I Am Margaret (17 page)

I rested my elbows on the windowsill and went back to the view and the night air and all the things I was trying to get out of my head...

A faint tap tap of a stick behind me. Jonathan. How did he find me? Did he sniff me out or recognize my breathing, or some combination of the two? He always knew who’d approached him before they spoke.

“Margo,” he said quickly—and very softly—in Latin, as though he didn’t want to waste our private moment. “Have you thought about that thing we have in common, what it means for me, being here in this dorm?”

His odd words came back to me, the first day he was in here...

“Complicated?”

What was so complicated? A burst of giggling made me glance around again; sure enough, the gigglers’ eyes were fixed on Jonathan. The penny dropped belatedly, a big, dangerous penny—oh yes, he
would’ve
preferred to stay in the boys’ block and die nice and safely over there—nice and safely for his family and the precious safe house, anyway.

“
Oh no…” My voice dropped even further. “If you don’t choose
any
one…. someone will suspect.”

“Exactly,” he said grimly.

“
Yet you
can’t
choose anyone.”

“No priest, no marriage rite, no way.”

I swallowed a couple of swear words. Despite his little revelation yesterday, I’d scarcely been able to think about anything other than Uncle Peter—okay, Uncle Peter and Bane—and this glaringly obvious problem hadn’t registered.

“I hadn’t thought. I’m an idiot. I can put my mind to it or… have you thought of something?”

“
I have. The only thing I
can
think of. But I’m very embarrassed to ask. If it wasn’t for what’s at stake—if I didn’t know you
understand
what’s at stake—I wouldn’t… but, if I don’t choose a… girlfriend… soon… I don’t trust Jane, she’s too sharp…” he trailed to a halt.

A tinge of red stained his cheeks—a second penny dropped. He really was embarrassed. Because he was saying he was going to have to choose me. And we’d have to pretend a whole lot more!

No
way!
I wasn’t going to pretend to be sleeping with him! Okay, so no one in here would think anything of it, but rumors would get out. Reach my parent’s ears, perhaps. Worse, Bane’s ears. No!
Absolutely not
.

I opened my mouth to tell him so in no uncertain terms, but… My heart sank as my mind crunched on with unstoppable logic. If we didn’t... someone would point at Jonathan and whisper ‘Underground’. And then he and his parents and any Underground members staying with them would die. Any members arriving at the safe house for some time to come would die. Some of them would be priests, sisters, rabbis, imams… They would die as Uncle Peter had died.

I swallowed. The truth staring me in the face was simple enough—my reputation wasn’t worth that much. I suppose… the Lord would know what had or hadn’t happened and Bane would just have to take my word for it. As for the sheer cheek-combusting embarrassment of it all…
Lord, help!

“Relax,” I said glumly. “I’ve caught on. And…” I ran the situation and proposed solution through my mind a few more times. “There really doesn’t seem to be much option.”

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“Well, I’m not much of an actress.” I bit gently at my lip in sudden worry. “Well, at least I like you; I think. Let’s hope that’s enough.”

“I don’t think we need to crawl all over each other in public.” His cheeks heated again. “I think if we just—act like we’re getting cozy for a day or so and then start sharing a bunk at night—that’ll be enough. Ah…” he sounded strangled, “more than enough, I know.” His face was brick red now.

Sharing a bunk. Aaaaaw! Was I going to have to sleep crammed up against this near-stranger for the next 724 days? Still, better than even one person dying and there was no getting around
that
.

“It’ll be all right,” I said. Who was I trying to convince, him or me? My mind insisted on replaying Jane’s words... my heart beat a little faster. Jane’s mind was already turning in dangerous directions. We’d really better not take too long about this...

Jonathan must’ve been thinking the same thing.

“
What are you doing by the window?” he asked curiously—and more loudly—in English. His hand brushed down my back and settled around my waist, fingers curling around the front of my hip. It took all my self-control not to stiffen and push his hand away.
Oi
, I wanted to say,
you don’t know me well enough to put your hand there
.

But I couldn’t do that. I stared out into the darkness and managed to smile.

“There’s a nice breeze tonight. Feel it?”

“Yes. I wonder if spring is really coming. Feels like it’s getting colder today.”

His right hand stayed around my waist. I stood still and let it remain there. I should respond in some way, but this was harder than I expected. It hurt my self-respect to let him touch me like that. I wasn’t
his
. He wasn’t
mine
. We weren’t sworn to each other in whole and wholesome union. Never in my entire life had I presented myself as a mere sex object and now… being touched like this by someone I didn’t love felt too close to it for my liking.

He rubbed my hip gently; leaned close to my ear as though to give some flirtatious remark.

“I’m so sorry about this.” He’d felt my discomfort. What he could feel, others might be able to see. This wouldn’t do.

I laid my hand over his; entwined our fingers. Murmured in his ear, “It’s not your fault. We’ve got to get this right.”

His unseeing eyes stared through me, sad and sincere.

“Yes, we have.”

I let him snug me to his tall warm side, trying very hard to relax.

“Hey, hear that…”

The sound of wolf song floated to us on the nice breeze. I listened eagerly but Jonathan shuddered.

“For once I’m glad to be in here.”

“Don’t like wolves?”

“
No. I never walked far from Little Hazelton ‘cause I was always afraid there could be one there, about to eat me. They’re
so
quiet.”

