# Flawed

Cecelia Ahern

The stunning YA debut from internationally bestselling author Cecelia Ahern.

Celestine North lives a perfect life. She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.

But then Celestine encounters a situation in which she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule and now faces life-changing repercussions. She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found FLAWED.

In this stunning novel, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society in which perfection is paramount and mistakes are punished. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

## Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Cecelia Ahern 2016

Cover photograph; girl © Trevillion Images

Cover photograph; road ©; Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cecelia Ahern asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780008125103

Source ISBN 9780008125097

Version 2017-05-16

## Dedication

For you, Dad

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

FLAWED; faulty, defective, imperfect, blemished, damaged, distorted, unsound, weak, deficient, incomplete, invalid.

(Of a person) having a weakness in character.

I am a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white.

Remember this.

Never trust a man who sits, uninvited, at the head of the table in another man’s home.

Not my words. The words of my granddad, Cornelius, who, as a result of saying them, landed himself the farthest away from this table, and won’t be welcome back anytime soon. It’s not necessarily what he said that was the problem; it was the person he said it about: Judge Crevan, one of the most powerful men in the country, who is once again, despite my granddad’s comment last year, sitting at the head of our dining table for our annual Earth Day gathering.

Dad returns from the kitchen with a fresh bottle of red wine to find his usual place taken. I can see he is put out by it, but as it’s Judge Crevan, Dad merely stalls in his tracks, jiggles the wine opener in his hand a bit while thinking about what to do, then works his way around the table to sit beside Mum at the other end, where Judge Crevan should have sat. I can tell Mum is nervous. I can tell this because she is more perfect than ever. She doesn’t have a hair out of place on her perfectly groomed head, her blonde locks twisted elaborately into a chignon that only she could do herself, having had to dislocate both shoulders to reach round to the back of her head. Her skin is porcelain, as though she glows, as though she is the purest form of anything. Her make-up is immaculate, her cornflower-blue lace dress a perfect match for her blue eyes, her arms perfectly toned.

In truth, my mum looks this beautiful to most people every day as a model in high demand. Despite having the three of us, her body is as perfect as it always was, though I suspect – I know – that like most people she has had help. The only way you can know that Mum is having a bad day or week is when she arrives home with plumper cheeks, fuller lips, a smoother forehead, or less tired-looking eyes. Altering her appearance is her pick-me-up. She’s pernickety about looks. She judges people by them, sums them up in a sweeping once-over. She is uncomfortable when anything is less than perfect; a crooked tooth, a double chin, an oversized nose – it all makes her question people, distrust them. She’s not alone. Most people feel exactly as she does. She likens it to trying to sell a car without washing it first; it should be gleaming. The same goes for people. Laziness in maintaining their outside represents who they are on the inside. I’m a perfectionist, too, but it doesn’t stretch to physical appearances, merely to language and behaviour, which bugs the hell out of my sister, Juniper, who is the most unspecific person I know. Though she is specifically unspecific – I’ll give her that.

I watch my nervous family’s behaviour with a sense of smugness because I don’t feel an ounce of their tension right now. I’m actually amused. I know Judge Crevan as Bosco, dad to my boyfriend, Art. I’m in his house every day, have been on holidays with him, have been at private family functions, and know him better than my parents do, and most others at that. I’ve seen Bosco first thing in the morning, with his hair tousled and toothpaste stuck to his lip. I’ve seen him in the middle of the night, wandering sleepily in his boxers and socks – he always wears socks in bed – to the bathroom or to the kitchen for a glass of water. I’ve seen him drunk and passed out on the couch, mouth open, hand down the front of his trousers. I have poured popcorn down his shirt and dipped his fingers in warm water while he slept to make him pee. I’ve seen him drunk-dance on the dance floor and sing badly at karaoke. I’ve heard him vomit after a late night. I’ve heard him snore. I’ve smelled his farts and heard him cry. I can’t be afraid of someone whose human side I see and know.

However, my family and the rest of the country see him as a terrifying character to fear and revere. I liken him to one of those talent show judges on TV, an over-exaggerated cartoon character who gets a kick out of being booed. I enjoy mimicking him, much to Art’s delight. He rolls around laughing while I march up and down being Bosco in judge mode; whooshing my homemade cape around my neck, making scrunched-up, scowling faces and finger-pointing. Bosco loves a good finger-point whenever the camera is on. I’m convinced the scary-judge persona, while important for his job, is all an act; it’s not his natural state of being. He also does a mean cannonball into the pool.

Bosco, known to everyone else but me and Art as Judge Crevan, is the head judge of a committee named the Guild. The Guild, originally set up as a temporary public inquiry into wrong-doing, is now a permanent fixture that oversees the inquisition of individuals accused of being Flawed. The Flawed are regular citizens who have made moral or ethical mistakes.

I’ve never been to the court, but it is open to the public and available to watch on TV. It’s a fair process because in addition to witnesses of the event in question, friends and family are called to testify on the accused’s character. On Naming Day, the judges decide whether the accused is Flawed. If so, their flaws are publicly named and their skin is seared with the F brand in one of five places. The branding location depends on their error of judgement.

For bad decisions, it’s their temple.

For lying, it’s their tongue.

For stealing from society, it’s their right palm.

For disloyalty to the Guild, it’s their chest, over their heart.

For stepping out of line with society, it’s the sole of their right foot.

They also have to wear an armband on their sleeve with the red letter F at all times so they can be identified by the public and set an example. They are not imprisoned; they haven’t done anything illegal, but they have carried out acts that are seen as damaging to society. They still live among us, only ostracised, and under separate rules.

After our country slid into great economic turmoil because of what was believed to be the bad decisions of our leaders, the Guild’s main aim at its origin was to remove Flawed people from leadership roles. It now manages to oust people before they even get into those roles so damage can’t be done. In the near future, the Guild boasts, we will have a morally, ethically flawless society. Judge Bosco Crevan is seen as a hero to many.

Art gets his good looks from his dad – blonde hair, blue eyes – and with his messy blonde curls that can’t be controlled and big blue eyes that twinkle like a naughty imp’s, he always looks like he’s up to mischief, because he usually is. He sits directly opposite me at the dining table, and I have to stop myself from watching him all the time, while inside I’m jumping up and down that he’s mine. Thankfully, he doesn’t share his dad’s intensity. He knows how to have fun and let loose, always throwing in a funny comment when the conversation gets too serious. He has good timing. Even Bosco laughs. Art is like a light to me, illuminating the darkest corners of everything.

On this April day every year, we celebrate Earth Day with our neighbours the Crevans and the Tinders. Earth Day celebrations are something Juniper and I have always loved since we were kids, counting down the days on our calendar, planning what we’re going to wear, decorating the house and setting the table. This year I am more excited than ever because it’s the first year Art and I are officially together. Not that I plan on groping him under the table or anything, but having my boyfriend here makes it more exciting.

Dad is the head of a twenty-four-hour TV station, News 24, and our neighbour and other dinner guest Bob Tinder is the editor of The Daily News newspaper, both of which are owned by Crevan Media, so the three of them mix business with pleasure. The Tinders are always late. I don’t know how Bob manages to stick to publication deadlines when he can never make it to dinner on time. It’s the same every year. We’ve had an hour of drinks already in the parlour and hope that moving to the dining room will somehow magically hurry them up. We’re now sitting here with three empty chairs, their daughter, Colleen, who’s in my class, being the third guest.

“We should start,” Bosco says suddenly, looking up from his phone, ending the casual chat and sitting up more formally.

“The dinner is okay,” Mum says, taking her newly filled glass of wine from Dad. “I allowed for a little delay.” She smiles.

“We should start,” Bosco says again.

“Are you in a rush?” Art asks, looking quizzically at Bosco, who suddenly seems fidgety. “The trouble with being punctual is that there’s nobody there to see it,” Art says, and everyone laughs. “As I should know, waiting for this girl all the time.” He gives my foot a light tap under the table.

“No,” I disagree. “Punctual is acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed. You’re not punctual; you’re always ridiculously early.”

“The early bird catches the worm,” Art defends himself.

“But the second mouse gets the cheese,” I reply, and Art sticks his tongue out at me.

My little brother, Ewan, giggles. Juniper rolls her eyes.

Bosco, seemingly frustrated by our conversation, interrupts and repeats, “Summer, Cutter, we should start the meal now.”

The way he says it makes us all stop laughing immediately and turn to look at him. It was an order.

“Dad,” Art says in surprise, with an awkward half laugh. “What are you, the food police?”

Bosco doesn’t break his stare with Mum. This has an odd effect on everybody at the table, creates a tense atmosphere, the kind you sense in the air just before the thunder rolls. Heavy, humid, headache-inducing.

“You don’t think we should wait for Bob and Angelina?” Dad asks.

“And Colleen,” I add, and Juniper rolls her eyes again. She hates that I pick on every little detail, but I can’t help it.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says simply, firmly, not adding any more.

“Okay,” Mum says, standing and making her way to the kitchen, all calm and placid as if nothing has happened at all, which tells me that, underneath, her legs are paddling wildly.

I look at Art in confusion and know that he feels the tension, too, because I can sense a new joke forming in his mouth, the thing he does when he feels awkward or scared or uncomfortable. I see how his lip has started to curl at the thought of his punch line, but I never get to hear what he has to say because then we hear the siren.

The siren rings out, long, low, warning. It makes me jump in my seat, startled, and it sends my heart beating wildly, every inch of me sensing danger. It is a sound I have known my entire life, a sound you never want directed at you. The Guild calls it the alert signal, a three- to five-minute continuous siren, which rings out from the Guild vans, and though I’ve never lived through any war, it gives me a sense of how people must have felt then before being attacked. In the middle of any normal moment, it can invade your happy thoughts.

The siren sounds close to home and it feels sinister. We all momentarily freeze at the table, then Juniper, being Juniper, who speaks before thinking and is clumsy in her actions, jumps up first, bumps the table, and sends the glasses wobbling. Red wine sploshes on to the white linen like blobs of blood. She doesn’t bother to apologise or clean it, she just runs straight out of the room. Dad is close behind her.

Mum looks completely startled, frozen in time. Drained of all colour, she looks at Bosco, and I think she’s going to faint. She doesn’t even try to stop Ewan from running out the door.

The siren gets louder; it’s coming closer. Art jumps up, then so do I, and I follow him down the hall and outside to where they’ve all gathered in a tight huddle in the front yard. The same is happening in each yard around us, old Mr and Mrs Miller in the yard to the right of us hold each other tightly, looking terrified, waiting to see whose house the siren will stop at. Directly across the road, Bob Tinder opens his door and steps outside. He sees Dad, and they look at each other. There’s something there, but I don’t quite understand it. At first, I think Dad is angry with Bob, but then Bob’s face holds the same stare. I can’t read them. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s a waiting game. Who will it be?

Art grips my hand tightly, squeezes it for reassurance and tries to give me one of his winning smiles, but it’s wobbly, and too quick, and only carries the opposite effect. The sirens are almost on top of us now, the sounds in our ears, in our heads. The vans turn on to our road. Two black vehicles with bright red F symbols branding their sides, letting everybody know who they are. The Whistleblowers are the army of the Guild, sent out to protect society from the Flawed. They are not our official police; they are responsible for taking into custody those who are morally and ethically Flawed. Criminals go to prison; they have nothing to do with the Flawed court system.

The emergency lights on the van roofs spin around, rotating their red lights, so bright they almost light up the dusk sky, sending out a warning beacon to all. Clusters of families celebrating Earth Day cling to one another, hoping it’s not them, hoping one of theirs won’t be plucked from them. Not their family, not their home, not tonight. The two vans stop in the middle of the road, directly outside our house, and I feel my body start to shake. The sirens stop.

