She frowned. ‘You . . . How . . . What are you doing here?’ she hissed.
She was angry, and she didn’t mind him knowing it. It was nearly midnight, and she needed these precious hours of sleep. Peter, sitting in front of her with an anxious look on his face, had broken so many rules coming here that they could both be doing hard labour for weeks, months even. Pending boys never came anywhere near the Pending girls’ dormitories.
‘What are you doing here?’ Anna repeated crossly, before he could respond to her first questions, outraged that Peter should willingly break so many rules, as if somehow they didn’t apply to him.
Peter moved his finger to his mouth as if to tell Anna to stay silent, then looked around the dormitory quickly, his eyes darting from bed to bed. He leant over and took her hand.
‘Anna Covey, I have to tell you about your parents,’ he whispered. ‘They wanted me to find you. You’ve got to get away from that evil Mrs Pincent. I’ve come to take you home, Anna.’
Anna pushed him away and her eyes narrowed. ‘You do not know my parents and I have no home,’ she hissed. ‘My parents are in prison. My name is Anna. Just Anna. I’m a Surplus. And so are you. Get used to it, and leave me alone.’
Peter frowned slightly, but made no attempt to move.
‘You have a birthmark on your stomach,’ he whispered softly. ‘It looks a bit like a butterfly.’
Anna froze and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand upright. How did he know that? Who was he? Why was he telling her this?
‘I have to get back,’ Peter said, before she could say anything.
And then he left, silently slinking out of the dormitory and disappearing down the corridor. Like a ghost, Anna thought as she lay back down on her bed, a sudden overwhelming desire to cry washing over her. Slowly, she moved her hand down to her stomach, where she felt for the red birthmark just above her belly button. The birthmark that had caused her nothing but shame, the birthmark that she kept hidden at all costs to avoid the taunting and name calling that inevitably started when anyone saw it.
How did Peter know about it? Who had told him it was shaped like a butterfly, she wondered. When Mrs Pincent had first seen it, she’d remarked that it looked like a dead moth and had said that it was Mother Nature’s way of branding Anna a pest. Moths ate things that belonged to other people, she’d told her, and abused their hosts. ‘How very apt,’ she’d said.
And yet, Peter’s description stirred something in Anna, almost a memory but not quite; more a vague feeling that at some point she, too, had thought it resembled a butterfly. Anna almost thought she remembered believing, when she was very little, that it was a sign that one day she’d grow wings and fly away from Grange Hall. But Mrs Pincent had been right – it wasn’t a butterfly, it was a moth. It was red and ugly and she hated it.
How dare Peter come here and remind her of it? How dare he sneak around the place, confusing her and pretending he knew things that he didn’t, telling her that Mrs Pincent was evil? Maybe it was all part of an elaborate test, she thought to herself. Perhaps right now, he was reporting back to Mrs Pincent and working out new ways to trap her into saying something or doing something wrong. Perhaps she should have told him that Mrs Pincent wasn’t evil, she thought worriedly, little beads of sweat appearing on her forehead in spite of the cold. But she hadn’t had a chance, had she?
Then she shook herself; it was a stupid idea. Mrs Pincent would never use someone like him as a spy. She didn’t trust Peter one bit; Anna could tell from the way she never took her eyes from him.
So if he wasn’t a spy, there had to be some other explanation. Someone must have told him about her birthmark. They were probably all laughing about it right now.
Not that it mattered. Whoever he said he was, she wasn’t going to listen to him. She was a Prefect and that meant not entertaining any nonsense.
Turning over, Anna closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.
But it was a restless sleep, and throughout the night her dreams were filled with crying children, a woman screaming and a little butterfly, trapped in a cold, grey prison.
Chapter Five
Grange Hall was a Modern-Georgian building, built in 2070. Its design was based on Sutton Park, an old stately home in Yorkshire which had been built in 1730 and had long since crumbled to the ground. Photographs remained, however, and its style was admired very much by the present Authorities, who had decided that all government buildings should be built to resemble it, although in grey, not cream, because that colour withstood the elements better, and with lower ceilings. Lower ceilings meant lower heating requirements in the winter, and with the stringent tariffs for energy the Authorities been forced to impose, high ceilings were a luxury few could afford these days.
