Eva by Peter Dickinson Page A

’em it just ain’t so?”
    Eva grunted, eased the keyboard from its loops, and held it so that a camera could watch while with one thin dark finger she pressed the individual keys.
    “You’ve got it wrong, you meanies.”
    She rewound the little tape and played the words several times, varying the tone of voice.
    “That’s amazing,” said Mr. Elian. Eva thought she could just hear a flicker of real surprise under the easy public accent. Perhaps he’d been wondering too—why not? Anyway, he was a meanie himself, in spite of the signals. Deliberately she gave him a genuine chimp snicker. His eyebrows went up.
    “But inside there you’re really a young woman?” he said.
    “I’m Eva, okay.”
    He didn’t seem to notice her answer wasn’t the same as Yes. He wouldn’t.
    “And how exactly does it feel?”
    Eva managed to suppress another snicker. This was one of Dad’s bugbears—“and how
exactly
does it feel, Mrs. Hrumph, to have your husband reveal he’s a practicing werewolf?"—but she’d promised herself she was going to be on her best behavior. The program was important for everyone, especially the Pool. The trouble was that Mr. Elian filled her with a spirit of mischief—and
that
wouldn’t have been there in the old days either.
    “It feels great,” she said. “I’m looking forward to things.”
    “No regrets?”
    “No regrets.”
    “I’ve seen pictures of you. You used to be a very pretty little miss. How about that?”
    Eva glanced at him. He was horrible. Didn’t he realize Mom would be watching? She wanted to bite his ear off. No. But she’d get him somehow.
    “I’m very pretty now,” she said.
    “Sure, but . . .”
    “Don’t you think so?”
    “Like I say . . .”
    Deliberately she reached out, gripped the immaculate collar and hauled him toward her. He yelled. She heard a shout of “Eva!” from Dad, but by then she was giving Mr. Elian a kiss, not a proper open-mouthed chimp kiss but using her big lips to produce a real smacker, maximum vacuum. He was still trying to push her clear when she let go. He backed off while she sat laughing in the nook of the frame. He managed a sort of laugh too, but she could see the fright and fury in his eyes, just as she could feel the various reactions from the dimness beyond the camera lights, pleasure and alarm and excitement all mixed together. The shaper people, they must know he was a meanie. By the sound of their laughter, they did.
    “Gee, you’re strong,” he said.
    “Chimps are.”
    “But you’re supposed to be a young woman.”
    “I’m a chimp too. And I like it.”
    “Sure, sure.”

PART TWO
    LIVING

MONTH FOUR,
DAY TWELVE

                                        
Living at home, at last . . .
                                        
But the ghost still there . . .
                                        
The ghost moving about these rooms . . .
                                        
Making herself snacks in this kitchen . . .
                                        
Gazing, now, out this window . . .

    There was a particular moment sometimes when the sun went down. It needed the right weather, a cloudless sky and a mild west wind to clear the brownish haze of the city. Then for a few moments, below the earliest stars and above the still-faint pattern of city lights, you might just catch a different kind of glimmer, a wavering thread, the twinkle of snow on mountain peaks, ninety kilometers off, catching the sun’s last rays.
    Eva watched for it, and yes, it was there, but the old prickle of pleasure didn’t come. Her happiest times used to be skiing. She would look forward for months to her next chance. But now it was only the ghost that yearned.
    The ghost had been particularly strong this morning, because of being home and waking in her own bed. Eva had