The Shade of the Moon (10 page)

“Alex’s sister,” he replied.

“Is that how Miranda met Alex?” Sarah asked. “You knew his sister?”

“No,” Jon said. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m listening,” Sarah said, and Jon knew she was. Whether he wanted her to or not.

“We lived in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Well, you know that. Dad and Lisa had tried
to make it west, but they couldn’t, so they came back. Gabe was a baby. They met people
on the road, this really nice guy named Charlie, and Alex and Julie. They all came
east, to our house.”

“And you and Julie became close?” Sarah said.

“Everyone paired off,” Jon replied. “Matt had married Syl a few weeks before, and
Dad was with Lisa. Miranda didn’t give Alex a chance to say no. Even Mom hung out
with Charlie. So it felt natural, Julie and me. She was just a year younger. I liked
her a lot.” He paused at the memory. “Maybe I loved her. I said I did. I was almost
fifteen. Can you be in love that young?”

“We didn’t have a chance to be young,” Sarah said.

“No,” Jon said. “We didn’t.”

“So you loved Julie,” Sarah said. “What happened to her, Jon?”

There was more than one answer to that question, but Jon knew what he would never
tell Sarah, never tell anyone.

“Dad and Lisa and Alex and Julie and Charlie moved into an empty house,” Jon said.
“I was there all the time, or Julie was at our place. Mom and Dad got along, and Mom
was fixated on making sure Lisa had enough to eat so she could nurse Gabe.”

Sarah nodded. “I can picture that,” she said. “And Miranda and Alex falling in love.”

“The town we lived in was still getting food,” Jon said. “Every Monday you could go
in and get a few bags. So Julie and I went together. On our way back . . .”

This was hard. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d rehearsed what to say, how to say
it. The words didn’t want to come out.

Sarah touched him gently on his arm. “It’s okay,” she said.

It wasn’t okay. It would never be okay. “There was a tornado,” Jon said flatly. “We
got caught in it. I tried to hold on to Julie, but the wind picked her up. Remember
plastic bags, how the wind could make them dance? It was like that. Julie fell wrong.
I don’t know. She broke her neck or her spine. She was paralyzed. She was conscious,
but she couldn’t move.”

“Oh, Jon,” Sarah said.

“We took her back to our house,” Jon continued. “Dad and Matt and me. Alex got lost
in the storm. It took him a couple of days to get back to the house.” He forced himself
not to think of Alex.

“Did Julie die?” Sarah asked softly.

“Not right away,” Jon said. “She lived another day or so, and then she died in her
sleep. Miranda was with her. Julie couldn’t do anything for herself. Someone had to
be with her all the time. Everyone took turns.”

“That must have been horrible for you,” Sarah said. “Staying with her, seeing her
lying there, helpless.”

“I never saw her,” Jon said. “The house Dad and Lisa were living in collapsed in the
storm. Lisa and Gabe and Charlie were stuck in the cellar. Then Charlie died, so it
was just Lisa and Gabe. We had to pull all the rubble off the cellar roof before it
collapsed on them. That was all we did, pull the rubble away. I didn’t see Julie.
I worked on saving Lisa and Gabe.”

“That had to be done,” Sarah said. “You did what had to be done.”

“No,” Jon said. “I mean, yes, we had to get Lisa and Gabe out. But that wasn’t why
I didn’t sit with Julie. I was scared to. I’m a coward, Sarah. Deep down, that’s all
I am. A coward. I told Julie I loved her, but when she was helpless and dying and
her brother was missing, I couldn’t make myself see her. Lisa was an excuse. Mom and
Matt and Miranda were used to treating me like a baby. They probably felt they were
protecting me by not making me say good-bye to Julie. And I let them. I let Julie
die without seeing me.”

“Jon,” Sarah said, and he could see how much she wanted to comfort him.

“No,” he said. “You know why I’m here today, why I’m walking to the bus with you?
I took Julie’s pass. Alex had three. He gave two to Lisa, for her and Gabe. Julie
was supposed to live with them. Lisa loved Julie like a daughter. Only Julie died,
and everyone said I should use the last one. Because I was the youngest, and they
were all in the habit of protecting me. I’m here on Julie’s pass. I couldn’t even
face her when she was dying, and I get to live here and eat the food and go to school,
and Miranda’s going to have Alex’s baby in that hovel.”

