by Terry Tyler
"Then, four years ago, Marilee and Clinton were looking for a new child to foster long-term, and they chose me!"
I asked, "Why did they choose you?"
And Marilee took Zia's hand, smiling at her as though she loved her. "We look at video of hundreds of suitable children, we read the records and then we take you out for the day, get to know you, to see if you're a good fit for us."
"But mostly it's about feeling," said Clinton, and touched his chest. "It's something you feel here, you know?"
All four of us chattered and laughed all day long; Zia and I went on lots of amazing rides at the adventure playground, and afterwards we had vegan burgers and chips and vegan ice cream. I'd never eaten vegan food before and was surprised to find that it was much better than anything we had at Hope, where we mostly got Nutri-Smartmeals and tinned vegetables.
After the ice cream, Marilee took hold of my hand, over the table in the restaurant.
"Tara, would you like to come and live in our house, too? Like Zia?"
I didn't think twice about it. I just said, "Oh, yes please!" and we all laughed and laughed, and it was the very best day of my life.
Except for the bad feeling at the back of my mind.
Radar.
I told them about him, that he was my best friend in the whole world, and we were going to get married when we were old enough, and Marilee said, "Well, perhaps you can visit him now and again."
So I wasn't too upset. I imagined them driving me to see him at weekends. Zia had a smartcom so I hoped I would get one, and maybe I could ask if Radar could have one, too, instead of our crappy old-fashioned phones.
I told Radar all about it when I got back. This time, though, he wasn't angry. He was just quiet and sad, which was worse. I didn't know what to do about that, so I just gave him a big hug and said that whatever happened, he would always come first.
I was lying, even though I didn't let myself think that. If he came first, I would have refused to go with Marilee and Clinton.
Next morning they came with me to see the warden of Hope 44, who explained to me that the Bettencourts couldn't have children of their own, but had so much to offer that they liked to foster children from less fortunate backgrounds, to help them 'realise their potential'.
"You'll be our third," Marilee said, smiling that big, beautiful smile with her shiny white teeth and peachy-pink lipstick. "Soon you'll meet Jerome, who is eighteen now; we wanted him to go to college, but he can't wait to get out in the working world!" She and Clinton laughed, though I didn't know why that was funny.
"And Zia wants to be a movie star," said Clinton. "I wonder which path you'll take, Tara?"
"Can I be anything I want?"
"Honey, if you've got the talent," said Clinton, "I can make it happen!"
I just stared at them in wonder, until the warden said, "Say thank you to Mr and Mrs Bettencourt."
"I'm sorry—thank you—but—when I live in your house, will I call you Marilee and Clinton? Or Mr and Mrs Bettencourt?"
The grown-ups all thought this was hilarious.
"You can call us whatever you like," said Clinton, blue eyes twinkling in his handsome, tanned face. "Our guardianship will be official, and it's possible that we may adopt you when you're older, if it feels right for all concerned, so you don't have to call us Mom and Dad yet! Jerome and Zia call us Clinton and Marilee. One thing we do ask, though, is that you change your last name. There are many advantages to being a Bettencourt, and we want you to experience every one of them."
And that was that, really. I asked for time to say goodbye to my friends, I packed my scant belongings into my new backpack, and left Hope 44 for the last time.
Just before we set off for Megacity 5, way down south from Hope 44, I was texting Radar when Clinton took my old phone out of my hand, and replaced it with a smartcom.
"You're a megacity girl, now. I've installed Heart, and added myself, Marilee, Zia and Jerome to your primary contacts. There!" He looked at my phone as though it was something dirty. "We can throw this old thing in the trash."
But Radar had texted to say that he was missing me already, and I was replying to say the same thing back.
"Can I just finish my text to my friend?" I said, but Clinton wasn't listening; he laughed, dropped it on the floor, then crushed it under the heel of his shoe. Marilee and Zia laughed too, like we were all celebrating my leaving Hope 44 and everything about my former life.
