The Disappeared (13 page)

For two days no one but Kay even notices my bowl. Then Rex and a couple of Reds appear outside my pod at dinnertime.

‘What’s that?’ Rex says.

‘If you’re asking about the food, I’ve got no idea of its content or origins. If you’re asking about the bowl, it’s a bowl.’

He narrows his eyes at me. ‘Why have you got a bow?’

‘I’ve got a
bowl
because I don’t like eating with my hands.’

Rex sniggers and the other two join in. ‘You don’t eat with hands, you eat with mouth, you no-ranker.’

I consider pointing out that technically I do have a rank, but I’m not sure where this little chat is going so I keep my mouth shut.

‘This Special thinks he’s big good, doesn’t he?’ Rex says.

‘He doesn’t like doing what Specials do,’ one of the goons says.

I’d like to leave this conversation, but Rex has caught the attention of the Specials in the pods around us. They’ve finished eating and they’re coming out to have a look at what’s going on.

Rex loves a crowd. ‘He doesn’t want to eat like a Special or fight like a Special,’ he says to the onlookers.

The gathering group make noises of agreement. Am I going to get thrashed by this whole gang? I look through the partition for Kay, but she’s not there.

‘He’s got a
bowl
. Look at his
bowl
. He thinks he’s more good than Rex, so he’s got a
bowl
. Do you think you’re the goodest, Blakey?’

More Specials have gathered around. They’re waiting for something to happen. I look up and see Kay in the crowd. She’s watching too. I don’t know why, but I don’t want the ginger ape making me look stupid in front of her.

‘I don’t think I’m better,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’m really good. I just think that I – that
we
– should have some things. They keep us in these pods like we’re Wilderness or like we’re animals. And they make us bend down and suck on unclean nozzles.’ I plough on, trying to keep my language simple. ‘I don’t like the enforcers. I don’t think they should tell us how to be and hurt us. I can’t tell the enforcers they’re wrong by hitting them. I’m not strong or brave like Lanc, but I can refuse to be treated like an animal. I don’t have this bowl because I think I’m more good. I have it because I think we should all have one.’

There’s a silence. Rex is thinking.

‘I want one,’ says someone. It’s Ilex. ‘I want a bowl to tell the enforcers they can’t make me eat that animal way.’

‘I want one too,’ says one of the little ones.

And then they all start talking and calling out. Saying we should have bowls and that we’re not animals and that we shouldn’t do everything the enforcers want.

‘SHUT UP!’ bawls Rex. ‘It’s a right thing that we show the enforcers we don’t do all things that they say.’ He nods at them as if he is doing the convincing. ‘I am Rex and I help the Specials. I’ll get you bowls.’

The Specials erupt in cheering and a bevy of gushing girls surround Rex as he swaggers off.

Amazing. Not a word to me. No one seems to remember I’m here, let alone that this was my idea. I glance up and find myself looking right into Kay’s eyes. I notice for the first time that they’re very dark blue. I look down and step out of my pod. I don’t mean to look at her again, but somehow I can’t stop myself. She’s smiling. I think she’s laughing at me.

‘That’s a good bowl,’ she says.

I unstick my eyes from hers and focus on her left shoulder. I can’t think of anything to say, so I nod my head.

‘Is it that they eat like that in the Wilderness?’ she says.

‘What?’

‘You said nozzle eating is like Wilderness.’

‘Well, I don’t actually know how they eat. I think they just club things to death and eat them raw.’

She looks at me hard.

I shuffle my feet.

‘
Do your duty, do your best or you’ll be sent to the Wilderness
,’ she sings.

My eyebrows shoot up. ‘Do Specials say that too?’

She nods. It’s incredible that the only thing in here that seems to have any connection with my old life is a creepy rhyme about the Wilderness.

‘What do you know about the Wilderness?’ I ask. For a daft moment I think that maybe she’ll know more about those rumours of terrorists hiding in the Wilderness amongst the criminals and the crazies, but instead she says, ‘They send the trouble Specials out to the Wilderness.’

I remember what Ilex said about the Reds getting people sent out to the Wilderness. Maybe there was some truth in it.

