The Mark. Edyth Bulbring

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there’s not a Savage gene left in her body.”

      “Are you sure the tellers have it correct?”

      “The birds have spoken about a girl,” Witch says. “Xavier is convinced he knows the one they cry out about. But I think he’s dreaming.” The scrabble pieces rattle as they are swept off the board.

      As I lean forward to hear better, pain hits me on the back of my neck. Not a fly, but a beak. I turn and find the bird’s gooey eyes on me.

      “Ettie Spaghetti. Your ears will burn in Savage City.”

      I swat the bird away and run outside into the light.

      I visit the orphan warden’s office on the ground floor. Most of this floor and the two above overflow with cots. And kids with noses that run like sewers.

      The warden avoids the cots the way I keep shy of Locusts. She gets the older kids to look after the Smalls during the day. When kids turn five they must look after themselves, so they move to the floors above with the Bigs. Kids like Kitty and me.

      At the end of the day, we have to clock in with the orphan warden and report that all is well, whether this is true or not. She does not worry too much about us as long as she gets her carer credits from the Mangerian Welfare Department.

      She is slumped over the table, snoring. Babies’ cries fill the air. The noise does not seem to bother the warden. So I try not to let it bother me. I tap her on the head and she jerks awake, grabbing the bottle of bug juice in front of her.

      “Don’t worry, I don’t want any. I’ve got water.” I have drunk bug juice before, when water was scarce. After I had vomited my guts out, it made me sleep. It is made from fruit that the Market Nags have not managed to offload during trading hours. The rotting fruit attracts flies, which sink to the bottom where their juices add to the flavour. It is sold outside the pleasure clubs, huge stinking drums of the stuff.

      “Ettie,” the orphan warden says, a smile splitting flesh made blotchy by years of bug juice.

      “Yes, it’s me. I’ve brought you some medicine from Witch.” Both of us know it is not for her sore bones. It is to keep the Smalls quiet at night. A couple of drops before bedtime and they sleep like the dead until the Bigs resume the morning shift.

      “Were you a good girl today?”

      “I was at school learning my drudge trade,” I say.

      “And Kitty?”

      I tell her Kitty also attended the class that would equip her to become a pleasure worker. “She’s upstairs sleeping, but we’re both present and correct and have eaten and are clean.”

      “You’re a good girl, Ettie.”

      Yes, I am. But of course I am not. She knows I have been gaming with the handler. But this is another thing we pretend. I leave her with her bug juice.

      The cots in the adjacent rooms scream for me. I suck in my breath against the smell and do what I have done for ever. I cannot help myself, cannot ignore it all. But one day I will quit this dumb habit. I walk between the cots and pat a twitching blanket and cover a small foot. Hush, go to sleep. Things will be better in the morning, I promise. But when the sun rises they will know me for a liar.

      I turn down the wicks on the lamps. The cots will not burn on my watch. I remove a plastic toy from a sleeping fist. She can have it back tomorrow. There will be no chokers tonight.

      A low whistle at the door warns me I am no longer alone. “What do you think you’re doing?” Handler Xavier’s eyes bite my hand. “Stealing toys from babies, Ettie? I see I’ve trained you too well.”

      I silence my protest with a sly smile and pocket the toy. He must think what he likes. I leave him in the nursery with his contempt.

      I climb the stairs, but Kitty is not there when I open the door to our room. I rage. I panic. And crack my knuckles from thumb to pinkie. When my middle finger refuses to snap, I start again. Five cracks. That should keep her safe.

      As the sky darkens, balls of light flicker on in the streets, dispensing the heat caught from the sun. The light from the pavement fills my room.

      I lock the door and take a book from my library and reach for my other secret. The tube of cream I hide under my books. The death mask on the tube has been squeezed flat.

      I lift my shirt. The fabric is stuck to the lesion on my back. I detach it with care. I must not disturb the fresh scab. I squeeze the last of the cream onto a piece of cloth and apply it to the base of my spine. It eats into my skin. I ignore the pain and rub it into the wound. In a few days I will hit bone.

      I stretch out on the mattress and read my book. It is about a boy called Peter Pan who loves stories and never wants to grow up. He has a fairy called Tinker Bell who is as small as a flea. Many of which have taken occupation of my mattress and are dining on my blisters.

      I finish the book and try to fall asleep. I chant: “I believe in fairies.” Over and over. But I do not believe in them. I do not believe in anything.

      The sun has begun to warm the room when Kitty wakes me. She rolls me over and curls into a ball, pulling a pillow over her head. I move closer to her but she shifts away.

      There was a time when Kitty could not hold me close enough. My skin has grown cold since then. As Kitty snores, I hold onto a lock of hair that has escaped from under the pillow. And cover her with a sheet.

      Witch’s bird circles above my Section O flat. I try to sleep, but the creature screams her warning, “Ettie Spaghetti is going to Savage City. Ettie Spaghetti is going to fry in Savage City.”

      The sore on my spine chafes against my shirt. I run my fingers over the pain. I can no longer feel the raised numbers etched onto my skin. The cream is working its magic. It must be.

      I want to shout at the bird that she is wrong. I am not going to Savage City. When my time comes to run, the Locusts will not be able to track me.

      3

      Drudge School

      Kitty scowls at the morning with bloodshot eyes. She stinks of bug juice.

      The smell is a dead giveaway: she broke curfew last night and crossed the river without a pass to the pleasure clubs in Man­geria City. This is where she goes. I know, because I have followed her.

      “If the Locusts catch you, you’ll be in for it. Or if Handler Xavier finds out he’ll give you a fat lip,” I say, glaring at her. “He says we must never do things to draw the Locusts’ attention to us.”

      I hand her a piece of soap.

      She lathers her skin and splashes herself with the water ration I had fetched from the outside tap. Rub-a-dub-dub. She likes to scrub her nights away. She soaps her left arm, underneath the bangles, rubbing the scar there pink and shiny.

      “Oh, shut up and stop nagging,” Kitty says. “I can always dodge the Locusts at the booms, and there’s more than one way of crossing the river.” She snaps her fingers at me and I toss her a towel.

      I am as familiar as Kitty is with the ways into СКАЧАТЬ