Initially, Grange Hall had housed the Revenue and Benefits Department, but it was soon declared too small, and was left empty for several years until the Surplus Act was introduced and the idea of Surplus Halls mooted. The original idea had been to create new, dedicated buildings for Surpluses, with the latest technology and teaching tools to develop an obedient, hard-working and amenable workforce; in the meantime, Grange Hall was hurriedly converted to house the growing number of Surpluses being gathered up around the country. Over the years, plans and papers had been periodically submitted by the Longevity and Surplus Department – usually when someone new had been given the Surplus remit – plans for new buildings, for merging the three UK Surplus Halls into one, for moving to the European model of deportation. But each time, nothing was done, because change carried risks, because change led to instability, because new technology meant using precious energy, and because, at the end of the day, no one really cared. And so, lethargy prevailed and Grange Hall was now the oldest Surplus Hall, its carpets and wall colours unchanged from its time as a government building, the smell of red tape and frustration still lingering in its very fabric.
Margaret Pincent hated the low ceilings of Grange Hall. She’d been brought up by her father to believe that stature directly influenced the height of one’s ceilings. Those who could pull enough strings to get hold of extra energy coupons enjoyed the highest ceilings; everyone else was forced to accept lower ceilings, to crouch and bow and scrape just to keep warm. Mrs Pincent’s father would bow to no man, he had told her regularly, so why should he be forced to bow by his own house?
Her father had never visited Grange Hall, of course, and had never shown any interest in it. It was hardly surprising; Mrs Pincent and he had not actually spoken for over fourteen years. Not since . . .
Well, not for a long time. Mrs Pincent felt the familiar anger clenching in her stomach and the nauseous feeling welling up her throat as memories she worked so hard to suppress found their way back into her mind. The unfairness. The shame.
But what was the use remembering? No point crying over spilt milk, she thought bitterly. Those were the exact words her father had used when the truth had come out. And when her husband had left her, her father had made it clear that he wouldn’t be able to offer her any financial assistance; no assistance of any kind. That she would understand if he didn’t see her again.
It had been left to Margaret Pincent to fend for herself, and fend she did. She’d seen the job advertised at Grange Hall and, ignoring the irony of the situation, had applied. Few people were interested in working with Surpluses, it seemed; in spite of her complete lack of qualifications and enthusiasm for the job, it had been offered to her straight away. And here she’d been, ever since, doing her best to break any spirit that the Supluses in her care might be tempted to exhibit; seeing it as her duty to treat the children as harshly as possible without rendering them completely useless. She was not running a holiday camp, and was not here to be a surrogate mother. These children did not deserve to be on this earth, and if they had to exist then they were going to be put to work. They were going to make up for their very presence, were going to carry the weight of their guilt with them everywhere they went. That was Mar
garet Pincent’s promise to herself, and it was one that she had, so far, been able to keep.
Until now, that is. Until Peter arrived. It had been just a week and already she had seen the signs she’d been dreading ever since she took on the role of House Matron. The look of defiance. The refusal to obey her. The lack of respect. Mrs Pincent hated many things, but above all she hated not to be respected.
This is what happened when they didn’t find Surpluses early enough, she thought to herself angrily. As far as the Catchers were concerned, it was probably a triumph to find a Surplus at this late stage, when his parents thought they’d got away with it. No doubt there was a publicity campaign being carefully managed right now to celebrate this great success. But what about her? How was Grange Hall supposed to train someone who had been on the Outside for so long? And they didn’t tell her anything, of course. A phone call a few hours before he arrived, telling her he was on the way, that was all. Telling her. Not asking if it would be OK, not asking for her advice, oh no. She was to prepare a bed, she was told. This one was likely to need some special treatment, they said. He’s been on the Outside rather a long time. He was found in the middle of nowhere and we don’t know where he’s come from. We’ll want to keep an eye on him.
