The River and the Book by Alison Croggon Page B

through rubbish for what could be reused or (once, because I only lasted a day) working in a smelter in the shantytown, stoking a furnace. Yuri and I had been together for weeks at this point, and I was privately astonished that he had never worked out that I was not a boy. I began to feel worse and worse about deceiving him; if he had asked, I would have confessed straight away, but he never asked. So one evening, I just told him.
    At first Yuri flatly refused to believe me, and I began to wonder, in a slightly panic-stricken way, what I would have to do to convince him. Would I be forced to take off all my clothes? For the first time, I told him the full story of Jane Watson and the Book, and my full name. I told him about my mother and my grandmother, and why I had left my village. He listened in silence, his face deepening to a dull red flush. I thought he was very angry with me, and kept talking anxiously, hoping that his anger would pass. Finally I ran out of things to say and found myself sitting in dejected silence.
    At last he spoke. “But I can’t talk to girls!” he said.
    I was very taken aback. “I’m a girl,” I said. “And you can talk to me.”
    “You weren’t a girl before,” he said. “You were just like me. How can I talk to you now? You’re a girl! And you
lied
to me.”
    “I really didn’t mean to lie to you, and it was very wrong of me,” I said. “But I’ve never lied about anything else. I’m exactly the same person you’ve always known. And anyway, why should me being a girl make any difference?”
    “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It just does. It’s … humiliating.”
    I saw he was very upset and didn’t know how to answer him. I thought that we were both right, and that it did and did not make a difference.
    “I mean – girls giggle and make fun of you because you’re fat,” he said. “What if you start doing that, now you’re a girl?”
    I stared at him. “I’ve been a girl all along; I haven’t just changed into one. And do you really think I would do that?”
    “That’s what girls do,” he said.
    “Some girls,” I said. “
Some
girls. I bet boys were cruel to you too.”
    “Yes, but they were boys. They just punched me and called me names. They didn’t giggle.”
    Some cruel imp in me wanted to giggle then, out of sheer nervousness, but I dared not.
    “Yuri,” I said sternly, “I’m Sim. I’m just me. Everybody is just who they are, just like you are just you. Whether I’m a girl or not doesn’t make any difference. I wouldn’t punch you if I were a boy. I won’t giggle at you because I’m a girl. I’m your
friend
.”
    I studied him as he sat glowering and silent, biting his lip, and my heart began to hurt. “I don’t have any other friends, aside from Mely,” I said, my voice wavering. “Don’t you want to be my friend any more?”
    Yuri glanced up then, and saw that I was on the edge of tears. He looked astonished. I think it had never occurred to him before that anybody could actually like him. He said nothing for a long time, and then he said gruffly that of course he was my friend. After a few days, he even said he didn’t mind my being a girl.
    Along with Mely, Yuri is my closest friend; we see each other almost every day, as he lives not far from me. He is no longer the shy, awkward boy I first met: he has grown to be handsome, and has discovered that there are many girls besides me who won’t tease him. Through Yuri I met Icana and Anna and Ling Ti, and they invite me to their apartments and introduce me to other people. I now know more people than I ever knew in my own village; some are little more than strangers, but we recognize and greet each other.
    The city is very different from my village, where everybody had known everybody else all their lives, and a new face was a novelty. Sometimes I find knowing so many people overwhelming and confusing. When I told Anna this, she laughed and ruffled my hair and said I was still a