“No,” I whisper.

“They can’t take us,” Art whispers to me, and his face is so sure, so certain, that I believe him. Of course they can’t take us, we have Judge Crevan sitting in our home for dinner. We are practically untouchable. This helps my fear somewhat, but then anxiety turns to the poor, unfortunate person they are targeting. This surprises me, because I’ve always believed that the Flawed are wrong, that the Whistleblowers are on my side, protecting me. But because it is happening on my street, at my front door, that changes. It makes me feel it’s us against them. This illogical, dangerous thinking makes me shudder.

The van doors slide open, and the whistles sound as four uniformed Whistleblowers leap out, wearing their signature red vests over black combat boots and shirts. They keep blowing their whistles as they move, which has the effect of numbing my mind and stopping me from being able to form a single thought. In my head is just panic. Perhaps that’s the intention. The Whistleblowers run, and I stand frozen.

But they don’t run to us; they go in the opposite direction, to the Tinders’ house.

“No, no, no,” Dad says, and I can hear the surge of anger in his voice.

“Oh my God,” Juniper whispers.

I look at Art in shock, waiting for his reaction, but he stares ahead intently, his jaw working overtime. And then I notice Mum and Bosco still haven’t joined us outside.

I let go of Art’s hand and rush back to the door. “Mum, Bosco, quick! It’s the Tinders!”

As Mum races down the corridor, hair from her chignon comes loose and falls across her face. Dad acknowledges her and shares a look that means something only to the two of them, his fists opening and closing by his side. There is no sign of Bosco joining us.

“I don’t understand,” I say, watching as they approach Bob Tinder. “What’s going on?”

“Shh and watch,” Juniper silences me.

Colleen Tinder is now in the front yard with her dad, Bob, and her two little brothers, Timothy and Jacob. Bob stands in front of his children, blocking them, protecting them, puffing his chest up and out against the Whistleblowers. Not his family, not his home, not tonight.

“They can’t take the babies,” Mum says, her voice sounding slow and far away, so that I know she is right here and panicking.

“They won’t,” Dad says. “It’s him. It must be him.”

But the officers walk straight by Bob, ignoring him, ignoring the terrified children, who have started to cry, and waving a sheet of paper in his face, which he stalls to read. They enter the house. Suddenly realising what is happening, he tosses the piece of paper in the air and chases after them. He shouts at Colleen to look after the boys, which is a hard task because they’re starting to panic now, too.

“I’ll help her,” Juniper says, making a move, but Dad grips her arm tight. “Ow!” she yelps.

“Stay here,” Dad says in a voice I’ve never heard him use before.

Suddenly there’s screaming from inside the house. It’s Angelina Tinder. Mum’s hands fly to her face. A slip in her mask.

“No! No!” Angelina wails over and over again until, finally, we see her at the door, held at both sides by a Whistleblower. She is almost ready for our dinner, wearing a black satin dress, pearls around her neck. Her hair is in curlers. She is wearing jewelled sandals. She is dragged from her home. The boys start to scream as they watch their mother being taken away. They run to her and try to reach her, but the Whistleblowers hold them back.

“Get your hands off my sons!” Bob yells, attacking them, but he’s pushed to the ground, pinned down by two large Whistleblowers as Angelina screams wildly with desperation not to be taken away from her babies. I have never heard a human cry out like that before, have never heard a sound like it before. She stumbles and the Whistleblowers catch her and she limps along, the heel of her shoe broken.

Bob shouts at them from the ground. “Let her have some dignity, goddammit.”

She’s taken inside the van. The door slides shut. The sound of the whistles stops.

I’ve never heard a man cry like Bob. The Whistleblowers holding him down speak to him in low, calm voices. He stops yelling, but his crying continues. They finally let him go and disappear into the second van. They drive away.

My heart is pounding, and I can barely breathe. I cannot believe what I’m seeing.

I wait for the outpouring of love from my neighbours. We are a tight, close-knit community; we support one another. I look around and wait. People watch Bob sit up in the grass, pulling his children close and crying. Nobody moves. I want to ask why no one is doing anything, but it seems stupid, because I’m not, either. I can’t bring myself to. Though being Flawed isn’t a crime, aiding or assisting a Flawed carries the risk of imprisonment. Bob isn’t Flawed, his wife is accused, but still, everyone is afraid to get involved. Our neighbours Mr and Mrs Miller turn around and head back into their house, and most of the others follow suit. My mouth falls open, shocked.

“Damn you!” Bob shouts across the road. It is quiet at first, and I think he’s saying it to himself, and then I figure as he says it louder he’s saying it to the vans that have disappeared, but as he gets even louder and the anger increases, I see he’s directing it at us. What did we do?

“Stay here,” Dad says to us, then he gives Mum a long look. “Everybody, back inside. Keep it calm, yes?”

Mum nods, and her face is serene as if nothing has happened; the mask is back on, the loose strands of hair already back in place, though I don’t recall her fixing it.

As I turn around to look back into my house, I see Bosco standing inside at the window, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold. And I realise it’s him that Bob is shouting at. Bosco, the head of the Guild, is the head of the organisation that took Angelina away.

He can help; I know it. He’s the head of the Flawed court. He will be able to help. It will all be okay. Normality can resume. The world will be turned the right way round again. Things will make sense. Knowing this, my breathing starts to return to normal again.

As Dad nears Bob, the shouting dies down, but the crying continues, a heartbreaking sound.

When you see something, it can’t be unseen. When you hear a sound, it can never be unheard. I know, deep down, that this evening I have learned something that can never be unlearned. And the part of my world that is altered will never be the same.

“Let’s address the elephant in the room,” Bosco says suddenly, reaching for the red wine and filling his glass generously. He insisted we all sit back down at the table, though there isn’t anyone who feels hungry after what we’ve just witnessed. Dad is still with Bob. Mum is in the kitchen preparing the main course.

“I don’t understand,” I say to Bosco. “Angelina Tinder is accused of being Flawed?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he says good-naturedly, his blue eyes dancing as he looks at me. It’s almost as if he is enjoying my reaction.

“But, Angelina is—”

Mum drops a plate in the kitchen, and it smashes and it stops me in my tracks. Was that a warning from her? To tell me to stop talking?

“I’m okay!” she calls, too chirpily.

“What were you going to say about Angelina, Celestine?” Bosco eyes me carefully.

I swallow. I was going to say that she is nice, that she is kind, that she has young children and she’s a great mum and that they need her, that she has never said or done anything wrong in all of the time I’ve spent with her. That she’s the most talented piano player I’ve ever heard, that I hoped I could play just like her when I’m older. But I don’t because of the way Bosco is looking at me and because Mum never usually breaks anything. Instead I say, “But she teaches me piano.”

Juniper tuts beside me in disgust. I can’t even look at Art I’m so disappointed in myself.

Bosco laughs. “We can find you a new teacher, dear Celestine. Though you raise a good point. Perhaps we should think about stopping Angelina from playing. Instruments are a luxury the Flawed don’t deserve.” He tucks into his starter and takes a huge bite of carpaccio, the only person at the table even holding his cutlery. “Come to think of it, I hope that’s all she was teaching you,” Bosco says, his smiling eyes gone.

“Yes, of course,” I say, frowning, confused that he would even question that. “What did she do wrong?”

“Taught you the piano,” Art teases. “Her downfall, if anyone’s heard you.”

Ewan giggles. I smile at Art, thankful for the break in nervous tension.

“It’s not funny,” Juniper says beside me, quietly but firmly.

Bosco’s eyes move to her immediately. “You’re correct, Juniper. It’s not funny.”

Juniper averts her eyes.

And the tension is back.

“No, it’s not funny, comical, but it’s funny, peculiar,” I say, feeling slapped.

“Thank you, Thesaurus,” Juniper says under her breath. It’s what she always calls me when I get bogged down by definitions.

Bosco ignores me and continues to direct his gaze at my sister. “Did Angelina teach you, too, Juniper?”

Juniper looks him square in the eye. “Yes, she did. Best teacher I ever had.”

There’s a silence.

Mum enters the room. Perfect timing. “I must say, I was very fond of Angelina. I considered her a friend. I’m … shocked by this … event.”

“I did, too, Summer, and believe me no one feels more pain than I do in this moment, seeing as I am the one who will have to tell her the verdict.”

“You won’t just tell her, though, will you?” Juniper says quietly. “It will be your verdict. Your decision.”

I’m afraid of Juniper’s tone. This is not the correct moment for one of her soapbox airings. I don’t want her to annoy Bosco. He’s someone who should be treated with respect. Juniper’s language feels dangerous. I’ve never seen anyone speak to Bosco in this way.

“You just never know what those among us, those we consider friends, are really like,” Bosco says, eyes on Juniper. “What lurks beneath those you consider your equals. I see it every day.”

“What did Angelina do?” I ask again.

“As you may well know, Angelina travelled outside this country with her mother a few months ago to perform euthanasia, which is illegal here.”

“But she accompanied her mother on her mother’s wishes, to another country where it was legal,” Juniper says. “She didn’t do anything to break the law.”

“Nor is the Guild a legal courtroom, merely an inquisition into her character, and we feel that in making the decision to travel to another country to carry out the act, she is deemed to have a Flawed character. Had the government known her plans, it would have had a case to stop her.”

There’s silence at the table while we take this in. I knew that Angelina’s mother had been terribly sick for years; she had been suffering with a debilitating disease. I had not known how she had met the end of her days, but we had all been at the funeral.

“The Guild doesn’t take religious views into account, of course,” he continues, perhaps sensing our doubts on his judgement. “We merely assess the character of a person. And strictly observing the accepted teaching about the sanctity of life, in allowing Angelina Tinder to return to this country having done what she did, the Guild would be sanctioning anguish and pain. Whether or not it was in a different country and whether it was legal or not are beside the point. It is her character that we must look at.”

Juniper just snorts in response.

What is it with her? I hate this about my sister. In everybody else’s opinion, we are identical. Though she is eleven months older than I am, we really could pass for twins. However, if you knew us, we would never get away with it, because Juniper gives herself away as soon as she opens her mouth. Like my granddad, she doesn’t know when to shut up.

“Did you know that Angelina Tinder was planning on travelling to kill her mother?” Bosco asks, leaning forward, elbows on the table, focussing on Juniper.

“Of course she didn’t know,” Mum says, her voice coming out as a whisper, and I know she’s only doing that because otherwise she would be shouting.

Juniper stares down at her untouched starter, and I silently beg her to keep quiet. This isn’t fun. A room full of people I love, and my heart is pounding as if something dangerous is happening.

“Will Angelina be branded?” I ask, still in shock that I could actually know a Flawed person, have one live right on this street.

“If found guilty on Naming Day, yes, she will be branded,” Bosco says. Then to Mum, “I’ll do everything to keep it out of the press for Bob’s sake, of course, which won’t be difficult, as the Jimmy Child case is taking over all the airwaves. Nobody cares about a Flawed piano teacher right now.”

Jimmy Child is a football hero who was caught cheating on his wife with her sister for the past ten years and faces a Flawed verdict, which would be disastrous, as it would mean he couldn’t travel overseas for matches. Among the many punishments the Flawed face, they must give up their passports.

“I’m sure Bob will appreciate your discretion,” Mum says, and it sounds so smooth and easy that I know she really feels awkward and stilted in her mind.

“I hope so,” Bosco says, nodding. “I certainly hope so.”

“Where will she be branded?” I ask, obsessed with this. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it and can’t understand why nobody else is asking questions. Apart from Juniper, of course, but hers are more accusing than anything else.

