Red Fox Page 2

  But the suffering of people had occurred well before the Biocentrics took over. The Biocentrics have changed many things that have affected people’s lives in a bad way, but it was the government before them that had caused malnourishment, starvation, and disease— they’d made planet earth suffer, and when planet earth suffers so does everything else living on it.

  I can’t hate the Biocentrics for all they have done. They’d told us that banning electricity and the use of vehicles and fossil fuels would help the natural world heal, and they were right on that count. Around Australia, pollution levels have plummeted. Crops are growing again. Animals are thriving. My family farm, which was a barren dusty wasteland when I was a young girl, is now full of life and constantly sprouts sweet, green grass. The natural world is indeed healing itself. But humans are suffering.

  I know my mother is home because there is smoke pouring from the chimney. It’s nearing the middle of the winter and although it never snows here, it gets cold enough to light a fire each evening. We jump up the stairs onto the creaky veranda and I open the front door just as rain begins pattering down outside and the wind kicks up with a howl, scattering stray leaves and creating a willy-willy of dust. I close the door behind me gently.

  I don’t need to announce my being home. My mother is standing over the fireplace in the living room, stirring a pot that wafts off the delicious smell of lamb stew. My home is a typical, old-fashioned farmhouse. It has stone floors in every room, timber lined walls, an open plan living, dining and kitchen area, and three small bedrooms. One bedroom is for my mother and father, one is for me, and one is for my older brother, Jack. Jack usually walks home with Clara and me, but he had to stay behind today to help the teachers sort out the tests we all completed. Jack is a year older than I am, but wants to be a teacher so rather than leaving town he remained at school to be an apprentice. Despite so many negative things happening, it’s nice to know my brother still sticks to his dreams.

  “Hi, girls. How was school?” Mum asks.

  “Average. We had to take a test that was about nothing in particular.”

  I’m surprised to see my usually composed mother drop her soup ladle into the pot of steaming soup. She suddenly looks flustered but manages to fish out the ladle and hook it onto the edge of the pot. She wipes her hands clean on her apron and tucks a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Looking troubled, she wanders into the kitchen and starts preparing for dinner.

  2.

  “What is it?” I ask my mother, watching her hand shake as she cuts a loaf of bread. She swallows nervously, looking more flustered by the second, and when she responds, her voice cracks with worry.

  “Holland gave everyone in town the same test by the sounds of it. He’s been doing trips all week, telling people to fill it out immediately. He came and picked mine and your father’s up today.”

  “What do you think it’s about?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think it will be anything good.”

  I frown, but the mood lightens when my brother opens the front door and slips inside. He takes off his jacket, hangs it on the coat rack, and slouches over to the nearby couch to sit down. His brown hair is wet with rain and he purposefully shakes it right in my face like a dog. I wrinkle my nose as he ruffles my hair like I’m a five year old.

  “How is my sissy?” Jack says. I push him away with a laugh and he flops into the couch with a moan.

  “Hi, Jack,” I say brightly. “What did you think of that test?”

  “Stupid,” Jack says. “How about you?” Then he notices Clara standing in the kitchen, helping my mother find bowls to serve the soup in. He straightens up in the couch and clears his throat. “Hey Clara.”

  Clara looks up briefly, flushes pink and then looks down again. “Hi, Jack.”

  “I thought it was a little suspicious. So did the teachers know anything…” I trail off, seeing that my brother now only has eyes for my best friend.

  I’ve always had an unusually good relationship with my brother but I don’t think it’s due to us being friends. It’s due to Clara and me being friends. Jack and Clara have always had unspoken feelings for one another but they don’t hide it very well. I wish they would both wrangle up some courage and get together. This flirty nonsense has been going on for well over four years and the sweetness of the situation has worn off over time.

  With a mutter, I stand up and go to the cutlery drawer. Perched on top of it is an old family portrait. At a glance, a stranger would know we are a family. I look like my mother, though she is more feminine and beautiful than I am. Jack is the spitting image of my father: tall, strapping, with dark hair. All four of us have amber brown eyes and a defiant set to our jaws that makes us look forever stubborn.

