Chapter Ten
“Draw my heart,” she said to me, holding out a piece of yellow chalk.
I took it and, scarcely breathing, I got up and walked to the blackboard, stepping right between Mother and Mrs. Blather, who parted to make way for me. I didn't think at all. I just drew and drew for what seemed like a very long time, and I had no idea what I was drawing. I didn't even look at it when I was done but, still gripping the chalk in my hand, I turned, walked back to my desk and sat down.
Mother and Mrs. Blather seemed to gasp as the third woman stepped between them and inspected my work.
“It talks to birds,” I heard Mother whisper.
“Shush!” Mrs. Blather snapped, and raised her hand as if she were about to hit mother. Instead, she spoke to the woman in black.
“I'm sorry, Miss Marta. This one doesn't know any manners.”
Miss Marta turned and gazed at mother for a few long moments. They were like two dark mirrors reflecting nothing off each other, Mother in her fluffy light blue bathrobe, her ruby red lipstick and her bright blond hair, Miss Marta all in black, dark and awful in her scary magic way.
“You may leave now,” she told Mother, and turned back to my drawing. Mother gave a sort of a snort, but she left the room. I was astonished. I'd never seen Mother give way and I knew now it was possible to defeat her. If I ever got the chance, I told myself, I would also tell her to “leave now” in the haughtiest way and maybe she would leave, maybe that was all it would take.
“And you,” she said to Mrs. Blather, who was clearly surprised to be dismissed as well.
'But I have measurements to do,” Mrs. Blather said. Miss Marta waved her hand towards the door, and Mrs. Blather mumbled something about “doing them later I suppose” and left the building as well. Now there was only Miss Marta and the row of us sitting quietly and obediently in our chairs. Miss Marta resumed pacing back and forth in front of us, now and again posing a nonsensical proposition to one of us and receiving in return an indecipherable answer. She was speaking a completely different language and somehow making us reply in kind, while she was the only one who had any idea of what anything meant.
She gave no indication of whether any of our answers pleased her or not, other than that single kiss she had bestowed on Random. I wished the others had been banished too, that she had kept only me with her in that room, or even better, that she would take me – and only me – take me with her far away where there was only her and me and no one else and nothing else forever and ever and ever.
I imagined an enchanted island, and on that island were birds and squirrels and Miss Marta and me, and I told her everything the birds and squirrels were saying, because she couldn't understand them, only I could, and I was useful to her and let her in on all the mysteries and secrets and then she would love me too.
“What do the finches say?”
I was daydreaming and didn't realize at first that she was talking to me. She had to repeat herself.
“What do the finches say?” she said, and she was standing right in front of me and scowling down at me.
“Peep peep peep?” I replied.
“This is how you talk to birds?” she chuckled. “Peep peep peep?”
“It's what the raven Mary told me that finches say,” I tried to reply, but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. I couldn't speak and Miss Marta moved on. I felt like I could burst into pieces. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to smash everything to bits. I couldn't move. I was trapped in that body and it seemed as if everything was going horribly wrong.
Miss Marta continued her perpetual-slow-motion interrogations for I don't know how long. She peppered us randomly with problems, statements and questions that seemed to make no sense, and her face grew sterner and harder as it became impossible to guess what she was thinking, if we were pleasing her or not. Gone were the words of praise or scowls of disappointment from before. Now she was certainly grading us, judging us, but above all pricing us. Every now and then I could hear Mother and Mrs. Blather chattering outside the door, and Miss Marta heard them too, narrowed her eyes and focused on that door until they finally stopped talking.
I would like to report everything she said, and everything we answered to her but most of it was wiped from my mind almost immediately. I was not supposed to understand and so I did not understand. The rules had saturated my soul. Speak only when you are spoken to. Answer only the question asked. Mind your own business. Do what Mother tells you. Children should be seen and not heard. Follow instructions closely. If you know what's good for you.
Clearly I didn't always know what was good for me, but was that my fault? When Miss Marta commanded us to close our eyes, I closed my eyes, but I did not sleep. The others slept but I no longer could. Something had gone wrong with a part of my instruction set and this was not my fault. She had loosened the reins and I was no longer under the spell, not completely, when she let Mother and Mrs. Blather come back into the school room.
“All good?” Mother tentatively asked, a quiver in her voice.
“No,” was Miss Marta's plain decision. “I'll give you fifty for the lot.”
Mother was so astonished by the figure that she barely managed to babble a response.
“But, what?” she said. “But Parsnip alone...”
“Parsnip?” Miss Marta scoffed. “You mean Twelve Seventeen A? I've seen more acumen from a lab rat.”
I yearned to open my eyes a crack just to see the look on Mother's face as her darling was dissed, but I had been given the command and was obliged to obey. Mrs. Blather was next to object.
“Surely this brood is worth at least ten times that. I know for a fact I can get a thousand from the Juice Brothers.”
“Your measly share is hardly worth your exertions,” Miss Marta dismissed the claim. “I wonder why you even bother with this farm anymore. And the Brothers are done with her. She had her day. Her twelve elevens were an aberration, and even those have panned out dubiously.”
“My twelve elevens are still the best brood out there,” Mother objected. “They've done things, good things.”
“Oh right, like the security lockdown they caused which set us all back a generation,” Miss Marta replied, “all of which was none of your doing, now was it? Did you think it was a joke when your twelve elevens took down half the world's power grid? They sure thought it was. They even left that note, saying 'thanks for leaving the gates wide open, fools'.”
“They meant no harm,” Mother said. “They were just spreading their wings.”
“Yes, their wings,” Miss Marta said. “Wings that had to be clipped severely, as you know. Took the world to the brink, America blaming China, China blaming Japan, Japan saying what the fuck? And all the time it was you and your half-assed job. Now there's no room, no room at all. Not an inch. It's why we're all forced to do business this way, in the dark, underground. If that source is ever traced, it'll go hard for you, so you know you're in no position to make any demands.”
“We cheated death every day,” Mother said. “And you know I'll name names if it ever comes to that. Six fifty for the brood. Or maybe you'd rather pick and choose?”
“You can't be serious,” Miss Marta said, and I could tell from the sound of her heels clicking the floor that she had resumed her pacing. Mother and Mrs. Blather remained standing where they were.
“They're useless when separated, of course,” Miss Marta said, mainly talking to herself it seemed, “Or at least that's the theory. If I took just one, you'd have to destroy all the others, before they settled for good. And you'll have no other buyers for the lot. I guarantee it.”
“I'll take my chances,” Mother said. “Make an offer now or go. I'm sick of you and your pre-flight varications. You don't scare me with your evil eye or your nasty friends either.”
Miss Marta abruptly stopped her pacing. Even with my eyes shut I could feel the heat of her gaze as it turned upon Mother.
“I'll take this one,” she said, “for a hundred kay. You can do what you like with the rest.”
“That one?” Mother laughed out loud. I desperately squeezed my eyes shut, dying to know which one of us it was.
“She only wants to hurt you,” Mrs. Blather whispered to Mother “No one's ever taken a broken-out singleton before. They're not made for it, not with all those dependencies!”
“It's a bad batch anyway,” Mother murmured.
“Do we have a deal?” Miss Marta persisted, and Mother said “yes”, still chuckling.
“I'll take it with me now,” Miss Marta said, and then after a pause she walked over to my desk, leaned down and placed her face so close to mine I could feel her hot breath on my cheeks.
“Candles. You can open your eyes now. We're leaving.”