First Times

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “We've missed tea, if we're lucky,” said Claire. “Hairy Mary will give us hell.”

  “We'll be in time for cocoa though,” said Penelope. “That's actually drinkable.”

  “Everyone should be here by now, from the train,” said Claire. “Come on!”

  They started to run, as best they could, with soggy shoes and damp jeans and the first chapter in a term full of adventure stories.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cady arrived after breakfast porridge, like sandy glue just as Emily was ready to follow Claire to the All-School Welcome Assembly.

  “What are you wearing?” said her mother. “Did you cut your sweater?”

  “I fixed the neckline,” said Emily, shrugging. “I really can't be late.”

  “They'll understand,” said her mother. “We won't be seeing you again until Christmas, and even then, well, it will be different.” Her voice wobbled. No reunion, then.

  “I'll just step into the office,” said Emily's dad. “Make sure the money transfer came through okay.”

  “Will you be all right here?” Mom looked deep into Emily's eyes. “Did you have fun last night? Your first time sharing a room?”

  “Yes, Mom. It's all good, I promise.”

  “Here, take this.” Mom pushed a shopping bag into Emily's hands. “I know it's against the rules, but –”

  Emily peeked inside to see cashews and chocolate bars and licorice and chewing gum. “Oh, thanks, Mom!”

  “Shush now, your father wouldn't approve.”

  Emily walked with her parents out to the top of the drive, where their rental car was parked. Mom's eyes were leaking again, her nose pink and her smile rigid.

  “Remember to take brave tastes,” said her father.

  “And, once in a while, you'll find something you like,” Emily chimed in.

  She found that she didn't mind being hugged. She could be generous. She was already, and finally, in a world of her own. One night in a foreign land and she could see her own realm more clearly.

  As she waved, Emily knew suddenly that this was the last time she would see her parents married. You always know when you're doing something for the first time, she thought. You remember the details. But only once in a while do you notice that it's over and will never happen again.

  Early Girl

  SARAH ELLIS

  Fossick began, “The first time I saw you …”

  Larch hugged himself and squeaked with joy. He loves my Finding-Day story the story we tell once a year. He loves anything that repeats or stays the same. The reason he cannot go above very often is that in the Abovelands, things change. Weather, strangers Larch cannot abide these.

  Fossick nodded at Larch and continued, “… was on an ordinary day.”

  “No sign, no signal,” said Edward.

  “No prophesy, no portent,” said Tran.

  With other stories, Fossick does the telling; but with my Finding-Day story, everyone joins in. We are like a choir.

  “It was not even a Bin Day. It was a Returning Day. I had done with returning and I was pushing the wheelie home. I had coins in my pocket.”

  “Clinking,” said Larch.

  “Clinking in my pocket. But then, passing by a bin, I heard another sound. I thought it was a kitten.”

  “It was not a kitten,” said Edward.

  “So I nearly passed by. We had cats aplenty for managing rats.”

  “Cats aplenty for love,” said Larch.

  “But something made me stop and open the lid. Inside, wrapped in a towel …”

  “A soft yellow towel,” said Tran.

  “… was a baby.”

  Then Fossick put out both arms as if to hug the air. He hugs the air when he proclaims. He proclaims when he is joyful and the words are not for sense, but just for joy. “This royal infant, though in her cradle, promised upon this land a thousand thousand blessings which time shall bring to ripeness.”

  Larch took a deep breath. “She grabbed your finger.”

  “She held on for dear life,” said Edward.

  “She held on like a leech,” said Tran.

  “As tight as a leech,” said Fossick, “but she was a good deal prettier.”

  They all looked at me. I have my part to say in my story. “Was I stinky?”

  “Your head smelled like a flower,” said Fossick. “So I called you Blossom.”

  “She wasn't a Steal; she was a Find,” said Tran.

  Tran is our Finder. He finds all our needful things. Fossick proclaims that these are “raiment, bed, and food.” But Tran never steals. This is a rule. Fossick makes our rules.

