Scarecrow

The envelope came on the Tuesday, at breakfast.

I knew what it was before the corporal had got halfway down the long room. Thick. Cream-colored. A red seal on the back. The last one I’d seen like it had been folded into a hard little square in Brock Haddon’s fist, and I’d ended up on the floor of a locker room counting to forty-one.

The corporal didn’t stop at the Haddons’ end of the Squad Two table this time.

He walked all the way to the head of it. And put the envelope down beside Sigmund’s tray.

Sigmund didn’t touch it.

He sat very straight, with his hands flat on the table on either side of his porridge, and looked at it. The whole room looked at it. The whole room had been looking at Squad Two for two days, ever since the night drills had stopped and Risa had walked into breakfast with her sleeve rolled up and a clean white bandage on her hand and her burn bare for everyone to see.

Then he picked it up. And broke the seal. And read it.

It was longer than Brock’s. Two pages. He read both of them once, without moving anything except his eyes. Then he folded it in half, very neatly, along the crease it had come with, and put it inside his shirt.

And went on eating his porridge.

At the far end of the Squad Two table, Risa had stopped eating altogether.

Okafor sent for Squad Two at nine.

All five of them. In a line, down the corridor to her office, Sigmund at the front. I watched them go from field one, where Squad Eight was running the beam. Luna watched them go too. She didn’t say anything. But the frost under her end of the beam went out a meter in every direction, and Seraphina said Windsor, sharply, and it stopped.

They were in there forty minutes.

When they came out, they came out in a different order.

Sigmund first. Walking very straight, very fast, with his narrow face perfectly blank. Then Brock. Then Pulse, and Tam.

Then nobody.

Risa came out two minutes later. On her own. With a slip of yellow card in her good hand. She didn’t walk toward the field. She walked the other way. Down the corridor toward the barracks, very fast, with her head down.

Okafor told the whole cave at lunch.

She didn’t make a speech about it. She came into the mess and stood at the end of the room with a slate and read it out, the way she read out the times on the board.

”By order of the General’s office,” she said. ”Dr. Halloway’s report of the twelfth, concerning an injury to Cadet Friese, R., has been reviewed and amended. The injury is recorded as a training accident during a sanctioned squad exercise. No individual is named as responsible. The statement appended by Cadet Friese, S., has been withdrawn.” She didn’t look up. ”Cadet Friese, S., remains leader of Squad Two. Cadet Friese, R., is transferred to Squad Six, effective immediately. Cadet Corran of Squad Six transfers to Squad Two.”

She lowered the slate.

”That’s all,” she said.

But it wasn’t all. I could see her face. Everybody could. Okafor’s face never did anything, and it was doing something now. Round the mouth. Round the eyes. The way it had looked in her office, the night she showed me the slate with thirty-four names on it.

She was furious.

She turned and walked out of the mess, and the door banged behind her, which Okafor’s doors never did.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Then, at the Squad Six table, a big quiet boy called Corran got up with his tray, and walked across the room, and sat down at the end of the Squad Two table. And at the Squad Two table, nobody looked at him.

And Risa’s place at the end of it was empty.

She wasn’t at the fern at lunch.

She wasn’t at the gym the next morning at four. I waited until half past. The one lamp hummed. The heavy bags hung on their chains. Nobody came.

She wasn’t at the fern the morning after.

I saw her on the field. On the beam, at the far end, with Squad Six. Five people I didn’t know well, who didn’t know her at all, who didn’t know that she always put her right hand on things when she sat down, or that she hated being touched on the shoulder, or that the old song had the slowest heartbeat of any song she’d ever felt. She was carrying her end of their beam with her left arm, the right one held against her chest, and she didn’t look across the field at Squad Eight once.

Not once.

”Leave it,” said Seraphina, beside me, when she saw me looking.

”She’s—”

”I know what she is. Leave it.” Seraphina didn’t look at me. ”You’re the one who went and found Sigmund in the dark. You’re the one who got it written down. Everybody knows. Squad Two knows. Her father knows.” She shifted the beam on her shoulder. ”Give her a week.”

I found out what was in the letter on Thursday.

Not from Sigmund. From Brock.

He came round the corner of the fern corridor at lunch, on his own, and stopped when he saw me there. Big and red-faced and awkward, with his arm out of its sling now, but still holding it a bit stiffly against his side. He looked at me for a long moment, the way he’d looked back from the door on the night of the drill. And then, to my surprise, he sat down against the opposite wall.

Not near me. A long way away. But down.

”He read it out,” said Brock. Without looking at me. ”In Okafor’s office. Before she came in. He read it out to all of us. Every word.” He picked at the edge of his sleeve. ”I don’t think he meant to. I think he just. Needed somebody else to hear it.”

I didn’t say anything.

