‘At least my parents didn’t want to give me up,’ Sheila hissed. ‘I’m Legal and the Catchers stole me away. But your parents didn’t want you, did they, Tania? They just gave you away. I bet you were a really ugly baby. I bet your parents couldn’t even bear to look at you. And nor can I.’
Tania’s face went red, and Anna stood up quickly. ‘Enough,’ she said angrily. ‘Tania, get back to work.’
Miss Humphries was walking towards them and Tania reluctantly turned, pulling a few strands of Sheila’s red hair out of her head as she walked away, forcing tears of pain into Sheila’s eyes.
‘Why do you do that?’ Anna asked, shaking her head. ‘You have to learn to ignore her, Sheila, otherwise you’re always going to be picked on.’
Sheila smiled benignly. ‘I don’t mind being picked on,’ she said. ‘And I only told the truth. Tania’s parents brought her here themselves, didn’t they? She wasn’t wanted by anyone in the whole wide world. Not like us, Anna. Our parents wanted us. That makes us special.’
Anna looked at Sheila in bewilderment, wondering how she managed to twist the truth so easily. Mrs Pincent said that parents who gave up their Surpluses were honourable; Anna herself had always wished her parents hadn’t been so selfish, hiding her away in an attic.
‘No Surpluses are special,’ she whispered angrily, looking around to check that no one had heard. ‘Sheila, don’t blaspheme like that.’
But Sheila just smiled secretively.
They didn’t talk for the rest of the training session and it was only as they were leaving that she turned conspiratorially to Anna.
‘Look,’ she said, pulling something out of her pocket. It was pink and silky, and Anna gasped as she recognised it. It was a pair of knickers, but not the sort of knickers that Surpluses wore. They were silk and soft and Anna remembered admiring them as she ironed them. And now they were in Sheila’s pocket.
‘Put them back,’ Anna hissed. ‘Put them back or I’ll tell Miss Humphries. You’ll get beaten, Sheila. Quickly, before she notices . . .’
But Sheila shook her head defiantly. ‘I’m Legal, not a Surplus. I should have things like this, Anna. And I like them. I don’t want to put them back.’
Anna shook her head in disbelief. ‘Sheila,’ she said firmly. ‘Put them back right now.’
‘What, so you’re the only one allowed secrets now?’
Anna stared at Sheila uncertainly. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘What are you talking about?’
Sheila smiled. ‘I woke up last night, Anna, and you weren’t there. Where were you?’
Anna felt the blood drain from her face. ‘You must have imagined it,’ she said firmly. ‘You must have been dreaming.’
Sheila shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re dreaming now, Anna. Maybe I don’t have anything in my pocket.’
Anna stared at her, but before she could say anything Miss Humphries arrived at their counter and carefully looked through their work. Anna opened her mouth to tell her of Sheila’s transgression, but found herself unable to speak. Instead, she just stared at Sheila, beads of sweat beginning to appear on her forehead.
‘Good, good. Well done, you two. You can go now.’
Anna looked at her uncertainly. ‘We . . . we can go?’ she asked hesitantly.
Miss Humphries frowned. ‘Yes, Anna, you can go.’
Sheila was tugging at her sleeve, but still Anna felt rooted to the spot, convinced that if she moved, Mother Nature herself would smite her down.
‘Come on, Anna,’ Sheila said, smiling thinly. ‘We’re going to be late for supper.’
‘Yes, I suppose we will,’ Anna said vaguely, shooting one last look at Miss Humphries to check that this wasn’t a bluff, that she wasn’t going to start laughing at them for thinking they’d got away with their crime, that she wasn’t going to grab a stick and start beating them on the hands for being dirty little thieves like Mrs Pincent had done years ago when Anna had helped herself to an apple she’d found in the kitchen when she was on cleaning duty.
But it wasn’t a bluff. Miss Humphries was now checking the next pair’s work, and no one was even looking at them as they left the room.
