Blue Gold Page 19

  “I made a big mistake, Mom,” Fiona choked out.

  Her mom held her away from her by the shoulders and gave her a reassuring look. “Fiona, nothing can be so bad that we can’t get through it. Are you pregnant?” she asked calmly.

  “No!” What was it with her parents? Did they think she was some kind of sex fiend?

  “I had to ask,” she said. She seemed relieved. “C’mon,” she told her, steering Fiona toward the kitchen. “I’ll make tea and you can tell me all about it.”

  Once they were seated at the kitchen table with mugs of steaming tea, Fiona told her mom everything. She was surprisingly cool about the boob shot—“Everyone does things in a relationship they regret later,” she said, “Unfortunately, with the Internet the consequences are bigger than they used to be”—but she was furious when Fiona told her about Joanne’s reaction. “As though you haven’t been punished enough!”

  After she’d calmed down a little, she told her, “Fiona, taking that photo wasn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever done, but what you do with your body is your business and nobody else’s. There’s going to be fallout, though, and you’re going to have to have a strategy to deal with it.”

  Fiona knew what her mom was worried about—there had been several stories in the news in the past year about girls who were cyberbullied so badly after pictures of them got passed around the web that they wound up committing suicide.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said. But would she? Did those other girls think they could handle the heat, until they couldn’t anymore?

  “The main thing is to know who your friends are,” said her mom, getting up from the table and carrying their empty mugs to the sink. “Don’t allow anybody to turn you into a victim.” She came back to the table and kissed Fiona on the forehead. “I’m here for you, honey. And I’m sure your dad is, too. Just don’t get me started on Joanne again.”

  Fiona put her arms around her mother and hugged her tight. “I’m sorry I’m so mean to you.”

  “You can’t help it,” she said, stroking Fiona’s hair. Fiona looked up at her. One corner of her mother’s mouth was lifted in a wry smile. “Sadly, sometimes ‘mean’ is what teenagers do best.”

  ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, Fiona sat in the auditorium with the other grade tens waiting to get their homeroom assignments. She had planned to wear a denim mini with a loose cami. Instead, she wore jeans and a long T-shirt to achieve maximum coverage, even though the day promised to be sweltering. The auditorium was loud with excited chatter and joking. Fiona was on alert for glances and whispers, trying to determine whether she was the center

  of gossip, or—dare she hope?—if the photo had been forgotten. Lacey and Rick were seated on either side of her as protection, both having vowed to stay glued to her today, just in case anything ugly happened. A loud burst of laughter drew Fiona’s attention to the back row. She turned to see Ryan’s friend, Jeff, sitting with another jock, Max.

  “Sweet rack!” Jeff proclaimed.

  “Wonder what her ass looks like,” mused Max.

  Max caught Fiona looking at them and, grinning, made a gross pumping motion against his crotch. Fiona turned her eyes forward and sunk down into her chair.

  “Smarten up, douche bag!” Lacey snarled at Max.

  “Omigod,” moaned Fiona. “The whole football team has seen it.”

  “Fee, if you let this get to you, Ryan wins,” Lacey reminded her.

  Vice-Principal Bains walked onto the stage and read off class lists. Fiona was disappointed she wouldn’t be in the same homeroom as Lacey, but at least she was in with Megan and Brit. After he was done, VP Bains dismissed the grade tens and told them their first full day would be tomorrow. Fiona filed out of the auditorium with Lacey and Rick, keeping her head down. Then she heard her name.

  “Fiona?”

  Fiona looked up to see Ryan just outside the auditorium door. Fiona wanted to spit in his face, but before she could do or say anything, Rick stepped toward him.

  “Get lost!” he told Ryan, all macho—even though Rick was half a head shorter and, since Ryan had beefed up over the summer, about twice as scrawny.

  “I just want to talk,” Ryan said to Fiona, ignoring Rick. He was acting nice, like when they were dating.

  “She’s got nothing to say to you,” Lacey replied.

