The Hourglass (6 page)

“Alright, we’re
in this shit together,” said Heather, apparently forgetting that only
twenty-four hours ago she had ground Sarah’s face into the floor with her foot.
“So if any crap goes down, we have to make sure we’re on the right side.”

April coughed,
drawing Heather’s attention.

“How old are
you?” asked Heather in disgust, looking the small girl up and down. “You look
like, what, ten?”

April narrowed
her eyes slightly. “I’m thirteen.” She had not been impressed by Heather’s
grandstanding and then easy capitulation in the showers. “You stabbed a guy,
right? Let me guess, you stabbed him in the back?” The question was more a
challenge than a polite enquiry.

“In the stomach,
he was pissing me off.” The obvious implication was that April was also getting
dangerously close to pissing Heather off too, so she better watch out.

“I agree with
Heather,” said Marland, much to Sarah’s, and even Heather’s surprise. “We
should watch each other’s backs.” Marland’s hands were shaking and Sarah felt a
pang of sympathy. She felt her original plan of keeping to herself and trying
to go unnoticed shatter. Much to her surprise, she realised that she wanted
friends. What’s more, she wanted to be friends with Marland. And if they were
all looking out for each other, then maybe, she told herself, having friends
might even work out to her advantage.  Back home she had been comfortable with
being alone, here it felt like being alone was unsafe.

Sarah nodded.
“Ok, we’ll keep our ears open and eyes peeled. If anything happens we’ll let
the others know.”

Heather was
staring at them as if they were idiots. “Holy shit you guys are useless. I
meant let’s make sure that if there is crap going down, we’re on the winning
team. Not this run and hide bullshit.”

“We don’t even
know what it’s going to be like yet,” pointed out Sarah.

“I’m with you
guys,” said April, turning her back to Heather and facing Sarah and Marland,
“until we know what the deal is we watch each other’s backs.”

“Oh look, the
kiddie likes your plan,” sneered Heather, obviously irked at being
cold-shouldered. “You know what, fine. You guys go ahead and hide out together,
but groups like yours won’t last for long. You’ll need to run with the adults
eventually.” She turned on her heels and headed back towards her cell. She
looked quite pleased with herself, thought Sarah. It was probably the most
eloquent thing she had ever said. 

“So we’re agreed
then, right?” asked Marland, her hand jerking as she tried to pin an unruly piece
of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, sure,”
said April.

Sarah nodded.

Marland gave a
small, quick smile. “Right.”

They stood there
awkwardly in silence for a few more seconds before reaching an unspoken
consensus where they all returned to their cells. The next twenty minutes were
spent by Sarah nervously pacing around the cell block. There were doors on
either end of the central corridor, both closed and not responding to anything
Sarah tried. The younger girl, April, was watching her efforts mutely.

“Any bright
ideas?” asked Sarah light-heartedly, trying to stop April’s staring in the most
friendly way possible.

“There’s no way
off this ship.” April turned around and went back in to her cell. It sounded so
dismal, so final that Sarah was lost for a reply.

“Right, well I
know not to go to you for a pick-me-up,” she muttered, but she stopped fiddling
with the door and returned to her own cell as well. She figured it was close to
the time when the other inmates would return, and she didn’t want to be caught
alone and in the open when they did. After all, these were meant to be serious
criminals. With the possible exception of Heather, she didn’t think anyone in
their group met that criteria, and things hadn’t gone that well with Heather. After
brushing her teeth and making her bed she sat on it awkwardly, waiting. A moment
later she heard the door leading into the cell block open and a gaggle of voices
penetrate the air as forty-odd girls entered the room. Sarah stood up, sat back
down on the bunk, and then stood up again, not sure what to do. A girl across
the corridor screeched something about there being a new girl at the same time
as an Asian girl with black, straight hair and thick eyebrows which seemed to
be set into a permanent frown entered the cell. She paused for half a second
when she saw Sarah, then grunted.

“Great,” she
muttered to herself sarcastically, just loud enough for Sarah to hear, “like
there wasn’t enough room in here anyway.” She leaned against the bunk and
stared at Sarah with her arms crossed.

“Who are you
then?”

“Sarah,” replied
Sarah, trying to sound calm and confident and only failing in her task
slightly.

“Sarah. I’m
Gretel. This is only going to work if you mind your own business. Just because
we are sharing a cell doesn’t make us bosom buddies, you get that?”

Sarah nodded,
“yeah, sure.”

