Nobody dies that night but all of us are worried. The next day we all push and shove and roll Rusty Bus out of the view of that Teknology, so the little kids won’t be up half the night sitting at the windows and crying about the red flashing eye watching them.
Marta says that technology used to do a lot of stuff, but none of it to do with the act of living. She says it was good for spying and talking to people far away and finding your way around, but it wasn’t any good for growing food or fishing or building boats or taking care of your own community. She says she’s glad we don’t have it no more, and can me and Jaguar go and draw the shiny metal box coz she’s going to take a boat to the other Ockery Islands and ask them if they know what’s going on.
So that’s what we do. We got our bit of clean cardboard from Marta’s stash and we got a pencil and we sneak back up the hill, brave as anything. Well, I am. Jaguar’s pretending he’s dropping the pencil so he’s got an excuse to fall back. It ain’t that he’s not brave. It’s jus’ if that red flashing light is gonna zap anyone, he’d be happier if we found out about it on me first.
Sometimes when we’re out salvaging from buildings, Jaguar says, ‘Hey, Neoma, can you get across this rusty metal beam?’ And that’s coz he wants to see how strong it is. You see, Jaguar’s real smart, and even if I know for sure he’s jus’ getting me to test something, he makes me do it anyway by saying stuff like, ‘I bet you can’t.’ I can never turn down a dare. Smart people are more careful. Me, maybe I ain’t so smart, coz I like to test things out myself. I’m a doer. I do things.
I’m already circling the pole that holds the shiny metal box by the time Jaguar catches up. I shove the cardboard at him.
‘I think we need to draw it like we’s looking down on it so we can show how the poles is spaced out in a circle,’ I tell him.
Jag nods, so I wrap my arms and legs around a wooden pole on the circle and haul myself up it, using the insides of my bare feet around where the siblings cut branches off to push myself up.
‘What you doing?’ he asks.
‘Getting higher, so I can draw it,’ I say.
‘They said if you touch anything you’ll die!’ he says.
‘They meant the stuff inside the circle, not our tree poles round the outside,’ I say.
‘How do you know what they meant?’ Jag asks. ‘You can’t understand their funny speak.’
‘Run away if you’re so scared. Jus’ gimme the cardboard and pencil first.’
Jaguar don’t run away, coz he’s my friend and he can’t jus’ leave me here, but what he does do after he passes me up the cardboard and the pencil is stand behind the pole, him maybe thinking it’s the square box that might kill him dead.
I sketch out the shape of the square box and circles best I can, hanging on to the top of the pole with one hand and both my feet, then drop the cardboard and pencil down to Jag.
‘There,’ I say. ‘Make that look good with your fancy drawing skills.’
I scramble and jump to the ground and, while Jag is doing some pencil-sucking and thoughtful staring at the square box, I squeeze between the poles of the smaller circle, and use my hands to dig out the loose earth over one of the metal bucket things the siblings buried.
I scrape it out, dirt getting caught under my fingernails, and soil getting warmer the further I dig down. Then hot in a weird way it shouldn’t be.
‘Stop it!’ Jag shouts when he figures out what I’m doing.
I turn my head to look at him. A waft of sharp burning air smacks my head and I fall back.
‘Neo!’ Jag screams.
Whatever’s down in that hole is sending out burning heat! I kick at the pile of dirt I’ve made and cover it back over before any more escapes. A stinging burn sets in up the side of my head and gets worse and worse.
‘Ow!’ I say and turn to Jaguar to ask can he see anything. But he’s gone. Jus’ a wafting bit of cardboard and a bouncing pencil and a pair of raggy shorts disappearing down the hill, legs pumping like mad.
