The Only Ones (31 page)

“I could sell them at Iron Triangle. Ma.”

What do I tell Rauden? What do I tell Janet?

At least I don’t have to tell Rini Jaffur.

I got up at last. I went into the kitchen. She is already in her pjs. She tore her uniform and threw it away. So I could not even barter it. She hated that school.

“Ma,” she goes. “I could do Projects at the Farm.”

I turned on the tap. The plumbing worked. I put my head under then shook it like Rauden used to. Then I come right up to her so close I don’t even have to raise my voice. “Well, I can guarantee you, that is not going to happen.”

Next morning, while she is sleeping late, I go through the City Line hole to my jobs and reschedule everything.

I’m going to show my daughter who is boss.

vii

“Get up, Ani! Get up, get up.” She is trying to hide under the covers but I just pull them off. “We’re going to Ward Island. Get up, get up, get up!”

She is tugging the covers back. “Ma. No! Oh, Ma. I don’t want to go.”

“And I should care because?” I drag her to the table. “Eat your Process!”

“Ma! Look!” She is pointing out the window.

It’s always something! It’s snowing. First time in years it snowed out here. To get to Ward Island is a hard trip even on a good day, with a lot of waiting for the hybro in bad places. This is not a good day.

But it’s the only one I could get off from work.

By the time we get to Northern Boulevard, the snow turned to rain, we’re soaked, let alone, with the caution tape, there is no public Transport unless we take the cuchifrito that runs almost to Powell’s Cove and we are goddamn not doing that. We did not come this far to end up there. So we have to go another way, wait for a hybro in the rain, and Ani is whining and whining.

“Ma, I don’t want to go to Ward Island. It is a tough school.”

“Like you are the world expert,” I go, “what is tough.”

When we finally get to the stupid bridge to Ward Island it’s snowing again and no one is even around to tell us how to find the school, which is totally boarded-up when we do find it, closed for more than a year, and Ani is so mad because I didn’t know. We’re standing by the boarded-up school in the snow and I’m like, if you did the work I wouldn’t need to know. If you didn’t punch a girl I wouldn’t need to know.

“She called me Shitty Line Ani,” and I will tell you, I would like to punch that girl myself. I would like to punch Ms. Chaffee when I had the chance. “Ma! Why do I even have to go to school?”

We’re heading for the bridge back to Queens, across empty Ward Island, in slush. “For Education.”

“You don’t even know what that means.”

Well I just stopped and leaned on some sort of wall by some stupid shut-up stadium near some pile of mud and slush. “Well I will tell you what I do know. The Opportunity you have just threw away, I’m pretty sure you will not get again. The Education you could get even now, not everyone does. Ani! I never even finished third grade!”

That was the total wrong thing to say because right away she goes, “Oh! You never finished third grade. And I should listen to you tell me what to do because?”

“BECAUSE I WILL KNOCK YOU FROM HERE TO KINGDOM COME!”

It shuts her up.

The snow has stopped.

The bridge is shut. There are no Boards. It’s going to take an hour for us to get off Ward Island. I flag a gypsy ferry to take us through the Riker’s Channel even though it’s going to clean my coupons out but what else could we do? Guess what, the Alert spread to the old airport, the boats has to all turn around, and I am so sick of how long everything took, I say drop us at the Power Plant in Astoria, and the skipper is like, it is unsafe, they have fleas and pathogens, you will get something bad, I’m like, LEAVE US OFF.

“Ma! It’s dangerous.”

“We’re not getting anything.” I make the skipper let us off and pull her through the Plant, which is, you know, burnt, like those big things that stick up are black, and there is funny powder around and a green mud in snow, and I guess there is fleas, and one bit her on the hand, and Ani is so scared she slips in the green mud and falls and gets green mud all over her, and she is crying she is going to get something. “You’re not getting anything!” I really had it by now. I even say, “Because I’m not getting anything!” I almost spilled the beans right then and there. But then I shut up.

She stops crying and looks at me. Then she looks at her hand with the bite on it.

All the way home she is doing it. Hand/me. Hand/me.

I’m going to find her a school.

