Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)(28)

Only a little blue. It must mean that he recognizes her comparative age, though old is not something the Crakers have a word for. “Thank you, Oh Blackbeard,” says Toby. “Now run along. I have to eat my breakfast. And I must go and visit Jimmy – I must visit Snowman-the-Jimmy, to see if his sickness is better.” She sits up and plants her feet squarely on the floor, a sign for the boy to leave.

Though not a sign he understands. “What is breakfast, Oh Toby?” he says. She forgot: these people don’t have meals as such. They graze, like herbivores.

He eyes her binoculars, pokes her stack of bedsheets. Now he’s stroking her rifle, where it stands in the corner. It’s something a normal human child might do: idle fiddling, curious handling. “Is this your breakfast?”

“Don’t touch that,” she says a little sharply. “That is not breakfast, that is a special thing for … Breakfast is what we eat in the morning – the people like me, with extra skins.”

“Is it a fish?” says the boy. “This breakfast?”

“Sometimes,” says Toby. “But for breakfast today, I will eat part of an animal. An animal with fur. Perhaps I will eat its leg. There will be a smelly bone inside. You wouldn’t want to see such a smelly bone, would you?” she says. That will surely get rid of him.

“No,” says the child dubiously. He wrinkles his nose. He seems intrigued, however: who wouldn’t want to peek from behind the curtain at the trolls’ revolting feasts?

“Then you should go away,” says Toby.

Still he lingers. “Snowman-the-Jimmy says the bad people in the chaos ate the Children of Oryx,” he says. “They killed them and killed them, and ate them and ate them. They were always eating them.”

“Yes, they were,” says Toby, “but they were eating them in the wrong way.”

“Were the two bad men eating them in the wrong way too? The ones who ran away?”

“Yes,” says Toby. “They were.”

“How are you eating them, Oh Toby? The legs of the Children?” His huge eyes are fixed on her as if she’s about to sprout fangs and pounce on him.

“The right way,” she says, hoping he won’t ask what the right way is.

“I saw a smelly bone. It was behind the kitchen. Is it breakfast? Do the bad men eat such bones?” says Blackbeard.

“Yes,” says Toby. “But they do other bad things too. Many bad things. Much worse things. We must all be very careful, and not go into the forest by ourselves. If you see those bad men or anyone like them, you must come and tell me right away. Or tell Crozier, or Rebecca, or Ren, or Ivory Bill. Any of us.” She’s gone over this point several times with all of the Crakers, the adults too, but she’s not sure they’ve taken it in. They gaze at her and nod, chewing slowly as if thinking, but they don’t seem frightened. It’s worrying, their lack of fear.

“Not Snowman-the-Jimmy or Amanda,” the boy says. “We can’t tell them. Because they are sick.” At least he’s grasped that much. He pauses as if considering. “But Zeb will make the bad men go away. Then everything will be safe.”

“Yes,” says Toby. “Then everything will be safe.” Already the Crakers have constructed a formidable set of beliefs about Zeb. Soon he’ll be all-potent and able to fix every ill; and that could be troublesome, because of course he can’t. Not even for me, thinks Toby.

But the name of Zeb is reassuring to Blackbeard. He smiles again, lifts his hand, gives a little wave, like a president of old, like a queen in a cavalcade, like a movie star. Where has he picked up that gesture? Now he’s sidling backwards through the doorway. He doesn’t take his eyes off Toby until he’s around the corner.

Did I scare him? she thinks. Will he go back to the others and tell them disgusting marvels, as real children – as children do?





Violet Biolet


Outside the main house the day is underway. The others must already have had their breakfasts, though Swift Fox and Ivory Bill are still at the table, engaged no doubt in some kind of arcane flirtation, she for practise, he in pathetic earnest.

Toby looks around for Zeb, but he is nowhere to be seen; maybe he’s taking a shower. Crozier is just setting off with the Mo’Hair flock; Zunzuncito is with him, toting a spraygun, covering his back. Jimmy’s hammock is under the tree, watched over by a trio of Crakers.

Lotis Blue and Ren are working on an addition to the cobb house. The MaddAddamites have voted to expand the number of sleeping cubicles; they’ll make the new ones roomier, more like a real house. The core structure was built as a demonstration of olden-day ways: ersatz antiquity, like a dinosaur made of cement. The Tree of Life Natural Materials Exchange used to be held in this space; Toby remembers coming here with the God’s Gardeners to peddle their recycled soap and their vinegar and honey and mushrooms and rooftop vegetables, back when there had still been buying and people to buy things, selling and people to sell them.

I ought to look around for some bees, she thinks. There must be escapees, living in the trees. It would be calming as well as useful to tend a few hives.

The cobb-house construction has to be done in stages. This morning Ren and Lotis Blue are mixing up the mud, straw, and sand in a plastic wading pool decorated with Mickey Mice. The wood frame is in place, the layers of cobb are being added day by day. Drying each layer is a problem in view of the afternoon thunderstorms, but luckily they’ve been able to glean some plastic sheeting for coverups.