Gretta’s late grandmother always said that eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves. Gretta was prepared to take that risk. Standing on a chair in the room her father liked to call the library, she pressed one ear against the heating vent.
She could hear the step-beast pacing around the living room next door, heels clicking loudly on the parquet flooring, then silence as she hit the thick pile of the Turkish carpet.
“We have to find a way to cut back on our spending,” her father was saying. He sounded worried, which was unusual for him. “Perhaps we could stay home this summer instead of going to the Riviera?”
The clicking of heels stopped abruptly. “And have everyone whispering behind our backs that we can’t afford to travel? Absolutely not! How are we going to make Connections if we’re not around the people who matter?” Her stepmother sounded on the verge of an explosion, but that was not unusual for the lovely Stefania, fifteen years younger than her husband. Every event was treated as if it were an emergency, whether it was a chipped finger nail, or her favorite spa closing for a national holiday.
The clicking of heels started up again. Papers rustled.
“All our club memberships are due in the next six months, and so is the lease on the Stuttgart townhouse. We’ve still got the redecorating bill for the villa in Monaco, we need to put a deposit on the yacht rental for this summer if we don’t want to miss out, your tennis coach is complaining he hasn’t been paid, and the children’s school fees for next term are due now. And the orthodontist wants to get started on straightening Hans’ teeth,” her father said.
The clicking of heels stopped. “The children,” Stefania said thoughtfully. “We could definitely cut back on our spending there. It’s not as if we get any return on our money with them, unless you consider ingratitude and constant sulking to be a reward.”
“We could transfer them to the local high school,” her father offered, tentatively.
“Have them go to the same school as the children of housekeepers and farmers? Certainly not! We’d be the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Besides, then they’ll be underfoot all the time, rather than just when school’s out. These are hard times, Jakob. Who can afford children nowadays? We all need to make sacrifices.”
“I hardly think—” Jakob tried to break in, but Stefania kept talking.
“It’s not just next term’s school fees that we’ll need to find the money for, you know. There will be six more years of boarding school fees, plus private tutors and sports coaches, and then university. And after two years of boarding school, they haven’t once managed to get themselves invited to spend the holidays with a family who might be of use to us!”
Gretta pulled away from the vent to make a rude gesture at it. Both the twins had been invited to visit acquaintances from school more than once, but they’d always given the excuse that their family wanted to spend time with them, and never mentioned the invitations to Stefania. She’d heard too many reports from her fellow students of what those breaks were like, with children competing for status and position in imitation of their upper-class parents’ constant machinations. She put her ear back to the vent. The step-beast was still at it.
“The other day, I heard that Heidi Fischer’s daughters already have full neural implants and they’re not even thirteen! Heidi said they cost 30,000 marks apiece! And the Muellers have hired a former Olympic gymnast to coach their little girl. No-one is going to want to make a Connection with us if we can’t even keep up with nouveau riche idiots like the Fischers. We’ll be barred from all the best investment schemes. We might even have to get…jobs.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
There was a stunned silence, broken only by tapping noises.
“Here, this is what the accounting software estimates the children will cost us over the next ten years,” she said.
Gretta heard her father swear quietly.
“I’m afraid there’s not going to be any money left for any of your little—diversions, Jakob. Unless—”
There was another silence. Gretta wished she could see through the vent.
“I…don’t see how this would work,” her father said.
“I think we could pull it off. There will be some initial expenses up front, but in the long term we’ll be saving hundreds of thousands. You just have a think about it, liebchen. But don’t take too long. They’ll be returning to school in two weeks and the fees for next term are due by the end of the month.”
The sound of heels receded. Gretta hastily jumped off the chair and put it back under the desk. She flopped down on her front on an antique fainting lounge upholstered in pale pink and shoved her earbuds in. Opening her book at a random page, she pretended to be engrossed in it. Behind her, the door opened quietly. Gretta waited a long moment before looking around with an expression of polite enquiry. Her stepmother looked around the library without comment and then went on down the corridor.
Gretta waited half an hour before going upstairs to talk to her twin brother Hans. He’d announced he intended to spend his spring break reenacting every major battle of the Fourth Pan-European War, and was not to be disturbed unless the house was on fire. She rapped twice on his VR headset. Hans ignored her, swiping rapidly at the air in front of him. Gretta sighed. She picked up the second headset that was sitting on her brother’s desk, and opened a message channel.
“We need to talk,” she sent.
“Can’t it wait? My battalion is under attack,” Hans sent back.
“We’ve got a potential level three situation on our hands,” Gretta sent. Their private code for emergencies only went up to four. Level one was minor inconveniences like missing your train, while level four was only invoked in the case of potential death or dismemberment.
She heard her brother’s voice, muffled by the headset. “Ja, ja, just let me get to a safe place so I can pause it.”
Gretta took off the headset and sat down the bed. She waited with rising impatience, until he took off his headset and swiveled his chair to face her.
“This had better be good.”
She selected a playlist on his desktop screen and turned the volume up. He raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
“They’re up to something.”
He shrugged. “When aren’t they?”
“This time, it’s serious. Worse than when they sent us away to boarding school. Worse than when they sold the horses because—” she made air quotes with her fingers ‘we weren’t there to ride them.’”
Hans waggled his chair back and forth.
“What exactly is going on?”
“I heard the step-beast trying to convince Papa that we’re going to cost too much money to raise, and she wants him to do something about it. Then she showed him a screen, and he sounded—” She stopped, not sure how to phrase it. “Like he was thinking about doing something bad.”
Hans rolled his eyes. “Like what? Sell us for medical experiments? Or to the white slave trade?”
He poked her with his foot. “Not that they’d get much money for a scrawny piece like you.”
She scowled at him. “You didn’t hear her. She sounded deadly serious.”
“You know Stefania. She’s only happy when she’s got something to shriek about.”
Gretta sighed. “We should just be on our guard, okay? She doesn’t want us to go back to Geneva next term.”
“I never wanted to go to that stupid school anyway. We’re only there to make Connections with rich kids and arrange introductions to their parents for her.”
“She doesn’t want us to go to the local school, either, and she complained about us being underfoot so online school isn’t an option.”
Hans didn’t look convinced. Gretta scowled. “You didn’t hear them.”
He sighed. “You worry too much. Now, is that all? France isn’t going to invade itself, you know.”
Gretta gave up. “Just keep your eyes open, okay?”
He gave her a snappy salute, and put his headset back on.