Juliet Butler - The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

Monster? Where?! We look back, but there’s only Lucia, who’s got up and is running towards us, but we’re so scared we don’t move to run and hide from her in the bushes any more, we just keep standing there, thinking we’re going to be eaten up by a monster which we can’t see but everyone else can.

‘Fuck off, you lot! Fuck off!’ Lucia’s caught up with us and she’s waving at the crowd, which is getting bigger all the time as more people run over and start screaming too, saying things like Help! Help me, God! One of them’s fainted, but for real, not pretend like Lucia does, and all her apples spill out of her bag and run under the gate. I’m shaking all over for fear. I can’t see anything, I keep looking all around me.

Lucia’s not scared. She’s angry, and starts yelling and swearing at the Healthies. Then she grabs a hosepipe and turns it on them full blast. ‘ You’re the fucking monsters! Have this to wash your fucking mouths out with!’

‘Comrades! Comrades!’ Stepan Yakovlich the groundsman has run up and starts shouting at them all too. ‘For the love of God, comrades!’ His dog, Booyan, jumps up at the gate barking and snarling like he wants to eat them and Lucia’s still spraying them, then Stepan Yakovlich turns and picks us up because we can’t move from being scared stiff of the monster and runs with us both clinging round his neck. I hear a woman wailing, ‘How could they let that live?’ And then we’re back inside.

It was us.

Us that’s the monster.

But why? How? Monsters are ugly and evil and scaly and breathe fire. Monsters are Imperialists, or leeches, they’re green and slimy and mean. Monsters aren’t us! I can’t stop crying, however much Masha swears at me and punches me. She’s just angry. Not hurt like me.

‘For goodness’ sake!’ Lydia Mikhailovna has been called in because I’m so upset that the nurse thought I was going to have a fit. She’s standing over me with her hands on her hips. ‘You’re going to run out of tears at this rate!’

‘She’s using all mine too. I’m getting all dried out. I’ll drop off of her like a prune, soon.’

‘Do be quiet, Masha. You could show a little sympathy.’

‘They were screaming at me too. The pigs—’

‘And how many times did I tell you both to stay close to the building? Eh? And not to go traumatizing the Healthies? Not to draw attention to your condition? Now we’ll never see the back of them. SNIP is virtually surrounded by baying crowds looking for a two-headed mutant.’

‘B-But, but, but, why?’ I say through all my snotty tears. ‘What’s wrong with us? Why are we a m-mutant?’ I can hardly get the words out, I’m crying so much.

‘Have a handkerchief, for goodness’ sake,’ she says, getting one out of her pocket and snapping it in front of my face. ‘You’re not monsters. As such. You’re different. Deformed. And healthy people are not used to deformity of any kind. It is our duty to protect them from you, but sometimes, especially when orders are disobeyed, this proves impossible. However,’ she sniffs and looks out of the window, ‘this attention from them is something you must accustom yourself to in life.’ I go to hand her back the hanky. ‘Keep it,’ she says with another sniff, ‘as well as that word of advice.’ Then she goes out and bangs the door.

After a bit, Masha looks up at the ceiling. ‘Stop whimpering,’ she says, ‘we’re only monsters to those pigs. If they don’t need us, we don’t need them. Not like we’re monsters to anyone who matters, is it? Not to anyone in here. You heard what she said, we’ve just got to get used to it.’

I nod. But how do you get used to someone fainting in terror when they see you? I put a pillow over my head. I don’t want to go back Outside ever, ever, ever . We turn into monsters when we go Outside.

‘You’re a sheep. A stupid. Silly. Stubborn. Shitty. Sheep!’ Masha thumps my arm to emphasize each word.

There are only two kids in Ward G right now, and they’re sitting in silence, watching her hitting me. Masha doesn’t normally hit me in front of other people. Most of the kids in our ward are doing schooling or physio at the moment, so we’re just sitting on our bed by the window. The crowds are still there by the gate.

‘No. Won’t go out,’ I say, holding my bruised arm. ‘Won’t.’

‘They’ll take us out the back door through the kitchens, that’s what they said. We can play in the yard where the skips are.’

‘Won’t. Can’t make me.’ She’s tried, but she can’t. I won’t even start to walk.

‘But think what we’ll find in the skips. All sorts. It’ll be like looking for treasure. We might find dog brains or… or, gold nuggets.’

‘Won’t.’

‘Or scrunched-up newspapers with pictures of Yuri Gagarin.’ She looks at me hopefully. ‘Loads and loads of photos of him.’ I shake my head. It’s stupid now to think of going up in space with Yuri Gagarin like I did in my dreams. He’s a Healthy.

‘Won’t.’

She slams her fist down on the bed.

‘ Yolki palki! I’ll smash your skull in!’

‘Hey, Mashdash!’

It’s Pasha. He’s poked his head round the door. ‘Wanna go play with my dice on the stairs?’

‘Yeah, I’ll come,’ says Masha, hopping down from the bed. ‘Better than staying here talking to this Cretin.’

Playing dice with Pasha isn’t going Outside so I hop down with her and we run off down the corridor with Pasha scooting in front on his trolley. He hasn’t got his new legs yet. Aunty Nadya’s husband, Uncle Vasya, has no legs either but he has a proper fat chair like a wooden car to sit in with three big wheels and two paddles which he pulls and pushes himself along with. Everyone else just uses trolleys on the floor until they get given new legs. Uncle Vasya didn’t want false legs. He liked his own best. Pasha’s fast. Faster than anyone. Bet he’d be faster than Uncle Vasya even.

‘Let’s play Kiss or Pinch,’ Masha says, once we’re all sitting on the stone stairs by the half-open back door. Pasha’s sitting next to her. I’m glad he’s not sitting next to me. Kiss or Pinch is a silly game. She throws the dice.

‘Odd number! Pinch!’ She can pinch him anywhere and she always pinches really hard.

‘ Aiii! You pinch like a crocodile!’ He throws the dice.

‘Odd! Kiss!’ He kisses her in her ear so loud I can hear and she jumps back.

‘You kiss like an exploding bomb!’

I don’t get turns. I’m glad. I don’t want to get kissed by Pasha. I don’t even want to watch him kissing Masha.

They go on playing for a bit and then Masha says, ‘Tell us about how you got your legs chopped off.’

‘Again?’ He rolls his eyes. ‘You’re strange, you are. OK. I’d gone down with my mates to watch the prisoners working on digging this ditch outside our village. We played this game that whenever the guard wasn’t looking, one of us would jump out and tag a prisoner.’

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Cos you get some of his meanness passed on. See?’ He tags Masha then goes to bite me, growling. We all laugh. He’s got dimples like Yuri Gagarin. ‘I was lookout on the railway track, it was a dead-end track, see, so there was never any trains. Then I hear this noise and turn round and there’s a train reversing down the track. Come out of nowhere, it did.’ Masha’s sucking the dice in her mouth. I think she might swallow it when it comes to this next bad part.

‘So I’m wearing my cousins’ shoes, which are too big and laced up round the sole and my ankles to keep them on, so when I go to get off the track, one of them’s stuck in the rails, see? So I’m sitting there screaming my head off and pulling to get the shoe out and the kids are running up the bank to the train, to get the driver to stop…’