SIX
WILL AND PAMELA WOULD NOT CALL THEIR DAUGHTER
Heloise, no matter how Honor begged. They refused to believe she
had a new name.
“I need to go to the Identity Bureau,” Honor
pleaded on Errand Day. “I have to get a new card.”
“You will not go,” said Will.
“We will not take you,” said Pamela.
“I hate you!” Honor cried. She was desperate.
She could not get a new card without the signature of her parent or
guardian. She also knew she could not return to school after Errand
Day with her old card showing in her shirt pocket. That was all the
proof Miss Blessing would need that her parents had not agreed to
the change and that Honor had lied.
Errand Day passed, and a new week began. Honor
came to school on day one and hid in the crowd of girls in the
classroom doorway. She clutched her stack of books to her chest.
Ancient History, Intermediate Climatology, Algebra I. She hid in
the crowd, but she had to walk to her desk, and she couldn’t hold
her books over her ID card forever. She had to put them
down.
All that morning she bent self-consciously over
her work. She felt her old name burning on her shirt. The other
girls were so used to the old ID card they didn’t notice. They kept
calling her Honor and then catching themselves. “Oops! I mean
Heloise.” Ms. Lynch never made that mistake. She always called
Honor by her new name. It was just a matter of time before Ms.
Lynch noticed that Honor’s ID card was wrong.
“Hiroko will recite today,” Ms. Lynch announced
in history. “Please open your books to chapter five.”
“When the Flood began,” Hiroko recited,
“countries battled for fresh water.”
“Let’s hear your voice,” said Ms.
Lynch.
“Armies fought for a safe food supply. When the
Flood ended, ninety percent of Earth’s population was no more. The
old communication networks were broken. Fear and famine overcame
Earth. At this time, the Earth Mother, our Provider, began to
gather men and women from each country to form the New Consensus.
She appointed seven Councilors to advise Her, and together they
formed a new government. She called this new government the New
Council for Cooperation, or the Corporation, for short. . .
.”
Ms. Lynch can’t see my ID card, Honor thought as
she bent over her open book. Her eyes are bad. For once she was
grateful for the boring history recitation. Slowly, steadily,
Hiroko kept talking.
“Sadly, not all the survivors on Earth joined
hands in Cooperation. Those who did not cooperate soon learned that
Earth Mother could not provide food and water and housing for them.
She cast them out. . . .”
A sharp rap on the classroom door startled
Honor. “Excuse me, Hiroko,” said Ms. Lynch. She opened the door and
there was Miss Blessing.
“We’d like to borrow Heloise,” said Miss
Blessing.
Now Honor wished she were invisible. She wished
she could fly away, but she had to obey Miss Blessing.
“Go along, Heloise,” said Ms. Lynch.
Honor set down her book and slipped through the
classroom. She felt the other girls wondering about her as she
walked past, but when she turned toward them, they looked down at
their desks. “Shut the door behind you, please,” Ms. Lynch said.
Honor’s hands trembled as she obeyed.
“We have a problem,” Miss Blessing told Honor in
the hall.
Distantly, Honor heard Hiroko picking up just
where she’d left off. “. . . into wild places. Those who did not
cooperate could not survive. However, those who did join hands with
Earth Mother soon formed a Safe and Secure society. They took
refuge in the Colonies, the islands of the ancient South Pacific,
now renamed the Tranquil Sea. . . .”
“The problem is Quintilian,” said Miss Blessing.
“He is in the infirmary.”
Honor’s eyes widened. No mention of her card at
all? And Quintilian sick? Or hurt? He was just three and a half and
he came home with I’s for Inaccuracies on his report card. He
was known in year Q as Unruly. But he had never been in the
infirmary before.
Nurse Applebee was sitting at her desk filling
out a blue accident report. “We have left messages at your parents’
places of work,” she said to Honor. “Your little boy”—she politely
avoided the term brother—“will have to spend the night
here.”
“But what did he do?” asked Honor.
“He fell out of the banyan tree in the
playground,” said Nurse Applebee.
