The Year of the Flood

SAINT EUELL OF WILD FOODS

YEAR TWELVE.

OF THE GIFTS OF SAINT EUELL.

SPOKEN BY ADAM ONE.

My Friends, my Fellow Creatures, my dear Children:

This day marks the beginning of Saint Euell’s Week, during which we will be foraging for the Wild Harvest gifts that God, through Nature, has put at our disposal. Pilar, our Eve Six, will lead us in a ramble through the Heritage Park, hunting for Fungi, and Burt, our Adam Thirteen, will aid us with the Edible Weeds. Remember – if in doubt, spit it out! But if a mouse has eaten it, you can probably eat it too. Though not invariably.

The older children will have a demonstration by Zeb, our respected Adam Seven, concerning the trapping of small Animals for survival food in times of pressing need. Remember, nothing is unclean to us if gratitude is felt and pardon asked, and if we ourselves are willing to offer ourselves to the great chain of nourishment in our turn. For where else lies the deep meaning of sacrifice?

Burt’s esteemed wife, Veena, is still in her Fallow state, though we hope to welcome her back among us very soon. Let us wish Light around her.

Today we meditate upon Saint Euell Gibbons, who flourished upon this Earth from 1911 to 1975, so long ago but so close to us in our hearts. As a boy, when his father left home to seek work, Saint Euell provided for his family through his Natural knowledge. He went to no high school but Yours, oh Lord. In Your Species he found his teachers, often strict but always true. And then he shared those teachings with us.

He taught the uses of Your many Puffballs, and the other wholesome Fungi; he taught the dangers of the poisonous species, which however can also be of Spiritual value, if taken in judicious quantities.

He sang the virtues of the wild Onion, of the wild Asparagus, of the wild Garlic, that toil not, neither do they spin, nor do they have pesticides sprayed upon them, if they happily grow far enough away from agribusiness crops. He knew the roadside medicines: the bark of the Willow in respect of pains and fevers, the root of the Dandelion as a diuretic in the shedding of excess fluid. He taught us not to waste; for even the lowly Nettle, so often wrenched up and thrown away, is a source of many vitamins. He taught us to improvise; for if there is no Sorrel, there may be Cattails; and if there are no Blueberries, the wild Cranberry may perhaps abound.

Saint Euell, may we sit with you in Spirit at your table, that lowly tarpaulin spread upon the ground; and dine with you upon wild Strawberries, and upon spring Fiddleheads, and upon young Milkweed pods, lightly simmered, with a little butter substitute if it can be obtained.

And in the time of our greatest need, help us to accept whatever Fate may bring us; and whisper into our inner and Spiritual ears the names of the Plants, and their seasons, and the locations in which they may be found.

For the Waterless Flood is coming, in which all buying and selling will cease, and we will find ourselves thrown back upon our own resources, in the midst of God’s bounteous Garden. Which was your Garden also.

Let us sing.

OH SING WE NOW THE HOLY WEEDS

From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

24

I remember what the dinner was, that night in the Sticky Zone: it was ChickieNobs. I couldn’t deal with meat very well ever since the Gardeners, but Mordis said that ChickieNobs were really vegetables because they grew on stems and didn’t have faces. So I ate half of them.

Then I did some dancing to keep in practice. I had my own Sea/H/Ear Candy, and I sang along. Adam One said music was built into us by God: we could sing like the birds but also like the angels, because singing was a form of praise that came from deeper than just talking, and God could hear us better when we were singing. I try to remember that.

Then I looked in on the Snakepit again. There were three guys from Painball in the Snakepit – ones who’d just got out. You could always tell because they were freshly shaved, with new haircuts, and new clothes too, and they had a stunned look, like they’d been kept in a dark closet for a long time. Also they had a little tattoo at the base of their left thumb – a round circle, red or bright yellow, depending on whether they were Red Team or Gold Team. The other customers were sort of moving back from them, giving them room, but respectfully – as if they were webstars or sports heroes instead of Painball criminals. Rich guys loved to imagine themselves as Painball players. They gambled on the teams as well: Red against Gold. A lot of money changed hands over Painball.

There were always two or three CorpSeCorps guys minding the Painball vets – they could go berserk and do a lot of damage. We Scalies were never allowed to be alone with them: they didn’t understand make-believe, they never knew when to stop, and they could break a lot more than the furniture. It was best to get them wasted, but it had to be fast or they’d go into full rage mode.

“I’d bar those assholes myself,” said Mordis. “Nothing much human left inside that scar tissue of theirs. But SeksMart pays us a bigtime extra bonus when it’s them.”

We’d feed them drinks and pills, with a shovel if we could. There was something new they’d started using just after I went into the Sticky Zone – BlyssPluss, it was called. Hassle-free sex, total satisfaction, blow you right out of your skin, plus 100 percent protection – that was the word on it. Scales girls weren’t allowed to do drugs on the job – we weren’t paid to enjoy ourselves, said Mordis – but this was different, because if you took it you didn’t need a Biofilm Bodyglove, and a lot of customers would pay extra that way. Scales was testing the BlyssPluss for the ReJoov Corp, so they weren’t handing it out like candy – it was mostly for the top customers – but I could hardly wait to try it.

We always got huge tips on Painball nights, though none of us regular Scales girls had to do plank duty with the new vets because we were skilled artists and any damage to us would be pricey. For the basic bristle work they brought in the temporaries – smuggled Eurotrash or Tex-Mexicans or Asian Fusion and Redfish minors scooped off the streets because the Painball guys wanted membrane, and after they were finished you’d be judged contaminated until proved otherwise, and Scales didn’t want to spend Stick Zone money either testing these girls or fixing them up. I never saw them twice. They walked in the door, but I don’t think they walked out. In a shoddier club they’d have been used for the guys acting out their vampire fantasies, but that involved mouth-to-blood contact, and as I said, Mordis liked to keep it clean.

