‘So how was school? How were your lessons, son?’ Dad asked quietly.
The honest answer or the acceptable one?
‘I was OK, Dad,’ I fibbed. ‘Once we got into school it was all right.’
Except that the teachers had totally ignored us, and the Crosses had used any excuse to bump into us and knock our books on the floor, and even the noughts serving in the food hall had made sure they served everyone else in the queue before us. ‘It was fine.’
‘You’re in there now, Callum. Don’t let any dagger swine drive you out – you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘Excuse me.’ Mum rounded on Dad. ‘But when I say I don’t want swearing at the dinner table, that applies to everyone – including you.’
‘Sorry, love,’ Dad said ruefully, winking conspiratorially at us into the bargain.
‘You were on the telly,’ Jude told me. ‘So was your “friend”. The whole world heard what she said . . .’
‘She didn’t mean it like that.’ The words slipped out before I could stop them. Big mistake.
‘She didn’t mean it?’ Jude scoffed. ‘Have you lost your mind? How can you not mean to say something like that? She meant it all right.’
‘That family are all the same.’ Mum sniffed. ‘I see Miss Sephy is growing up to be just like her mother.’
I had to bite my lip at that. I knew better than to argue.
‘You’re better off out of that house,’ Dad told Mum vehemently.
‘You don’t have to tell me twice,’ Mum agreed at once. ‘I miss the money but I wouldn’t go back for all the stars in space. Anyone who can put up with that stuck-up cow Mrs Hadley is a better person than me.’
‘You were friends once . . .’ I reminded her, spooning some totally dried out mashed potato into my mouth.
‘Friends? We were never friends,’ Mum snorted. ‘She patronised me and I put up with it ’cause I needed a job – that’s all.’
That wasn’t how I remembered it. A few years ago and a lifetime away, Mum and Mrs Hadley had been really close. Mum was Minerva’s, then Sephy’s, nanny and a general mother’s helper from the time Minerva was born. In fact, I was closer to Sephy than I’d ever been to anyone, even my own sister Lynette who was my best friend in this house. I remembered when I was a toddler and Sephy was just a baby – I’d helped to bathe her and change her nappy. And when she got older, we played hide-and-seek and catch and tag in the Hadley grounds, whilst Mum and sometimes Mrs Hadley watched us and chatted and laughed. I still don’t know what happened to change all that. One week Mrs Hadley and Mum were like best friends and the next week, Mum and I were no longer welcome anywhere near the Hadley house. That was over three years ago now.
I still sometimes wondered how Mrs Hadley expected Sephy and I to go from being so close to not seeing each other at all? Sephy told her it was impossible. I told my mum the same thing. Neither of them listened. But it didn’t matter. Sephy and I still saw each other at least every other day and we’d never stop. We’d promised each other. The most sacred of promises – an oath sealed with our blood. We just couldn’t tell anyone about it, that’s all. We had our own world, our own secret place on the beach where no-one went and where no-one would ever find us – not if they didn’t know where to look. It was a small space, tiny really, but it was ours.
‘Shush, everyone. The news is on,’ Dad admonished.
I held my breath.
What happened at Heathcroft wasn’t the first item of news at least. The first item was about the Liberation Militia.
‘Today Kamal Hadley, Home Office Minister, declared that there would be no hiding place, no safe haven for those noughts misguided enough to join the Liberation Militia.’ The newscaster’s face disappeared to be replaced by that of Sephy’s dad outside the Houses of Parliament. His face seemed to fill the whole screen.
‘Isn’t it true, Mr Hadley, that your government’s decision to allow selected noughts in our schools was as a direct result of pressure from the Liberation Militia?’
‘Not at all,’ Sephy’s dad immediately denied. ‘This government does not allow itself to be blackmailed by an illegal terrorist group. We acted on a P.E.C. directive that this government had been on the verge of implementing anyway.’
My dad snorted at that.
‘Our decision to allow the crème-de-la-crème of nought youth to join our educational institutions makes sound social and economic sense. In a civilized society, equality of education for those noughts with sufficient aptitude . . .’
I tuned out at that. Sephy’s dad hadn’t changed since the last time I’d spoken to him which was yonks ago now. He never used one word where twenty patronizing ones would do. I didn’t like him much. Correction! Pompous twit! I didn’t like him at all. I didn’t like any of Sephy’s family. They were all the same. Minerva was a snob. Her mum was a bitch and her dad was a git. They all looked at us noughts through their nostrils.
‘The Liberation Militia are misguided terrorists and we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to bring them to justice . . .’ Sephy’s dad was still at it. I was about to mentally switch off again, but then Jude did something that brought me out of my daydream.
‘Long live the Liberation Militia!’ My brother punched the air, his fingers locked in a fist so tight that I reckoned it would surely hurt to straighten them again.
‘Too right, son.’ Dad and Jude exchanged a knowing look, before they both turned back to the telly. I frowned at them, then turned to look at Mum. She