“Jon, the apartment isn’t that bad,” Sarah said. “And Miranda and Alex won’t live
there forever. You loved Julie?”

Jon nodded.

“Did she love you?”

He nodded.

“Then she’d want you to have her pass,” Sarah said. “She’d want you to have the chance
she couldn’t have.”

“That’s what everyone told me,” Jon said. “So I wouldn’t feel bad about living in
Sexton while they were stuck in White Birch.”

Sarah stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jon on his cheek. “I’m sorry Julie died,” she
said. “I’m sorry for Alex and for you and Lisa. But I’m glad you’re here. You’re my
lifeline, Jon. I need you so much.”

You don’t know me, Jon thought. Nobody does.

The only one who had was Julie. And she wasn’t around to tell everyone who Jon really
was.

Thursday, June 4

Dr. Carlyle had been a professor of political science at Baumann Christian College,
previously located twenty miles east of White Birch. The college, like most of the
colleges in America, had ceased to exist four years ago. Dr. Carlyle, like the rest
of the teachers, was not a claver, and so he kept his home in White Birch and was
now forced to commute to Sexton, like a grub, to teach civics to the claver teenagers.

Jon understood why so much of the school time was devoted to the sciences—botany and
biology, chemistry, even physics. He understood the math they were taught was practical,
intended for engineering. If you were lucky enough to be a Sexton teenager, it was
presumed you’d go to Sexton University and learn all that you could to further their
agriculture. New and better greenhouses needed to be built, water supplies to be expanded,
and better sources of electrical power to be designed.

English was taught because no matter what field of science they went into after graduation,
they’d be expected to be literate. Jon liked the English classes. Mom had been a writer
before it all happened, and Matt loved reading sci-fi. There were always books in
the house. English classes helped Jon feel connected to the world and the family he
no longer lived with.

But civics was a waste of time. For three years now Dr. Carlyle had lectured them
on his particular view of history, complaining to them about the repulsive nature
of grubs. His quarrel wasn’t with the government that hadn’t selected him to be a
claver. It was with the unwashed, uneducated grubs who had taken over White Birch
and made every day of his life a living hell.

Jon had more sympathy for him now that he’d ridden a grubber bus, but even so, Dr.
Carlyle was a bore and the class a waste of time.

It was, however, the only time during the school day when the students were given
the opportunity to talk. So Jon wasn’t surprised to see Sarah raise her hand, although
he dreaded hearing what she had to say.

“Miss Goldman wishes to speak,” Dr. Carlyle declared. “Yes, Miss Goldman, what is
it?”

“I do my afterschool at the White Birch Clinic,” Sarah said. “It’s terribly understaffed.
I was hoping some of you might consider changing your afterschools to clinic work.
We can use all the help we can get.”

Amber Healey raised her hand but didn’t wait for Dr. Carlyle to call on her. “You
actually expect us to work in White Birch?” she asked. “Touching those filthy grubs?”

“I work hard at my afterschool,” Jennifer Egan said, “tutoring the first and second
graders here. That’s valuable work. The children are our future.”

“There are children in White Birch, too,” Sarah said. “With diseases claver kids don’t
get, like asthma and pneumonia.”

“That’s not our fault,” Zachary said. “We breathe the same lousy air they do.”

“That’s right,” Elizabeth Jenkins said. “But we know enough to take care of our children,
not let them grow up like wild animals.”

“Most grubs wouldn’t even go to church if the guards didn’t make them,” Amber said.
“They’d rather get drunk.”

“I’d rather get drunk, too,” Ryan said, and everyone except Dr. Carlyle and Sarah
laughed.

“Why do we even have a clinic for the grubs?” Tyler asked.

“Because they’re human beings,” Sarah said.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “You ever see a naked grubber girl?”

This time even Dr. Carlyle laughed.

“Maybe there shouldn’t be a clinic,” Tyler said. “We need the strong, healthy grubs
to do the manual labor, and we pay them enough for their food and rent and potka.
But the weak grubs, the useless ones, are a drain on all of us. Why not let them die
naturally so there’d be more resources for the ones who actually work?”

Half the kids in the class burst into applause.

“It’s an interesting question,” Dr. Carlyle said. “I won’t ask your response, Miss
Goldman, because I know what it is. Let’s hear from someone else. You, Mr. Evans.
As our resident slip, do you think there should be a clinic for grubs?”