”It said—” Brock stopped. Started again. Very slowly, like a boy reading something off a wall. ”It said, A Friese does not put his name to a confession. A Friese does not let a farm boy from the flats tell him how to run his squad. A Friese does not make his sister into a casualty in front of the Windsor girl and then hand the evidence to a doctor.” He swallowed. ”It said, Your sister will go to another squad, where she will be safe from your incompetence. You will remain in command, because to remove you would be to admit there was something to remove you for.” He was quiet for a moment. ”And it said, Your sister is to have no further association with the Dask boy. She has been encouraged to forget what she is.”

The lamp over the fern swung slowly on its chain.

”Forget what she is,” I said.

”That’s what it said.”

”What is she?”

Brock looked at me. For the first time. Straight on.

”A Friese,” he said. ”I suppose.” He looked at the fern. At the tenth frond, the big dark one. ”Not something that makes things grow.”

He got up. He stood there for a second, big and awkward, holding his arm.

”He’s been trying,” he said. ”Friese. Since Saturday. You should know that. He’s been—” He didn’t have the word. ”He ran us slow on Monday. Like you said. Like Windsor does it. We came in at five-ten and nobody got hurt. Nobody. First time in two weeks.” He looked down at me. ”Then the letter came.”

He went.

I sat by the fern for a long time after.

He’s been trying.

On Friday, Risa came out of field three with a new burn.

I saw it from the beam. Squad Six had been on the fire field all afternoon. Real fire, now, since the Wednesday the padding came off. And they came out of it in a ragged line, coughing, smoke coming off their suits, and the last one out was small and dark-haired and holding her left hand against her chest, the way she’d been holding her right one all week.

Both hands now.

She went straight past Halloway at the edge of the field. Straight past her. Halloway called something after her, and she didn’t turn round.

And something in me went hot.

Not the thing under the boards. Not that. Something smaller and faster and more stupid. The thing that makes you say something before you’ve looked at it properly. The thing Father always said to count to ten before you let out.

I didn’t count to ten.

Sigmund was in the corridor outside the mess, at the noticeboard, reading the times.

Half the cave was there. Waiting for dinner. Squad Four and Squad Five, and some of Squad One, and Liam and Toby behind me, and Seraphina somewhere at the back. Sigmund was standing in front of the board with his hands behind his back, perfectly straight, reading Squad Two’s time for the day. 5:04.

”Friese,” I said.

He turned round.

I didn’t think about where we were. I didn’t think about who was listening. I didn’t think about anything except Risa walking past Halloway at the edge of field three, holding both hands against her chest.

”Her other hand,” I said. ”Her left. She came off field three with it burned.”

The corridor went quiet.

Sigmund looked at me.

”If you’ve hurt her again,” I said. ”If you’ve put anything through her again. Anything. I’ll know. I’ll see it. I can see everything, Sigmund, every wire in her, and I’ll know—”

”I didn’t.”

”She came off the fire field with—”

”I didn’t touch her.” His voice was very quiet. Very level. And it cut straight through mine. ”She’s not in my squad. She hasn’t been in my squad since Tuesday. Father saw to that.” He didn’t move. ”She was on field three with Squad Six. In a sanctioned exercise. Under Okafor. With live fire.” A pause. ”Ask Okafor. Ask Halloway. Ask the four people who were in there with her.”

I stood there.

”It was a drill,” said Sigmund Friese. ”That’s all. It was a drill, and she got burned, the way people get burned on field three every day now. The way Calder got burned on Wednesday. The way you’d have been burned, if you weren’t you.” He looked at me. ”I haven’t been within twenty meters of my sister in four days. I’m not allowed.”

And I looked at him.

And I could see it. I didn’t have to look inside. It was right there in his face, the way it had been in the dark on field two when the stopwatch fell. All of it.

He was telling the truth.

The corridor was so quiet I could hear the lamps.

Thirty people. Forty. Standing round us in a ring. Squad Four, Squad Five. The big quiet boy, Corran, at the back. And every one of them had just heard me say it. Out loud. In front of the noticeboard. If you’ve hurt her again.

Again.

I watched it go into them. I watched it land. A girl from Squad Five turned to the girl next to her and said something, very low, and the second girl’s eyes went wide. A boy from Squad One looked at Sigmund, and then down the corridor toward field three, and then back.

Sigmund watched it too.

He watched all of it. With his hands behind his back and his narrow face perfectly blank. He watched the word go round the ring of people like a spark going down a wire, from one to the next to the next.

Friese burns his sister.

It would be all over the cave by dinner. All over the cave by morning. In a week, somebody would write it in a letter home. In two weeks, somebody’s mother would say it to somebody else’s father at some dinner on the upper floors. And in three, it would be sitting on a desk in a Senator’s office, in front of a man who’d written a Friese does not put his name to a confession and to remove you would be to admit there was something to remove you for.

I’d just given him something to remove him for.

In front of forty witnesses.

”Sigmund,” I said.

”Don’t.”

”I didn’t—”

”Don’t,” said Sigmund. Very quietly. And then, louder, to the corridor, to all of them, without taking his eyes off me: ”Squad Two. Dinner. Now.”

