So I tell the boy, ‘Obviously you don’t. You’re not real. You’re a test. If you were real, you’d live here with us in Dot’s creation.’
‘Don’t believe me,’ the boy shrugs. ‘It’s not like I’m hanging around here or anything. I only came to show Nathe I could.’ And he smiles a gappy smile.
For a moment, me and the boy are still as still. I can hear the soft hum the butterflies make, the one that comes from those single, unblinking green eyes of theirs. It can’t be long now, I think. Pretty soon, the test is going to end. Okay, Dot. I’m ready now. I’ve had enough. Please?
The boy twists an avocado from the tree. Just a small one, the size of his hand. He squashes it so the skin splits open.
‘Yuck,’ he goes, as the creamy green contents ooze out. There are bright green smears all over his hands. Avocado streaks his fingers the way it would if he had actual, solid hands. If it happened to turn out that the boy was real, not part of a test at all …
Suddenly, I’m lunging towards the boy but he turns and runs away, crashing through the avocado trees, the palms and the mangos, away from the lagoon as fast as he can go. I hear his footsteps through the trees, heavy for someone so little. On his back, there are two blocky numbers. One and six. Sixteen.
I snatch up my sungarb. And now I’m moving, dodging around the trees, following the test boy, catching up to him. His little legs make him a slow runner, just like Fern. Plus, he doesn’t know his way around. He runs across the lawn, not realising he’s doubling back in a huge loop until he finds himself at the lagoon again.
I call out to him, ‘Stop! I only want to touch you.’
But the boy doesn’t listen and he definitely doesn’t stop. He blunders on, in a sideways direction now, all along the length of the escarpment. I want to catch him, pass my hands right through him just to prove that one little avocado doesn’t mean anything. That way I’d know he’s as insubstantial as air after all. I’d be sure my theory was right. The boy is nothing more than a test.
‘Get away!’
The boy is close now. He’s trying to shout but it comes out more like a whimper. The boy from before, the boy who smiled and laughed, is gone. Now he’s small and precalm and not at all sure what to do.
‘Don’t … you can’t touch me. I’m going to tell Nathan.’
He brings his wrist up to his face. Around it is a sort of strip, see-through as water, with words and little lights blinking on it. I notice his arms are shaking.
The escarpment looms up in front of us, a solid black wall in the prelight. I throw my arms out towards the boy but he veers away. He’s looking over his shoulder at me when his foot finds this loose rock on the ground. He pitches forward. There’s a crack, which sounds a whole lot like real forehead against real rock (trust me, it’s something you never want to hear).
He lands on his side and lays there sprawled like an animal basking on the rocks in the sun. Apart from the fact it’s night and no animal in creation basks then. I want to ignore the puddle of blood under his head, creeping slowly outwards across the rocks. But I can’t exactly do that, not when I dab my finger in and find it’s all warm and sticky and red.
‘Hello?’
The boy has his eyes shut but surely he can hear me. Surely he’s going to start crying or something.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean this to happen, I swear.’
The boy doesn’t answer. Right now, the boy isn’t doing anything much at all.
I
SLIDE MY
back down the rocky escarpment wall and squat next to the little body. I reach out a finger. It hovers there, right above the boy’s shoulder, the whole time looking like someone else’s finger on someone else’s hand. I pull my finger away.
Try again
.
I tell myself my finger’s going to pass right through the boy anyway. There’s no reason to feel precalm about the rocks and the cracking sound his head made.
He isn’t real. Not even the slightest bit. He’s a test because, really, there’s no other explanation. So it shouldn’t be that hard, giving him one little touch.
I force myself. All over again, I reach out and this time the crescent of my fingernail connects with the boy’s sungarb. The fabric’s all thick and damp. Now I touch him with the pad of my finger, tracing the stripes on his sungarb and the rearing horse too. I even touch his skin.
The entire time, the boy stays completely still.
And guess what?
He’s solid. As in, absolutely and definitely real.
‘Hey. Can you hear me?’
I start prodding the boy and it isn’t long before an explanation presents itself. When I think about it, it’s obvious. Dot wanted to make a really convincing test for me, so she created a real, live boy.
