Out There (9 page)

Before I knew it, all five of us were on the tram heading towards the furthest part of the city. The carriage was completely deserted and the others were practically falling asleep on each other. When we reached our stop I had to peel them off the seats and almost carry them out of the tram.

We crossed the street and walked along the row of houses until we found an opening. It was a tiny alley, only big enough to walk through sideways. We slipped through one by one and I received several complaints from the others about the whole thing being unreasonable.

Behind the last row of houses was grass and a few trees scattered around. When I looked over my shoulder I noticed that there weren't any windows at the back of any of the houses.

Quietly, the five of us walked across the grass until we reached a thick row of hedges.

“You sure this is it?” Jade asked.

“Yeah, I can see the Bubble wall behind it.” I pointed for them to look.

They all followed my finger and sure enough there was a glowing clear wall curving up from behind the hedge. I forced my way through the thick bushes and the others followed suit. On the other side was just grass for about two metres and one short but thick tree off to the left. The Bubble was very visible in the night, like holding up a piece of glass, yet it seemed to radiate a clear light. The only thing was that the other side appeared to be just darkness.

It was so close that it felt unreal and I lifted my hand out to stroke the clear glowing matter in front of me.

“Don't touch it!” Jade slapped my hand away. “How do you know it won't do something weird?”

“Like what? Explode?”

“I don't know…”

“How are we meant to get through it anyway?” Lexi asked.

“Ava said she had it all figured out.” Katelyn turned to me.

“Right, Ava?”

“See… the thing about that is…”

“You don't even know how to get through!” Lexi exclaimed.

“Well, I do.” They were all staring at me. “I just don't at the same time.”

They all groaned and sat on the floor.

“Can we go back to sleep now?” Jade yawned.

“Just give me a second.”

I searched around the empty ring of grass that stretched for miles on both sides. I assumed that it probably looped around the entire edge of the Bubble, but this was one of the closest spots we could find to it. The other side of the city was all buildings for city robot storage.

Soon I spotted a small rock lying on the ground next to the tree. I picked it up and slowly turned it over in my hands. Then in flash I threw it at the Bubble wall with as much force as possible.

“Ava, no!”

But the little rock glided right through the Bubble without hesitation. The others all stared open-mouthed.

“So I'm thinking that maybe the Bubble isn't really meant to keep out wild animals,” I said, grinning. “Come on, let's go.”

I had to drag some of them off the ground, but soon we were all lined up facing the Bubble, our faces only centimetres away.

“So, who wants to go first?”

“I think that maybe you should go first, Ava, seeing as this was all your idea,” Jade decided and the others nodded in agreement.

I looked over at them then back at the Bubble. “All right, here goes nothing.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I closed my eyes and leapt. It felt like flying for a split second then I landed on solid ground. Opening my eyes, I just saw more grass and it stretched on in front of me for a few metres before reaching thick trees up ahead.

I turned and saw that the wall of the Bubble was similar to how it looked on the inside except it drifted between images of grass stretching on forever and my friends standing on the other side. Like a semi-transparent border. I saw their faces searching for something.

“It's OK, you can come through!” I yelled out to them.

Katelyn jumped. “I think I just heard Ava.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm OK! Come through!”

“There she is again. I think she's OK.”

“Oh yeah, hi Ava!” Jade waved slightly to the right of me.

“Come through everyone!”

“Well, here I go.” Katelyn jumped up and flew through the Bubble.

“Katelyn!” I ran over to her. “See? It worked!”

She looked around in shock. “Wow, I can't believe it.”

Then Lexi came running out of the wall squealing with delight, “This is so cool!”

Jade and Bri popped out a moment later, linking arms. “Did we make it? Are we alive?” Jade still had her eyes squeezed shut.

“Yes, Jade, you're OK.”

She opened her eyes and looked around. “This is not at all what I was expecting.”

“Shall we continue?” I gestured to the trees in front of us. “But how will we find our way back?” Bri bit at her nail. “I've got it all figured out, trust me.”

“Ava!” they all yelled.

“I do this time!” I exaggerated slightly.

“You better.”

“All right, we came all the way here so let's just go.” Katelyn began to walk towards the trees.

The others all followed her and I saw Lexi skipping around and laughing while Jade and Bri were practically tiptoeing. It was funny to see Jade looking so petrified when she had always put on the act of being fearless.

“Hey Jade, you OK?”

She whipped round, still clinging to Bri. “Geez Ava, don't creep up on me like that.”

“Since when do you get scared?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Who said anything about scared?” And with that she stormed off, Bri in tow.

Once we reached the trees, our surroundings turned into dense forest with trees and moss overgrown around ruins of roads and collapsed buildings. We carefully manoeuvred around chunks of concrete and large fallen trees. It was a complete mess.

Lexi was running around with Katelyn, laughing and dancing around the trees. Soon Jade and Bri began to loosen up a bit too.

“How come this feels so liberating?” Lexi gasped through pants.

“Because you're doing something you shouldn't,” I replied. “Huh?”

“Don't you remember?”

She shook her head.

“Ages ago, before we specialised, they taught us that at a certain point we would have urges to do things we weren't supposed to.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, they said it was just the way things work.”

“So why don't we do this more often?”