“How did he—?”
“He didn’t say,” said the nurse. “He can’t
remember.”
Honor followed Nurse Applebee and Miss Blessing
into the clean white infirmary lined with beds. Quintilian lay
small and pale, propped up with pillows. His head was bandaged, his
eyes wide open.
“Quintilian,” said the nurse gently, “can you
hear me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you know what day it is?”
He hesitated.
“Do you know where you are?”
“In bed,” he said.
“Where do you live?” asked the nurse.
“In the Colonies,” he said.
“But what is your address?”
He didn’t answer.
“And who owns the Colonies?”
“The Corporation,” Quintilian said quickly. He
seemed to be waking up. Honor sighed with relief.
“Good.”
“And who is this?” Miss Blessing pointed to
Honor.
He smiled at her even as he said the wrong name.
“Honor.”
“You see, he has a concussion,” said Nurse
Applebee.
But now Miss Blessing turned to Honor. “Where is
your new identity card?”
“I don’t know. I forgot it,” Honor spluttered.
Then she gave up. “I don’t have one.” She shuddered, tensing for
the punishment she knew would come.
But Miss Blessing did not call her out into the
hall. She did not threaten punishment. She just turned to leave,
and as she did, her voice floated back into the room, so quiet and
sweet and frightening. “You see now? Isn’t it better to tell the
truth?”
All that afternoon, Honor trembled to think what
would happen. She could not concentrate on algebra and spoiled her
bowl in ceramics class. She knew she would be punished for having
the wrong identity card. The punishment would come, even if Miss
Blessing chose not to mention it yet. Honor wished she were home.
She wished she’d never thought of changing her name. If she’d
listened to her parents, she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.
All she’d wanted was to fit in, and now her card was Inaccurate.
That was Not Allowed.
She rode the bus home without Quintilian. Alone,
she trudged up the hill to the house. Her book bag was heavy. The
sun beat down on her shoulders and sweat trickled down her face.
Once she got inside the cool house, she dumped her bag, pulled off
her hat, and sank down on the tiled living room floor.
She missed Quintilian. Her afternoon was easy
but also empty without him. A huge sadness welled up inside her as
she wrote out her algebra equations. She wanted her parents—but
once again they were late. She went to her bedroom, but they had
not left the glitter globe out for her. This had happened once or
twice before when they stayed out late. They always apologized in
the morning.
Through the window she saw it was hour seven. In
the pink light she ate oatmeal cookies and mangoes for dinner. She
drank a glass of milk.
After the green flash, the sky shifted to
lavender, then deep purple. No sign of her mother and father. Honor
began pacing back and forth in the living room. Every few seconds
she looked anxiously at the front door. Then a black mark on the
curtain caught her eye. The curtain hanging near the front window
had gotten caught in the door. She could see the grease stain from
the lock. The stain her mother always warned about—“Don’t catch the
curtain!”
She looked back at the living room. Everything
was as it should be, neat and orderly, maybe even neater than
before. The coffee table was covered with Quintilian’s toys, but
they’d been arranged neatly, Evacuation in its box, playing cards
stacked on top. She peeked into her bedroom, Quintilian’s bedroom,
the hall closet. The closet shelves were piled with folded sheets
and towels. She stared for a long time at the two kites lying on
the top shelf in a tangle of string and wrinkled wings.
She walked through the bedrooms. They were
untouched, but the light was on in her parents’ bathroom. The door
stood ajar. She stood a long time before the door. She was afraid
to open it. She didn’t want to touch it, but she had to. She was
beginning to shiver. She was so cold her teeth were chattering. She
put her hand on the door and pushed. There on the tile floor lay
the glitter globe, smashed in a little pool of sparkling
water.
She doubled over, almost sick. She didn’t know
who’d broken it or how. Safety Officers? Search dogs? Had her
mother tried to take the glitter globe with her? Or had her father
smashed it to warn her? She didn’t know. She would never find out.
All she knew was that she and Quintilian were alone now. Their
parents had been taken.