But even the thought of a real boy stabs at me, hard. For one, if the boy is real then he must really be feeling prehealthy right now, all because of me. But two, a real boy makes the whole test thing way harder to handle. I mean, when it was only images appearing in my head, the test was confusing. But at least it was hidden.
No-one had to know I was being tested apart from me. But now, lying right in front of me, there’s proof that Dot thinks she needs to test me. Apparently, the creator of everything thinks I’m a pregood person.
I must be, or else why test me in the first place? Fern and Jasper and Drake, Gil and Brook and anyone who’s ever mattered to me would think the same thing if they found out.
Then the boy blinks. He makes this low, soft moan followed by a choking sort of cough. He moves his head a little bit, from side to side. Just enough to streak his face with the actual, real blood that’s oozing out of his actual, real hair. The boy seems to be trying to fix his eyes on me but they just keep sliding around all over the place.
He goes, ‘That really hurt, Nathan.’
I start to tell him about how he tripped over but all he says is, ‘I’m telling Mum.’
Then he rolls onto his side and tries sitting. He struggles up as far as his knees then stops, saying, ‘Woah. Hang on. Woah.’
He opens his mouth and this stream of yellow comes out, in pumping kind of waves. In between the waves he makes a prenormal groaning sound before finally he says, looking up at me, ‘You’re not Nathan.’
He touches his head and moans, ‘I feel sick.’
It’s pretty obvious what I have to do. I have to show Dot that I won’t be tempted by anything he says. He’s trying to make me think there’s a place outside the trees, a place that’s different from and better than here. So what I need to do is make sure Dot knows I’m not swayed so she’ll make this boy go away. And I need to do it before anyone else finds out Dot ever sent him.
But I know I can’t leave him lying here by the escarpment. For one thing, the first person who comes along will find him and the boy will tell them how Dot created him to test me. Then everyone will know I’m predotly.
I need a strategy and thank Dot I come up with one pretty fast. I decide I’ll take the boy back to the huts. I’ll hide him in one of the empty ones until I can work out how to make him disappear. If no-one sees him, it’ll almost be like he was never here in the first place. And Dot will know I love her, the same as I always have.
____________________
Nice plan, Wren. I think. This whole ‘hide him in an empty hut’ thing is working out superwell.
It really isn’t working out at all. Because, you know, when I pull myself out of the prenormal whirl inside my head and start actually trying to move the boy, I figure out that it’s not going to be the easiest thing in all creation to do.
I put his arm around my shoulder and try hauling him onto his feet, but it doesn’t happen. Not even close. The boy’s smaller than me, but he’s floppy and superheavy and he really, really doesn’t want me touching him. It would be a whole lot easier with someone else to help but I can’t exactly ask. That would mean explaining everything and avoiding
that
is the point of this whole plan in the first place.
And anyway, there’s only one person who might understand. But knowing Blaze, he probably wouldn’t believe the boy’s a test. I bet Blaze would insist the boy is real or something. He’d want to find out all about him. Chances are he wouldn’t worry about anyone else discovering him, either. So basically, I’m going to have to sort this out by myself.
‘Get up,’ I tell the boy.
No, I
beg
him. ‘Please? Here, hold on. Put your arm around me.’
‘My head hurts. I want to go home.’
I get a prenormal twinge inside when he says that. All because of Dot and the test, I figure. I mean, that would have to be it.
So I say, ‘I want you to go home too. That’s possibly the best idea anyone’s ever had. It’s just, I can’t leave you lying here while we figure out how to make that happen.’
About then, I guess the boy decides he needs my help. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t know he’s a test. From his point of view, he’s a real boy, and he’s all alone. I’m his only choice if he wants to get back home. So he puts his arm around me and tries to stand. He even takes a staggering, wobbling step. Then he sees the pool of red on the rocks, the tuft of hair and skin stuck there. Probably he connects the whole mess with his own head because he releases another hot yellow wave all over both of us.
Vomit, spew, upchuck
.
A lot of unfamiliar words pop into my head and I’m not sure which one is the right one or even what they mean, exactly. Whatever you call it, the force of it seems to wring the last of the energy out of the boy. He loses balance, listing sideways so I have to shoulder all his weight just to keep him standing up.
