Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Oh, Pri-ta,” Pia sings. She staggers at her sister, pitchfork weighed down by dirty straw. “I’ve got a present for you.”

Prita shrieks and drops her own pitchfork with a clang. The horse in the stall next to us lays its ears flat against its head, snorts and stamps, and rolls its eye down at us. I cringe.

They’re smallgirls, I think. The same height as me, the same age, but even Miyole’s older than them inside.

A chirp pulses from Prita’s pocket.

“Did you bring your crow?” Pia asks.

Prita pulls out a slick blue crow and gives her sister a withering look. “Like I wouldn’t.” She pauses, deep in reading the screen. “Lali’s going to ride. She wants me to catch it for her page.”

“God, that girl’s obsessed.”

Prita shoves her crow in her pocket and makes for the door. “Ava? You coming?”

The stall’s only half done. I look from the twins to the muck-smeared floor. If Modrie Reller saw this, she’d take a wire to the back of my legs, or else make me clean the rest of it with my bare hands. “Won’t we get in trouble?”

“Trouble?” Prita laughs. “Why?”

“We didn’t finish. . . .”

“Oh, the machines’ll get the rest of it.” Prita waves her hand. “All Advani-madam cares about is that we practice so we appreciate the historical aspects of equestrian care.”

“Come on, Ava.” Pia grabs my arm and links hers through mine. “Lali likes a crowd.”

I walk with them back out to the paddock. The girl I saw earlier, the one with the diamond in her nose, sits high in the horse’s saddle, back straight. One of the other girls checks the horse’s straps and stirrups while the instructor looks on, smiling.

Prita climbs up on the fence, pulls out her crow, and aims it at the girl on horseback. “Okay, Lali. I’ve got you!”

Lali kicks the horse into a run. Its hooves beat the soft ground as it circles the paddock and rounds past us again in a spray of dirt. Lali leans forward over the horse’s neck, moving with it as it builds to a full gallop.

I sit on the fence beside Prita and Pia. All around me, the girls laugh and cheer Lali as she brings the horse to a high-stepping trot. I’m surrounded by girls who’ve had horses their whole lives, who’ve had nothing to do but perfect their riding, who don’t fear leaving something half done.

I want to feel that, I think as Pia throws back her head and wrinkles her nose in laughter at something one of the other girls says. How does she do it? How does she let go?

I scowl at the fence. Maybe girls like me aren’t made to be petal light and carefree. I’m the girl who cleans up after goats, who makes her own tea, who fixes machines these Revati girls will never touch. Or I was. Now I’m . . . what? Pretending to be one of them? Pretending the rest of my life never happened? For them, this whole world of horses and fine clothes and slick machines will never end. It’s all they’ve ever known, ever will know. But for me, one wrong tug and everything could come unraveled in my hands.

D r. Lata sits me down in a plush chair facing her desk. She stands on the other side, fingers resting on its glass top. “I’m concerned, Ava.”

I keep quiet, waiting for her to continue.

She draws her hand across the touchpad on her desk, and the tablet screen beside her springs to life, full of what can only be my botched entry exam. She seats herself, stares at it, and sighs. “Your reading scores . . . well, I find them troubling for a girl of your age.”

I don’t disagree.

“And your mathematics scores are erratic.” She looks up. “I understand you leaving the trigonometry questions blank, but how is it you’ve mastered intermediate algebra, yet you’ve never learned geometry?”

“I . . .” I swallow, feeling sick. “I didn’t know. . . .”

Dr. Lata waves her hand in dismissal, mistaking my answer for sullen childishness. “Who was responsible for your education?”

“Miyole,” I say. “And me.”

“Miyole?” She glances over at my records on the screen. “Your aunt says you lived on a transport ship most of your life?”

I nod.

“Surely there was a certified instructor aboard?”

I shake my head.

“An instructor in training?”

I shake my head again.

“How did you learn even the basics, then? Addition? Multiplication? Someone must have taught you those.”

I open my mouth, then close it again, afraid if I begin to talk about my life on the Parastrata, I’ll have to talk about what ended it, too.

“Ava?”

“I don’t know,” I say. But I see the frustration building on her face and I hurry on. “I taught myself at first. And then Miyole showed me the symbols and gave me puzzles like the ones there.” I point to the screen.

“Ava, we want what’s best for you. You know that, right?”

“Yes, so missus.”

“For that reason, we’ll be keeping you with your social peers as much as possible, but assigning remedial academic coursework until you catch up.” Dr. Lata taps the touchpad, and my exam disappears.

Remedial. I don’t know what it means, but the way it drops from Dr. Lata’s mouth tells me it’s something bad. Trash. Burnoff. Me.

“Can’t you put me in a class with Miyole?” I say. “I can catch up there.”

“Ah.” Dr. Lata wipes an invisible dust mote from her desktop. She won’t look up at me. “Well, Miyole. That’s another matter.”

“What matter?”

“Miyole is . . .” She looks past me, out the window into the streaming Mumbai sunshine and the ships passing calmly over the city. She smiles. “We don’t have many students like Miyole.” Her smile drops. “I’m afraid it won’t be possible to place you in the same class.”

“But why not? I’m her . . . her . . .” I falter. Her what? Sister? Family? “Friend,” I finish lamely.

“Exactly,” Dr. Lata says. “Miyole’s education is a matter for her guardian—your aunt Soraya—and for me. You need to take some time to put yourself in order, Ava. Concentrate on your own education. Don’t worry so much about Miyole. She’ll be fine. More than fine.”

I leave Dr. Lata’s office, storm into the nearest bathroom, and kick open the stall doors to make sure they’re empty. I bury my face in my hands and scream. She’ll be fine, they say, when they know nothing about her except her skill in reading and figuring, nothing about the girl who used to fly her kite above the Gyre, who survived a hurricane with bloodied hands, who had to hide from the Marathi Wailers.

Suddenly, my crow chirps. I gasp and near drop it. I’ve forgotten it was on me, hidden in a clever, slim pocket sewn into my skirt at the hip.

I finally wrestle it open. “What?”

“Ava?” It’s Soraya. Her voice sounds wary, unsure. I can’t help thinking how Perpétue never would have sounded so. She understood me. She never would have sent me here to be humiliated.

“I wanted to tell you not to worry about waiting after school for Miyole,” Soraya says. “Dr. Lata called. They want her to stay after to take advanced placement tests, so I’m coming to meet with her instructors. I’ll take her home afterward.” Her voice glows with pleasure.