The Hive: A Young Adult Dystopian Romance (The Enigma Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  ‘Thanks again!’ Tim told her, grinning as he surrendered his gloves to Granger, who would carefully pack them away until the following week. ‘I’ll definitely be back Tuesday!’

  ‘Suave,’ Finn said, but it was one of those things that she wouldn’t believe until she’d seen it, so she waved to the others before getting back onto her bike so that she could commence the long ride home. She was tired, dusty and thirsty, but now that she knew for a fact that her pay the following day, combined with what she had stashed away already would finally be enough for her dress and then some, she couldn’t help but grin, imagining how satisfying it would be to finally be that girl at the party who looked like she fit in.

  Even if, as the glorified litter-duty girl, she probably never would.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Finn had grown up living under the shadowy stigma of being the resident of a ‘trailer park’ and had been hyper-aware since the age of seven, that that was something that she ought to have been ashamed of. It had made her different, even at Peninsula Primary, because the majority of the kids that had gone there hadn’t lived in the Pen itself, but on farms in the surrounding region, and in some cases, from the closest and most populous isle of the Shard Group, Whitecap Island. That had made her peers either the children of expansive property owners, or beachfront property owners, which made their parents the sort who didn’t really want their children associating with a fatherless girl from the caravan park.

  Michelle’s mother Caryn had been like that too, despite the fact that she hadn’t been a property owner either- but a renter. And that was why Michelle’s family had been able to move into Laidlaw Kingdom- because the owner of their house had chased them out of it after their primary property in Broadsound had collapsed during the Strike along with so many others, leaving the Nash family homeless but eligible for King Amory’s assistance. Georgia Janks had had to move too, only in her case, they’d had to do it because the house they’d owned had been burned down in a wild brushfire, four months after the Strike.

  Finn’s life had never been the sort that people would have bragged about, but living in the trailer park at the Pen was very different to living in a trailer park in a bad movie, and it frustrated her that people didn’t see that. For starters, everyone that lived there owned their own plot of land and van, which made it a co-op, not a half-way house, which affected how the people that lived there behaved because they were settlers, not drifters. Not all of them took pride in their homes the way Finn’s mother did because the majority of the residents were too old, young or broke to go to the effort… but they’d all been obligated to pay a steep monthly tariff to ensure that the grounds, pool and other communal facilities were well maintained, which had kept the park looking respectable, nonetheless. The biggest downside to living in a place like that was using the big, public shower and toilet block, but Sair Monroe had spent every last cent she’d had to buy a van that would feel like a home, so they had their very own, very tiny bathroom anyway. It was so small that even Finn felt claustrophobic in there, which could be said of the entire van, but Finn didn’t mind it half as much as her older sister Autumn had before she’d moved out years before, vowing that she’d never live in a place that small again.

  Autumn hadn’t made that declaration from a place of snobbery or anything, because she was still the gentlest soul Finn had ever known… but she had been substantially taller than Finn and her mother, so she’d often hit her head on the low doorways, and had never been able to stretch out on her tiny top bunk in order to sleep comfortably. Finn missed her older sister desperately and intended on getting a car as soon as she was able to, so she’d be able to set off and find her, but she had to admit that the Outlander had gotten roomier since Autumn had set off to find herself after she’d graduated five years before.

  Along with the private bathroom, Finn and her mother were comfortable in ways that the other residents weren’t either- especially since the Strike, when certain weaknesses of theirs had ended up becoming strengths. For example, most of the other park’s residents had owned cars, and Finn and her mother had enviously watched them come and go without ever having to worry about weather or bus schedules. But now that every vehicle in the world needed a serious overhaul in order to get moving again, most of their neighbours’ cars were still parked on their concrete slabs with flat tyres and dusty windscreens- useless for anything but taking up much-needed space.

  However, because the Monroe’s had never owned one to begin with, Finn’s mother had parked their van on the concrete slab instead, and had turned the tiny grassy lot where the van was supposed to have gone into a garden back when they’d first moved in, complete with a chicken coup and a small rainwater tank. She’d walled it in with strips of lattice to keep the birds out too, which was now covered by the passionfruit, jasmine and bougainvillea vines that had grown over every inch of the structure and parts of the van as well, shrouding both in white and fuchsia blooms that gave their allotment a country cottage aesthetic that was undeniably pretty, especially seeing as how it was tucked into a ring of mango trees.

  Many were trying to replicate Finn’s mother’s set up now and were doing well, but the fact that Sair’s garden had been established well before the apocalypse had given her a substantial head start, especially when it came to things like her small avocado tree, which was already mature enough to bear fruit, and their pumpkin vine, which had grown so big that Sair had generously allowed it to grow into their neighbour’s yard, so they could enjoy its bounty too. And as a thank you, their neighbour Gladdy kept them in pretty-smelling toiletries, which were luxury items now, but something that Gladdy had a lot of, because she’d sold products for three different kinds of MLM companies to make ends meet before the world had ended. Gladdy hadn’t been very good at her job because she’d been far too soft to put the hard sell on people and she’d racked up a lot of debt buying stock she hadn’t been able to move, but she was now sitting on a tiny perfumed goldmine of hard-to-get products as a result of that, which was keeping her and her daughter afloat.

