11 February, 2140
The new Surplus is ‘difficult’. He thinks he’s better than a Surplus, thinks he’s better than me. And he’s not. He’s quite stupid, actually, and he lies all the time. He’s already been in Solitary twice, and frankly I think he should be kept down there.
He doesn’t Know His Place and he thinks it’s OK to whisper things during training sessions when it isn’t at all. He said he wasn’t Surplus Peter; that he was called Peter Tomlinson, like he was Legal or something. And he told me my name was Anna Covey and that he knows my parents. I mean, how stupid is that? Everyone knows that Surpluses don’t have more than one name, and that my parents are in prison where they belong. What – so he grew up in prison with them? Yeah, right. He’s a troublemaker, just like I thought he’d be. And he’s lying, just to get some attention. Like Sheila did when she first arrived.
It shows what happens when they don’t catch Surpluses early enough. Shows how lucky I am to have come to Grange Hall when I did. The way he walks, you’d really think he was Legal. You’d think the world belongs to him, when the truth is he’s got no right to be here, like the rest of us.
There was another boy here once before who didn’t fit in either. His name was Patrick and when he arrived he cried all the time, even though he was virtually a Middle and should have been more grown-up than that. He was always in Solitary or getting beaten, because when he wasn’t crying he was arguing with the Instructors, telling them that he wanted to go home, that his parents were going to find him and that then Mrs Pincent would be sorry. I tried to talk some sense into him, but he refused to listen. Mrs Pincent says that sometimes Surpluses find it hard to adjust and don’t like to ‘face facts’. He thought he was better than the rest of us, Mrs Pincent said. He only stayed a few weeks and then they took him away. Mrs Pincent said that he was going to a detention centre, where they could deal with people like Patrick better, where he wouldn’t interfere with our training. If Peter isn’t careful, he’ll end up going there too. Mrs Pincent said that they have to do hard labour all the time in a detention centre. And that the boys don’t even get one blanket, even when it’s really cold. It was for Patrick’s own good that he went there, Mrs Pincent said. If he didn’t learn how to be a Surplus, he’d never find employment, and then what would he do?
Yesterday, Peter was put in Solitary because he told Mr Sargent that it was old people who were Surpluses, not us. None of us could believe it when he said that and I’ve never seen Mr Sargent so angry. He didn’t even go red – he went white instead and the vein on his forehead started throbbing. I think he was going to beat him, but then he decided to call Mrs Pincent instead and Peter was taken away to Solitary. The worst thing of all was that he winked at me as they took him out. Like it was really cool to be put in Solitary.
He came out this evening, but I’m not sure it taught him anything, because he still grinned at me stupidly across Central Feeding, like we were friends or something. Peter isn’t my friend. I wish Mrs Pincent would send him away so things can get back to normal around here. Or even better I wish Mrs Sharpe would decide that she wants me as her permanent housekeeper, to go around the world with her and keep her house spotless and clean. I wish she’d take me a long way from here.
Anna carefully closed her journal and secreted it back on to the ledge behind the bath. Already it felt like a close friend, a confidante. When she’d been little, she and the other Surpluses in her dormitory used to talk to each other, sometimes late into the night, sharing secrets and thoughts. But then Mrs Pincent had appointed her Dormitory Monitor, which meant that she had to report any secrets or wrongdoings of anyone in the dorm. It hadn’t taken long for her former friends to stop taking her into their confidence and ever since then she’d become used to walking into a room and seeing groups of people breaking up, whispered conversations halting. She didn’t care, she told herself proudly; it was more important to be a good Surplus. Surpluses weren’t supposed to spend time whispering to each other, anyway. They were supposed to take orders, to listen to Legals. Anna was determined to be the best Surplus ever. She’d be so good, it would almost make up for her existing in the first place. But it was still quite lonely having no one to talk to, particularly now, with Surplus Peter making her feel agitated and confused. He’d been at Grange Hall for three weeks, and every time she glimpsed him in the corridor, Anna felt herself go red, found herself looking away, only to turn to look at him once he’d passed. He unsettled her, kept trying to talk to her when all she wanted him to do was leave her alone. Anna felt like he was watching her constantly with that slightly mocking smile on his face, making her self-conscious, and confused, and she was determined not to let him know that she’d noticed.
