is going to tumble, and though I know nothing of XYs, I’m pretty sure their necks would break just like ours.

  ‘Back off,’ Kate tells Mumma – and elbows me. ‘You help him.’

  I frown – hard – at her. No!

  She frowns harder – GRRRR! – back at me.

  I feel the creature flinch as my arm links through its arm. And it looks at me – and that look, the fear in it, makes me know it isn’t just afraid of breaking its XY neck, it’s afraid I might shove it. ARGH! That’s a horrible, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE thought. And I realise: I have done what it did to me. I threatened to hurt it, didn’t I?

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell it. ‘You’re good,’ I say, as it takes another step . . . and so I help it down the stairs.

  It feebly pulls its arm away from me as soon as we’re down.

  Kate descends behind us.

  ‘So what we’ve got here is my room.’ She shoves open the door to a mess so complex and long-established that not even the Granmummas’ anxious hands could clean and tidy it.

  ‘We put you in here first, when River found you. Do you remember?’

  It looks at me.

  ‘After I brought you home in the cart. Do you remember that?’

  It shakes its head a little.

  ‘And this is Mumma’s study,’ I tell it; the door is open, I flick on the light.

  I love Mumma’s study. It’s packed with amazingness. It’s got all kinds of sculptures and paintings and books – books – books. Floor to ceiling.

  It turns away immediately and –

  ‘This is the front door,’ Mumma says, opening it just a little to let in a blast of chilly night air. The creature shivers immediately and she shuts it again.

  It plants a steadying hand against the wall.

  ‘Do you need to sit down for a moment?’ Mumma asks.

  ‘Think you can make it to the kitchen?’ Kate says. ‘River, go get the door.’

  I head for the door, the creature shambling rapidly after me, and when I open it the shock on its face is a thing to behold – for a moment, its astonishment is beyond disguise, and it sways in the grip of it, so I steer it to the table and deposit it in a chair.

  And so it comes to be that Mumma and Kate are sitting at the table having a polite chat with the creature over a cup of mint tea and a slice of cake. And me – I’m there too because Kate whispers, You‘ve gotta stay. I think he trusts you! when I dare to suggest that I might just head off to bed.

  I don’t feel trusted. I feel watched.

  Of course, when I say ‘having a polite chat’, I mean Mumma and Kate are trying to explain what’s what to the XY, and when I say ‘over a cup of mint tea and a slice of cake’, that’s what Mumma and Kate are having. Me and the creature sit in brooding silence, not touching a thing. Though I do keep looking at the array of cakes – and I keep catching the creature doing the same thing, its nose flaring with those enticing sweet scents, then looking at me. It’s cake – creature – cake – creature – cake. A disturbing combination.

  Meantime, Mumma and Kate in the background, delivering lines as though they’re in one of the plays we put on for the Granmummas. We’ve done tons of them: Twilight, High School Musical, Hamilton and even a disastrous production of Les Misérables. Anyway, anyone could deliver lines more smoothly and convincingly than this:

  Mumma: We can explain all this again tomorrow –

  Kate: Or whenever –

  Mumma: But the thing is . . .

  Kate: Yes, what is the thing?

  Mumma: I’m getting to it.

  Kate: Well, hurry up and arrive because this boy is in no fit state to listen to a speech right now.

  Mumma: The thing is . . .

  Kate: We’re very happy that you’re here.

  Mumma: Yes!

  Kate: Everyone is.

  (Kate kicks River under the table; River smiles ice at Creature; Creature stares back with shark eyes; River stares at a cake instead; Creature does the same.)

  Mumma: Won’t you please have some cake?

  River (thinking): Sharks don’t eat cake.

  Kate: He’s just come out of a coma.

  Mumma: Yes. Yes, of course. So, Mason, the thing is . . .

  Kate: If you need me to handle this, just say the word.

  Mumma: No. I just need a moment to . . .

  Kate: Also, I actually think I might be better at it.

  Mumma: . . . Are you sure?

  Kate: Sure I’m sure!

  Mumma: It’s just really important that –

  Kate: Listen up, mister –

  Boy. Him. His. Son. Male . . . Guy. Dude. Mister.

  Mumma: Oh, Kate, I really –

  Kate: Do you want me to do this or not?

  Mumma: . . . Perhaps you should.

  Kate (to the creature): See, now, I’m guessing this is pretty much as weird for you as it is for us.

  (River opens her mouth, then shuts it again at Kate’s raised ‘SHUT UP’ hand.)

  Kate: And this is VERY weird for us. We haven’t seen a boy in sixty years.

  Mumma: Well, we haven’t seen an XY boy.

  Kate (to Mumma): Not now.

  Mumma: But –

  Kate (to Mumma): Not now.

  Kate (to shark creature Mason): Scroll back, eh? This is my grand-daughter, Zoe-River –

  Mumma: Kate adopted my mother when –

  Kate: Not now. And this is my great-granddaughter, River. The one who found you.

