State of Grace (21 page)
Blaze’s entire head and shoulders appear, followed by his legs.
‘Okay, Dennis,’ I whisper down. ‘You go.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can,’ I tell him. ‘Just put your feet on the window sill first.’
Doors scream open and bang against the sides of all the empty huts.
‘Nothing. Nope. Empty,’ Brook’s saying.
I can see the top of Dennis’s small head. He’s on the window frame at least, which would be wonderful if Gil’s feet weren’t already on the balcony. Our balcony.
‘Grab the edge,’ I say. ‘That’s it. You’ve got it.’
A straining noise comes out of Dennis. Hands on the roof, he’s trying to lift himself from the window frame. Trying and not quite managing.
‘I’ll check the last ones,’ Gil’s voice is clear and loud, like he’s standing right next to me.
Me and Blaze each take one of Dennis’s hands and somehow, between us, we lift Dennis off his feet onto the roof just as Gil prowls towards the door.
‘The shutters.’ Blaze dips down and lets his right big toe kiss the shutters closed the second before Gil opens the door.
Underneath us, we hear him take a few steps and sniff. Then he goes back to the door and calls, ‘Brook? Come in here.’
The chewed-up newfruit is right there on the floor but Gil tears the hut apart anyway. They don’t find anything else, or nothing that isn’t in all the other empty huts too.
Until Gil says, ‘Look.’
‘Where was that?’
‘Under the pillow.’
On the roof, me and Blaze look at each other. Neither of us has a single clue what might have been under the pillow.
‘Dennis?’ Blaze mouths.
But Dennis just mashes his cheek against the tiles and won’t say anything at all.
N
ATURALLY, EVERYONE IN
creation has a theory about the newfruit and the empty hut. Gil has all of us crammed into the gazebo talking to Dot, pleading with her to lead us to whoever or whatever took the fruit.
But when everyone’s finished talking to Dot, Fern won’t leave. She just stays on her cushion staring up at Dot’s portrait, winding a hank of her blonde hair around her index finger. She twirls so hard the hair snaps off halfway up.
‘Stop doing that,’ I tell her.
‘There’s no way she’ll choose me now.’
Fern lets go of one clump of hair, picks up another one and starts the whole twirling and tearing thing all over again.
‘What are you talking about?’
Fern twists more savagely, exactly how I tore at the skin on my legs. For roughly the same reasons too, I’m guessing.
‘Dennis took them, didn’t he?’
‘Fern, no, he –’
‘You know he did. Because I didn’t do what Dot wanted. I didn’t look after him properly.’
‘You did! No-one found Dennis, right?’
Fern looks uncertain, so I push on, ‘You totally kept the secret. You were trying. Dot knows that.’
There’s a tiny flash of a smile on Fern’s face. ‘Did she say that?’
I look away. I have to. ‘Um … no. It wasn’t exactly that.’
‘I don’t deserve to be chosen anyway.’
‘You’re one of the nicest people in creation. Even if she tried for a million days, Dot couldn’t create anyone sweeter and dotlier than you.’
Fern turns to me, that prenormal smile now fixed on her tanned face.
‘Admit it. It doesn’t matter how many garlands I make, Dot wasted her time creating me.’
I want to tell her the truth. Right now, the thing I want most in creation is to reach out to Fern, grab her into a hug and just explain how Dot isn’t real. How it looks like we only believe in her because of something called a drug, maybe made by something called the Shepherd Corporation.
Most of all, I want to tell her that me and Blaze are leaving as soon as it’s prelight. How we plan to find FancyVividBlue, work out the truth and fix everything here. And how I’m going to look for Julius.
‘Can you listen to me, Fern? This is sort of complicated. Dot didn’t waste her time creating you. Not at all. She doesn’t –’
Fern shakes her head, swishing her long hair. ‘I’m going to try talking to her again. Apologise and everything.’
‘Fern, seriously …’
‘If it’s okay, I think I’d rather be alone with Dot right now.’
So I end up having to leave Fern there, gabbling on, really believing everything she says is floating up to Dot inside a bubble. Maybe that idea soothes her.
But to feel soothed, Fern has to believe in the rest of the story too, and that makes her think she’s this really prenice person. There’s no point explaining it to her, not yet. Me and Blaze are going to need a whole lot more information to convince her and everyone else.