‘Why do you want to keep an eye on him?’ Margaret Pincent had wanted to ask. ‘Why did you find him so late? Where do you think he might have been?’
But of course, she didn’t ask. And even if she had, she would have been met with silence. After all this time, they still didn’t trust her. Not really. And that meant that she didn’t trust anyone either. Not one little bit.
Still, for the time being her priority had to be this new Surplus, to prove she could manage him. The trouble was, he didn’t react like the other Surpluses. There were always one or two who thought they were something special; one or two who thought that they could get round her, play the system a bit. Surpluses who felt they were better than the rest.
But there were tried and trusted tools and techniques to deal with them. Beatings. Humiliation. Making them feel so wretched that they started hating their parents for putting them in this position, for bringing them into this awful world. You had to get them to hate their parents; that was the key.
That boy Patrick had been the last Surplus to create real problems, but his anger had just been bravado; he’d broken soon enough, once he was really put to work. Funny that Anna, her most obedient Surplus, was desperate to go to the place she’d sent Patrick to be worked to death. Nothing like building in the desert heat to give a rebellious Surplus a bit of perspective. Not that the Authorities knew about that, of course. Selling Surpluses as slave labour wasn’t strictly approved of by officials, just as getting involved in black market Longevity drugs wasn’t exactly in her job description. But perhaps they should pay her a better wage if they didn’t want her supplementing her income from time to time. And anyway, no one had missed him. His file had been lost, and no questions had been asked.
Sometimes the system made mistakes, of course. There had been the situation recently with a Surplus called Sheila who, it turned out, was actually the progeny of two Opt Outs. The fools had gone away for the weekend, leaving the child with its grandparents. Their neighbours had heard the child cry and, assuming it was a Surplus, had called the Catchers to secure their reward. The parents had appealed, of course, but Mrs Pincent had held firm. The grandparents didn’t have a licence; technically the Catchers had been well within the law in confiscating Sheila. Technically, during her stay with her grandparents, Sheila was indeed a Surplus.
The fact was that you couldn’t start sending children back after every little mistake; there would be no end to it. And if Sheila had been returned to her parents, it would have stirred up the other Surpluses. Given them hope. Hope was the last thing you wanted to encourage in a Surplus. No, she had done the right thing. Five times Sheila’s parents had come to see her – not to Grange Hall, of course, but to the London office; no one was allowed within a mile of any Surplus Hall for security reasons. Five times her mother had broken down, clutching at Mrs Pincent’s ankles and begging for her little girl back – it had been embarrassing, really. Uncomfortable.
But Mrs Pincent wouldn’t give in. Why should she? Sheila was a good age. She could still be a Valuable Asset, no doubt about it at all. More than a Valuable Asset, if Mrs Pincent had her way. Sheila, like all female Surpluses and, to a lesser extent, male Surpluses, had value that her parents knew nothing about. Young stem cells. Youth in every atom of her body, which laboratories were crying out for all around the world. You couldn’t explain that to the parents, of course, particularly since they’d Opted Out. But others would be grateful. Renewal was a hungry beast; it needed constant feeding.
Peter, on the other hand, was different. When he arrived, he’d actually looked pleased with himself, the arrogant little twerp. He’d looked her right in the eye, and there was something mocking about his face. It was as if he was saying to her ‘I know. I know the truth about you.’ But of course, she was just imagining that. She had to be; how could a Surplus know anything? He was just clever, that was all. He had spotted a weakness and was using it to his advantage.
Still, real or not, it made her hate him. And, worse, it made her afraid of letting him leave until the look had gone. Sending him to the desert like that was too dangerous; what if he did know something, however unlikely the prospect was? It didn’t look like she’d be able to lose his file either, not if they were keeping an eye on him.
The whole situation was intolerable. She would have to deal with him herself. And if he thought that Margaret Pincent was weak, he had another thing coming. If the week of beatings and starvation when he first arrived hadn’t done the trick, there were other more interesting methods. Sleep deprivation. More Solitary. Leave him in that cell until he was so desperate for company he cried out her name.