That night one of the Painball guys had Starlite on his lap, giving him the signature twist. She was in her peagret-feather outfit with the headdress, and maybe she was terrific from the front, but from my angle of vision it looked like the guy had a big blue-green duster working him over – like a dry carwash.

The second guy was gazing up at Savona with his mouth open and his head so far back it was almost at right angles to his spine. If her grip slips, she’ll snap his neck. If that happens, I thought, he won’t be the first guy to be carted out the back door of Scales and dumped in a vacant lot with no clothes on. He was an older guy, bald on top, with a ponytail at the back, and a lot of arm tattoos. There was something familiar about him – maybe he was a repeat – but I didn’t get a very good look.

The third one was drinking himself into mud. Maybe he was trying to forget what he’d done inside the Painball Arena. I never watched the Painball Arena website myself. It was too disgusting. I only knew about it because men talk. It’s amazing what they’ll tell you, especially if you’re covered with shiny green scales and they can’t see your real face. It must be like talking to a fish.

Nothing else was happening, so I called Amanda on her cell. But she wasn’t answering. Maybe she was asleep, rolled up in her sleeping bag out there in Wisconsin. Maybe she was sitting around a campfire and the two Tex-Mexicans were playing their guitars and singing, and Amanda was singing too because she knew the Tex-Mex language. Maybe there was a moon up above and some coyotes howling in the distance, just like an old movie. I hoped so.

25

Things changed in my life when Amanda came to live with me, and they changed again in the Saint Euell’s Week when I was almost thirteen. Amanda was older: she’d already grown real tits. It’s strange how you measure time that way.

That year, Amanda and I – and Bernice as well – would be joining the older kids for Zeb’s Predator-Prey Relationship demonstration, when we’d have to eat real prey. I had a faint memory of meat-eating, back at the HelthWyzer Compound. But the Gardeners were very much against it except in times of crisis, so the idea of putting a chunk of bloody muscle and gristle into my mouth and pushing it down inside my throat was nauseating. I vowed not to throw up, though, because that would embarrass me a lot and make Zeb look bad.

I wasn’t worried about Amanda. She was used to eating meat, she’d done it lots of times before. She used to lift SecretBurgers whenever she could. So she’d be able to chew and swallow as if there was nothing to it.

On the Monday of Saint Euell’s Week, we put our clean clothes on – clean yesterday – and I braided Amanda’s hair, and then she braided mine. “Primate grooming,” Zeb called it.

We could hear Zeb singing in the shower:

Nobody gives a poop.

Nobody gives a poop;

And that is why we’re in the soup,

Cause nobody gives a poop!

I’d come to find this morning singing of his a comforting sound. It meant things were ordinary, at least for that day.

Usually Lucerne stayed in bed until we were gone, partly to avoid Amanda, but today she was in the kitchen area, wearing her dark-coloured Gardener dress, and she was actually cooking. She’d been making that effort more often lately. Also she was keeping our living space tidier. She was even growing a raggedy tomato plant in a pot on the sill. I think she was trying to make things nice for Zeb, though they were having more fights. They made us go outside when they were fighting, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t listen in.

The fights were about where Zeb was when he wasn’t with Lucerne. “Working,” was all he’d say. Or “Don’t push me, babe.” Or “You don’t need to know. It’s for your own good.”

“You’ve got someone else!” Lucerne would say. “I can smell bitch all over you!”

“Wow,” Amanda would whisper. “Your mom’s got a foul mouth!” and I didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed.

“No, no,” Zeb would say in a tired voice. “Why would I want anyone but you, babe?”

“You’re lying!”

“Oh, Christ in a helicopter! Get off my fucking case!”

Zeb came out of the shower cubicle, dripping on the floor. I could see the scar where he’d got slashed that time, back when I was ten: it gave me a shivery feeling. “How’re my little pleebrats today?” he said, grinning like a troll.

Amanda smiled sweetly. “Big pleebrats,” she said.

For breakfast we had mashed-up fried black beans and soft-boiled pigeon’s eggs. “Nice breakfast, babe,” Zeb said to Lucerne. I had to admit that it was actually quite nice, even though Lucerne had cooked it.

Lucerne gave him that syrupy smile of hers. “I wanted to be sure you all get a good meal,” she said. “Considering what you’ll be eating the rest of the week. Old roots and mice, I suppose.”

“Barbecued rabbit,” said Zeb. “I could eat ten of those suckers, with a side of mice and some deep-fried slugs for dessert.” He leered over at Amanda and me: he was trying to gross us out.

“Sounds real good,” said Amanda.

“You’re such a monster,” said Lucerne, giving him her cookie eyes.

“Too bad I can’t get a beer with it,” said Zeb. “Join us, babe, we need some decoration.”

“Oh, I think I’ll sit this one out,” said Lucerne.

“You’re not coming with us?” I said. Usually during Saint Euell’s Week, Lucerne would trail along on the woodland walks, picking the odd weed and complaining about the bugs and keeping an eye on Zeb. I didn’t really want her to come this time, but also I wanted things to stay normal, because I had a feeling that everything was about to be rearranged again, as it was when I’d been yanked out of the HelthWyzer Compound. It was just a feeling, but I didn’t like it. I was used to the Gardeners, it was where I belonged now.

“I don’t think I can,” she said. “I’ve got a migraine headache.” She’d had a migraine headache yesterday too. “I’ll just go back to bed.”

“I’ll ask Toby to drop around,” said Zeb. “Or Pilar. Make that mean ol’ pain go away.”

“Would you?” A suffering smile.

“No problem,” said Zeb. Lucerne hadn’t eaten her pigeon’s egg, so he ate it for her. It was only about the size of a plum anyway.

