The Woodlands (4 page)

I exited his office quickly
, but not before I heard him snort. He had me pegged. Menial, meaningless labor for Rosa.

I ran out the door, dragging my bag along the ground, listening to it scrape and pick up the loose dirt.
After I scanned my wrist, the gates opened, uttering my name in a computerized drone. Stepping outside the school grounds, I dropped my bag on the pavement. I closed my eyes and held my face to the sky. Opening them, I stared at the stars appearing, each one twinkling with scornful liberty. I pretended just for a second that I wasn’t surrounded by walls and locked gates, that where I stood was as open as the sky overhead, then I returned my eyes to reality and dragged my sorry existence back to my so-called home.

I managed to sneak in just as they were getting ready for bed. Mother looked to me quickly out of the corner of her eyes, concern brimming over her black lashes before Paulo snapped at her to come to bed, joyfully adding that he had thrown out my dinner. The appearance of concern was about all I was going to get from her. Actions required confidence, and maybe bravery. She had neither of those. Did she think that a sorrowful look was enough to convey some sort of feeling for me? What a joke.

“
If you’re not going to get here on time, then we are not going to save dinner for you. Rosa, you need to learn respect,” the bedroom doorway stated.

My stomach grumbled and I put my hand to it, quickly reminded of how tender it was from the punch earlier. I made a point of
poking my head in the door, flipping my hair back, and smiling at him. “It’s fine, Paulo. I’m not hungry anyway.” I strolled deliberately to my bedroom.

I stripped
off quickly, not even wanting to look at the bruise I knew was blossoming over the dark brown skin of my stomach. I was like an ill-adorned Signing Day tree. Blue and purple blobs decorated my skin in a grotesque pattern; lash marks ran across my back, linking like plastic tinsel. I sighed. Was the principal right? Was I bound for a life of mopping toilets or emptying garbage cans? Had I given up? It seemed to me to give up you first had to give in to something. I had no ambitions, no idea what I wanted out of my life, only that I uncontrollably tumbled from one bad event to another.

I pulled on my nightdress and climbed into my rickety old bed, pulling the thin yellow covers up to my chin. Maybe things could be differen
t. I could try harder at school. I could stop getting into trouble. It wasn’t too late for me. I giggled humorlessly as I realized what a ridiculous thought that was. And I gave in to it. To the fact that I was a troublemaker and tomorrow I would most likely do it all over again, in another way, in another place, but it would always be the same. Nothing changes.

When I woke up the next morning, the greyness still offended my eyes as it had the day before. I wondered if other people ever got used to it. Did they crave difference the way I did? I peeked out my door to see if my parents were still having breakfast and was startled when Paulo rapped on it, sending it banging into my nose.

“
We need to speak with you,” he said, his chest puffed up like he was so proud he could burst. I knew this couldn’t be good. I rubbed my nose and said I would be out in a second. “Don’t dawdle, this is important,” he snapped impatiently.

My nose was searching for phantom smells of the cooked breakfast we usually had on weekends but there was no eggs or ham sizzling. So
I took as much time as I could, literally dragging my toes backwards on the carpet as I walked, enjoying the itchy burn it created across my feet. When I finally got to the kitchen Paulo was tapping his foot agitatedly and frowning.

“
You should sit down,” Paulo said with a criminal smile. I was irked at his tone and did the opposite. I stood, leaning my folded arms across the old, wooden chair, rocking it back and forth, enjoying the creaks and the irritated look on his face as he twitched every time it made a noise.

I eyed the odd assortment of furniture, no chair matched. Everything was clean but used. We never
knew where it came from. When they moved us the first time, we were told to leave everything behind and that our new home would already have the furniture we needed. I stared down at the chair and wondered who used to sit here. Did they have these parental meetings? Did they sit around the table with their child eating meals in silence?

I
was pretty sure I knew what this was about. My latest string of detentions had to come up eventually. It made Paulo look bad to have such a disobedient stepdaughter.

He stared down at me as he paced around the kitchen; his
slick, dark hair combed back to reveal his wrinkled brow and strained eyes. I tried to look at him objectively. Maybe he was handsome once. Now he just looked cruel, his whole face twisted into a dark, unreadable smile.

