Cured (4 page)

“Mum, is this…?”

She pressed a finger to her lips, shushing
me, and left the room.

I picked up the glass and swallowed its
contents. It warmed my throat and instantly brightened my mood.
NectarAle was the most luxurious liquor in the land. It was
expensive, and only served at the most prestigious events. Mother
served it at all her parties but never consumed it herself. She
said that alcohol was for dulling pain, and since our lives were
perfect, there was no need for it. I had only had it once before,
when my best friend Felix and I had snuck a bottle away from Mum’s
annual Olympia Day ball. We had each had about four mouthfuls
before we were laughing hysterically at the tree outside my window.
There was nothing entertaining about the tree, NectarAle just made
everything funny. I smiled at the memory, although the happiness
quickly disappeared when I realized how selfish I was being. I had
only considered how the new Cure rule would affect me, but Felix
was a fellow Descendant. I hadn’t even given my best friend a
second thought. He was about to be Cured too.

Tears welled up again as I turned the
WallScreen on again to ring Felix. He and I had grown up together
on Olympia. We met on my first day of high school. I had been
home-schooled until that point, but begged and pleaded my parents
to let me attend a normal school so I could make some friends. When
the BusCopter hovered in front of my house on the first day of the
school year, I had nervously boarded the massive floating bus. As I
had feared, everyone stared at me. I hated having famous
parents.

“It’s the Optime girl,” someone
whispered.

“Avery Rose!” came an excited cry.

I rolled my eyes. Everyone knew the Optimes.
My mother and father had become Primes at the same Cure ceremony.
They had fallen in love during their Prime initiation tests, where
they had to carry out a number of tasks designed to test their
powers and hone their new skills. The first Prime to complete the
tasks each year was awarded their first choice of the available
homes and careers on Olympia. My mother and father had famously
completed the tasks together, instead of racing like contestants
usually did. On the last task my mother had been wounded, but
instead of leaving her and claiming the top rank for himself, my
father carried mother through the task, helping her complete it at
exactly the same time as himself. Then he had proposed at the
awards ceremony following their initiation. The act was so romantic
that it was made into films and re-enacted by children playing
imaginary games. Everyone knew of us.

Chapter 5

The other kids had stared at me openly as I
searched for a seat on the BusCopter. Watching me, open-mouthed as
I made my way down the isle, but no one suggested I sit next to
them. I moved further down the bus, my face growing so red that I
could feel the heat radiating off it. Finally a little blonde boy
had spoken out. 


“Well hell!” he said, loud enough for the
whole bus to hear, “That’s no welcome to give a celebrity!”

I cringed, thinking he was about to mock
me.

“
Sweetheart,”
his eyes twinkled as he patted his knee. “Don’t worry about them,
they're all a bit star struck. You come take a seat on Uncle
Felix’s knee.”

His impression of a creepy old man made me
laugh. My face cooled slightly as I made my way towards his seat at
the back of the bus, but there was already someone sitting next to
him and I didn’t want to spend the bus ride on his knee. To my
relief, Felix stood up when I got there, letting me sit down in his
place. When I thanked him, he had patted my shoulder.

“Sorry to break it to ya, Ms Optime, but I
had selfish intentions. I stood up and let you sit to give me an
excuse to hold on to you when the bus jolts!”

I laughed a little. “In that case, maybe I
will just stay standing,” I replied with a smirk, but remained
seated.

“Ah, she’s playing hard to get. A woman after
my own heart.” Felix placed his hand on his chest, and we both
laughed.

By the time the bus arrived at school, I felt
as though I had known Felix for years. We had chatted easily for
the duration of the bus ride, and discovered that we had a lot in
common. He hated school, and most of the kids that went there
because they were stuck up and stuffy. I told him that I had no
friends because I couldn’t bear the other kids I had met on
Olympia.

“We are going to get along just fine, Ms
Optime,” he had said as I leapt off the hovering bus and onto the
school grounds. I decided I liked him.

