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feeling like my life was being upturned and dug up all around me. Now I had to be filter through the dirt and decide which crappy future I wanted and when.
     

     
    As I stood on the front step, a cool wind hit me and I felt my body tense with anger. Anger at the difference between us—the always unfulfilled wish that she would be stronger and tell him no. But I also felt a misplaced prick of protectiveness over her that urged me to consider staying. She might need my help.
    A baby. Paulo, the stickler for rules, had broken the big one and they were having a baby. I wondered how he talked her into it; I shuddered at the thought of the two of them together and pulled the blind down on that visual nightmare.
    This ‘happy’ news gave me an instant headache and I wasn’t going to come to any answer right away. I stomped down the steps and strolled down our garden path, thick slabs of concrete teetering as I stepped on them at the wrong end. The word garden was laughable. Every yard was the same in Pau Brasil—one square of lawn, a concrete path, and one Pau Brasil tree in the center of every lawn, which had to be maintained meticulously.
    I looked back at our dreary accommodation. The grey-green render was peeling around the doorway. The low roof hung out over the window of our modest lounge, the gutter sagging at one end. Every house looked the same. The only difference between the neighbors’ and ours was the painfully cheery curtains Mother had sewn out of scraps from her workplace. The patchwork of yellow and purple looked ridiculously out of place amid all the grey.
    M y steps took me past three rows of houses, each a carbon copy of the next. Nervous faces peered out of windows, or over letterboxes. People stalking the morning, seeing whether the coast was clear to go for a walk without bumping into police. They needn’t have worried so much. I knew police would be packing the shopping district this morning; that’s where most citizens were and more people meant more chances for catching someone out.
    I slapped the letterboxes as I went, chalky green residue coming off on my fingers. Inspecting them, I rubbed the wearing paint between my fingers. I could leave this green-grey world behind but for what? I was sixteen and would be two years younger than everyone else. I wasn’t as prepared. And the next intake was only a few weeks away. It was so soon. I think I always thought I would straighten up as I got older and then I’d have a chance at a good Allocation. I snorted to myself. These things didn’t just happen on their own and I was about as crooked and curly as could be. Maybe there was no straightening out for me. Chances are I would tangle back up again anyway.
    The Superiors assessed you for your natural skill and allocated your Class based on that. I wondered if there was a Class for being a smart mouth. Probably not. They probably had a special Class for people like me. I shuddered.
    I imagined a Class of troublemakers. All I could picture was a room with a man at the front pointing to the blackboard saying , ‘Now what you need to do is rub the pencil all along the edges of the binoculars then get them to press it to their eyes…’
    I was looking down at my feet, shaking my head at my own silliness, a prank class, yeah, that would be the dream, when I slammed straight into the gate of Ring Three, a metallic vibration pulsing through the air. Rust stains rubbed off onto my grey, wool jacket.
    “ Watch it! You’ll break it and then we’ll all be in trouble,” someone shouted. I looked up to see a smirking face staring down at me. He was sitting on one of the concrete posts that supported the gates, legs dangling casually.
    I tried to dust the stains off my jacket, only managing to rub them in further. I sighed. I would be in more trouble when I returned home.
    I stood at the gate for a good two minutes, staring blankly, rubbing my elbows, lost in thought. I held out my wrist to scan my tattoo so