After getting out of the bathtub and drying herself quickly, Anna shot one last look at the bath to make sure that her journal was completely hidden, and made her way back to her dormitory, running through the next day’s schedule in her head as she went. Managing Supplies Efficiently was at 8.30 a.m., followed by Decorum at 9.30 a.m., and then they were having a polishing demonstration with some real silver. Mrs Sharpe had had a great deal of silver in her house – cutlery, candlesticks, frames and more – so Anna was confident that she would impress everyone with her ability to create a real shine. ‘It’s a job you can’t rush,’ Mrs Sharpe had told her. ‘And nor should you want to. Polishing silver is therapeutic.’ Anna agreed. Silver was beautiful when it gleamed and she hoped that one day she would work in a house with as much silver as Mrs Sharpe had.
Everyone was asleep by the time Anna got to her dormitory. Quietly, she slipped off her robe and got under the thin sheet and blankets, tucking the edges under herself to keep the warmth in and allowing herself to fall quickly into an exhausted sleep.
She was so tired that when, twenty or so minutes later, she felt a light tap on her shoulder, she nearly slept through it. But the tapping was insistent and wrenched her from her dreamless sleep back into the cold, dark dormitory. She opened her eyes silently, then sat up, her eyes wide with incredulity. It was Peter, crouched down over her bed.
She frowned. ‘You . . . How . . . What are you doing here?’ she hissed.
She was angry, and she didn’t mind him knowing it. It was nearly midnight, and she needed these precious hours of sleep. Peter, sitting in front of her with an anxious look on his face, had broken so many rules coming here that they could both be doing hard labour for weeks, months even. Pending boys never came anywhere near the Pending girls’ dormitories.
‘What are you doing here?’ Anna repeated crossly, before he could respond to her first questions, outraged that Peter should willingly break so many rules, as if somehow they didn’t apply to him.
Peter moved his finger to his mouth as if to tell Anna to stay silent, then looked around the dormitory quickly, his eyes darting from bed to bed. He leant over and took her hand.
‘Anna Covey, I have to tell you about your parents,’ he whispered. ‘They wanted me to find you. You’ve got to get away from that evil Mrs Pincent. I’ve come to take you home, Anna.’
Anna pushed him away and her eyes narrowed. ‘You do not know my parents and I have no home,’ she hissed. ‘My parents are in prison. My name is Anna. Just Anna. I’m a Surplus. And so are you. Get used to it, and leave me alone.’
Peter frowned slightly, but made no attempt to move.
‘You have a birthmark on your stomach,’ he whispered softly. ‘It looks a bit like a butterfly.’
Anna froze and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand upright. How did he know that? Who was he? Why was he telling her this?
‘I have to get back,’ Peter said, before she could say anything.
And then he left, silently slinking out of the dormitory and disappearing down the corridor. Like a ghost, Anna thought as she lay back down on her bed, a sudden overwhelming desire to cry washing over her. Slowly, she moved her hand down to her stomach, where she felt for the red birthmark just above her belly button. The birthmark that had caused her nothing but shame, the birthmark that she kept hidden at all costs to avoid the taunting and name calling that inevitably started when anyone saw it.
How did Peter know about it? Who had told him it was shaped like a butterfly, she wondered. When Mrs Pincent had first seen it, she’d remarked that it looked like a dead moth and had said that it was Mother Nature’s way of branding Anna a pest. Moths ate things that belonged to other people, she’d told her, and abused their hosts. ‘How very apt,’ she’d said.
And yet, Peter’s description stirred something in Anna, almost a memory but not quite; more a vague feeling that at some point she, too, had thought it resembled a butterfly. Anna almost thought she remembered believing, when she was very little, that it was a sign that one day she’d grow wings and fly away from Grange Hall. But Mrs Pincent had been right – it wasn’t a butterfly, it was a moth. It was red and ugly and she hated it.
How dare Peter come here and remind her of it? How dare he sneak around the place, confusing her and pretending he knew things that he didn’t, telling her that Mrs Pincent was evil? Maybe it was all part of an elaborate test, she thought to herself. Perhaps right now, he was reporting back to Mrs Pincent and working out new ways to trap her into saying something or doing something wrong. Perhaps she should have told him that Mrs Pincent wasn’t evil, she thought worriedly, little beads of sweat appearing on her forehead in spite of the cold. But she hadn’t had a chance, had she?
Then she shook herself; it was a stupid idea. Mrs Pincent would never use someone like him as a spy. She didn’t trust Peter one bit; Anna could tell from the way she never took her eyes from him.
So if he wasn’t a spy, there had to be some other explanation. Someone must have told him about her birthmark. They were probably all laughing about it right now.
Not that it mattered. Whoever he said he was, she wasn’t going to listen to him. She was a Prefect and that meant not entertaining any nonsense.
Turning over, Anna closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.
But it was a restless sleep, and throughout the night her dreams were filled with crying children, a woman screaming and a little butterfly, trapped in a cold, grey prison.