“
Huh.
I
don’t like bears.
They’ll
eat you.”

“Yeah, but they make noise walking around.”

I shrugged and managed to slip my arm around his waist in return.

“Never met a wolf that’s given me any trouble. They just look at you and lope away. ‘Course, I generally carry a big stick.”

“Bane says they like you,” said Jonathan, smiling.

“
Well, when they meet
him
they show their teeth before running off. So I always reckon they simply
don’t
like
him!”

“Well, I just wish they’d never escaped way back when. You know there never used to be any in this department, right?”

“There were, and then there weren’t, and now there are again. I don’t mind them; so long as there’s plenty of prey, they’re not aggressive. One day the EuroGov really will have to reconsider the hunting ban, though, when the numbers of deer drop too far and they get hungry.”

“Can’t be too soon, in my opinion.” Another wave of wolf song reached our ears. “Do you mind shutting that window? They do give me the creeps.”

I complied, shutting out the wild music of the night. Regretfully.

As we moved away from the window, still coupled up, Jane’s snide voice cut through the dorm.

“
Don’t look now, girls, seems the snail’s
finally
made his choice.”

“Margaret Verrall,” I told the guard distributing the post the next day. He slapped a letter into my hand, yawned, and turned to the next girl, who was actually a boy called Jonathan. “Thank you,” I said calmly, moving on, but my heart pounded in my chest.

I had a letter. So my parents were okay, or had been yesterday. Of course, if they were taken, I’d be taken too, so I’d know soon enough, but still… I had a letter.

Jonathan gave his name, took his own letter and followed close behind. We’d stayed mostly joined at the hip since yesterday, in that way newly forming couples do.

We sat together now, with Sarah, Harriet and Annie in the seats nearest to us.

“…
I don’t see why you’re so surprised,” Rebecca was telling Jane at the table behind us. “
I
think they’re well suited to each other. You’re just a sore loser ‘cause she outsmarted all of us—including him.”

I tried not to listen.

Most people were spooning their cereal with one hand and clutching their letters in the other as they read, but I wanted to sit in the comparative privacy of my bunk while

I read mine. I tried to quash the ridiculous hope that Bane might’ve written something. My parents would probably want the first letter all to themselves. I gobbled my breakfast and sat, waiting impatiently for everyone else to finish.

Pretty much leaping up onto my bunk once we got back upstairs, I pulled the pages from the envelope—already open from the censors—and unfolded them. It was good and fat! Mum’s handwriting...

Dear Margaret,

We’re so glad to hear you’re settling in all right. We miss you more than we can say and think about you every minute of the day.

The first page continued in the same, unexpectedly sentimental vein, but when I reached the second page I understood. Just filling up the space most likely to be read by the censor.

We were ever so sorry to hear how your story finished, it’s a much sadder ending than we wished for. I hope you weren’t too unhappy when you thought it up. Don’t worry about sending a copy, I don’t think we need any help feeling sad, just at the moment.

You’d think having our only daughter in the Facility would be enough troubles, wouldn’t you, but we’ve seen rats around the house. We’ve had to put off your cousin’s visit, you know how he is, he’d die if he met a rat in the house, and I’m sure we’d die of embarrassment!

I wouldn’t want you to worry about our rat problem, though, because ‘rat problem’ makes it sound much worse than it really is. It’s in hand and we’re not worried about it. If your cousin wasn’t so nervous we’d have let him come,but… well, you know him as well as we do! There are an awful lot of rats around in Salperton at the moment, I hope you don’t have any at the Facility.

I turned to the third page but I could barely read the sentence to the end; I’d already seen the handwriting underneath.

Anyway, we have here a young man claiming to be our future son-in-law and in light of this your father and I feel we must yield these inner pages to him…

***+***

11

THE COMPETITION

Margo, are you OK? I hope you are. I can’t tell you how desperately tempted I’ve been to take up bird-watching, especially since I heard how your story ended. Can you guess what species I’d be looking for? The most beautiful bird in the world, with soft brown plumage and the most amazing green eyes—I saw one around Salperton a lot until recently.

But I’m afraid if I waved to the bird it might frighten it, especially since there are a lot of birds of prey around the site. Your cousin certainly advises strongly against the excursion—thinks I can find something better to do. I suppose I’ve got a really good reason not to want to tangle with a bird of prey just now—you know what it is. Okay, okay, I’ll say it straight out, I’m not going to do it—I know you worry.

I was so sorry I couldn’t see you off properly—I tried ever so hard as well. But when the fire alarm went off I saw this stupid year 7 running the wrong way and thought I’d better drag him outside just in case things really heated up inside school, and then I was just heading around to the front when I ran into Mr. Cornel and he grabbed me by the collar and said, ‘I saw what you just did, Marsden’—and I don’t think he was talking about the year 7!

So I said, ‘Fine, but can’t it wait, I really want to see Margaret off,’ and his face went all funny and his voice went funny too and he said, ‘oh, of course,’ and let me go, just like that. So I sprinted round to the gates but as you probably saw I was too late. And I haven’t heard another word about it! So I think you must have an admirer—Mr. Cornel, who’d have thought
he
had a softer side! So, I’m not in trouble, just in case you’ve been worrying about
that
.