Kay is studying me. She puts her head on one side. ‘Don’t be trouble all the times,’ she says and disappears into the thinning crowd.

Ilex comes over and slaps me on the back. ‘What is Kay saying? Is she saying you’re crimson and all?’ He pulls a kissy face at me.

‘No,’ I say, pushing him off. ‘I think she was warning me.’

After dinner on Wednesday, Ilex meets me outside my pod.

‘Come to Fight Night with me?’ he says.

I screw up my face. ‘I don’t want to watch little kids fight.’

‘It’s Ali,’ Ilex says. He doesn’t know the word ‘please’, but there’s a ‘please’ all over his face. ‘She’s not a good hitter. And she can’t talk the tough words. I’m all . . . I don’t know the word. What’s the word?’

‘You’re worried,’ I say.

He nods his head.

‘All right, okay, I’ll come just to watch Ali.’

We walk down to the drum-shaped room. Ali is waiting for Ilex outside. She raises her hand in greeting to me. I smile at her. She’s pale, but she doesn’t look nearly as nervous as Ilex. Inside the drum room there are Specials shouting and laughing and shoving each other to find a seat in the rapidly filling tiers. I move towards an empty section in the middle centre. Ali grabs my arm.

‘That’s for Reds,’ Ilex says.

Dom is sprawled along the bench, giggling with two younger, red-headed girls. She looks at me and whispers something to the girls, who burst out laughing. I let Ilex pull me away to squash on to a bench over to the right.

I find myself scanning the room, looking for a white-blonde head. I find Kay sat a few rows behind Dom, on the edge of the Reds crowd. I try to catch her eye, but she’s busy talking to an Hon Red girl from our class, Flavia. Kay’s doing strange things with her face. Moving it into different expressions. Smiling. Giggling. She doesn’t look like herself.

Rex strolls into the room, accompanied by a pack of attentive girls. Some of them can’t be more than thirteen. Kay’s head snaps round to watch him. I don’t know what she sees in him.

‘How did Rex get to be in charge?’ I ask Ilex.

He turns to look at me.

‘I know about the hair,’ I say. ‘But Mark in our class has got red hair.’

‘Rex fighted him.’

‘What about Pete? He’s sort of ginger and he’s just as big and ugly as Rex.’

‘Rex fighted him too.’

‘So it’s about brute force then?’

Ilex lifts his hands in question. He doesn’t understand.

‘I mean strength. The Red who wins the most fights?’

Ilex screws up his mouth. ‘It’s some about fighting. But we all knowed Rex would be the boss. The old boss was all times talking to him and saying him things to do.’

‘I see. They trained him up, did they? What about Dom? Did you know about her?’

‘Nah. Rex chose Dom. The boss boy chooses the boss girl.’

‘How old-fashioned. Why did he choose her?’

Ilex laughs and indicates with his eyes across the room to where Dom is lounging across her seat. Even with her neat baby bump, she is arresting. Unlike most of the girls she is wearing a skirt rather than the regulation trousers. I can’t imagine where she got it or why the enforcers allow her to wear it. But then, as far as I can tell, she doesn’t seem to have got into any trouble for being pregnant. It seems like the enforcers let Dom and Rex get away with anything.

It’s hard not to stare at Dom’s long slim legs. She moves to her feet and stretches up so that her breasts strain against her shirt and her glossy hair ripples down her back. I look away.

‘She’s not really very red-headed,’ I say. It’s true. She’s practically blonde with just a hint of copper.

‘Rex says she’s a Red.’

I remember Kay’s ambitions. ‘Does Rex have to choose a Red to be Dom?’

‘No. He just chooses. Dom goes to work at the factory soon. So Rex chooses a new Dom. There aren’t big lots of big girl Reds so he chooses any girl he wants.’

I look around the room. He’s right. Almost all of the redheaded girls are sat in the central seats. There aren’t many of them and only a handful of those are senior girls. This whole Reds thing makes sense in a way. Ginger hair is rare and it’s not like they’ve got much else to prize around here.

Rex peels himself away from his band of admirers and strides into the centre of the fight floor.

‘Specials!’ he shouts. ‘Let’s see some fighting. Come on little Specials, be big good!’