I can’t reach Lore and Dana.

You can forget about Ani helping me scrub Domes. She just stays home and watches TV if the power works. She says she is too old to come with me and play Games. I’m panicked all day long with her home alone because I kept hearing stories of vigilante activity, though it is mainly in the sticks. Still if these local Fundy nuts went after Yselma for Host swap, what would they do to Ani if they find out what she is? I tell her, lock the door and let no one in! Especially in robes!

Almost fourteen. Still alive.

One day I open the door and she’s turning the TV off fast and I say what was that and she said she doesn’t know. But if I had to guess?

I’d say it was a rerun of that old stupid Horror show.
Them.
The one about us. Clones.

I found a local school in Bayside. At least in school she will be safe. Bayside is a walk but we could make it without going through the new road blocks and podtram shutdowns which are worse every day. They have an outdoor summer program.

I message Rauden we cannot make our regular summer trip this year either. So that’s it for sales. The good part is, Rauden and Janet will not learn she got expelled.

Rauden says ok.

The bad part is we will not see him for another year. It’s two years since we came up in the summer. He doesn’t say anything. He does not even care. I try to message him from Little Neck. I can’t get through. I miss Rauden. I miss Yselma too.

At fall Ani’s in the regular Bayside indoor program. It is a big school, built so long ago it could hold two thousand kids, if you can believe it. Ninety-three are in here now.

And guess what, none of them will sit with Ani. On the other side of the river no one will sit with her because she is from our side of the river. On this side they will not sit with her because she been in school on the other side of the river. I really want to get her out and am trying to reach Lore and Dana from Nassau County Board using a search technique Henry showed me but so far it didn’t work.

I spent some coupons on a trike so we don’t have to walk so far but guess what, nobody else gets triked to school. So I have to leave her off a block away. I just hold my breath she will make it to the door. After school, I have to wait a block away and hold my breath till she shows up. Still alive. Then I just trike her home.

I still can’t track down Lore and Dana. I even had trouble reaching Rauden. He did message me once. WE NEED TO TALK. CAN YOU MAKE A TRIP?

I could not reach him back. His ID line is jammed.

Fourteen and a half years old. Still alive.

She seemed to get Adjusted to Bayside school. She does not do the work but nobody else does, either. She even found a friend to sit with, Narj Oonnoony. The pair of them are caught playing hooky near the old Flushing airport. Do you know how near that is to Powell’s Cove? I really lit into her, what danger she could be in. She does not get how dangerous Queens is, she been in the Dome so long. I say Narj Oonnoony is a Bad Influence, and she is like, Ma, you don’t even know what that means.

I must find her a school that does not let them run away. I’m sneaking away from my Nassau County jobs all day to do search this, search that, but the Board problems all over the Northeast are so bad I heard it is sabotage. Terrorists sabotaged the Boards. Mrs. Postow says it is not terrorists at all, it’s vigilantes.

Then I saw on the News about some vigilante trouble somewhere in the sticks, and it is Four Corners! That is where Lucas lived, in that Quonset we saw that time. That is really not very far from the Farm! That’s why I can’t reach Rauden, vigilantes torched the Farm!

Then the News shows a map. It is not that Four Corners. It is some other Four Corners in some other state. So it is not an issue, did Rauden get torched. So he is probably still alive. I’m still alive. Ani is still alive. It’s three months till her fifteenth birthday.

I finally sneaked out at night while Ani’s sleeping, triked to the Oakland Gardens floaters, and got through to the Farm. Rauden says don’t come. Wait till things calm down out here, it is not safe.

It’s already getting warm when Ani comes home with a Note, show up for special Conference in the office Friday. Well when I make it to the office Friday, I’m not the only Parent there. It turns out eight kids, including Ani and Narj Oonnoony, also Walker Lopes, Dennis Oh, Sophi something, Joe something, and Jaraine and Murry Khan escaped from the school and went all the way to Francis Lewis Park, where they were going to take a boat ride with Narj Oonnoony’s uncle in Powell’s Cove!