As they made their way to Central Feeding for supper, Sheila didn’t even appear nervous or concerned about her heinous crime, although Anna felt nervous enough for both of them. As she furtively stuffed a roll and hunk of cheese into her pocket for Peter, she wondered whether she was truly slipping deeper and deeper into hell itself. She wondered if Mrs Pincent had been right all along about Surpluses – that they were inherently bad, genetically programmed to leech off the world and do damage. And then, suddenly, a Middle Surplus appeared at her side.
‘House Matron wants to see you in her office at 8 p.m.,’ he said breathlessly.
Anna looked at him sharply, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. ‘Did she say why?’
The Surplus shrugged and shook his head. It wasn’t surprising; after all, Surpluses didn’t need reasons, just directions. Anyway, Anna already knew why. Mrs Pincent knew. Mrs Pincent knew everything.
At 8 p.m. on the dot, Anna knocked on Mrs Pincent’s door and, when she’d heard the instruction, opened it. Breathing deeply to quieten the butterflies in her stomach and to try and hide the guilt that she had carried with her all day, she walked in and made her way to Mrs Pincent’s large desk, where she stood silently, waiting for Mrs Pincent to speak.
The room represented many things to Anna – a confessional, a torture chamber, even a prison – but it was a room she knew, a room that felt familiar and even, in an odd way, reassuring. Mrs Pincent was always quick to punish, but afterwards she would always explain why. As Anna lay shaking on the floor or clutching a hand to her face, Mrs Pincent would smile and say that she hoped the punishment had brought Anna closer to being a good Surplus, had helped her to understand who she was. And Anna would nod, and would think very hard about whatever it was she’d done wrong to make sure it didn’t happen again.
‘Anna,’ Mrs Pincent said eventually, looking up at her with the piercing eyes that Anna had known and feared most of her life. ‘Tell me about Peter.’
Anna looked up in alarm and immediately lowered her eyes again in deference. In her pocket, the bread and cheese she’d sneaked out of Central Feeding seemed to burn her leg.
‘About Peter?’ she asked hesitantly. She swallowed nervously, trying to prepare words in her head, to work out how to explain her visit to Solitary.
‘I want to know what he’s told you. I want to know where he’s come from and why he’s here,’ Mrs Pincent said evenly.
‘Why he’s here?’ Anna asked nervously. Was this a trick question? ‘Because he’s a Surplus. Because he was found by the Catchers. Because . . .’
‘I know that,’ Mrs Pincent interrupted, her voice full of contempt. ‘What I want to know is why he was found. Why now. And I want to know what he’s been saying since he’s been here.’
Anna looked down at the floor worriedly. Did Mrs Pincent know that Peter wanted her to escape?
‘Anna,’ Mrs Pincent continued, her voice now soft and friendly, ‘tell me everything you know. It’s for his own good, you know.’
Anna looked up quickly, saw Mrs Pincent looking benevolently at her.
‘He . . .’ Anna cleared her throat. ‘He . . .’ she started again, but then stopped.
‘He what?’ Mrs Pincent demanded, her knuckles whitening visibly as her fingers clenched into fists over her desk. ‘What?’
Anna swallowed desperately. She couldn’t tell her. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t tell Mrs Pincent what she wanted to know.
‘He said he got caught in Essex,’ she said eventually. ‘He said his parents hadn’t told him about the Declaration and that he was sick of hiding all the time.’
Her heart was thudding in her chest, but Anna somehow managed to maintain a composed exterior by digging her nails into her palms, which were becoming hotter and wetter by the moment.
‘W
hat else did he say?’ Mrs Pincent spat out her words. ‘He must have told you more than that.’
Anna shook her head, and felt herself slipping deeper into the quicksand. ‘He found it hard to settle in,’ she said. ‘He found it hard to learn the rules. I tried to teach him. I did my best . . .’
Mrs Pincent nodded curtly.
‘Did he do something very bad?’ Anna reddened as she spoke. Direct questions were a disciplinary offence, particularly those put to Mrs Pincent herself. ‘I mean, to go to Solitary, that is,’ she continued quickly. ‘I just thought, if that’s where he is . . .’
She could feel her chest tightening with fear as she spoke – fear, not for herself, but for the truth. In case it was bad. In case Peter really wasn’t going to get out.
But instead of shouting at her for her insolence, or telling her that Peter deserved to rot in Solitary, Mrs Pincent frowned, then stood up.