Felix took me to the principal’s office and
then escorted me to every class that day. He was in most of the
classes with me, and always sat at the desk next to mine, ignoring
the seating plan completely. We barely listened to the teacher
because we were too busy messing around and laughing together. It
became apparent that whilst Felix was the beloved class clown, he
was also a bit of a loner. He frustrated teachers by refusing to
listen to instruction and constantly making inappropriate jokes,
but they all seemed to be fond of him anyway. It was hard not to
be, with his quick wit and infectious laugh.

Our mathematics teacher swatted Felix on the
head when he was busy fashioning his activity sheet into a paper
plane.

“Do your work, boy,” the teacher said.

“I already know it all!” Felix replied
cockily, “Ask me anything!”

The teacher picked up Felix’s half-made plane
and un-crumpled the paper. She began to read the first math
problem.

“If Tiana had twenty lions on her farm, and
Jane took five percent of the lions away, then what does Jane
have?”

“A criminal conviction for breaking and
entering, and a hefty fine for animal theft,” Felix replied
quickly. I snorted and the rest of the class snickered, whilst
Felix’s expression remained completely serious.

“Avery?” The teacher turned to me. “Perhaps
you might be able to answer the question with more maturity. What
does Jane have?”

“A nasty lion bite needing urgent medical
attention before it becomes infected?” I struggled to keep a
straight face when Felix let out a guffaw and slapped me on the
back. The teacher let out a sigh and walked away shaking her
head.

Felix was also much smarter than anyone else
in our year group. Even though he didn’t listen to lectures, and
never completed homework assignments, he always knew the answers
when teachers called on him.

He asked me to eat lunch with him on that
first day. We sat alone, cross-legged on the grass in the middle of
the school grounds. People stared at me. They had seen me countless
times in the media because of my parents, but I rarely had the
chance to socialize with kids my own age, since I had been confined
to home-school. Felix noticed everyone watching but laughed off the
attention.

“Man, I must’ve gotten better looking over
night! People can’t take their eyes off me today,” he had said as I
opened my lunch bag. I snorted with laughter for the second time
that day, before covering my mouth and thinking how appalled mother
would be with my unladylike behaviour.

He chuckled,“Did you just snort, Avery-Rose
Optime?”

“My mother would slaughter me.”

“Your mother’s not here.”

We had laughed and snorted our way through
lunchtime. I finally felt free, and for the first time in my life,
I had a real friend. One that wasn’t a maid or the gardener’s
son.

I invited him over after school and we spent
the afternoon swimming in my pool and lounging in the sun. My
mother had come outside to introduce herself and Felix had greeted
her with a deep bow, “Pleased to make your acquaintance Madam
Optime,” he had said in a ridiculously pompous voice. I knew he was
poking fun at her, but she been charmed at his behaviour. I had
snorted accidentally and mother’s face dropped.

“Avery-Rose!” She had exclaimed.

“Sorry Mother,” I covered my mouth with my
hand to suppress laughter, “Won’t happen again.”

She had retreated back into the house. When
the door closed, Felix and I burst into snorting laughter. We had
been inseparable ever since.

Chapter 6

The WallPhone
rang twice before Felix’s face appeared on the Screen. It was
obvious that he too had been crying. He reached out a hand and
placed his palm on his WallScreen. I did the same and it almost
felt like we were touching. We sat like that for a very long time
without talking. Then he cleared his throat.

“Good luck Ave.” He said with a furrowed
brow. Even in my current state of shock I couldn’t help but notice
how spectacular he looked. His blonde hair sat perfectly and his
chiselled jaw was tensed in anxiety. He wiped a tear from his cheek
and sniffed. Then he hung up and my Screen went black.

I lay in bed, staring at the celling. Crying.
Grinding my teeth. There was no way around it. Felix and I were
going to be Cured.

