Found

This is another book I first read in middle school, and I had a heck of a time finding it again. I couldn't remember the title, so I had to make due with a Google search for "book character Ren"... While I enjoy the Fruits Basket series, this Ren is not malicious or twisted. In fact, she's a rather brave child.

In June Oldham's book, the time is sometime in the distant 21st century, the place doesn't really matter (but is probably England, given the landscape and because allusions are given to a certain "henge"). In this place, the people either live in living-working units with loads of computers, or out on the street. In this particular place, there is a tax on extra children (one allowed per unit), and if you can't pay, the child is placed in a Surplus Children Unit, and doomed to an unfavorable fate.

Our story takes place because Ren's mom is pregnant and cannot afford to pay the extra child tax. However, she does not want to abandon either of her children to the SCU, and so uses illegal connections to find passage for Ren out of the province to an area without restrictions on children. Ren is dropped off to wait at a cave in the countryside and meets Brockett, a boy who was brought up on the moor after being abandoned there as a baby. Later Ren meets Lil, a street person who is also trying to get out of the province and is being chased by patrolmen, who get their kicks in beating up street people and refusing to let them leave. Lil is hardened and competent and can take care of herself, but she's not much more than a child herself. When Brockett brings Ren a baby he found, the three end up caring for her and decide to take her out of the province as well. (Plus a chase by a scary person, a fight to the death, mortal illness, etc.)

There's more to the story to that, and it gets complicated. Oldham's work is a complication of the setting she places her story in, but other than incidental references, the time period and circumstances of society are very little described. Characters come and go and more often than not you are left to guess at how old they are or what they look like. Other than their decisions and actions, all that would normally go into a character's description isn't important in this story. Overall it's odd, but an intriguing race of a story. I'm glad I found it again, if only to lay to rest the ghosts of memory.

Blue