Heart of Danger (16 page)

A
lone again as the train headed north, I thought about how good it had been to catch up with Shallym. I was surprised at how happy I’d been to see Jidda and Biddo too. Who would have imagined that? Not me, that’s for sure. They were the two boys none of us girls wanted to marry. They were nice enough, but any girl they fell in love with would need a computer chip for a heart.

Paz was different – and firmly attached to Silvern. Yin was okay too – and would marry Shallym unless one of them fell for somebody else, which seemed unlikely. Fortun and Dreeda would probably become a couple. Rynd and Brex could possibly get together. So who would I have married? Strange as it was to contemplate, in the end it came down to Marba. We’d have driven each other to the edge of fury and beyond. I did love him – just not enough to be able to live with him. I didn’t have a clue how he felt about me. I laughed aloud. Marba didn’t bother trying to work out trivial things such as the state of one’s heart. To be more accurate, he just wouldn’t understand the emotions involved.

I jerked upright in my seat – I hadn’t given Ivor a thought all day. Or the day before. I reached back into my memory, but couldn’t recall even a fleeting pain. I groaned to myself. Was I the sort of girl who could fall out of love just as easily as she fell into it?

Surely it would have been different if I’d just been at home. I’d been busy, a lot had been happening. Yet I couldn’t escape the fact that over the past few days my heart had stopped aching. I felt kind of cheated. How could a person be so desperately, totally and completely in love one week, and so out of it the next?

I wriggled in the seat, trying to get comfortable, trying to accept that I was the sort of girl who fell in and out of love. I decided to talk to Leebar about it. She’d tell me the truth without worrying whether it might hurt me. I hoped she’d yell at me. I hoped she’d say something like
For goodness sake, Juno. You’re fourteen. This is Outside. It’s life. Get used to it.

What advice would she give Vima and Jov? I shook my head, I definitely wouldn’t ask her that. She’d probably say they’d made their bed and now they had to lie on it. Together? That was the big question. As was whether Vima would meet Jov again today, and whether she’d tell James if she did. I got out my
History of New Zealand
. It turned out to be an enthralling way to keep my mind away from questions of love.

 

My family, wet from walking in the rain, were all at the station to meet me. They fired questions at me immediately: how was Sina? Who does Jovan look like? Is Vima doing okay? How is Wilfred? Did you see Aspa?

‘No, I didn’t. He’s only just found out he’s got the Wellington job. He won’t be there for a month yet.’

Hera, meantime, looked as if she was fit to burst with news of her own. ‘My brother is coming to see me,’ she announced.

I checked with the adults to make sure this was something they all knew, not another of Hera’s predictions. Mother smiled. ‘Yes, he contacted us this morning. He’s coming this evening.’

And there was another surprise when we got home. Mother led me to a bedroom of my own. ‘You don’t need to keep watch over Hera any longer,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your own room now.’

I threw my bag on the bed and gazed about me. ‘This is great! Thanks, Mother.’

She looked pleased. ‘Leebar helped me with the curtains and bedcover. The grandfathers made the desk and chair.’ She turned me round, her hands on my shoulders. ‘You are all right? You’ve stopped grieving for Ivor?’

I didn’t want to talk about it so I just said, ‘Yeah. And now I feel really dumb.’

‘Better than feeling desperately unhappy,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s make biscuits so we can have them when Simon Anders arrives.’

He came after we’d had dinner, bouncing in like a puppy, even though he had a bald head and a beard. Hera regarded him in silence for about half a minute, then she asked, ‘Are you Father Christmas?’

Who? Mother and I looked at each other, puzzled. But Leebar laughed. ‘Has Atarangi been telling you about Christmas, Hera?’

She kept her eyes on Simon. ‘She said Father Christmas has a white beard.’ She frowned. ‘Why haven’t you got red clothes?’

Simon squatted down to talk to her. ‘I’m not Father Christmas, Hera. He’s much more mysterious than I am. But look! I did bring you a present.’ He stood up, wincing as if his knees ached. He took something out of his shirt pocket. ‘This is for you. It belonged to our mother.’

He held out a brooch. It was shaped like an M and was set with sparkling stones.

