torturing and executing members of its Faloo ethnic minority, so people were fleeing the country. But here in Freedom State, the government led by the Family Party kept deporting refugees back to Zantoroland.
Ivernia hoped the runner was not a refugee, or, if he was, that his life had not been too hard and that he would not be caught and deported like the others. She focused on her breathing and on good thoughts. Fernando Sor . . . the runner singing country music . . . marrying her husband on the same day that Roger Bannister ran the Miracle Mile in 3:59. Ernie had been good to her, from their first day together to their last.
Breathe, Ivernia. Breathe, keep breathing, and just answer their stupid questions.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Y OU WERE SUPPOSED TO LIVE WITH A MOTHER OR A father or some sort of caregiver when you were fifteen years old, but John had been on his own for a while. His mother would surely make it back home eventually, when she was healthy, and John would welcome her. He tried to remind himself that his mother and he had been through this ordeal before and had always found their way back together. It would be good to live with her again in the half shipping container that they rented from Lula DiStefano, queen of AfricTown. But for now, at the start of his third term as a Grade 9 student at the Clarkson Academy for the Gifted, John was supervised by Lula but living alone in the container next to Water Tap 17 in the Bungalow Hill district of AfricTown. Some hundred thousand people lived in AfricTown, many of them—like John and his mother—paying rent money to Lula.
John had not seen his mother in two weeks. The last visit had not gone well. She was still in the secured area of the Wintergreen Psychiatric Institute, and she was still speechless and lying in a fetal position. He didn’t like having to play the role of parent and ask the nurses questions: were they bathing her enough, changing her clothes, brushing her teeth, and what about that big bed sore on her hip? He especially hadn’t enjoyed it when some power-tripping nurse tried to turn the tables and interrogate him about where he was living and who was taking care of him. What is yourstreet address? she asked. There is no street address, he said, it’s AfricTown. Who is taking care of you? she said. Lula Brown, he said, lying. Where does she work? She has no job, John said. What is her telephone number? Again he lied: We don’t have telephone service. He got out of there before she could consult with her superiors or try to interrogate him further.
The next time, instead of visiting the hospital, John would call and see if his mom was well enough to come to the phone on the psych ward. It was too upsetting to see his mother reverted to infancy. And he had a sudden, great responsibility on his shoulders and could not afford to screw up. He now had the fancy computer and video-recording equipment worth ten thousand dollars. Using his overall 95 percent average and his position as the third-highest-ranked student in all of Grade 9, John had won permission from his headmistress to spend his spring term filming the documentary about AfricTown and the fate of Zantorolanders in Freedom State. He was exempted from all but his Journalism in the Age of Apathy class, provided that he made up the other courses in the summer. He had much work to do, and he couldn’t afford to get caught up in a web of well-intentioned questions from nurses in his mom’s hospital. Questions like that could lead to nothing but bad results. In John’s opinion, well-intentioned adults were inordinately gifted at fucking up the lives of parentless teenagers who were perfectly capable of carrying on by themselves.
Clarkson Academy admitted thirty-five students in Grade 7 and kept them until graduation from Grade 12. Two years earlier, when John had written the entrance exams, he competed against thirteen hundred other students. He placed nineteenth, which was good enough to get
Ivernia hoped the runner was not a refugee, or, if he was, that his life had not been too hard and that he would not be caught and deported like the others. She focused on her breathing and on good thoughts. Fernando Sor . . . the runner singing country music . . . marrying her husband on the same day that Roger Bannister ran the Miracle Mile in 3:59. Ernie had been good to her, from their first day together to their last.
Breathe, Ivernia. Breathe, keep breathing, and just answer their stupid questions.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Y OU WERE SUPPOSED TO LIVE WITH A MOTHER OR A father or some sort of caregiver when you were fifteen years old, but John had been on his own for a while. His mother would surely make it back home eventually, when she was healthy, and John would welcome her. He tried to remind himself that his mother and he had been through this ordeal before and had always found their way back together. It would be good to live with her again in the half shipping container that they rented from Lula DiStefano, queen of AfricTown. But for now, at the start of his third term as a Grade 9 student at the Clarkson Academy for the Gifted, John was supervised by Lula but living alone in the container next to Water Tap 17 in the Bungalow Hill district of AfricTown. Some hundred thousand people lived in AfricTown, many of them—like John and his mother—paying rent money to Lula.
John had not seen his mother in two weeks. The last visit had not gone well. She was still in the secured area of the Wintergreen Psychiatric Institute, and she was still speechless and lying in a fetal position. He didn’t like having to play the role of parent and ask the nurses questions: were they bathing her enough, changing her clothes, brushing her teeth, and what about that big bed sore on her hip? He especially hadn’t enjoyed it when some power-tripping nurse tried to turn the tables and interrogate him about where he was living and who was taking care of him. What is yourstreet address? she asked. There is no street address, he said, it’s AfricTown. Who is taking care of you? she said. Lula Brown, he said, lying. Where does she work? She has no job, John said. What is her telephone number? Again he lied: We don’t have telephone service. He got out of there before she could consult with her superiors or try to interrogate him further.
The next time, instead of visiting the hospital, John would call and see if his mom was well enough to come to the phone on the psych ward. It was too upsetting to see his mother reverted to infancy. And he had a sudden, great responsibility on his shoulders and could not afford to screw up. He now had the fancy computer and video-recording equipment worth ten thousand dollars. Using his overall 95 percent average and his position as the third-highest-ranked student in all of Grade 9, John had won permission from his headmistress to spend his spring term filming the documentary about AfricTown and the fate of Zantorolanders in Freedom State. He was exempted from all but his Journalism in the Age of Apathy class, provided that he made up the other courses in the summer. He had much work to do, and he couldn’t afford to get caught up in a web of well-intentioned questions from nurses in his mom’s hospital. Questions like that could lead to nothing but bad results. In John’s opinion, well-intentioned adults were inordinately gifted at fucking up the lives of parentless teenagers who were perfectly capable of carrying on by themselves.
Clarkson Academy admitted thirty-five students in Grade 7 and kept them until graduation from Grade 12. Two years earlier, when John had written the entrance exams, he competed against thirteen hundred other students. He placed nineteenth, which was good enough to get
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