An Israeli anthropologist suggests that the development of this organ in humans is proof positive of the aquatic-ape hypothesis; that we are naked of hair because we came from the oceans, not the jungle, where once we terrified the deeps like the electric eel, the electric ray. Preachers and televangelists grab the news and squeeze it, finding in the sticky entrails the unmistakable signs of the impending end of days. A fist fight breaks out on a popular news discussion programme between a scientist who demands that the Electric Girls be investigated surgically and a man of God who believes they are a harbinger of the apocalypse and must not be touched by human hand. There is an argument already about whether this thing was always latent in the human genome and has been reawoken or whether it is a mutation, a terrible deformity.
Just before sleep, Margot thinks of winged ants and how there would be just one day every summer that the house at the lake would swarm with them, thickly upon the ground, clinging to the timber-clad frame, vibrating on the tree trunks, the air so full of ants you thought you might breathe them in. They live underground, those ants, all year long, entirely alone. They grow from their eggs, they eat what – dust and seeds or something – and they wait, and wait. And one day, when the temperature has been just right for the right number of days and when the moisture is just so … they all take to the air at once. To find each other. Margot couldn’t tell this kind of thought to anyone else. They’d think she’d gone crazy from the stress and, God knows, there are enough people looking to replace her anyway. Still, she lies in bed after a day of dealing with reports of burned kids and kids with seizures and girl gangs fighting and being taken into custody for their own protection and thinks: Why now? Why right now? And she comes up again and again with those ants, biding their time, waiting for the spring.
Three weeks in, she gets a call from Bobby to say that Jocelyn’s been caught fighting.
They’d separated the boys from the girls on the fifth day; it seemed obvious, when they worked out the girls were doing it. Already there are parents telling their boys not to go out alone, not to stray too far. ‘Once you’ve seen it happen,’ says a grey-faced woman on TV. ‘I saw a girl in the park doing that to a boy for no reason, he was bleeding from the eyes. The eyes. Once you’ve seen that happen, no mom would let her boys out of her sight.’
Things couldn’t stay closed forever; they reorganized. Boys-only buses took them safely to boys-only schools. They fell into it easily. You only had to see a few videos online for the fear to hit you in the throat.
But for the girls it has not been so simple. You cannot keep them from each other. Some of them are angry and some of them are mean, and now the thing is out in the open some are vying to prove their strength and skill. There have been injuries and accidents; one girl has been struck blind by another. The teachers are afraid. Television pundits are saying: ‘Lock them all up, maximum security.’ It is, as far as anyone can tell, all of the girls of about fifteen years old. As near to all as makes no difference. They can’t lock them all up, it makes no sense. Still, people are asking for it.
Now Jocelyn’s been caught fighting. The press have it before Margot can make her way home to see her daughter. News trucks are setting up on her front lawn when she arrives. Madam Mayor, would you care to comment on the rumours that your daughter has put a boy in the hospital?
No, she would not care to comment.
Bobby is in the living room with Maddy. She’s sitting on the couch between his legs, drinking her milk and watching Powerpuff Girls. She looks up as her mother comes in, but doesn’t move, flicks her eyes back to the TV set. Ten going on fifteen. OK. Margot kisses the top of Maddy’s head, even as Maddy tries to look around her, back to the screen. Bobby squeezes Margot’s hand.
‘Where’s Jos?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘And?’
‘She’s as scared as anyone.’
‘Yeah.’
Margot closes the door of the bedroom softly.
Jocelyn is on her bed, legs stretched out. She’s holding Mr Bear. She’s a child, just a child.
‘I should have called,’ says Margot, ‘as soon as it started. I’m sorry.’
Jocelyn’s near to tears. Margot sits on the bed gently, as if not to tip her full pail over. ‘Dad says you haven’t hurt anyone, not badly.’
There’s a pause, but Jos doesn’t say anything, so Margot just keeps talking. ‘There were … three other girls? I know they started it. That boy should never have been near you. They’ve been checked out at John Muir. You just gave the kid a scare.’
‘I know.’
All right. Verbal communication. A start.
‘Was that the … first time you’ve done it?’
Jocelyn rolls her eyes. She plucks at the comforter with one hand.
‘This is brand new to both of us, OK? How long have you been doing it?’
She mutters so low that Margot can barely hear, ‘Six months.’
‘Six months?’
Mistake. Never express incredulity, never alarm. Jocelyn draws her knees up.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Margot. ‘It’s just … it’s a surprise, that’s all.’
Jos frowns. ‘Plenty of girls started it before I did. It was … it was kinda funny … when it started, like static electricity.’
Static electricity. What was it, you combed your hair and stuck a balloon to it? An activity for bored six-year-olds at birthday parties.
‘It was this funny, crazy thing girls were doing. There were secret videos online. How to do tricks with it.’
It’s this exact moment, yes, when any secret you have from your parents becomes precious. Anything you know that they’ve never heard of.
‘How did you … how did you learn to do it?’
Jos says, ‘I don’t know. I just felt I could do it, OK. It’s like a sort of … twist.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?’
She looks through the window to the lawn. Beyond the high back fence, men and women with cameras are already gathering.
‘I don’t know.’
Margot remembers trying to talk to her own mother about boys or the stuff that happened at parties. About how far was too far, where a boy’s hand should stop. She remembers the absolute impossibility of those conversations.
‘Show me.’
Jos narrows her eyes. ‘I can’t … I’d hurt you.’
‘Have you been practising? Can you control it well enough so you know you wouldn’t kill me, or give me a fit?’
Jos takes a deep breath. Puffs her cheeks out. Lets the breath out slowly. ‘Yes.’
Her mother nods. This is the girl she knows: conscientious and serious. Still Jos. ‘Then show me.’
‘I can’t control it well enough for it not to hurt, OK?’
‘How much will it hurt?’
Jos splays her fingers wide, looks at her palms. ‘Mine comes and goes. Sometimes it’s strong, sometimes it’s nothing.’
Margot presses her lips together. ‘OK.’
Jos extends her hand, then pulls it back. ‘I don’t want to.’
There was a time when every crevice of this child’s body was Margot’s to clean and care for. It is not OK with her not to know her own child’s strength. ‘No more secrets. Show me.’
Jos is near to tears. She places her forefinger and her middle finger on her mother’s arm. Margot waits to see Jos do something; hold her breath, or wrinkle her brow, or show exertion in the muscles of her arm, but there’s nothing. Only the pain.