THE Dulwich Despatch Summer 2023
‘ Who are you? ’ he shouted. The yellow blur arrived in the brambles which had scratched him so badly. Sol heard a feminine voice: ‘ Ow! ’, and saw a white sea of hair in a tangled mess, and piercing blue eyes. His tired, blurry pupils brough the hair and eyes into focus, and to his utter astonishment, saw a girl. A girl . . . how was that possible? He thought all the girls his age – thirteen – had been taken away for their special education. At least, that was what he had been told. But even more pressing was the fact that she appeared to be getting ready to kill him. It took a moment for Sol to process this, but when he did, he panicked more than he had ever done in his life. Gathering his wits about him, he fumbled blindly with his left hand behind the tree he was propped up against and withdrew what he thought was a vaguely sharp twig. Just as he was getting ready to pounce, the voice snapped:
‘ Well, you ’ re more stupid than I thought. ’
Sol whipped around. The girl was staring, unblinking, at him, with a sort of perturbed curiosity.
‘ Who are you? What do you want? ’ Sol tried to get up, stumbled, and collapsed again into the pile of leaves. He dimly registered pain, but that was not top of his list of problems.
‘ I ’ m . . . none of your business. ’ She hastily stashed away some kind of instrument. What harm did she intend to do with that, he wondered.
‘ Who are you? ’ he repeated.
‘ I could ask you the same thing. ’
‘ Why are you out here? Why haven ’ t you gone with others? You can ’ t survive out here, you ’ re a . . .’
Sol was silent. The girl understood immediately but in the silence that followed, he felt the hate of generations rushing out of her and encircling him like a cobra.
She stood up to leave.
‘ Wait! Have you ever heard of Lucida? ’
To be continued...
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