ONE
AT FIRST, HONOR HOPED THERE WAS SOME MISTAKE. HER
parents weren’t missing, only late again or lost or robbed as
they had been that time before. She hoped she was dreaming even
when she saw the sunrise through the window. She was still wearing
her school uniform, and she was curled up on the couch, wrapped in
the old blue mohair blanket from the North.
The house was filled with light: pure canary
yellow. The day’s first weather bulletin was sounding. Honor shook
off sleep. She raced into her parents’ room, but their bed was
smooth and blank, the white covers pulled up neatly. She didn’t
dare look again at the glitter globe on the floor of her parents’
bathroom. Her uniform was wrinkled, and she had to catch the bus.
What would she tell Quintilian? They couldn’t be orphans. They just
couldn’t. They couldn’t live with the boarders at school. There
were no orphans in Honor’s class of girls. Only Hector and Helix on
the boys’ side. The girls’ class had a perfect twelve and Honor had
been perfect too. Or she had tried to be.
She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.
The girl she’d been the day before was gone. Her hair was messy
now, her uniform creased. Her face was pale and streaked with
tears, even though she couldn’t remember crying. The identity card
in her pocket still said Honor and not Heloise. You see now? she
heard Miss Blessing tell her. And she did see. She had brought this
on her parents. She had exposed them just when she should have been
protecting them. She’d changed her name against their wishes. She’d
lied, and when at last she’d told the truth, everybody had
known—Miss Blessing had known, and the Safety Officers had known.
The whole Corporation knew that Honor’s parents were unusual; their
ideas were Inaccurate. They did not belong.
How could she have called her own parents
lunatics? They might be going to the asylum now, the dusty glass
houses on the moon. All the little children thought that was where
the Disappeared ended up.
Honor was shivering again. What should she do?
She began pulling out drawers in the kitchen. She looked inside all
the cabinets. Wouldn’t they have left a note? Some instructions for
her, just in case? She searched under the beds. The sky changed
from canary yellow to pale blue. She knew only one thing. She could
not miss the bus to school.
There was no time for breakfast. She washed her
face and brushed her teeth. Then she tore off her creased clothes
and changed quickly into her other uniform. She brushed her hair
and tried to smooth it down. She clapped her sun hat on her head
and took her book bag and her key. She could not miss the bus; she
had to catch it, or everyone would know.
Ms. Lynch did not treat Honor differently. She
did not look at Honor specially or call her out of class. There was
no message to go to Miss Blessing’s office either, even though
Honor sat on the edge of her chair expecting one. She concentrated
on school. She thought only about her work. There would be no
change in her. No one would ever know her parents were gone. She
felt her life depended on it. When she took a math test, Honor
checked her work twice, and she was grateful for the silence in the
classroom and the slow-moving clock. She didn’t want school to
end.
Honor’s heart jumped when the last bell rang,
but she tried to stay calm. Head down, she gathered her books. She
walked to the infirmary and got Quintilian, who was sitting up in
bed and feeling much better. She didn’t tell him anything but
hurried him onto the bus as if it were an ordinary day.
They walked home from the bus stop and
Quintilian dashed ahead, zooming and zipping and making noises like
submarines—“Fooosh! Splashdown!”—for an imaginary story he was
telling himself.
Honor didn’t tell Quintilian anything. She
unlocked the door as she always did and gave him New Directives to
cut up while she did her homework. She half believed that somehow
her parents would come home. When it got dark, Honor acted as
though Will and Pamela were out late again, and she made toast for
dinner. Quintilian liked toast with butter. But Honor saw when she
opened the refrigerator that there was hardly any butter left. She
hadn’t cried all day, but when she saw only a sliver of butter,
tears started in her eyes. How would they get enough food for
dinner without their parents’ coupon books? As a thirteen-year-old,
Honor got only thirteen points a week, and Quintilian was only
three, so he got none.
She gave Quintilian the butter and ate her own
toast plain. Then she said, “Put on your pajamas and I’ll tell you
a story.”
“Why?” asked Quintilian.
“Because it’s time for bed.”
“Where’s Mommy and Daddy?”
“They must be late,” Honor said. “Time to brush
your teeth.”
“No, I’m waiting,” said Quintilian.
“It’s your bedtime,” said Honor, and started
dragging him to his room.
Quintilian started screaming.
“Do you want the Neighborhood Watch to come?”
Honor demanded, pulling hard on his arm.
“I don’t care. I don’t CARE!” Quintilian
screamed even louder.
“Do you want them to come and give us a ticket?
Those are thirty points! We won’t have any food for a week! Quiet
down. The Watch might be coming any minute.”
Quintilian took a long shuddering breath and
listened. “Do you hear them now?” he asked.
“No, not yet, but you’d better come.” She had to
get him to bed. She couldn’t talk to him anymore. She didn’t know
what to say.
All that night she dreaded the morning, when
Quintilian would come into their parents’ room looking for them.
She couldn’t sleep. Then, after she finally drifted off, she almost
overslept. Just as she heard Quintilian stirring, she rushed out in
her nightgown and closed her parents’ door and sat down in front of
it for good measure.
“I want Mommy and Daddy,” said
Quintilian.
“You can’t see them,” said Honor.
“I want Mommy and Daddy. Open the
door.”
“Breakfast first,” said Honor.
Quintilian looked at her. “Get up,” he
said.
“I will if you come with me.”
“Get up,” he said.
Slowly, she got to her feet.
He leaped for the door, but she blocked
him.
“I want Mommy and Daddy!” he wailed. Kicking and
biting, he threw himself at Honor.
She let him attack her, and then suddenly she
thought there was no use holding him off. She couldn’t pretend to
him any longer. She opened the door and he rushed inside the empty
bedroom. He searched everywhere. Then she sat down next to him in
the hall and told him.
“But where are they?” Quintilian asked
her.
“Nobody knows,” said Honor.
“Where are Mommy and Daddy?” he asked.
“They’re gone,” she said.
“Gone where?”
“Gone.”
“I want them!” He began to cry.
“I know. But it’s late. We have to go to
school.”
“I don’t want to go to school. I want Mommy and
Daddy. They aren’t taken; they’re coming back.”
“Please, please stop crying,” Honor
said.
“They are not gone,” sobbed Quintilian. “They
are not taken.”
Honor tried stroking his hair; she tried
promising him a treat. She tried everything until at last she lied,
“You’re right. They’re coming back.”
When he heard that, Quintilian stopped crying.
“When are they coming? Tomorrow?”
Honor hesitated.
“The day after tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said. “But we have to do everything
right. You are going to have to be very good.”