I Am Margaret (46 page)

***+***

29

RAYLE’S PASS

A bird had braved the compound walls and was singing sweetly nearby. Jon would be enjoying that. I was rather enjoying it myself. Another bird joined in.
Two
. Jon would think it was his birthday. The birds flew away. Then a bumblebee buzzed past just over my face.
What the?
Had someone left the window ajar? The others were talking and laughing, but… they sounded such a long way away. Four or five times the length of the dorm!

Eyes flying open, I stared up at blue sky. Fellest pines loomed above on one side. I turned my head—a hatchet-faced young man sat about a meter away, examining a map.

“Father Mark?”

He looked up and smiled. People were often scared of him until he smiled, he really did look like an assassin or something. Perhaps had been.

“Margaret, you’re awake.”

“Where are we?” I asked groggily.

“Near Rayle’s Pass.”

Something tightened in my stomach, where pain was growing and growing the clearer my head became, ‘til it threatened to fog it up again it was so severe.
Rayle’s Pass
. It set my nerves jangling. Horrors flitted through my head and I shied away; tried not to remember.

“I want Bane.” The childish words popped from my mouth.

“He’s just gone to check our sentries, make sure they’re looking in the right direction and all that. Don’t you worry, he won’t be a minute. He’s hardly left your side.”

A minute was too long, because the memories were pouring back into my mind—I couldn’t keep them out. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it was no use.

“
BANE!”
The cry tore from my throat, unstoppable.

Father Mark put aside his map and shifted to lay a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Easy, Margaret, it’s all right. Bane’s coming.”

There was a crashing in the undergrowth, then I saw him, sprinting through the forest as though I were being eaten by a bear. He probably thought I was. Not likely, with Father Mark sat next to me. But Bane tore up, wild-eyed, and dropped to his knees at my side.

“Margo… you’re awake, are you all right…?”

That was all he’d time for, because I was clawing my way into a sitting position.

“Don’t try and move! You’ll hurt…”

I flung myself into his arms, blind to the agony. My nose buried itself in his hair and my arms locked around him.

“Oh. There we go, then…” He eased me into his lap and settled his arms around me, encircling me, rubbing my back as I began to howl. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” He rocked me like a baby and I just wept and wept.

I’m not sure how much time passed—I just went on crying and crying and crying.

“
Margo?
Is she all right? What’s the matter with her?”

“
I think she’ll be all right.” Father Mark’s voice was soft and rather grim. “Let’s put it this way, if she
didn’t
cry,
then
I’d be worried.”

At that, Bane returned all his attention to comforting me and Father Mark presumably went back to his map. I must’ve cried myself back to sleep in the end, because the next thing I knew, I lay with my head in Bane’s lap and the shadows were lengthening.

“Bane?”

“I’m here. How are you?”

“I’m all right.” My voice sounded rather small, disappear-ing into the trees like the mist now creeping back out of the forest. “Have they searched for us yet?”

“Not yet. They shouldn’t. Plan was they’d think we’d gone with the Resistance in their trucks—be led a merry dance. And since some of us did go, they’re even less likely to realize they’ve been had.” His tone was dark.

“I thought you said no one would…”

“No one was meant to go with the Resistance, Margo,”

he said with a lack of apology that told me whatever had happened was not his fault. “But most of the boys took off with them. No loss: they were completely uncontrollable. S’pect the Resistance will make an example of one or two and the others will fall in line. Anyway, eleven boys bolted into the woods, came back when the trucks had left and asked to come with us. Fortunately, too, since we’re down as a mixed school.”

“Huh? School?” My stomach and thighs were burning. I shifted restlessly, but that made it even worse. Under the unzipped sleeping bag laid over me I was dressed in my own clothes on my top half—my bottom half was loosely wrapped in that plastic sheet. The idea of putting my jeans on… I shuddered and pain flared even more.

“Hey, don’t move. Take these…” He fed me a handful of pills, interspersed with swigs from a water bottle, pill, swig, pill, swig, pill… It went on forever.

“That’s a lot of pills, Bane,” I objected at last.

“We don’t have any painkillers up to the job. These are shop-bought types you can sorta take together. Father Mark counted them out for you. He said take them and don’t read the packets.”

“Oh…”

Wearily, I swallowed the last few and relaxed in the circle of Bane’s arms. His chest was so broad now. How long had we been apart? Four months…? It felt like forever and yet no time at all. I’d always hoped he wouldn’t fill out too
too
much and become all hulking, but this, this was fine. More than fine. Like curling up in the shelter of one’s very own protecting wall. Lovely. The pain was easing a bit. Perhaps I should renew my question about his school comment…

...The light was going... it was dusk. I blinked, disorien-tated. Why was I so tired? I suppose stress and skinning accounted for it. Bane didn’t seem to have moved.

“Are you all right there? Aren’t your legs going to sleep?”

“
I’m fine, Margo. You’re not
that
heavy. Anyway, I wasn’t going to wake you, you were sleeping like a baby. You look very pretty when you’re asleep.”

“And not when I’m awake?”

“Definitely when you’re awake too. But you don’t have that cute look on your face. Though you drool less.”

“Awww. Sorry!”

He bent his back into a U shape to kiss me.

“I’m hoping to have you drooling on me for the rest of my life, so I think I’d better get used to it.”

I had to smile. It pulled muscles on my forehead and made the cuts twinge. The smile slid from my face.

