… left us alone … this long –’
‘But that wash before shome shtoopid genicsh killed shome of them!’ Samuel scuttled across the stage and looked up at the ape’s tiny apple head. ‘It wash one of your lot lasht week, washn’t it?’
The ape shrugged guiltily. ‘Maybe.’
‘You idiot!’ snapped Samuel. ‘We’re all going to be dead thanksh to you!’
‘They won’t enter … the city, Samuel,’ panted the cigar. ‘They still fear … all the poisons and … the diseases.’
Sal noticed his thin legs were shaking again under the stress of standing. He may have been designed to squeeze into tight places, but clearly those legs weren’t created to hold his weight for long. Once again the cigar perched on the edge of the stool. ‘Why did you … steal some humans … anyway?’
‘Becaushe, Henry, becaushe I heard about thish fool’sh shtupid raid! I heard about the humansh being killed – women and children – and I knew we better have shomething to bargain with when they come for ush here!’
The ape stooped over Samuel, his looming shadow filling half the stage. ‘Call me fool again, Sam … I squash you!’
Samuel looked up at him, his ragged lips flapping. Sal wondered whether that was fear or frustration. The audience stared in silence and the tap-tap-tapping of rainwater continued in the background.
Sal watched the frozen tableau. For a moment she wondered whether somehow she’d been sucked down a rabbit hole and was stuck in some bizarre post-apocalyptic version of Alice’s Wonderland.
‘Gimme them humans,’ said the ape. ‘I kill them, go take ’em heads and throw at them redcoats if them come. That scare them away! If not –’ he grinned at the shotgun lying on the stage – ‘then we now got nice big gun!’
Samuel shook his head and tutted. ‘They have bigger gunsh, you big dumb mump! And many more of them too. We wouldn’t lasht a minute fighting them, Jerry!’
The ape – Jerry – smacked a three-digit fist down on to the old floorboards. The entire stage rattled. ‘I want fight them … not running like …’ He scratched his head, struggling for an example.
Samuel waited until it was clear Jerry wasn’t going to come up with anything. ‘Truth ish, Jerry, you killing humansh wash a big mishtake.’
‘Didn’t mean to, Sam! Them got in the way … an’… an’… just happened. Real quick.’
‘Well, we can’t un-happen it now. It’sh done.’ Samuel shrugged bony shoulders. ‘Perhapsh my taking shome human prishonersh wash a mishtake too.’ He lowered his big head on his narrow neck. ‘We’ve pushed our luck too far thish time. I shay we musht all leave. Find a new place to hide.’
‘Where will … we go … Samuel?’ wheezed Henry.
Samuel put a finger to his ragged lips, thoughtful for a moment. ‘We could try north?’
There was whispering and muttering from the auditorium.
‘Shome of you know I can read, right? … Well, I ushed to read thingsh that are called a book.’
‘Book?’ The ape’s apple-head frowned. ‘What them?’
‘Marksh on paper … you big mump. Wordsh. Knowledge.’
‘Call me a mump again and I smash you!’
Samuel casually waved away Jerry’s outburst. ‘Shush … let me finish. I ushed to read booksh about the world. How it ushed to be. They call booksh about that short of thing … hishtory booksh.’
The audience of genics muttered the phrase. Trying it out on their own varied lips.
‘There ushed to be humansh treated jusht like ush. They called them negroesh. They looked different. They had dark shkin, were treated like complete mumps. But shome of the pale humansh felt shorry for them and they figured they wash jusht ash normal ash other humansh.’
‘So … Samuel, what is … your point?’ said Henry. His thin wheezy voice whistled asthmatically.
‘You know about the human war, right? There’sh one shide called the Northies. And then there’sh our lot. Maybe … if we go north and find the Northies, they might treat ush different?’
‘Them Northies,’ rumbled the ape, ‘you say them human too?’
‘Yesh, of courshe they are.’
‘Them will treat us just same. All humans bad.’
‘Not all humansh. Shome of them –’
‘All humans BAD! I kill them what come in our city!’
Some of the audience of eugenics roared support for that.
Samuel sighed. He turned to look up at the big ape then pointed to the top hat rammed tightly on his head. ‘Then why, Jerry, if you hate humansh sho much, why do you try and look more like one of them? Hmm? And why did you pick a human name?’
Jerry’s face