“Fabulous.”
Gretel stepped past her and into the small ensuite. The sounds of Gretel
brushing her teeth reached Sarah shortly. She slowly sat back down on her bed
and nodded to herself. She could deal with being ignored. Maybe this whole
experience wouldn’t be as bad as she feared. A voice yelled that doors were
closing in five. There was a mad rush of feet and then Sarah watched as the
transparent plastic doorway slid shut. The main lights were turned off a few
seconds later. A few small lights studded along the corridor floor remained on,
providing just enough light for someone to see inside the cells. She saw
Gretel’s outline emerge from the ensuite and climb the bunk. The bed squeaked
in protest. Sarah hoped that Gretel didn’t move around a lot in her sleep.
Indistinct voices rose up in the dark as the inmates all spoke to each other.
Despite the air holes in the transparent wall, their voices were still mostly
muffled.  Occasionally someone would press their mouth to the opening in an
attempt to have a clearer conversation with a neighbour, but for the most part
the words were difficult to decipher. She thought that she could just make out
Marland crying softly in the next cell. After a moment she slipped out of bed
and crept to the air hole closest to Marland’s.

“Marland?” she
whispered. “Marland are you ok?” She thought she heard a pause in the crying
and then Marland’s voice, quiet and wavering, floated back to her.

“I’m fine,
thanks.”

Sarah lowered
her voice even further, hoping to keep the conversation as private as possible.
“What’s your cell mate like? Has she… has she done something?”

“Nah, it’s not
that. It’s just this place, you know?”

Sarah did know.
“Yeah. Well, goodnight.”

“Night.”

As Sarah pulled
away from the wall she heard a thud, like a body slamming against the wall from
the direction of April’s cell. She leaned forward again and squinted through
the hole. She couldn’t really make out anything clearly. It was dark in April’s
cell, being the furthest away from the lights on either side of it. There was
no yell or shriek however, not even raised voices. The voices of the other
inmates, which had paused at the noise, floated back unchanged. She was about
to yell April’s name and then paused. She wasn’t even sure that it came from
April’s cell, or what the noise actually was. If she made a ruckus and roped
April into it she might even make things worse. Slowly, and keeping an ear out
for any other strange noises, she returned to bed. For a long time she just lay
there, slowly tracing the shape of the burn on her wrist. It still hurt.   

The Queen

Sarah woke up
early the next morning. There was a frustrating absence of windows to the
outside world for her to estimate the time from, but the sounds of heavy
breathing and soft snores escaping from the cells around her assured her that
it was still early. After failing to fall back asleep she got up, used the
toilet and brushed her teeth before returning to lie on her bunk and wait for
everybody else to wake up. She wished that someone had prepared her for all of
this. She supposed that the court-assigned councillor might have done so if he
had known that she would end up on the
Anoscosa
. But who would have
guessed that stealing a pie would have resulted in her ending up here? It was
ridiculous that she was even on this ship. The idea of her tanning to a soft
brown while she worked on a farm seemed extremely appealing as she lay there on
a metal ship devoid of sunlight. After what seemed like an age the lights
flickered on and a loud ringing noise was played throughout the ship’s speaker
system. There was a loud communal groan and a few half-hearted curses were
flung at the alarm, and then the sounds of forty-odd girls getting up in the
morning spread throughout the block. Gretel rolled off her top bunk and landed
on her feet almost silently. Without a word she headed straight to the
bathroom. She emerged a couple of minutes later and somehow, Sarah silently
marvelled, not a single hair was out of place. At almost the exact same time
that Gretel exited the bathroom the transparent door to their cell slid open
and Gretel exited the cell without breaking her stride or sparing Sarah a
single glance. Sarah got up and followed her out of the cell. All of the girls
were heading towards the door they had entered through yesterday. Some joined
others and exchanged bleary morning greetings and some girls kept to
themselves. Sarah felt someone move up quickly behind her and she swivelled,
tense and ready for whatever might happen. A sigh of relief escaped her as she
realised it was just Marland. 

“Morning,” said
Marland. Sarah turned to look at her. She was still making agitated movements
with her hands, and her eyes still flickered around the room, but she wasn’t
trembling anymore and there was almost a smile on her face.

“Morning. How’s
your roommate?”

“Actually,
better than I thought. She was a bit, um, well that’s her,” she said, pointing
towards a hulking mass of a girl with greasy hair, “if you know what I mean,
and it was a bit terrible at first, but then she found out that I burned down
that shed and she became totally sympathetic. Bit of a fire-bug herself,”
Marland added with a crooked smile.