“Celestine,” Mum says harshly, “I don’t think we need to discuss—”

“Her right hand,” Bosco says.

“Theft from society,” I say.

“Indeed. And every hand she goes to shake from now on will know just what she is.”

“If she’s found Flawed. Innocent until proved guilty,” Juniper says, like she’s reminding him.

But we all know Angelina Tinder has no chance. Everyone who goes through the Flawed court is found guilty; otherwise, they wouldn’t be taken in the first place. Unlike Juniper, I understand rules. There is a line, a moral one, and Angelina crossed it, but I just can’t believe that I could know someone who is Flawed, that I could sit in her house beside her at her piano, a piano she touched then I touched with my own fingers. I want to wash my hands immediately. I try to think back on our last conversation, all our conversations, to see if she showed any hint of a dent in her character. I wonder about her daughter, Colleen. Can I still talk to her at school? Probably best not to. But that doesn’t feel right, either. I’m conflicted.

“Where is Cutter?” Bosco suddenly says, looking at Mum angrily.

“He’s with B. I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” she says politely.

“That doesn’t look good,” he says. “He should be here.”

“I’m sure he’ll be—”

“I hope she can still play piano,” Juniper interrupts Mum, out of nowhere. “With her hand seared.”

“Do you feel sorry for her?” Bosco asks, his irritation rising.

“Of course she doesn’t,” Art pipes up, mouth full of food, knife and fork squeezed between his huge man hands and pointing up at the ceiling like he’s a caveman. He waves them around as he talks, food spraying off and flying on to the table. “We’re all just shocked, Dad, that’s all. I mean, come on, you could have given us a head’s up that our dinner guests were about to be taken away? When that siren went off, poor Celestine looked like she thought she was about to get carted away to the madhouse, which between me and you is where she belongs, but she doesn’t need to know that.”

He says it so easily, so fresh, so well judged that it seems to remind Bosco of where he is: in his neighbour’s dining room with his son, and not in his courtroom.

“Of course.” Bosco looks confused for a moment, and then he looks at Ewan, who has been remarkably quiet at the table. He reaches out a hand and pats my hand warmly. “Sorry, dear Celestine, I didn’t mean to scare you. Let’s start again, shall we?” He picks up his glass of red wine and holds it in the air with a beaming smile. “Happy Earth Day.”

When I hear that the quiet murmuring has ended in my parents’ bedroom, which lasted decidedly longer tonight than usual after the evening’s events, and the house has settled for the night, I make my way to the summit, where Art and I have been meeting most nights for the past three months.

I have spent more time with the Crevans over the past few months than with my own family, often wishing I could stay with them for good. I feel like I fit in with them more, that everything with them is logical and makes sense. I have always believed in the workings of the Guild. I am one of Bosco’s greatest supporters. I like to hear him regale people with stories of the courthouse over dinner, how he Ousted a charity board member for taking a golden payment pension package, or branded a celebrity who’d made millions from the sale of her fitness DVD but was discovered as having a secret tummy tuck. Every day, he has interesting stories coming through his courtroom, and I love sitting down and hearing about them. I understand what he is doing. He is preventing people from being deceived. I know the difference between right and wrong. I understand the rules. But today I feel that the rules have been blurred, because today they were literally on my front doorstep.

It is eleven pm. The summit overlooks the sleeping capital city. We live in a valley surrounded by mountains. Atop one of those mountains, Highland Castle dominates the city. Lit by powerful red uplighters at night, it watches over us menacingly. There since 1100 AD and once the seat of the High Kings, Highland Castle is a fortress. It stands above us all, the tallest round tower in the world, its powerful eye seeing far and wide. The scene of centuries of invasions and massacres, it now houses state conferences and dinners, guided tours of its architecture, museums of ancient artefacts, and, of course more famously now, the offices of the Guild.

We sit on the summit opposite the castle; to the left of us, the lights of more cities dot the night and stretch on for ever, the castle keeping its watchful eye on them all. To the right are farmland and industry, where my granddad lives. Humming is the largest and capital city of Highland, and it is rich in history and beauty. Tourists flock from all over the world to visit our city, our bridges, our fairytale castle and palace, our cobblestoned pathways and our ornate town square. Most of its buildings have survived the violence and destruction of the twentieth century, and it is a hub for appreciators of our Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance-era architecture. Humming Bridge is one of the most famous bridges in the world. At thirty feet wide and over six hundred yards long and built in the fourteenth century, it crosses the river and leads to Highland Castle. It, too, is a beauty at night, lit up at its six arches, three bridge towers and the statues from our history lining the bridge to protect it.

I like to travel the world on holidays, but I intend to continue to live here after school. Art and I have talked about it. We want to study at the city university: me, mathematics; him, science. We have it all worked out. Juniper wants to leave as soon as she can, become a snowboard instructor in Switzerland by winter, a lifeguard in Portugal by summer, or something like that.

Art says he likes going to the summit because it gives him perspective. He’s had a tough year. His mother passed away, and I think this place helps him rise above the worries on the ground, to look at them from a height, detached from his grief, which is lessening with the months. I, on the other hand, see it as a place where it is Art and me against the rest of the world. While the one million people sleep in the city below us, Art and I are together, and it makes our bond even stronger. It makes me feel invincible, alive. I know how the castle feels watching over everybody: untouchable.

It is only over the past six months that I have felt this way about Art. We have been friends since we were twelve; when we started school together the teacher placed us beside each other on the first day. We hung out together in a group, me with the girls and him with the boys, yet we always found ourselves side by side. We would never have met up alone despite living across the road from each other. It was only a year ago, when his mum passed away, that Art suddenly began to seek me out, not caring about the others’ perception of us. We’d come here together and talk, him grieving and slowly coming to terms with his mum’s death; he watched her slowly die of cancer. And then the grieving gradually flickered out, stopped being the main reason for our meeting… and it became something else.

The rush of butterflies when I saw him, the silly smile that would appear on my face at the very thought of him, the nervous bubbles in my stomach, the jolt of electricity when his skin brushed mine. Suddenly I cared about what I wore, what I said, how I looked. This didn’t go unnoticed, particularly by Juniper, who watched me each day as I obsessed over my reflection before I dashed out of the house. Art noticed, too, and then I stopped flustering over myself for a moment to notice it in him. We’ve been together for three months.

I finally reach the summit, and seeing his shape lit by the moon turns me into jelly as usual. He is always early, always waiting for me, sitting on a blanket, his face a picture of perfect concentration as he gazes out on the sleeping city below. Perfect is a word I use a lot to describe Art or any moment with him.

“Hello, early bird,” I say.

He looks up, the sadness replaced with a smile. And do I see relief?

“Hello, mouse. If you’re looking for your cheese, I ate it.”

“Worms and cheese,” I say, sitting beside him on the blanket. “Yum.”

We kiss.

“This is yum,” he murmurs, pulling me closer for another, longer, more passionate kiss.

I feel there is something different about him tonight. I pull away slowly and study his face, his eyes.

“How about we make a deal to not talk about tonight?”

“Good idea,” I sigh. “I have a headache just thinking about it.”

He kisses my forehead and leaves his lips there. We’re both silent, lost in our thoughts, both obviously thinking about the sights and sounds of Angelina Tinder being dragged away. We can’t stay quiet for long. Art pulls away.

“My dad …” He trails off, looking out at the tips of roofs and chimneys and I see his anguish over what happened tonight. Ever since his mum passed away I’ve seen it as my role to make him feel better, to get rid of the sadness. And despite my conflicted feelings about this evening, I need to pull it together for him.

“Look, Juniper should not have spoken to him the way she did, but you know what Juniper is like. She needs to learn how to keep her trap shut. She’s just like my granddad.”

“Juniper was only saying what she thought,” he says to my absolute surprise.

“She shouldn’t be saying these things to him.”

He smiles sadly. “Everything is so black and white to you, Celestine. We’re neighbours; we were in your dining room celebrating Earth Day, not his courtroom. And he must have known that was going to happen to Angelina tonight. I mean, why wouldn’t he at least tell her, if not us? They’re friends. At least she could have been ready and not dragged out like that in front of her family, her kids …”

I’m surprised to hear this from him. Art has never spoken out about his dad. They’re buddies, a team, the only two left, a connection made stronger after his mum died. They’re survivors, or at least that’s how they act. The two who came out of her loss alive. I can see he is as confused about all this as I am.

“He was following the rules,” I say simply, and I know it’s not good enough. It doesn’t feel good enough to me, but it’s the truth. “What happened to Angelina was horrible, but I don’t think you can blame your dad for that.”

“No?” he asks, bitterness in his voice.

“It’s his job. A Flawed being taken into custody happens almost every day somewhere in this country. Your dad is under pressure to maintain perfection. What would happen if he turned a blind eye to some and not to others?” I ask, airing some of my own thoughts. “I mean, what then? Judge Crevan on trial for being Flawed for missing a Flawed?”

Art looks at me. “I never thought about it like that.”

“Well, you should. Because he’s your dad. And he’s powerful. And some people adore him, practically worship him. And that makes it harder for you to have a dad like that, but that’s who you’ve got, and he loves you so much. And he’s one half of what made you, and that makes him a genius.”

He smiles, takes my face in his hands, makes a disgusted face. “I don’t really want to think of his part in making me, thank you very much.”

“Gross.” I laugh.

“Black and white.”

“All the way.” I smile, but my smile feels a bit wobbly, my footing not as sure as it was before. Convincing Art is easier than convincing myself.

Art clears his throat. “I wasn’t going to do this until your birthday, but after tonight … I think you deserve it now more than ever.”

He lifts his left leg and moves it beside me, pulling me in closer to him so that I am trapped between his thighs. Suddenly my uncertainty disappears and I am right where I want to be.

“I got you this for your eighteenth birthday, but I want to give it to you now to let you know that despite everything else going on in the world, you are the one thing that makes sense to me. You are beautiful.” He runs his finger down my cheek, across my nose, over my lips. “You are clever, you are loyal.” He drops his hand and hands me a small velvet box.

My hands are shaking so much I’m embarrassed. I open it and lift out the delicate silver chain, so fine I’m afraid I’ll break it. On the end is a symbol.


“And you are perfect,” he whispers, and it sends a shiver running through me, and my skin breaks out in goose bumps.

I examine the symbol, unable to believe what I see.

“I had a man at Highland Castle make it for me specially. You know what it means?”

I nod. “Circles are regarded as a symbol of perfection. All the radii bear a ratio of one to one to each other, showing there are no partial differences between them. They are proved to be in a state of harmony. Geometric harmony.”

“Perfection,” he says again, softly. “It’s hard to get one up on the mathematician, you know.” He laughs. “I had to do a lot of research. I think my brain is still sore.”

I laugh through my growing tears. “Thank you.” My words come out as a whisper. I attempt to wrap it around my wrist, but he stops me.

“No. Here.” He takes it from my trembling hands, and he uncrosses my ankles delicately. He moves back from me and straightens my leg, sliding my jeans up my leg slowly, his fingers warm on my skin. He fastens the chain around my ankle, and then he moves forward again, closer this time, wrapping my legs around him.

He lifts my chin and we are nose-to-nose, the moonlight between us. He tilts his head and kisses me softly, smoothly, sweetly. His lips are succulent, his tongue delicious, and I lift my hands through his hair and am lost in him, in this moment.

When I think back to that moment, my heart soars as it did then, and everything is heightened, magical, musical and mystical, almost too good to be true. I could live that moment for ever, his lips on mine, our bodies pushed together, both of us hungry for more, our future as wide open as the vista before us, as bright as the moon. It was just us on top of the sleeping world, invincible, untouchable.

It was the most perfect moment in my life.

It was the last perfect moment in my life.

