I am out of the classroom and running.
4
Reader
I run as far as I can, without stopping to put on my nose shield. The hot wind buffets me; sand coats my face; black gob fills my nostrils. I stop when I can no longer breathe.
Locusts question me at the boom before I cross the bridge to Mangeria City.
“I’m going to the pleasure quarter,” I say.
A Locust grabs my arm. “No, you must stay with me.” He pushes me against the boom, his breath foul on my face. “I’ll show you pleasure like you’ve never had before.”
I soften my slap on his glove with a giggle, and pull away. It is not yet curfew. He has to let me pass. Locusts jeer as I race in the direction of the clubs where the Posh drink and laugh themselves silly.
People from Slum City party here too. Handler Xavier and the market wardens shake hands with the Posh, making deals that the Locusts turn blind eyes to for a cut of the credits.
If Kitty was with me, she would have pointed out her favourite places in the quarter. She likes to hang out here when she is not at school or playing the game with Handler Xavier. The men chase her like rats after a piece of meat in the sewers.
I am not headed for the clubs for a good time. My destination is the beauty parlour, one of many that service the Posh wanting a make-over before hitting the clubs. But I do not want my hair straightened or my face stretched tight, pinned to my skull so that my eyes appear like slits. I would rather have big eyes and Savage hair than look like a Posh.
Traders bustle me off the pavement and I walk in the street, avoiding the Drainers who are elbow deep in waste from the gutters. I dodge sweating Pulaks pulling fat Posh to shops where they buy the food people like me cannot afford and are not meant to eat. I leap over potholes, and three blocks on I reach the Beautiful Like Me Beauty Parlour.
The salon is choked with men and women shouting out like a gaggle of Market Nags at the beginning of trading day. Trussed in chairs, they gaze at mirrors, their faces dripping with treatments; hair sweltering under caps. The air is plastic.
The ways of the Posh are a mystery to me. They roast themselves on the beach to turn brown. And burn their skin with acid to get white again.
“I’ll be voting for the candidate from the sixth family. He looks trustworthy, I think,” a woman says as she bakes inside a plastic body wrap. She has Kitty’s honey-corn skin. Except for her face. The flesh has been burned off, leaving a mask of scab. Underneath, pale skin will grow. Fit for a Posh.
“Oh no, I like the candidate from the ninth family,” another says. She picks away at the crust on her cheek. And stops. She must not risk scarring.
One of the topics of conversation being thrashed to death in the beauty parlour today is the forthcoming Mangerian election.
It should interest me because I am taking part this year. I have to. It is Mangerian law. Everybody who has turned fifteen and is legal, from Posh to trader, has to participate in this event. Or non-event, people who know things say. Behind their hands.
There are exceptions to this rule. Past traders who are too old to work. And the Rejects, who cannot work because they are sick or damaged. They do not have any use, so do not matter.
Voting in the election has been beaten into me during civic responsibility class for the past ten years. I know it as well as the mark on my spine. Every three years, we must choose the Guardians who run our lives.
The slate of candidates is decided by an elite group of Posh who call themselves the Mangerians. They are post-conflagration families who banded together and got things running again after the world blew up and fell apart. The moon’s face was ripped in half, and ever since, she has been winking at us with one eye; the other half of her face is scarred black. These things happened in a time that people who know things remember.
The election candidates all come from the Mangerian families. They know best how our lives should be run. It has been like this since year Dot PC. We are grateful: if it were not for them, we would be running around like Savages instead of living happy, useful lives, gainfully employed in a trade. Yes, I know my civic responsibility lessons by heart.
Twenty candidates put their faces on the ballot; every Posh, every trader has twenty votes. So even though maths and I are not close friends, I can at least count my fingers and toes. It is no surprise who is elected to play Guardian for a three-year period.
I escape the chattering uglies and edge past the row of reclining chairs. I take off my sunglasses and scan the different creams on a tray. I see it – the tube marked with a black skull, hiding under a pile of hair dye. When I use it tonight I will not dilute it. I will not be using it to have Posh skin. It has to be strong. I want the mark on my spine gone.
“Ettie, my dear, are you looking for something?”
I jerk away from the tray as Me, the brains behind the Beautiful Like Me Beauty Parlour, approaches. A smile lifts his chubby cheeks.
“Is there something I can help you with, Ettie dear?”
My hand fiddles behind my back for the edge of the tray and fumbles among the tubes. Me comes closer as my fingers fret. No, not this one. That one. My fingers tell me they have found it and I slip it into my shorts.
I begin to edge past Me. He darts left, and I go right. He goes right, and I go left. Me thinks it is funny, this dodge-dodge game. I put on my gosh-this-is-fun smile and dodge him a bit more until it gets boring. Humour is not dominant in my personality make-up.
“Ettie, come into my parlour and let me make you lovely. With my eye clips and my hair acid I can make you as perfect as any Posh mistress.” Me touches my hair and tweaks the corners of my eyes. “Yes, these fat eyes need a bit of work.”
I push his hands away; touching is not a game I play. Especially when there is a tube of stolen cream hidden in my shorts. “Don’t touch Me,” I say. I share name jokes with him sometimes to make him laugh. I stay friendly with Me because on nights when I miss curfew and do not want to risk the Locusts at the booms, I sleep on one of his reclining chairs.
I leave Me shadow-dodging, and walk past nail bars and massage parlours to a flat on the seventh floor. I knock on the door and wait, tapping my fingers against my leg as feet shuffle down the passage. Come on, old man. Come on. I don’t have all day.
When he opens the door, he peers at me through his sunglasses. His nostrils quiver as he sniffs the air. He sniffs again and gives a shy smile. His gums, as pink as a baby’s, say he is happy it is me (and not Me, who bugs him for rent).
I do not smile back. He must not know how happy I am to be here. I like to keep my visits to Reader on a strictly professional basis.
“Ah, it is thee, the lovely Juliet,” Reader says. He is the only person I know who calls me by my birthing name. I scowl at him in case he sees how much I like it, and he stops. Reader talks funny. At first I used to think he was ripping me. But now I know he talks like he does because this is who he is.
He pulls me inside, his fingers touching my waist, pinching and probing. “What is it you have concealed?”
I duck away from his hands. “Get off.” I clutch
