Juno of Taris (20 page)

Paz threw a scraper to Yin. ‘Join the club.’

We were smiling.

A wall and a half later, the rest of the stratum had turned up. Rynd was the last to arrive. He came running as if monsters from Outside were pursuing him. ‘Don’t talk to me,’ he growled. ‘Not yet. I’m so furious I can’t think straight.’

Marba climbed down from the ladder. ‘Break time,’ he said, although it wasn’t, and Heskith was still there glowering at the lot of us. ‘We’ll take it up at the school.’

We didn’t argue. We left Heskith shaking his fist after us.

Not one of us had brought food. I didn’t feel I could eat, so maybe it was the same for the others. Marba let us sit, then said, ‘Right. We probably haven’t got much time.’

I glanced around, looking for Hilto to come stomping towards us, but the grounds were empty.

‘We need a quick run-down from each of us,’ Marba said. ‘Rynd, how about you start?’

Rynd scrubbed at his eyes, took a few deep breaths and then told us his story. He’d woken to find he couldn’t open his bedroom door. He tried to get out the window. That, too, had been secured. His parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had all talked at him from outside the door and the window. He’d only escaped by threatening to break the glass in the window. Glass couldn’t be replaced. He’d actually picked up a chair to bash it with before they saw he was serious and released him.

One by one, we told our stories. They were all pretty much the same – tears, begging, weeping. I told mine last. My news kept them silent. My family was the only one to have split.

Marba got to his feet. ‘We’d better get back. You all want to keep going?’

We nodded.

We’d been working again for maybe half an hour when Lenna bustled along to check on us. She didn’t say anything, and after she’d inspected what we’d done, she pointedly turned her back.

It was a relief to escape to the bay with Vima for the recreation hour. I asked Mother if she’d like to come, but she just shook her head. All the spirit had been knocked out of her. She collapsed onto the sofa as we closed the door.

‘Things will get better,’ Vima muttered as we ran. ‘They have to. There’s the meeting tonight – they’ll have to resolve it by then or else we’ll be falling over each other with all the withdrawing.’

I didn’t answer, but I wasn’t holding my breath about the evening meeting.

‘What do you reckon they’ll do?’ I asked when we arrived.

She unstrapped Hera from the backpack and shrugged. ‘Put a hair-removal gene in the water supply?’ She didn’t look at me.

I lay on the sand. Hera crawled over and slapped both hands on my stomach.

‘When did she start crawling? Vima asked. ‘I haven’t heard that piece of news.’

‘Nobody has. Who’d pass it on?’ Hera changed direction and sped off towards the water. I let her go, ready to grab her when she got in too deep – as she would, right about … now. I rescued her and sat in the water, holding her head up and letting her kick and splash. I said, ‘I want to live Outside. I want to go back to say – around 2010. And I want to have bright clothes and long hair and a fast car and millions and millions of books full of millions and millions of stories.’

Vima dived into the water. When she came up, she called back over her shoulder, ‘I just want to live in a place where you can do what you want and nobody gives a toss. Where you’re just one of a crowd and nobody knows your name.’

Jov. ‘You could change your apprenticeship,’ I said. She’d never get over him, not if she had to work with him every day.

‘Great idea,’ she drawled. ‘I could design clothes. Or fast cars.’ She dived under the water and swam away from us.

I towed Hera in further. I whispered my fears to her. ‘It scares me, Hera – Jov and Vima. She can’t marry him. Sina’s nice, too – she wouldn’t want to hurt her.’

Hera blew bubbles.

Vima swam out to the wall and when she came back she took Hera from me. ‘Have a swim. And don’t mind me – I’m a cow.’

I swam and wished I knew what to say to her.

My father didn’t come home for dinner. Mother and I had little appetite. ‘We must eat,’ she said, staring at her plate of roast chicken. ‘We have to.’

The food had no taste.

We prepared for the Saturday meeting, packing rugs, cushions to sit on and supplies for Hera. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to lead it,’ Mother said. ‘I don’t think I could.’ I wondered if she would ever stop crying. She didn’t sob. Tears just welled and ran down her face.

It was a sports meeting. Cricket. Softball. Three-legged races. Shavens and Unshavens. My father would go but he would not rush up to me, grab me and swing me around and around demanding that I be his partner in the three-legged race.