That’s the thing about the pretruth. Once enough people believe it, it’s almost impossible to change their minds.
____________________
Ever since we made it down from the roof, Dennis has been hiding in my hut. And the entire day, he’s been wanting to know what Fern’s doing. How long it’s going to be until Fern gets here. Whether Fern’s coming soon.
Then when Fern actually turns up all ready for the completion party, Dennis doesn’t seem to know what to say. He just keeps looking at her in her melon-coloured sungarb, her hair swishing down her back, a garland of pink flowers circling her head.
‘I love your garland,’ I tell her, giving her a hug. ‘You look so … um …’
The word Fern’s expecting me to use is
dotly
. Except right now I can’t quite bring myself to say it.
‘Everyone loves them.’ She’s smiling as she says this but I can tell she’s really working hard to do it. ‘People are saying the garlands are the dotliest things they’ve ever seen.’
Then she asks Dennis, ‘Why aren’t you wearing yours?’
For the first time since Fern walked into the hut, Dennis looks away from her.
‘The flowers wilted, didn’t they?’
Fern seems to be expecting this. Her smile completely disappears. To her, Dennis’s garland wilting probably seems like one more way she isn’t dotly enough.
Fern takes her own garland off and starts unwinding flowers from it. She shapes them into a rough circle and puts it on Dennis’s head. The garland sits there on Dennis’s fluffy hair, thin and withering already. Looking at it, Fern’s practically in tears.
‘It was meant to be perfect. When she collects you, I wanted her to see it.’
‘Sorry.’ Dennis can hardly talk either.
Fern goes over to him and kisses him on the cheek. She leaves her face there for a while, her smooth cheek pressed up against his small, sweaty one.
‘You haven’t done anything.
I’m
the one who didn’t make it properly.’
It’s obvious she’s close to bawling.
‘Should we go?’ I ask.
Way off in the gazebo, I can hear dottracks playing, turned up loud enough to dance to. The air is warm and moving just enough to carry the sound of people shouting and laughing. I don’t know if the completion night party’s the best thing for Fern right now, but I guess I don’t know how else to distract her.
‘I just have to pick up Blaze on the way past.’
That bit gets Fern’s interest. ‘Sure you two aren’t into each other?’
‘Totally, totally sure,’ I tell her, even as I’m wondering if we ever could be or maybe if we already are.
‘Okay. Whatever you say.’
Then Fern says goodbye to Dennis. She hugs him, just in case Dot comes for him while we’re at the party. Dennis’s face crumples and he doesn’t even pretend not to be crying.
‘Keep the shutters closed till I get back, okay?’ I tell Dennis.
Dennis nods. Really softly, so Fern can’t hear, he says, ‘Are you definitely going to fix her up when we leave?’
‘We’re definitely going to try.’
‘Don’t try. You really have to do it.’
I know that, I want to tell him. I’m just not sure if we can. I’m not sure about anything once we climb the escarpment and push our way through those straggly trees.
So I just say to Dennis, ‘Don’t look out or someone might see you.’
Not that Dennis is paying a whole lot of attention. I can feel him watching us, or Fern anyway, the entire time we’re walking away.
C
OMPLETION NIGHT
.
It doesn’t feel like it but it’s here. And when me Fern and Blaze get to the party it’s just the way I’d always imagined it. Lanterns glowing in the trees and people dancing on the lawn. Everyone is circling and swaying in one huge, hot mass. The dottracks are so loud I can feel them as much as I can hear them.
In the crowd, the first person I spot is Sage. She already has her sungarb off and the lanterns turn her big, pale body all kinds of different colours. When she sees us, Sage winds her way over and grabs onto Fern. She sinks back into the crowd, taking Fern with her, leaving me and Blaze just standing there next to each other.
Apparently there’s nothing either of us can think to say or do that isn’t awkward.
‘Dance?’
I have to suggest it. Without something to distract us, it’s going to be a seriously long night. We’ve already agreed we can’t leave for the escarpment until the party’s really going. Our strategy is to make sure everyone sees us so that later on it’ll take them longer to figure out we’re missing.
‘I don’t dance.’
‘It’s not hard, Blaze. Anyone can do it.’
‘Not me.’
‘You so could, if you tried.’
‘I don’t work that way,’ he tells me. Then he adds a kind of full stop by sitting down on the grass.
