I Am Margaret (26 page)

I opened my letter on Friday with shaking fingers.

Margo, I have such a lot to tell you. I saw this marvelous vintage machine called a ‘typewriter’: can you imagine it? Lots of little keys. It doesn’t look like it’d be at all efficient, but still, fascinating thing.

My parents are having their usual grand barbeque and grille next Thursday night. They’ve bought 1 bottle of champagne, would you believe, and 3 bottles of wine. My dad has the 2 barbeques ready and intends to cook 9 or 11 steaks on each one at once! My mum’s polished all 4 garden tables and is worrying whether to seat 6, 7 or eight at each one. And my dad’s opened up all 5 of his boxes of wineglasses and discovered the first two have only got 10 and 11 glasses in them respectively, and they’re supposed to hold 12 (never 13!), so you’d think the world was
ending
!

I’m sick of it already and I don’t think I shall even go—it won’t be the same without you. Now, I know you worry so much, but really, I do think it’s for the best. I’m not going to become totally antisocial, I promise. I’ll be very careful about that!

Blast, I was going to write more, but my mum is calling me to help clean the patio, joy, joy and more sopping joy! You must write and tell me what you think about this year’s barbeque and how you think I can survive it without you by my side!

I re-read the letter over and over. Thursday night. That was the bit that stuck in my mind. And that apparent misspelling; the use of ‘grille’ instead of ‘grill’. But the numbers also drew my eye, that casual mixture of numerals and words. The Marsdens hadn’t held a barbeque in their lives. And there was no way they could possibly afford the food and equipment Bane listed. Who could, in Salperton? So it all meant something else. This was too close to math… I took my notepad out, turned to a back page and armed myself with a pencil.

Right. There were five sentences before the numbers started… then the first numeral in each sentence went up in ascending order, with the highest being 5. So say that was the sentence number, the other numerals might be word numbers? Let’s try that, then… I quickly jotted words down, my heart seeming to constrict my chest as the message appeared:

have typewriter can you be at grille next Thursday night

***+***

17

THE TYPING DEVICE

Now I saw it in black and white, the enormity of what he’d have to do took my breath away. And for what? For the sake of a novel that would never be needed?

Trembling, I climbed down to Jon’s bunk and tucked myself between him and the wall.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, slipping an arm around my shoulders.

“Bane proposes to stroll across the killing zone in the middle of the night and shove a typewriter through the parcel hatch to me.”

“I doubt he’s going to just walk across. He’s not suicidal.”

“Okay, so he’ll probably crawl along the drainage ditch. But it’s almost as dangerous.”

“And how exactly did you expect him to deliver your typing device?”

“All right, so I kind of knew! But it’s gone far enough. I won’t let him do it. I’m not going to win and I’m going to forget the whole thing.”

“But what if you do win?” asked Jon, a note of challenge in his voice.

“I’m up against every other aspiring writer in the whole EuroBloc, Jon. I’m not going to win. And I’m not getting Bane killed. Not for this.”

“
You’ve got a gift, Margo. The One who gave you that gift intended you to use it. I think you can win. Creative writing,
this
year of all years? I damn near believe you’re
going to
win. And I reckon Bane thinks so too or he wouldn’t be willing to deliver that typewriter…”

“
Bane would do it just to see me, I reckon.” Right now,
I’d
do it to see
him
…

“Maybe, but you’re avoiding the point. You can win. But winning this thing will be wasted if you don’t have that novel ready. Do you just want to let that short story be published, glamorizing Sorting, presenting it oh-so-positively? Don’t you want to present the counterargument?”

“Of course I want to present the counterargument!”

“Then you need that typewriter thing. Bane’s going to bring it to you. All you’ve got to do is go get it from him. He’ll be careful. It’s not like he hasn’t had experience at that sort of thing.”

“Since when has he had to crawl along a two hundred meter ditch with his life depending on not making the slightest sound?”

“Well, not a two hundred meter ditch specifically, but he’s been out with his Resistance friends a time or two. It’s got to be pretty similar, hasn’t it?”

There was a rather long silence, because the constricted lump that was my heart had just lodged itself uncomfortably in my throat.

“You… didn’t know about that, did you…?” muttered Jon, when the silence stretched on and on.

I swallowed.

“Yes, I… think I did. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you mean.”

“How close… do you think he is? To joining them?” asked Jon awkwardly.

I swallowed again.

“Close enough. I mean, their priorities aren’t the same—Bane’s most worried about Sorting and suppression of freedoms while the Resistance don’t seem to care about anything other than making the departments into countries again, but still… they break stuff and piss off the EuroGov, so… I’m just praying that… me being sent here… won’t tip him over the edge.”

“Yeah,” said Jon grimly. “What’ll you do if he does join?”

“Well, I won’t exactly be very happy about it. But he knows what I think of them; he’s got to make up his own mind.”

“Well, on the same note, are you going to let him bring the typewriter?”

Part of me wished I’d not told Bane that vital fact, that I could now get around at night. But say I could win? How could I ignore such an opportunity? But how could I forgive myself if Bane got killed, and in such an uncertain cause? Still, Jon was right. It wasn’t for me to make up Bane’s mind about this, either.

“All right,” I said heavily. “I’ll meet him and get the thing. But I tell you, I’d better win after this!”

