TWO
HONOR’S PARENTS DID NOT MISS ANY MORE IMPORTANT
deadlines. She made sure of that. When she turned twelve, Honor
got her own Storm Emergency Kit with flares and a bottle of water
and packets of energy crackers. The kit included a booklet called
Youth Safety, with directives for Safe disposal of dangerous
litter. “Dispose of needles in red biohazard bins. Dispose of
shattered glass in blue glass bins. Dispose of leaflets
immediately. Leaflets marked with the word Forecaster are dangerous
to the community. Reading them is a crime. Keeping them is a crime.
Fold them in half and then in half again. Drop them in the nearest
white paper recycling bin.” When she turned thirteen, Honor went to
the Corporation Health Office and received a pamphlet called Earth
Mother’s Guide for Girls, which had drawings of flowers with
stamens and pistils and also cross sections of beehives, wasps’
nests, termite mounds, and mole rat colonies. We are here on earth
to produce without stinting and reproduce within limits, the book
said. We give what we can, do what we must, and take only what we
need.
The year Honor turned thirteen was important in
the Greenspoon family because it was also the year Quintilian
turned three. At three, Quintilian was finally eligible to start
school. That meant Pamela could get a job.
Quintilian was a dreamy brown-eyed boy with
short-cropped curls. He always had an imaginary story or game in
his head and often bumped into things because he paid no attention
to where he was going.
Will and Pamela worried Quintilian wouldn’t get
into the Old Colony School and that he would be sent to a special
school for Special Children. Before Quintilian’s interview, Will
and Pamela and Honor all sat with him and told him what to
say.
“Who cares for the earth?” Honor tested
Quintilian.
“Earth Mother,” Quintilian shouted.
“What are her watchwords?”
“Peas, dove, and toy,” Quintilian
answered.
“Stop it!” Honor said. “You know the
answers.”
But Quintilian just laughed at her. He thought
he was funny.
Honor was worried when Miss Blessing came to the
house for the interview. Quintilian did not know the Corporate
Creed by heart. But Miss Blessing did not question a three-year-old
so closely. She asked Quintilian to draw pictures instead. When he
drew a picture of his family, he drew five round smiling faces with
stick legs and arms.
“Who are all these people?” Miss Blessing asked
him.
“Mommy, Daddy, Honor, Quintilian . .
.”
“And who is this one?” Miss Blessing pointed to
the largest face.
“Earth Mother,” said Quintilian, looking at Miss
Blessing with his dark, trusting eyes.
Miss Blessing smiled. “What a sweet child,” she
told Will and Pamela. “It’s a pity you did not give him back to the
community.”
Honor looked at her parents, but they did not
answer this. Tense, they sat across from Miss Blessing and waited
for her verdict.
“We will do our best with him,” Miss Blessing
said at last.
On his first day of school, Quintilian was ready
long before Honor. He didn’t cry like other three-year-olds when
the bus came. He had been waiting to ride the school bus his whole
life.
“Pay attention to your teacher,” Pamela reminded
Quintilian as he climbed the bus stairs.
“Stay near Honor,” said Will, as if it were
perfectly normal for a family to send two children to
school.
Quintilian sat next to the window and Honor sat
on the aisle. She scrunched down and looked straight ahead when
other students got on. She didn’t want to hear them ask why a
girl from H was sitting with a little kid from Q.
She’d been waiting for Quintilian to start
school, but now that he was actually coming, she was embarrassed.
As soon as the bus arrived at Old Colony, she took him by the hand
and hurried him over to the teacher for year Q. She did not want to
be seen with him.
“Class,” said Mrs. Goldbetter that afternoon,
“open your history books to page fifteen. Hildegard will recite
today.”
“North America was divided into three parts. . .
