The Memory Keepers by Natasha Ngan Page B

she’d managed to fudge confidence and bluff well enough to convince the boy she might call for her father (if only he knew). It was all rather ridiculous, Alba thought. He was the one who’d broken into
her
house, but it was
her
that was in the real danger.
    Now she knew what the boy was here for, a strange sense of peace filled her. All he wanted was some stupid memory.
    Let him have it
, she thought. Anger flared in her chest.
Good riddance. I wish he could go into my mind and take away some of
my
memories, too.
    ‘Which one are you here to take?’ Alba asked, fiddling with the hem of her nightdress, trying – unsuccessfully – to tug it lower over her legs. She was really regretting her decision not to wear a dressing gown. The boy’s eyes kept drifting to where the dress skimmed the top of her thighs.
    ‘Like I said – one of your dad’s,’ said the boy.
    Alba was too busy studying him to take this in at first. His features had an exotic edge to them that she couldn’t place. Perhaps he was part Japanese? Dark, messy hair fell into slim grey eyes. His mouth was small, and he spoke with it twisted up at one side. He was certainly weird looking (he was so tall and lanky Alba felt like a hippopotamus just being in the same room as him) but there was something strangely attractive about him too. Perhaps it was his smooth, tanned skin, or how he smelled of mint and sweat and
boy
, an enticing, sweet mixture of scents she’d never come across before.
    Alba blinked, dragging her thoughts back to the moment. ‘What do you want with my father’s memories?’ she said warily.
    The boy shrugged. ‘Dunno. My crew leader wants it.’
    ‘Crew leader?’
    ‘All skid-thieves are part of a crew,’ he said with an impatient huff, as though she were an idiot for not knowing. ‘The leader’s the one that organises our jobs, what skids we’re gonna steal. That sorta thing.’
    Alba frowned. ‘You keep saying
skid
.’
    A lopsided grin flashed across the boy’s face. ‘You haven’t heard of memories being called skids before?’ Laughter teased his words. ‘It’s after skid-marks. You know, when you go to the loo and –’
    ‘Yes!’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’ve got it now, thank you very much.’
    Alba’s cheeks were hot. She couldn’t believe she was here, talking to a boy about
toilets
. It was strange enough to be talking to a boy in the first place; the Knightsbridge Academy only encouraged male and female students to mix at social events. It was unheard of to be talking to one in the middle of the night in her family’s secret memorium (
about toilets
).
    ‘So that’s your job?’ she asked. ‘Memory-thieving?’
    He smiled proudly. ‘Yep.’
    Alba didn’t know how to respond. The boy didn’t seem to care that his job was a crime punishable by death. Despite his casual attitude, she felt a shiver of unease. This boy was a criminal. The type of person her father sent to their death every day. Memory-thieving was the highest form of betrayal, her father had said at dinner. And here she was talking to a memory-thief as though they’d just bumped into each other in the street!
    The irony was that Alba was more afraid of her parents finding her here with this boy than she was of the boy himself. She couldn’t let them discover him. He’d be arrested in a heartbeat. She would send him to his death, and sentence herself to a life even more caged than it was now. If her parents knew a memory-thief had been in their house – had even come into contact with their own daughter – they’d never let her out of their sight again.
    None of it was fair, and thinking about her parents made Alba angry more than anything. This boy seemed so
free
. He came and went into people’s houses and lives and memories as he pleased. How wonderful it must feel to be able to slip away from your own life whenever you got sick of being you.
    Alba bit her lip. ‘What do you do with the memories you’ve stolen?’
    ‘Well,