The beans were from the Garden, but the pigeon’s eggs were from our own rooftop. We didn’t have any plants up there, because Adam One said it was not a suitable surface, but we had pigeons. Zeb lured them with crumbs, moving softly so they felt safe. Then they’d lay eggs, and then he’d rob their nests. Pigeons weren’t an endangered species, he said, so it was okay.

Adam One said that eggs were potential Creatures, but they weren’t Creatures yet: a nut was not a Tree. Did eggs have souls? No, but they had potential souls. So not a lot of Gardeners did egg-eating, but they didn’t condemn it either. You didn’t apologize to an egg before joining its protein to yours, though you had to apologize to the mother pigeon, and thank her for her gift. I doubt Zeb bothered with any apologizing. Most likely he ate some of the mother pigeons too, on the sly.

Amanda had one pigeon’s egg. So did I. Zeb had three, plus Lucerne ’s. He needed more than us because he was bigger, Lucerne said: if we ate like him we’d get fat.

“See you later, warrior maidens. Don’t kill anyone,” said Zeb as we went out the door. He’d heard about Amanda’s knee-in-the-groin and eye-gouging moves, and her piece of glass with the duct tape; he made jokes about them.

26

We had to pick up Bernice at the Buenavista before school. Amanda and I had wanted to quit, but we knew we’d get in trouble from Adam One if we did, for being un-Gardener. Bernice still didn’t like Amanda, but she didn’t exactly hate her either. She was wary of her the way you might be of some animals, like a bird with a very sharp beak. Bernice was mean, but Amanda was tough, which is different.

Nothing could change the way things were, which was that Bernice and I had once been best friends and we weren’t any longer. That made me uneasy when I was around her: I felt guilty in some way. Bernice was aware of this, and she’d try to find ways to twist my guilt around and turn it against Amanda.

Still, things were friendly on the outside. The three of us walked to and from school together, or did chores or Young Bioneer collecting. That sort of thing. Bernice never came over to the Cheese Factory, though, and we never hung out with her after school.

On the way to Bernice’s that morning, Amanda said, “I’ve found out something.”

“What?” I said.

“I know where Burt goes between five and six, two nights a week.” “Burt the Knob? Who cares!” I said. We both felt contempt for him because he was such a pathetic armpit-groper.

“No. Listen. He goes to the same place Nuala goes,” said Amanda.

“You’re joking! Where?” Nuala flirted, but she flirted with all men. It was only her way, like giving you the stone-eye was Toby’s way.

“They go into the Vinegar Room when no one’s supposed to be there.”

“Oh no!” I said. “Really?” I knew this was about sex – most of our jokey conversations were. The Gardeners called sex “the generative act” and said it was not a fit subject for ridicule, but Amanda ridiculed it anyway. You could snigger at it or trade it or both, but you couldn’t respect it.

“No wonder her bum’s so wobbly,” said Amanda. “It’s getting worn out. It’s like Veena’s old sofa – all saggy.”

“I don’t believe you!” I said. “She couldn’t be doing it! Not with Burt!”

“Cross my heart and spit,” said Amanda. She spat: she was a good spitter. “Why else would she go there with him?”

We Gardeners kids often made up rude stories about the sex lives of the Adams and Eves. It took away some of their power to imagine them naked, either with each other or with stray dogs, or even with the green-skinned girls in the pictures outside Scales and Tails. Still, Nuala moaning and flailing around with Burt the Knob was hard to picture. “Well, anyway,” I said, “we can’t tell Bernice!” Then we laughed some more.

At the Buenavista we nodded at the dowdy Gardener lady behind the lobby desk, who was doing string knotwork and didn’t look up. Then we climbed the stairs, avoiding the used needles and condoms. The Buenavista Condom was Amanda’s name for this building, so I called it that now too. The mushroomy, spicy Buenavista smell was stronger today.

“Someone’s got a gro-op,” said Amanda. “It reeks of skunkweed.” She was an authority: she’d lived out there in the Exfernal World, she’d even done some drugs. Not much though, she said, because you lost your edge with drugs, you should only buy them from people you trusted because anything could have anything in it, and she didn’t trust anybody much. I’d nag her to let me try some, but she wouldn’t. “You’re a baby,” she’d say. Or else she’d say she had no good contacts since she’d been with the Gardeners.

“There can’t be a gro-op in here,” I said. “This building’s Gardener. It’s only the pleebmobs who have gro-ops. It’s just – kids smoke it in here, at night. Pleeb kids.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Amanda, “but this isn’t smoke. It’s more of a gro-op smell.”

As we reached the fourth-floor level, we heard voices – men’s voices, two of them, on the other side of the landing door. They didn’t sound friendly.

“That’s all I got,” said one voice. “I’ll have the rest tomorrow.”

“Asshole!” said the other. “Don’t jerk me around!” There was a thud, as if something had hit the wall; then another thud, and a wordless yell, of pain or anger.

Amanda poked me. “Climb,” she said. “Fast!”

We ran up the rest of the stairs as quietly as we could. “That was serious,” said Amanda when we’d reached the sixth floor.

“How do you mean?”

“Some trade going bad,” said Amanda. “We never heard this. Now, act normal.” She looked scared, which scared me too because Amanda didn’t scare easily.

We knocked at Bernice’s door. “Knock, knock,” said Amanda.

“Who’s there?” said Bernice’s voice. She must’ve been waiting for us right inside the door, as if she was afraid we might not come. I found this sad.

“Gang,” said Amanda.

“Gang who?”

“Gangrene,” said Amanda. She’d adopted Shackie’s password, and the three of us used it now.

When Bernice opened the door I had a glimpse of Veena the Vegetable. She was sitting on her brown plush sofa as usual, but she was looking at us as if she actually saw us. “Don’t be late,” she said to Bernice.

