The Other Side of the Island (3 page)
Read The Other Side of the Island Online
Authors: Allegra Goodman
Tags: #Nature & the Natural World, #Social Issues, #Families, #Family, #Juvenile Fiction, #Individuality, #Fantasy & Magic, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Family Life, #Weather, #Peer Pressure, #Islands, #General, #Domestic fiction
She walked to the aquarium. Octavio was looking deeply at her. She reached out to touch the glass.
“Stop! You’ll be late,” called Mrs. Whyte. “Hurry to the door. Run.”
Honor raced outside. By the time she reached her bus, she was out of breath. She squeezed into the last seat and sank down with her head against the window. What happened if you missed the bus? She didn’t want to know. The bus rumbled down the hill and Honor closed her eyes. Maps and weather filled her mind, uniforms and rules and Mrs. Whyte and the dark-eyed octopus.
One by one, the other children got off the bus. Round and round the island the blue school bus drove. Honor drifted off to sleep.
“Last stop. Your parents are waiting.” The bus driver shook Honor roughly by the shoulder, and she stumbled down the stairs into the arms of Pamela and Will.
“How was it?”
Honor shrugged.
“Did you make any new friends?”
“No.”
“What did you learn on your first day?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that,” Will said stoutly as they walked home. The air reeked with rotting mangoes and mushy breadfruit. Only a few people lived in bungalows along the way to the Greenspoons’ development. Chain-link fences and ferocious lunging dogs defended those houses that were inhabited. A brown rat darted into the deserted street. And then, in an instant, the silent flash of a taser stunned the animal. Honor shrank back close to her parents.
“Don’t worry,” said Pamela, “the Watcher got him.”
“Our Corporation at work,” said Will.
Honor shuddered. The rat wasn’t dead yet but crazed, limping off into the open mouth of a compost bin by the side of the road. Any creature hit by a taser turned instantly to find a compost bin. That way no festering bodies littered the road.
“Do we have to be the last stop?” Honor asked.
“Yes, we have to be the last stop.” Pamela sighed.
Honor looked up at her mother. In all the times they’d moved, she had never heard her sigh like that before. It was hour six by the time the family arrived home. The sky was the color of orange sherbet.
“Look at the clouds.” Honor was puzzled. The clouds were not white, as they had been back home. They were tinted the same color as the sky. “Why are the clouds orange too?”
“Shh,” said Pamela as Will unlocked the front door.
Will tensed as he raised his hand to turn on the lights. A hulking form stood before them in the living room and another in the hall. But with a flick of the switch, fear turned to joy. The Greenspoons saw that the hulks were their own belongings. Their trunks had finally arrived from the North.
THREE
THERE WERE THREE OLD STEAMER TRUNKS STANDING IN
the house, and each had been unlocked and unpacked by the neighborhood Postal Officer. Clothes and bedding were piled neatly on the floor.
the house, and each had been unlocked and unpacked by the neighborhood Postal Officer. Clothes and bedding were piled neatly on the floor.
“My bear,” said Honor, scooping up her old worn teddy.
“My coffeepot!” her mother cried, and rushed with it to the galley kitchen.
“Oh, he’s torn,” Honor said. Her bear was badly injured, lumpy from lost stuffing.
“He’s been searched,” her father murmured, examining the ripped seam in the bear’s back. “Look at this, Pamela.”
“What were they searching for?” asked Honor.
But her parents didn’t answer.
There were sheets and blankets, pillows, clothes, dishes for the kitchen, pots and pans. There were no electronics, no computers, televisions, or books allowed in private homes, because of Safety Measures. Children could read and study books from school, and when they were old enough, they could borrow books from the school library, but there were no new books printed. There were no authors, except for Earth Mother herself. She wrote all the history books and songs and sayings. She and her Corporation Councilors wrote the laws and established Safety Stations on each block, with call buttons for emergencies. At that time in the Colonies there were no telephones in houses. This was part of building a Safe and Secure community.
Unpacking further, Will found that an old-fashioned windup alarm clock had been disassembled by the Postal Service, but it wasn’t broken too badly. There had been some family treasures: a pair of silver candlesticks and a fine silver goblet wrapped in old scratchy wool blankets. These had been taken, and only the blankets, one blue mohair and the other black and green plaid, remained.
