Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

I’m practicing for getting out of here.

I won’t be able to take anything but the clothes I’ll be wearing and what I can stuff in my pockets.

Also I’m hardening myself up for the cold. Sometimes I sleep with the window open no matter what the temperature. I live in the attic. Nobody notices what I do up here. I even have a book though I don’t know how to read it.

If I keep quiet and do my jobs I’m practically invisible. Just like Mother said: “It’s always good to behave yourself so as not to get noticed.” She also said, “Stand up straight, say thank you and please.” I don’t. I keep quiet and hunch over so as not to be seen.

I was sold for quite a respectable sum. Or so Mother told me, and proudly. I don’t blame her. I presume she had to do it.

And these are not the worst people to be sold to. I’ve heard some get beaten. These people don’t do that.

Trouble is, now that I’m getting breasts, I can tell that they’re beginning to see me no matter how quiet I keep.

I tried to leave before but I didn’t get far. I was too young. I didn’t realize how hard it would be and how I’d have to be tired and hungry—how I’d have to maybe be freezing or wet. That’s part of running away. This time I’ll be ready. That time I came back by myself. They didn’t even know I had gone.

When they took me, they promised they’d let me go to school so I was glad to go with them, but they never did let me. They kept saying, “Next year,” and when it was next year they still said it. Pretty soon even they stopped saying it because it was clear there wasn’t going to be a “next year” for me.

There are lots of books around. More than anybody would ever need. I thought maybe I could teach myself to read. I looked at captions under pictures, but there aren’t very many pictures and that hasn’t helped much. If I waited till the baby was a bit older, surely there would be some simpler books, but I’m not going to wait.

When they first took me, it was just great. I couldn’t believe my luck. Plane rides and hotels. Wonderful food—though some of it so odd I didn’t dare eat it, and I was homesick every now and then for lentils. They got me the first frilly blouse I ever had…and that was the last, too. It was tan and silky. I did all sorts of things I’d never have had a chance to do except for them—as they kept telling me. That’s when I thought I really would get to go to school.

They kept telling me I should be grateful—and I was. Actually I’m still grateful, but I think I’ve paid them back enough by now. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I wish I’d had the sense to mark off the years.

The one good thing is, they never whip me. That’s what they used to do back home and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get out of there. They always talk sweetly. My so-called father calls me a hundred different things. They all sound good. “Madam, if you’d be so kind…Miss, by your leave.” Talking that way is his joke. Like, “My dear, clean the toilet and be quick about it. Sweetheart, change the bed and wash the sheets.” (He doesn’t even say “sweetheart” or “my dear” to his wife.) Now and then he says, “Miss Whatever-your-name-is…” He really does forget my name and that’s why he says “madam” and “my dear.” That’s odd, too, because they’re the ones named me what they wanted me to be. My real name was much too long and complicated for them to remember. They never even tried.

Now that I’m getting breasts my so-called father is looking at me in a different way. All that fancy language he talks, all those “madam”s and “sweetheart”s, “dear lady”s, and “by your leave”s might turn into something entirely different. He pinched my breasts as though to see how much they’d grown.

My so-called mother (“Call me Mother in front of people.” Though people hardly ever come here), she was the one decided what to name me when they took me. She wanted something simple and easy to say. She calls me B. I do know that letter. She spells it Bee . I know A and C , and E , and some others, too. I like O .

Here, I have to do what I don’t want to all the time. I mean all the time. Easier to list what I don’t do than what I do do. And I can’t think of a thing I don’t do.

They’ll miss me when I’m gone. I’m going to have to be careful, though I don’t think they can risk setting the cops on me since I’m here illegally. I didn’t realize that until recently. I’m a secret. They bought me when I was ten. To get me in the country they pretended I was their daughter and got some sort of phony passport.

I don’t want to do anything to put the baby in danger. I’ll leave at night when they’re home. I’m sorry for the houseplants. I don’t think my so-called parents will remember that they’ll need to water them. Maybe they’ll forget about the baby, too. At least it’ll make a fuss.

There’s a big wall around their place and an iron gate that’s always locked. There’s broken glass along the top of the wall and sharp points on top of the gate. They say to keep robbers out, but I think it’s for keeping me in.

But I have the gate key now. They’ve turned the house upside down. They’ve frisked me and more than once. He did it. Looked everywhere on and in my body. Then, for the first time, they whipped me. I almost told them where the key was, but I managed not to. Finally they got tired and stopped. Then my so-called father scared me in another way than pinching breasts. He said I was a pretty girl but he could make it so I wasn’t if I didn’t behave myself.

But they’re not all bad. They were kind enough to give me a day to rest up after that. I guess they knew I’d need it. “Mother” even served me supper in bed. She said, “You’ll get breakfast in bed, too, if you show us where that key is.” They were extra nice all day (I got dessert. I got a heating pad on my sore spots) but I said I didn’t know, so I didn’t get breakfast in bed.

Next day I pretend I’m worse off than I am. I hobble around and sit down sideways whenever I get to sit. They’ll never think I could go off tomorrow. Weather report says rain. Perfect.

Middle of the night and I’m off—my pockets full of peanut-butter sandwiches. Now all I have to do is find a school. I’m not sure what a school looks like, even though I’ve seen pictures. I know sometimes it’s a little school and sometimes it’s a great big building school. At least it should say school on it. I can read that. It’s got two O’s.

After I let myself out, I hide the key under a big tree next to a parking lot a few blocks away. I dig it in nice and deep. That’s what I did last time I ran away and how I got back in before they found out. That time they didn’t even know the key was gone. They’d left it on the hall table.

It’s drizzling but I have a big black garbage bag over me. I walk on down the road, turn a corner, and then another corner. Walking anywhere I want. I keep turning corners just because I can.

This right now is what it’s like to be free. Sometimes I run even though I have a lot of heavy stuff in my pockets. Sometimes I hop and jump. All I know about freedom is what I know right now.