  Being self-reliant was crucial for all, but especially for the Monroes, because after the government had collapsed, it had ceased paying Finn’s mother the pension that they’d been dependent on before. On the bright side, bills were a thing of the past, so people didn’t actually need a great deal of money to get by anymore, and no one could chase them off their property due to the fact that they had a deed to prove that they owned it…. but they still had to find a way to survive, so they did that by foraging and trading. Almost everyone was in that same boat on the Outskirts, of course, but there were some exceptions- like two of their neighbours Mike and Arthur, had both been bankrupted due to a lack of work in their chosen fields before the Strike, but now had come out of retirement because suddenly their skills- as a watchmaker and a wooden boatbuilder respectively- were now in high demand in Laidlaw, where they got work every day. They were still classed as Outskirters, because they owned property outside of Laidlaw, but King Amory paid them as contractors, which suited both parties. Finn’s mother, on the other hand, had worked most of her life in hospitality, and because the only pubs and restaurants left operating were within the kingdom’s walls, it was impossible to get work in that field unless you were a loyalist. So now, she did odd jobs to earn them chips instead, like ironing, sewing and baby-sitting, while feeding them mostly off what she grew or caught herself.

  Finn’s mother’s methods of survival were keeping their heads above water, yes... but making sure that both of their most basic needs were met every day on next to no income and with no male figure to do the stereotypical heavy lifting was still a massive undertaking, which was why Finn often felt as though they were living under an intense amount of pressure in which every moment counted, and that day was no exception. She’d stopped by a remote part of the beach to splash some cool water on her face once she’d made it back to the Peninsula, and had been intending on heading straight home after so she could ta
ckle her after school jobs, but she’d almost stepped into the remnants of a fire that someone had left burning up near the mangroves and had been disgusted to realise that thing had been surrounded by empty home-brew beer bottles, proving that it had been made not by refugees (who were always careful to put out their cooking fires) but by someone with money- and probably by kids from Laidlaw, who had a habit of sneaking out into the Outside after curfew in order to throw what they called: ‘Roasts ’n’ Toasts,’ which was just code for drinking and gossiping by a bonfire.

  Usually, Finn didn’t care what people did, (though she often wondered if the Hive girls were secretly sneaking out to Roasts ‘n’ Toasts without ever inviting her) but it bugged her that they’d left the beach in the state they had, and it bugged her even more that they’d managed to throw one of their parties there, because there were supposed to be three or four Tutelas stationed in the Pen every night, keeping an eye out for trespassers while the residents slept. But if the king really did have armed Tutelas guarding the Pen every night, then how had a bunch of drunken kids managed to build a huge fire in one of the most populated areas and get away with it?

  Finn knew there was a chance that maybe they hadn’t gotten away with it, which was why so much stuff had been left behind, but the coals in the sand had been hot enough to give someone a third degree burn still, so she’d had to make the time to first put the fire out and then, to carry all of the thoughtlessly discarded bottles over to a refugee woman, who’d been unknotting fishing line on the other side of the jetty, as an offering. The refugee had been thrilled by the offer and had immediately rounded her kids up so she could take the bottles down to the recycling centre on foot, so Finn felt good for having done two good deeds that day, but the delay had put her behind her own schedule, so as soon as she had locked her bike to the lattice wall of her mother’s garden, she immediately sprinted into it and began unbuttoning her blouse as she cried:

  ‘Sorry I’m late! Someone left a fire going down on my part of the beach and…’ Finn quickly stripped down to the swimsuit she’d worn under her uniform and started handing her clothes over to her mum as she’d talked. Finn’s uniform wasn’t filthy or anything, but they hadn’t yet been able to afford to buy Finn a second one because they were worth seven chips, so Sair had to wash Finn’s after school every day, so it would have the chance to dry by morning. As she stripped down, Finn did her best to tell her mother everything good that had happened that day (such as the news about the Gala) while omitting anything that might cause her mother concern- like about the detention. Not because she was afraid of getting into trouble, but because she hated worrying her mother, who was as easy to unsettle as sensitive weed.

  That wasn’t to say she was joyless or anything, because Sair Monroe was the most romantic being that Finn had ever known. But she’d had a rough life full of disappointment, and so try as she might to move forward, she carried her life lessons around with her like Finn did her bike chains: a weight of worries that she derived comfort from, because she believed it kept her -and her easily shattered hopes- grounded.

  That was all well and good for her, Finn had decided at a young age, but she would be damned if she was going to add her worries to the stack that her mother carried around with her too, so she’d somehow ended up becoming an optimist in response, which meant that she kept most of her teenage dramas to herself. In the past, Finn had tried to brush off her mother’s pessimism, affectionately teasing that she sounded like Chicken Little chirping that the sky was falling in… but now that they’d actually experienced the sky falling in, it was harder for Finn to accuse her mum of being needlessly paranoid. So, Finn tolerated her worry-wart ways with a crooked smile, and her mother tolerated Finn’s cock-eyed optimism with a grimace, which worked because they both had a tendency to try and make the best of every situation anyway.