“Because, Lex, our mothers don't want you to go against them obviously, so they encourage you not to.”

“But this is so fun!” she yelped and did a little dance around Jade.

“Whoa, watch it,” Jade said, shoving her to the side.

“Come on Jade, run with me!”

“I don't think that's such a good idea.” But Lexi had already dragged her ahead.

After a while the ruins vanished and we were just wandering through masses of trees. Then something incredible happened.

“What was that?” Jade jumped.

“What was what?”

“I just felt something fall on me.”

“Like what?”

“Like water…”

Soon little drops of water came falling from the sky. They landed with little splashes and each gave a sigh as it made contact with the earth. Some formed as tiny bubbles on the leaves and I felt them drip down my face and land in my hands. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

“What is this?” I breathed.

“Is it dangerous?” Jade was brushing the droplet off her arms.

“I think it's OK,” I said, spinning round.

The tiny beads of water fell on my face and hair. It was magical.

We all danced in it as it gradually became stronger and stronger until water was pouring from the sky like a giant shower. My hair was wet and clinging to my cheeks and my clothes were drenched as well.

“This is getting a bit strong,” Katelyn said.

“Maybe we should get out of it.”

“How?”

I looked around for a dry spot. “Let's stand under that tree over there.”

The five of us ran and huddled under the protective branches of the tree. As we waited in silence I thought about the water that fell from the sky. How come I had never seen it before? It was amazing. Maybe it was a phenomenon only found in this special spot. Then I thought
how would we get home if it never ended?

“I think the water stopped,” Bri whispered.

I crept out from under the tree and sure enough the water was gone. There were pools of it on the grass and the dirt had turned sloppy.

“I suppose we should turn back now.” Katelyn walked out from under the tree as well.

“OK,” Lexi sighed in disappointment.

“Before we go, can we just rest for a moment?” Bri asked. I looked over and saw her yawning. “Sure Bri, you can sit on this fallen tree.”

She threw herself down and rested her head in her hands. Jade, Katelyn and Lexi followed suit. I looked out at where we were; it was dark, but light was peeking in on the horizon. I went over and sat next to Katelyn on the tree.

“That was incredible!” Lexi exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.

“What do you think it was?” Bri asked, sitting up.

“I don't know, I've never seen water fall from the sky before,” Jade replied, lying down on the grass.

“Well, whatever it was, it was amazing,” I sighed, thinking back to the little drops.

“Yeah, but now I'm all wet,” Jade groaned.

“I think we should mark the occasion.” Katelyn stood up.

“How?”

She untied the thin pink ribbon from her hair and walked over to the tree. “I'm going to mark our tree so we never forget the place where water fell from the sky.”

“Do you think it will ever come back?”

“Well, at least this way we know where it happened so we can celebrate.” She reached up to thread the ribbon around the lowest branch.

“Celebrate being drenched in water?” Jade shivered as she spoke.

“No, celebrate doing something wild and crazy that turned out to be extremely fun.” She tied it tight and stepped back to look at her handiwork.

“And this can be our spot!” Lexi exclaimed.

“Our
secret
spot. No one can know we came,” I warned.

“Of course. Who knows what they would do to us if we told,” Lexi agreed.

I looked over at the little pink ribbon swaying on the branch. “So, will you all be willing to come back again?” I asked hopefully.

“Maybe at a reasonable hour,” Katelyn teased.

I laughed and hugged her tight.

The light was beginning to filter in gradually and everyone's faces were becoming clearer. We all sat in silence, breathing in our surroundings. I thought I heard Jade snoring after a while.

“Honestly, I don't know why we can't come out here,” Lexi broke the silence.

I scanned the endless masses of trees. “It looks safe to me.” “Well then, why would the city put up a big Bubble over us all? It must be for a reason,” Katelyn added.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Because the city never does anything without a reason.”

“Like what?”

“Think about it. Everything in our lives is only there because we need it.”

Lexi thought for a moment. “Well, what about the theatre? We don't
need
that.”

“But we do,” Katelyn said matter-of-factly.

“How? We would survive without going there, right?” Lexi turned to me and I nodded in agreement.

“Imagine a life without entertainment, you would get so bored that you wouldn't be able to keep your sanity.”

“What about the archives?” Lexi was determined to prove her wrong.

“We need those too.”

“Why do we need to look at old books and pieces of the past?”

“I need to!” I burst in.

Katelyn laughed. “Because if we forgot about our heritage and our past then how would we be able to move on in the future and learn from it?”

Lexi chewed her lip.

“And Lexi, you study Movement history, don't you of all people agree that we need to honour the women that brought on our freedom? If we destroyed the records of them then they would cease to be honoured.”

“OK fine, but what about the Bubble? What's the point of that?”

“You know.”

“Oh, but I don't.” Lexi crossed her arms and pretended to look confused.

“To keep out toxic gases.”

Lexi looked around, then gave a sly grin. “Well, if we need it to keep out toxic gases then how come we're still able to breathe out here?”

Katelyn's eyes widened and she looked around in shock. “Wow! I thought they said we would die if we lived outside the Bubble.”

“So my point remains, we don't need it.”

“Yes, we do, though.”

Lexi let out an exasperated sigh. “In what way?”

“To keep out wild animals.”

“Do you see any wild animals?”