  However, in the photo I am younger. Three years down the track, with less food available and more physical work having to be done, I’ve shed the puppy fat I carried as a child. Now I’m slender with muscles toning my legs and arms. My fair skin is bronzed from helping my father in the paddocks on the weekends.

  I’m not a girl like Clara, who people look at and think oh, isn’t she beautiful and petite. Even my name, Freya, is plain and old-fashioned, but I like being common. It means I don’t stick out in a crowd, and I’ve never liked drawing attention to myself anyway.

  I finish setting the table and sit down with Clara and Jack to play a card game when my father suddenly bursts through the front door. We all jump with fright as his huge, dark form fills the doorway. The wind is blowing a gale outside and my father is wrapped in his oilskin coat with his Stetson pulled low over his eyes. Rain droplets pour off him in a stream. My mother races over to close the door behind him because the wind whips through the house and sends loose papers on counters flying everywhere.

  “Freya,” my dad grunts. I get up and go to him. He withdraws a shivering, white baby lamb from under his oilskin. His skin looks terribly sun-weathered against the soft fleece of the lamb, and scars criss-cross every inch of his hands. He gives the lamb to me. “Feed her.”

  Clara immediately lets out a squeal of delight, but I have seen orphan lambs too many times now to bother admiring its adorableness. I hold it in one arm as I set a saucer of water over the fire to boil and find the milk powder in the kitchen pantry. The lamb struggles in my arms but I murmur to it softly until it stops bleating with panic. I don’t know what we are going to do when the milk powder runs out. None of the feed stores operate anymore. Our only horse is used to eating two grain feeds a day and now he has been forced to eat the limited grass in his paddock. Grass doesn’t grow well in winter but the horse copes. Probably better than most people really.

  When the water boils, I mix it with the milk powder and pour it into the feeding bottle, testing for temperature. Gently, I pry the little creature’s mouth open and she writhes against my grip. When the first drop of milk touches her tongue, she realises what I am trying to do and she head-butts the bottle eagerly. I sit down on the couch with the little lamb in my lap. Clara kneels at my feet and strokes the tiny creature’s body gently, crooning to it.

  “Did you and mum lie on that test?” I ask my father while feeding the lamb.

  “No, did you?” he asks gruffly, sitting down at the kitchen table and removing his hat.

  “I felt like I should, so I did. I don’t like them prying into our beliefs like that.”

  My father grunts again. He likes to grunt. “They certainly stick their noses where they shouldn’t. Finish up with her, Freya. Come and eat.”

  I finish feeding the lamb and place her in the wire pen by the fire for warmth, before joining everyone at the dining table to eat. The soup is tasty, and Clara looks like she would like to pour the entire contents of the bowl into her mouth in one go. But she doesn’t. She sips at it with her spoon like the rest of us. We talk about how we answered the test, why it was given in the first place, how Clara’s family is coping in winter, and how much more our lives will change. We quietly debate whether the gover
nment will ever be taken down, and I find myself becoming irritable. I’ve seen terrible amounts of suffering and feel as though we will never be saved.

  “Why aren’t other countries helping us?” I whisper.

  It always feels like there might be a government spy sitting outside the window listening in on the conversation. There isn’t, of course, but I wouldn’t put it past the Biocentrics to do that.

  “They probably don’t realise anything is wrong, Freya,” my father says. He dips a piece of bread into his soup. “The rest of the world was suffering just as much as we were three years ago. They probably see the pollution levels dropping in Australia and think the government is doing well. Just like us, they don’t care about anyone but their own citizens. Each country has to focus on its own people now.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” I spit.

  “It is, but at least we are surviving.”

