And the one door I’m heading for.
I breathe, in and out, deep and calm as I can, and walk to the door slowly, trying to keep nausea at bay. For years I’d thought it was like this for everyone. When I found out it wasn’t, that for everyone else the physical world vanishes and this is as real as anything in it, I almost let it slip. But Nanna told me it it had to be a secret. I didn’t understand why at that age – what was I, six or seven? I did years later. Different isn’t good sometimes.
There it is: Dad’s door. I knock, open the door and walk in. No one is here. I almost cry with relief to see that the sofa is still there, though the colour has changed from red to blue. I sink down on it and close my eyes. This is the best place in here: this sofa is enough like the one my body is on for the two – virtual and real – to not jar so much.
‘Dad?’ I call out, tentative. ‘It’s me. It’s Luna.’
Moments pass, and I’m not sure how long I can stay. The intense dizziness and disconnection seem even worse than the last time I was here: inside I’m spinning, falling, looking over a precipice and about to throw myself over the edge. Like in my dream.
‘Luna?’
I risk opening my eyes: it’s Dad. I mean, he looks like Doctor Who no. 32 just now, but I know who he is. As if he knows I won’t be here long, he rushes over and gives me a big hug and kiss on the cheek.
‘Dad!’ I protest.
‘Sorry. It’s just so good to see you.’
‘There’s an easy answer to that. Unplug and join the real world now and then – I’m usually there.’
‘Is something wrong?’
He knows how much I hate being here, though not the real reason. He always assumed it was because of how Astra – my mother – died. Nanna said not to tell him, and I never set him straight. Maybe that was a mistake? But it seems far too late to tell him the truth now.
‘No. Something is right for a change.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve got a Test appointment. Next week.’
His eyes widen. ‘Really? No way!’
‘Yes way.’
‘I’m proud of you.’
I blink my eyes hard. ‘Don’t be. I bet me even getting an appointment was a mistake. I’ll probably flunk the lot of them.’
‘I doubt it. You’re as brainy and beautiful as your mother.’
I shake my head. ‘I wish. Maybe you could come for dinner on Sunday?’
His eyes unfocus, then come back again. ‘I’ve got some appointments, but make it lunch, and I’ll see what I can do. That is one of the perks of being a Time Lord.’ He winks.
‘Did you hear Jason is playing Quidditch?’
‘Oh, is he? I might see if I can show up as Dumbledore a bit later.’
I laugh, but then the world lurches one time too many and my stomach is coming up. ‘Gotta go, Dad; see you then?’ I’m unplugging already and he shimmers, waves. Then is gone.
I’m breathing in and out, in and out. Hyperventilating. And trying to calm it down. I put the lights back on to see my real room. Touch things that exist – my books, the vid screen. The framed picture of Astra that I keep putting in a drawer and taking out again. And gradually my breathing goes back to normal, but the world still spins and spins until I give up trying to stop it, and vomit in a bin.
Five minutes of Realtime, and it is nearly two hours before I stop being sick. That’s a pretty good reason to be a Refuser, isn’t it?
5
The doorbell rings again. Where is Sally? I tear down the stairs, run across the front room and whip the door open.
Melrose?
‘Hi,’ she says and smiles. I stare back at her, mouth hanging open. She raises an eyebrow and I snap my mouth shut.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ she says.
‘Uh, OK. Sure. Come in.’ I stand back from the door, and she walks through it. When I don’t, she pushes it shut behind her.
‘Didn’t Sally tell you I was coming?’
‘No. Why would Sally…?’
She half frowns. ‘I messaged her, as there didn’t seem to be much point in messaging you. You haven’t answered any of my messages in about five years.’
‘Mel?’ Nanna says softly, looking up from her chair. ‘Melrose,’ she says, her voice stronger this time.
Melrose walks over to her, kneels down and puts a hand on hers. ‘Hello. Good to see you, Mrs Iverson.’ Nanna smiles, then her vision fogs away; she’s gone again.
‘She remembers you,’ I say, surprised. Nanna’s memory comes and goes, and significant people she should recognise, like Sally, or her doctor, she often doesn’t.
‘I did kind of half live here for years,’ Melrose says. And she did, with dinners and sleepovers several times a week, and when she wasn’t here it was usually because I was at her house.
But that was then, and this is now. ‘Why are you here?’
‘The Test? You may have heard of it?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘But do you know what is happening next week? Where you have to go, what to take with you?’
I stare at her blankly.
‘I didn’t think so. Sampson said that—’
‘Ah, I see. He’s put you up to this, has he?’
‘Don’t be such a dys. I went to see him. And I’m here because I want to be.’
‘Forgive me for being sceptical. If that is true, where’ve you been for the last five years?’
And Melrose pulls back, as if she’d been slapped. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. I called you again and again; you blanked me.’ She shakes her head, and starts for the door.
‘But you ignored me when we started high school, completely brushed me off. You had that whole group of brain-dead fashion clones as your new friends. How was I supposed to take that?’