The audience cheers. What is wrong with this lot? Who wants to see children tearing strips off each other?

‘First fighter is . . . Ali!’

I expect Ali to hang back or even to cling to Ilex, but she stands up and makes her way calmly down to the centre of the floor.

‘Ali fights Urva!’

Ali’s opponent springs out of her seat and skitters down the steps. Her hair is scraped back from her face in a ponytail so tight it looks painful. She’s got a sharp nose and tiny eyes. She looks like a rat. She reaches the centre of the room and swipes out an arm at Ali’s head. Ali ducks out of the way.

‘Hey!’ Ilex shouts. ‘It’s not fight start. You wait!’

Rex stands in between the two little girls, smirking. He can barely contain his amusement. He takes Urva’s chin in his hand. She beams at him.

‘Look at the teeth!’ Rex says.

Urva snaps playfully at him.

I look at Ilex. His shoulders are tensed up and his hands are twisted together.

‘Start fight!’ Rex shouts.

Urva launches herself at Ali with her arms flailing. Ali stares at her with wide eyes. She puts out her hands, but she is knocked to the floor. Urva rolls on top of her and smacks her about the face. Ali manages to twist out from under her. She gets to feet and backs away. Urva scrambles across the floor and tries to grab Ali by the ankles. Ali stamps on her hand.

‘Efwurder!’ shrieks Urva. She yanks her hand away.

Ali’s face remains smooth. She looks down at Urva thrashing and turns away.

Urva is furious. ‘You think you’re a brainer. You no-talker!’ She leaps at Ali’s back. She wraps her arms around Ali’s throat and brings her crashing to the ground.

Ilex half rises in his seat.

The girls roll over and over. Urva struggles into the on-top position. She pins Ali’s arms down. All the time she snarls and spits insults at Ali. Ali stares back at her and then turns her face away as if she is nothing to do with this fight.

Then there’s a tangle of limbs and a high-pitched shriek and I can’t make out what’s happening.

Out of the blur Ali manages to lift her head. She puts a hand to her face. She’s got blood on her cheek.

Ilex stands up and pushes his way between Specials. ‘Stop!’ he shouts. ‘Rex! Stop her.’

He’s not the only one on their feet. The boy I fought, Deon, wades into the chaos of Urva’s flying arms and pulls her out by the scruff of her neck. Ilex reaches the floor, but Rex rushes up behind him and pushes him out of the way. Rex blows his whistle. He takes Urva from Deon by lifting her by her belt. Her feet hang just above the floor, but she’s still trying to fight. She bicycles her legs and stretches out clawed fingers in an attempt to get at Ali.

Ali stands just out of reach. Watching.

‘What is it?’ I ask the little boy sat next to me. ‘Why have they stopped?’ It can’t be the blood. I’ve seen Specials come back to the dormitory covered in blood after these fights. No one seemed to mind.

The boy looks me up and down. I wonder if he’s going to bother to answer me at all.

‘No weapons,’ he says.

No weapons? I look back at the fight floor. Rex is prising something out of Urva’s hand. It catches the light. It looks like a jagged piece of shrap.

‘Are weapons against the rules?’ I ask.

The boy nods.

I’m surprised. I never imagined the Specials would have rules.

‘Well, that’s something,’ I say. ‘At least I won’t be knifed in my bed.’

The boy stares. He snorts. ‘No weapons in the fight room. If they want to bed-knife you, they can.’

He turns back to his friends.

Oh.

Ilex lumbers along our row and sits down beside me again.

‘That Urva,’ he says. ‘She’s . . . she’s a . . .’ he looks at me.

‘A cheating little rat?’

‘Yes. A cheatin’ lilrat.’

Rex blows his whistle again to silence the raucous Specials.

‘All Specials,’ he says. ‘No weapons in fights!’

Some of the Specials mutter in disapproval. King Hell, what would it be like if they
were
allowed knives on the fight floor?

Rex leans towards Urva, who is tight-lipped and scowling. ‘You get weapons, little girl, then you get a lose.’

He lifts up Ali’s arm and the crowd cheers.

Ali walks towards the seats.