Will and Pamela dragged two of the trunks upstairs, one for each bedroom. Standing up, the trunks were designed to serve as armoires on long ocean voyages. They were fitted out with cedar drawers on the bottom and hangers on top. One of the trunks even had its original hangers.
Will turned the third trunk on its side and made a table for the living room. As the family ate a dinner of baked beans and sausages, Honor ran her hands over the brass-studded surface of that trunk and read the strange names stuck onto it: Istanbul, Cordova. Will had found the trunks in the Port of the North, packed, and mailed the family’s possessions in them.
The air was close and sticky. The house had no temperature controls. “What are those?” Honor asked, pointing at the insects swarming the light overhead.
“I don’t know,” said her mother.
“They look like some kind of termite,” said her father. “I’m sure they’re harmless.” Even so, he turned off the light to try to stop the swarming.
Even in the house the sea air smelled like salt and fish. In the darkness Honor could hear the surf, breathing like a monster, stealing closer and closer, pummeling the shore. The tide was coming in, rough and menacing.
“It’s not safe here,” said Honor.
“We’re just as safe as we were in the North,” said Pamela.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Honor. In the North they had lived in big abandoned houses with rotting porches. Paint peeled from the walls; the roofs leaked. Honor played outside for hours. She fell asleep at night to the sound of rain plinking into the pots and pans Pamela had set up in her room. The houses stood alone on wooded islands. There were no neighbors. When Pamela saw people coming through her binoculars, she would tell Will, “We have visitors.” Then it was time to move again. They hiked down from forests to flooded fields of long grasses, the earth spongy under their feet. They hiked to stagnant seas, loaded their belongings into small boats. As her parents paddled, Honor looked down into silty water and saw little fish and, deeper, like sleeping monsters, the rusting bodies of ancient trucks.
“We need to celebrate your first day of school,” said Will. “We need a cake or some dessert.”
“I wish we had some,” said Pamela.
“We need some music,” said Will. “Where is my harmonica?”
They searched in the trunks, but the harmonica was gone. “A dangerous instrument,” said Will. Playfully, he threw the plaid winter blanket over Pamela and the blue blanket over Honor.
“We’ll suffocate!” Pamela protested. The blankets had a peculiar smell, a fascinating scent Will said was mothballs. For a few seconds the wool had a foreign coolness as well, as if it had stored up some winter in its folds.
“Snow covers the North,” Will said. “The northern lights fill the sky. Now we’re on our sled and our sled dogs are barking and jumping, ready to go. What do you say to the dogs?” he asked Honor.
“Dad,” she groaned.
“What was that? Dad? Is that what you say to them?” He tickled and tickled until Honor was collapsing with laughter.
“Mush! Mush!” she shouted at last.
Then Will and Pamela and Honor sang the old songs. Flushed in the darkness, dripping with sweat, they sang to overwhelm the sound of the surf outside. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way . . .”
Will said he would teach Honor a new song. “Over the river and through the wood,” he began, “to Grandmother’s house we go . . .”
“What’s a grandmother?” Honor asked.
Will stopped singing.
“It’s just an old woman,” said her mother.
“It’s a mother of a mother, or the mother of a father,” said Will.
Over the river and through the wood
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes
And bites the nose
As over the . . .
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes
And bites the nose
As over the . . .
“Shh! Listen.” Pamela heard the sharp rapping.
Will threw the blanket off and hurried to the door. “Who is it?”
“Neighborhood Watch.”
Will opened the door and they saw a tall white-haired man in a bathrobe and slippers.
“Michael Pratt,” the watchman said. “Your neighbor right next door. Just wanted to make sure everything was all right.” He held an official, government-strength flashlight and sent the beam dancing into every corner. Honor cried out in pain when the light shone in her eyes.
“Everything is absolutely fine,” said Pamela.
“I thought I heard singing,” said Pratt.
“Oh, that,” said Will. “We were singing lullabies to our daughter.”
Pratt’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Honor. She could see him thinking—She’s too old for lullabies. “It’s a school night,” he said. “Don’t you know it’s past hour nine?”