She turns, faces me. ‘Not everyone can get by with just themselves, Luna. You were impossible. You deliberately alienated everyone – you were so prickly. Still are. Look, it’s fine you wanted to Refuse and do your own thing, not go along with the crowd. Even though you wouldn’t talk to me about it. But you went out of your way to avoid me. Not the other way around.’
She stares back at me and somewhere inside I start to get an uncomfortable feeling. Was it really like that? I’d felt like a camel with two heads that first year at high school, segregated into the freak show others pointed at in the hallways. But was that because of me, not them? And then I remember something else. I had avoided talking to Melrose about all of this. Because I couldn’t tell her the reasons. Maybe I’d avoided her altogether without realising that was what I was doing.
‘I… I…’
She half smiles. ‘You haven’t changed, Luna. Your face looks like it is going to crack because you can’t say I’m sorry, can you?’
‘I’m sorry.’ I manage to get the words out. ‘I didn’t see things that way at the time, but I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, too. I knew things weren’t right with you, and I should have tried harder. I gave up.’ She holds out a hand. ‘Friends again?’
I swallow. There is part of me that doesn’t believe this. That wonders if she is just here because now that I have a Test appointment I’ve crossed the line from socially unacceptable to OK to acknowledge in public.
Then Nanna pushes me from behind. I ignore Melrose’s hand and give her a hug.
‘Aw, sweet. Have you two made up at last?’ Sally stands in the doorway, and we spring apart.
‘You didn’t tell me she was coming,’ I say, blinking furiously.
Sally raises an eyebrow. ‘Thought things might work out better this way. Are you staying for lunch?’ she asks Melrose.
‘Yes, if that’s OK. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Come on.’ She pulls me by the
hand to the stairs.
‘Did you tell her?’ I whisper on the way to my room.
‘What?’
‘Did you tell Sally about my appointment?’
‘No.’ She frowns. ‘You’re not telling me she doesn’t know about it, are you?’
‘It kind of hasn’t come up,’ I admit, as I open the door to my room. Shut it firmly behind us.
‘Luna, honestly. You think she might notice when you’re away next week?’
‘I’ll tell her. Eventually.’
‘When?’
‘Dad said he’d come for lunch tomorrow. I wanted to leave it until then. She’ll be all over me if she knows. This way gives me some peace and quiet until then.’
‘Really? You’re not just keeping it from her because you know it would make her happy? She’s not that bad.’
‘You don’t have to live with her.’ Sally had always liked Melrose, so she didn’t get the sharp side – Melrose’s dad is in the House of Lords and a NUN representative, and that put her in a more-than-acceptable-to-Sally social range. ‘Actually I’m surprised she even let you come over: I’m supposed to be grounded.’
‘I’m not surprised. That you’re grounded, I mean.’ Melrose looks disapproving. She was always one for following the rules, doing what everybody else did, but she still used to see the funny side. On the quiet.
‘And? Your thoughts on my…misplaced artistic abilities?’
She muffles a laugh. ‘That, was BB, babe. Beyond brilliant. Now. Before we get distracted, what are you going to wear tomorrow night?’
‘Tomorrow? But my appointment isn’t until Monday.’
‘We have to go the day before, and meet the other candidates at a big formal dinner – there are a number of schools at this one centre. Ours and three others, so about 200 of us all in.’
‘Formal?’ Horror must be etched on my face; Melrose smirks.
‘Yes.’ She hesitates. ‘I can tell you what we’re all wearing. If you want me to.’
My stomach is churning already. ‘A big formal dinner with candidates from four schools?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Has Jezzamine got an appointment?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then this could be some other version of fine: not fine.’
She shrugs. ‘Just ignore her.’
‘And that’s just the start of it. What about the Test? I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘You’ll do fine, Luna. You were always smarter than me. Your grades were miles better when you bothered to try. Anyhow, you can’t study for an IQ test. And nobody knows what the RQ test is.’
I cross my arms over a churning stomach that is doing a good impression of a Realtime reaction even though I’m resolutely in the here and now. Am I smart? OK, I am quicker to work things out than some people, but that is only half of it. No one has ever accused me of being too rational. What the consequences would be of being branded clever-stupid, like Goodwin said, I don’t want to think about.
I shake my head. Nanna might have been having an episode in the middle of the other night with her warnings, but they echoed what she told me when she was totally with it years ago. Don’t let them notice you.
I can’t do well at this even if I’m able to, can I? Don’t let them notice you’re different.
There is only one answer: I have to fail the first test.
By the time Sally calls us to a late lunch we’ve managed to catch up on the last five years, and the very surprising fact that Melrose is v-dating Hex. Hex? A Hacker? Not sure what her dad’ll make of that, even if it’s just virtual. And we’ve worked out that I have nothing that fits our school’s agreed long midnight blue off-the-shoulder dress for the formal, and desperately need to go shopping. Melrose has persuaded me that there is only one way to make that happen.
‘Sally? There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘What is it this time?’ Her face is a picture of alarm.