Once we were in the car, I tried to text Radar with my smartcom but it came up as 'number unknown'. I looked him up on Heart so that I could add him, but when I clicked on his name I got a message saying You do not have access to this profile.
I showed it to Marilee, and she told me that Hope Villagers didn't have access to megacity profiles, and vice versa.
"It's just a security thing," she said, in a vague fashion that I would come to know well. "And smartcoms are on the megacity network, whereas those old phones aren't."
"But how will I keep in touch with Radar?"
I noticed her glance at Clinton.
"Well, you could send him cards by snail mail," she suggested, "and we'll drive you up here to visit."
"Oh—okay. Thank you." But I thought of Radar staring at his phone, waiting for a reply that would never come.
When I left we'd clung to each other, and I made him promise that he wouldn't start hanging around with Lee and Jayden, that he wouldn't get into trouble.
He said, "I won't, as long as you come back and see me, often. Give me something to look forward to."
I promised I would, and I meant it, but it never happened. I tried, but there was always a reason why it was 'not convenient this weekend'. Clinton was too busy to take me, or I had to go to a new class they'd enrolled me in, or Marilee wanted to take me shopping, or if they'd used all those excuses too recently they'd say there was a viral outbreak in Hope 44 and it was under strict lockdown.
At first, I didn't twig that they were lying. After a while, I stopped asking.
I bought Radar a card with a picture of a farm, but I couldn't find out the proper address for any Hope Villages online; I wrote my address in it and asked Marilee to send it for me with snail mail, and she said she would. I hoped that Radar might send me a card back, but he didn't.
I worked out fairly soon that she had not sent it, and that they would never, ever let him have my address.
I'd let him down. One day, when I was thinking about him and getting upset, Marilee said, "Tara, because of what happened to you when you were eight, you clung to Radar. I do understand, but you're going to meet hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of your life; you'll form close bonds with some and a few will be special, like Radar was. And I do mean was; that part of your life is over, and he will be moving on, as you are. One day, you may lose touch with Jerome and Zia, even if you can't imagine it now. It's just life; friendships come and go, even close ones. It's nobody's fault, it just is."
So I tried very hard not to mind, while thinking how wrong she was about one thing: the day I didn't have to live in the same house as Jerome couldn't come soon enough.
I loathed him right from that first day. Once I'd been shown around their mansion and left in the kids' downtime room with my two pretend siblings, he said, "That's all we need, a Hope Village skank. Bloody Marilee and her do-gooding; you do know you're just here to tick a box, don't you?"
Zia went all edgy and nervous. I didn't. I'd grown up with criminals and lived in Hope.
"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" said tough little ten-year-old me.
He just laughed. "Marilee dug around NPUs until she found the son she couldn't give Clinton—me—and she's done chinky, and towel-head—Zia—but she needed a spear-chucker too, for the full set, so she can show off at her dinner parties about how globally-minded she is. Except she couldn't quite bring herself to go full darkie, so she took a half-breed."
Zia gasped with shock; I'd gotten used to racist insults in Hope, so
Jerome's rolled straight off me. I was more interested in something else he'd said. "What d'you mean, chinky? Who's that?"
Jerome flicked a hand, as if it was of no importance. "Oh, that was Susu. Ran away as soon as she was sixteen. They reckon she did a bunk into the wasteland."
"Really? When?"
"Last year. But don't mention it. We don't talk about her. Ever. Got it?"
"Okay, but why not?"
Zia spoke up. "Marilee was really upset, and her and Clinton rowed about it for a while. But then they made up and Clinton said to Jerome and me that it would be best if we didn't mention Susu again. For Marilee's sake."
I shrugged. "Oh. Okay, then."
Jerome laughed. "So now they're down one virtue signal; thus, you. I was hoping for a sexy little Filipina next; shame. What are you, half-darkie or a third?"
"You'll get reported for saying stuff like that, one of these days," said Zia.
