Bloom Quota

About this book

In 2061 the bees are gone, and teenagers do their work. Conscripted into the Pollen Service, they climb ladders in the Teme Valley Fruit Reserve with feather brushes and rationed tins of pollen, dabbing every apple blossom by hand. This year the reserve has grown forty-one per cent more fruit than the Agricultural Continuity Board said was possible. Under the Board, a surplus is not good news. It is evidence that something unlicensed has been flying. Ivo Brennan is seventeen, quick-mouthed and small-handed, evacuated from flooded Wisbech, and he has been called into the settlement office to give his statement to the Board's yield auditor. His crew leader has already been driven away to the sea-wall camps. Ivo says he barely noticed a thing. Ivo says a lot of things. What will he finally write down and sign?