.” recited Hildegard. “The Northern Lands were uninhabitable
because of ice and snow. The Southern Lands were desert. The
Midsection of the continent was more favorable, but the people
there were Unpredictable. They built weapons; they practiced war;
they committed so many Crimes against Nature that the climate
overheated. Gas from factories, cars, and heating and cooling units
damaged the earth’s atmosphere. Heat built up until the polar ice
caps melted. The tides rose; dams and levees broke. Houses,
businesses, and streets filled with mud. After the Flood, North
America was no more. With the ceiling of the Polar Seas, Earth
Mother Stabilized and Secured the Northern Islands that remain. The
Northern Islands now enjoy New Weather, but the Corporation has not
yet numbered them for resettlement. Future Planners are now mapping
new cities in the Northern Islands. This artist’s drawing (facing
page) shows a plan for a city called Security on an island in the
Northeast. The Central Plaza displays the famous Arm, which broke
from a larger idol known as the Statue of Liberty. The Arm holds a
torch, which will light the plaza at night. . . .”
Even as Hildegard recited at the front of the
class, Honor imagined the other girls were whispering about
Quintilian. She sensed them passing notes.
At recess she was careful to stay far away from
the small fenced playground where the littlest children ran and
screamed.
“Look what I found,” said Helix, running
over.
“Let me see. Is it rare?”
“Hey, don’t grab. Finders keepers.” Helix’s fist
closed.
“Oh, come on, let me look,” said Honor. “Did you
find this with your magnet?”
“No. By hand. I think it’s silver.” Helix was
trying to rub the mud off an ancient coin. He spat on it.
“That’s disgusting,” said Honor. “Take it to the
water fountain.”
They went to the water fountain near the swings
and washed the coin until it shone. There was a face on one side
and a statue on the other. They bent over the coin, and on the face
side they read the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LIBERTY, IN GOD
WE TRUST, and QUARTER DOLLAR. On the statue side were the words NEW
YORK 1788 GATEWAY TO FREEDOM, the old-style date 2001, and the
ancient legend E PLURIBUS UNUM.
“Look, it still says God on it,” Honor
said.
“Where? Where?”
“It’s in the small print.”
“That’s how you can tell it’s from before the
Flood,” said Helix. He held the coin carefully between his thumb
and index finger.
“What do you think you could buy with this?”
Honor asked.
“I don’t know, maybe a . . . book,” said Helix.
“A big coin like this could buy a lot. That’s why it says e
pluribus unum. That means ‘out of one, many.’ One coin could buy
many things. What would you buy if you could buy
anything?”
Honor thought about this. “I would buy a . . .
house on high ground.”
“You can’t buy houses,” said Helix.
“You said if I could buy anything.”
“Then I’d buy a telescope,” Helix
whispered.
“That’s Not Allowed,” Honor said automatically,
but she wasn’t really listening. She was gazing anxiously at the
fenced area where the tiny boys were playing. Quintilian was there
among them, but he looked like he was pushing another boy. Was he
playing, or was he fighting? Where was the teacher? What if he got
hurt? What if he got caught? Suddenly Honor sensed Helix watching
her watching Quintilian. She turned away, embarrassed.
The teachers blew their whistles. Everyone ran
to line up under the trees. The faster the children lined up, the
faster they could reenter the air-conditioned classrooms.
“Here,” Helix said, and he pressed the coin into
Honor’s hand.
She was confused. “What about finders
keepers?”
But Helix had already run to get in
line.
At the end of the day, Honor waited for
Quintilian to get on the school bus. Everyone else boarded, but
Honor didn’t see Quintilian. The driver started up his engine and
began closing the doors. He never waited more than a
moment.
Honor jumped onto the steps and blocked the
closing doors with her body.
“Wait! We’re missing somebody.”
“Sorry,” said the driver, and he released the
brake.
At that moment, a tearstained, disheveled
Quintilian ran up the bus steps. Honor grabbed his arm and charged
inside. Swoosh. The door swung shut behind them. The bus lurched
forward, and Quintilian and Honor stumbled down the aisle to their
seats.
“What happened to you?” Honor whispered, angry
and dismayed.
Quintilian’s clothes were ripped and muddy. He
held out a red card from the office.
“You got a red card? Your first day?”
“Don’t talk to me!” Quintilian squeezed his eyes
closed and covered his ears with his hands.
“Why were you fighting? Don’t you know better
than that?”
“He called me a brother!” Quintilian
said.