Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘I don’t care who likes me, Poppy,’ Juno said calmly. ‘And now you have to get out of bed, at least to have a shower and wash your bedsheets. And when you get back into bed, I’ll do this again. And again until you clean out the disposal unit and catch up with your work.’

Poppy peeled off her saturated duvet and wiped the wet hair from her eyes. Her pale thighs were covered in goosebumps and she started to shiver. ‘I won’t forgive you for this,’ she said, getting unsteadily to her feet.

‘Hey,’ Astrid said, from the corner of the room. ‘That was really harsh.’

Juno turned to her sister, her brow knitted in fury. ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘No one’s,’ Astrid insisted, then glanced at Poppy’s dripping bedsheets. ‘She’s just sad.’

Juno kicked the empty bucket to the opposite wall and shouted, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

Chapter 29 POPPY

^21.09.12

TWO DAYS LATER, POPPY was still reeling from the fight with Juno. Her nerves still zinged with rage whenever she heard Juno’s clipped voice through the corridors of the ship. It had escalated, turned into a screaming match, Poppy’s heart still pounding from the shock of the cold and the other girl’s rage. She’d said every vicious thing she could think up, slinging curses and hurts at Juno, but her words had seemed to glance off her. Juno had simply stared back, her eyes so narrow they were nothing but darkness. She’d fired insults at Poppy like well-aimed darts, right into her ribs. Juno had always had a way with words and every blow stung. Even two days later, Juno’s accusations tormented Poppy. She had been forced to cede the battle, to leave the bed and catch up on the chores she had missed, as well as turn up for dinner promptly, choking down every bite of food she had no stomach for. Juno oversaw each task, mentally ticking off debts in her head: the dusty corners, unchanged filters, broken lightbulbs and the filthy disposal unit. Poppy had spent the time since the fight tending to them all.

By the time she was finished scrubbing the grease-blackened tiles by the side of the stove, she was full of hate and in need of a shower.

She entered the bathroom. Taking a shower on the Damocles was problematic. When the water didn’t surge out boiling hot, it was icy cold and, no matter how many knobs Poppy twisted, she could never seem to get the balance right. Climbing out of her clothes, she switched it on and reached a hand out to test it. The water spattered out with a hiss, then roared to full pressure, searing the skin on her forearm. She fought the urge to tug it out of the steaming jet and instead let the pain grow more intense, the stab of the burn radiating to her elbow.

It was a relief to feel something. This pain was something. Her anger with Juno was something. Better, she had to admit, than the hollowed-out numbness that had ached inside her for months.

‘Pops?’ came a voice.

She started, and snatched her arm out of the water. Steam curled off it, and the skin flamed red.

Someone was banging on the door. ‘Let me in.’

Picking up the towel with her nametag on it, Poppy covered her nakedness and opened the door.

Harry was standing on the threshold, grinning. ‘Hey, dirty girl. Figured you were taking a shower. Mind if I join you?’ He entered and closed the door behind him before Poppy replied.

‘You did a good job out there,’ he said. Poppy shrugged, looking down at her black fingernails. She knew what Harry wanted before he asked, and she dropped her towel and tried to smile, hoping it would feel good, like holding her hand under the hot water felt good.

Harry had been Poppy’s first. It happened only once before the launch, during a club night in east London called ‘How does it feel to be loved?’ The Smashing Pumpkins, The Kings of Convenience and, predominantly, The Smiths played on the loudspeakers. Clever songs that were not easy to dance to. By midnight, all of Poppy’s friends were slumping on the edges of the room in serious little female huddles of conversation – growing maudlin and slipping out into the brisk night air to give the sweat on their shins a chance to dry.

Harry was famous at Dalton. In the dining hall, on one of the oak-panelled walls, was a list of names, winners of various school tournaments and awards. Under the provost’s annual award for sporting attainment, the name Harrison Bellgrave blazed against the dark wood three years running. Poppy was star-struck by him. She liked to imagine what it was like to be him, crowned in his mother’s famous gold curls, surrounded always by friends whose names were printed on the backs of their jackets, friends who sat on the tables in the canteen and shouted to each other across the narrow hallways as if the school was too small for them.

He could have chosen anyone but that night he chose her. She had been feeling so rotten, so keen not to be left alone in her own skin, nursing a drink while she skulked near the bar, too self-aware to dance alone.