The Other Side of the Island (17 page)

Read The Other Side of the Island Online

Authors: Allegra Goodman

Tags: #Nature & the Natural World, #Social Issues, #Families, #Family, #Juvenile Fiction, #Individuality, #Fantasy & Magic, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Family Life, #Weather, #Peer Pressure, #Islands, #General, #Domestic fiction

BOOK: The Other Side of the Island
11.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Where?” asked Honor.
“Usually the Central Store,” said Eglantine. “Sometimes concerts.” She paused and looked at Honor. “Well, I’m lucky,” she admitted. “I was so little when I came that I don’t miss my parents. I don’t remember what they looked like anymore.”
 
When Honor and Eglantine got back to the girls’ house, Honor saw a pair of faded pajamas folded on top of her bed.
“Hurry,” said Fanny, whose bed stood next to Honor’s. Quickly, Honor took off her uniform and hung it from the hook above her nightstand. She pulled her pajamas on as fast as she could. Mrs. Edwards was already standing in the doorway when Honor climbed into bed. Honor pulled up the covers just in time.
“Peace, love, and joy,” said Mrs. Edwards. “That’s how we earn each day.”
Earn? Honor thought. How could you earn a day? Each day came whether you wanted it or not.
“Lights out,” said Mrs. Edwards, and the room went dark. Honor heard the door close and there was silence for several minutes. Then a shuffling whispering noise as girls sat up in bed to talk. Fanny scrambled right onto Honor’s bed and sat cross-legged on it.
Honor was amazed. “But you can’t get out of bed after lights-out. That’s Not Allowed.”
“Nothing fun is,” Fanny pointed out.
“What if Mrs. Edwards comes back and turns on the lights?”
“The bulbs are Extra-Energy Savers,” Fanny explained. “It takes over five minutes for the lights to come on—and by that time everyone’s tucked in fast asleep again.”
Honor almost laughed. “How long have you been . . . how long have you lived here?” she asked Fanny. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word orphan.
“Only two years,” said Fanny. “My parents disappeared two years ago on Errand Day. We went to the Central Store together. I was in the fitting room to try on my new uniform. I came out to show them how it looked and they were gone.”
“What did you do?” asked Honor.
“Went to the Safety Officer on the floor, of course. I said I’d lost my parents. He took me to the store’s Safety Office and we went to the supervisor. I told the supervisor my parents’ names and asked if he could find them. He said he’d look them up in the store computer. There was a big computer on the desk. He looked them up and then he said, ‘No, they’re not lost. They’ve disappeared.’”
Honor held her pillow tight. She was trembling to hear this story, but Fanny’s voice wasn’t shaky at all. She sounded calm and even cheerful.
“The next day,” said Fanny, “I came here.”
“Who do you think took them?” Honor whispered.
“Don’t know,” said Fanny.
“What do you think they did?”
“No idea.” Fanny yawned. “Something bad, I’m sure. I’m going back to bed.”
“Wait,” Honor said. “Were your parents strange? Were they unusual? Did you ever think they’d be taken?”
“Mmm. Maybe. They were disorganized,” said Fanny. “They were messy. Our house was never clean. They never had enough coupons. They liked music too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“They played instruments all the time—piano and violin. They played so much they forgot to go to their regular jobs. They’d sit and play their music and remember stuff. Like old people they used to know. And places filled with ancient paintings. And gardens. My mother could remember gardens where people danced. She said when she played she could remember women in long dresses and the hems of their dresses brushed the grass.”
“Princesses?”
“I guess so,” said Fanny. “There was one other thing they used to remember. Catching fish in mountain streams. In ancient times, people caught fish individually with hooks. When my father played his violin he always remembered that.”
“That’s so strange,” said Honor.
“I know.”
“Where do you think they were taken?”
“Where? Nowhere. They’re dead, of course,” said Fanny, amused.
“Not . . . on the moon?”
Fanny started giggling. “Oh, you believe all that about the asylum on the moon?”
“I’m not sure.” Honor’s voice trembled.
“Nobody lives on the moon, silly.” Fanny slid off Honor’s bed and jumped into her own.
 
