ONE
ALL THE CHILDREN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD FELT SORRY
for Honor. No one had ever heard of keeping a second child.
Where would such children live when they grew up? The Corporation
had not yet built cities in the Northern Islands, and there was no
room in the Colonies for extra children. The Tranquil Sea was vast,
but the islands left in it were small.
Every once in a while a family had a second baby
by mistake, but in such cases, parents gave the infant to the
Corporation for redistribution to those people who could not have
children. This was called Giving Back to the Community. To keep an
extra baby was shocking.
The neighborhood children hushed and stared when
Honor approached. They would not play basketball with her anymore.
Their parents had warned them. Honor’s parents had committed a
Selfish Act. Even though Corporation Counselors came to talk to
them, Will and Pamela would not give up Quintilian. Now every
afternoon on day seven, Will was required to volunteer for digging
ditches. He dug ditches to pay his debt to society. Pamela wheeled
the recycling bins to the curb for the whole row of town houses.
This was how she paid her debt. The bins were heavy, but none of
the neighbors helped Pamela. No one wanted to be seen with the
Greenspoons, because a family with two children was Not
Approved.
There were no gifts or baby showers for second
children, no balloons or celebrations. There were no openings for
second children in the Colony day-care system, and so Pamela
couldn’t work like the other mothers; she had to stay home with
Quintilian. Pamela did not complain. Even though she looked tired,
she never said she was sorry for what she’d done. She loved
Quintilian. At first Honor didn’t think she could share her
mother’s feelings, because the baby had caused so much trouble, but
gradually she changed her mind.
Quintilian was cheerful. His dark eyes were
perfectly round, and when he learned to sit up, he clapped as if he
were applauding himself. He made Honor laugh. She liked to squeeze
his fat legs and watch him learn to stand and babble. She loved to
rest her hand on his huge fuzzy head.
On Errand Day, when the family slept in late,
Honor would carry Quintilian into their parents’ room. Then she’d
bring in the Errand Day Leaflet from the front door, and Will and
Pamela would sit up against their pillows and fold paper gliders
from the leaflet’s stiff pages, announcing the new week’s Goals and
Initiatives. Waste Not, Want Not: Save and Reuse Boxes, Bags,
Bottles, Shoes. Anti-roach Week: Invest in Traps TODAY. Families
were meant to post the Goals and Initiatives on the wall right next
to their picture of Earth Mother. Sometimes the Greenspoons did,
especially after Mr. Pratt or his wife, Mrs. Pratt, came calling.
Most weeks they forgot.
Whoosh! Will and Pamela launched those paper
gliders over to Quintilian, where he stood holding on to the foot
of the bed. He’d laugh and laugh. Sometimes he laughed so hard he
lost his balance. Then, with a surprised look on his face, he’d
find himself sitting down. When Quintilian picked up the gliders,
they went straight into his mouth.
For breakfast on Errand Day, Will made pancakes.
He fried them on his griddle. “A big one for Daddy, a middle-size
one for Honor, and a wee little tiny one for baby,” he
said.
“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Pamela
asked.
“Patience, patience, don’t be in such a rush,”
teased Will.
“I’m hungry, you know,” said Pamela.
“Do you think we should feed her?” Will asked
Honor and Quintilian. “Well, all right. A great big enormous one
for Mommy.” He scraped up all the leftover batter and poured an
extra-big pancake for Pamela at the end.
Then, when breakfast was over, the family would
go off shopping or wheel their dirty clothes to the neighborhood
washing machines. They’d pile up their laundry in Quintilian’s
stroller and he’d ride on top.
But the best times of all were afternoons at
Peaceful Park. The park was big and dusty, and hardly anybody
played there. No one liked that scorching field without a single
tree. No one except the Greenspoons. Peaceful Park was perfect for
flying kites.
Will and Pamela built two kites, and they were
amazing creations. Pamela cut the kites out of old red rain
ponchos. Will rigged the fabric to the lightest, thinnest lengths
of green bamboo and tied each kite to an extra-long roll of cord.
Finally Pamela drew faces on the kites with black laundry marker.
Great toothy smiles and crazy bloodshot eyes. On breezy days when
the wind was not too light and not too strong, Will and Pamela and
the children flew their homemade kites in Peaceful Park until they
were specks in the blue sky. When the wind was just right, the
kites felt so strong and safe up there that Honor imagined nothing
could budge them.
“Ho hum,” boasted Will, “I could stand here all
day and this kite would hold. It’s like fishing.”
“Fishing in reverse,” said Pamela. “Sky
fishing.”
“What do you fish for in the air?” asked
Honor.
Pamela and Will started laughing. “Oh, planets,”
said Will. “The occasional comet. An asteroid or two.”
Honor held one kite string, and Will held the
other. Pamela held Quintilian. On those afternoons, four did not
seem like the wrong number for a family. Four seemed just
right.