  “The best Find of all time,” said Fossick. “I said to myself, ‘Is it useful?’”

  “No!” chorused all the boys.

  “I said to myself, ‘Is it lovely?’”

  “Yes!” The sound echoed through the Underlands, where we all live. It boomed through the darkness that licked at the edge of the light, up, over, and around the pipes, the machines, the cubbies, and the taps that we live among. Useful or lovely is another rule. Our Finds must be one of these. They need be only one.

  “She was lovely,” said Fossick. “So I brought her home, home to the Underlands.”

  “But she cried,” said Tran. “She needed milk. Good milk is a hard Find.”

  “So we went to the fun farm, late late at night. We found the goats.”

  I would like to go to the fun farm now that I am grown, to see the goats who gave me milk when I was a baby. But it is gone. One of the sheep got sick, and then all the Citizens were afraid to bring their children to pet the animals. The Citizens are easily afraid. Fossick says that if they knew about the Underlands here below the reservoir where the Citizens keep their water, here in the middle of the Lingerlands where the Citizens play they would be sore afraid and make us leave. We do not have many keeping things and we are very good at hiding in a hurry.

  Edward looked at me and raised an eyebrow. It was my turn again.

  “Did I poop and piss and puke?”

  Larch snorted pinkdrink up his nose. This is his favorite part.

  Fossick pretended to look stern. “You did. But Edward fixed you up, every time.”

  Edward is our Fixer. He fixes ways to get us water to drink, wash, and cook. He fixes ways to keep us warm and ways to light the Underlands. He takes broken machines and fixes them, to do what they were supposed to do or to do something else. He fixed a computer for Larch. Larch loves to keyboard. He loves to sing, “Semi, ell, kay jay.” When I was a baby, Edward fixed a way to wash diapers.

  “Blossom loved the milk and she grew and grew, increasing in stature and beauty,” said Fossick.

  “And she does still,” said Edward. “Stand up, you growing ones. Time for the measuring.”

  Larch and I stood back to back. “Look at that,” said Edward. “Blossom, you're nearly as tall as Larch three fingers to go.”

  Fossick continued the story. “And so she became our Story Gleaner and part of this proud clan.”

  It was time for my final question. “Was I a throwaway?”

  “No, you were a keepsake, as are we all.”

  Everybody was quiet then, for a time.

  “We come from under the ground,” said Edward.

  “Like the strong trees and the lovely grass,” said all of us.

  Every story ends this way.

  Then it was time for the Finding-Day feast. On my Finding Day, we eat all boughten food. Fossick buys it with the returns money. Nothing from a bin. We have new soft bread, a whole brick of hard butter that we slice like cheese, bananas with no squish, hot meat on sticks, and solid ice cream in little tubs. This year Tran found some blackberries in the Lingerlands. Sometimes Citizen children pick these blackberries, but the Watchers don't let them eat them. The best thing at the feast is milk. Cold cold milk, as much as I want. Good milk is still a hard Find.

  We ate until our stomachs were tight as drums. Then Fossick, Edward, and Tran went above Fossick and Edward to some fin
ding, and Tran to the mysterious places he goes at night. Sometimes Tran comes back hurt, but Fossick says we cannot keep him bottled up. Edward fixes him as best he can.

  Larch was jittery, so I read to him from a magazine. We always have magazines. Magazines are an easy Find, especially the fat yellow ones. We do not understand why things so lovely and useful are throwaways. They are lovely because they have shiny paper in bright colors, and they show all sorts and conditions of people and lands everywhere on this earth, now and long ago. They are useful because they calm Larch.

  I read about early man, cave paintings, fossil remains, hunter-gatherers, and the development of the human skull and brain. We looked at the pictures, diagrams, and maps.

  “It says that they had social family units and that they cared for the sick and injured,” I said.

  “Proud clans?” asked Larch.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did they have money?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  “Are caves inside the ground?” he asked.

  “Yes, they can be underground, or in the sides of hills and mountains.”

  “Are all those people gone away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Press my head.”

