Cardboard Boy

By Michèle Laframboise

A humanitarian worker's certitudes are challenged after meeting a savvy child worker.

Theo, a dispirited workplace humanitarian, audits a child laborer at a cardboard plant in a port city. Young Malak's grit and low-key fortitude, displaying a maturity beyond his years, impress the man.

When that boy, the same age as his own son, disappears, Theo cannot let it rest.

His quest for answers only raises more questions about the traps of structured help and acquired privilege.      

An unsettling 11 000-word psychological drama quietly told by multiple awards-winning Canadian author Michèle Laframboise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Echofictions
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781988339191

Michèle Laframboise

A science-fiction lover since childhood, Michèle Laframboise has written 17 novels and more than 30 short-stories, in French and English. Her short-stories have been published in Solaris, Galaxies, Géante Route, Brins d’Éternité, Tesseracts and a few other anthologies.  Some of her works were translated in Italian, German and Russian. Michèle is also a comic enthusiast who drew a dozen of graphic novels. As a science-fiction writer, she endeavors to find creative solutions to the many challenges that lay before us. / Michèle Laframboise est une ex-scientifique devenue auteure de science-fiction. Elle a publié 17 romans et une trentaine de nouvelles, récoltant plusieurs distinctions et prix littéraires. Ses nouvelles ont été publiées dans les revues Solaris, Galaxies, Géante Route, Brins d’Éternité, Tesseracts et d’autres anthologies. Elle a été traduite en italien, en allemand et en russe. Dessinatrice enthousiaste, elle a aussi publié une douzaine de BD. Sa science fiction cherche toujours des solutions créatives aux défis qui nous attendent

Book preview

Michèle Laframboise

Echovisions Collection

Cardboard Boy ©Copyright 2017 Michèle Laframboise

All rights reserved.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This book or part of it cannot be reproduced in any form without the authers’ written permission. However, short extracts can be used for features, articles, reviews or school documents.

Cover Design: Echofictions

Original Picture : Africa Studio/Shutterstock

This book published by : Echofictions

Mississauga, Ontario

Echofictions.com

ISBN

978-1-988339-19-1 (epub)

978-1-988339-22-1 (print)

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with an existing person, a real place, company name or event is pure coincidence.

For the working children

anywhere in the world

1

THEO’S RIGHT FOOT went through the floor.

A combination of heavy equipment, tropical weather and poor building regulations had worn the wood to a cardboard quality. The ball of his foot struck a supporting beam running under the floor, sending a sharp tingle reverberating all the way to his head.

Theo swore under his breath. At least he didn’t dive through the floor like in the animated cartoons that had filled so many of his Saturday mornings.

A urine and sweat stench permeated the whole building. Despite the heat, there wasn’t a single window open in the plant. His soaked shirt clung to his armpits.

Theo retrieved his sandaled foot, noting the new scratch on his skin. He should have put on his good shoes. He wondered briefly which one of the zillion germs crawling over the place had entered his bloodstream.

A high-pitched yap, a laugh, briefly eclipsed the ambient rumble.

Theo turned to look at the line of boys attending noisy machines. He couldn’t guess which one had laughed. The boys, all aged from under ten to almost eighteen, looked away from him. Not one of them would make a poster child for Third-World achievement.

Skinny, certainly hungry, they would be barely able to move at the end of their ten-hour shift. This was why Theo had come in the morning, as his own supervisor had suggested.

Theo looked around for the overseer. All those clicks, whirring and screeching bells would drive any sane person to madness.

A paunchy man in stained overalls sat at a metal desk set at the far wall of the place. Theo signaled with his free hand, since his voice wouldn’t carry over the racket.

The man’s eyes roamed along the line of machines before settling on the well-dressed visitor. He pulled his mass up from the desk.

As Theo covered the distance (measuring his steps and checking the boards, this time), he noticed that the metal desk was riveted to a wooden platform, like a teacher’s, high enough to dominate the floor and its busy machinery. The fat overseer half-turned and pulled a lever.

A siren screamed.

The engine racket slowed down, like a huge beast exhaling a raspy breath. As the noise abated, Theo could hear fast whispers among the boys manning the machines.

The supervisor scratched a spot under his arm.

Well? I don’t have all day!

Theo passed a hand over his thinning hair, avoiding the red sun burn he had earned the day before. He should buy a cap.

"I’m with Human Quality inc.," he said.

Silence.

For the survey, he added.

The overseer winced.

The survey? Dinna know there was one today.

Theo had assumed his auditing firm would have called in advance to prepare each visit,