  Lacey and Rick marched Fiona away, flanking her like her own personal bodyguards. She appreciated their loyalty, but after overhearing Jeff and Max, she was starting to realize that she couldn’t count on her friends to protect her forever, any more than she could avoid fallout from the photo. It was better to know what people were saying about her than to imagine something possibly worse. When she got home, she fired up her laptop and went onto Friendjam, bracing herself.

  On the first page alone, Fiona had been tagged in the boob shot a half-dozen times. She scanned messages from people she didn’t even know, containing words like whore, skank, and stupid bitch. Oddly, it was the word stupid that hurt most of all. Nobody had ever called Fiona stupid before—not that they’d called her a whore or a skank—but she knew she was neither of those things. Now she felt like she had to prove to strangers she was smart. What was she supposed to do—post her GPA? Don’t give them the satisfaction! her instincts warned her. Don’t even acknowledge them! There was only one way for her to fight back, and that was to shut down her Friendjam account. With a few clicks of the mouse it was done—Fiona had severed ties with cyberspace. Now all she had to worry about was saving her reputation in the real world.

  AFTER MEETING KAI at the bubble tea shop, Laiping rode the crowded bus back across the company campus, worry­ing that she would be late for her shift. The bus seemed to take forever, with a dozen people getting on and off at every stop. By the time they arrived near Building 4, she had no time to get dinner at the cafeteria, or to return to the dorm to drop off her mobile, which workers were not allowed to take into the factory. She saw Fen coming down the stairs from the factory floor while she was going up, and she cut across the stream of workers.

  “Put this under my pillow for me?” she asked, handing her the mobile phone.

  “Sure,” replied Fen. “How are you?”

  But there was no time for Laiping to reply before each was swept away by the crowd.

  Laiping hadn’t eaten since the morning, and her stomach rumbled in complaint. She was also short on sleep, but nervous energy propelled her through her shift.

  “Slow down!” hissed Bohai from his station beside her.

  “Mind your own business,” she hissed back.

  When they broke at midnight, Mr. Wu praised her. “See how quickly Laiping has worked, and how well,” he said, holding up a couple of finished circuit boards from her full bin for all to see. “What’s the matter with the rest of you donkey-brains? You must work faster!”

  She ate ravenously at the meal break, and in the morning after her shift was over went back to the cafeteria for breakfast before returning to the dorm, where she slept soundly until six in the evening. When she woke up, Laiping thought about trying to reach her mother, but her phone battery was low. Fen must have used it—without her permission! Still, she was secretly relieved not to have to make the call. If her father was worse, she’d rather not know. She wanted to hold onto this good feeling she had. Finally, she was taking her future into her own hands. Somehow, with Kai’s help, she would find a way to make the company give her the money she was owed.

  But on Wednesday evening, Laiping broke her promise to Kai. When she met Min in the cafeteria before her shift, she noticed that her cousin’s cough was worse, and her chopsticks trembled when she lifted food to her mouth. Min’s transfer to another department, away from the toxic cleaner, still hadn’t come through.

  “There’s a meeting tomorrow,” Laiping told her, keeping her voice low. “I’m going to tell them about what that screen cleaner is doing to you.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “But you said the workers on your lin
e want to talk to Kai,” replied Laiping.

  “The guy who was saying that the loudest got fired! And then they made the rest of us stay for an hour after our shift, writing letters of apology to Steve Chen.”

  “They can’t treat us like this,” Laiping told Min. “It’s not fair.”

  “Keep your voice down! You sound like you’ve been brainwashed by that guy!”

  “I’m not brainwashed,” Laiping replied hotly.

  “Fen told me you’ve been seeing him.”

  “How would she know?” asked Laiping in a huff. Then she remembered the low battery. “She’s been snooping in my mobile!” If Fen had looked in the address book, she would have found Kai’s number.

  “She’s worried about you, and so am I. She told me to tell you to stay away from him.”

  Suddenly, Laiping wished she hadn’t told Min about Kai, or the meeting. They may have been cousins, but Kai was right—you had to be careful about who you trusted.