  Larch likes you to put your hands on either side of his head and squeeze, not to hurt but to make him feel safe and happy. I was hoping he would fall asleep, but he had one more question.

  “Are we the last?”

  Larch asks many questions, but he is never impatient for the answers. He has a gift for waiting. When he lived at the Facility, nobody answered his questions. They thought they were stupid-talk But we know that his questions always mean something. While I tried to puzzle out this question, his head fell heavy into my hands, like a watermelon. I lowered it to his pillow.

  Being calm for Larch made me sleepy too, but I didn't want my Finding Day to end. I decided to go story gleaning. At the time of my Finding Day, the evenings are long and light. It is a good time to glean stories.

  I decided to go to the square where the Citizens are, so I put on my Citizen schoolgirl coat. I have one great gift for my job as Story Gleaner. I can become invisible. In the Abovelands, I become invisible by disguise. It took many months for Tran to find me a schoolgirl Citizen coat and a buckle bag, but now I can become invisible anytime, a Citizen in a crowd of Citizens.

  In the square, the Citizen children were riding their wheels, sitting at tables drinking pinkdrinks, bouncing balls, listening to music, dancing, twirling their hair, laughing, calling out to each other. They looked as though they were alone. But, of course, the Watchers were there. I saw them, sitting on benches, leaning against shops, drinking coffee from kiosks or water from their bottles. The Watchers notice everything, but they do not notice me. To them I am just a Citizen schoolgirl with a Watcher of my own and no concern of theirs.

  I sat on a bench and took a little keyboard out of my buckle bag. It has no power, but it is a good disguise tool. I started to listen to two Citizens talking at a table beside me. They were polished women, black hair and red hair. “Postoperative complications.” From their words, I figured out the story. The husband of Black Hair had had an artificial heart implanted in his body, but his body was not welcoming it. Black Hair spoke slower and slower. Red Hair put her arms around her. Red Hair's cell rang and she didn't even answer it. I reached into my coat and felt my own heart beating.

  It was time to go. To remain invisible, I can stay with the Citizens for only a medium amount of time.

  The shadows were long by the time I got back to the Lingerlands, and the sky had that light that makes you think something is just about to happen. I felt as though the trees were going to walk, or the birds to talk, or I was about to become somebody else.

  I packed my Citizen coat into my buckle bag. I try to keep it nice. I wasn't ready to go home to sleep. I would try for one more story.

  In the Lingerlands I am invisible in the other way in the small, still way. I stand behind a bush, or climb a tree, and nobody sees me. For every squirrel or coyote or raccoon you see in the Lingerlands, there are hundreds you never see. I am one of the hundreds. I climbed the stairstep tree and waited for Citizens to come and sit on the bench below. Some of my best stories come from that bench. “The Principal Was Disgraced”; “Suing the Plastic Surgeon”; “The Unsuitable Lover”; “Children Who Are Not Grateful”; “How I Profited from the Crash”; “The Sly Sister.” I listen and remember and take the stories home.

  That evening only one person came. He did not even talk into his cell. I collect half-stories from celltalk. He only punched into his keyboard. But I noticed a squirrel. I thought he was eating a nut. Nibble, nibble, turn. Nibble, nibble, turn. But the nut never got smaller because it was a rock. Nibble, nibble, turn. I have never seen that before. I like the hands of squirrels.

  The crows flew overhead, home for the night, a random ragged bunch. When Fossick sees them, he proclaims, “Light thickens and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood….” But really they are flying to the dump, where they spend the night.

  I smelled rain and then it began. I always pretend I hear the first drop on the first leaf. There must be one, a first drop of rain. A first snowflake, a first leaf turning red, a first spring blossom in the whole of the Lingerlands. The Citizen held his palm up and then scuttled away.

  Time to take the artificial heart and a sharp-toothed squirrel home.