‘Peter needs some time to think about his role in this world,’ she said thoughtfully.
Anna nodded, and watched as Mrs Pincent walked around her large, mahogany desk and stood in front of it, the light above her creating what looked like a halo of dust over her head.
‘Anna, you will find this hard to understand because you are such a good, responsible Surplus,’ she said, folding her arms tightly and looking almost fragile, Anna found herself thinking. Mrs Pincent’s slender frame and hands clasped around her elbows suddenly lent her the impression of a nervous woman, rather than the aggressive matriarch Anna was used to and it unnerved her.
‘You understand your place in the world, you understand the debt that you owe to Mother Nature,’ Mrs Pincent continued. ‘But Peter does not think of himself as a Surplus. He sees himself as something better, as if he has a rightful place in this world.’
Mrs Pincent paused, and as she did so, Anna noticed the familiar venom creep back into her eyes. Striding back to her chair, Mrs Pincent smacked her hand down on the desk. ‘Peter is a danger to the other Surpluses, and a danger to this earth,’ she said, her voice now harsher. ‘That’s why he’s in Solitary. I won’t allow anyone to mention that boy’s name until we rid him of his illicit thoughts. Until I am sure that I have fulfilled my duty and that he understands the truth, I cannot risk him contaminating the rest of you. He is Surplus, Anna. He is lucky to have been given the chance to redeem his Parents’ Sins. And he needs to learn that. The hard way, if necessary.’
She paused briefly, then nodded curtly. ‘That will be all, Anna. Return to your chores.’
Anna nodded silently and turned to go.
‘Oh, and Anna?’
She stopped.
‘I understand that a piece of Laundry went missing during your training session today. Find out who stole it, will you, and send them to me? I want the culprit by tomorrow evening.’
Anna bit her lip. ‘Yes, House Matron.’
She left Mrs Pincent’s office and closed the door, but instead of going back to her dormitory, she leant back on the wall just next to Mrs Pincent’s door, her hands twisting together anxiously, her mind racing.
She took a deep breath, and as she heard Mrs Pincent start talking – presumably into the telephone – she shook her head and turned to walk back to her dormitory. But as she did so she heard Mrs Pincent say her name and looked up in surprise. Mrs Pincent couldn’t be calling her, because she wasn’t to know she was still outside her office. Curious, Anna moved closer to the door.
‘Yes, Anna. Prefect. No, she couldn’t tell me a bloody thing. Stupid girl’s got no mind of her own, she’s been indoctrinated so well. I suppose I should take credit for it, really . . .’
Anna’s heart quickened.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter – what matters is that I want rid of him,’ Mrs Pincent spat bitterly. ‘I thought we might get some useful information out of him but it’s useless. I don’t want him here any longer . . . No, I can’t send him away. The Authorities seem to see him as a useful experiment – see how a new Pending copes in a Surplus Hall. But I won’t have my hall used as a laboratory. Well, not that sort, anyway. No, I need your help . . . Yes, exactly. And it’s got to look natural. A stress-induced heart attack, maybe. If the little hero dies from an Opt-Out illness, the Authorities can hardly blame us, can they?’
There was a pause, and Anna’s eyes widened in fear as she registered what Mrs Pincent had just said. Moments later, her House Matron started talking again.
‘Yes, I know . . . I see – not tonight? When, then? Tomorrow?’ she said darkly. ‘What do you mean, you’re working? You work for me, remember that. Well, all right then, it’ll have to be early morning. 4 a.m. . . . Yes, I’ll come and get you.’
Her legs feeling like lead weights, Anna forced herself to move away from the door. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt as though she might faint, small dots appearing in front of her eyes. There had to be an explanation, she thought to herself desperately. Mrs Pincent would never say those things. She just wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
But she had. Anna had heard her with her very own ears. Bile was rising up her throat and it was all she could do to stop herself from retching. Mrs Pincent wanted to get rid of Peter. Mrs Pincent was going to kill him.
She closed her eyes briefly, trying to think of some way that she could have misunderstood what Mrs Pincent had said; some way to make things OK again, but she knew it was futile.
