shevette's book!
#2 of three
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shevette's book!#2 of three
CHAPTER 2 |
I was eating supper with my parents and my sister. Everything was normal. I was hoping the folks would let me go downtown with my friends. There was this guy that I had seen and I wanted to meet him. I didn't want the folks to know. They thought I was too young to start getting interested in boys. I was thirteen for crying out loud! Half of my class at school had already lost--or at least claimed to have lost it's virginity.
I was in an accelerated class and I was doing well. At school work I was a whiz. Making friends was another matter. It was hard for me. I was hopelessly shy.
There was that and the fact that I didn't ever seem to know how to act. If someone fell down the steps I was as apt to laugh as to feel concern. I know that sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's serious. Sometimes you laugh when you see something like that and sometimes you don't. I had that part figured out. The part that was giving me trouble was knowing which thing was correct this time or the next time.
Most of the time I didn't have a problem. I'd cheat. I'd wait until I saw what the other people around me were doing and do that. It worked. Still, it worried me. I guessed I would figure it out in good time. I was bright.
The other girls were going boy-crazy so I figured I had better find me a boy. I was kind of curious--about boys. I knew the life cycle of a human; you are born, you develop in mind and body, as a teen certain organs develop and you become sexually active, you give birth to children several times, You keep getting revamped until menopause sets in, the body deteriorates and eventually dies, you meet your maker, if you've been good you are rewarded. No problem.
I was in the "as a teen certain organs develop and you become sexually active" part. So far not much had developed. I couldn't wait to get older and have all the parts that the older girls had. It would be great to get away from all the immature attitudes that I saw in people the same age as me. Especially boys. Sometimes they could be so cool but most of the time they were jerks.
We had finished eating and Shela and I were clearing away the dishes. I figured that would be a good time to ask mom if it would be alright if I went out with my friends.
"Mom? Some of the girls are going to take a walk downtown, can I go? Ok?"
"No. You have homework and your father and I want to talk to you."
"Oh mom! I've done my homework and we can talk later. We won't be gone long..." I whinned.
"You're in trouble young lady! Finish helping Shela clear the table and then come back in here and sit down."
I looked at dad hoping to get a clue about what kind of trouble I was in. He was stone-faced. No help there. Usually I didn't get into trouble but when I did it was a big deal. What had I done? I began listing possible shortcomings and good excuses for each of them in my mind. I couldn't recall anything too serious. Maybe it was just some misunderstanding. I finished helping Shela and took my seat at the dinning room table.
Shela came back in to see what I had gotten myself into. We had a good relationship but she still liked it when I got myself into hot water--and she didn't.
"Shela, go do your homework!" dad ordered.
I was happy in some ways that she had to leave. It would be less embarassing for me. She wouldn't be able to make things worse than they already were. I would get a chance to argue my side. On the other hand it meant that this something big. That usually meant a big punishment. I hadn't done anything. I was really worried.
"Tell her, Edward!" mom prompted my dad.
I was getting sweaty. Mom calling dad "Edward"? She almost always called him "Ed" or "Honey" or something like that. This had to be bad for her to be so formal. I had no idea what I had done.
"Sue, Mrs. Murphy called your mother today. She said you and some other girls were calling her daughter names at school. Is that right?"
I looked at him surprised. That's what this was all about? I was missing going downtown with my friends because of that clone baby Mary Murphy! She wasn't worth spit! All we had done was call her some names so that she wouldn't try to hang out with us. She was so out of it. She was retarded. I could almost feel sorry for her. I mean, I knew it wasn't her fault she wasn't real. She was an artificial life form. Clone babies were for people who couldn't have real babies.
They were useful. When they had grown they could do work and help the rest of us. I don't know why they were allowed to go to school with the real people. I knew they had feelings of a sort but they were a real pain to be arround. One had even touched me one time. Her hand had been cold. I remember I went and washed my hand as fast as I could. I found out later they didn't carry disease or anything and it was alright to touch one. I still thought it was yuky.
"Dad?!" I exclaimed, "She's not real! She's a clone baby! Don't you know that?" Was he so uninformed that he didn't know what Mary Murphy was?
He got a little red in the face. "What do you mean she's not real?" he asked pointedly.