Other days were difficult. Will stayed out late
and Quintilian cried and wouldn’t go to sleep. Then Pamela stroked
his back, and Honor tried to sing him lullabies. She sang him “Safe
We Shall Abide,” the hymn she’d learned at school. “Safe we shall
abide, from wind and rain and tide . . .”
But Quintilian didn’t like the song and screamed
louder than ever.
Pamela walked up and down with him until he
finally drifted off. Then Honor couldn’t sleep. She stayed up
worrying, afraid the Neighborhood Watch would find Will after
curfew. Mr. Pratt and Mrs. Pratt were always on the lookout. Pamela
sat next to Honor on the bed and drew pictures. Fluidly, Pamela
drew animals with a pencil. Cats and horses seemed to come alive on
paper. She practiced for hours, filling every scrap she could find.
But Honor kept glancing at the window. Where did her father go at
night? “Why is he late?” Honor asked.
Pamela never answered that question.
When Honor was eleven, she got a new teacher,
Miss MacLaren, and her class visited the school library once a
week. Although owning books was Not Allowed, borrowing books
from the library was Encouraged. Once a week Honor borrowed a
school library book to bring home. She read about the Emerald City
in The Wizard of Oz. She read The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe, a book about four children who teamed up with a lion to
save the world from winter. And she read The Secret Garden, about a
little girl and boy who planted flowers that never died.
Honor loved the school library, but she was also
afraid of it. The floors were polished wood, and they creaked. The
bookcases were high and set close together. In the center of the
room Miss Tuttle, the small, golden-eyed librarian, sat watching
everyone like a cat. Miss Tuttle had long thick hair she stroked
back now and then away from her face. She powdered her face white,
and her small hands and cheeks were puffy. Whenever classes came
in, Miss Tuttle was working at her desk marking books and cutting
out paragraphs with scissors. No one talked, because Miss Tuttle
needed to concentrate. She bent over her work and every once in a
while lifted up a page to admire the cutouts she had made—so many
small and large rectangles in some places that the paper looked
like lace. Then she swept the cuttings into her white recycling
bin.
Every week, all the children in year H, both
boys’ and girls’ classes, filed into the library, and each child
picked out a book from the low shelves close to Miss Tuttle’s desk.
Honor and Helix often looked at the medium and higher shelves, but
they knew better than to touch books up there. Once, when Miss
Tuttle was bent down over her cutting work, Helix whispered, “I
dare you.”
Honor hesitated. Then she reached out and
touched the edge of a dark blue book on the upper shelf. Instantly,
Miss Tuttle said, “No, no, not for you. Those are for older
children.”
“How did she see me?” Honor whispered to
Helix.
“She sees everything,” he said. “If you ever try
to hide a book from her, she’ll find it. And if you . .
.”
“Silence is golden,” said Miss Tuttle.
That same day, two boys, Hawthorn and Hector,
began pushing and shoving in the back of the library. Hector was an
orphan. His parents had been taken, and so he slept at school with
the other orphans in the Boarders’ Houses. Everyone was supposed to
treat orphans kindly, but they were scheming children. They always
had a hungry, jealous look about their eyes. The girls in Honor’s
class called this look orphanish. The truth was, orphans always
wanted whatever anyone else had. Hector was fighting with Hawthorn
because he wanted Hawthorn’s book.
“Class, please come to the front,” said Miss
Tuttle, but the boys were too busy squabbling to listen. Miss
Tuttle did not rise from her chair. She pushed a small red button
with her finger. Bing! At once, as if by magic, a pair of doors
opened at the back of the library. The doors opened wide to reveal
a great dark cavern of a storage room. All the children stood
transfixed. Hawthorn and Hector stopped fighting and stared in awe
at the blackness. Then the doors swept closed again and Miss Tuttle
beckoned the boys forward with the others. “There is no fighting,”
she said. “Fighters go in there. Any questions?” she asked the
class assembled before her desk.
Bravely, Helix raised his hand. “Is it true that
you’re a Retriever?” he asked Miss Tuttle.
“Yes, I am a licensed Retriever,” Miss Tuttle
said. Coolly she opened her desk drawer and showed the children her
tranquilizing darts. She held up a dart for them to see. The
students stared in awe. The dart was slender and just the length of
Miss Tuttle’s finger. Honor could scarcely breathe. When she looked
at the dart, its delicate point glinted silver. A memory was
returning to her, a memory of long, long ago. She was almost sure
that once she’d seen a dart like that. She was just on the edge of
knowing. She closed her eyes. She saw the pebbled beach in the
Northern Islands. She saw the glint of silver. She heard her mother
scream.
Miss Tuttle shut her desk drawer with a snap.
Honor opened her eyes. A little cry escaped.
“You had a question?” Miss Tuttle turned her
gold eyes on Honor.
Mortified, Honor shook her head. The memory was
gone.
Librarians had special powers in those days.
They didn’t just organize books; they were historians and record
keepers. They were called Informational Safety Officers, and when
families neglected to file forms, the librarians sent out notices
marked Overdue.