Hera looked at it, then she took it and gave Simon one of her blinding smiles. ‘It’s pretty. I like it.’

He pinned it onto her tee-shirt. ‘There! A pretty brooch for a pretty girl.’

We gave him tea and still-warm biscuits while he told us about Margaretta and the rest of his family. All the time he kept his eyes on Hera. He’d shake his head every so often as if he couldn’t believe he was looking at his half-sister.

His family history, though, suggested no hint of the sort of abilities she possessed. ‘Smart, but ordinary,’ was his summary.

I reported back to my stratum later that evening.

‘Disappointing,’ Fortun said, ‘but not the end of it. There’s still her father’s history to unravel.’

But Biddo hadn’t had any luck with tracing any of his descendants. ‘He mightn’t have had kids. Nobody’s responded to the query I put up on the web.’

We talked about it some more, then Silvern switched topics. ‘Earth calling Marba! Are you present? Are you breathing? You’ve been mighty quiet tonight.’

He looked all right, the same old Marba, but when he spoke he didn’t sound at all like himself. He wasn’t decisive, he wasn’t alert and he definitely wasn’t focused. ‘Um yeah, sorry. I’m here. It’s just …’

Brex clapped her hands. ‘It’s a girl! Marba – you’re in love!’

‘I’m not. I can’t be. But you’re right, it is a girl.’ He sounded more like himself if you discounted the uncertainty. ‘I can see clearly that we’re not right for each other, but I can’t stop thinking about her.’

‘Man up, Marba!’ Rynd said, laughing at him. ‘Just ask her out. Get to know her. She might surprise you.’

‘The thing to remember,’ I said, ‘is that she won’t expect to marry you if you ask her out.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. It would be so dishonest. I
know
we’re not right for each other.’

‘If tonight’s anything to go by,’ Paz said, ‘your mind’s going to be so all over the place that you’ll fail school. You won’t know till you try.’

All thirteen of us urged him to talk to her, ask her out.

Paz said, ‘Hey, man – you don’t want to be the only one of us not to finish school next year. You gotta do something.’

‘Get to know her,’ Rynd repeated. ‘What’s so awful about her, anyway?’

Marba sighed. ‘Nothing’s wrong with her. But we’re not right for each other.’ Then he recited a list, making it sound as if he repeated it to himself a million times a day. ‘She’s illogical. She can’t keep her mind on the same thing for more than thirty-four seconds. She …’

‘You’ve timed her?’ Dreeda screeched. The rest of us didn’t say anything for trying not to laugh.

‘Of course. I had to prove to myself that my suspicions were correct,’ Marba said.

Silvern was the first of us to get her laughter under control. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s take another approach. Tell us why you can’t get her out of your head. Is she pretty? Does she have a fabulous body?’

He glared from the screen. ‘I’m not that shallow. Yes, she’s pretty. I guess. I don’t know why I can’t get her out of my head. It’s beyond logic. I just can’t work it out. She’s always laughing. She’s got a hundred friends – except me. She doesn’t even like me.’

‘How can you tell?’ Pel asked. ‘Has she said so?’

‘She doesn’t have to.’ He rubbed his hands through his hair again and again – most unlike Marba to do that. ‘Every time she sees me, she says
Lighten up, bro
.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ Silvern sounded authoritative as usual, but there was sympathy in her bossiness too. ‘Here’s what you do. Are you listening, Marba?’ She waited until he nodded and stopped clawing at his hair. ‘Right. You’re going to tell her you want to walk her home so that the two of you can talk. Then you’re going to tell her you like her. Then you’re going to explain how courtship worked on Taris. Next you’re going to say you’d like to ask her out but you feel dishonest about it because of what that meant on Taris.’ She stopped, but he didn’t say anything. ‘Have you got all that? Repeat it!’

His memory and focus were intact – he repeated her instructions perfectly. ‘Yes. Okay. Thanks. I think.’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Pel said.

We wished him luck.

‘And we’ll expect an update this time tomorrow,’ Wenda told him.

We logged off, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Marba. He hadn’t said what the girl’s name was. I tried calling him again.

‘Hi there, friend,’ I said. ‘You didn’t say what her name is.’