  River: Saved you.

  Kate: Not now. We . . . would really, really like to know a little bit about where you come from.

  (Creature looks at River.)

  Mumma: And why you left the Sanctuary.

  Kate: NOT now.

  Mumma
: No one will hurt you here. No one is going to . . . rape –

  Kate: NOT NOW.

  Mumma: – or kill you.

  Kate: No one does that kind of thing. Not around here. Not ever.

  Mumma: Well, very rarely.

  Kate: NOT NOW. So we were just wondering, where have you come from?

  Mumma: Yes! We’ve got this map here (Slides cakes aside to place map in front of creature.) and . . . perhaps you could show us?

  (Creature looks at River. Creature looks at map; a slight frown on its hairy face. Creature looks back at River.)

  Creature (to River): Where even is this?

  I think the next bit would be too hard to do on stage, at least with our school’s drama skills. I’d describe the scene as quiet confusion, leading to quiet uproar. Creative English is no more my thing than BASIC GEOGRAPHY is the creature’s.

  ‘This is the south-west of Britain . . .’ Kate says.

  ‘And we’re right here,’ Mumma says, pointing out the village on the map.

  I don’t know what she thinks it’s going to say – ‘Ah, yes! Now I see! And I’m from right here! A charming little secret village full of furry-faces just outside Ilminster!’ – perhaps . . . but it doesn’t say a word.

  ‘River, run and get the globe,’ Kate tells me.

  ‘But . . . that’s so out of date!’ I can hear Mumma saying as I grab the globe from her study. ‘The scale! The countries – the divisions – don’t even apply any more!’

  I know Kate suspects something – something Mumma and I can’t even quite imagine, but can almost – almost – suspect too. The way the creature looked at that map . . . Is it truly possible that it does not recognise a huge chunk of Britain?

  When I plonk the globe in front of it, that thought escalates.

  It stares. Though the stove is still hissing hard, I hear the softest gulp in its throat. Though the heat in the kitchen is crazy, I see a new bead of sweat trickle into its wispy beard.

  Is it truly possible that –

  Kate’s thinking must be escalating too. ‘So . . . this is the world,’ she says, turning the globe. ‘This is Britain –’ her finger jabs – ‘and this –’ her nail traces out a minute section – ‘is what is shown on this map.’ And she taps the map, just in case there is any doubt at all in the creature’s mind – and I have the feeling there’s a lot of doubt: dark bands of armpit sweat are SOAKING down MY dressing gown.

  ‘The South-West,’ my Mumma says, as though she’s still expecting the creature to go, Oh yes! and point out – Ilminster, most probably . . . or somewhere, or anywhere.

  ‘Mason, have you ever seen a map before?’ Kate asks.

  ‘I’ve seen maps,’ the creature tells me. ‘Games got maps.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but of real places?’ Kate asks. ‘This map is real.’

  ‘This is where we are,’ Mumma says. ‘This is where you’re living.’

  In my room, I think.

  The creature – it suddenly seems overwhelmed. Physically? Mentally? I don’t even know. I am supposed to be up at 4 a.m. for a Thermodynamics seminar . . . and I am impossibly tired. I grab cake and stuff it into my angry face, watching the creature.

  ‘I ain’t staying here,’ it says.

  CHAPTER 12

  BOYS DON’T CRY

  I ain’t stayin’ here.

  What brilliant words! I could applaud it: YES! GO! JUST GO! I WISH I’D NEVER FOUND YOU! I DON’T CARE HOW PRECIOUS AND IMPORTANT YOU ARE, YOU SCARE ME AND YOU ARE WRECKING MY LIFE. GO!

  There is the most awkward of awkward silences. Mine is particularly awkward because I am trying to supress glee – with cake. I stuff cake into my face to hide the grin that’s desperate to appear on it.

  ‘You can go any time you like,’ Kate tells it.

  ‘Oh, Kate, I –’ Mumma says.

  ‘Do you want me to handle this or not?!’ Kate blasts at Mumma. ‘Mason, that front door is never locked. You can just go. The question you’ve got to ask yourself is where would you go to? You can’t go back to a Sanctuary. You’re contaminated now. You’ve got the virus.’

  ‘The running dead,’ it says. Not even a shark’s cold grin.

  ‘Only you’re not dead, are you?’ Kate comes back at it. ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Are there others like you?!’ Mumma says.

  ‘Not now,’ says Kate.

  Mason, oozing sweat, raises a hand to his head. It doesn’t move any further. His fingertips turn white with the pressure they’re poking into his XY skull.

  ‘Don’t really get what you’re saying here,’ he mumbles.

  ‘So . . . there’s a virus that should have killed you by now and –’ Mumma tries to explain.

  ‘I know about the goddamn virus! Who doesn’t know about the goddamn virus!’