She thought for a moment, then smiled briefly. Perhaps she should attack him with kindness first. That was how you really destroyed a Surplus: make it think you love it before abusing its trust so completely that it could never trust another human being again. Yes, she thought with a satisfied nod, she would break Peter. And when she had broken him completely, then she would get rid of him. The Authorities would have to lump it. It wouldn’t be much of a loss – even broken, Peter was unlikely to be of any use to anyone.
Anna sat with her eyes focused on the food in front of her. She didn’t want to see Peter. Didn’t want to even acknowledge his existence. Although, when a quick scan of Central Feeding revealed that, strangely, Peter wasn’t even there, she felt something close to disappointment because that meant he wouldn’t have seen how forcefully she’d been ignoring him. Sighing with irritation that even by being absent Peter seemed able to annoy her, Anna finished her porridge and got up to go.
But just as she was about to clear away her breakfast bowl and plastic cup, Peter appeared in the doorway, flanked by Mrs Pincent, his gaunt frame towering over the House Matron’s. Mrs Pincent found Anna’s eyes and nodded for her to come over.
‘I want you to look after Peter,’ she said matter-of-factly, as soon as Anna had walked over. ‘He has come to us late, and seems to be finding it hard to fit in. I want you to show him the ropes, help him learn. And make sure he has an extra blanket on his bed. Now, Peter, I expect you’ll be hungry. Anna, can you make sure Peter has some porridge before training starts this morning?’
Anna’s heart sank, but she didn’t react, except to nod silently. An extra blanket was unheard of, except for Prefects, and Mrs Pincent’s almost familial language – ‘show him the ropes, help him learn’ – was unfamiliar and strange. But Anna knew better than to say anything. Not while Mrs Pincent was standing so close, anyway.
Once she was gone, that was a different matter. As Mrs Pincent disappeared down the corridor, Anna turned to Peter.
‘I don’t know what you’ve done, but Mrs Pincent certainly seems to like you now. Still think she’s evil?’
she said haughtily.
Peter shrugged, and shivered involuntarily, making Anna soften slightly.
‘I’ll get you some breakfast,’ she said cautiously, ‘and I’ll show you the ropes. But no more stories. No more sneaking around late at night. I’m a Prefect, and if I’m going to help you you’re going to have to Learn Your Place.’
Peter nodded sagely. ‘Thank you,’ he said under his breath. ‘Thank you, Anna Covey.’
Anna sighed irritably. This was going to be a long day.
Chapter Six
Peter proved to be a fast learner. He quickly learnt the layout of Grange Hall and when Anna tested him on the daily schedule she was impressed to find that he’d managed to learn it off by heart within a day. She couldn’t be sure whether he was concentrating in the boys-only training sessions, but in the sessions she shared with him, he was well behaved and polite. If it wasn’t for his insistence on calling her Anna Covey, he’d be like any other Surplus. He’d even sat through a Science and Nature class without saying anything, although afterwards, when he and Anna had been alone, he had erupted.
‘It’s all lies. Lies!’ he’d muttered, his eyes darting around to check that no one was listening. ‘Anna, you have to believe me. This is not what Mother Nature wanted . . .’
Anna had shaken her head. ‘You only think that because your parents wanted to have their cake and eat it,’ she said firmly. ‘You shouldn’t be angry with Mr Sargent – be angry with your parents. They’re the ones who broke the Declaration. They’re the ones who put you here.’
He’d disagreed, of course. He always did. In the corridors, in Central Feeding, whenever they could speak without being overheard, he railed against Grange Hall, against the Instructors, against everything, as far as Anna could tell. Mostly, she told him to be quiet and to show more respect for Mother Nature and the Authorities, but sometimes her curiosity got the better of her and she found herself furtively asking questions about his life before Grange Hall, pretending as she did so that she wasn’t really that interested. The truth was that Peter was a window through which Anna could glimpse the world outside, and the temptation to keep looking was quite overwhelming.