  ‘I’ll get these straight onto the line,’ her mother said once Finn was done, batting a lock of her wavy, dark blonde hair out of her eyes before nodding to the watering can. ‘Could you…?’

  ‘Sure,’ Finn and her mother squeezed by one another, so her mum could go to the old washtub and board she kept around the back of the van. Finn’s thumbs were the opposite of green- whatever that was but she’d helped her mum out enough times by then to know how to water things, so she walked through the rows of little raised garden beds, hydrating her mother’s babies while being careful not to trip over the chickens. She’d felt flustered and hurried all day, and she knew she was going to go on feeling that way for a few more hours yet, but for the time being, she listened to the sound of the ocean lapping against the shore and the soft clonking of her mother’s bamboo wind chimes (there were dozens of them dangling from the wire roof of the garden, along with some potted ferns) and for once, allowed herself to daydream about the sort of thing that teenagers were supposed to daydream about- like whether or not she’d take Gladdy up on her offer to do Finn’s make up for the ball!

  It’s not a ball though… Finn reminded herself, smiling brightly at Joy the chicken as she paused to wash soot off her fingertips. It’s just a Gala, remember?

  But Finn’s smile just grew wider as she vowed that regardless of how she ended up looking, she was going to have a good time and this time, she wasn’t going to let anyone spoil that for her. Not because she expected the stars to align for her to make wishes come true anymore, because she didn’t. But because she, the ‘Outskirter’ from the trailer park, had finally been invited, which automatically made it the best party she’d ever gone to already!

  *

  Finn’s chores persisted long after she’d clocked off for the day. From five to five-fifteen, she helped her mother in the garden and then at five-fifteen, she tossed on one of her mum’s oversized maxi dresses and ran next door to do her other job: tutoring Maya, her twelve-year old neighbour.

  Maya and Finn hadn’t been close before the Strike, because Maya was three years her junior, but Gladdy had introduced her to reading shortly after the Strike in order to help keep the Strike induced night terrors her daughter often suffered from at bay, so she loved books almost as much as Finn did now, which made her good albeit quiet company. In fact, Maya reminded Finn a lot of what Michelle had been like in primary school, given how studious but timid she was, and how much older than Finn she appeared to be already despite the fact that she was many years her junior!

  Finn knew that if Maya had made it to high school, then she would have found a way to come out of her shell the way Michelle had and possibly even would have ended up making friends with the equally reserved Princess Abigail, who was the same age as her and had the same reserved disposition. Sadly for Maya though, her status as a poor Outskirter made school an impossible dream for her now, so Gladdy was doing her best to home-school her, while also trying to save enough money to get their Strike- Struck RV’s engine overhauled, so that one day, they’d be able to drive it north to the East Cape where like Tim, they had family waiting. It would cost almost five hundred trips to do that and the same amount again to fuel the thing for that sort of long-distance journey, but if they could do that then Finn knew that it would be worth every penny, because their dark skin would be as much of a status symbol in the East Cape, as Finn’s pendant was in Laidlaw.

  After Finn and her protégé had spent an hour discussing the themes in Animal Farm, Finn had darted back across the lot to their Outlander, which already smelled like grilled fish and Finn’s favourite salad: cherry tomatoes with fresh basil, and then worked on her science paper about Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions until dinner was ready. Finn was so hungry that the food tasted even sweeter than usual (they had fish and salad a lot) but because it wasn’t a filling meal, they had fresh baked chunks of damper with honey after, which had been cooked in the coals of their barbecue in aluminium foil that had already been washed and re-used dozens of times by then.

  ‘So, you’ve definitely got the chips you need to get that dress you want for the Gala?’ her mother asked frow
ning and studying Finn’s face carefully as Finn licked honey off her fingers and tried to look nonchalant. Sair knew that Finn had had a lot of issues with her peers since school had started, so she still worried about her all the time, even though Finn had stopped reporting to her about it years before. ‘Because if not, I’m sure I can get another chip or two by Saturday, now that the paw paws are-

  ‘Ugh! I feel bad enough blowing my own money on it without taking yours too.’ Finn stood up and took her plate over to their tiny sink, which her mother had already filled with scalding water from their billy. They had a small hot water system and some working electrical outlets in their trailer, because some of the older, single men in the park liked to do favours for her attractive mother in exchange for a smile, but their hot water system was tiny, so they tried to preserve it for bathing. ‘But yes, I’ll have two and a half chips waiting for me at the gates in the morning, which is plenty.’

  Her mother stood up from her side of their cramped table and joined Finn at the sink. ‘Isn’t that what you make every week?’ Finn nodded. ‘Why didn’t you just buy your dress last Friday, then, so I’d have a chance to alter it of need be? You said you had to save up, so I assumed it was a four or five chip dress.’

  Finn shuddered at the idea of dropping that much money on a dress. ‘Nah. It fits perfectly, and I didn’t want to buy it until I knew the ball was going ahead for sure, you know?’ She sighed before admitting: ‘I didn’t really feel right spending the last money I had on it either… so I told myself I’d only spend two chips on it, once I had four to spare. And I’ll actually have that tomorrow now.’