  Well . . . I’d say that’s about the first thing we all have in common. On the whole planet: who, indeed, does not know about the goddamn virus?

  ‘You’re infected, and you’re still alive. We don’t understand why you’re still alive, but we want you to stay alive,’ Kate says. ‘We’ll do everything we can to help you. And no one – hear me – no one is going to hurt you.’

  She finds her inhaler on the table and takes a shot.

  ‘You can run on out of here any time you want,’ she says, tight breath, shot held in lungs. ‘Your choice, dude,’ she says, exhaling. ‘Door’s there. Or sleep on it.’

  ‘You’re gonna snitch!’ it snarls.

  Kate slams her fist down on the table.

  ‘DO YOU KNOW HOW OLD I AM?’ she roars. ‘I SAVED YOU. I SAVED YOUR DADDY’S DADDY. I MEAN HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU EVEN CAME TO BE HERE?!’

  There is a terrible silence, in which – well, honestly – I grab and stuff more cake. At this rate, Kate’s going to be telling it to clear off herself. Hopefully.

  ‘Um, she’s right – really, in a way, she’s right,’ Mumma says. ‘No one here is going to hurt you. Or . . . snitch. We haven’t told anyone you’re here. And we won’t.’

  ‘The Unit will come looking,’ it mutters, wild eyes darting. ‘The Unit will send people. They got operatives.’

  ‘Operatives?’ says Mumma.

  ‘Wimmin working for the Units. They’ll send them. They’ll get me.’

  Kate shoots a fierce look at Mumma.

  ‘That team was from Help and Rescue!’ Mumma says to her.

  ‘Look, Mason,’ Kate says. ‘People came for you. We hid you. They think you’re dead. Everyone thinks you’re dead. Everyone except us and the bloody doctor.’

  I open my mouth to point out that that is not quite right, but Kate is on it: ‘Plus there’s the old gals. You’ve seen them, I’m guessing. You know who wiped your forehead and your bum. Who stayed up all night. Who gave you the drugs. Who tended to you like you were their own son. If you think a single one of them old bitches is snitches then, yeah, you had better run; now – and fast . . . but I’m telling you: every boy or man there is owes us his life. Code of Honour? No. We don’t expect anything in return and we don’t like to go on about it. In fact, we hardly even ever talk about it. And we . . . don’t EV-ER snitch.’

  WHOA. Teen Kate is on the loose. Teen Kate is rampaging with pure, red-hot, righteous rage.

  ‘We’d really like to help you,’ says Mumma.

  Well, I wouldn’t, not particularly, I’m thinking – I’m also thinking, NOT NOW, MUMMA, because Kate just sounded so fierce who would want to be helped by her?

  ‘We’d like to help you and all the . . . boys in the . . . Units. We’d like to know how things have been for you.’

  The creature snorts.

  ‘But to start with,’ says Kate, ‘just where did you come from?’

  The creature shuts its eyes.

  ‘I can’t tell you where I come from because I don’t know,’ it says. Its voice . . . it’s tiny now . . . and, for a moment, I feel for it; I cannot exactly imagine what it must feel like, being convinced that you’d die and then being tol
d that you wouldn’t, but I do imagine that cannot be straightforward news. You’d probably struggle to believe it.

  ‘Come on, now!’ says Kate, her patience totally lost.

  ‘That’s enough!’ says Mumma.

  ‘Not a word of a lie,’ the creature breathes at me. ‘We never went outside.’

  ‘But you did. You ran.’

  It’s Mumma who says this, and I’m amazed that she does; it seems too aggressive right now. Too much of a challenge.

  ‘Not from the Unit,’ it says. ‘Not direct.’

  ‘Then from where?’ says Mumma, in a more gentle tone.

  ‘This is an in-terror-gation, ain’t it?’ the creature says to me.

  Pretty much, I want to say . . . but I say nothing.

  ‘If you’re gonna start with the beatings, you’d best get on.’

  The terrible, terrible thing is that . . . it does not appear to be joking.

  ‘You get on and beat me all you like. I ain’t tellin’ you nothing.’

  And that is how the long, Not Normal day that became night that has now become morning ends. I help the creature back upstairs. I am raging annoyed with Mumma and Kate that they leave me alone to do the job – because what if it is dangerous? – but I also (reluctantly) instinctively get it. Instinctively – and not with my brain – it seems to me that the world is more strange and confusing to the creature than it is to me.

  ‘You can switch this off if you want to,’ I say, demonstrating the switch on my starry night sky celestial globe as it slumps into bed, eyes rolling with exhaustion and who-knows-what emotions.

  ‘You ain’t really a girl, are ya?’ it asks.

  ‘If you need anything else, just shout.’

  That’s Courtesy. That’s what we’d say to any guest.

  ‘You don’t look like one,’ it mumbles.

  ‘Well, goodnight then,’ I say, politely, as you would with any guest.

  I turn off the main light. Then I snap it on again, just for a second.