“She spoke to you!” I said to Bernice once she was out in the hall with the door closed behind her. I was trying to be friendly, but Bernice froze me out. “Yeah, so?” she said. “She’s not a moron.”

“Didn’t say she was,” I said coldly.

Bernice gave me a short glare. Even her glaring power wasn’t what it used to be, ever since Amanda had come.

27

When we got to the vacant lot behind Scales for our Outdoor Classroom Predator-Prey demonstration, Zeb was sitting on a folding canvas camp-stool. There was a cloth bag at his feet with something in it. I tried not to look at the bag. “We’re all here? Good,” said Zeb. “Now. Predator-Prey Relations. Hunting and stalking. What are the rules?”

“Seeing without being seen,” we chanted. “Hearing without being heard. Smelling without being smelled. Eating without being eaten!”

“You forgot one,” said Zeb.

“Injuring without being injured,” said one of the oldest boys.

“Correct! A predator can’t afford a serious injury. If it can’t hunt, it’ll starve. It must attack suddenly and kill quickly. It must choose the prey that’s at a disadvantage – too young, too old, too crippled to run away or fight back. How do we avoid being prey?”

“By not looking like prey,” we chanted.

“By not looking like the prey of that predator,” said Zeb. “A surf-boarder looks like a seal, to a shark, from underneath. Try to imagine what you look like from the predator’s point of view.”

“Don’t show fear,” said Amanda.

“Right. Don’t show fear. Don’t act sick. Make yourself look as big as possible. That will deter the larger hunting animals. But we ourselves are among the larger hunting animals, aren’t we? Why would we hunt?” said Zeb.

“To eat,” said Amanda. “There’s no other good reason.”

Zeb grinned at her as if this was a secret only the two of them knew. “Exactly,” he said.

Zeb lifted up the cloth bag, untied it, and reached his hand in. He left his hand inside for what seemed a very long time. Then he took out a dead green rabbit. “Got it in Heritage Park. Rabbit trap,” he said. “Noose. You can use them for the rakunks too. Now we’re going to skin and gut the prey.”

It still makes me feel sick to think about that part. The older boys helped him – they didn’t flinch, though even Shackie and Croze seemed a bit strained. They always did whatever Zeb said. They looked up to him. It wasn’t only because of his size. It was because he had lore, and it was lore they respected.

“What if the rabbit isn’t, like, dead?” Croze asked. “In the snare.”

“Then you kill it,” said Zeb. “Smash it on the head with a rock. Or take it by the hind legs and bash it on the ground.” You wouldn’t kill a sheep like that, he added, because sheep had hard skulls: you’d slit its throat. Everything had its own most efficient way of being killed.

Zeb went on with the skinning. Amanda helped with the part where the furry green skin turned inside out like a glove. I tried not to look at the veins. They were too blue. And the glistening sinews.

Zeb made the chunks of meat really small so everyone could try, and also because he didn’t want to push us too far by making us eat big pieces. Then we grilled the chunks over a fire made with some old boards.

“This is what you’ll have to do if worst comes to worst,” said Zeb. He handed me a chunk. I put it into my mouth. I found I could chew and swallow if I kept repeating in my head, “It’s really bean paste, it’s really bean paste…” I counted to a hundred, and then it was down.

But I had the taste of rabbit in my mouth. It felt like I’d eaten a nosebleed.

That afternoon we had the Tree of Life Natural Materials Exchange. It was held in a parkette on the northern edge of Heritage Park, across from the SolarSpace boutiques. It had a sand pit and a swing-and-slide set for small kids. There was a cobb house too, made of clay and sand and straw. It had six rooms and curved doorways and windows, but no doors or glass. Adam One said it was ancient greenies who’d built it, at least thirty years ago. The pleebrats had sprayed their tags and messages all over the walls: I LV pssys (BBQd). Sk my dk, it’s organic! UR ded FKn GreeNeez!

The Tree of Life wasn’t just for Gardeners. Everyone in the Natmart Net sold there – the Fernside Collective, the Big Box Backyarders, the Golfgreens Greenies. We looked down on these others because their clothes were nicer than ours. Adam One said their trading products were morally contaminated, though they didn’t radiate synthetic slave-labour evil the way the flashy items in the mallway did. The Fernsiders sold their overglazed ceramics, plus jewellery they’d made from paper clips; the Big Box Backyarders did knitted animals; the Golfgreeners made artsy handbags out of rolled paper from vintage magazines, and grew cabbages around the edges of their golf course. Big deal, said Bernice, they still spray the grass there so a few cabbages won’t save their souls. Bernice was getting more and more pious. Maybe it was her substitute for not having any real friends.

A lot of upmarket trendies came to the Tree of Life. Affluents from the SolarSpace gated communities, Fernside showoffs, even people from the Compounds, coming out for a safe pleebland adventure. They claimed to prefer our Gardener vegetables to the supermarkette kinds and even to the so-called farmers’ markets, where – said Amanda – guys in farmer drag bought stuff from warehouses and tossed it into ethnic baskets and marked up the prices, so even if it said Organic you couldn’t trust it. But the Gardener produce was the real thing. It stank of authenticity: the Gardeners might be fanatical and amusingly bizarre, but at least they were ethical. That’s how they talked while I was wrapping up their purchases in recycled plastic.

The worst thing about helping at the Tree of Life was that we had to wear our Young Bioneer neck scarves. This was humiliating, as the trendies would often bring their kids. These kids wore baseball caps with words on them and stared at us and our neck scarves and drab clothing as if we were freaks, whispering among themselves and laughing. I’d try to ignore them. Bernice would stomp up to them and say, “What’re you staring at?” Amanda’s mode was smoother. She’d smile at them, then take out her piece of glass with the duct tape and cut a line on her arm and lick the blood. Then she’d run her bloody tongue around her lips, and hold out her arm, and they’d back off fast. Amanda said if you want people to leave you alone you should act crazy.