I wake up, and the first thing I do is slide my leg out from under the duvet to check my ankle. Anklet still there. It was not a dream, not some juicy figment of my imagination that dissolves as soon as I wake. I snuggle down under the covers to relive it in my head and then realise that delaying this morning would delay spending time with Art. He will be waiting for me, as he always is, at the bus stop, where we will go on to school together.

Despite my joy, my sleep was fitful, with so much to absorb after the Angelina Tinder scene. I feel unsteady on my feet as I get dressed. Something has been shaken, stirred within me. My feeling of security has been tested, and perhaps my trust, though not with Art, whom I trust more than ever. Oddly, I think it is with my own self.

I don’t need to think when I dress; I never do, not like Juniper, who is swearing and sighing as she pulls yet another outfit over her head in frustration, never happy with how she looks. She gets up half an hour earlier than I do just to get dressed and still ends up being late every morning.

Most people who don’t know our personalities can’t distinguish between me and Juniper. With a black dad and a white mum, we have both inherited Dad’s skin. We also both have Dad’s brown eyes, his nose and his hair colouring. We have Mum’s cheekbones, her long limbs. She tried to get us into modelling when we were younger, and Juniper and I did a few shoots together, but neither of us could stay at it. Me because posing for a camera failed to intellectually stimulate me, Juniper because she was even more awkward and clumsy under people’s gazes.

When it comes to how we act, how we dress and everything else about us, though, we couldn’t be further apart.

I put on a cream linen dress and baby-pink cashmere cardigan, with gold gladiator sandals that spiral up my legs. It’s hot outside, and I always wear pastel colours. Mum likes to buy pastels for all the family. She thinks that we look more like a unit when we’re dressed that way. I know of some families who hire stylists to help co-ordinate not just the clothes but their overall look as a family. None of us wants to look out of place or like we don’t belong, though Juniper often likes to do her own thing, wearing something that’s not a part of our family colour palette. We let her do just that – her loss, though Mum worries that it makes us look fragmented. I think the only person who looks fragmented is Juniper.

As usual, I’m downstairs before my sister. Ewan is at the table eating breakfast. He’s wearing cream linen trousers and a baby- pink T-shirt, and I feel happy we match. A good start to the day.

Mum is staring at the TV, not moving.

“Look what I got last night,” I sing.

No one looks.

“Yoo-hoo.” I circle my ankle in the air, graceful like a ballerina.

Ewan finally looks at me, then down at my ankle, which I’m dangling near his face.

“A bracelet,” he says, bored.

“No. A bracelet is an ornamental band for the wrist, Ewan. This is an anklet.”

“Whatever, Thesaurus.” He rolls his eyes and continues watching TV.

“Art gave it to me,” I sing loudly, floating by Mum to get milk for my cereal from the fridge.

“Wonderful, sweetheart,” she says robotically, as though she hasn’t heard at all.

I stop and stare at her. She is completely engrossed in the TV. I finally pay attention and see it’s News 24, and Pia Wang is reporting live from Highland Castle. Pia Wang is the correspondent for the Guild. She covers every case in extreme detail, providing a profile of the Flawed, during the trial and after. It’s never a favourable profile, either. She does a good job of burying whomever she wants, though to her credit, she’s covering Flawed cases, people who have made bad decisions, so she’s not exactly trying to glamourise them.

I look out the window. Dad’s car is gone. He must have been alerted to the story and had to take off early. That happens a lot.

“This case has garnered more attention than any other,” Pia says, her face perfect with peach-blush cheeks. She is wearing peach, and she looks like you could eat her, a perfect china doll. Glossy black hair, a fringe framing her innocent-looking, petite face. So perfect. “Even gaining attention around the rest of the world, which is reflected here in the turnout outside the Guild court in Highland Castle, with record numbers of people turning out to support their football hero Jimmy Child, Humming City’s best striker, who has led us to victory for so many years. And today he is victorious again, as he left the court only moments ago having been deemed by Judge Crevan and his associates not to be Flawed. I repeat, breaking news to those who have just joined us: Jimmy Child is not Flawed.”

I gasp.

“What?” I say. “Has that ever happened before?”

Mum finally breaks her stare from the TV. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I … maybe once,” she says vaguely.

“Not a surprising result when a Crevan owns a share in the football team,” Juniper says suddenly from behind us. I turn to her.

Mum’s face looks pained. “Juniper …” she says simply.

“Damon Crevan. Owns a fifty-five per cent stake in Humming City, but I suppose everyone will tell me that’s just coincidence. If you ask me, it was his wife they put on trial,” Juniper says. “And that dirty man got away with it.”

Nobody disagrees. Jimmy Child’s glamorous wife has been on the front page of every newspaper for the past few weeks as her lifestyle was thrashed out for all to see. Every aspect of her, every inch of her body, was fodder for gossip sites and even news sites.

“Go to school,” Mum says in a warning tone. “Any more talk like that and they’ll come for you, missy.” She clips Juniper’s nose playfully.

She was almost right.

When I step outside, I see Colleen standing at her family’s car. The front door of her house is open, and she looks like she’s waiting. I guess she won’t be going to school today, probably heading to the courthouse to her mum’s trial. My heart beats wildly as I try to figure out what to do. If I say hello, I might get in trouble. Anybody could see me speaking to her from their home, and I might be reported. What if Bosco sees me from one of the windows of his monstrous mansion, or as he leaves for work? Saying hi may be seen as disloyalty towards the Guild, as support for her and her mum. Would that be seen as aiding and assisting a Flawed? I don’t want to go to prison. But if I ignore her, it will be rude. It is Colleen’s mother who’s Flawed, not her. She looks over at me and I can’t do it. I look away quickly.

Behind me I hear Juniper say, “Good luck today,” to Colleen. It annoys me how easily she does it and then puts on her headphones and ignores everyone.

Art is already at the bus stop waiting for me, as usual, looking delicious, as usual. I leap on him as soon as I get to him.

“Bird.”

“Mouse.”

He kisses me, but I pull away quickly, excited to discuss the news.

“Did you hear about Jimmy Child?”

I expect Art to be elated. Jimmy Child is his hero, and up until a year ago he had his posters plastered all over his walls. Most boys did. Throughout the trial, Art had the opportunity to meet him, though a quick meet and greet in a holding cell before court wasn’t what he’d been dreaming of throughout his boyhood, and he hadn’t wanted to discuss it much.

“Yeah,” he says. “Dad left at the crack of dawn this morning. He wanted to push the verdict through first thing, in time for the morning news.”

I think about how I should have said hello to Colleen; I should have known Bosco wasn’t home to have seen me, he was at court early, and what harm would it have done anyway to simply say hello? I’m angry with myself.

“I can smell your brain burning. You okay?” He sticks his knuckle into my frown and screws it around.

I laugh. “Yeah, I was just thinking. I didn’t know they had secret Naming Days. I thought it was always public. That’s so sneaky.”

“Not as sneaky as you and me,” Art says, fingers creeping up my top.

I laugh and stop his hand from travelling, something suddenly on my mind. I look over at Juniper, who is listening to her music so loudly I can hear every word from here.

I lower my voice. “Do you think Jimmy Child’s wife was put on trial?”

“Serena Child?” he asks, surprised.

“Yeah. When you think about it –” because I have been thinking about it, ever since Juniper said it, and on the walk to the bus stop with my new wobbly legs that haven’t been working since I stood up this morning – “every day it wasn’t about him or about what he’d done, but about how she was so annoying and so fake and such a woman, how could he not cheat?”

Art laughs. “I don’t think that’s exactly what Pia said.” He smiles at me fondly. “‘Reporting live,’” he says, imitating Pia. “‘Isn’t Serena Child such a woman? How could he not cheat?’”

I laugh, realising how stupid it sounds, then turn serious, wanting to be understood. “No, but the way they talked about her looks. The surgery. The clothes. Her past … her cellulite. She’d kissed a girl – so what? Her tan being too orange, her eating disorder when she was fifteen. She went to school with someone who ended up being a bank robber. She never cooked a meal for her husband. He had to keep going to that diner. We learned everything about her. Like she was the one who was Flawed. Not him.”

Art laughs again, enjoying the ridiculousness of what I’m saying, or perhaps the fact that it’s so surprisingly out of character for me to say it at all. “And why would they put her on trial?”

“So he gets away with not being Flawed. People say she wasn’t a good wife, so how could he not have cheated? And the star player is still the star.”

His smile instantly fades, and he looks at me like he doesn’t know me. “Celestine, be careful.”

I shrug like I don’t care, but my heart is pounding from even saying this aloud. “I was just saying.”

Juniper has got to me. I was unsure already, and what she said this morning niggles at me more and has me considering the truth in her words. I can’t stop thinking about it as we wait for the bus. I think about Colleen, on her way to the courthouse to see her mother, her mother who is about to be branded Flawed for travelling to another country to help carry out her own mother’s wishes. Does that really make her Flawed? I’m not ready to park this thought yet. It’s Art, the person I share everything with. Surely I can share one more. He can help sort out these muddled thoughts.

Art reaches for my hand and I feel safe.

“Do you think it’s bad what Angelina did?” I say quietly.

He looks at me.

“Because I’ve been thinking about it. All night. And I don’t think it’s that bad. Not if it’s what her mum wanted. I mean, I can think of worse.”

“Of course there’s worse.”

“So even though there’s worse, everyone gets branded the same?”

“She will only get one brand. On her hand. Some people get two.”

He’s not thinking about this properly. I know he’s not. I know him. His answers are too quick. He is defensive, though I’m not attacking him. This is how it gets when people have discussions about the Flawed. Everyone has such strong opinions it’s almost like it’s personal. Only it’s even more so for Art because his dad is the senior judge of it all – his grandfather was the founding member of the Guild. I was always in awe of them for that. I still am. Aren’t I?

Once on the bus and in our usual seats, I concentrate on the Flawed lady in front of us, in the reserved place that only Flawed people are allowed to occupy. There are two seats for the Flawed on the bus, because rules state that three or more Flawed are not allowed to gather together at any one time. It’s to prevent the riots that broke out when the Flawed punishments were introduced. However, I wonder for the first time why they didn’t just put another two Flawed seats at the back of the bus or somewhere else away from them. Alternate Flawed and regular people’s seats. Very often there are Flawed standing when the bus is filled with empty seats, which has never bothered me in a moral way, but does bother me when I’m getting off the bus and have to squeeze by them. I swear some of them don’t move deliberately, making me squish up against their Flawed bodies to get past. The Flawed seats have bright red fabric and are at the front of the bus, facing all the other passengers so that everybody on the bus can see that they are Flawed. I used to find it uncomfortable when I was a little girl, having to face them throughout the journey, but then, as I got used to it, I stopped seeing them.

I watch the Flawed woman sitting alone on the seat, her armband with the blood-red symbol identifying her.


I see the symbol on her temple, too, and wonder what bad judgement she made to land herself in this predicament. The scar on her temple is certainly not new. It doesn’t have the red-hot, crusted look of newly seared flesh as some Flawed have. She has been Flawed for quite some time, and I wonder if this means she’s worse now, if Flawed get more Flawed with age or if the branding, the acknowledgment of it, stops it from spreading and growing.

She is texting; and when she rests the phone on her lap, I see the screen photo of her with children. For the first time I wonder what it’s like for the Flawed to live life in the same world as everybody else they love, but under different rules. It has never occurred to me before. I think of Angelina and her children. Angelina will have job restrictions, curfews, travel restrictions. How can she mother her children if she is living under different rules? What if there is an emergency in the middle of the night? Can she break her curfew to bring her children to hospital? What if the Tinders go on a family holiday abroad and Angelina can’t go? What if Colleen decides to work and live abroad? Her mother won’t be able to visit her. Ever. And why have I never thought of these things before?