We were nearly ready to leave when a neighbour knocked on our door and called out, ‘No meeting tonight. The Governance Companions say we need family time.’

If you still had a family. Mine had reduced itself overnight from eight people to five.

Mother murmured, ‘Please pass the message on.’ She didn’t look at me, she just began unpacking the basket.

I ran next door and passed on the message, shouting through a closed door. All the time, my mind was racing. We did need a meeting – not a sports meeting that would set Shavens against Unshavens, but a real meeting. A meeting to hear the truth.

Mother just looked at me when I told her. ‘No, Juno. No more. I can’t bear what’s already happened.’

I said no more, but my mind wouldn’t rest. We had to have a meeting. We had to learn the truth. The truth would bring back my father, would give us back our hair, would take the blindfold off the people.

I waited until Mother went to bed, then I climbed out my window. I half expected Hilto to be waiting there, a rock in his hands, but the garden and the paths were empty. No one ever went out at night, except to come home from an evening meeting.

The rain was falling and the earth smelt warm, lush and strange. I’d never been out so late before. Tonight, the rain had had time to drench everything and release strange, heavy scents.

Why didn’t we go out at night? We could have taken our spinning, our sewing – things like that – and done it together. We could visit and gossip together. Have fun.

But congregation leads to talk. The exchange of knowledge.

I ran faster and reached Grif and Danyat’s house safely. I sprinted up their path and collapsed in a heap on the verandah. The door opened. ‘Juno!’ Danyat grabbed me and hauled me inside. ‘What’s wrong, child? Why are you out at night?’

Grif demanded, ‘Is it Sheen? Is she ill?’

I shook my head. No. Yes. Yes, she was ill, but that wasn’t why I was here, or maybe it was. ‘We need a meeting. Tonight. Now,’ I blurted out. ‘I just know we do. In here, I know it.’ I thumped my chest.

They regarded me, their faces unreadable.

Then Grif smiled at me and turned to Danyat. ‘She’s right, my love. It’s time. Time to take our lives into our own hands.’

Danyat hugged her. ‘I agree. Should we have done it before? And what will it cost to do it now?’

They seemed to have forgotten me, and they spoke words I didn’t have the key to.

Danyat released her. ‘Five minutes to think, then we act.’

‘We must have a meeting,’ Grif said. ‘That doesn’t need thinking about.’

Danyat pulled his mouth down. ‘No, but how to call it? That needs thinking about.’

I didn’t understand. Why were they wasting time? ‘We do it like we always do. Hurry!’

They ignored me, intent on their thoughts.

‘Tell me!’ I shouted. ‘Are you scared of the Governance Companions?’

Danyat took my hands. ‘Juno, it’s going to mean death for the one who calls this meeting.’ My hands jerked, but he held them tight. ‘It’ll be the breaking of a promise we all made long ago. Things will have to be spoken about that we agreed never to talk of again.’

‘We agreed,’ said my grandmother, ‘that to speak of them would mean we agreed to die.’

I saw them strengthen their resolve to do what had to be done. I ripped my hands away from Danyat’s. ‘No! You can’t die! You can’t.’

Grif smiled at me, reached for a towel and began to dry the rain off me. ‘We’ve known it was coming.’ Her voice was quiet as if she was soothing me to sleep. ‘We’re ready. We made our decision weeks ago.’

I pushed her away. ‘You can’t, it’s wrong!
I
didn’t agree.
I’ll
call the meeting.’ I sprang for the door. Outside on the pathway, I ran, yelling at the full strength of my lungs, ‘A meeting! There’s a meeting now. Come to the arena. Emergency meeting at the arena. Now!’

I sent a message to Vima as I ran:
meeting arena
now

Lights appeared in houses and faces peered out from doorways. ‘Now? It’s late and it’s raining.’

‘Emergency meeting,’ I shouted, running onwards. Behind me, my grandparents followed, adding to my calls, keeping me safe.

I’d called them cowards.

Vima zoomed up beside me out of the darkness. ‘This would be your brilliant idea?’

I grabbed her hand, glad she was there in the wet, strange night. ‘We need a meeting. I just know it.’

Her voice was louder than mine. ‘Meeting! Special emergency!’