“Oh, Margo, I don’t like that shadow in your eyes. What can I do?”

“Hold me. For about a hundred years.”

His encircling arms drew me closer.

“That is the point of this whole exercise, isn’t it?”

I lay nestled to him for a little longer, then finally looked around. My eyes fell on Jon, sitting nearby, munching an unappetizing looking food bar.

“Jon! Are you okay?”

His head turned towards me and his gray-blue eyes frankly glared.

“
Me?
I’m fine. What possessed
you
to pull that crazy stunt?”

I flinched from his harsh tone. Frowned.

“Jane’s life,” I whispered.

“Well, it was crazy,” he snapped. “And you lied to me!”

“I did not!” I quavered. “I said I was going to bring up the rear and I did!”

“It was crazy!”

I hid my face against Bane’s coat. My insides trembled like jelly and my eyes burned. What was the matter with me? I seemed raw inside as well as out and I couldn’t bear his anger.

“Didn’t you realize you’d be caught! Didn’t you…”

“Quit yelling at her,” growled Bane, “or I’m going to pound you, Jon!”

“Oh, you think it was a good idea, then?”

“It was a stupid thing to do! But you were even more stupid for walking out of there without her! I can’t believe you took your eyes… ears… off her for one second, after this Jane girl was taken! Don’t you know Margo at all?”

“Not as well as you, it would seem,” snarled Jon.

“
No, you don’t! So don’t you
dare
yell at her again!”

I put a calming hand on Bane’s arm and managed to speak at last.

“It wasn’t Jon’s fault, Bane. I did trick him.”

“I didn’t say it was his fault. But if he upsets you again right now we’re going to have a falling out and that’s a fact!”

I snuggled my face into his coat and breathed in his familiar Bane smell. Heaven. Did I have the energy to try and change the subject?

“What were you saying about a school?”

“Oh, well, I’d better explain things in order. We’re going to stay here near the caves for forty-eight hours, ‘til we’re fairly sure they’re not going to search the Fellest. Caves would block infrared cameras, y’see. Then we’re going to set off on foot and walk to York.”

“York?” I drew away from his jacket so I could look up at his face. “It must be over a hundred kilometers to York!”

“Yes, a hundred kilometers of Fellest—passes, ravines, cliffs and all—no one would try to march seventy reAssignees—okay, forty-four—all the way to York, right? Think it through. They should be convinced we’re kilo-meters away with those trucks they’ll be trying so hard to find. But they’re bound to up security in all the closest towns and cities just the same. But not in York because it’s too far away. That’s why we have to go there.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry, we have everything we need. Spare sneakers and foil blankets and rations and everything. We’ll do it in a few days. And in York we’ve got school uniforms waiting, and a bus booked, and all the necessary arrange¬ments made for a school trip to the continent.”

“Where on the continent?”

“Somewhere people like you will be safe.”

There was only one place on the continent where people like us would be safe. And it wasn’t part of the EuroBloc.

“Was this all your idea?”

“Well… I talked it all through with Father Mark.”

“Wonderful, Bane,” I yawned.

“Don’t go to sleep again yet, you’d better eat something. How about some room service over here?” he called.

I lost track of a few moments then, as I waited, snug in Bane’s arms. I didn’t feel at all hungry.

“Margo?” I looked around and found Jane crouching beside us, Sarah beside her. Jane sounded unusually hesitant. “Here’s some food. Are you... okay?”

“Yeah.” I tried to sound light-hearted about it. “Teach me to run faster, huh?”

Jane didn’t smile.

“
Seriously
, Margo...
thank you
. Not just for me. For... for everyone...” she gestured, and looking further away for the first time, I saw a mass of girls and a few boys spread out at the far end of the glade, talking and eating from some sort of ration packs. “We’re free because of you.”

“It was hardly just me, Jane. And we’re not safe ye...” I broke off, with a quick glance at Sarah. “That is, we’ve a long way to go yet, you must see that.”

“
Yeah, I do. All the same, we have a chance. And you can be as modest as you like, but
you
gave it to us.”

I blushed and tried to think of something to say as Bane took the ration pack from Jane and began unpacking it.

“Okay, Margy?” asked Sarah anxiously.

“I’m fine, Sarah.” That definitely wasn’t the most honest thing I’d ever said, but it satisfied her.

“Margo?” said Bane. “There’s baked beans and sausage

—that’s supposed to be breakfast but who cares—or corned beef hash. What do you fancy?”

“Nothing.”

“
Let me rephrase that. What are you
going
to eat?”

“Oh... corned beef hash, sounds the most comfortable thing to be force-fed.”

“It actually hardly tastes any worse than the stuff back in there.” Jane jerked her head vaguely back through the trees. “Lover boy’s clearly been spoilt by home cooking.”

“Yeah,” said Bane, unrepentantly, “your mum’s cooking, Margo. My mum congratulated me on passing Sorting by saying I was an adult now so I could damn well cook for myself. That was about two months ago and your mum took pity on me, so I’ve been eating well since then.”

He added, “Actually, it worked rather well. As far as my mum could see, I was cooking for myself and your mum didn’t disillusion her. So your cousin Mark’s been well fed. In quantity though not in quality, needless to say.”

He ripped the top off one of the silvery sachets and produced a fork. “No fires, sorry. Too risky.”