Books like this are hard to come by. They are worth at least a hundred credits. If the handler catches me with it he will make me pay in bruises. And if Kitty saw it she would steal it, to buy stuff to make herself more beautiful.
I remove the false bottom in the hole that holds our special things, and put the book away. My secret library. Safe from Kitty’s fingers. From the handler’s eyes.
There are people who say that a secret is something only one person can know. As soon as you tell someone else it will spread around Slum City like an infestation of flies, becoming everyone’s business.
They are right. I have carried my secret around with me since I was nine years old. I have not told anyone about my library, and it has stayed mine. I replace the paver and pack the stuff on the floor into my bag.
“I’ll go to Cowboy,” Kitty says, turning from the balcony. “I’ll be careful, Ettie. I promise I won’t get caught.”
Not a chance. My Kitty is shedding lives like sunburnt skin. This little piggy is not going to market. She must stay safe at home. “You act stupid. I can’t trust you.”
Kitty gnaws at the mango, the stringy flesh catching in her teeth. “Watch out, Ettie. Don’t let the Locusts get you.” She worries her teeth with a nail.
Fear prickles on my skin, coating me in an armour of cold sweat.
2
Cowboy
I spot Cowboy at the east side of the market next to the taxi rank. Today he has hidden himself between stalls selling shoes and umbrellas. Tomorrow he will be in a different place. If he does not keep moving, the Locusts will catch him for fencing, and send him to Savage City.
It will serve him right. He is the worst kind of crook. He tries to steal from thieves like me. People like him go to Savage City if they get careless. And prisoners never escape. They serve their sentences or die, the sun sucking them up like blood spilt on hot sand.
That is where my parents were sent, and they did not last long before the sun sickness took them. So the orphan warden told me.
I was three days old when I was sent from the birthing station to live with the orphan warden in Section O. All the rubbish kids in Slum City stay there. There are lots of us, packed like lice eggs into blocks of flats stretching from Section O to the edge of the slum.
The orphan warden’s deputy is Handler Xavier. They are as thick as thieves. Which is what they are. They also share the same blood, the mother and son. And our sweat, earning credits for them in the game.
At the beginning of each month, the orphan warden gives us Bigs our living allowance. When it runs out we play the game with Handler Xavier so we can eat. At the end of the month we get our share of the spoils. A small number of credits that trickle back from Cowboy. Just enough to keep us working.
We are the lucky ones. The ones who are quick to learn the tricks of the game. Those who are not chosen by Handler Xavier must scavenge for food in garbage bins at the end of market day.
Cowboy is the last link in our game’s chain. I check around the market for Locusts. It is all clear. When I am sure, I wander over and hand Cowboy the bag of stuff that Kitty and I nicked off the beach.
Cowboy spits on the jewellery. He scratches it and weighs it in his hands. He counts the sunglasses and sunblockers before dropping them into a bin under the table. I watch him as he counts – I want what is mine at the end of the month, just like everyone else.
Handler Xavier says if we do not watch Cowboy he will cheat us quicker than you can say, “Cowboy, you filthy thief,” which is something I often think but never say.
Corks dangling from the brim of Cowboy’s hat dance and bob, keeping the flies off his face. I slap one from my lip. They are the size of my fist and bite sore. One day when Cowboy is not looking I am going to make that hat mine. Until then, the flies get me.
“Twelve items of jewellery, seventeen sunglasses, and fifteen sunblockers,” Cowboy says.
“Eighteen sunglasses. The handler counted.” I did too. He is not going to rob me today.
Cowboy’s mouth twists. He knows I watch him. “One pair was broken. I’m not counting it.” The tip of his tongue flickers over his lips. “Is this everything?” He lowers his sunglasses and peers at me from under his hat. His eyes are big. Like mine. Like my mouth. Always at odds. Forever arguing as to which should claim the largest share of my face.
“Handler Xavier will be along later with the stuff from the others,” I say.
He grunts. “Another brand of sunblocker is on the market today. Double strength. There’s a glut of the old stuff now. Tomorrow I won’t want it.”
New sunblockers crowd the market, each stronger than the next. But the sun still manages to penetrate the cream, eating away at my skin.
Cowboy looks over my shoulder and jerks his chin in warning. I glance behind me and catch a flash of green and yellow. When I turn around again, all that is left of Cowboy is the flies, dazed from dodging corks. I slip away from the table, my shoulders hunched against the patrolling uniforms.
The stalls are selling the usual goods. Everything plastic. Plastic sandals, plastic umbrellas, plastic sunglasses and plastic tubes of sunblocker, five for the price of one. But the sun is shutting its eyes on the day, and food stalls are thin on the ground.
Before sunrise tomorrow, the market wardens will leave Slum City and buy whatever is available from the warehouses at The Laboratory.
Sometimes the warehouses are empty, and Slum City dwellers roast flies to stay alive. Not me. I do not eat flies. They eat me. And if I do not treat the bites they make me sick.
The food queue snakes past a stall selling plastic flowers. I butt in, close to the front.
“Hey, what you doing? You can’t squeeze in,” a man says.
I roll my eyes and drool as though I am afflicted with sun sickness.
“Dead-brain,” he says and leaves me alone.
The woman in front of me clutches her shopping bag to her chest, like I am not to be trusted. She is right. If I was standing in front of me in a queue I would also hold on tight to my stuff. I bump against her, and as I do so I lift a shiny clip from her hair. It is the kind of thing Kitty would like.
Blood drips from the woman’s bag onto my foot. It is animal flesh, but I do not know what kind. I have never tasted meat. It is expensive, and in any case, Handler Xavier says if I eat meat I will get sick or go mad. You cannot trust the meat that comes from The Laboratory.
By the time the queue has taken me to the front there is not much choice, the slabs of banana tell me. The pulp under the plastic wrappers is mottled black and yellow. Eeny meeny miny moe.
The queue pushes behind me. Hurry up, we also want some.
The Market Nag clicks her tongue. “Come on, girlie. Are you buying or not?” She flaps her hands above the bananas and a glut of flies mosey on over to the next pile.
“I want water. And don’t you have mango?” I cannot take banana home to Kitty tonight. She will scream my ears deaf. Last month it was the only fruit I could get and she swore her sweat turned yellow.
The Market Nag taps her nose. “Mango is eight times the price of banana.”
Sometimes the Market Nags hold back on the food so that they can push the prices up a few days later. That is Slum City for you, everyone out to make a credit off the back of someone else. If the market wardens catch her jigging the prices they will set the Locusts on her. But it is a risk all the Nags take.
She hands me two bottles of water, and reaches under the table. She pulls out three balls of fibrous mess, seeping from their plastic wrappers. They are overripe, but they are still mango. I hide two in