I must of had an Episode, because I woke on the floor. Somebody gives me water. Everyone else is talking about what is wrong with Bayside school. Some Parents are going to pull their kids out. Others are considering Armory Prep. In Armory Prep, the kids are not running away. They really make those kids do what they say. One mother thinks they are even locked up. Another says, I would never send my daughter to Armory, it is practically a reform school, but the first one says, well at least they are not having unprotected sex. Then I’m on the floor again but no one even cares so I just get my own water but am still shaky for the Conference, with the kids all squinting, and the Parents furious and dragging their kids away, because they got Probation, and when I find out what that is, I drag Ani down the stairs too and throw her in the trike. She’s going, “Ma! Everyone saw!” And I should care because!?

I just trike us home as fast as I could, drag her through the courtyard, and the minute we are in the door I yank her jeans down and tear the panties off.

“Ma!” She is standing in the door with her jeans at her feet.

I sniff the panties hard.

“Ma.”
She’s pulling up her jeans and crying.

I’m pretty sure it is not unprotected sex.

She just sits down in the door. “I don’t want to go to school!”

“YOU HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL!” I am so mad! I’m going to make her regret the day she was born.

Which I’m pretty sure she already does.

What happens now is, she says something she never said before. “Or what?” Then she stands up.

She is almost as big as me.

I’m going to knock her to kingdom come. I pull myself taller. I have the extra inch.

“Or what?”

Maybe a half.

And she leans up really close.
“Or what?
” Like, make me.

I don’t even know if I could.

I broke the tabletop.

Now we’re both crying. We liked the tabletop.

I put her in Armory Prep.

viii

Now, maybe some of you are thinking, why did I do this cruel thing? Why did I make her leave that school where at least someone will sit with her? When I remember what I did, I wish I could take it back. I almost wished it even then. I just want my daughter to be safe. It’s really hard to be a good mother. Maybe you will get that. Maybe your own mother will get that. Maybe it is not my fault that I cannot work the system—it is the system’s fault. The system does not work.

Well, believe me, I’m not saying that it does. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I don’t know if it ever did. I’m just saying, if it worked, there is some kids who would never of been born.

Maybe even you.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The bad part of Armory is, it is so far away—practically Yonkers, inside what used to be some Armory, whatever that even is, way up in the Bronx. I miss her so much I could hardly stand it. I really, really miss her.

But I work really, really hard. I don’t have travel Aide to pay for, let alone those top dollar ESG Partials, but there are still fees, even if the fees is token, like Ms. Chaffee said, and there are new expenses. With Ani so far off I need money for a Reader or Mobile. Lorena Hutz lets me use her personal Board for emergency contact, but not all my clients have one. And you can be sure there is no Board or even Signal at the garden apartments. With the sleepaway thing, I am generally not even at home. I’m mainly working all the time.

That is the good part about sleepaway, I could work all the time. I sometimes work nights. I paid off what I owe and am starting to save. Maybe I could go up to the Farm. It’s a long time since I even heard a message back from Rauden.

On Monday morning, a cuchivan picks the Armory girls up near their Zone. It brings them back Friday night.

When she climbs off this cuchi by Alley Park, I’m waiting with the trike, very good, how was school, but to tell the truth I could see by how she looks it’s not going to work. She doesn’t say anything. She just goes in her room. She doesn’t walk any direction at all. Fifteen years and change.

Still alive.

But not so you would know.

At Armory, we don’t have to worry who sits with her. They sit where they are told, and if they don’t, they make them stand up all the time, and if they don’t, they are expelled.

She hates that school.

They all hate that school, all the girls. They get scared. One girl is so scared, she bit everybody. They all have to have tests, did they get something from her. This latest Wave of lesser flus has everyone Alert.

I tell Ani, “Don’t worry, you won’t get anything.” But I never like to go too far with that, or who knows where it will end up?

“Hello? I got bit!” Then she holds up her hand, bit. It even has the pink mark on it. It is the same hand where the flea thing happened. So Ani goes,
“Again!”
Then she goes in her room and pretty much stays there until I bring her to Alley Park Monday morning and say, “I’m going to do extra work. I’m going to bring in enough to pay Partial and put you in a better school—better than Migan’s school.”