The Reject. Edyth Bulbring

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СКАЧАТЬ the sight of him guzzling our food disgusts me. But food repels me now, especially the smell. When I was an orphan in Section O, I could not stop stuffing my face. How Kitty would laugh if she could see me now, gagging at the sweet smell of my favourite strawberry.

      Maybe Kitty is free now, feasting herself fat on mango.

      Maybe my beautiful friend is missing me too.

      My sickness is worse in the morning. There are days when I have to turn away from cooking breakfast and race on deck to hurl into the sea. I am an empty sack; my energy has leaked from my bones.

      “You never eat, Drudge. Are you sick?” Gollum shovels porridge into his mouth. “When I slaved at the pleasure clubs for one of my masters, I saw girls and boys like you who also never ate. Some pleasure workers had the sickness, a grubby gift from their Posh patrons.” He runs his hands together. “The rub-a-dub-dub, they called it. They were fit only for the dumps. Diseased and useless.”

      Gollum’s eyes slide over my body.

      “Girls weren’t always sick, mind you. Just gone down the river. They ate very little during the first months, tried to hide the swelling. But their bellies grew until they got rid of their burden. Another of my masters dabbled in that line of work. A lucrative trade. Then, if the Locusts didn’t catch the slaggets under the bridge, they came back to work at the clubs. The lucky ones.”

      I touch my stomach. “I like to wait until Reader wakes. He prefers not to eat alone.”

      Most of the days are calm; the storms come at night. Reader and I huddle down below in our berths, bolts drawn against any treachery. Gollum stays on deck. He says he likes the storms. I cross my fingers and hope he gets swept into the sea.

      He watches me watching him. And takes to wearing a waist harness attached to the mast when the sea is rough. And hides the galley knives. I keep a broken bottle under my mattress. And wait for my collar bone to heal. Plain-purl. Plain-purl. Plain-purl. Faster, faster. Knit those bones.

      Reader spends the early part of the evenings instructing Gollum where to sail and, when the course is set, the old man leaves him to get some sleep. I hear them, sometimes, as I toss about in my berth trying to ease the burn in my chest.

      “Tell me how the stars are arranged against the sky so that I can direct you. I have an excellent star chart in this travel history by a brave fellow called Joshua Slocum, who navigated these oceans in a sloop just like ours hundreds of years ago. What do you see tonight, my captain?”

      Reader has told me he merely humours Gollum, calling him “my captain”. But as time passes, I sense he says it out of respect. He tells me Gollum is a fine sailor. As a young boy, Gollum was bonded to a Reject master who worked for the Scavvies. Then he moved on to various other trades, some dark and terrible. Our captain has perfected many crafts. I do not want to hear about his horrible talents.

      At first Gollum scoffed at Reader: “What can those stupid dots in old books teach me about navigating the sea? They’re rubbish. You’re hurting my ears with your gab-gab-gab.”

      But as the days and the sea stretches before us, and every morning brings no sight of land, Gollum can do nothing but trust the knowledge from Reader’s blind books.

      “There’s a cross of stars that marks the sky tonight. And a belt that draws a circle around a dagger. Should I helm a little to the west, Master Reader?”

      Master Reader! Gollum knows how to charm the old fool.

      On calm nights, Reader teaches Gollum the alphabet. My old teacher is more patient with the pirate than he was with me. Gollum uses a piece of coal to make the letters on the deck, and Reader has taught him the alphabet song. Gollum’s voice sinks and rises in the air: “Ela-menna-pee. Queue-are-ess, tee-you-vee …” Over and over. I could scream.

      Gollum is quick to learn the twenty-six letters and Reader teaches him how to write his name, and short sentences. To encourage his progress, the old man has given Gollum a journal he found in the Guardian’s trunk. At the end of each day, Gollum writes an entry into what he calls his “captain’s log”. It records all the important occurrences on board, the weather, the navigational details and, of course, the captain’s keen observations of the sea. He keeps the book in a pouch strapped against his stomach. Only the captain may make entries into the log, Gollum tells me. So smug.

      Reader says Gollum is the smartest student he has ever taught. “Yes, even smarter than you, Juliet. I wonder how it is possible that this fine mind belongs to a Reject.”

      Soon Gollum will be able to read, beginning with nursery rhymes. Reader has already taught him some songs, and Gollum buckles his shoe (one, two), knocks on the door (three, four) and follows Mary and her little lamb all the way to school until I want to slaughter him and his woolly sheep. They are my rhymes. Mine.

      And now his. Next Reader will tell him fairy tales, and before I know it, this Reject thief will have stolen all of my stories.

      During the day, when Gollum sleeps, I take the helm and keep the seacraft’s course. Today, as the sun begins its descent in the bloodied sky, Reader joins me on deck.

      He places a bowl of mango and a cup of water on a crate. “Eat something, my lovely. I stewed the mango as I know you like it, with some chopped strawberry.”

      At the sight of the food, bile rises in my throat. My stomach twitches, a tumbling movement. My insides rearrange themselves. Another movement, like feathers dancing in my gut. I place my hand on my stomach and pull myself up onto the railing.

      “Perhaps, if you are not hungry, my young captain will have some mango. The rascal is always ravenous after his sleep. I declare his legs are hollow,” Reader says.

      I stare unseeing into the shimmering water and count back the days, the weeks and the months to the nights I spent with Nicolas on the roof of the warehouse, waiting to set sail. His soft hands on the base of my spine, my head on his chest. The smell of his hands in my Savage hair – strawberry and the bark of my tree. Love-in-a-Mist. Our sweat drying under the cool gaze of the one-eyed moon, the stars blinking shyly away.

      I know then: I am not sick. I am gone down the river. I have tracked the path my mother took sixteen years ago, with a different twist: I fell in love with a Posh, and in a few months I will have his child.

      Captain Gollum’s Log

      My name is Gollum

      Gollum

      Gollum

      Her name is Juliet

      Juliet

      Juliet

      Beautiful Juliet

      3

      SEA MONSTER

      Reader joins me at the railing. He blinks his gooey eyes at me and gives a shy baby-pink smile.

      “I am baffled, my lovely. I have kept faith with my books, and by all my calculations we should have reached home weeks ago. Even the storms could not have thrown us so far off course. And I do not doubt that our friend has carried out my instructions and steered the seacraft by the stars.”

      Our friend! My collar bone is healed but I still hobble about, СКАЧАТЬ