“I’ll ask the Lord to see to that, shall I?” smiled Jon.

“You do that.”

Squeak.

My straining ears caught the faint sound as the night guard opened the hatch and took her hourly glance into the darkened dorm. One o’clock.

Squeak.

The hatch closed again.

“Time to go,” breathed Jon.

Thursday night, and my ugly gray jumpsuit already nestled, folded, down the front of my nightie, secured by a belt. I’d been careful to fall down in the dirt of the exercise yard earlier, to avoid any chance of appearing mysteriously dirtied in the morning. In Tuesday’s letter I’d told Bane I thought one-thirty was a suitable time to make his escape from the dreaded barbeque. Everything was arranged.

I picked up my dressing gown, took the precious card from inside Jon’s pillowcase, and transferred it to the pocket.

“I’m your prayer support,” whispered Jon. “See you in a bit.”

“See you.”

I slipped from the bunk, putting on my dressing gown and shoes quietly, but without any suggestion of stealth. Walking to the door, I paused in front of the buzzer, then moved on without actually touching it, standing as close to the card reader as I could. After a suitable length of time and making sure it was shielded—most especially from the direction of Jane’s bunk—I swiped the card and held my breath…

The light flashed green.

I pushed the door open and walked out, saying softly to the nonexistent guard, “Thanks, sorry it’s so late,”

In the washroom, I changed into my jumpsuit, with my sweater underneath. The nightwear I left on top of the toilet tank in the farthest cubicle—there wasn’t any real hiding place for it.

A dim light glowed over the stairwell door, allowing the guards to see and the camera to see them. I swiped the card with my head turned away from the camera, much good that’d do, and headed down the dark stairs. My breath misted the air in front of me. That would show up particularly well on the cameras. No matter. If they played the footage back, the game would be up, anyway.

Reaching the door to the parking area, I peeped through the window beside it. This was the really risky bit. The door was in sight of the tower guards. But since no one could threaten the towers from here, they wouldn’t be looking, right?
Lord willing
.

I swiped the card again and opened the door just a crack. Slipping through, I moved smoothly to crouch behind the nearest car. No sudden movements to draw the eye. Peeping up at the towers, I calculated their lines of sight. Right, well, it might not be the most comfortable way to do it, but it was clearly the safest…

Lowering myself flat onto my stomach, I wormed underneath the car and headed for the guardroom, making like a snake. My knees and elbows complained bitterly, but slowly and silently I crawled until I reached the last car. There was the guardroom door, about three meters away...

My groping hand found two small stones. I chucked the first at the door. It made a nice sharp tapping sound. I drew back into the darkness beneath the car and waited.

Nothing.

I pitched the second stone at the door, even harder.

Tap.

Still nothing. Jon and I were both pretty sure there wouldn’t be a guard in there at night and it seemed we were right. Or the guard had fallen asleep...

I slid from beneath the car, and glided as smoothly as I could to the door, flattening myself beside it as I swiped the card.

Flash.
Click
.

I eased the door open. No one shouted. Slipping inside, I drew the door shut behind me and stood, ready to let my eyes adjust to the greater darkness. But moonlight streamed in and the room was empty. I let out a shaky breath.

Crossing to the grille, I sat down on the floor below it—it probably wasn’t one-thirty yet so it was time to wait. There wasn’t much to see in the little room. The grille’s armored shutters stood open, only for use in actual emergencies. They glistened with futile oil and ravenous rust. A utilitarian table and chair, both metal. A row of fuse boxes on the wall, their labels so neat and clear I could read them from where I sat.

WALL POWER MAIN it said under a large, solitary lever. WEST TOWERS read a sign above the first fuse boxes, while underneath the labels ran FLOODS—SEARCH—GATES and so on. EAST TOWERS said the second sign. Simply thrilling. Hopefully no fuses would go just now.

To stave off the tension, I started on a rosary. The Joyful Mysteries. I was waiting for my fiancé, after all. But before long there was a tiny noise in the darkness. I dropped my fingers, losing my place, and rose onto my knees to stare through the grille, ears straining.

After a while, it came again. A tiny scuffling, as though a small animal were running along the bottom of the ditch. If it was Bane, then he was inching his way very slowly and quietly indeed. Good. If the guards heard him, he’d die, it was that simple.

The small animal came gradually nearer. Eventually I could hear it breathing, just on the other side of the grille, and it didn’t sound like quite such a small animal then.

“Bane?” I breathed.

“
Margo?” A head appeared on the other side of the grille like magic. “
Margo!
Damn, this is the thickest bloody grille I’ve ever seen! I can’t even get my hand through!”

I understood the desperate frustration in his voice.

“Hang on, I’ll open the post hatch.”

It was a simple manual mechanism, secure enough since it was operable only from inside. I eased the lever down, my heart in my mouth—but it didn’t let out any ghastly, ear-splitting squeaks, opening silently…

“
Ouch.
”

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I think it opens outwards.”

“You think and I know.”

I tried to get a head into the hatch and found him doing the same, but it was no use. Our heads fitted but our shoulders didn’t, and the wall was just too thick. Our lips remained a good twenty centimeters apart.

“Damn,” said Bane, as we both pulled away again and thrust our hands in instead, finally making contact.

“
Bane
…”