“Right.” Sarah
couldn’t believe that she was in a place where arson, something that killed
people, was used as a bonding point. Surreptitiously she pinched her arm in the
mad hope that she would wake up surrounded by normal, sensible people. It didn’t
work.

“How’s yours?”
enquired Marland politely.  

“She’s ignoring
me.”

“Probably not a
bad thing?” Marland suggested.
“My thoughts exactly.”

They were nearly
at the door now and had reached a slight bottle-neck as the girls slowed down
to pass through. Sarah took this opportunity to stand on her tiptoes and swivel
around so that she was looking behind them.

“What are you
doing?”

“Looking for
April. Hey did you hear something last night? Like a thud that came from her
cell?”

Marland
shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m not sure it was April’s.”

“Yeah,” said
Sarah softly, “same here.”

The flow of
girls carried them through the door, down a corridor and up a set of stairs. A
guard was standing next to the stairs to make sure that they all went up and
not further along the corridor. Sarah turned around again, hoping to catch
sight of April, and saw that a guard had appeared at the rear end of the group
and was herding the slow walkers onwards. April was still nowhere in sight. At
the top of the stairs there was a short corridor that ended in a set of double
doors flung wide open. They walked through to find themselves in a large room with
tables and benches bolted down at regular intervals. Along one side of the room
was a buffet style breakfast set-up. The boys had apparently arrived earlier
than the girls, because most of them were already in line, waiting to be
served. Sarah wondered if this was planned and they were woken up earlier, or
if they simply had a shorter distance to travel. She spotted Finn fairly easily
because of his white hair, but he was deep in conversation with Justin and
didn’t see her. They joined the line along with the rest of the girls. It was
all surprisingly civilised. Occasionally one of the girls would branch off and  join
up with a boy and vice versa. Once she got to the front of the line a pimply,
bored looking boy served Sarah some horrible looking porridge and a glass of
rehydrated milk. She looked at it dismally and moved on. Marland joined her
shortly afterwards and they found a table that had nobody sitting at it. Sarah
glanced around.

“There’s
actually not that many of us,” she noted, “I mean look at all those empty
tables. Clearly the ship was designed for more people.”

“So?” asked
Marland, pulling a face as she ate her breakfast.

“Nothing, I just
mean, well, you hear of people getting sent away all the time, don’t you? So
where are they?”

“Probably where
we’re meant to be, on those farms.”

“Yeah,” mumbled
Sarah, unconvinced, “maybe.”

“That or they
were thrown overboard for some infringement.”

Marland looked
like she was about to expand on this more but Sarah wasn’t listening. She had
been scanning the crowd again for April, only this time she found her. April
was hovering at the back of the food line. Without knowing why Sarah felt comforted.
Turning back to the table she tackled her food, consuming it at a steady rate
and trying not to think too hard about what exactly was put into it to make it
taste that way.

“Ghastly, isn’t
it?” said a voice at her shoulder. She glanced up to see Finn standing next to
her, looking miserably at the contents of his own tray. He shook his head and
then sat down at an empty seat uninvited.

“Good night?” asked
Sarah. For no particular reason that she could identify she felt a happy
flutter in her stomach.

“Not bad. My
cell mate is in solitary at the moment, so that should be a fun little meeting
when he gets out.” Sarah pulled a face in sympathy. “So,” went on Finn,
changing the subject so as to not dwell on his cell mate, “how did Mr Wall
treat your lot?”

“He actually
seems quite ok,” replied Sarah. “Better than the woman who replaced him at any
rate. She pulled out a chunk of Heather’s hair. Although to be fair, it was
Heather,” she added, as if that somehow made it ok. “How was Mr Painter?”

“An absolute
bastard. Toddy made a crack about his name, asked him something about
redecorating the cell. Painter grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head
against the wall. It was fairly nasty. He got sent to the infirmary when he
wouldn’t stop bleeding. Haven’t seen him back yet though.”

 “Well it’s not
like he can go anywhere, we’re in the middle of the ocean!” twittered Marland.
She laughed nervously and then trailed off when the others didn’t join in.

Justin, the tall
boy with the floppy hair who got electrocuted on the first day sat down next to
Finn. “He just came back,” he said, nodding over at the back of the food line.

They all looked
over. A massive bruise covered one side of Toddy’s face and there was still
some dried blood stuck in his hair. He looked miserable. Sarah turned around
and scanned the crowd.

“What you looking
for?” asked Justin, his mouth full of food.

“Just, ah,
trying to find Colt,” said Sarah, still searching the room. Her cheeks pinkened
slightly.

Finn pulled a
face. “Why?”