Because I never cared, that’s why. Because if people have done something wrong, they deserve their punishment. They’re not criminals, but they’re just missing being physically behind bars. Only… if Angelina, who could never hurt a fly, can so easily be considered Flawed, then perhaps this woman before me is no worse, either. I have never spoken to one before. It’s not that we’re not allowed to; it’s just that I wouldn’t know what to say. I step around them when they’re near me; I avoid their eye contact. I suppose I act like they don’t exist. They’re always in the Flawed section of the supermarket, the one I pass through aisles to avoid, buying their grains and oats and whatever else they have to eat as part of their basic diet for their basic living. A life with no luxury is the punishment. I never thought it would be such a bad thing; it’s not like they’re behind bars. But then I never thought of having to live like that when your husband doesn’t, or your kids don’t, or the rest of society doesn’t. And then they’re not really allowed to socialise together. No more than with one other at a time. For every two Flawed, there needs to be a regular person just for numbers. I think of a Flawed wedding, a Flawed birthday party, and shudder. I wonder what they even talk about with each other. Do they swap stories of how Flawed they are, show their brands and laugh with pride, or are they ashamed, as they should be?

I feel Art’s lips on my earlobe. “If you don’t stop thinking, your head will explode,” he whispers. His breath is hot, and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I want to stop thinking. I really do, but I can’t. For once he doesn’t have my full attention. He’s trying to bring me back to him, but I can’t go there. I’m caught in this thought, in this moment.

The bus stops and a woman with crutches gets on. The driver helps her and guides her to the Flawed seats, which have the most legroom. The seats are deliberately set further away so people don’t have to touch them or bump against them, reinforcing that distinction between us and them. She sits beside the Flawed woman, who smiles at her.

The other woman throws her such a look of disgust that I’m embarrassed for the Flawed mother, who looks away, hurt visible in her eyes. She senses that I’m looking at her, and our eyes meet for a minuscule moment before I look away, heart pounding from having made contact. I hope no one has seen. I hope it doesn’t look like I’m on her side.

“What is going on with you today?” Art asks, a slightly bewildered and amused expression on his face.

“Oh, nothing,” I say, trying to smile. “I’m just perfect. That’s all.”

He smiles and rubs the palm of my hand with his thumb, and I melt.

Juniper sits across the aisle from us, her body pushed so far up against the window she couldn’t possibly get any further away from me and Art, or anyone else on the bus for that matter.

I don’t know when things became like this between me and Juniper. Photos and stories prove that we were extremely close as children. Juniper is the big sister by a small amount, but she enjoyed mollycoddling me, taking on the role of nurturing big sister. But when we began high school, things started to change between us. Though we were in the same year, we were in different classes and made our own friends for the first time and the divide began. I excelled in school – I adore information and am always hungry to know more. I read books, I watch documentaries, my favourite subject is maths and I hope to study it at the city university when I finish school this year. My aim is to win the Fields Medal, the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, viewed as the greatest honour a mathematician can receive, like a maths Nobel Prize. You have to be under forty to win it. I’m seventeen. There’s time. Test results so far show that I’m on course to get into my university programme with ease. Juniper isn’t the jealous type, but the difference in our marks at school was the first thing to set us apart.

My results were celebrated; hers weren’t. They were never bad; they just weren’t perfect. Everybody always wanted her to do better, to be better. And I understand the pressure she was under, but I could have been there to help her, not be the one she eventually blamed.

She thinks I’m a know-it-all, which she has told me plenty of times, and I try not to be, I really do. I know I have a habit of correcting people’s grammar or recounting dictionary definitions, but that’s just me. Doing it does not make me feel I am better than the person I am saying it to. It is just an expression of who I am. I try to ask her questions, the meaning of things, pretend not to know something that I do know, but she finds this patronising. She’s right, but I don’t know what else to do. My striving for perfection includes wanting to have the ideal relationship with my sister, like in the movies I see and the books I read, the stories that tell you that sisterhood is the one real true love and relationship you will have in your life.

Juniper is dyslexic. She sees this as another failure, another trait that has let her down, but I can see that it makes her view things in a different way. I’m a problem-solver. I read the signs, the proof that I see before me, and come to a conclusion. Juniper is cleverer than that. She reads people. I don’t know how she does it, but she watches and listens and arrives at conclusions I could never imagine, and usually she’s right. I look at things straight on; her perspective seems to curve round things, wind and twist, turn things upside down to reach the answer. I have never told her that I think this about her. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to come across as patronising, but really I know it’s because I have a jealousy of my own.

I think about what Mum said earlier about Jimmy Child maybe not being the only person to have been found not Flawed.

“Did you know that there might be other people who went through the Flawed court and were found to be not Flawed?” I whisper to Art.

I feel his grip on my hand loosen as he turns to me. He’s annoyed I won’t let go of this. “No, I didn’t know.”

“I think there must be other people found innocent that we don’t know about. Has your dad ever said anything?”

“Bloody hell, Celestine, drop it, will you?”

“I’m just asking.”

“You’re not really supposed to.”

“Aren’t I?”

“Not here, anyway,” he says, looking around nervously.

I go quiet. I can only look ahead at the Flawed woman, head swirling with unfamiliar thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.

At the next stop, the Flawed woman gets off and a rather large lady gets on. She recognises the woman with the crutches and sits down beside her, and they chat.

At the next stop, an old man gets on the bus, and I almost call out to him. He looks so much like my granddad that I’m convinced it’s him, which doesn’t make sense because my granddad lives on a farm in the country, but then I see the large F symbol on his armband and I shudder, annoyed with myself for ever thinking someone like him could possibly be related to me.

My prejudice strikes me. I had been repulsed by the reaction of the woman with the crutches to the Flawed woman smiling at her, but I hold equal views of my own without ever realising it.

The man is in his seventies or eighties. I’m not sure. He’s old, and he is dressed in a smart suit and polished shoes, as if he’s on his way to work. From this angle, I can’t see any signs of branding, though it could mean it is on his chest, tongue, or foot. He looks respectable, and again I study him, surprised by his appearance. I always thought of the Flawed as less than us, and I can’t believe I have admitted that to myself. He is unable to sit, because the two Flawed seats are taken – by two women who are not Flawed but who are so busy chatting that they don’t notice him. He stands near them, holding on to the pole to stay upright.

I hope they notice him soon. He doesn’t look like he will go very far standing.

A few minutes pass. He is still standing. I look around. There are at least a dozen free seats where he could sit, but he is not allowed to. I’m a logical person, and this does not seem logical to me.

I look across at Juniper, who has taken off her headphones and is sitting up, poker straight, alert and looking at the same situation that I am. Juniper has always been more emotional than I am, and I can see her on the edge of her seat, ready to pounce.Instead of fearing she will do something stupid, for once I am glad she and I feel the same.

The old man starts coughing. And then he won’t stop.

His breath is wheezy, barely still for a moment before he coughs again. He takes out a handkerchief and coughs into that, trying to block the germs and noise. His face goes from white to pink to purple, and I see Juniper move closer to the edge of her seat. She looks at the two women chatting, then back to the old man. Finally, he stops coughing.

Moments later he starts again, and all heads turn away from him and look out of the window. The fat lady stops talking to look at him, and I’m relieved, knowing she will finally let him sit in the seat he is entitled to. Instead, she tuts as if he’s bothering her and continues her conversation.

Now I straighten up in my seat.

The coughing is bothering her. It is bothering everyone on the bus. His loud gasps for breath can’t be ignored, and yet they are. Rules state that if anyone aids a Flawed, they will be imprisoned, but not in this case, surely? Are we to watch him struggling right before us?

The coughing stops.

My heart is pounding.

I let go of Art’s hand. It feels clammy.

“What’s up?”

“Can’t you hear that?”

“What?”

“The coughing.”

He looks around. “There’s no one coughing.”

The coughing starts again, and Art doesn’t bat an eyelash when he looks at me intimately and says, “You know I can’t wait to be somewhere alone. Why don’t we miss the first class?”

I can barely hear him over the coughing, over my pounding heart. Does nobody hear the old man? Does nobody see him? I look around, flustered. All eyes are staring out of the window or on him in disgust, as if he’s about to infect us all with his flaws.

Juniper’s eyes are filled with tears. My own flesh and blood agreeing with me is validation enough. I make a move to stand up, and Art’s hand suddenly clamps around my arm.

“Don’t,” he says firmly.

“Ow!” I try to move, but instead his grip feels like red-hot iron. “You’re hurting me.”

“And do you think when they sear your skin it won’t hurt more than this?” He squeezes tighter.

“Art, stop! Ouch!” I feel my skin burning.

He stops.

“How is this fair?” I hiss.

“He has done something wrong, Celestine.”

“Like what? Something that’s completely legal in another country but that people are prosecuted for here anyway?”

He looks as if I’ve stung him.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Celestine,” he says, sensing he has lost the argument. “And don’t help him,” he adds quickly.

“I have no intention of helping him.”

How I walk by this coughing, wheezing, struggling-to-breathe old man is beyond me, but I do, seeing the faint F scar on his temple as though it has been there a very long time, like it’s as much a part of him as the freckles and hair alongside it. I walk straight to the two women in the Flawed seats. They are chatting about making jam, as if nothing is wrong.

“Excuse me,” I say sweetly, offering them the most polite smile I can muster. They respond immediately with their own bright smiles. Two polite, friendly women from the suburbs willing to help me with anything. Almost anything.

“Yes, dear.”

“I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Of course, dear.”

“Could one of you sit in any of the available seats here? Or I could offer you two seats together where my boyfriend and I are sitting so that you can continue your conversation?”

As I look up at Art, all I can see is terror on his face. Funny, I no longer feel it. I like solutions. The problem was disturbing me, and fixing it just made sense. I’m not doing anything wrong; I’m not breaking any laws or rules. I’ve always been complimented on my timing, my perfection. I come from a good home. I have a pleasant manner. The anklet of geometric harmony proves it.

“May I ask why?” the woman with the broken leg asks.

“Well, this man here – ” I point to the old man – “is clearly Flawed, and you are in the Flawed seats. He can’t sit down anywhere else. And he is struggling.”

I notice a few faces turn to stare at me when I say that. I expect them to understand. I expect there to be no further conversation. I even expect the few who have overheard to step in and agree, make sense of the situation. But they don’t. They look confused, some even scared. One man looks amused. This is illogical. This is Juniper’s territory, not mine. I look at her. She has the same expression of terror as Art. She is not moving. If I ever thought she was going to back me up, I know now that she won’t.

“But we’re talking,” the other woman says.

“And he’s choking,” I say with the same smile on my face, which I know looks a little psychotic, because we are no longer being polite.

“Are you trying to help him?” the woman with the crutches asks.

“N-n-o,” I stutter. “I’m not. I’m trying to help the situation …” I flash her a brilliant smile, but she recoils from me.

“I want nothing to do with this,” she says loudly, attracting more attention.

“With what?” I laugh nervously. “Your leg is fine. Perhaps if you just move to another chair and your friend stays here …”

“I’m staying right where I am,” she hollers.

Now we have the attention of the entire bus.

The old man, who is beside me, can barely stand. He is bent over coughing. He turns to me, face purple, and tries to talk, but he can’t catch his breath.

I don’t know what he’s trying to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what medical help to give him. Even if I knew what medical help to provide, I wouldn’t be able to give it to him. Think, think, Celestine. I can’t help, but a doctor can.

“Is there a doctor here?” I call down the bus, and I see Art put his face in his hands.

There’s an audible gasp in the bus.