The three of us were told to help at the mushroom booth. Usually it was Pilar and Toby there, but Pilar wasn’t well so it was only Toby. She was strict: you had to stand up straight and be extra polite.

I checked out the affluents as they walked past. Some had pastel jeans and sandals, but others were overloaded with expensive skin – alligator slingbacks, leopard minis, oryx-hide handbags. They’d give you this defensive look: I didn’t kill it, why let it go to waste? I wondered what it would be like to wear those things – to feel another creature’s skin right next to your own.

Some of them had the new Mo’Hairs – silver, pink, blue. Amanda said there were Mo’Hair shops in the Sewage Lagoon that lured girls in, and once you were in the scalp-transplant room they’d knock you out, and when you woke up you’d not only have different hair but different fingerprints, and then you’d be locked in a membrane house and forced into bristle work, and even if you escaped you’d never be able to prove who you were because they’d stolen your identity. This sounded really extreme. And Amanda did tell lies. But we’d made a pact never to lie to each other. So I thought maybe it was true.

After an hour selling mushrooms with Toby we were told to go over to Nuala’s booth to help with the vinegar. By this time we were feeling bored and silly, and every time Nuala bent over to get more vinegar from the box under the counter, Amanda and I made wiggly motions with our bums and sniggered under our breaths. Bernice was getting redder and redder because we weren’t letting her in. I knew this was mean, but I couldn’t somehow stop myself.

Then Amanda had to go to the violet porta-biolet, and Nuala said she needed a word with Burt, who was selling leaf-wrapped soap at the next booth. As soon as Nuala’s back was turned, Bernice grabbed my arm and twisted it two ways at once. “Tell me!” she hissed.

“Let go!” I said. “Tell you what?”

“You know what! What’s so funny with you and Amanda?”

“Nothing!” I said.

She twisted harder. “Okay,” I said, “but you won’t like it.” Then I told her about Nuala and Burt and what they’d been doing in the Vinegar Room. I must have been longing to tell her anyway, because it all came out in a rush.

“That is a stinking lie!” she said.

“What’s a stinking lie?” said Amanda, back from the porta-biolet.

“My father is not humping the Wet Witch!” hissed Bernice.

“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “She twisted my arm.” Bernice’s eyes were all red and watery, and if Amanda hadn’t been there she would’ve hit me.

“Ren gets carried away,” Amanda said. “The fact is, we don’t know for sure. We just suspect that your father is humping the Wet Witch. Maybe he isn’t. But you could understand him doing it, with your mother in a Fallow state so much. He must get very horny – that’s why he’s always groping little girls’ armpits.” She said all of this in a virtuous, Eve sort of voice. It was cruel.

“He’s not,” said Bernice. “He doesn’t!” She was close to tears.

“If he is,” said Amanda in her calm voice, “it’s something you should be aware of. I mean, if I had a father, I wouldn’t want him humping someone’s generative organ, other than my mother’s. It’s a filthy habit – so unsanitary. You’d have to worry about his germy hands touching you. Though I’m sure he doesn’t – ”

“I really, really hate you!” said Bernice. “I hope you burn and die!”

“That’s not very forgiving, Bernice,” said Amanda in a reproachful voice.

“So, girls,” said Nuala as she bustled towards us. “Any customers? Bernice, why are your eyes so red?”

“I’m allergic to something,” said Bernice.

“Yes, she is,” said Amanda solemnly. “She’s not feeling well. Maybe she should go home. Or maybe it’s the bad air. Maybe she should get a nose cone. Don’t you think, Bernice?”

“Amanda, you are a very thoughtful girl,” said Nuala. “Yes, Bernice dear, I do think you should leave right away. And we’ll see about a nose cone for you, tomorrow, for the allergies. I’ll walk you partway, dear.” And she put her arm around Bernice’s shoulders and led her away.

I couldn’t believe what we’d just done. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach, like when you drop a heavy thing and you know it’s going to land on your foot. We’d gone way too far, but I didn’t know how to say that without Amanda thinking I was sermonizing. Anyway, there was no way of taking it back.

28

Right then a boy I’d never seen before came to our booth – a teenage boy, older than us. He was thin and dark-haired and tall, and he wasn’t wearing the sort of clothes the affluents wore. Just plain black.

“How may I help you, sir?” said Amanda. We sometimes imitated SecretBurger wage-slaves when we were working the booths.

“I need to see Pilar,” he said. No smile, nothing. “There’s something wrong with this.” He took a jar of Gardener honey out of his backpack. That was strange, because what could be wrong with honey? Pilar said it never went bad unless you got water in it.

“Pilar’s not feeling well,” I said. “You should talk to Toby about it – she’s right over there, with the mushrooms.”

He looked all around, as if he was nervous. He didn’t seem to be with anyone else – no friends, no parents. “No,” he said. “It has to be Pilar.”

Zeb came over from the vegetable stand, where he was selling burdock roots and lamb’s quarters. “Something wrong?” he said.

“He wants Pilar,” said Amanda. “About some honey.” Zeb and the boy looked at each other, and I thought I saw the boy give a small shake of his head.

“Would I do?” Zeb said to him.

“I think it should be her,” said the boy.

“Amanda and Ren will take you over,” said Zeb.

“What about selling the vinegar?” I said. “Nuala had to leave.”

“I’ll keep an eye on it,” said Zeb. “This is Glenn. Take good care of him. Don’t let them eat you alive,” he said to Glenn.

We walked through the pleeb streets, heading to the Edencliff Rooftop Garden. “How come you know Zeb?” said Amanda.