Sarah shrugged.
“I don’t know. We all came over together, right? It just seems like we should
keep an eye out for each other.”

Finn snorted.
“Colt can handle himself. Besides, he’s a bit of a tosser.”

“What?” asked
Sarah, startled. “Why do you say that?”

Before he could
reply a large shadow fell across the table. They all looked up to see Marland’s
huge cell mate towering above them. “Oh, hello Tandy,” said Marland nervously.

“She’s waiting
for you lot,” replied Tandy, looking at Marland and Sarah. Her voice was flat
and without inflection.

Marland just
made a few nervous noises, so Sarah asked who was waiting for them.

“The Queen.”

Sarah snorted in
amusement but stopped quickly after seeing the looks on the other’s faces.
Marland looked terrified and even Finn look a little concerned. Her stomach
dropped. These were not good reactions.

“Who’s the Queen?”
she demanded quickly.

“Let’s go, now.”
Tandy grabbed Marland’s arm and gently stood her up. Sarah followed suit
slowly, giving Finn enough time to explain before Tandy could make her leave.

“She’s sort of
like the leader of the girls,” muttered Finn. “The boys have something similar.
Don’t cross her, Sarah. She controls everything that happens on the girls’ side
of things. Just shut up and be polite, ok?”

Sarah frowned
but Tandy had grabbed her arm and was propelling her forward before she could
reply. They were led to a table near the front of the hall. On one side sat
Heather and April, looking timidly across at the girl who sat in the middle of
the bench opposite them. Sarah hesitated, confused. Surely this couldn’t be
her, the girl who had caused those reactions from her friends. The girls looked
far younger than Sarah had imagined. She was maybe fourteen, with a perfect
porcelain face and a slim, childish figure. She was sitting in the middle of
the bench. The girl looked up at them as they approached and Sarah finally realised
why those around her looked unsettled. Her eyes looked dead. Sarah had never
seen anything more cold, more soulless, more unalive in her life. The pupils,
uncomfortably large in their pale grey irises assessed the two of them them in
a cool, calculating manner. Sarah felt as if every inch of her was evaluated
for worth and weighed. She didn’t fancy that she ranked highly, although it was
impossible to tell from the Queen’s expression. It was eerily similar to the
warden’s assessment yesterday, although Sarah fancied that they gave weight to
different values. Tandy motioned for them to sit down next to Heather and
April, which they did, squeezing together so that they all fit onto the same
bench. The Queen’s eyes slid back towards the first person on the bench
opposite her.

“Name.” Her
voice was devoid of emotion, but softly high-pitched at the same time and oddly
melodic. It was a question but she didn’t state it as one.

“Heather.”

“Full name.”

 Heather
Grimmer.”

“Reason.”

“Er, reason?”
repeated Heather nervously. All of her old bluster was gone.

“Why are you
here?” clarified the Queen, a mote of impatience creeping into her voice.

“Oh, right, or
course. I stabbed a man. He robbed me.”

“And?”

“Um, and he
died.” A tiny bit of pride crept back into Heather’s voice.

Sarah felt
slightly sick. Not a muscle twitched on the Queen’s face. Her eyes slid to
April.

April didn’t
need to be prompted. She spoke quickly and quietly. “April Upton. I sold black
market fruit.” 

“You should be
on the farm.”

“There was a
bomb. They couldn’t transfer any new prisoners there.”

The dead eyes
slid towards Sarah. She too had learnt from Heather’s mistakes. “Sarah
Underhill. I stole food.” The eyes lingered for half a second longer than was
comfortable before sliding onto Marland. Marland was by this time a mess. Her hands
were trembling so much that she had clutched them together under the table in
an attempt to stop them. Unfortunately for Marland, all this achieved was to
send the tremor further up her arms, so that her shoulder’s looked like they
were participating in a weird little dance that her head wanted no part of.

“Marland
Banker,” she squeaked, a little too loud and a little too fast. “I burnt down
my mother’s shed because things were shit. Oh god, sorry,” she started to
breath in short, fast gasps, “I shouldn’t have sworn. Sorry.” The Queen had
looked away before Marland had even finished, apparently uninterested. She made
a small, smooth motion with her head and suddenly Tandy appeared, looming over
them.

“You can go
now,” said Tandy. They all got up and left as quickly as they could without
actually running away.

“What happened?”
asked Finn and Justin in unison as they sat back down at the table.

“She was just
sussing us out I think,” replied Sarah. “How did you even know about her?”

“I told you, we
have something similar,” replied Finn. He calls himself the King, and I was
told the girls have their own version.”