  We fall silent and sip at our soup, deep in thought. After dinner, Clara’s father arrives to pick her up. As usual he comes on foot since his family doesn’t own a horse. My mother offers him a thermos full of soup and he starts to decline, and then takes it when his stomach gives a loud gurgle that we all hear. I wave goodbye to Clara and tell her I will see her on Monday.

  Thank goodness it’s the weekend. Another lesson about how to kill a kangaroo and gut it for food might make me sick. I am not a queasy person, but hunting a kangaroo with a primitive bow and arrow then watching it summersault through the air when the arrow sinks into its flanks is a terrible thing to see. The fear in the animal’s eyes and having to run a blade across its throat is almost unbearable. So much for the idea of all life having equal value.

  The government want us to learn these things for our own survival, “To make us more natural.” I feel less human when I end any creature’s life. Hunting creatures in such a way lost its popularity for a reason. Humans feel mercy and guilt. Only hard, cold people teetering on the edge of violent insanity could continue killing like that by choice.

  I shudder and head to bed, my stomach glugging and full from the delicious soup.

  ~

  Over the weekend, my family works in the paddocks. We fix fences, swap the flock of sheep to a new pasture, pick up another orphan lamb whose mother abandoned it, and plough and sow the paddock by hand. We used to have a tractor to plough and sow fields, but now we do it all manually. Our horse is thankfully crossed with a Clydesdale, and my father taught him how to pull a plough. While the horse strains against his bounds and pulls the plough along guided by my father, my mother, brother and I pick up stones in the paddock and throw them into a wheelbarrow. Although it is back-breaking hard work, there is something very rewarding about seeing a paddock that was once full of weeds and rocks transformed into a field of soft, fertile brown soil.

  I think I could live happily like this forever: with my family, living off the land and worrying only about myself and those I love. Knowing there aren’t other paths I should be taking, knowing there isn’t a reason to study to be a lawyer or a doctor because such occupations are no longer needed. Only people with jobs essential to human survival work these days: farmers, agriculturalists, environmentalists. This is what the government promotes: farming, hunting, surviving on one’s own.

  ~

  By Sunday night, my skin has darkened by a shade or two, my shoulders are aching and sunburnt, my legs feel like lead and I have ugly sore blisters all over my hands. I’m exhausted and hungry. My poor mother, who toiled all day alongside us, starts preparing dinner for us. We all help her by cutting meat, boiling water, and chopping vegetables. We are almost done when a knock comes at the door. I excuse myself from the kitchen and open the front door to find Holland standing there, drenched.

  He is dressed in the stupid maroon-red jumpsuit that the government forces its employees to wear. Holland is a thin, gangly man, probably in his early forties, with a narrow face, a large nose, and watery blue eyes. He isn’t attractive or particularly interesting but he is kind enough to people. His white mount stands by the porch steps in the torrential rain, head hanging miserably. I open the door just a wedge to peer at Holland.

  “Evening, Freya” he says.

  “Holland,” I say with a nod. “What’s up?”

  “The government has ordered that everyone in town reports to the town centre tomorrow morning at 9 AM,” he tells me. “Make sure you’re there. I won’t even tell you what they’re planning to do with those who don’t come. You’ll be sick.”

  I set my jaw. “Why do we have to go at all?” I ask testily. “What are they doing?”

  He shrugs his skinny shoulders. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve tried to quit this job dozens of times now. I got a death threat letter because of my last attempt and I’ve fallen out of favour since. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

  “We know you’re not bad, Holland,” I tell him and he throws me a dubious look.

  “Thanks, Freya. Anyhow, I will see you tomorrow morning.” He bounds down the stairs, swings onto his water-logged horse, and rides away splashing through puddles and kicking up mud. I close the door and stare at my hand on the brass handle for a long time. Is this rallying of the townsfolk in regards to that test, or is this something entirely new?

  I tell my family Holland’s message and they all look concerned. We sit to eat dinner but no one talks. We are all worried now. Never has the government rallied us up in the town square before. What could they be planning on doing? Jack eventually excuses himself and goes to his room. I hear the door click shut behind him. My parents keep exchanging looks at one another, as if they’re having a telepathic conversation. I wonder if they are planning something. Maybe it’s to hide and not go tomorrow morning at all, or to send Jack and me away for our own protection. Running away together before all hell breaks loose sounds like a good plan to me.