  By the time I made my way to the door to the Underlands, the rain was a deluge, hissing and bouncing, silver needles shining through the lights that ring the reservoir. Fluffy, our smallest cat, was pressed up against the door, sopping, angry, and with lots to say. I swiped her in. Edward fixes swipecards for us so that we can come and go without using our secret tunnel entrance and escape exit.

  As I paused, I heard noises. I was just about to slip quickly inside when I recognized Fossick's voice, singing. “Hey, ho, the wind and the rain.” Fossick, Edward, and Tran, too, appeared from the trail. Fossick had the wheelie, full of cans and bottles. Edward had a lumpy bag and Tran was balancing, on his head, some large, red, hard plastic discs, as big around as he could hold.

  I pushed open the door and they all tumbled inside. Tran lifted the discs off his head. “New kind of umbrella?” said Fossick.

  Tran rolled them back and forth thoughtfully. “Come on,” he said, “we can't get any wetter. You, too, Blossom. It only works when it's raining really hard.”

  I dropped my buckle bag and followed. The top of the reservoir is one large flat cement pad, as big as a Citizen's playing field. There is a fence all around it and an alarm system because the Citizens are afraid that bad people will break in and poison the water. But Edward knows the ways of the fence and the alarm.

  Water lay covering the pad, like a large shallow lake, pocked with raindrops.

  “Watch,” said Tran, as he threw one of the discs across the water, like skipping a stone. Then he ran after it, huge splashing Transtrides, and jumped onto the disc. He went skidding along, water spraying out behind him.

  Then he skimmed the disc toward me. “Blossom! Run with it and jump. Don't think!”

  I ran. I jumped. I raced along on a slippery world, arms out, rain in my face. I was good. I was fast and I didn't fall. I wanted to ride, again and again, across the reservoir, over the Lingerlands, through the silver rain, off the edge of the world.

  We threw and ran and skimmed and yelled, all of us. Edward was a clumsy rider, but a good thrower. Fossick, who can walk on his hands, tried it upside down. He did not succeed and lay on his back, arms in the air, proclaiming, “The roof of the chamber with golden cherubims is fretted.”

  Tran was wrong about the wet. We could get wetter and we did. I felt as though my bones must be sodden. And still the rain kept bouncing down, watering grass, shrubs, flowers, and us.

  Then suddenly we were cold and it was all finished.

  Inside the Underlands,
the boys dripped and laughed and shook themselves like dogs. I looked at them, standing in a line along the entrance tunnel. Tran's slick wet hair was black as a crow. Edward's shaved head was dripping. Fossick's wild caveman beard was jeweled with raindrops. I remembered the feel of Larch's head in my hands, and then I remembered a drawing in the yellow magazine a drawing of a row of skulls, white and polished and plain. Foreheads and jaws, cheekbones, people changing from one kind of human to another. Being and becoming. For every kind of human, first they were few and then they were many. Some few must have been first of the new sort. I suddenly knew what Larch's question meant.

  He was awake. Larch sleeps like a cat, a bit at a time. He told us that at the Facility, he was made to stay in his bed all night. He could not abide that. That was one reason he ran away. There were other reasons, but I cannot bear to think of them.

  “You want to know if we are the last ones?” I said.

  Larch nodded.

  Water dripped off my hair, down my skull, off my nose. Gleaners and Finders, Returners and Fixers, Underlanders, Night Skimmers. Are we the last of the cave people? The last of the throwaways? I thought of the next day. After a big rain, the Lingerlands are new washed. If I wake early, I like to watch the sunrise from the stairstep tree. Early man; early girl. There would be new stories waiting. Later there would be new Finds to sort. I have work and my keepsake people and I have no Watcher.

  Fossick walked by and dropped a rag on my head. I wrapped it around my wet hair like a turban. Larch was waiting. Larch cannot abide an answer that is both yes and no.

  “No. We are not the last. We are the first, the first of a proud clan that comes from under the ground.”

  Larch wrapped his arms around himself and wriggled. “Like what else?”

  “You know.”

  “You say it.”

  “Like the strong trees and the lovely grass.”

  Meet the Authors

  Susan Adach