I look around at everyone, the judgmental faces of surprise. I feel dizzy and confused. This man is going to collapse, maybe die. My eyes start to fill.

“Are we going to just watch this?” I scream.

“Stop it, dear,” a woman says to me in a hushed voice. She is clearly upset about it, too. It’s not just me, but she’s warning me. I’m going too far.

This is completely illogical. Have we no compassion for this human being, Flawed or not, that we won’t help?

Heads look away. Eyes are averted.

“Okay, okay,” I say to the old man, who by now is panicking severely. He continues to cough, and I can see the F on his tongue, which makes me recoil slightly. I can’t imagine the pain of receiving it. “It’s okay.”

He punches his chest, starts to fall to his knees.

I pull him up under the arms, and I bring him to the nearest open seat.

“Stop the bus!” I yell.

The bus stops, and I assure the old man everything will be fine.

I look over at Juniper and see that she is crying.

“It’s okay,” I tell her and Art. “It’s going to be fine.” My heart is still pounding. “This has all been so very ridiculous.” My voice is high-pitched and shrill; it doesn’t sound like mine. And then I hear the siren, loud, close, intense and threatening.

Everybody stays still in their seats, waiting, my heart beating loudly over the silence. Two Whistleblowers climb aboard blowing silver whistles so loudly most people block their ears. They make their way towards me and the old man.

“See? I told you it will be fine,” I tell the man over the noise. “They’re here. Help is here.”

He nods faintly, his eyes closed. I expect them to go to the old man, who has passed out on the seat, exhausted and taking short breaths, a fine layer of sweat covering his skin. But they don’t go to him. They come for me.

And then they take me away.

Juniper screams at them to leave me alone, held back by Art, who doesn’t look much better. As they hold me under the arms and drag me away by the elbow, Juniper screams, “My sister! My sister!” They lead me down the steps of the bus and into their van, the sound of the whistles ringing in my ears.

Before I was born, there was a great recession in this country; banks folded, the government collapsed, the economy was ravaged, unemployment and emigration soared. People were blindsided by what had happened, and the leaders were blamed. They should have known; they should have seen it coming. It was their bad judgement, their bad decisions that had led to the country’s collapse. They were evil; they had destroyed families and homes, and they were to suffer. They were the morally flawed people who had brought about our downfall.

As a result, anyone who made the smallest error in judgement was immediately punished. These people were publicly ridiculed, held up as examples of failure and forced to resign. They were named and shamed. They weren’t criminals, but they had made bad decisions. Society demanded leaders who would not have to learn from hindsight – leaders who would not make mistakes in the first place. No second chances, no sympathy, no explanations allowed nor required. Anybody who had made mistakes in the past couldn’t take leadership roles in the future. And as hundreds of thousands of people marched on the government, it was decided that any person who made any error of judgement was to be rooted out of society entirely. Hindsight would be a thing of the past. Everybody would always – always – look ahead before it was too late, no mistakes made.

Could perfection be bred? Many ways to achieve this were tried and tested and what the government eventually settled on was Crevan’s Guild and its Flawed brandings. No matter what you do, your Flawed title can never be removed. You hold it till death. You suffer the consequences of your one mistake for the rest of your life. Your punishment serves as a reminder to others to think before they act.

I’m taken to a holding cell in the basement of Highland Castle and guided to a desk upon which sits an information pack containing all the information about the Guild that I need to know. It has a chapter dedicated to the rules you must adhere to, living as a Flawed. It even has a comprehensive section on the searing of the skin: the process and how to treat your brand afterwards. I slam the pack closed and look around.

The holding cells are pleasant; they are newly renovated. There are four in total, two on each side of the room, separated by a walkway in the centre and enclosed by bulletproof and soundproof glass. According to the information pack, the glass represents the transparency of the system, but I feel it is to prepare us for the lack of dignity coming our way and the invasion into our lives. Each cell contains a table with four chairs, a single bed, a bathroom, and some randomly placed chairs should the desire for a holding-cell party take me. Everything is painted in earthy tones, to make us feel like this is the most natural place in the world.

Of the four cells, I am the only occupant. The two opposite me are empty, the one beside me has been recently occupied – I can tell from the clothes, the items of belongings scattered. I assume this person is in the courtroom now, awaiting his or her fate. The bathroom, thankfully, has solid walls, but it has been made so small that you can barely spend a minute in there before feeling suffocated. It is where I ran to cry, though I may as well have stayed here and done it in full view because my tear-stained face and red eyes are a giveaway, and there’s nobody here to see me anyway.

I have not had the opportunity to speak with anyone yet, to analyse, dissect and discuss what has happened. I was registered at reception by a nice lady in a Whistleblower uniform, who introduced herself as Tina, and then I was brought to this room beneath the Clock Tower, where the Guild has its offices. I know this from watching trials on television, seeing Pia on every live report following the accused from the Clock Tower, all the way across the cobblestoned courtyard, to the Guild court, heads down and being hurled abuse by the public, who come to boo and hiss and show their support for the Guild.

I am definitely in shock. I must be. I cannot fathom how I can be here, me who doesn’t do anything wrong, who is a people-pleaser, whose every report card is filled with perfect As, whose boyfriend’s dad is the head judge of the Guild.

I go through my actions on the bus again, over and over in my head. I go through it so much it starts to blur, like an overplayed song. I think about what I did, what I should have done, what I could have done better. I become confused as to what actually happened. I watch it happen over and over in my head; it’s like staring at somebody’s face until that person eventually starts to look different. I sit on the bed, my back against the only solid wall of my cell, and push my head to my knees, hugging my legs. I don’t know how long I sit like this – it could be minutes; it could be hours – but my heart flits from calm to panic as I reason with myself.

I can’t be Flawed. I can’t be Flawed.

I am perfect.

My parents say so, my teachers say so, my boyfriend and even my sister – who hates me – say so. My sister. I think of Juniper’s screams of defence as I was taken away, and my eyes fill. My big sister, who was flailing against the unmoving Art to get to me. I hope she’s okay. I hope they didn’t take her, too. She will be forced to say she didn’t agree with my actions, and I worry instantly. I don’t want to drag her into this. Who knows what Juniper will say? And what about Art? How is he feeling right now? Is he in trouble? Will his dad help me or never speak to me again? Will Art ever speak to me again? The thought of ever being without him makes me feel sick.

Around and around it all goes.

A door slams and I look up.

Tina and a male guard escort a boy who looks about my age, maybe a little older. They pass my cell and take him to the one beside mine. I can tell by his familiarity with the place that he isn’t new here, unlike me – as I was being led in, I frantically looked around to examine my new surroundings. His T-shirt is covered in white powder, and so is his hair. There are splashes of it on Tina and the male guard, too, which confuses me. The boy is tall, broad. He has a bold, stubborn face, a guilty look. He’s young like me, but his face looks older.

The fact that he is young makes me sit up. I want him to see me. I want to share a look, a glance, something to comfort him, and to comfort me. The guards aren’t as polite and gentle with him as they were with me, and this, selfishly, gives me hope that this has all just been a great big misunderstanding and I’ll be able to walk out of here as normal. I watch him, his mean, tough, bold face, and will him to look at me. I wonder what he has done. It can’t be a criminal act or he wouldn’t be here, but it must have been close. Whatever he has been accused of doing, I have no doubt that he did it.

He looks up at me once he steps into his cell and sees me through the transparent wall we share. My heart flips. Contact with somebody, for the first time in hours. But as quickly as he sees me, he looks away again and strides with his long, lean legs and sits with his back flat against the transparent divide, so that all I can see are his back muscles, rippling through his soiled T-shirt.

Insulted, scared and suddenly feeling even more alone, I sense the tears start again. They comfort me; they make me feel human and remind me that I am human, even in here, in this box within a series of boxes.

The guards lock his door and leave. They disappear out the main door and I’m alone again, but this time with a boy who won’t look at me.

The main door opens, and I see Mum, her face worried and frantic, and my dad, stern, wide jaw working overtime to contain himself. As soon as Mum sets her eyes on me, she becomes composed again, like she’s taking a walk in the park and enjoying her surroundings, so I know that it must be bad. When Dad sees me, his face collapses. He’s never been one to hide his feelings. Tina unlocks my cell door and as they enter I rush to hug them both.

“Oh, Celestine,” she says, voice laden with grief, as she squeezes me tightly. “What on earth possessed you?”

“Summer,” Dad says harshly, to which she reacts as if she has been slapped.

I feel stung, too. The first real contact I’ve had since this happened and I was hoping for defence, for back-up, not for an attack, not for my own mother to agree with them and point the finger at me. I knew that I was in trouble, but now it is really setting in.

“Sorry,” she says gently. “I didn’t mean to, but it is just so out of character for you. Juniper told us what happened.”

“It didn’t make any sense,” I say. “The whole thing defied logic.”

Dad smiles sadly.

“The man was coughing. Wheezing. He was about to pass out, probably die, and the fat woman and the broken-leg woman just kept on ignoring him! They were in his seat!” I’m talking quickly, leaning forward, in their faces, trying to make them understand. I’m almost pleading with them to see my side of the story, telling them how disgusting and unfair the entire thing was. I get up and pace. I start the story from the beginning, elaborating, maybe exaggerating, maybe the fat woman was fatter, maybe the coughs were more life-threatening. I try to get them to see what I saw, to say that they understand, that if they’d been in my shoes, they would have done the same. To tell me I am not Flawed.

Dad is watching with tears in his eyes. He is struggling with all this. It is Mum who jumps up suddenly and grabs me by the shoulders. Surprised by her grip, I look around and notice that the guy in the cell beside me is no longer sitting with his back to me but is instead on his bed, where he can see us. I wonder if he has in some way understood what I said, if he read my lips, but Mum grips me tighter and turns my focus back to her.

“Listen up.” Her voice is a low, urgent whisper. “We don’t have time. Judge Crevan is coming to see you in a few minutes, and you have to use every charm you’ve got. Forget everything we taught you. Right now, forget about right and wrong. This is for your life, Celestine.”

I have never seen or heard Mum like this, and she’s scaring me. “Mum, it’s just Bosco; he’ll under—”

“You have to tell him you were wrong,” she says urgently. “You have to tell him you know you made a mistake. Do you understand?”

I look from her to Dad in shock. Dad is covering his face with his hands.

“Dad?”

“Cutter, tell her,” Mum says quickly.

He slowly lowers his hands and looks so sad, so broken. What have I done? I crumple into Mum’s arms. She moves me to a chair at the table.

“But if I tell Bosco I was wrong, it will mean admitting I’m Flawed.”

Dad finally speaks. “If he finds out that you feel you were right to do what you did, then he will brand you Flawed.”

“Don’t lie about what you did, but tell him you made a mistake. Trust me,” Mum whispers, afraid of being overheard.

“But … the old man.”

“Forget the old man,” she says sternly, so coldly, so devoid of all the love that I know her to have, that I don’t recognise her, and that means I no longer recognise the world. They are my roots, my foundations, and they sit before me now uprooted and saying things I never thought they’d say. “You will not allow a Flawed to ruin your life,” she says, and her voice cracks.

We sit in silence as Mum tries to compose herself, to put the mask back on. Dad rubs her back smoothly, rhythmically, and I sit there, stunned. My thoughts are barely thoughts at all as they hop unfinished from one to the other over what they have just told me.

They want me to lie. They want me to say that what I did was wrong. But to even tell a lie is to be Flawed. To gain my freedom, I must for the first time become Flawed. It doesn’t make sense. It is illogical.

The door opens, and Mum and Dad bristle. Judge Crevan is coming.