Whilst Paulo was itching to get my attention, m
y mother could barely look me in the eye. Her frail, dark hand traced the lid of the jam jar over and over like she would wear a hole in the rim. She would let him do the talking. She was afraid of him. I was not. Her whole demeanor curled away from Paulo and from me. Like a leaf dried up in the sun, you just had to step on it lightly for it to disintegrate to nothing and Paulo’s foot was always hovering over her, ready to come down.

The table was spread with a bizarre
assortment of food: pickles, jam, olives, and bread. Like Mother had just grabbed an armful of pantry, distractedly, and thrown it on the table. It didn’t matter. No one was eating. I looked at the food questionably and then at Paulo. “What’s this about? I have homework to do and I’m sure you have important tasks on the agenda for today, like sorting through your clothes to see which shirt stinks less.” Giving him attitude would certainly result in a harsher punishment.

Paulo smiled and a shiver ran th
rough me. He locked eyes with mine, making me feel like something someone had scraped off the bottom of their shoe.

“
We are moving house in a few weeks. So yes, I do have some important jobs to do today.” He smiled and twisted a stray hair back into the oily, black scrape on his head.

My mother gave him the slightest look of annoyance
—like he had said the wrong thing—but covered it quickly.

“
Where are we going?” I said with an edge of panic in my voice. I tried to push it down. I didn’t want Paulo to see me struggling—whatever was going on.

“
WE are going to Ring Two. You? Well, I don’t know where you’re going yet,” Paulo said through straight teeth set in a sickening smile.

My heart sunk and surged and I started to panic.
Panic, which quickly flipped to anger as I sifted through the possibilities that would separate our uncomfortable little family. Was I going to the Classes? No, I was too young. I was sixteen; they couldn’t take me until I was eighteen, unless…

Then i
t dawned on me. The obvious answer.

“
You’re pregnant,” I said dully. “But you promised to wait until I was eighteen.” I was in a soundless vacuum. I was unsurprised and completely disappointed that it had come to this.

Mother
didn’t respond, her head bowed, ashamed or maybe too tired to bother explaining to me how she could do such a thing.

“
We couldn’t wait any longer,” Paulo said in a voice that fit him as well as a tutu would. Happy.

“
No, I suppose not,” I said bitterly. “You’re a medical miracle as it is,” I exclaimed, walking around the kitchen, throwing my arms in the air. “Pregnant at the ripe old age of thirty-eight, that never happens.”

Paulo grabbed my arm, squeezing it harder than necessary
, and spoke in his irritatingly controlled voice, “Don’t speak to your mother that way. This is not her fault.” The chirp was gone from his voice like I had imagined it.

“
I bet,” I said meeting his gaze as I shook my arm free.

“
I know it’s how you operate but getting angry isn’t going to get you anywhere, Rosa,” Paulo said, in an unnervingly calm voice. “You need to decide whether to go now or when the baby comes,” then he gave Mother a sideways growl, “although I don’t know why we are letting you decide.”

I looked at my
mother, who was still avoiding my gaze. I wanted to scream at her, to try and shake some sense into that tiny body. But it was pointless. It wouldn’t change anything. She’d made her choice a long time ago and it wasn’t me.

“
So I could go to the Classes now?” I said, thinking out loud.

My mother placed her hand on
my arm as I rounded her side of the table and tried to still my nervous pacing. “I’d like you to stay,” she said weakly, the shadow of a question mark hanging on the end of her statement, her eyes looking vacantly through me and out the window, like she wasn’t sure she really meant it. I looked down at her loose grip on my shirt. Her thin fingers were calloused from pinpricks and running her hands back and forth through her ancient sewing machine. They worked her so hard. I shook my head; sympathy for her had no place in my mind right now. She was giving me up. Whether it was now or nine months from now, she was abandoning me.

I could feel
hot tears rising and threatening to spill over but I didn’t want Paulo to see me cry. “I need to think it over,” I said in my calmest voice. It sounded wooden, forced out with shock.