I’m part-way through lowering myself down next to him when someone comes up behind me. A pair of arms close around me and I feel warm breath in my ear.
‘Stop right there,’ comes Jasper’s laugh. ‘Don’t even think about sitting down. You’re dancing,Wren. Right now.’
Blaze turns his head so he’s looking back towards the huts. In the opposite direction, basically, from me, Jasper and the patch of lawn where everyone is dancing.
‘I can’t.’
‘You have to. It’s completion night. Someone’s going to be chosen! Maybe it’ll be you if Dot likes your dancing.’
I try to act normal so I tell Jasper, ‘I’ve got some new moves. I’m just saving them for later.’
‘What’s wrong with your old moves? I always liked them.’
Jasper slides closer, his hand tugging on mine, ‘C’mon.’
Even though Blaze isn’t saying anything and Jasper’s saying way too much, it’s Blaze I’m noticing. New leaves, snapped green twigs, cool running water. That’s what he smells like tonight.
‘Go,’ says Blaze to the air. ‘If you want to dance, go.’
‘See?’ Jasper tells me. ‘Thank you, Blaze.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘It’s happening. It’s decided. Come on.’
The crowd of dancers opens up and sucks us in. It’s sticky-hot in there. All around me, people are smiling and waving their arms in the air, smiling completion-night smiles. It’s hard to breathe, impossible to hear. In my ears, there’s nothing but pounding dottracks.
I belong 2 Dot, U belong to Dot, we all belong, forever and ever, we belong …
I guess some people are singing but I can’t actually hear their voices over the music. With their mouths gaping open, it kind of looks like they’re screaming.
Jasper keeps on pushing through the crowd. Being Jasper, he wants to be right in the middle of things. That’s where Brook is, and Sage, too.
But Fern’s nowhere. I wave at Sage and mouth
Where’s Fern?
but she either doesn’t understand or she doesn’t know.
Before I can ask again, Jasper’s pulling me back towards him, yelling into my ear to be dotly and start dancing.
‘Did you see Fern?’ I yell back.
Suddenly I have to know where she is. If I’m going to dance, it’s Fern I want dancing next to me.
My best friend Fern, who thinks she’s predotly because of something I made up.
Fern, who I’m about to leave behind in a place not created by Dot but by something or someone called Shepherd.
I definitely don’t want to be dancing with Jasper, with his loud laugh and flashing white smile.
But Fern’s nowhere in the crowd of dancers. Someone’s dragged all the cushions out from the gazebo and there are people lounging on them, but even there I can’t see Fern.
‘She’s fine!’ Jasper shouts. ‘She’s having fun. Like we should be!’
‘Tell me where she is.’
Jasper laughs, ‘Only if I get a kiss.’
He looms up towards me but I push him away.
‘What?’ he complains at the top of his voice. ‘It’s completion night. It’s the dotly thing to do!’
Anyway, I guess Jasper thinks I’m joking with my push, because he leans in again and then his face is mashed against mine, his tongue working its way between my lips. I try pulling away but this time Jasper’s really holding me, his whole body up against mine so I can feel him, his chub and everything, under his sungarb. The only thing I can move is my head. When I turn it, there’s Blaze on the grass still.
He’s not looking at the huts anymore but right at me and Jasper instead.
‘Fern went off with Gil. They’re hooking up,’ Jasper yells, as the music fades down between tracks.
Brook looks up. He seems pretty interested in what Jasper just said.
‘Hooking up?’ I repeat, trying to get my head around such a prenormal statement. ‘Fern’s not into guys.’
‘She is now.’ Jasper’s tongue is on the rim of my ear.
‘Can you just get off?’
Jasper loosens his grip and straightaway I spin around.
I need to find Fern more than ever now. And I need to tell Blaze this thing with Jasper isn’t a thing at all. So, using my shoulders and my elbows, I try parting the crowd but it’s hot and slow and sweaty.
By the time I make it to the edge of the grass, Blaze has already gone.
____________________
He isn’t in his hut or any of the empty ones either. So I go to my hut, thinking maybe Blaze is in there with Dennis or something. But Dennis is lying on the bed, Fern’s garland still on his head. He’s all interested to know what Fern’s doing right now, if she’s having a good time and everything. So he obviously hasn’t seen her.
I cut him off to ask, ‘Have you seen Blaze?’
With a fingertip, Dennis touches the point of the coconut knife by his side.