The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale #2) - Margaret Atwood Page 0,17

were in a street behind the riot, as they called it later on TV. When I saw the footage I thought, Now I know what it feels like to be in a riot: it feels like drowning. Not that I’d ever drowned.

“Melanie said you might be here,” said Ada. “I’m taking you home.”

“No, but—” I said. I didn’t want to admit that I was scared.

“Right now. Toot sweet. No ifs and buts.”

* * *

—

I saw myself on the news that night: I was holding up a sign and shouting. I thought Neil and Melanie would be furious with me, but they weren’t. Instead they were anxious. “Why did you do that?” said Neil. “Didn’t you hear us?”

“You always said a person should stand up against injustice,” I said. “The school says that too.” I knew I’d crossed a line, but I wasn’t about to apologize.

“What’s our next move?” said Melanie, not to me but to Neil. “Daisy, could you get me a water? There’s some ice in the fridge.”

“It might not be so bad,” said Neil.

“We can’t take the chance,” I heard Melanie saying. “We need to get moving, like yesterday. I’m calling Ada, she can arrange a van.”

“There’s no fallback ready,” said Neil. “We can’t…”

I came back into the room with the glass of water. “What’s going on?” I said.

“Don’t you have homework?” said Neil.

11

Three days later there was a break-in at The Clothes Hound. The store had an alarm, but the burglars were in and out before anyone could get there, which was the problem with alarms, said Melanie. They didn’t find any money because Melanie never kept cash there, but they took some of the Wearable Art, and they trashed Neil’s office—his files were scattered over the floor. They also took some of his collectibles—a few clocks and old cameras, an antique wind-up clown. They set a fire, but in an amateur way, said Neil, so the fire was quickly put out.

The police came around and asked if Neil and Melanie had any enemies. They said that no they didn’t, and everything was okay—probably it was only some street people after drug money—but I could tell they were upset because they were talking in that way they had when they didn’t want me to hear.

“They got the camera,” Neil was saying to Melanie as I was coming into the kitchen.

“What camera?” I said.

“Oh, just an old camera,” Neil said. More hair-tugging. “A rare one, though.”

From then on, Neil and Melanie got more and more jittery. Neil ordered a new alarm system for the store. Melanie said we might be moving to a different house, but when I started asking questions she said it was just an idea. Neil said No harm done about the break-in. He said it several times, which left me wondering what sort of harm actually had been done, besides the disappearance of his favourite camera.

The night after the break-in, I found Melanie and Neil watching TV. They didn’t usually really watch it—it was just always on—but this time they were intent. A Pearl Girl identified only as “Aunt Adrianna” had been found dead in a condo that she and her Pearl Girls companion had rented. She’d been tied to a doorknob with her own silvery belt around her neck. She’d been dead for a number of days, said the forensic expert. It was another condo owner who’d detected the smell and alerted the police. The police said it was a suicide, self-strangulation in this manner being a common method.

There was a picture of the dead Pearl Girl. I studied it carefully: sometimes it was hard to tell Pearl Girls apart because of their outfits, but I remembered she’d been in The Clothes Hound recently, handing out brochures. So had her partner, identified as “Aunt Sally,” who—said the news anchor—was nowhere to be found. There was a picture of her too: police were asking that sightings be reported. The Gilead Consulate had made no comment as yet.

“This is terrible,” said Neil to Melanie. “The poor girl. What a catastrophe.”

“Why?” I said. “The Pearl Girls work for Gilead. They hate us. Everyone knows that.”

They both looked at me then. What’s the word for that look? Desolate, I think. I was baffled: why should they care?

* * *

—

The really bad thing happened on my birthday. The morning started as if things were normal. I got up, I put on my green plaid Wyle School uniform—did I say we had a uniform? I added my