Read Online The Emerald Forge (Pilgrennon's Children) by Manda Benson - Free Book Online

was the matter of Alpha’s grave. She had to tell someone, and it was no good telling Pauline and Graeme, or a teacher, as she would then have to tell them about Ivor and Jananin, and how she could mentally control computers. No, she had to tell Jananin. And Jananin was far away, a scientist and a spokesman for the Meritocracy, and she had warned Dana about trying to contact her. There was only one way Dana could get a message to her without risking it being intercepted.
    “There’s a man who might be able to help us,” Dana said. “He sometimes works at the hospital. If we can go there, we might be able to find out where he is.”
    “The hospital? Who is he?”
    Dana looked at her watch, and was shocked to see it was half past five already. “I’ll have to tell you later. I’ve got to go home and have my dinner now.”
    “Let’s meet here at seven.” said Eric. “Wear sensible clothes... not high heels and a short skirt or anything like that.”
    Dana had already set off towards home, and she shouted back disparagingly over her shoulder. “I don’t wear stupid things like that anyway.”

     

-3-
     
    D ANA arrived out of breath, back at Pauline and Graeme’s house. She pulled off her shoes in the hallway and ran upstairs to her room.
    “Dana, is that you?” Graeme shouted. “Or is it a burglar!”
    “It’s a burglar!” Dana shouted. She kicked the laundry about the floor until she found a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She heard Graeme coming upstairs as she threw her school uniform on the bed.
    “Can I come in?”
    “No! I’m getting changed!”
    “You’re home very late today.”
    “I got detention, and then... something else happened.”
    “Your seed catalogue came today.”
    “Oh!” Dana had completely forgotten about the seed catalogue. “Wait fifteen seconds!”
    Graeme laughed. “All right, then.”
    Dana counted fifteen seconds as she did up her jeans and pulled her jersey on. When she opened the door, Graeme was outside with the catalogue.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “We’re going to have dinner now, so leave it in your room and come down. You can read it afterwards.”
    Dana quickly pulled her keys, fuses, and Ivor’s watch out of her school uniform and transferred them to her jeans. She followed Graeme downstairs. Pauline was setting the plates on the dining room table, and the news was just starting.
    “Detention,” Graeme mouthed to Pauline.
    “Oh, really, Dana!” Pauline chided.
    Dana started to cut up her food before anyone else had been seated.
    “Cale? Cale!” Pauline called.
    “Oh come on, Dana, don’t start without everyone else,” said Graeme severely. “It’s not polite.”
    Cale was in the sitting room, lying on his stomach on the floor and working out the next line of notes for Pi in C Major. Dana mentally told him to stop it and come into the dining room.
    On the small television in the corner of the room, Jananin Blake was talking about nuclear powerplants. It didn’t matter now if Dana missed the news, because soon she was going to see Jananin Blake in person again! If Graeme and Pauline let her go, of course...
    Cale sat down at the table and began to divide his stew, apportioning carrots to one side of his plate and meat to the other. “Honestly,” said Pauline, glancing at Cale’s plate. “Sometimes I don’t know why we bother.” She squeezed behind Cale’s chair and sat down.
    “Can I go out after dinner, please?” Dana asked.
    “I don’t see why not,” said Graeme with his mouth full.
    Dana realised he thought she was talking about the seed catalogue and the Sarracenias . “I don’t mean out in the garden. I mean, can I go out and see Eric?”
    “Who’s Eric?” said Pauline.
    “Uh, he’s my friend,” said Dana, uncertainly. Dana knew that Pauline knew that Dana didn’t have any friends. But Dana also knew that Pauline lived in eternal hope of her having them.
    “How old is he?”
    “I think he’s in the year