The Territory by Sarah Govett Page B

rations anyway in case she needs to get to some terrible disease outbreak quickly.
    Aunty Vicki always jokes that you can see the mosquito grids and hear the cries of the Wetlanders (Fish) from their top window. Then we say, ‘What do they sound like?’ and she takes a big gulp of water and gargles and says ‘Gulp, gulp’ at the same time and manages to snort some of the water out of her nose. I know it sounds lame, but it’s actually pretty hilarious. And difficult. I tried it once at home but snorted the water down my windpipe instead and literally couldn’t breathe for two minutes. Drowning would be really rubbish. I should write that on a Post-it and stick it above my revision timetable. A motivational aid . Dad got me this really lame book about ‘how to revise’ and there was a whole chapter on ‘motivational aids’. It was pretty dense. You don’t exactly get skivers anymore.
    Living next to the Wetlands isn’t that hilarious for Aunty Vicki and Ella though. Occasionally they’re woken at night by the sirens, massively powerful searchlights and the staccato of machine-gun fire, if some poor Wetlander decides it’s all too much and tries to scale the Fence. They’re usually firing at dead bodies, the fence being electric and everything. There’s been less and less mention of any of this recently though. Ella’s sitting the TAA this year too so I guess it’s all a bit more real now.
    Ella rushed out to meet us and gave me a massive hug and sort of ruffled my hair. She always acts like she’s my big sister or something, even though she’s only three months older than me. Aunty Vicki waited inside the house. She gave me a hug in the hall but just sort of nodded at Mum. I mean she said all the right things, but there was no real warmth there. Which is really sad ’cos Mum always says they were really close when they were young. There’s a picture on our mantelpiece of them with their arms wrapped round each other, matching tragic fringes and gappy teeth.
    We sat outside in their tiny paved square. They’ve turned all the rest of their garden into a vegetable plot. Food’s scarce out here. But the vegetables didn’t look so good. Lots had greyish-yellow leaves. ‘Grey rot,’ Aunty Vicki said. ‘Apparently the soil is too wet. And salty.’ And then she did this weird sort of little laugh, all brittle and harsh and we didn’t really know whether we should be joining in or not, ’cos it wasn’t funny. At least Dad managed a chuckle and Aunty Vicki seemed to thaw a fraction of a degree. He always gets it right.
    Mum and Aunty Vicki started getting on a bit better until school got mentioned.
    It’s a massive issue between them. That I’m going to Hollets and Ella’s stuck at Swithin’s (a right dump).
    ‘How’s school?’ Aunty Vicki asked and the temperature literally dropped about five degrees. I moronically started talking about my new friend Raf.
    ‘Raf?’ Aunty Vicki practically jumped down my throat. ‘That’s a pretty posh name for a Norm.’
    My silence said everything.
    ‘Let it go, Vic,’ said Mum.
    But she couldn’t. ‘What, so it’s not enough that your daughter is going to Hollets, she’s now got to make friends with Childes too? I’m surprised you deign to even visit us. We are so beneath you now.’
    It’s like she blames Mum. Like Mum’s massively immoral for taking up a place that the Ministry pays for. I asked Mum about it once and she said that Aunty Vicki thinks that she should quit the Laboratory as the system is so unfair. But Mum’s doing good work. She helps with disease prevention and everything. Mum just turned away and looked embarrassed when I said this.
    ‘I’m no saint, Noa,’ she said. But she’s just being modest.
    I hung out with Ella in her room. She has a massive print of Kaio above her bed. He is just the coolest. Mum would only let me put up prints of animals or maps or something equally lame which would obviously be much more embarrassing