After Honor’s eleventh birthday her parents
received three overdue notices in the mail. The first letter was
stamped Overdue in black; the second letter was stamped Overdue in
orange. The third letter was large and stiff and stamped Final
Notice in bright red. After that letter came, Mr. Pratt sat down
with Will and Pamela for a talk. Honor hid on the stairs and
listened.
“You’ve missed all of your daughter’s
ten-year-old appointments,” Mr. Pratt said.
“We’re planning to—” Pamela began.
“Planning isn’t good enough,” said Mr. Pratt.
“This is your last chance. If you fail to meet your obligations,
you will suffer.”
“Suffer?” said Will scornfully.
“Most people do suffer when they go to the
Persuasion Booth,” said Mr. Pratt. “Most people try to avoid
twenty-four hours of Persuasive Reasoning and Positive
Reinforcement. I’m telling you this for your own good. I’ve had
some Positive Reinforcement myself. Ever notice my false
teeth?”
After that visit, Honor’s parents sent in all
her forms.
Ten was an important number in those days—even
more important than it is now. There were ten months in the year
and ten hours in the day. There were ten days in the week: nine
days of work and school and, of course, a tenth called Errand
Day.
At ten, children could join the Young Engineers.
Honor had begged her parents to let her join the neighborhood
troop, but Will and Pamela had never taken her to a single meeting.
Now, at last, at eleven, Honor got to wear a green neckerchief and
pledge allegiance. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
Troops of Engineers and to the Corporation for which it stands, one
planet, ceiled fast . . .”
“Just remember what you’re saying is pure
propaganda,” Will told Honor when she practiced at home.
“What’s propaganda?”
Pamela frowned and shook her head slightly, but
Will answered, “Stories Mother tells us.”
Honor glanced at the framed picture of Earth
Mother on the living room wall. For a moment the smiling face
looked sinister; the twinkling eyes looked small and hard. For just
a split second Earth Mother looked like a witch. Honor looked away.
“Oh, come on, Dad, don’t you want me to have friends?”
Honor’s troop was all neighborhood girls from
year H, and they called themselves the Heliotropes. They met once a
month at the Neighborhood Youth Center for fun and games and
speeches by their troop leader, Hattie’s mother. There were
sleepovers in the Youth Center with its wonderful cooling units.
There were spelling bees. There were cookouts—indoors, of course,
because of the heat.
The Heliotropes worked to earn purple badges for
their vests. They could only earn badges by working together. They
were a team. Either all the Heliotropes earned a badge or none of
them did. There were badges for recycling projects and badges for
litter cleanup. There were badges for sewing and even badges for
singing. “Let there always be sunshine,” the Heliotropes sang. “Let
there always be blue skies. Let there always be Mother. Let us
always agree.”
Even more important than the Young Engineers, in
those days, ten-year-olds received official identity cards. Honor
had been waiting and waiting for her card.
“Everybody else in my class has one!” She’d
nagged her parents all year, but they always forgot, or they were
busy with Quintilian. Will and Pamela were disorganized. They piled
up papers in their closet and sometimes lost them
altogether.
Now, at last, shamefully late, Pamela took Honor
into the City on Errand Day and the two of them stood in line at
the Identity Bureau. The line was long and snaked all the way
around the edges of the tiled lobby.
Honor was so relieved and happy. She swung her
hat by its strings.
“Stop that,” said Pamela.
Honor was wearing her new school uniform: a
khaki skirt and a white blouse with a window in the pocket for her
identity card, just like those on grown-up clothes. Honor craned
her neck to see the front of the line, where ushers directed people
into different offices.
“Stop fidgeting,” snapped Pamela.
“Why are you angry?” Honor asked. She wasn’t
sure exactly why her parents tried to keep her back the way they
did. They didn’t like her to go to the Young Engineers. They didn’t
want her to get her identity card with the privilege of her own
little coupon book at the Central Store. She wasn’t sure why all
this made her parents so unhappy, except that they didn’t want her
to grow up.
“Next,” said the usher, and the line edged
forward. Nervously, Pamela smoothed Honor’s bouncy hair.
They had been waiting an hour before Pamela
signed a special permission slip and Honor was called into a small
white room much cooler than the lobby. A registrar sat there on a
stool. He didn’t say hello. He looked tired and blotchy.
“Right thumb,” said the registrar.
Honor pressed her thumb onto an ink pad and then
onto special paper for a thumbprint. “Index finger,” said the
registrar.
She held out her finger and gasped in pain and
surprise as he pricked her with a needle. Quickly, he smeared the
drop of blood on a plastic card.
“Photo.” The registrar sat her down in a
straight-backed chair and disappeared behind a large camera on a
tripod. “Keep still,” he told her as he clicked the shutter. Then
he pushed the buttons on what looked like a small adding machine.
The machine spat out a slip of paper, which he gave her. “Here’s
your number,” the registrar said. Her number was printed in gray
ink: 571207. Head down, Honor left the room. She didn’t feel
excited anymore.