The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 5

Excerpt from "The Barrette Girls" by Sara Saab

When we get to Euston Station, we help them change trains, and the barrette girls do not resist us.

Andrew says, “They told us to be gentle with them, Sunday.”

For his sake, I touch them gingerly and coo to reassure them. I hand around the kind of water bottle you buy at a gas station, five liters in flimsy plastic, and they drink with the desperation of suckling cubs.

Andrew asks, “Where will they all sleep?”

I reply, “It’s not supposed to rain tomorrow,” because he should not be so obvious in public.
The station is full of people who watch us. They look at the orange knapsacks we have put on all the girls to make them seem part of an organized tour, here to learn English or ramble in the frosted countryside. Andrew and I wear orange hats. The girls’ knapsacks are a different shade of orange to our hats. Andrew was late, so we bought the knapsacks in a rush from a TK Maxx near the pick-up point.

The barrette girls do not speak on the Tube. There is no place for every one of them to sit and so they stand. Andrew shrugs and sits down. The girls, who do not sit, bump each other with their orange decoy knapsacks, unwitting. Some girls catch a bag in the face but do not react, as if a bag is just a buffet of underground air.

Lavie Tidhar is the author of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize-winning A Man Lies Dreaming, the World Fantasy Award-winning Osama, and of the critically-acclaimed The Violent Century. His other works include the Bookman Histories trilogy, several novellas, two collections, and a forthcoming comics mini-series, Adler. He currently lives in London.

Cristina Jurado is a bilingual author and editor who writes in Spanish and English. She studied Advertising at the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) and holds a Master’s degree in Rhetoric from Northwestern University (USA).