  “I won’t go then,” she lied. “Forget I said anything.”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” replied Min.

  Laiping glanced over to the nearest security guard, standing sentry by the wall. Her eyes were forward. She hadn’t heard anything—Laiping was sure of it.

  AT THE FACTORY, Laiping made a point of staying to the far right of the crowded staircase as she climbed up, knowing that Fen would be on the left coming down. She was angry at her for nosing around in her mobile, and for talking to Min behind her back. Fen gave her a friendly wave, but Laiping noticed that she was making no effort to come over—so maybe Fen was avoiding Laiping just as much as Laiping was avoiding her.

  Laiping continued up to the factory floor and took her place in formation for marching exercises, just has she had done almost daily for the past eight weeks. Tonight, though, everything seemed different. Miss Lau’s cheery voice over the loudspeaker irritated her—her kind tone a reminder of her unkindness. When they took their work stations, Laiping discovered that Bohai had been replaced by somebody else, a girl who didn’t bother speaking to Laiping. She wondered if Bohai was being punished, and almost felt sorry for him.

  Mr. Wu strutted up and down the aisle as usual, praising a worker here, ridiculing another there, like a self-important general. Circuit board-capacitor-solder-

  capacitor-solder; circuit board-capacitor-solder-capacitor-solder. Laiping thought: We aren’t soldiers. We aren’t robots, either. We deserve better.

  IN THE MORNING AFTER HER SHIFT, Laiping followed the flow of workers down the stairs. She looked for Fen going up and spotted her, but Fen didn’t look her way—giving Laiping an unsettled feeling. Outside, she averted her eyes as she passed the security guard, afraid that somehow he would read what was in her mind.

  The address Kai had given her was a fast food restaurant on the far side of campus. He said the meeting was at 9:00 a.m.—it was 8:30 now. On the main boulevard, Laiping got in line for a bus to take her there, but with the shift changes, two busses came and went, too crowded for Laiping to get on board. Laiping’s anxiety grew. If she was late for the meeting, Kai might think she wasn’t serious enough to join his group—or to be his girlfriend. When the third bus came, Laiping pushed her way on board. The passengers were packed like tinned fish, smelling of sweat and bad breath.

  They stopped frequently on the way across campus and were delayed while people got on and off the bus. Laiping dug her fingernails into her palms, willing it to go faster. They were almost at Laiping’s destination at the end of the route when the bus lurched to a halt. She craned her neck to see out the window. The street and sidewalk were jammed with people, pushing and shoving. She could hear shouting from nearby, then screams.

  “Open the doors! Let us off the bus!” someone called to the driver.

  “No!” she yelled back. Then she used the loudspeaker. “We have encountered an emergency,” she announced. Laiping couldn’t see the driver, but she sounded young, and nervous. “Please be patient until it is safe to proceed.”

  Laiping squeezed by other passengers to get a better view out the window, and saw a phalanx of police in visors and riot gear protecting the bus from the surging crowd. Beyond the police she saw people fighting—a thug thrashing his baton at a young man who was cowering at the blows. Another man hauled a youth out of a shop and punched him, bloodying his nose. To her horror, Laiping saw that the youth with the bloody nose was Kai. She wanted to cry out: Somebody stop them! But the police kept their backs turned to the fighting, making no effort to inter­vene. She watched helplessly as Kai and his friends were bundled into an unmarked van.

  A whistle blew. Outside the bus, the police were ordering the crowd of onlookers to move along.

  “Show’s over!” they shouted. “Get going!”

  One of the police waved the bus forward to its stop, where at last the doors opened and Laiping and the other passengers poured out. On the sidewalk, Laiping fought the crowd to reach the van. People bumped against her as they streamed by in the opposite direction, keeping their heads low and hurrying for safety.

  “Keep moving!” commanded a policeman close by.

  Laiping managed to reach the van, just at the moment when Kai turned his face, bloodied and cowed, to the window. He saw her, too, and his eyes filled with hatred. It took Laiping a long moment to understand. Then she realized, He blames me for this! He thinks I gave him away! Her next thought was, Fen.

