Siberia by Ann Halam Page B

was Nivvy, come again. My mama’s magic had caused me to pick him out, and caused me to feed him so he would start to grow into the second stage. He would be my dear companion. I held my cupped hand close to the lamplight—very careful not to get too near the flame—and examined my new friend carefully, while its brothers and sisters continued their miniature adventures. I wasn’t afraid anymore that they would run away. I
knew
they would always stay close.
    Suddenly a different shock swept over me, a shock like waking up from a dream. I was not little Rosita anymore. I was thirteen. How could I believe in this fairy tale? I had done all the practical things, I’d started the Lindquist process without a slip, but I had been sleepwalking. I couldn’t make sense of what I knew. It was all in pieces, a muddle of childish ideas and bewildering explanations, that wouldn’t fit together. My head started spinning, in wild confusion.
    What
are
these things? Is this really
magic
?
    How did my mother get hold of them? What does it all mean?
    The kits got into a very tight huddle. That was the first time I found out how easily they could read my feelings: I’d frightened them. I put the kit that had eaten back with the rest, because my hands were shaking too much for me to hold it, and set the open nut down beside them. Eagerly, obediently, they all climbed in.
    “Go to sleep,” I whispered. “We’ll play again in the morning.”
    I’d sealed them into their home, with my shaking hands. I got the oil and topped up my lamp, and went through everything again. My heart was beating so it drummed in my ears. There
must
be a message! A few words, anything, anything, that would explain what was going on. . . . I took out the extra tubes, the tightly packed envelopes, the new-treat and cleaning powders from the base of the white case. There was something else in there, tucked in at the bottom. I pulled it out. I was holding a small photograph: head and shoulders of a man. I’d never seen it before. I thought it couldn’t have been kept in the case when I was a child: Mama must have put it here while I was away. It had been a color photo, but the colors had faded to shades of yellow and brown, and the surface was all cracked. A man with a long straight nose, arched eyebrows, a short dark beard; wearing glasses.
    There was no name, no date, nothing written on the back. I could only guess that this might be my father. There was a lump in my throat, as I tried hard to see the
person,
through the cracks and the fading. When had this picture been taken? What would this man look like now? If Mama had left me a picture of my dadda, what did that mean? But maybe she had not “left me” anything. Maybe she’d had warning that they were coming for her. She’d put all her treasures together, getting ready to escape, but then—
    I heard the noise of a motor engine.
    A car, not a tractor, was snarling as it struggled up our horrible track. I quickly shoved everything back into the box, shoved it into the locker under the bed-cupboard, and put out my lamp. The room didn’t go dark. . . . There was light outside, which I hadn’t noticed before: and I could tell it wasn’t the dawn. I tiptoed to our hut’s only window, which was small and grimy. I could make out a group of people standing on the corner of our “street” of mud and rocks and holes, carrying flickering rag-and-oil torches. They looked like big teenagers, or very young men. They were obviously waiting for the snarling vehicle, which was getting closer.
    There were no vehicles in our Settlement except the Community Tractor, which was Nicolai’s prize possession. The only people in the wilderness who had their own transport were the bandits: who had no fixed towns or villages, they lived in great caravans, continually on the move. Only the bandits we called the Mafia had actual private cars. I watched as a powerful brute of a car came lumbering out of the darkness, its