blue eyes – and with his messy blonde curls that can’t be controlled and big blue eyes that twinkle like a naughty imp’s, he always looks like he’s up to mischief, because he usually is. He sits directly opposite me at the dining table, and I have to stop myself from watching him all the time, while inside I’m jumping up and down that he’s mine. Thankfully, he doesn’t share his dad’s intensity. He knows how to have fun and let loose, always throwing in a funny comment when the conversation gets too serious. He has good timing. Even Bosco laughs. Art is like a light to me, illuminating the darkest corners of everything.
On this April day every year, we celebrate Earth Day with our neighbours the Crevans and the Tinders. Earth Day celebrations are something Juniper and I have always loved since we were kids, counting down the days on our calendar, planning what we’re going to wear, decorating the house and setting the table. This year I am more excited than ever because it’s the first year Art and I are officially together. Not that I plan on groping him under the table or anything, but having my boyfriend here makes it more exciting.
Dad is the head of a twenty-four-hour TV station, News 24, and our neighbour and other dinner guest Bob Tinder is the editor of The Daily News newspaper, both of which are owned by Crevan Media, so the three of them mix business with pleasure. The Tinders are always late. I don’t know how Bob manages to stick to publication deadlines when he can never make it to dinner on time. It’s the same every year. We’ve had an hour of drinks already in the parlour and hope that moving to the dining room will somehow magically hurry them up. We’re now sitting here with three empty chairs, their daughter, Colleen, who’s in my class, being the third guest.
“We should start,” Bosco says suddenly, looking up from his phone, ending the casual chat and sitting up more formally.
“The dinner is okay,” Mum says, taking her newly filled glass of wine from Dad. “I allowed for a little delay.” She smiles.
“We should start,” Bosco says again.
“Are you in a rush?” Art asks, looking quizzically at Bosco, who suddenly seems fidgety. “The trouble with being punctual is that there’s nobody there to see it,” Art says, and everyone laughs. “As I should know, waiting for this girl all the time.” He gives my foot a light tap under the table.
“No,” I disagree. “Punctual is acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed. You’re not punctual; you’re always ridiculously early.”
“The early bird catches the worm,” Art defends himself.
“But the second mouse gets the cheese,” I reply, and Art sticks his tongue out at me.
My little brother, Ewan, giggles. Juniper rolls her eyes.
Bosco, seemingly frustrated by our conversation, interrupts and repeats, “Summer, Cutter, we should start the meal now.”
The way he says it makes us all stop laughing immediately and turn to look at him. It was an order.
“Dad,” Art says in surprise, with an awkward half laugh. “What are you, the food police?”
Bosco doesn’t break his stare with Mum. This has an odd effect on everybody at the table, creates a tense atmosphere, the kind you sense in the air just before the thunder rolls. Heavy, humid, headache-inducing.
“You don’t think we should wait for Bob and Angelina?” Dad asks.
“And Colleen,” I add, and Juniper rolls her eyes again. She hates that I pick on every little detail, but I can’t help it.
“No, I don’t think so,” he says simply, firmly, not adding any more.
“Okay,” Mum says, standing and making her way to the kitchen, all calm and placid as if nothing has happened at all, which tells me that, underneath, her legs are paddling wildly.
I look at Art in confusion and know that he feels the tension, too, because I can sense a new joke forming in his mouth, the thing he does when he feels awkward or scared or uncomfortable. I see how his lip has started to curl at the thought of his punch line, but I never get to hear what he has to say because then we hear the siren.
The siren rings out, long, low, warning. It makes me jump in my seat, startled, and it sends my heart beating wildly, every inch of me sensing danger. It is a sound I have known my entire life, a sound you never want directed at you. The Guild calls it the alert signal, a three- to five-minute continuous siren, which rings out from the Guild vans, and though I’ve never lived through any war, it gives me a sense of how people must have felt then before being attacked. In the middle of any normal moment, it can invade your happy thoughts.
The siren sounds close to home and it feels sinister. We all momentarily freeze at the table, then Juniper, being Juniper, who speaks before thinking and is clumsy in her actions, jumps up first, bumps the table, and sends the glasses wobbling. Red wine sploshes on to the white linen like blobs of blood. She doesn’t bother to apologise or clean it, she just runs straight out of the room. Dad is close behind her.
Mum looks completely startled, frozen in time. Drained of all colour, she looks at Bosco, and I think she’s going to faint. She doesn’t even try to stop Ewan from running out the door.
The siren gets louder; it’s coming closer. Art jumps up, then so do I, and I follow him down the hall and outside to where they’ve all gathered in a tight huddle in the front yard. The same is happening in each yard around us, old Mr and Mrs Miller in the yard to the right of us hold each other tightly, looking terrified, waiting to see whose house the siren will stop at. Directly across the road, Bob Tinder opens his door and steps outside. He sees Dad, and they look at each other. There’s something there, but I don’t quite understand it. At first, I think Dad is angry with Bob, but then Bob’s face holds the same stare. I can’t read them. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s a waiting game. Who will it be?
Art grips my hand tightly, squeezes it for reassurance and tries to give me one of his winning smiles, but it’s wobbly, and too quick, and only carries the opposite effect. The sirens are almost on top of us now, the sounds in our ears, in our heads. The vans turn on to our road. Two black vehicles with bright red F symbols branding their sides, letting everybody know who they are. The Whistleblowers are the army of the Guild, sent out to protect society from the Flawed. They are not our official police; they are responsible for taking into custody those who are morally and ethically Flawed. Criminals go to prison; they have nothing to do with the Flawed court system.
The emergency lights on the van roofs spin around, rotating their red lights, so bright they almost light up the dusk sky, sending out a warning beacon to all. Clusters of families celebrating Earth Day cling to one another, hoping it’s not them, hoping one of theirs won’t be plucked from them. Not their family, not their home, not tonight. The two vans stop in the middle of the road, directly outside our house, and I feel my body start to shake. The sirens stop.
“No,” I whisper.
“They can’t take us,” Art whispers to me, and his face is so sure, so certain, that I believe him. Of course they can’t take us, we have Judge