The next morning Honor had to put on work overalls. The rough patched fabric scratched her skin; the baggy pants dragged on the ground. She felt like a criminal.
“Come on,” said Eglantine, and she tried to take Honor by the hand. “I’ll show you where the gardens are.”
Honor shook her off. “Leave me alone.”
Eglantine shot Honor an orphanish look, shy and patient. She waited for Honor in the doorway.
“I said leave me alone,” Honor repeated.
“I have to wait for you,” Eglantine explained. “We’ve been assigned together this week.”
Then Honor followed Eglantine.
Every morning before school, the orphans worked for an hour in the vegetable gardens with farming and produce orderlies. Every evening after school, they took turns working in the kitchens or the recycling station or even cleaning classrooms with the school orderlies. The orphans would dust and shelve books while the orderlies vacuumed. Regular students didn’t even look at orderlies, but the orphans worked alongside them.
After chores, the orphans hurried back to the Boarders’ Houses and changed into their school uniforms. Honor couldn’t wait to put on her skirt and blouse and sun hat and look normal again. She ran eagerly to class.
But when she arrived, the crowd of girls at the door parted for her. Helena and Hortense and the others stepped aside. When Honor glided to her desk, she felt like a ghost.
No one looked at Honor all that day. No one spoke to her unless it was absolutely necessary. “Thank you,” Hiroko said dutifully when Honor passed the applesauce at lunchtime, but that was because saying “thank you” was the Rule.
When the girls lined up to go to the tennis courts, they were careful not to brush Honor in passing. Honor was door monitor and she held the door open for the class. Each girl made herself as small as possible as she passed through the doorway. Even Helena turned aside timidly from Honor at the door. Honor planted herself right in the center of the doorway. She made it impossible for the other girls to pass without looking at her or saying “excuse me.” Honor’s classmates squeezed past as best they could. However, Haven was a chubby girl and couldn’t squeeze through. “Move,” she whispered furiously.
Honor flushed and stepped aside.
 