I notice the boy in the cell sit up, too. I see the flash of red before I see him. Judge Crevan is like a winged man with his floating blood-red cloak. I see his sparkling blue eyes and his blonde hair, and I think of Art and I feel at home. He smiles at me through the glass, his eyes crinkling at the sides as they always do, and inside I relax. I feel safe.

“Celestine,” he says, as soon as Tina lets him into the cell. He flashes his perfect white teeth and spreads his arms, and as he does, he looks like he’s lifting his wings, about to take off. I run straight into them, and he closes his arms, the red robe wrapped around me. I feel protected. In his cocoon. It will be all right. Bosco will take care of me. He won’t let this go any further.

As he hugs me, my cheek is pushed up against the rough crest on his chest. I am face-to-face with the Guild’s crest and motto, “Purveyors of Perfection”.

He kisses the top of my head and releases me.

“Right, let’s sit. We have a lot to discuss, Celestine.” He fixes me with one of his infamous stern gazes, and just as I always felt before, it looks comical, cartoonish. This is not the man I’m used to seeing in his house.

I hide the nervous smile that is twitching at my lips. Laughing now would not be good.

“Things are going to be very difficult for you over the next few days, but we’ll get you through them, okay?”

He glances at Dad, who suddenly looks completely exhausted, and I think for the first time what he’s had to tell people at work. How can he work at a news station when his own daughter is making the headlines?

I nod.

“You’ll have to listen to me and do as I say.”

I nod again, feverishly.

“She will,” Mum says firmly, sitting poker straight in her chair.

Bosco looks at me to respond.

“I will.”

“Good. Now.” He takes out a tablet and taps and swipes his documents. “This nonsense on the bus this morning.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Art told me all about it.”

I’m not surprised by this. Art wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter, and I am sorry again for how my actions have affected the people I love. I assume Art told him the truth. Art would never lie to his dad, but would he to protect me? I’m suddenly unsure of the story I am to tell, particularly after being told by my parents to lie.

“Unfortunately, already there are people using your connection to Art to take advantage and undermine the work of the Guild. The minority, of course. You may be used as a pawn in their game, Celestine.” He looks at my parents and then back to me. “This is just extremely bad timing in light of the Jimmy Child verdict this morning, where people think I was too lenient. But, Celestine, you have always been one of my greatest supporters. You’re going to be just fine.”

I smile, relieved.

“I have my notes, but I want you to tell me what happened this morning.”

I wonder what Art has said, but then I settle for the truth, hoping I’m not getting him into trouble. After all, there were thirty other people on the bus who will testify to seeing exactly the same thing. All I have to say is that I know I was wrong. That should be easy.

“There were two ladies sitting in the Flawed seats. One had broken her leg and sat there because there was room to extend it, and the other was her friend. An old Flawed man got on the bus. He had nowhere to sit. He started coughing. He could barely stand. He was getting worse and worse. I asked the lady who didn’t have the broken leg—”

“Margaret,” Bosco interrupts me, staring at me intently, his eyes moving from my eyes to my lips, narrowed in suspicion, analysing my every word, every facial expression, every little movement. I concentrate on the story.

“Right. Margaret. I asked her if she would move so he could sit down.”

“Why?”

“Because—”

“Because he was disturbing the passengers on the bus, that’s why,” he interrupts. “Because his Flawed, disgusting, infectious cough was infecting the good people in our society, and you were concerned about them and yourself.”

I pause, mouth open, unsure of what to say. I look at Mum and Dad. Mum is nodding coolly, and Dad’s bloodshot eyes are focussed on the table, not giving anything away. I don’t know what to say. This is not what I expected.

“Continue,” Bosco says.

“So she wouldn’t move, and eventually I called out for a doctor—”

“To stop his disgusting condition from spreading,” he says. “You were thinking of the people on the bus. Protecting them from the dangers of the Flawed.”

I pause.

“Continue.”

“So then I called for the driver to stop the bus.”

“Why?”

“To help—”

“To get him off the bus,” he snaps. “To get rid of him. So that the air of your fellow passengers would be cleaner, wouldn’t be polluted. You are, in fact, a hero. This is what the people outside believe. This is the story that Pia has been telling for the past two hours. People are gathering outside to see you, the hero who stood up to the Flawed.”

My mouth drops and I look across at Dad, now understanding why he looks so shattered. Has he spent the whole morning spinning this story?

“But there’s a problem,” Bosco says. “You helped him into a seat. A seat for the flawless. And that is where my colleagues and I cannot agree, and I have spent the past hour discussing it with them. We have failed to mention this part to Pia, but, of course, there were at least a dozen people on that bus who will come forward with the story. They probably even have video.”

He looks at my dad again and my dad nods. He has received a video already, something recorded on someone’s phone on the bus and sent directly into the news station. He’s probably spent the morning fighting for it not to be shown. He knows what will happen if it is.

“Rest assured, your dad will do everything in his power to make sure that video doesn’t hit the airwaves.” It sounds like a threat.

“I told you I’m doing everything that I can,” Dad says, looking him firmly in the eye.

Bosco holds his stare; they look at each other coldly.

Mum clears her throat to snap them out of their stare.

“So,” Bosco says, “after hearing that testimony, I would say this accusation is a grave injustice, as someone who was, in fact, aiding the Guild cannot be condemned to life as a Flawed. However, my fellow judges disagree. With me and with each other. Currently, Judge Jackson, who is normally a sound man, regards your act as a moral misjudgement and would like a Flawed verdict. Judge Sanchez sees your act as aiding and assisting a Flawed, which carries a punishment of imprisonment.”

Mum gasps. I freeze. Dad doesn’t do anything. He probably already knew this.

“As you know, the minimum prison term for aiding a Flawed is eighteen months, and considering this act was carried out so publicly, on public transport, in full sight of thirty people, it carries the highest penalty. We have argued this back and forth.” He sighs, and I hear the weariness, the genuine discontent, at what is happening. “And we have reached an agreement of three years. But you will be released in two years and two months.”

“What?” I say. Two years in prison? But it’s like I’m not there; they’re talking about me like I’m not there.

“It is unfortunate timing for Celestine to have … slipped up,” he says to Mum and Dad. “The vultures out there are willing to make an example of her. Pia can only hold her ground for so long. Cutter, you and your team, of course, are pulling your weight and covering the story as you always should, but there is extreme opposition from the other side. This isn’t so much about Celestine being on trial as the Guild being on trial, and we cannot allow that. We cannot allow that.” He sits up, puffs out his chest. “Cutter, I’ll need your team to step it up. Candy has commented on the fact there has been some recent … upheaval at the station. I think, for the sake of your daughter, the reporting should be in strict keeping with the style and philosophy of the network. No wandering off …”

Is that a threat? Did I just hear Bosco threaten Dad? Candy is Bosco’s sister; she’s in charge of the news network. My head snaps around to look at Dad, and it looks as though there’s another version of him underneath his skin just trying to get out but being contained, restrained with force.

“The pessimists who look backward to some mythical golden age of journalism are mistaken. The golden age is now – and even more so in the immediate future. Candy has quite rightly given Bob Tinder some time off due to personal issues. With the atmosphere as it is now, I need him to be on his toes, performing at a high level to keep the gossip-mongers and the opportunists at bay. The naysayers assume that Celestine will get away with this, that the Flawed court isn’t entirely fair. She is the girlfriend of the son of the judge; she will get special treatment. And that is really what I want to do, Celestine,” he says sadly, genuinely sad. “You make Art happy, the only person who can do that since his mother passed, and I know that he thinks the world of you. But, unfortunately, my colleagues, my own people, also see you as a pawn. They see you as a perfect example to show our doubters how the system is fair. How even the seemingly perfect girlfriend of the son of the head judge can be deemed Flawed. I am fighting two sides, dear Celestine.”

I swallow hard.

“And I agree that no one can be seen to be above the Guild. No one can be seen to escape the justice of the Guild.”

I think of the definition of what the Guild is: it is not a function of the Guild to administer justice; its work is solely inquisitorial. I want to say it aloud, but I know I shouldn’t. Now is not the time for my black-and-white logic, though shouldn’t it be?

“Do you realise just how much trouble you are in, child?” Bosco asks.

“Child,” I say suddenly. “They can’t send me to prison. I’m not eighteen for another six months.”

“Celestine,” he says, “an individual over sixteen can be deemed Flawed, and for a punishment of imprisonment, we can delay the start date until the day of your eighteenth birthday.”

Bosco had said I could have a party on his yacht for my eighteenth birthday. Instead, I could be spending my first night as an adult in prison. I don’t deserve this. Do I? Does anybody? Angelina certainly didn’t.

I look over at the boy in the next room, who is sitting on his bed, with his head down. I wonder how long he has been here; I wonder what he did. Bosco follows my gaze. As if sensing our stares, the boy looks up and looks directly at Bosco with a cold, hard stare, eyes filled with hate. Bosco matches the boy’s look but holds such disgust and contempt for him that I shrivel and almost want to apologise on his behalf.

“You shouldn’t be in here with such scum,” Bosco says simply, and I’m glad the boy can’t hear.

“What did he do?”

“Him? He’s Flawed to the bone,” he says, disgusted. “Though he doesn’t know it yet. I don’t even need to listen to the facts of the case to know his type. I can see it in him. Not like you, Celestine. You are pure. You should not have the future that is destined for him.”

“What do I need to do?” I ask, voice shaking.

“You repeat the story we just discussed, and when they ask you about helping the old man into a seat, you say that you did not, that he sat there himself.”

My mouth falls open. “But the old man will be punished for that.”

“Yes, he will. He’s old and very sick. He’ll probably die before Naming Day anyway.”

The old man did not sit down. He did everything in his strength to stay standing. It was me who helped him to the seat.

“I can’t …”

“You can’t what?” Bosco looks at me.

“I can’t lie.”

“Of course you can’t,” he says, confused, looking at me as if he doesn’t recognise me. “To lie would be to prove that you are Flawed. I would never ask you to lie,” he says, as though insulted. “It is the only way you will go free, prevent being branded for life. It is the only way. What we discussed here now is what happened, and you will confirm that in court, you will say loud and clear for all to hear that society must seek out and oust the Flawed scum in our society. It is the Guild’s work, and you, in full support of the Guild and its values, were working under its rules. You didn’t aid a Flawed. What you did was aid the Guild and, in turn, aid society. That’s what you will tell them. Are we agreed?”

I’m the poster girl. One side wants to use me to prove the Guild is biased; the Guild wants to use me to prove that it isn’t. The perfect girl to prove its power. It wants me to feed the fear.

“Agreed,” I say shakily.

My hearing is this afternoon. The boy in the room beside me, whom I have nicknamed Soldier, has continued to ignore me. I’m sure that seeing me embrace Bosco didn’t do much to sway his initial feelings about me. The word that Pia Wang has been pushing on behalf of Crevan is that I was trying to get rid of the Flawed man from the bus, not help him. If Soldier has seen these reports, which I’m sure he has because Flawed Court TV is the only station we can get on the tiny television in our cells, then that is why he isn’t looking at me. I can only gather from this that he is not anti-Flawed, that he feels my actions were unfair. If only he knew the truth, then he would know he had an ally in the cells. I know this untruth will save my life, but I can’t help but feel embarrassed that this is the perception out there of me. I feel Soldier’s disgust through the wall, and I don’t blame him, but I wonder, if he had the same chance to get out of this, would he take it?

Dad goes back to work and Mum stays with me. She has brought with her a suitcase of my clothes for the trial, and it looks like she went into a clothes store and grabbed every item from the racks. Soldier watches with a sarcastic look as Mum lays out the clothes on my bed, hangs them from every point of the cell she can. He shakes his head and goes back to pacing. I feel self-conscious about all the fuss in my cell when he has been alone all morning, but I try to put his presence out of my mind and concentrate on saving my own life.

