Green

There used to be twenty or thirty other kids here with us. I don't know where they went. They just... Go.

There's a place near here. Not long after we first got here, I went there quite a lot. You walk across the meadow and there's a deserted road. Beyond that, there's a slope, and at the bottom, a green, just like the one back home. Wide and velvety smooth as if Mr Peters had been along and mowed it.

If you go across the Green, and keep going, you get to The Town. It's like a copy of home, only there's no one there. The shops are empty, and so are the houses. It's more spread out, and dull.

When some of the kids started disappearing, we didn't notice at first. Then we noticed, but we didn't care. We don't care about much ever. We don't care about playing or going home.

We don't care about the Rat Man, even though there's definitely something wrong with him. He never says anything, even when someone takes the sock out of his mouth. He just makes squeaking noises. He stares, and dribbles, and twitches. He's always bleeding from some injury. His teeth are broken, and so are all his fingers. His arms look all wrong, as well. His face is swollen and squashed at the same time. It looks like a big blobby red blister that might go pop. Sometimes, whichever kid is watching him squats down and puts twigs and pebbles in his mouth to see if he'd eat them. Maybe, back home, when we were different, we would have worried and someone would have said, "he should go to hospital". No one says that here. It's not that sort of place.

It takes a really good run up for any of us to feel curious, but Agnes is the sort. Agnes did go looking, and that's when she found The Town. She looked all round all the houses and shops. Maybe after all this time, those kids wanted to go home, and this was the closest they could get. There was never anyone there though. Not living there or hiding there, anyway. A couple times, there was one of the kids, gripped by the same rare curiosity as Agnes, wandering vaguely about. Never any of the vanished ones though.

I think we started Changing after the first one disappeared. Our skin looked green in the sunlight, and it felt rubbery and cool. We ate even less, and the only things we ate were weird Things this place gave us, things we'd never had before and didn't have names for. Every time another one went away, we looked more and more green.

Now there are only two of us left, Agnes and me. I see her standing at the top of the slope, looking out over the town, her shoulders all bony and fierce, and I can tell she's thinking.

When she says we should Leave, I'm not surprised. Not because I expected her to say it, just that Surprised is a Feeling and this isn't the place to feel Feelings.

I say, "OK", and she goes back to standing and looking and thinking. Her long hair is always tied back in a pony tail, with little baby hairs curling in a halo around her face.

I don't really want to be alone here. It would be wrong. I might go like the Rat Man. I don't want that. Or if I was here by myself, what if he got loose? I couldn't watch him all the time. He'd probably do something horrible. We've always thought he might, but after the stuff we did to him, he probably would.

I look down at my scratchy brown coat, and I wonder why I'm wearing it when it's always so sunny here. Then the thought just Goes.

How long have I been wearing it? I don't remember wearing it when I got here. That thought Goes, too.

Oh, well.

There's something different about Agnes. I can tell. Her expression looks different. That is to say, she nearly has one.

She unfolds herself from the grass, stands up, and sticks out her bright green hand. I take it in mine. Off we go, in search of our way Back.

We don't know how or where. We might find the Tunnel, or we might stumble on some special door, or maybe will ourselves Through by sheer intention. We just keep wandering and looking and poking in corners.

Maybe we've been here a hundred years. We could be here another hundred. That's plenty of time to find a Tunnel, or a Door. We're bound to, eventually. No one can stay anywhere forever.

That's why we are holding hands. I am an anchor for her, and she's one for me. Neither of us wants to be here with just Rat Man for company. We leave him, gibbering and squeaking the way he does, and keep wandering and poking. Sometimes one of us forgets what we are doing or why we started, and the other one does the steering until they remember again. Sometimes we both forget, but we keep going out of habit.

I don't know what happened. Did we do something right? Did Rat Man get free, was he the key to getting out? Agnes said afterwards, maybe was it. Maybe he helped us on purpose because he felt sorry, after all this time. You know. For stealing us. I think she was wrong, but it doesn't matter.

It was dark, and cold and wet. We were on a Road, but not the deserted one by the Green. This one was Different. Things were whizzing along it. Things with lights. The first one nearly hit us. Agnes jumped back, and yanked me out of the way. It splashed dirty water on us on its way past.

I remembered something, very vague, from very long ago. Something huge and yellow and rumbling, with lights just like that.

I felt dizzy. Weak. Had I wanted to feel something, after all this time? A silly thing to want, when there are so many horrible things to feel.

"Did we do it?" I asked her. "Did we make it home?"

She frowned.

"Yes. And no."

It was all confusing. Agnes still had some of the hard edges she'd had in that Other Place, but mine were wearing away quicker than you could imagine. I didn't like it.

"It's been too long to be Home anymore."

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