“Oh, I used to know him,” said the boy. He wasn’t talkative. He didn’t even want to walk beside us: after a block, he dropped a little behind.

We reached the Gardener building and climbed up the fire escape. Philo the Fog and Katuro the Wrench were up there – we never left the place empty, in case pleebrats tried to sneak in. Katuro was fixing one of the watering hoses; Philo was just smiling.

“Who is this?” sad Katuro when he saw the boy.

“Zeb told us to bring him here,” said Amanda. “He’s looking for Pilar.”

Katuro nodded over his shoulder. “Fallows Hut.”

Pilar was lying in a deck chair. Her chess game was set up beside her, the pieces all in place: she hadn’t been playing. She didn’t look well at all – she was kind of sunken in. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them when she heard us coming in. “Welcome, dear Glenn,” she said, as if she was expecting him. “I hope you didn’t have any trouble.”

“No trouble,” said the boy. He took out the jar. “Not good,” he said.

“Everything’s good,” said Pilar. “In the big picture. Amanda, Ren, would you get me a glass of water?”

“I’ll go,” I said.

“Both of you,” said Pilar. “Please.”

She wanted us out of there. We left the Fallows Hut as slowly as we could. I wished I could hear what they were saying – it wouldn’t be about honey. The way Pilar looked was frightening me.

“He’s not pleeb,” Amanda whispered. “He’s Compound.”

I thought that myself, but I said, “How can you tell?” The Compounds were where the Corps people lived – all those scientists and business people Adam One said were destroying old Species and making new ones and ruining the world, though I couldn’t quite believe my real father in HelthWyzer was doing that; but in any case, why would Pilar even say hello to someone from there?

“I just have a feeling,” said Amanda.

When we came back with the glass of water, Pilar had her eyes closed again. The boy was sitting beside her; he’d moved a few of her chess pieces. The white queen was boxed in: one more move and she’d be gone.

“Thank you,” said Pilar, taking the glass of water from Amanda. “And thank you for coming, dear Glenn,” she said to the boy.

He stood up. “Well, goodbye,” he said awkwardly, and Pilar smiled at him. Her smile was bright but weak. I wanted to hug her, she looked so tiny and frail.

Going back to the Tree of Life, Glenn walked along beside us. “There’s something really wrong with her,” said Amanda. “Right?”

“Illness is a design fault,” said the boy. “It could be corrected.” Yes – he was definitely Compound. Only brainiacs from there talked like that: not answering your question up front, then saying some general kind of thing as if they knew it for a fact. Was that the way my real father had talked? Maybe.

“So, if you were making the world, you’d make it better?” I said. Better than God, was what I meant. All of a sudden I was feeling pious, like Bernice. Like a Gardener.

“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I would.”

29

The next day we went to pick up Bernice from the Buenavista Condos as usual. I think we were both feeling ashamed of ourselves because of what we’d done the day before – at least I was. But when we knocked on the door and said, “Knock, knock,” Bernice didn’t say, “Who’s there?” She said nothing.

“It’s Gang,” Amanda called. “Gang grene!” Still nothing. I could almost feel her silence.

“Come on, Bernice,” I said. “Open the door. It’s us.”

The door opened, but it wasn’t Bernice. It was Veena. She was looking right at us, and she didn’t seem in any way Fallow. “Go away,” she said. Then she shut the door.

We looked at each other. I had a very bad feeling. What if we’d done some kind of permanent damage to Bernice, with our story about Burt and Nuala? What if it wasn’t even true? It had just been a joke, at first. But it didn’t seem like a joke any more.

Any other Saint Euell’s Week we’d have gone to the Heritage Park to look for mushrooms with Pilar and Toby. It was exciting to go there because you never knew what you’d see. There’d be pleebland families having cookouts and family fights, and we’d hold our noses to avoid the stink of frizzling meat; there’d be couples thrashing around in the bushes, or homeless people drinking from bottles or snoring under the trees, or tangle-haired crazies talking to themselves or shouting, or druggies shooting up. If we got down as far as the beach, there might be girls in bikinis lying in the sun, and Shackie and Croze might say, Skin cancer to them, to get their attention.

Or there could be some CorpSeCorps guys on public-service patrol telling people to put their trash in the containers provided, though really – said Amanda – they were looking for small dealers doing business without cutting their mob friends in. Then you might hear the hot zipzipzip of a spraygun and some screams. Offering violence, they’d say to the bystanders as they dragged the guy away.

But our Heritage Park trip was cancelled that day because of Pilar being ill. So instead we had Wild Botanicals with Burt the Knob, in the vacant lot behind Scales and Tails.

We had our slates and chalk because we always drew the Wild Botanicals to help us memorize them. Then we’d wipe off our drawings, and the plant would be in our heads. There’s nothing like drawing a thing to make you really see it, Burt would say.

Burt hunted around the vacant lot, picked something, held it up for us to see. “Portulaca oleracea,” he said. “Common name, Purslane. Found cultivated and in the wild. Prefers disturbed earth. Notice the red stem, the alternate leaves. A good source of omega 3s.” He paused, frowned at us. “Half of you aren’t looking and the other half aren’t drawing,” he said. “This could save your lives! We’re talking about sustenance here. Sustenance. What is sustenance?”

Blank stares, silence. “Sustenance,” said the Knob, “is what sustains a person’s body. It’s food. Food! Where does food come from? Class?”

We recited together: “All food comes from the Earth.”

“Right!” said Burt. “The Earth! And then most people buy it from the supermarkette. What would happen if suddenly there were no more supermarkettes? Shackleton?”

“Grow it on the roof,” said Shackie.

“Suppose there weren’t any roofs,” said the Knob, beginning to go pink in the face. “Where would you get it then?” Blank stares again. “You’d forage,” said the Knob. “Crozier, what do we mean by foraging?”