“I can’t give an objective answer,” Jon replied. “I have family in White Birch. They
use the clinic.”

“Evans is half grub,” Ryan said. “You can smell it.”

The kids laughed.

“What if you didn’t have family there?” Mr. Carlyle persisted. “Would you think there
should be a clinic?”

What Jon thought was he hated Mr. Carlyle’s guts, and he wasn’t too fond of his friends,
either. The clinic was important to Sarah, and Sarah was important to Jon.

But Lisa hadn’t heard about her evaluation yet. She and Gabe had to be his first priority.
Sarah and her ideals would have to wait.

“I think if we lived in a perfect world, everyone would have health care,” he said.
“But this isn’t a perfect world. People who are a lot smarter than me make the decisions.
If they think the clinic is a good idea, I’m not going to disagree with them. If they
ever decide the clinic isn’t a good idea, I won’t disagree with them, either.”

“So what you’re saying is you’ll just go along with whatever you’re told,” Sarah said.
“Follow the rules and don’t question.”

“Are you suggesting, Miss Goldman, that you are smarter than the people who make the
rules?” Dr. Carlyle demanded.

“Don’t you think you’re smarter than they are?” Sarah asked.

“Miss Goldman, you are very close to treason,” Dr. Carlyle said.

“I don’t see why,” Sarah persisted. “You’re a college professor. You have a PhD. You
complain about the way you’re treated.”

“I complain, as you call it, about the people I am forced to share my hometown with,”
Dr. Carlyle said. “The dregs of humanity, looking for nothing but handouts.”

“They work ten hours a day six days a week,” Sarah said.

“So do clavers,” Jennifer said. “My father works longer than that. I never see him.
And he’s doing real work, valuable work. Our domestics eat our food and sleep in our
homes, and if they had their way, we’d be serving them.”

“That’s right,” Amber said. “Grubs wouldn’t have anything to eat if it weren’t for
us. And now you’re saying we should give up our afterschools to hold some grub’s hand
and tell her not to work so hard.”

“You’re not from around here, Sarah,” Jennifer said. “You don’t understand how things
are. You should keep quiet, not tell us what we should do.”

“You’re right,” Sarah said. “I’m not from here. Maybe because I’m not, I understand
things better than you do.”

“You have some nerve,” Amber said. “Thinking you’re smarter than we are because you’re
from back east.”

“It’s not hard to be smarter than you,” Sarah muttered.

Jon willed her to shut up. But he never could make Sarah do what he wanted.

“Let me explain something,” Sarah said. “There is nobody,
nobody,
important living in Sexton. Not a senator or a judge or a governor. You think you’re
important because you have more than everyone else around here. But you have nothing
compared to other enclaves. You know what those clavers think of you, those senators
and judges? They think you’re farmers, grub farmers. All those greenhouses that are
going up? They’re to feed the governors, not us. You’re one drought away from losing
your fancy homes and your domestics.” She shook her head. “You have a lot more in
common with the people in White Birch than you do with the people with power. Today’s
claver is tomorrow’s grub.”

“Are you calling me a grub?” Amber shrieked.

“I wouldn’t insult grubs by calling you one,” Sarah said.

“Grubby, grubby, grubby,” Tyler started chanting. It was stupid and meaningless, but
the rest of the class joined in, pointing at Sarah and calling her grubby.

Jon mouthed the word but didn’t say it. It was a ridiculous compromise, but he didn’t
know what else to do.

The lunch bell rang as the class was getting louder and louder. Sarah was the first
to grab her books and stand up. As she walked down the aisle, Zachary stuck his leg
out, and she stumbled over it. Even Dr. Carlyle burst out laughing.

“Come on, Evans,” Tyler said. “Let’s see what happens to Little Miss Grub in the cafeteria.”

Jon didn’t want to see. But he had no choice.

Sarah went to the table where she always ate her lunch alone. Jon followed Tyler and
his teammates to their table.

Amber walked over to Sarah and spit at her. The other kids in the cafeteria cheered,
and Amber bowed.

Luke got up and, taking his lunch plate with him, walked toward Sarah’s table.

“This’ll be good,” Ryan said. “Wanna bet he dumps his lunch on her?”

“Let’s all do it,” Zachary said. “Let her know what we think of grub lovers.”