Yellowcake - Margo Lanagan [48]
‘We are, too, proper!’ Chechin had sounded insulted.
Michael snorted. ‘Duwazza used to be men. I saw them. Kids like Doppo would hang around and they would laugh at them and send them away—they didn’t need them. They had uniforms. They had weapons, and all the weapons matched. They had an organisation, with proper cells, and membership papers and runners and passwords and executions. This, what we’ve got now...’ He looked around at them and Sheegeh watched their faces close down, except for the one or two that were angry.
‘This is just kids playing in the ruins,’ said Michael. ‘Not just the city ruins. The ruins of the Duwazza, too. I mean, apart from the mob in the University, who do we organise with? Who do we even know, since Temprance and Spek and their boys got theirs? It’s almost just us, the last little remnant. In glorious, it is. An in glorious end.’
Sheegeh didn’t quite follow him—wasn’t ‘glorious’ a good thing? He looked across the table at Gayorg, who could often say the thing that made everyone feel better.
Gayorg was looking back at Michael. His hand snuck up to the table as if he were trying to hide its action even from himself, and deposited one of his yellow pills there, a shiny flattened oval. It rocked there on the tabletop, and Gayorg watched it. Sheegeh could see him enjoying the sight, enjoying the anticipation.
‘I think we do pretty good,’ said Chechin hotly.
As Chechin started ticking off their deeds on his fingers, Gayorg, low over the happy pill, lifted his eyes and looked straight across at Sheegeh. His eyebrows slowly lifted, and a sweet, wondering smile crept onto his face. Just below his chin the little pill rocked and shone out its promise.
And so it was with some semblance of a uniform that they lined up for that raid. Chechin had found the black cloth after that summer night. It was patterned with flowers, but they were black too, woven in, and would be invisible in the dark. There was enough for everyone except the newest boy to have a new wrap for his head.
They went in late. Sheegeh stayed up later than usual, so that he would be there at the door when they left, and each could touch his hair on the way out. Doppo was with them this time; Doppo looked scornfully out of the slit in his head-wrap and trotted past Sheegeh without touching.
‘Hup!’ said the boy behind him. ‘Back here.’
‘I don’t need his luck,’ said Doppo over his shoulder.
The boy went after him and brought him back. ‘You want to kill us all?’ he said, banging Doppo’s stiffened hand onto Sheegeh’s curls and rubbing hard. ‘You want to be the hole in our defence?’
He let go and Doppo snatched back his hand. The other boy’s eyes rolled and he rubbed Sheegeh’s curls more gently. ‘Some people think they’re indestructible, don’t they, Angel-face?’
When they’d gone, Fat Owen said, ‘Triangles? Nah, too late for triangles. Look at you.’ But he sat up himself with Maths Challenge, writing his workings on pieces of foreign newspaper where the advertising pictures left good stretches of the page blank.
Sheegeh woke to see Owen lift his head from his arms on the table. The candle was dead, but there was first light outside. There was a stumbling sound, a rattle of rubble, a wounded moan. Owen heaved up and hurried to open the door.
‘Mother Mary!’ He came back to the table and fumbled to light a fresh candle.
The new boy filled the doorway, with someone else— Brisk, one of their biggest—around his shoulders. ‘They’re all gone,’ said the new boy. ‘Every one. Except us.’ He lowered Brisk to stand, propped him there.
‘What! Come in!’ said Owen. ‘Get him onto the bunk there. Let us look at him.’
‘No, no,’ said Brisk. ‘It’s too bad. Don’t touch me. Just lay me down.’ His vinyl jacket was buttoned all up and down. A row of blood-drips was gathering at the bottom edge, running along, dripping from the corner.
They helped him across the floor and sagged