‘Ask him about the children.’
A snake of fear writhes in Josiah’s eyes.
‘Not children. Worms.’ He rises to his feet. His venom flies from his lips. ‘They were worms, those Seleka, crawling into us!’ He squats in his cage, pulls imaginary strings from between his buttocks.
I hit my switch. Bring an axe. Light the gas. Chop off the monster’s head.
‘What’s it?’ Tamba says.
I bang my wrists together, mime handcuffs.
Tamba stares down at Josiah. He scoots to the left, lifts his elbow high. A fine spray showers onto Josiah’s skin. A strike of electricity cleaves through him. It ricochets in me, finds leftover traces from last night’s radio. The monster crashes to his cage floor, his nose slamming onto his excretion plate. The last digits of his fingers hook into the mesh, fuse with the metal. He rises up and slams his face again. He pisses involuntarily. Tamba gives one last jolt so Josiah’s fingertips do a double-jointed hook. This time he rips a nail. A bright red drip shocks the yellow floor.
I back away from it.
I will not tend to him, even if his blood is bright red, not black as I imagined. Still vibrating with the electric spillage from the devil’s cage, I snatch up my bucket, reel past Eulalie.
The old witch croons softly, ‘I hear children, Malachi.’
Her words fire through my crown, detonate in my belly. I stand motionless.
‘Are they friends?’ She turns a withered ear to me. ‘Is it a crèche?’
Panic floods my organs, this time freezing.
‘A classroom?’
Streams of ice shaft into my heart, pierce my soft tissue.
‘Children?’ Vicki’s lips part with morbid curiosity. ‘Whose children?’
I whirl on the mermaid, pelt her with icy hail.
Vicki shrinks from my silent storm. ‘Sorry,’ she murmurs.
Eulalie cradles me with gentle sympathy. I tear my eyes from hers, cough up icy pellets, tears ripped from the Arctic of my being. I drop my equipment on the trolley, force my frozen limbs from this ghastly mortuary.
* * *
I tear off my whispering grey outfit, adjust the shower taps to the temperature of blood in a calm, resting state.
How dare she?
I stand in the warm rain, begin to shiver. How dare Eulalie? She was taking a clever, cruel guess, surely.
Who did she see?
The ghost of Araba, disgust ruining her flawless face?
Was it Erniel, more furious than when I nearly won the English Olympiad?
Or was it my cousin Kontar, shaking his battered head, disowning me?
What did they want to say to me?
I sink to my knees, raise my face to the shower rose – not a pretty flower, but an ugly plumbing fitting. Josiah and I both on our knees, both made mad by the ghosts of children.
No.
I climb to my feet. The prisoners are the enemy. I am the victim.
I rub my skin hard with a coarse towel. The heat slowly calms my convulsive shaking. I leave enough water for Tamba, should the mood take him to wash his skin. I dress in a pale yellow shirt with khaki trousers. Smart casual, they would say in the fashion magazines. Smart, I suppose, because of the pleats.
* * *
Janeé’s food tonight is smart casual too. A piece of sirloin steak escorted by a troop of green, rolling peas. They chuckle as they escape the prongs of my fork. Tamba arrives in stiff denim and aftershave as strong as a chemical weapon. He, too, has managed to shower, thanks to me knocking thirty minutes off my clipping time.
‘Did you handle the shock treatment?’
I nod, nonchalant.
‘They say the Indonesian project had microphones inside the cages. The surveillance man couldn’t take it. He had a total nervous breakdown.’ Tamba shudders. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Malachi. You must be a special kind of man.’
Something tells me this is not a compliment.
I jerk my fork from my steak, chase some chuckling peas. After six attempts I manage to catch three.
‘Malachi, you’re not eating,’ Olivia says. ‘Are you nauseous or something?’
No, my dear, just in the midst of a total nervous breakdown. Thank you, Tamba, for putting words to it.
‘I’ll have to tell Meirong you’ve lost your appetite. We can’t have you sick among the prisoners now.’
I shake my head, try to smile.
Yes. Olivia would drop me in the shark pit, wherever it is.
I dive at my sirloin and saw off a piece. Olivia watches as I scoop some mushroom sauce onto it. These mushrooms are no Enid Blyton stalks like the pixies cavorted on in the paper books we got from the Waste to Wonder agency. I part my teeth minimally, force steak into the chasm that Raizier has promised to fill by Christmas.
I see Josiah’s blood drip from his torn finger.
I begin to shiver. I should have stayed to cut his claws. I should have reported the injury.
‘Malachi, are you okay?’ Olivia stands up and puts a hand to my forehead.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Janeé asks.
‘He seems weak.’
Tamba hands me a serviette. I spit my steak into it. The tremors leave me immediately.
I take up a spoon meant for the jelly and custard on the trolley, shovel five hundred peas into my mouth. I munch as if to say, See? I’m fine. Really.
But when Janeé starts to hand out the pudding, I scoop my last peas into my cheeks, force myself not to launch off the bench and run. I stand up carefully, rub my stomach in a gesture I have seen among satiated people. I bow slightly to Janeé, a bad actor in a bad sitcom. A flicker of forgiveness softens the cook’s surliness.
I weave through the doorway of the canteen.
Outside, I slump in the corridor.
‘Dammit, he’s cracking up!’ Olivia says through the wall. ‘He didn’t eat his lunch either.’
‘He’s fine,’ Tamba says. ‘Leave him for a night. Malachi’s not the same as you or me.’
I stare at the yellow paint. Tonight, I see the problem with the interior decorating. The school linoleum was the same yellow, wasn’t it?
I rock along the corridor.
I need to speak or I will break down completely.
My