Chapter 7

I don’t know
how much time passed, but eventually Mother crept into my room. Her
normally perfect eye make-up was smudged so that it streaked down
her face. Her usually preened hair was littered with stray strands.
She stroked my cheek. I didn’t react. Then she pried my duvet out
of my clenched fists and helped me out of bed. I was numb. I stood
still as Mother conjured up a ridiculous outfit on my WallScreen.
For once I didn’t protest as she stripped me down and dressed me in
the sparkly white, slim fitting dress. She then combed my hair and
twirled it into a rosette, pinning it with a sequined bow. She
lathered my face in thick liquid and dusted it with a light powder.
I felt nothing. She kept painting my face for what felt like hours
and then gently pulled me to the mirror. I stared. I did not look
like me. 


“You look beautiful Avery Rose.”


I blinked. I did look beautiful. 
Then the
WallScreen bleeped. A call was coming in from the Alphas. 


“Yes?” Mother answered curtly. 


An automated
voice spoke, “As per the recent alteration to the rules regarding
The Cure. It has come to the attention of the Alphas that Miss
Avery-Rose Optime, a Descendant, is due to be Cured today. Please
bring her to the Curing ceremony immediately. Thank you.
Goodbye.”


The girl in the mirror crumbled to the
ground.

Mother
summonsed some Norms to pick me up and carry me to our HoverCopter.
We reached the rooftop where our vehicle was kept, and the vehicle
was already waiting. The Copter looked like a plain surfboard with
a seat planted on top, and was floating a foot over the HoverPad.
My carriers placed me on the seat that was built into the platform
and buckled me in. Mother slicked my hair into place and lightly
pecked my forehead, before stepping away from the
Copter.

“You will be okay.” She promised as a glass
shield extended from the back of the board and encircled the
platform, and me, in an opaque bubble.

Chapter 8

By the time I
got to the ceremony I had accepted my fate. I would probably be an
academic Norm of some sort, since I was both too uncoordinated to
be a Labour Norm not creative enough to be an Artistic Norm.
Perhaps I would be a Linguistic, seeing as I enjoyed poetry. They
would send me to the Field full of other literary minds. I was not
even very good at literacy, so I would be low in the ranks amongst
the Field. I would probably spend the rest of my life writing
ditties for WallScreen commercials.

My HoverCopter landed atop a tall glass
building at the base of Olympia. A Labour Norm pressed the release
button on my Copter, and the glass container receded. When I didn’t
move from my seat, the Norm unstrapped me with gentle fingers, and
lifted me from the vehicle, placing me carefully on the ground. He
and one other Labour Norm each looped an arm through mine, to keep
me from collapsing. They escorted me through a door and down a
glass elevator to the ground level of the building. Everything was
a blur as they led me through the foyer of the skyscraper and out
of the building. I stepped outside and was overwhelmed by a huge
crowd facing in the opposite direction. I could see the stage where
Regina was standing at the front of the crowd. Her eyes met mine
and her jaw dropped. Everything went silent and slowly the crowd
began to turn. Until eventually every single eye was staring at
me.

So many faces. Some of jealousy. Some of
pity. Many of hatred. I bowed my head as my escorts moved me
through the crowd. It was bizarre. I never left Mount Olympia so I
often forgot that every Norm knew my name. Knew my face. Knew
everything about me. Even though they all knew me, it was clear
that I was no celebrity. These people did not clamor for my
autograph or want to know about my life. No. They had been
bombarded with information of my family’s superiority since their
birth. They hated me, but at the same time each of them stood,
mouths agape, in awe. Now my ridiculous, pretentious costume felt
just that. As I was pushed through the masses by my bodyguards, I
clawed at my hair, pulling it out of its fancy up-do. I hiked my
gown up to knee length, and secured it there by tying it in a knot.
I wiped the lipstick from my mouth with the back of my hand and
rubbed at my eyes, before prying gemstones off my cheekbones. By
the time I reached the front of the crowd, I must have looked a
mess, but I felt less prominent, less conceited, less like a bad
joke. The bodyguards half dragged me up the stairs and onto the
stage where the Cure was to take place. Regina Quaint’s icy cold
hand greeted me.

“Well look at who we have here!” Regina
practically squealed with delight. “Our last Descendant of the day,
and definitely the most exciting!”
I stood still and looked at the
ground, refusing to acknowledge the woman.