Chapter Two
As well as I know my sister, she knows me. I can tell that she sees something happened earlier that I'm not telling her, and she can tell that I know.
Usually we tell each other everything, every boring little secret we hear at school, every worry. So I can tell that anything I might keep from her will just eat away at her until I give in and whisper it to her once mum and da are safely asleep.
Luckily, my morning with Miss Horton tomorrow kept up enough icy conversation at the table with our parents that I could pretend not to see the questioning looks she gave me. It got a lot harder once she started kicking me under the table.
"How could you be so stupid? Fighting- brawling in school!" Mum hisses it across the table as if the world might know and automatically judge her if they somehow hear her; as if they all had ears against out kitchen wall.
"But mum." Starts Lyra, but dad raises his hand in the air to call for silence.
"No Lyra. No excuses this time." Mum and dad both know that Lyra's quick to defend me, dad turns back to me and I quell under the look he gives me. "Tristan. I expected better. Now you're going tomorrow, and I'm coming to walk you back so I can talk to your teacher. Then on Sunday you can help me out with the new shipment of equipment."
It wasn't a question, and inwardly I groan. Dad hasn't made me help him with his work in over a year. Helping him means dragging bags of cement, and wheeling the wheel barrow with the wonky wheel through town in the burning heat. And I just know that the whole experience will be kept moving by dad droning endlessly on about my future.
He and mum never make Lyra work with him, she gets a day cooped up inside stitching till her fingers bleed with mum as punishment for bad behaviour.
Of course it's all about our 'future vocations'. It's the same everywhere, as soon as your parents see fit they can have you work the same job they do without pay until you turn nineteen and can't be taken. So you can be what your parents are, and nothing else. You can't aspire for anything else unless you excel at what you already do, and write a request to Pakrolt with the job you'd like. I can lift enough to get by, but I can't stand the same jobs over and over in all weathers.
Lyra keeps denying that she'll have to make that choice some day, I think that the forest clears her head of everything else.
"Alright." I mutter grudgingly, the rest of the meal continues in silence, making it harder to ignore Lyra and think what to say when she corners me later in our room. I don't mind sharing with her, but there are times (like this) when I could do with my own room. We don't have enough money to buy anywhere bigger, besides the houses closer to town and further from the threat of Creatures.
I've considered king for Calix's old room, I got pretty close to plucking up the courage too, but the thought of mum and dads faces when I ask to take over his rooms makes sharing with Lyra so much more appealing. There's no room in any of the other rooms for his old possessions, so I'd either have to take it as mine, or throw it out. Both alternatives make my heart feel like it's trapped in a vice.
I try to waste time and drag on the dinner by talking about the food, but it's nothing different or relatively interesting in comparison to the usual. Each month brings more than a new project for dad. The food that gets taxed off us all gets shipped in small quantities all around the world. We're promised under the scathing looks of Guards that we're barely taxed anything, but none of us can make the connection between the fruit and vegetables we harvest, and the watery potato soup with thin strips of chicken and some crumbling bread.
Eventually, I can't put it off any longer. My fruitless attempts at fully fledged conversation fall flat on the ground like sheets of winter ice. I volunteer to clear up, but mum crisply informs me that if I plan on getting up on time tomorrow, I need my sleep.