“Finding stuff,” said Croze. “Stuff you don’t pay for. Like, stealing.” We laughed.

The Knob ignored this. “And where would you look for this stuff? Quill?”

“At the mallway?” said Quill. “In behind, like. Where they throw stuff out, like, old bottles, and…” He was kind of dim, Quill, but also he was acting dim. The boys did that to make the Knob lose it.

“No, no!” the Knob shouted. “There won’t be anyone to throw stuff out! You’ve never been outside this pleeb, have you? You’ve never seen a desert, you’ve never been in a famine! When the Waterless Flood hits, even if you personally last it out you’ll starve. Why? Because you haven’t been paying any attention! Why do I waste my time on you?” Every time the Knob took a class, he’d tip over some invisible edge and start yelling.

“Well then,” he said, winding down. “What is this plant? Purslane. What can you do with it? Eat it. Now then, keep on drawing. Purslane! Notice the oval shape of those leaves! Notice their shininess! Look at the stem! Memorize it!”

I was thinking, It can’t be true. I didn’t see how anyone – even Wet Witch Nuala – could do sex with Burt the Knob. He was so bald and sweaty. “Cretins,” he was muttering to himself. “Why do I bother?”

Then he went very still. He was looking at something behind us. We turned around: Veena was standing there, beside the gap in the fence. She must have squeezed through. She was still in her slippers; her yellow baby blanket was draped over her head like a shawl. Beside her was Bernice.

They just stood there. They didn’t move. Then two CorpSeMen came through the fence as well. They were Combat, in their shimmering grey suits that made them look like a mirage. They had their sprayguns out. I felt all the blood drain out of my face; I thought I was going to throw up.

“What’s wrong?” shouted Burt.

“Freeze!” said one of the CorpSeMen. His voice was very loud because of the mike in his helmet. They moved forward.

“Stay back,” Burt said to us. He looked as if he’d been tasered.

“Come with us, sir,” said the first CorpSeMan when they’d reached us.

“What?” said Burt. “I haven’t done anything!”

“Illegal growing of marijuana for black-market profit, sir,” said the second one. “It would be safer not to resist arrest.”

They walked Burt towards the gap in the fence. We all trailed silently along behind – we couldn’t understand what was happening.

As they came up to Veena and Bernice, Burt held out his arms. “Veena! How did this happen?”

“You fucking degenerate!” she said to him. “Hypocrite! Fornicator! How dumb do you think I am?”

“What are you talking about?” said Burt in a pleading voice.

“I guess you thought I was so high on that poisonous weed of yours that I couldn’t see straight,” said Veena. “But I found out. What you’re doing with that cow Nuala! Not that she’s the worst of it. You twisted asshole!”

“No,” said Burt. “I swear! I never really… I was just…”

I was looking at Bernice: I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. Her face wasn’t even red. It was blank, like a chalkboard. Dusty white.

Adam One stepped in through the gap in the fence. He always seemed to know if there was something unusual going on. Amanda said it was just like he had a phone. He laid his hand on Veena’s yellow baby blanket. “Veena, dear, you’ve come out of your Fallow state,” he said. “How wonderful. We’ve been praying for that. Now, what seems to be the matter?”

“Move out of the way, please, sir,” said the first CorpSeMan. “Why did you do this to me?” Burt howled at Veena as they pushed him forward.

Adam One took a deep breath. “This is regrettable,” he said. “Perhaps it would be wise to reflect on our shared Human frailties…”

“You’re an idiot,” Veena said to him. “Burt’s been running a major gro-op in the Buenavista, right under your sacred Gardener noses. He’s been dealing right under your noses too, at that stupid market of yours. Those cute bars of soap wrapped up in leaves – not all of it was soap! He’s been making a killing!”

Adam One looked mournful. “Money is a terrible temptation,” he said. “It is a sickness.”

“You fool,” Veena said to him. “Organic botanics, what a joke!”

“Told you there was a gro-op in the Buenavista,” Amanda whispered to me. “The Knob’s in very deep shit.”

Adam One said we should all go home, so that’s what we did. I felt really bad about Burt. All I could imagine was that Bernice had gone back that day after we’d been so mean to her at the Tree of Life, and told Veena about Burt and Nuala having sex, and also about the armpit-groping, and that had made Veena so jealous or angry that she’d got in contact with the CorpSeCorps and made an accusation. The CorpSeCorps encouraged you to do that – to turn in your neighbours and family members. You could even get money for it, said Amanda.

I hadn’t meant any harm, or not that kind of harm. But now look what had happened.

I thought we should go to Adam One and tell him what we’d done, but Amanda said what good would that do, it wouldn’t fix things, it would just land us in more trouble. She was right. But that didn’t make me feel any better.

“Lighten up,” said Amanda. “I’ll steal something for you. What d’you want?”

“A phone,” I said. “Purple. Like yours.”

“Okay,” said Amanda. “I’ll take care of it.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said. I tried to put a lot of energy into my voice so she’d know I appreciated it, but she could tell I was faking.

30

The next day, Amanda said she had a surprise that would cheer me up without fail. It was at the Sinkhole mallway, she said. And it really was a surprise, because when we got there Shackie and Croze were hanging around near the wrecked holospinner booth. I knew they both had a crush on Amanda – all the boys did – though she never spent time with them except in a group.

“Have you got it?” she said to them. They grinned at her shyly. Shackie had grown a lot lately: he was tall and rangy, with dark eyebrows. Croze had grown too, but sideways as well as up; he had the beginnings of a straw-coloured beard. Before this I hadn’t thought too much about what they looked like – not in detail – but now I found myself seeing them in a different way.

“In here,” they said. They seemed not scared exactly, but alert. They checked that no one was watching, and then we all crammed into the booth where people used to get their image spun out into the mallway. It was designed for just two, so we had to stand close together.