I brushed
Mother’s hand off violently, like she was a bee who would sting me, and went to my room to grab my jacket.

“
Take your time,” Paulo called after me, his voice lacquered with dark intentions. “It won’t change anything.” And he was right. My fate was already decided, but at least I could have some say in the timing of it.

I walked out the door feeling like my life was being upturned and dug up all around me. Now I had to be
filter through the dirt and decide which crappy future I wanted and when.

As I stood on the front
step, a cool wind hit me and I felt my body tense with anger. Anger at the difference between us—the always unfulfilled wish that she would be stronger and tell him no. But I also felt a misplaced prick of protectiveness over her that urged me to consider staying. She might need my help.

A baby.
Paulo, the stickler for rules, had broken the big one and they were having a baby. I wondered how he talked her into it; I shuddered at the thought of the two of them together and pulled the blind down on that visual nightmare.

This
‘happy’ news gave me an instant headache and I wasn’t going to come to any answer right away. I stomped down the steps and strolled down our garden path, thick slabs of concrete teetering as I stepped on them at the wrong end. The word garden was laughable. Every yard was the same in Pau Brasil—one square of lawn, a concrete path, and one Pau Brasil tree in the center of every lawn, which had to be maintained meticulously.

I looked back at our dreary accommodation. The grey-green render was peeling around the doorway. The low roof hung out over the window of our modest lounge, the gutter sagging at one end. Every house looked the
same. The only difference between the neighbors’ and ours was the painfully cheery curtains Mother had sewn out of scraps from her workplace. The patchwork of yellow and purple looked ridiculously out of place amid all the grey.

M
y steps took me past three rows of houses, each a carbon copy of the next. Nervous faces peered out of windows, or over letterboxes. People stalking the morning, seeing whether the coast was clear to go for a walk without bumping into police. They needn’t have worried so much. I knew police would be packing the shopping district this morning; that’s where most citizens were and more people meant more chances for catching someone out.

I slapped the letterboxes as I went, chalky green residue coming off on my fingers.
Inspecting them, I rubbed the wearing paint between my fingers. I could leave this green-grey world behind but for what? I was sixteen and would be two years younger than everyone else. I wasn’t as prepared. And the next intake was only a few weeks away. It was so soon. I think I always thought I would straighten up as I got older and then I’d have a chance at a good Allocation. I snorted to myself. These things didn’t just happen on their own and I was about as crooked and curly as could be. Maybe there was no straightening out for me. Chances are I would tangle back up again anyway.

The Superiors assessed you for your natural skill and allocated your Class based on that. I wondered if there was a Class for being a smart mouth.
Probably not. They probably had a special Class for people like me. I shuddered.

I imagined a Class of troublemakers. All I could picture was a room with a man at the front pointing to the blackboard saying
, ‘Now what you need to do is rub the pencil all along the edges of the binoculars then get them to press it to their eyes…’

I was looking down at my feet, shaking my head at my own silliness, a prank class, yeah, that would be the dream, when I slammed
straight into the gate of Ring Three, a metallic vibration pulsing through the air. Rust stains rubbed off onto my grey, wool jacket.

“
Watch it! You’ll break it and then we’ll all be in trouble,” someone shouted. I looked up to see a smirking face staring down at me. He was sitting on one of the concrete posts that supported the gates, legs dangling casually.

I tried to dust the stains off my jacket,
only managing to rub them in further. I sighed. I would be in more trouble when I returned home.

I stood at the gate for a good two
minutes, staring blankly, rubbing my elbows, lost in thought. I held out my wrist to scan my tattoo so the gate would open, but the rusty piece of junk didn’t budge. Had I been denied access? I should be able to get all the way through to Ring Six without too much trouble. I realized that if I left at sixteen, I would never be granted access through gate Seven or Eight.

“
Allow me,” the smirking boy said, as he jumped agilely from the concrete post, landing with a thump. He sidled up to me, a big smile on his face. He rattled the scanner and adjusted the beam. He grabbed my wrist, without asking, and put it at a funny angle until I heard the familiar, long beep and the latch of the gate retracting.