  They won’t do it. My parents don’t run away from problems.

  “You’d best go to bed, Freya,” my mother says suddenly.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask them both. “Tell me.”

  “There is nothing we can do. We don’t even know if anything bad will happen.”

  I purse my lips doubtfully but nod. I don’t believe them. We all know something bad will be happening tomorrow. These days nothing good ever happens.

  3.

  By the time we arrive at the town centre the next morning at quarter to nine, the place is swarming with people. The town centre is a large square area of paved land walled by a ten-foot high red brick wall.

  This place holds good memories for me. When I was young, Jack and I used to play hide-and-seek in the flowering hedge growing along the inside of the brick wall while our parents watched musical concerts or public theatre productions. Clara and I have often scaled the very wall holding us in and walked along the top of it as part of a stupid school dares. Those same walls now feel cold, dangerous, and confining. I suspect the government chose it because there is only one entrance and exit. After today, I know the town square will hold some bad memories for me.

  There are only two guards at the entranceway, both armed with guns, which are supposed to be prohibited. Even with the weapons, it surprises me there are so few guards to contain such a big mass of people. Inside, there are people I recognise and others that I don’t remember ever seeing. There are families and individuals, young and old, healthy and sickly.

  The noise is overwhelming. People are yelling to each other, asking what is going on, demanding the two guards explain the situation. I glance at the top of the brick walls and weigh my chances of climbing it safely if things go wrong. I could probably do it, but I doubt the rest of my family could. The cobblestone ground is wet with puddles from the recent storm and the amount of people walking through the water has made it murky.

  I am wary as we walk further into the square and find ourselves right in the centre of the crowd. The noise of chattering people is almost deafening but the talking is not care-free and fun like normal. People’s faces s
how fear and panic. Some are sweating profusely even though it is a cold day, and the heat drifting off bodies is making the square hot and steamy. It’s also making it stink like sweat and bad breath. Children clutch their mother’s hands and cry as they are pushed back and forth by the mass of people. A few people trip over each other and they vanish under the feet of dozens of others. I don’t know whether they get up or not. I’m sure that if people knew they were there, they would help them up, but that is how thick the crowd is. I’m pressed against Jack and my father but several other strangers have their elbows jabbed in my ribs or their face too close for comfort. I feel claustrophobic and insignificant among so many people.

  The weight of the hundreds of people is oppressive. Though I see no real sign of danger, I feel a rising sense of dread and foreboding. My eyes dart here and there, my hands are bawled into fists and I’m breathing in ragged, fearful gasps. Jack slips his arm through mine and holds firm as not to lose me in the crowd.

  I feel like a cow standing in an overly cramped, filthy cattle truck. Who knows, perhaps we are destined for the abattoir as well. Perhaps the new government has decided that the country’s population needs to be lowered for nature to continue recovering. The thought sends a ripple of panic through my body, but I push it away. Before my imagination runs totally wild, the shrill blast of a whistle rings out above the noise and people around me fall silent as they search for the whistle’s source. I stand on my tip-toes, looking over people’s shoulders.

  At the front of the town centre, a man stands on the raised cement platform that was once designated for performers. He is a burly man with a close-shaven head and thick, grey eyebrows pulled low over narrowed icy blue eyes. With a square shaped jaw, broad shoulders and enormous hands, he is exactly what I imagine an army general to look like. He is dressed in the same maroon coloured jumpsuit as Holland, but it has a camouflage print and somehow it doesn’t make him look like a clown. However, I don’t think this vicious looking man could appear clown-like in a tutu. A gun holster is fastened around his hips and I see the menacing glint of a silver pistol there. A megaphone is clutched under his left armpit and a steel whistle hangs from a string around his neck.