The Power

by Naomi Alderman

A child in danger must learn to pay more attention to the adults than a child loved and cherished.

This is how it works. The younger women can wake it up in the older ones; but from now on all women will have it.

The official line for now from the Mayor’s office, handed out on photocopied sheets to schools across the major metropolitan area is: abstinence. Just don’t do it. It’ll pass. We keep the girls separate from the boys. There’ll be an injection within a year or two to stop this thing happening and then we’ll all go back to normal. It’s as upsetting for the girls to use it as it is for their victims. That’s the official line.

You can see it on the internet. Boys dressing as girls to seem more powerful. Girls dressing as boys to shake off the meaning of the power, or to leap on the unsuspecting, wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.