“Did Miss Blessing show you that book about when your parents disappear?” Fanny asked as she and Honor and Elspeth walked back to the Boarders’ Houses after class.
Honor nodded. Her classmates were hurrying off to catch the school bus and go home to their families. Hester and Hedwig raced past and held their noses. Honor stiffened and pretended she didn’t notice. She would never look at those girls with hurt, envious eyes. They’d never catch her casting an orphanish glance.
“It’s natural to feel anger,” Fanny said in Miss Blessing’s sweet voice. Elspeth doubled over laughing. “It’s natural to feel hatred,” said Fanny.
Honor couldn’t help smiling at Fanny’s perfect imitation of Miss Blessing.
“It’s natural to want to KILL somebody,” said Fanny. “But don’t worry. We’ve killed your parents for you.”
Elspeth’s laughter trailed off. She and Honor looked at Fanny uncertainly.
“That wasn’t funny,” said Elspeth.
“I have a dark sense of humor,” Fanny explained.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Honor.
“It means I’m funny once you get to know me,” Fanny said.
At afternoon chore time, Honor helped Quintilian whenever she could. She helped him push his wheelbarrow and his laundry bins. Helix and the other big boys helped him too. She saw Helix weeding with Quintilian in the gardens. Even with help, Quintilian dragged behind. Honor went to Mrs. Edwards and said, “Quintilian is too little for chores.”
Mrs. Edwards shook her head at Honor and told her, “Mr. Edwards and I have been guardians for over ten years. Even the youngest children do their share.”
FOUR
WHEN HONOR CLOSED HER EYES TO SLEEP, SHE TRIED TO
picture her mother and father. Sometimes she saw them clearly and sometimes only a piece of them: her mother’s straight and shining hair sweeping over her shoulders, her father’s smile. She wanted to practice remembering them, but strangely, when she closed her eyes and concentrated, her parents’ faces didn’t come to her. Only when she drifted off to sleep and almost forgot to look for them did her mother and father float back into her mind.
She asked Quintilian whenever she had a chance, “Do you remember what they looked like?” and he always said yes, but she didn’t believe him. She quizzed, “What color was Mommy’s hair? What color were Dad’s eyes?” until he ran away from her. Then she got upset. She and Quintilian had no photographs, and she was afraid he would end up like Eglantine and forget what his parents looked like altogether.
She was tired all the time. She was no longer a perfect student. She didn’t check her work when she did her math homework. What was the point? She’d tried being a perfect girl, and her parents had been taken anyway. She also knew that there was an O by her name in her permanent record. The O was for orphan and it meant the best she could qualify for when she finished school was a low-level job. Even if she got perfect scores on her exams, she would end up working alongside orderlies.
Eva, Eglantine, and Elspeth were all taking their exams soon, and they were worried.
“I’m afraid,” Eglantine confessed one morning as the girls ate their early breakfast of granola and milk.
“Don’t you think you’ll pass?” asked Fanny.
“I think I’ll pass,” said Eglantine. She hesitated. “I’m afraid of leaving school.”
Fanny scoffed at that. “Afraid of leaving school? I can’t wait,” she said. “I can’t wait till I get out of here.”
“But who will take care of you?” Eglantine asked.
“I’ll be seventeen years old! I’ll take care of myself,” said Fanny. “I’m going to have my own little house and my own little garden and I’ll grow grapes and dry them into raisins so when I have breakfast, I can put raisins on top!”
“Mmm, raisins,” said Gretel.
The other girls hushed. They’d all heard of raisins, but they couldn’t remember them. Because of Scarcity there had been no raisins in the Colonies for years.
“Can I come live with you?” Honor asked Fanny.
Fanny shook her head. “Don’t you know orphans never get to stay together?”
“Why not?” Honor asked.
“Safety Measures, of course,” said Fanny. “Since our parents were dangerous. There can’t be too many of us in one place.”
Eglantine explained, “Orphans are always reassigned.”
“We’ll just spread our love and caring throughout the world,” said Fanny. She said this in such a funny voice that Elspeth and Gretel started giggling.
Honor didn’t laugh. She put down her spoon.
That day she couldn’t concentrate in history. Ms. Lynch was asking her a question, and Honor was thinking—After I leave school, I won’t see Quintilian anymore. I won’t see . . . She was thinking about Helix too, although he wasn’t really her friend anymore.
“I don’t want to ask you again,” said Ms. Lynch. “What was the agenda of the First Global Conference?”
“War? Toxic waste?” Honor ventured.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” demanded Ms. Lynch.
“Telling you,” said Honor.
“That’s unfortunate,” Ms. Lynch said. “Your answers are Inaccurate. Hester?”
“Famine, overpopulation, scarcity of resources, the end of the ozone . . .” Hester recited in perfect order.
“Excellent,” said Ms. Lynch, and Hester smiled a little smile. Hester was excellent. She was Accurate. Honor hated her.
That very day, sitting alone in the lunch area of the classroom, Honor heard Hester and Helena whispering.
“. . . How could she? They don’t get their uniforms pressed . . . That’s why she’s . . . Ooh, I’d hate to look like that,” said Hester.
“Did you see how she looked up at Ms. Lynch today? She looked so orphanish,” said Helena. “I can’t believe she used to be my friend.”
Honor turned around and gazed straight at Hester and Helena where they sat cozily at their own table. Suddenly the girls stopped talking. Helena looked frightened.
Honor stood and took a step toward the girls. She kept her gaze on Helena. “Oh, I look orphanish now?” she asked. “My clothes are too wrinkled?”
“Leave her alone,” said Hester, and she drew herself up, prim and neat, in her crisp uniform.
“How would you like it if your parents disappeared?” Honor demanded, her voice rising. She knew she must never touch another student. She knew the hands-off policy at school, but she stepped toward the girls anyway. She knew she shouldn’t, but she reached out and pulled Hester’s hat down over her eyes. Her hands seized Hester’s starched white shirt and squeezed the fabric until it wrinkled and the pocket ripped. Hester was screaming. Helena was shrieking too. “What would you do if they never came back?” Honor cried out. “Then you’d be just like me. You’d be exactly like me.”
Ms. Lynch came rushing over. She took Honor by the arm and said, “Heloise! What were you thinking? Go to Miss Blessing’s office. Now.”

Other books

You Are Here by Liz Fichera
Call of the Kings by Chris Page
Wrecked by Elle Casey
Outback by Robin Stevenson
Summer Is for Lovers by Jennifer McQuiston
The Murder Seat by Noel Coughlan
Strong by Rivard Yarrington, Jennifer
The Anvil by Ken McClure