They went. Brock, and Pulse, and Tam, and the big quiet Corran who’d only been in Squad Two for three days. Past me, into the mess. Brock didn’t look at me. Nobody looked at me.

The ring broke up. People drifted away. Into the mess. Down the corridor. Talking. Very low.

Sigmund didn’t move.

He stood in front of the noticeboard, with his hands behind his back, until the corridor was empty except for us, and Liam and Toby by the wall, and Seraphina at the back with her arms folded and her face like thunder.

”Saturday,” he said. ”You came and found me in the dark. And told me. And I went and found her, and I took her to Halloway, and I signed it.” He was speaking very precisely. Each word on its own. ”Because you were right. Because Squad Two doesn’t put its own on the floor. I believed that. I believe that.”

I didn’t say anything.

”And on Tuesday,” said Sigmund, ”my father took her out of my squad. And told her she wasn’t allowed to speak to you. And told me that I’d disgraced the name by telling the truth.” He paused. ”And on Monday, before the letter, I ran my squad slow. The way you said. The way Windsor does it. And nobody got hurt.” His voice didn’t change. ”I was trying, Dask.”

”I know.”

”You didn’t know. You came round the corner and accused me. In front of the board. In front of everyone.” For the first time, something cracked in his voice. Very small. Like a hairline in glass. ”You saw me drop the stopwatch. You saw it. And you still thought I’d do it again.”

I opened my mouth.

I didn’t have anything to say.

He was right.

”You make everything look easy,” said Sigmund Friese. ”I told you that once. I was wrong. You don’t make it look easy. You just don’t look.” He turned away from me, toward the mess. ”You can see every wire in my sister. Every spark. Every nerve. And you didn’t look at me for one second before you opened your mouth.”

He went into the mess.

He didn’t say I can’t stand you.

That was the worst part.

Risa found me that night.

Not at the fern. Not at the gym. In the corridor outside the reading room, at ten o’clock, where I’d been standing for twenty minutes trying to go in and not going in, because Luna was in there and I didn’t want her to look at my face.

She came round the corner with both hands bandaged. Properly. Halloway’s bandages. So she’d gone back.

She stopped a few meters away.

”Squad Six has a girl in it called Mena,” said Risa. ”She tells everyone everything. She’s told me four times since dinner.” Her voice was very flat. ”Dask accused Friese of burning his sister. In front of the whole corridor. Again. He said again.”

”Risa—”

”It was a fire drill, Lucas.” She held up her left hand. The bandage. ”Field three. A gas jet came up under me, and I put my hand down on the vent to push off. That’s all. That’s all. Halloway’s put a cream on it. It’ll be fine by Sunday.”

”I know. I know that now. I didn’t—”

”You didn’t look,” said Risa.

She said it exactly the way Sigmund had.

”You can feel my heart through a wall,” she said. ”You can see the sparks in my arm before I move it. You’ve been watching me for two weeks so carefully that you knew I’d stopped putting my right hand on the fern stand.” She was breathing hard. ”And then something happens and you don’t look at all. You just—go. Like the thing under your boards. Like you said you never do.” She swallowed. ”He was trying. He was trying. For four days. And now everybody in the cave thinks—and Father’s going to hear—”

She stopped.

She stood there in the corridor, with her two bandaged hands, very straight, very small.

”I can’t come to the gym,” she said. ”Father’s letter said I can’t talk to you. I came here anyway, to tell you that. That I can’t.” Her voice cracked. ”So I’m not going to. Not for a while.”

”I’m sorry.”

”I know you are,” said Risa. ”That doesn’t fix it.”

She turned round and went back down the corridor.

She didn’t look back.

I didn’t look at her heart.

I wanted to. More than anything. I wanted to know whether it was going fast, or slow, or whether it was doing the thing Risa said her father’s did, slowing down all at once when the worst was over.

I didn’t.

That was the only thing I got right all day.

I went to the gym the next morning at four anyway.

The one lamp. The rubber floor. The heavy bags on their chains.

I stood in the middle of it, barefoot, on my own, and practiced. Watching for the spark. Except there was nobody there to make one. So I just stood in the dark with my eyes loose, looking at nothing, the way she’d taught me. Looking early. At an empty room.

At half past five, I went to the fern.

The tenth frond, the dark one, was still the biggest on the plant.

I gave it its water. Just water. Out of the air.

Day 136.

Risa’s left hand. Field three. A gas vent. A drill.

I said ”again.” In front of forty people.

He was telling the truth. I didn’t look.

And at the back, on the list. Under To learn. A long way down from the speed, and the signals, and the nerves.

8. When not to look.

I’d written it there months ago. After the family dinner, when I’d seen inside a hand I hadn’t meant to. I’d thought it meant not looking inside people when they hadn’t asked.

I’d had it the wrong way round.

Under it, very small:

And when to.