The Grasshopper's Child by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

all.’
    â€˜I understand.’
    â€˜Good. And you’re living with the Maylocks, a brother and sister, down in Sussex, I see. How’s that working out?’
    â€˜Okay.’
    â€˜Good. Don’t forget, if there’s anything at all, anything you think you should tell me—’
    â€˜The thing I don’t forget is that I know my mum didn’t do it.’
    â€˜ How do you know, Heidi? Have you remembered something?’
    â€˜I just know.’
    She got up to go, leaving the inspector to break the connection. Her face felt like wood, she was afraid she was going to cry. He wasn’t going to do anything about a travel warrant. She hadn’t been talking to a person, just a digital avatar. There could be anybody or nobody behind that mask. She’d been pleading with a stupid doll, and thinking it could understand like a human being.
    The Exempt Teens meeting was already in session when she tracked them down. They were in the Computer Room. Workstations lined the walls, old-fashioned but functional. Tanya with the thick glasses sat facing a motley group of teenagers ‘informally arranged’ on library-style comfy chairs. Heidi slipped into an empty place.
    â€˜Sorry I’m late.’
    â€˜No problem,’ said Tanya. ‘We haven’t really started.’
    The boy in brown was also in the back row, hood down, shoulders hunched, fists in his pockets. The other teens looked more at home. She was surprised to see so many of them, the village had looked tiny. About half looked younger than Heidi: about half looked fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen-ish. A tall boy with coat-hanger shoulders, and chestnut brown dreads tied in a ponytail, was one of the older ones. He looked vaguely familiar, but it was probably just the way he was dressed: as if maybe she’d seen him in a magazine, modelling expensive, hippie-type country clothes. What was he doing here? Next to him was a girl with tattoos all over her face, her head half-shaved, stencils in the stubble: who glared fiercely when she caught Heidi’s eye. Another pair of girls, both Heidi’s age, she would guess: one with shining, red-gold hair, the other wearing a blue pull-on hat. A sixteenish goon with muscles (but the goon was a girl). A beaming Munchkin, the size of a five year old, wearing ragged skater shorts, a scruffy work shirt meant for an adult, and unlaced army boots. A plump boy in a painfully white shirt; with a terrible haircut. One more girl, dishwater blonde with vague, round, pale blue eyes. She checked them out, and they clocked her back, without anyone actually staring; except for the surly girl—
    Heidi remembered this experience vividly from when she was thirteen, and the Camps had just opened. Nearly everyone disappears to work on Essential Food Production. You meet the other rejects, mostly strangers, in what used to be the school library. Not that you wanted to be dragged off to Agricultural Boot Camp, but still you feel rejected. And everyone’s wondering what’s wrong with the ones who’s problems are not obvious.
    Tanya told the group off, mildly, for not delivering assigned academic work on time, and praised the plump boy, for being the exception to this rule. The girl with the tattooed face stuck her hand up, and said she wanted to submit her homework on paper. She was a Pagan and using a computer was against her religion. And anyway, Exempts should be able to go to a real school, with real teachers, not just send stuff to be marked by machines, and get a know-nothing child-minder on her day off as their only human contact.
    Tanya patiently listed the reasons why she was the only teacher assigned to Mehilhoc, and patiently reminded everyone that Though They Hadn’t Been Called Up they were Just As Vitally Needed In Their Own Community. Government stooges always talk in capitals, they can’t help it. Heidi had the feeling Tanya maybe wasn’t much good, but