It was hot in there. I could feel the heat from our bodies, as if we were infected and burning with fever, and I could smell the dried-sweat and old cotton and grime and oily scalp smell from Shackie and Croze – which was what we all smelled like – mixed with their older-boy smell, a mushroom and wine-dregs blend; and the flowery smell of Amanda, with a musk undertone and a hint of blood.

I couldn’t tell what I smelled like to them. They say you can never really smell your own smell because you’re so used to yourself. I wished I’d known about this surprise in advance, because then I could have used one of my saved-up rose soap ends. I hoped I didn’t smell like dirty underwear or cooped-up feet.

Why do we want other people to like us, even if we don’t really care about them all that much? I don’t know why, but it’s true. I found myself standing there and smelling all those smells, and hoping a lot that Shackie and Croze thought I was pretty.

“Here it is,” Shackie said. He brought out a piece of cloth with something wrapped up in it.

“What is it?” I said. I could hear my own voice: girly and squeaky.

“It’s the surprise,” said Amanda. “They got some of that superweed for us. The stuff Burt the Knob was growing.”

“No way!” I said. “You bought it? From the CorpSeCorps?”

“Lifted it,” said Shackie. “We snuck in the back of the Buenavista – we’ve done that lots. The CorpSe guys were going in and out the front door, they didn’t pay any attention to us.”

“There’s a loose set of bars on one of the cellar windows – we used to get in there and party in the stairwell,” said Croze.

“They’ve put bags of it in the cellar,” said Shackie. “They must’ve harvested all the gro-op rooms. You could get blasted just breathing.”

“Show,” said Amanda. Shackie unrolled the cloth: dried shredded leaves.

I knew how Amanda felt about doing drugs: you lost control of your mind, and that was risky because it gave other people the edge. Also you could do too much, like Philo the Fog, and then you wouldn’t have any mind left to speak of so no one would care whether you lost control of it or not. And you should only smoke with people you trusted. Did she trust Shackie and Croze?

“Have you tried this stuff?” I whispered to Amanda.

“Not yet,” Amanda whispered back. Why were we whispering? The four of us were so close together that Shackie and Croze could hear everything.

“Then I don’t want to,” I said.

“But I traded!” said Amanda. She sounded fierce. “I traded a lot!”

“I’ve done this shit,” said Shackie. He used his toughest voice for shit. “It’s awesome!”

“Me too, you feel like you’re airborne,” said Croze. “Like a fucking bird!” Shackie was already rolling the shredded leaves, already lighting up, already sucking in.

There was someone’s hand on my bum, I didn’t know whose. It was creeping up, trying to find a way in under my Gardener one-piece dress. I wanted to say, Stop that, but I didn’t.

“Just give it a try,” said Shackie. He took hold of my chin and stuck his mouth down on mine and blew me full of smoke. I coughed, and he did it again, and I felt very dizzy. Then I had a clear blinding-bright fluorescent image of the rabbit we’d eaten that week. It was glaring at me with its dead eyes, only the eyes were orange.

“That was too much,” said Amanda. “She’s not used to it!”

Then I felt sick to my stomach, and then I threw up. I think I must have hit all of them. Oh no, I thought, what an idiot. I don’t know how long all of that lasted because time was like rubber, it stretched out like a long, long elastic rope or a huge piece of chewing gum. Then it snapped shut into a tiny black square and I passed out.

When I woke up I was sitting against the broken fountain in the mallway. I was still dizzy, though not so sick: it was more like floating. Everything seemed far away and translucent. Maybe I can stick my hand through the cement, I thought. Maybe everything’s lacework – made of specks, with God in between, just like Adam One says. Maybe I’m smoke.

The mallway store window across from us was like a boxful of fireflies, like living sequins. There was a party going on in there, I could hear the music. Tinkly and strange. A butterfly party: they must be dancing on their spindly butterfly legs. If I could only stand up, I thought, I could dance too.

Amanda had her arm around me. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re fine.” Shackie and Croze were still there, and they were sounding pissed off. Or Croze was, more than Shackie, because Shackie was almost as whacked as I was.

“So, when’ll you pay up?” said Croze.

“It didn’t work,” said Amanda. “So, never.”

“That wasn’t the trade,” said Croze. “The trade was, we bring the stuff. We brought it. So, you owe us.”

“The trade was, Ren gets happy,” said Amanda. “She didn’t. End of story.”

“No way,” said Croze. “You owe us. Pay up.”

“Make me,” said Amanda. Her voice had that dangerous edge, the one she’d use on pleebrats when they got too close.

“Whatever,” said Shackie. “Whenever.” He didn’t seem too bothered.

“You owe us two fucks,” said Croze. “One each. We ran a big risk, we could’ve got killed!”

“Don’t bug her,” said Shackie. “I just want to touch your hair,” he said to Amanda. “You smell like toffee.” He was still flying.

“Piss off,” said Amanda. And I guess they did, because the next time I looked for them they weren’t there.

I was feeling more normal by then. “Amanda,” I said. “I can’t believe you traded with them.” I wanted to say, For me, but I was afraid I’d cry.

“Sorry it didn’t work,” she said. “I only wanted you to feel better.”

“I do feel better,” I said. “Lighter.” That was true, partly because I’d puked up a lot of water weight, but partly because of Amanda. I knew she used to do that kind of trade, for food, when she was so hungry after the Texas hurricane, but she’d told me she’d never liked it and it was strictly business, so she never did it any more because she didn’t have to. And she didn’t have to this time, but she’d done it anyway. I didn’t know she liked me so much.

“Now they’re mad at you,” I said. “They’ll get even.” It didn’t seem really important, though, because I was still high as a bee.

“I’m not worried,” said Amanda. “I can take care of them.”