The Roar by Emma Clayton

Author:Emma Clayton [Clayton, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Chicken House Ltd
Published: 2014-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

23

YOU ARE NOT TO TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID

The next morning, Mika awoke to the sound of his mother singing. He got up and padded barefoot on the warm wooden floor to find her flitting around the kitchen, her hair tied loosely so it swung as she moved with her light trails dancing behind her. Just the kitchen in the hut was bigger than their whole fold-down apartment at home and there were so many cupboards, Asha said she was breathless by the time she’d looked in them all. On the worktop was another basket of food and he could smell fresh bread and coffee.

‘I wanted to make sure you ate breakfast before you left,’ she said. ‘There are bananas in the basket, why don’t you try one?’

Mika had never eaten a banana before. He pulled one off the bunch and bit into the top of it.

‘Yuck,’ he said. It was bitter and rubbery.

‘You’re supposed to peel it first, silly!’ laughed Asha. ‘Here. Let me do it. Eat half and I’ll put the rest in a pancake. No, on second thoughts, you may as well eat the whole thing, there are loads! I keep forgetting we’re not at home! All this real food! We’ll have to take some back with us for the neighbours. Go and sit at the table outside and I’ll cook your pancakes.’

Audrey was already there with her mother and aunt. She seemed happier than the day before and she crunched an apple with her toes buried in the sand and gazed at the sea.

‘Isn’t it beautiful, Mika?’ she said, lifting her pointy chin into the breeze. ‘Look at it.’

‘Yeah,’ Mika nodded, watching the morning sunshine glitter on the gentle, lapping waves.

‘Just think,’ she went on. ‘How lucky people used to be. They had all this beauty for free and it was real.’

Before they’d finished eating, a man arrived to take them away. They all looked the same, the men: bald and grumpy, with their stomachs hanging over the waistbands of their dark blue YDF uniforms – they could have swapped lives for a weekend and their wives wouldn’t have noticed. This man looked uncomfortably hot in his shirt and tie and he was sinking as he struggled across the sand towards them in his smart black shoes. Audrey stifled a giggle.

‘They could have let the poor things wear shorts and flipflops,’ Una said, watching him nearly fall over as she munched on a bread roll.

Mika and Audrey found their shoes and said goodbye, then followed the man away from the beach, through the razor wire gates and into the low white building. Seeing the place again, they shuddered, remembering the black chair and the needle.

Inside, they were split up and taken to different rooms, and this time Mika found himself in a small, white room containing a table, two chairs and a man in a white coat.

‘Hello, Mika,’ the man said. He looked intelligent, Mika thought, his hair burned off by intense brain activity and his eyes bright and penetrating.

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