Beyond the Sun by Matthew Jones

Author:Matthew Jones [Jones, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, High Tech, Drama, Weapons, Women College Teachers, Summerfield; Bernice Surprise (Fictitious Character), Women Archaeologists
ISBN: 9780426205111
Google: PYgFAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0426205111
Publisher: Virgin
Published: 1997-07-17T07:00:00+00:00

puncture marks are all that’s left of his earrings. I know these things are only on the surface, only

superficial, but they make such a difference.

They’re the symbols of who we are.

I held his hand in mine – his fingernails are bitten down to the quick. I found myself wondering

if that’s a recent bad habit. The back of his neck has caught the sun. The skin there is the colour

of golden syrup. His complexion is completely unblemished. It’s as if he’d never been outside

before.

An indoor boy.

If he is eighteen, I am Catwoman. And, as I believe we have already established, the Eartha

Kitt one-piece is not mine.

Extract ends

13

FROCK TERRORISM

We don’t have guns, we don’t have knives, we don’t have identification papers, Bernice thought.

We have three posh frocks, padded busts (well, Emile and, um, I do), twentieth-century disco

music and more slap than Arlon Jardolz’s Big Night Out.

‘We are going to die,’ she whispered to herself. But at least we are going to do it in sequins.

Below her, she heard Michael put the old and empty bus into gear. Standing on the roof, Ber-

nice, Emile and Tameka were forced to hang on tightly as it shuddered and then moved off.

Tameka hit the play button on her Stowaway, which they’d wired up to the bus’s PA system, and

the opening strains of ‘I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper’ began to belt out into the evening.

The flashing lights Jock had strung along the side of the bus began to pulse. Not actually in time

to the music – but then you can’t have everything.

The spotlights made her blink and the world beyond her was plunged into darkness. Bernice

tried to imagine what they must have looked like: three bewigged, electric-blue-sequined figures,

dresses shimmering in the white lights, dancing in time on the top of the balloon-strewn coach.

Attracting attention was not going to be a problem.

‘You wouldn’t believe I spent the seventies in a punk-rock band, would you?’ Bernice shouted

to Tameka. Bernice waved to a young Ursulan man who was staring up at them, his bald head

creased into a frown of incomprehension. Confidence was going to be their greatest ally.

‘What’s punk?’ Emile asked, from between them, already slightly out of breath beneath his

blonde wig.

‘Dance to disco, Emile,’ Bernice laughed, waving away his question. ‘Trust me, you wouldn’t

like rock.’

Emile looked quizzically at her, but then was forced to concentrate on a neat twist and a twirl.

He was rather good at this, Bernice thought, and he certainly had better legs. She desperately

tried to remember her steps, failed completely, and lost her place in the music. She bobbed up

and down as best she could in her bright-red wig, but was terribly aware that she was not the

strongest dancer in the trio. Tameka moved with the easy confidence of a girl who had spent her

teenage years in discos and nightclubs, walking through the dance steps and clapping her hands

with panache. Emile was really enjoying himself. Knees slightly bent, grinding his young hips to

the stomping disco beat and giving little yelps of pleasure.

Bernice’s hips weren’t quite so young and didn’t so much grind as lurch.

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