‘Clementine Brooking.’ He looked no happier for having talked with us.

‘I don’t know if this will help,’ I said, ‘so tell me to shut up any time.’ I so didn’t want to talk about Ivor, but I owed Marba heaps. ‘I’ve been thinking about this Outside life. I think I fell for Ivor because he was different from all you guys. When he started holding my hand and —’ I decided to skip the kisses, ‘well, I just raced ahead and had us in love, married and living happily ever after Taris style.’

He was frowning, but it looked to me like a thinking frown, so I kept quiet, and eventually he said, ‘So what you’re saying is, it’s different now so we have to be different too?’

‘Yeah. It’s pretty scary, I reckon.’

‘Scarier than facing up to old Zagan?’ Marba asked, sounding much more like himself.

‘Different scary,’ I said. ‘You try asking her out, talking to her. You’ll see. Scary and wheee! You’ll be flying.’

‘With the probability of crashing.’ He stopped to think some more. ‘That clarifies things. Thanks, Juno. I’ll report all injuries.’

He logged out. Funny old Marba – he was so certain Clementine wasn’t the right one for him. Illogical! Unfocused! That was so funny.

I didn’t tell my family about Marba and Clementine, and none of the others would talk either. Which made me wonder what secrets other strata held to themselves. Did Vima talk to Creen, Prin and the other girls in her stratum and tell them things she kept hidden from everyone else? One day, when she and Jov had worked things out, I might ask her.

But before I could talk to her again, I would have to talk to Thomas. I felt sick even thinking about it. I didn’t need Marba to tell me it was illogical to blame Thomas for his father’s deeds – I knew it was, but it felt to me as if Hilto was lurking on the edges of his son’s mind with poison as his weapon. I tried yet again to see Thomas for what he was – a rather irritating kid. I’d never seen any hint of Hilto’s evil in him and there wasn’t a scrap of evidence to support my suspicions about him. Yet every time he came near me I felt a dangerous darkness.

I so didn’t want to explore what the dark might hold, but thanks to the spur-of-the moment promise I’d made Vima I would have to. And so, on Monday afternoon, instead of going with my class to work, I asked Jethro if I could work with Thomas. ‘Somewhere we can talk. Please?’

He did a quick scan – checking, I guessed, if I was sincere and not trying to dodge today’s chicken slaughter. ‘Very well. You can start clearing the ditch in the east paddock.’ He yelled for Thomas. ‘Over here, Thomas. I’ve got a job for you.’

Thomas bounced. Must be something in the air of New Plymouth that made people bounce. ‘Hey, cool, Juno! Are you going to tell me about Taris?’

I handed him a spade but I kept the machete. ‘Nope. We’re going to talk about your father. But not till we get there. Okay?’

He wasn’t delighted, and stomped off ahead of me, muttering loudly enough for me to hear. I didn’t listen.

When we got to the east paddock, I chucked down the machete, took the spade from him and said, ‘Sit. We’re going to talk, not work.’

‘Suits me.’ He lay on his back in the grass and shut his eyes.

‘Sit up, Thomas. We’ve got work to do and it’s not ditch clearing.’

‘You’re bossy,’ he grumbled. ‘You’re not nice either. Not like the Silver girl.’

Fair enough – but too bad. ‘Listen, this is why I don’t like talking to you: I’m still scared stiff of your father.’

He scowled at me. ‘That’s so dumb! My father’s dead. I didn’t like him. He was mean and horrible. You just don’t like me. Well, I don’t care. So there.’ He scrambled to his feet.

I yanked his shirt to make him sit down again. ‘Shut up and listen.’ I should have thought this out first. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s dumb. I know your father’s dead. But how about we try to find out why I’m still really scared of him whenever I’m around you? Will you give it a go?’

He stared at me unblinking and gradually his mouth turned down in a sneer. ‘You’re so up yourself, Juno of Taris. You think you know everything. You think you’re so great. You’re just one big pain in the ass.’ He jumped up again, and this time I didn’t try to stop him leaving. I heard the words he yelled when he was halfway over the paddock. ‘I’m
glad
I scare you. So suck on that, loser!’