  “It wasn’t me!” Laiping shouted to him through the glass.

  But the van carrying Kai was pulling away, forcing the crowd to part around it. Laiping called out, “Let them go! They didn’t do anything! Where are you taking them?”

  “Get going!” a policeman yelled at her.

  The van was gaining speed as it reached the edge of the crowd.

  “Stop the van!” cried Laiping, to anyone who would listen. “Workers have rights!” A few people stopped and turned to her. Laiping couldn’t be sure if they were on her side, or if they thought she had mental problems, but at least they were listening. “Why are they being arrested?” she demanded. “They didn’t do anything wrong! Stop the van and let them go free!”

  In the next instant, somebody grabbed her by the hair and yanked her backward so hard that she landed on the pavement on her back, the wind knocked out of her. She looked up to catch a glimpse of three policemen staring down at her through their visors, just as one of them drove his boot into her side. Another hauled her up by her arm, then all three of them began landing their fists on her face and body. Laiping was too shocked to feel pain, and then the beating was over. The police turned their attention back to dispersing the crowd, leaving Laiping curled up like a baby in the middle of the road. No one came near her. No one dared.

  After a few seconds, Laiping forced herself to her knees, and then to her feet. The van carrying Kai and the others was nowhere in sight. She staggered forward, testing her legs. There was a sharp pain in her side where the boot landed, but nothing seemed broken. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and examined a smear of blood. A policeman approached her and gave her shoulder a hard shove.

  “Get going,” he said. “Consider yourself lucky we’re not taking you in.”

  In a daze, Laiping limped to the bus stop and lined up behind some girls. They kept their backs to her, as though they were afraid the police might think they knew her. No one spoke.

  Laiping was able to squeeze onto the first bus that came along, so maybe she was lucky. Luckier than Kai, at least.

  ARMS FULL of what supplies they could carry—bandages, syringes, medicines stuffed hastily into plastic sacks—

  Sylvie and Marie made their way through the camp to the foreign workers compound, taking a back route to avoid the main roads where Kayembe’s men might spot them. Neema had left ahead of them, but Doctor Van de Velde stayed behind to collect more equipment. Sylvie had changed out of Kayembe’s pink frilly dress into the only other clothing available, a set of green surgical scrubs.

  “
What’s your hurry?” asked a teenaged boy who was passing by. Sylvie realized he was Jean-Yves’s brother, Luc, and that they were near the brothers’ hut.

  “Tell people to stay away from the clinic!” Marie warned him.

  Sylvie nudged Marie along with her shoulder. “Careful,” she told her. “That family is with Kayembe.”

  The peacekeeper at the wooden gate of the compound, a soldier with the African Union, was nervous, holding his weapon poised across his chest. When he saw them approach, he opened the gate quickly and hurried them inside.

  “Did Neema arrive?” asked Marie.

  “The nurse? She’s inside. What’s this about an attack?”

  “Doctor Van de Velde has called for help,” Marie told the worried guard. “This girl’s family is coming,” she added. “They have permission to come into the compound.”

  But to Sylvie, the fence of thorn branches surrounding the compound was a ridiculous defense—easily destroyed with gasoline and matches. The soldier seemed to think so, too, because he licked his lips and asked, “What help is coming? The police or the army? How many?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Marie.

  As soon as they entered, Martin, the young American, rushed up to them. He looked as frightened as the guard.

  “What’s going on? Neema said there’s trouble.”

  “It’s the local warlord, he’s after Sylvie and her family,” Marie explained.

  Sylvie saw Martin’s glance shift to her, as though he was thinking, Then why are we letting her in here?

  “I need the sat phone,” Marie told him, heading for the communications hut.

  Sylvie followed her inside and watched as she punched a long string of numbers into the phone, from a list taped to the desk. Sylvie glanced at the list and saw that she was calling the Canadian embassy in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, two days journey to the east, on the Indian Ocean. She wondered how help could possibly arrive in time from so far away.