Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland (Alice, No. 5) by Mainak Dhar Page A

VALENTINE
     
    'Jane, what is a valentine?'
    Her older sister blushed as Alice asked the question out
aloud in the middle of the dining room, where they were surrounded by dozens of
others. Jane whispered to Alice.
    'I'll tell you later, okay?'
    Alice didn't know why Jane was being so secretive about it
all.
    'I heard Ravi ask you to be his valentine when he came
around the back of the garden last night. What does that mean?'
    Jane gritted her teeth and got up and left the dining room.
Alice had no idea what she had said that would make her sister so mad, and when
she looked up she saw bemused expressions on her parents' faces and of most of
the adults around who had heard the exchange.
    Gladwell leaned over towards Joanne.
    'Jo, Alice is now eleven years old. Maybe it's time you had
a little chat about the birds and the bees.'
    Jo looked like she was choking on her food.
    'Bob, she's a baby.'
    'A baby who's shot more Biters than you have. She's grown up
in a messed-up world, but in some ways, a pretty sheltered one as she's only
been around people she can trust. With all the new people joining us over the
last few months, it's inevitable that our girls will come into contact with new
young men. Jane is old and mature enough to know how to deal with things. The
more Alice knows of how men work and think, the better it is for her.'
    'If you want her to learn about men, perhaps you should do
the talking.'
    With that parting shot, Jo got up and left the dining room,
leaving Gladwell to contemplate what he had gotten himself into.
    That evening, Gladwell and Alice walked around the garden.
The walls were down as the settlement was being expanded, and men with rifles
nervously stood watch as people worked round the clock to fill the moat and
expand the boundary walls.
    'Alice, you asked Jane a question this afternoon so I
thought I'd answer it for her. Valentine's Day was something people celebrated
before The Rising when young men and women would give each other gifts and be
friends. A valentine is a special friend you made on Valentine's Day.'
    'What kind of gifts?'
    'Flowers, chocolates and so on.'
    'What's chocolate, Dad?'
    Gladwell looked down at his daughter, her seemingly
innocuous question breaking his heart, making him realize just what kind of
world she was growing up in and how she was missing out on so many things that
kids before The Rising had taken for granted.
    'It's sweet.'
    'Sweeter than a strawberry?'
    'Yeah, sometimes.'
    Alice thought that over.
    'I'd like to have a chocolate sometime. Why did boys and
girls become special friends?'
    'When young men and women reach a certain age, they begin to
have feelings for each other.'
    'Feelings? Like when I find Junior stupid for showing off?'
    Gladwell laughed.
    'Not quite. You'll know it when you feel it. It's when you
find someone special, like your Mom and me.'
    'Like Jane and Ravi?'
    Gladwell thought about that one, weighing his words before
answering.
    'Ravi seems like a nice young man, but let Jane decide how
she feels about him.'
    'Dad, what if someone gives me flowers or gifts and asks me
to be a valentine?'
    'You need to then decide just how you feel about that young
man. Is he really someone special to you or not?'
    Alice mulled it over, and then shook her head.
    'That is all so silly. I'll go and practice with Uncle
Jones.'
    As Alice ran off to do her evening unarmed combat practice,
Gladwell followed her. He needed to talk to Jones as well.
     
    ***
     
    They had a fresh batch of six kids aged between eight and
ten among the recent arrivals, and Junior, Alice and a couple of the older kids
were training them. While the new arrivals had survived in the Deadland for
close to a dozen years, most of them had never enjoyed the kind of stability
and security Alice's settlement had. Living on the run, with rudimentary
weapons, most of them were totally lacking in the kind of training that
Gladwell had taken for granted among his people, who were trained by