The Girl from Oceania by Jana Keir

Author:Jana Keir
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young adult dystopian fiction, Young adult dystopian novels, New Zealand female, Friends high school, Underground Amsterdam, Suspense Dystopian
Publisher: Jana Keir
Published: 2022-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“You look so different! You've aged a year in the last month.” Nia leaned forward in her seat, her nose getting closer to me. I poked at the image of her face, my finger passing through the projection.

“Europe's aged me,” I said, popping a liquorice drop into my mouth. The conservatory buzzed with office workers and the building's residents, drinking coffee and huddling in the heated space.

“Despite the fact that you don't have to like, do anything anymore,” Nia said, screwing her nose up at me. “All you have to worry about is school work.”

My face fell for a moment, but I corrected it into a sad smile. I wanted to tell Nia about what had happened at school yesterday, so badly. I wanted to tell her about Fen and Ling and An. But with everything screened and monitored, it was too risky to even hint at it.

“That's not all I have to worry about Nia, and you know it.”

Mum's face peeked into the frame of the screen. It took me a moment to work out what was different about her.

“Are you OK? What happened to your eye?!”

“I’m fine,” Mum said, rubbing absently at the mottled bruise on the right-hand side of her face.

“You don’t look it.”

Nia was silent now, examining her fingers.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“On the farm,” Mum said.

“He’s not back for breakfast yet?”

“It takes him a lot longer to finish off the farm work now. He’s mobile, but his leg’s stiff and he’s not as fast on his feet anymore.”

“I bet he’d tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you myself! But first, you tell me about what’s happening over there. How are your friends?”

I thought of the fight in the classroom, the tense atmosphere in the library. “We've been... debating. We've been having lots of discussions about the War, and how history has treated each side differently.”

Mum gave me a wry look. “Debates are healthy. I'm glad you can talk to your friends about these sorts of things. You must be close to them.”

I didn't feel very close at all to Theo. Bas had been so absent from my life I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have him in it. Renee was understanding for the most part, but she was giving me space right now. “Yeah, I guess so. We've been having a lot of these conversations lately though.” I lapsed into silence.

“Our friends are often there to challenge us. If you're worried that you disagree on something, it doesn't mean you're not friends. You've got the ability to talk things through, to learn from one another. Remember that.”

“OK. Now you tell me what’s been going on.”

Mum grimaced. “The tractor broke down. We’d got into too much debt, with paying back the fines, and we didn’t have enough cash to fix it. We had to buy a second-hand one off the Jenson’s.”

“Yes...”

“But we had to get a loan from the Roylestons, first.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. The Roylestons were known for their dirty

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