“Clock’s broken,” said Pamela, holding up the disassembled alarm clock.
“That’s the Postal Service these days,” Pratt said in a friend lier voice. “I’ve sent in a couple of complaints myself.”
“Really? How would we go about that?” Will asked. “We’ve got some—”
But Pratt cut him off. “You can go ahead and contact the Postal Service in the morning. For now, let’s settle down and get some sleep.”
Pratt shut the door, and in the darkness and the heat, the ocean seemed to surge louder and louder. Honor trudged upstairs to bed. Her mother followed her.
“Do you want your bear?”
“Not really,” Honor said.
Pamela propped the torn bear next to Honor on the floor.
“We never had a Neighborhood Watch before,” said Honor.
“We didn’t live in a neighborhood,” Pamela reminded her.
“Did I have a grandmother?”
Pamela looked puzzled for a moment. “Yes, I think so,” she said.
“Was she your mother?”
“She must have been,” said Pamela.
“What was her name?”
Pamela searched her memory. She closed her eyes to think, but at last she shook her head. “I wish I could remember,” she told Honor.
“Why did you forget?”
“Everyone does,” Pamela said sadly. “It’s the water we drink, the food we eat.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s late,” said Pamela, “and you have to wake up for school tomorrow.”
“Couldn’t we go back to the—”
“No,” said Pamela.
Honor did not think she could sleep with the Tranquil Sea raging right outside the window, but she was so tired her eyes closed anyway. Within five minutes she was dreaming.
She dreamed she was with her parents in the North. They were dragging their boat onto a beach covered with little pebbles. The water was clear and cold. Honor saw something move. “What’s that animal?” she asked.
“A polar bear,” her father murmured.
“No, it can’t be,” said her mother, terrified, disbelieving. “There are no polar bears anymore.”
“Don’t move.” Honor’s father held her tight as the great bear approached. His fur looked like it had once been white but now had yellowed. His body was gaunt, and he moved up on them fast.
Honor’s father threw a rock, and then another. He hit the bear with a stone. The animal was weak. Frightened, it limped toward the water.
“Go on,” said Honor’s father. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
But he’d wounded the bear. “Oh no!” Honor cried. “His stuffing is coming out!”
Sure enough, the great animal’s fur was torn, and gobs of white fluff trailed behind him in the water.
FOUR
AS THE DAYS GREW HOTTER, HONOR AND HER PARENTS
slept downstairs, because the upstairs bedrooms felt like ovens. A cooling unit cost four hundred points at the Central Store, and the Greenspoons could not afford one. Will had a job now in the City, but Pamela still had not been chosen for employment.
slept downstairs, because the upstairs bedrooms felt like ovens. A cooling unit cost four hundred points at the Central Store, and the Greenspoons could not afford one. Will had a job now in the City, but Pamela still had not been chosen for employment.
Every morning Honor woke up drenched with sweat. Even the cold water in the bath was warm. Honor stopped dragging her feet on the way to the bus stop. She stepped up into the cool bus, eager to escape the stifling salty air.
School took all of Honor’s time. Her parents were pleased that she was learning so much. She was studying geometry and graphing and statistics. She was weaving a long narrow cloth of deepest purple and lavender. She observed tiny organisms under a microscope and drew their pictures in her lab book. In archery she learned to shoot and string her bow. Her map skills were improving, although the maps she copied looked nothing like the world she used to know.
School maps showed the North shaded deep pink by Enclosure. In geography class, the Northern Islands were entirely Safe and Secure, with perfect New Weather. Mrs. Whyte showed the class pictures of emerald trees and lawns and cloudless skies. She showed films of flowers blossoming again and again in perfect sunlight.
At first Honor had trouble staying quiet when the class learned about the North, but as time went on, Honor’s memories of rain and cold and sleet began to fade. The waterways and the great pine trees slipped from her mind. Her activities at school pushed the old days from her memory, and the films she saw of the North began to replace the pictures in her mind. Only in dreams, fragments of her old home came back to her. In her dreams the trees in the North were gold, the leaves tinged copper, burnt orange, scarlet.
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