The Taris system swung into action despite the unusual timing. Questions flew, but people kept walking towards the arena, and in ten minutes the entire community was on the move.

My parents. Would Mother have the energy, the will, to come? Would she decide she couldn’t – because Hera was asleep? I searched for her and for Dad. They were both there, hurrying forward. Dad carried Hera and he walked beside my mother. Behind them came Leebar and Bazin. The lights came on in the arena. It glinted off their wet scalps, showed the expressions on their faces. My grandparents looked like people walking to their deaths.

My parents saw me. Mother just nodded. Dad glanced at me, his face full of pain. I watched while they found their seats. They sat together. Leebar and Bazin must have told Dad the truth – some of it, anyway.

I joined my stratum. All of us, the whole community, were as orderly as always but an undertone of excitement sizzled like droplets on a hot plate.

F
isa climbed to the stage. She walked forward to the podium and raised her hand, waiting for our silence. ‘Friends, I’m sorry you’ve been brought out in the evening rain. There is no emergency. There is no meeting. Go home and go well.’

Behind me, Danyat called, ‘There is need for a meeting. Urgent need. Any who do not wish to stay for it are free to go.’

We turned to look at him, all of us. Grif stood beside him and together they made their way down the steps, across the floor of the arena to the stage.

Leebar and Bazin, holding hands, stood and followed them. My eyes flicked to Dad. He sat with his arm around Mother.

A murmuring washed through the people, but the only ones to move were my grandparents. They climbed to the stage. Grif reached out and hugged Leebar briefly, then Bazin. Danyat gave them a swift smile. A sliver of my heart mended.

The Governance Companions sat in their usual seats. Fisa looked distressed. Lenna frowned. Camnoon was as expressionless as ever, but it was a wonder steam didn’t rise from Hilto and Majool. I turned my eyes from them.

The people waited, silent, expectant. Grif spoke first. ‘We have a story to tell.’

‘It concerns our history. And our hair,’ Leebar said. She glanced at me and a smile flitted across her face.

Before they could continue, Fisa was there, stepping in front of the four of them. ‘Your Governance Companions speak to you!’ she cried out. ‘Go home! There is no need for this.’

Camnoon kept his seat, but the three other Companions rose to their feet. ‘Remember what we agreed,’ Hilto said, his voice sharp with threat.

I leapt to my feet and screamed, ‘I called this meeting!
I
did! We need to speak of things. We need to make decisions. All of us.’

‘She’s right,’ Aspa called. ‘Let the meeting proceed.’

Paz jumped to his feet and tugged my arm. ‘Go up on stage. Tell them why we need the meeting. We’ll come with you.’

Oh great. Couldn’t Silvern do it? But I knew it had to be me. They came with me, a bodyguard of thirteen. I walked to the speaker’s position at the podium and my stratum ranged themselves behind me in a semi-circle. I felt their protection. My grandparents stood beside me but all eyes were focused on me. What should I say? How much should I tell? Thought before action. I glanced up at Vima. I saw the flash of her smile. That decided me – I would tell enough, but not all. Not yet.

I took a breath, then another. ‘I called this meeting. I don’t believe Taris will fail and die if we grow our hair. But if we keep on behaving like this – then we will die. We’ll die because of our actions, not because of our hair.’

Majool shouted, ‘Don’t listen, my friends! Juno’s been a troublemaker from birth.’

Hilto bulldozed through the line of my stratum. He gave me a sharp shove. Even as my grandparents reached to steady me, he was there, shouting at the people. ‘Things have come to a fine state when a chit of thirteen can challenge the wisdom of your chosen Governance Companions. Go home.’

Fisa walked to the front of the stage. ‘My people, I urge you to follow the law that has kept us alive for all the years of our history: thought before action. Go home and think well before you disturb the balance of our lives.’

I wanted to run home there and then. She was so calm, so reasonable.

‘We want the meeting! We want the meeting!’ My learning stratum chanted behind me, led, I had no doubt, by Silvern.

Up on the highest tier, Vima’s stratum took up the cry. Even Creen.

Fisa held up her hand, and the shouting died. ‘It is the young ones who call for change. I can understand why you want it. But to change one thing is to upset the balance.’