And that’s just one step. Only about another million to go before we reach the huts.
Even when it was just me and Fern, running to the lagoon the day I froze on the rocks (
forever
ago, it feels like), the lawn seemed ridiculously massive. But I can personally guarantee the distance is even more ginormous when you’re dripping in gooey yellow stuff and trying to prop up one prehealthy and generally prehappy test boy.
Plus, even though it’s prelight, it’s still way steamy in the garden, so pretty soon I’m panting. I have to keep stopping and every time I do the boy starts talking softly to me. Sometimes he reminds me he wants to go home. That his mum will be
freaking out
. Other times, he says Nathan’s going to get me if I do anything funny. And then there’s stuff that just doesn’t make the remotest sense whatsoever.
It takes us so long to get anywhere that all I want to do is beg Dot for help. Just go to the gazebo, send my thoughts up in a bubble and ask Dot to put everything right for me. But then I realise there’s no point doing that. I mean, Dot can’t fix things when she’s the one testing me in the first place. Solving this on my own is the only way to pass the test and show Dot how much I love her. It’s just, right now, the sky above my head feels so big and empty. Beneath it, I’ve never felt so wobbly and tiny and weak.
But still, I finally get the boy to the huts. I half-carry, half-haul him across the lawn, up the stairs and into the first hut I come to. An empty hut, obviously, backing directly onto the orchard, with this giant coconut palm bending right over the roof.
The boy wants to know where we are and I tell him somewhere he can rest until he’s ready to leave. I think maybe he’s going to object or something, but he doesn’t. When I plunk him down on the bed he closes his eyes straightaway. Almost immediately, he’s asleep.
There’s a chair near the bed so I sit down and watch the boy for a while. He’s perfect, as real-looking as you could ever hope for. Curled up there on the bed, a purple mound on his forehead, the boy looks paler and weaker than he did over by the lagoon. His mouth hangs open just the littlest bit as he sleeps and his breath comes out all snuffly. And suddenly, I have this prenormal urge to hug him. I almost do it too. My arms reach out towards him, but at the last moment I pull them away. A hug doesn’t seem that dotly a thing to do.
So I pull the sheet over his chest and get up, which is when I have this idea. I’ve dragged the boy a long way. I’ve spent all this time with him and not once has he said anything that’s made me doubt Dot. Maybe that will be enough? I could leave the hut now and when I close the door behind me he might just disappear the same sudden way he arrived. Out of nowhere, into nowhere.
I mean, why not? It wouldn’t be the most prenormal thing to happen tonight.
____________________
I make myself wait. I don’t know how long I lurk around outside the hut but it feels like forever. And when I do go back inside, guess what? The boy is still there, all sort of floppy on the bed, with those big clompy things still on his feet. Sighing, I go over and take them off for him because it occurs to me he’d probably be a whole lot more comfortable that way (that’s if test boys can even get uncomfortable).
It’s when I’m up close that I start to notice stuff about him. There’s a graze on his knee with a kind of white strip stuck over it. On his hand, the words ‘Maths homework’ are scrawled in blue. And inside the collar of his sungarb are two words woven into a label.
Dennis Quigley
.
I look inside his pockets too. One has a rectangular thing in it. I discover a row of smaller, soft purple rectangles under the wrapper. They smell of fruit, same as the bubbles the boy was blowing did. I pop a rectangle into my mouth but spit it out immediately. The rectangle definitely doesn’t taste like fruit. But the prenormal thing is, it tastes like something I’ve eaten before.
I sit on the edge of the bed. And I swear I don’t even touch the see-through thing wrapped around the boy’s wrist. I don’t say anything. I’m only looking, thinking
what is that?
when the whole thing lights up. Words scroll along the front. Welcome Nathan Quigley. 3:07 AM.
Stop
, I think, sort of automatically, as though I somehow already know what to do. And guess what? The lights immediately fade away. So I try it again.
Start. Stop
. Every time I think it, the thing around the boy’s wrist either lights up or fades. The more I do it, the more I feel like I’ve done it before.