Theia Duology

Chapter 2

Theia wakes to the other girls getting dressed, whispering about Mistura's empty cot and their hopes of Dr. Ambrose's return.

When they were younger¸ before Malum said the hormones of puberty made them impossible to control, Theia and the other annies spent a few hours every morning in a classroom with Dr. Ambrose. Her brown hair was clipped above her ears and longer in the back where it curled up over her collar. She had light blue eyes like Malum, but they were warm as the endless-summer sky.

Dr. Ambrose used to sing songs with the alphabet and showed them how to put the letters into words and say them out loud. She read them animal picture books from one to one hundred until they could do it themselves. Taught them names of animals long since extinct, animals that couldn't live in a world of water, but lived back when the books were written. She had bony knees they could sit on if they needed extra reading time. Theia pretended she was a poor reader just so that Dr. Ambrose's heartbeat would radiate into her own back.

One morning after avo mush for breakfast, Theia followed Sluice as she walked down the hallway from the cadopit to the library. Solskine and the other boys stayed behind to help slagger-woman Jade clear off the tables and do the dishes. Malum let Tenebris use a screwdriver and hammer to try to fix the kitchen door that had come off the hinges.

"Hello girls," Malum said, taking Sluice by the hand to sit on her lap. She stroked Sluice's blonde curly hair, unruly as a rat's nest made of grass and twigs.

"Theia, you read with me," Dr. Ambrose said, patting her lap for Theia to climb into. Dark-haired, Aina narrowed her brown eyes jealously and slinked into a chair opposite them.

Dr. Ambrose opened a picture book. "I used to read this to Malum when she was your age." Dr. Ambrose tucked a strand of hair behind Theia's ear. Her fingers were dry and warm and caressed her ear the way Theia imagined a mother would. At least in picture books mothers did that with a smile on their face.

Theia slid to the edge of her lap and followed Dr. Ambrose's finger as it underlined the words. Theia started to read out loud to the other annies.

"She reads good 'cause her eyes are giant and green like avos," Stelpa whispered.

"Yeah, cat eyes," Aina said louder before picking her nose and eating it.

"Reads well because her eyes are giant, Stelpa," Malum scolded. "Use proper English; you're not an animal."

A teardrop plopped onto Stelpa's cheek and trailed down to her quivering chin.

Salixa giggled. Holding a strand of her red hair in the palm of a hand with so many brown spots she looked rotten.

"She reads good 'cause she's smart," Mistura whispered.

"Ladies, please." Dr. Ambrose put her hand up to silence them. "Go ahead, Theia."

Theia read them a book called I'll Love You Forever about a mother who keeps visiting her son even after he's grown and moved out. Dr. Ambrose sang about loving her baby always. Her voice warbling like a bird in the trees before the gulls ate all the small pretty ones.

Mistura clapped the loudest and Theia's thudding heart felt too big for her bony chest to contain, sounded almost ominous like the other word for avocados, dragon fruit. Why hadn't anyone driven across town to climb in her locked dorm window to sing her that song, or rock her to sleep? Whose baby was she?

Theia slid off Dr. Ambrose's lap, needing to get her footing on the solid floor. She turned to Malum. "Why we have no mothers? Why we work pickin' avos and sleep on cots?"

"Avocados, not avos, Theia." Malum stood up and plunked Sluice hard onto the chair. Sluice started to cry.

"No books have been published since the flood. The new reality is, Theia, that kids work and very few have parents. You are lucky to have food and a roof over your heads. You're lucky I saved you after your parents died of the flood sickness. Some orphans died when there was no one left to care for them. Starved, or worse. Maybe we should stop reading. Take away the books."