"No I won't, we're Bettencourts. We can do and say anything we like." He frowned and put his finger to his chin, in an exaggerated way, like he was giving the subject serious consideration. "I dunno, though; maybe it's different for Hope skanks, Bettencourt or not."
The sight of him lounging on the window seat, all tanned health, blond hair and handsome Bettencourt privilege, sent my temper up to boiling point.
I said, "You don't talk to me like that, arsehole," and went to take a swipe at him, but Zia held me back; he laughed and walked out of the room.
"Just ignore him, he's a pig but you'll never prove it," she said. "He's their golden boy, and he's always super-nice when Marilee and Clinton are around."
"Is he a pig to you, too?" I asked.
"Sometimes."
"And Susu? Is that why she ran away?"
Zia bit her lip and looked at the floor. "He was, but we mustn't talk about her. I don't know why she went."
"Why would anyone want to live in the wasteland if they could live here?" All I knew about the wasteland was that it meant living in old, abandoned houses without electricity and hot water, and having everyone call you a rat.
I didn't understand why anyone would want to endure such a hard life, when they could enjoy the best of everything in the Bettencourts' palatial home.
I had no idea that outside the gated communities megacity life was far less cushy, or that the advantages I'd enjoy in the coming years would carry a hefty price tag.
I was only ten, and Zia was almost twelve. We didn't understand anything. Nothing at all.
It was the middle of the school summer holidays when I went to live with the Bettencourts, and Zia replaced Radar as my best friend. We would watch our favourite shows and act them out, so she could practise for when she was an actress. When the new term began―a smart school for rich kids that Clinton and Marilee had to pay for―she was two years above me, so I made friends in my own year. I soon found out that Clinton and Jerome were right, my new name made me special. In MC5, the Bettencourts were more royal than King William and Queen Catherine.
As I settled in, Hope 44 and Radar faded to the back of my mind, but uncomfortable thoughts crept in when I was in bed at night. What if he was so lonely without me that he fell in with Lee Manning and Jayden Ross? What if he got himself into trouble?
But when Delia, the maid, woke me each morning to tell me it was time to get up, when she opened the curtains on another great new day, it was easy to lock those worries back in their box.
As well as Delia, there was Bob the gardener and Mollie the cleaner. If ever any of us dropped or spilled something, Jerome would say, "Leave it, that's Mollie and Delia's job," but Zia and I didn't like to. He took the piss out of us for this.
"Are you going to act like plebs all your life? Listen, if we don't leave crap lying all over the house, they'll be out of a job!"
We went to school in a self-drive car with one of Clinton's men. Clinton was the Vice President in charge of Marketing at the Nutricorp HQ, a massive building within the Government Village at the heart of MC5. I'd come down to breakfast to see him glugging down his green smoothie and kissing Marilee on the cheek, and then he was gone, for at least twelve hours.
It was like living in a TV show.
At breakfast on Sunday morning, Clinton would remind us all that we mustn't waste the advantages we'd been given. His voice was mild, but my street-sharp brain heard what he meant: don't you dare fuck up.
Sunday breakfast was an occasion in the Bettencourt household. At ten a.m. we would sit down to exotic fruit, croissants, vegan bacon, pancakes, the whole works. Afterwards, Clinton might take us to Great Outdoors—ziplining, nature trails, climbing—or if he was busy, Zia and I would have snuggly movie days or play make-up with Marilee, or lie on our four-poster beds amongst sumptuous, softer-than-soft pillows, and talk to our schoolfriends on Heart.
I looked forward to being a teenager; I loved my social life at school, and my bedroom, and all the exciting distractions the megacity had to offer.
I was only a kid. I hadn't got a clue.
Chapter 2
Radar
2043
All through the rest of that sticky summer he waited for her. Every Sunday he would wash his hair, put on his best clothes, and wait in the lounge for a red cap call: "Hey, Radar! You've got a visitor!"
By the time soggy yellow leaves covered the ground outside the high fences of Hope Village 44, he knew she wasn't coming.
He had no way of contacting her. When he asked if he could send her a note by snail mail, his request was denied.