‘I…ah…that is to say…’ Some devil inside makes me draw it out.
‘You tell me right now.’ Sally is starting to freak out; Jason stops eating to hear what it is. Even Nanna stops rocking in her chair.
Melrose laughs. ‘Spit it out already, or I’ll do it for you.’
‘I’ve got a Test appointment. Next week.’
Whatever Sally was expecting to hear, this wasn’t it. ‘A Test…?’ She looks to Melrose for confirmation.
‘It’s true,’ she says.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sally demands.
‘I just did. Tell you.’
‘You idiot girl. You clever thing!’ Sally says, gets out of her chair, and then her arms are around me for a too-tight hug. I roll my eyes over her shoulder at Melrose, who coughs to hide a laugh.
‘Mum?’ Jason says and a note in his voice makes Sally release me and us both turn instantly. Nanna’s arms are wrapped around her head. A high-pitched keening moan starts inside her.
I put an arm around her. ‘Nanna? Everything’s fine, OK?’
But my words and touch don’t soothe her like they usually do; she suddenly lashes out with both hands, swiping dishes off the table that crash onto the floor. She starts screaming.
‘Take Jason,’ I say to Melrose. She’s frozen. ‘Do it!’ And she pulls Jason into the other room. I wrap my arms around Nanna and try to rock her back and forth, but she struggles. Sally is on the phone to the doctor before I can say wait, see if she settles, but she’s not settling: she’s screaming louder and louder as if she is being tortured by my touch, and tears are starting in the back of my eyes and spilling out.
The doctor must have been lurking in the bushes, he is there so fast. He makes me hold Nanna tight while he gives her an injection. She struggles, and I feel like a traitor.
She gradually slackens; her eyes start to close, then flutter open. She stares into mine. ‘Eleven,’ she says, and then she’s gone. Unconscious.
Unease walks up and down my back with cold feet. Eleven is a warning: danger, or treachery.
Sally and the doctor talk in low voices by the door; some of their words penetrate. Psychotic episodes. Delusional. Safety…
Sally and I help Nanna to bed.
‘She’s getting worse,’ Sally says.
‘I know.’
She doesn’t say anything else, but it is all there on her face. Nanna should be in an institution where they can look after her: that’s what the doctor said at her last review. Calling him today will raise that all over again.
She touches my shoulder. ‘Don’t forget your friend.’
Melrose: she’s been with Jason all this time. They’re both silent and pretending to watch a vid when I get myself together enough to go back downstairs. I sit next to Jason, and he slips a cold hand in mine.
‘Thanks,’ I say to Melrose. ‘I’ll take over now. I think the shopping trip is off.’
‘No worries. I’ll lend you something.’
‘Sure. Whatever.’ She gets up to go. ‘Don’t tell anyone about Nanna. Promise?’
She looks shocked. ‘You don’t need to ask. Of course I won’t. Do you want a lift tomorrow?’
‘Are you sure that’s OK?’
‘Of course. We’ll come at four.’
‘Thanks. See you then.’
Later, I watch Nanna as she sleeps. Is she really psychotic and delusional? Away with the fairies – that was the expression I liked. When I was little she used to whisper that she believed in fairies, that they lived in sunlight and shadows. That they told her the secret numbers of the sun, the moon and the stars: that mine was the most magical of them all. But numerology is totally dys, isn’t it?
Jason doesn’t really remember her as she was. He’s just afraid of her. This time, I lock her doo
r when I leave.
6
‘Come on. Before she changes her mind,’ I say, and hold out Jason’s bicycle helmet. Sally’s get out of jail free card could be pulled if she thinks about it too much; she’s only let me go despite being grounded because she’s still happy about my appointment, and that Dad is coming for lunch.
Jason yawns. ‘Can’t we go later? It’s practically the middle of the night.’
‘The sun streaming through the door says otherwise, lazybones. And, no, we can’t go later. I’m going away for the whole week, leaving this afternoon. Remember?’
He relents, finally takes his bike helmet, puts it on and starts to follow me out the door. There used to be a time when Jason would plead with me to go on safari every weekend: our bicycles were our 4x4 jeeps, Richmond Park our game reserve, and squirrels and deer our lions and elephants. But now that they’ve lowered the age of consent for Implants from twelve to ten he’s been plugged in every chance he gets since his birthday. Park adventures have been left behind.
Just as I’m about to pull the door shut behind us, Sally appears in the hall. ‘Stick to the Els,’ is all she says.
We have a way to go before we reach the closest El. The streets are quiet. There are no Sunday morning ball games in front gardens, even though the sun is shining and no April showers are in sight.
We pass a local primary school, and I’m surprised to see a chain across the fence, a closed sign. I slow down to let Jason catch up.
I gesture behind us. ‘Didn’t some of your friends go to that school? When did it close?’ I ask him.
He shrugs. ‘I dunno, a few months ago.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘They said it was surplus. All the students from there are going to my school now.’
A surplus school? I frown. ‘They all fit into your school?’