"Y'know, dad. Mrs. Murphy had fake baby-making stuff put in her." I explained calmly.
"Oh, you know all that do you?" he said getting madder.
"Yeh, sure. Everyone at school knows." I was trying to be as patient as I could. Parents, they know so much yet they loose sight of the simplest things sometimes. "Mrs. Murphy had to get an operation to have a baby."
"...And you and your friends don't think that her daughter is as good as you, I supose..." mom asked me.
"Of course not, mom."
"Where do kids get this stuff?" she asked dad.
"I don't know, but our daughter needs to get her facts straight!"
"What do you mean, Ed? Don't get into that now."
"Huh? Oh! No, what I mean is letting her know that's there's nothing wrong with people like little Mary."
I could already hear what was coming. "Don't pick on people less fortunate than yourself--they have feelings just like you do!"
"Dad..." I begain hoping to stop him before he got on some long drawn out reason why I should be nice to everyone. "We were just trying to keep her from hanging arround us. We don't like her. If we let her go arround with our group then people will think we like her."
"What's wrong with that?"
"We don't want any fake people to hang out with us because people might think we were fake people too. You wouldn't want that would you dad?"
Dad started to say something but stopped himself. He took a minute to collect his thoughts. I just knew he was going to make me be friends with that thing, Mary Murphy. I wouldn't! Clone babys made me want to puke. They should have never made any of them to begin with. They had no souls!
"I don't know what your friends have told you but when a mother, like Mrs. Murphy, or a father has to be given cloned body parts in order to have children those children are just like you and me. There's nothing wrong with them. Do you understand that, Sue?"
"But they don't have souls, daddy. They're not real!"
"Who told you that?"
"I just knew. It makes sense. The clone parts are grown inside a machine. How can you have a soul if you came from a machine, daddy?"
"No! No, it's not like that, peaches. The reason it's called a clone is because it is grown from a sample of the person to recieve it. When Mrs. Murphy got ready to have her operation she went to the doctor who took a sample of her body--live cells. Cells hold our genetic makeup. They do something to the cells so they can make any part that's needed. Then after a few months the parts are grown and put into Mrs. Murphy. They were already her parts. They just had to grow them in a incubator device so they would live and grow. You do undrstand where babys come from, don't you. You had that in school last year."
"Yes, I know all about that daddy. It was three years ago and I got an 'A', remember? Bobby Michals told me that when they remove the cell sample there isn't any soul there so when the parts are made and put in the man or woman it's just a biological machine. Just like if you needed a clone arm or something. There's no soul there."
"Where is your soul, Sue?" mom asked.
"Y'know it's inside you."
"Where? Is it in your hands? your head? your heart?"
"I don't know..." I answered exasperated.
"No, tell me. I want to know." she continued. She knew I couldn't tell her.
"It's all of you. It's not physical. It's on a different level than that what we can see now. Something like that."
"So who's to say that when the clone is grown part of you is not in the clone part?"
"Yea, mom, but what happens if you don't use that part and they give it to someone else. They do that to cure birth defects. Does that mean the person who recieves the part is no longer alive? That the soul of the donner is now in that body too? What happened to the origional soul?" I had her on the run. My logic was undeniable.
"Don't be smart!" dad told me. "Your mother is trying to make you understand why it's important to not make fun of clone babys-" he stopped short and put his hands to his mouth and looked to mom. She rolled her eyes toward the cieling for a moment then looked back at dad. She extended her hand across the table and dad took it.
"What's wrong?" I asked them. Something wasn't right. What was the big deal over some dumb clone babys? What were they trying to prove? "Look, I know what you're saying..." I wanted to get this over with as quickly as I could. There might still be a chance that I could catch up with my friends and make it downtown after all. "It's wrong for me to pick on those who are less fortunate than myself. I know that. I promise not to do that anymore, ok? Can I go now?"
Mom and dad were looking deeply into each other's eyes comunicating with each other. I knew they had more to tell me. It was probily stuff I already knew. Why do parrents feel a need to run things into the ground. You tell someone something and that's the end of it. You told 'em. Where did it say you have to repeat and repeat and repeat?
"May I go?" I asked again.
"Yes, go ahead...but we'll talk more later." mom told me.
"And you treat people right!" daddy warned me.
"Ok, daddy."
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