And the worst thing, Anna realised – to her shame, because surely nothing could be worse than Mrs Pincent wanting Peter dead – the thing that hurt most of all, the words that had cut into her like a knife, were the ones Mrs Pincent had used to describe her. She had used the word ‘indoctrinated’ with vitriol, as if it was a bad thing. As if being a good Surplus, a Valuable Asset, everything that Anna had spent her life trying to be, was something Mrs Pincent held in contempt.
Anna had never known the feeling of hatred before, but now it raged through her body like a rampant cancer, filling her with strength of emotion that she had never known before, and had no capacity to express or handle.
Her head spinning, she found herself walking back towards her dormitory. Then, in a daze, she changed direction and made her way towards Staircase 2. She upped her pace until she was running, oblivious to the looks she was getting from the Middle Surpluses who were stepping out of her way and lowering their eyes in case this most terrifying of Prefects should notice them, and unaware of the slight figure of Sheila, watching her from the shadows.
Mrs Pincent would not get away with it, Anna repeated over and over in her head as she ran. Could not get away with it.
Anna, the stupid girl with no mind of her own, was going to make sure of that if it was the last thing she did.
Chapter Eleven
5 March 2140
Mrs Pincent is evil. Peter was right – Mrs Pincent is the most evil Legal who ever lived. I hate her. I hate her like I never knew I could hate someone before. I hate her so much I don’t know what to do with myself. She wants to kill Peter and I didn’t believe him. He’s got to escape, to get as far away from here as possible.
I don’t think I want to stay here any more either. But where else can I go? I can’t run away with Peter.
I just can’t.
Can I?
At 9 p.m., having splashed her face with copious amounts of cold water so that although her eyes were still red her entire face now matched them, Anna left Female Bathroom 2. As she emerged into the corridor, she studiously ignored the Surpluses who had gathered outside the door, drawn by the sound of muffled crying inside, and made her way back to her dormitory. As she walked in, she noticed that everyone was sitting on two of the beds, huddled together. Once they saw her, they all jumped off, even Tania, and started doing what they were meant to be doing – namely, sweeping the floor and dusting the window ledges before the evening bell and end of day checks – but Anna, who would usually have barked instructions, or told them off for talking, barely looked up. What did it matter if they were cleaning or not
? Who cared if the dormitory was dirty? That’s how she felt inside – dirty and used.
‘Anna? Anna, are you OK?’
Anna hadn’t noticed Sheila slipping on to her bed, and she started slightly.
She met Sheila’s eyes for a moment.
‘I’m fine,’ she said abruptly, forcing any emotion out of her voice. ‘I got something in my eye, that’s all.’
Sheila nodded. ‘I thought you might have forgotten about Ramping Duty,’ she said, looking at Anna curiously.
Anna started. She had completely forgotten. Ramping Duty involved walking around her floor after the first evening bell, making sure that lights were turned out and that all the Surpluses were in bed. Middles were to be in bed between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. depending on their age, and Pendings had to be asleep by 11 p.m. After 11 p.m., not a sound was to be heard anywhere – except for the top floor, obviously. Smalls didn’t understand instructions and bedtimes yet. They hadn’t been here long enough to be indoctrinated, Anna thought to herself bitterly.
‘No, no,’ she said quickly, her voice brittle. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten. And I’m absolutely fine. Which is more than I can say for those window ledges – you can see the dust from here.’
Sheila nodded obediently and slipped away, busying herself with a duster while Anna breathed in deeply and got off her bed. There’s always something to do, she thought to herself. And you can always rely on Anna to do it.
Anna never found Ramping particularly difficult. Some of the Pendings lacked authority and never managed to instil enough fear in the other Surpluses to achieve lights out and silence, but not Anna. The other Surpluses knew how seriously she took her job as a Prefect, knew that she didn’t shirk her responsibility to discipline them when necessary and knew that they could get away with nothing when she was on duty. Her eagle eyes noticed everything – Domestics smuggling toys in for favourite Smalls, whispered conversations, last-minute trips to the bathroom that should have taken place ten minutes before – and it was said by many that she was closer to Mrs Pincent than she was to any of the other Surpluses.