"Tara needs to settle into her new life," said Blake, a senior red cap of the jobsworth kind. "She's there and you're here; I'm afraid you're going to have to accept that, mate."
Fucking mate. Why not use his actual name, and quit with the fake friendly shite? It was always mate, buddy, or, worst of all, big man.
Tosspot even had the nerve to ruffle his hair before he walked away.
Radar knew Tara was lost to him. His best friend, the only person apart from his gran who'd ever cared about him. When the other kids teased him about his girlfriend leaving him, he told them to shut the fuck up and threatened to punch them, but this didn't make him feel any better.
He felt rudderless, lost. Tara had stopped him getting into trouble and mixing with the bad crowd, but now a vague sense of fear hung over him, because he had no idea what he might find himself doing, without her; like any minute he might hurtle down a hill, out of control, unable to stop himself landing in shit at the bottom.
In October, when he imagined Tara getting ready to go trick-or-treating, choosing her Hallowe'en costume (not something of which he had experience, but he knew it was what normal kids with families did), Hope 44 acquired some new residents. Three of them, from a Hope Village down south.
Sean, Declan and Jamal.
As soon as the three lads were escorted into the children's lounge, the air filled with tension. They scanned the room, assessing their new prey. Jamal, in particular. Sharp eyes flitting from one person to another as he identified the weak.
Radar felt Declan looking at him. Scrawny, not tall; the three of them looked no more than thirteen or fourteen. Declan chewed gum with his mouth open, grinning. One of his front teeth was missing.
"What're you lookin' at, Lard Boy?"
The other two laughed and shifted their focus to Radar, as did most of the other kids, glad to have escaped the spotlight.
Radar held his shoulders back, and pulled in his stomach. "You, y' gap-tooth cunt."
"Radar!" Louise, the red cap who'd accompanied the new boys, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him over to Declan. "We don't use language like that at Hope 44, do we? Apologise to Declan, now!"
Radar shrugged his arm away. "Will I fuck. He started it." He lurched forward, aiming a fist at the other boy, aching to feel it collide with that sharp chin, but Declan was too quick for him. He ducked. Oh, Sean and Jamal loved that. Pissed themselves laughing, as Louise and a colleague jumped in to hold Radar back.
&
nbsp; "You need to calm down," said Louise. He knew what that meant. The time-out room. Padded walls so you couldn't hurt yourself.
As Louise locked him in, she said, "I know he provoked you, but you've got to learn not to bite." She put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hint of a hug, and the comfort brought tears to his eyes. "You sit in here for a little while and give it some thought. Okay, mate?"
Just when he was starting to think Louise was okay. Mate. Fucking stupid fake bitch. His tears dried as soon as they'd begun.
"You going to put the TV on, then?"
"Sure." She took out some tablets and a bottle of water. "Take one of these. It'll make you feel calmer."
Zombie pills. Radar usually refused to take them, but today he accepted. Couldn't stand the angry shit going round his brain.
Louise turned on the screen, which was too high up for anyone to smash. You had to lie back on the bean bags and cushions to watch it. Animals and trees and whales and stuff. He liked it, it made him feel happier, relaxed, but he hated knowing that he was reacting as he was supposed to.
Though he didn't know the word, he felt manipulated.
They brought his dinner, and Louise told him she'd given him an extra-large helping of afters—cherry cheesecake—to cheer him up, though once he was out he would not be allowed to use the canteen shop for three days, as a punishment for using the 'c' word.
"And don't think of getting someone else to go for you; the swipe's programmed not to take your credit tokens."
In the morning, a red cap called Suresh let him out and accompanied him to the canteen for breakfast.
"You gonna behave yourself now, buddy?" Suresh patted him on the back. "If they start on you again, just rise above it. Don't take the bait."
"Yeah, yeah." Radar moved off before he thumped Suresh instead.
"Be the bigger man," Suresh called after him.
He laughed. Not hard when you were Lard Boy, was it?