“That’s a lot of pink,” I state as I run my eyes over the selection.

“We’ve got pale pink, baby pink, orchid pink, champagne pink, pink lace, cherry blossom pink, lavender pink, cotton candy, hot pink …” Mum lists the shades as she moves along the line, already eliminating the ones she doesn’t like and tossing them back into the suitcase. The hot pinks, candy pinks and lace are removed. The suggestive tops with the low fronts are taken away. We settle on baby pink: skinny cropped trousers and a blouse so light pink it is almost white, buttoned up the centre with ruffles, and a pair of ballet flats. A walk across the cobblestoned courtyard in heels is too much of a stage set for a tripping/heel-getting-caught disaster. Not a good look for the cameras and the hysterical public, who will be there to watch me. The flats are pink and tan leopard print.

“They’re sweet, but they say ‘don’t mess with me’, too,” Mum says. “Remember, in this world, image is everything.”

Tina arrives with a male mannequin, then leaves.

“Sweetheart, this is Mr Berry,” Mum says. “He will be representing your case. Judge Crevan recommended him, says he’s the best. He represented Jimmy Child.”

The mannequin suddenly moves. He offers me a big smile, a smile I don’t believe, a smile that is as fake as the smooth skin on his face. From the neck down he looks sixty; from the chin up he looks thirty. He wears a dapper suit – like he’s just walked out of the airbrushed pages of a magazine – shiny shoes, a handkerchief perfectly positioned in his pocket and gold cuff links to match his gold tie. His face shimmers where his cheekbones have been accentuated, and I definitely see powder on his skin. He’s perfect, and yet I don’t trust him. I look over at Soldier, who is glaring at my newly appointed representative with suspicion. I must say I agree, once again, with his instincts. Our eyes meet, and he shakes his head as though I am nothing and then walks to the far corner of his cell, as far away from me as he can physically get.

“Celestine,” Mum says. She jerks her head in Mr Berry’s direction, and I realise I haven’t acknowledged him yet.

“I’m sorry.” I move forward hastily, as if I’ve been pushed.

“I understand,” he says, devoid of all understanding and affection, through his big white teeth. “So let’s get to it.” He takes his seat and bangs his briefcase down on the table before him. Gold clasps spring open. “Today is just procedure. You won’t be required to say or do anything at all apart from deny the Flawed claim, then they’ll set a time for your trial tomorrow and send you home.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Celestine,” he says, noticing my nerves, “you just stick with me, kiddo, do as I say, and we’ll both be fine. I’ve done this a million times.”

The both is not lost on me.

“Of course, your situation is unique. I don’t usually have every member of the press and MTV outside my door. Not even for Jimmy Child, but then young women in the media are always more interesting. We found that helped us in Jimmy’s case. They were more interested in his wife and her sister than him.”

“MTV?”

“You’re a pretty seventeen-year-old girl from a good part of town, no serious problems, girlfriend of the son of Judge Crevan. What’s not to love about this case? Plus they’re looking for a new reality show, and it looks like you’re their newest target. You represent a generation that will be obsessed with every detail of every aspect of this case, a generation that is pliable, mouldable and just so happens to have more disposable income than any other demographic. Whatever shoes you wear today, they’ll want tomorrow. Whatever earrings you’re wearing, they will sell out by the end of this week. Whatever perfume you wear, there will be a waiting list for it tomorrow. It will be the Celestine North effect. The fashion and sales industry will love you.”

He speaks so fast I can barely keep up with him, and he talks through a smile, which makes it difficult to read his plumped-up lips, which rarely move.

“Every single medium is going to use you for its own motivations – you remember that. You’re a poster girl for the Guild, you’re a poster girl for Anti-Guild, you’re a poster girl for the clothes you’re about to wear and for the lip gloss they’re going to wonder about. Does your daily eating plan include carbs, and how many ab crunches do you do a day? Who styles your hair? How many boyfriends have you had? Have you had a boob job? Should you? Plastic surgeons are lined up and ready to talk about every aspect of you, Celestine North, and I care about all those aspects because they affect the outcome of the biggest question at all: are you Flawed?”

I don’t know if he’s waiting for an answer or not. He is simply studying me, all of me, with his snake-like eyes, which stare at me from under his eyelid-lift, so I don’t respond. I will not give him the benefit, and I wonder again where this stubbornness comes from.

“Everyone is ready and waiting to use you for their own good, just you remember that.”

Everyone? “And what’s your angle?” I ask.

“Celestine.” Mum gasps. “I’m sorry, Mr Berry, but Celestine has the tendency to be so literal about everything.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Mr Berry says, studying me with his big smile, looking and sounding like there is everything wrong with all of that. “Like I said, today is procedural. You’ll deny the charge, then you’ll go home, and you’ll wait until trial tomorrow. It will all be over by the end of tomorrow. You need to think about character witnesses. Parents, siblings, best friends who’d die for you, that kind of thing.”

“My boyfriend, Art, is my best friend. He’ll speak for me.”

“Sweet,” he says, flicking through his documents, “but he won’t.”

“Why not?” I ask, surprised.

“Better if I ask the questions,” he says. “But seeing as you asked, Judge Crevan has decided he’s off-limits.”

I can tell he’s uncomfortable with this decision, and I understand why. Bosco could not ask his son to lie about my helping the old man to the seat. It makes sense to me, and yet I feel deeply disappointed not to have Art on my side. I need him, and I wonder how hard he fought to speak up for me, or if he fought at all.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nobody needs to hear how your boyfriend thinks you’re perfect. Every boyfriend either thinks that or will lie about it even if he doesn’t. And he won’t be called as a witness to the scene, because there are thirty other people who are leaping at the chance to do just that. In particular, Margaret and Fiona, the two ladies involved.”

I silently fume, then think hard. “My sister, Juniper.”

“No,” Mum says. “Juniper won’t be taking the stand,” she says to Mr Berry.

They look at each other for a while, speaking a silent language that I don’t understand.

“Why not?” I ask.

“We’ll talk about that later,” she says, smiling, but her eyes are warning me to leave it alone.

So Juniper won’t speak on my behalf. Paranoia tells me she is ashamed of me, she has turned her back on me. She won’t lie for me, or my parents won’t let her lie. They don’t want me to drag her down with me. Why lose two daughters when you can just lose one? My bitterness takes me by surprise. Earlier I hadn’t wanted her to get into trouble, and now when I’m sinking deeper into it, I’m angered by those who are stepping away.

“You have other friends, I assume, and not just your sister and your boyfriend. We only need one.”

Art became my life after his mum passed away, and by spending so much time together, we managed to alienate our group, who, though they understood, also felt a little betrayed and left out. But I know Marlena, my closest friend since childhood, will support me, despite how left out she’s felt lately.

“You’ll be out of here by tonight,” Mr Berry says.

“They won’t keep me here?”

“No, no. They only do that in special cases, for those who are at risk of running, like that young man beside you.”

We all look at Soldier, and Mum visibly shudders. He looks so lost, so angry, he doesn’t stand a chance.

“Who is representing him?”

“Him?” Mr Berry snorts. “He has chosen to represent himself, and he is doing a very bad job. You would almost think he wants to be Flawed.”

“Who would want that?” Mum asks, turning away from him.

I think of the Flawed I pass every day, the people I can’t look in the eye, the people I take steps around to avoid even brushing against. Their scars as identifiers, their armbands, their limited possibilities, living in society but everything they want being just out of reach. You see them all standing at the curfew bus stops in town, to be home by ten pm in winter, eleven pm in summer. In the same world but not living in the same way. Do I want to be like them?

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” Mr Berry says, bored, wanting to move on.

I look at him alone in there, me here with my selection of clothes, my mum, my representation, the head judge himself. I have people. He must hate me, yet that’s what I must do to get out of here with my life intact. A light goes on for me. I could be in a far worse position. I could be in his situation. All that separates me from him is a lie. I must become imperfect to prove that I am perfect. I have to do everything Mr Berry tells me to do.

Tina brings me a tray of food before I cross the courtyard to the court, but I am too nervous to eat. In the next cell, Soldier gobbles every bite as though his life depends on it.

“What’s his name?” I ask her.

“Him?” She gives him the same look as everyone else has, though she hasn’t treated me like that from the moment I arrived.

“Carrick.”

“Carrick,” I say aloud. Finally, he has a name.

Tina looks at me, eyes narrow and suspicious. “You should stay away from that boy.”

We both watch him, and then I feel the weight of her stare on me as I watch him.

I clear my throat, try to act like I don’t care. “What did he do?”

She looks at him again. “He didn’t need to do anything. Guys like him are just bad eggs.” She looks at my tray. “You’re not eating?”

I shake my head. I’d rather eat when I get home later.

“You’ll be fine, Celestine,” she says gently. “I have a daughter exactly the same age as you. You remind me of her. You shouldn’t be here. You’ll be at home tonight, in your own bed, where you belong.”

I smile at her in thanks.

“They’ve called me upstairs for a meeting.” She makes a face. “First time that’s happened. Wonder what I’ve done wrong.” She makes another face, and then, at my reaction, she laughs. “I’ll be coming back, don’t worry. You’re doing great, kiddo. We’ll go across to the court in thirty minutes, so eat up.”

I can’t touch my food. A new guard, Funar, appears, opens Carrick’s door, and says something to him. Whatever it is, Carrick is eager. He hops up and goes straight to the door. Funar comes to my cell next.

“You want to get some fresh air?”

I jump up. Absolutely. He unlocks my door and I walk behind Carrick, realising, as I see him up close for the first time and not through the glass, how solid and large he is. The muscles in his upper back are expansive, his biceps and triceps permanently flexed. I think about Art and feel guilty for even looking. Funar tries the side door that leads outside, but it’s locked.

“Damn it, I’ll have to go back for the key,” he says. “Sit there and don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He points to a bench by the wall in a corridor, and we both comply, sitting down side by side.

Our skin isn’t touching, but I can feel the heat from Carrick’s body from where I sit. He’s like a radiator. I’m not sure whether to say anything to him. I don’t even know what to say. He’s not the most approachable person I’ve ever met. Do I ask him about his case? It’s impossible to shoot the breeze in this situation. I sit, frozen, trying to think of something to say, trying to look at him when he’s not looking in my direction. I finally sense he’s about to say something when six people suddenly turn the corner into our corridor. The women are crying and huddling into the men, who are also red-eyed. They walk by us as though they’re in a funeral procession and enter through a door beside us. When it opens, I look in and see a small room with two rows of chairs. It’s facing a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass, which looks into another room. In the centre of the other room sits what looks like an oversized dentist’s chair, and there is a wall of metal units. I see a guard I met earlier named Bark, open one unit, and there is hot fire inside. Confused, I stare in, trying to figure it out.

Then a man, flanked by two guards, is brought down the corridor. He doesn’t look at us. He looks scared, terrified, in fact. He appears to be in his thirties and is wearing what I’d consider a hospital gown, but it’s blood red, the colour of the Flawed. The guards lead him through a separate door from the one the crying women entered, which I’m guessing leads to the room with the dentist’s chair. The Branding Chamber.

Carrick and I both peer in. The door slams in our face. I jump, startled. Carrick sits back, folds his arms and stares ahead intently with a mean look on his face. His look does not invite conversation, so I don’t say anything at all, but I can’t stop fidgeting, wondering what is going on inside that room. After a moment, our silence is broken by the terrifying, bloodcurdling scream of the man inside as his skin is seared by the hot iron bearing the Flawed brand.

I’m stunned at first, but then my body begins to shake. I look across at Carrick, who swallows nervously, his enormous Adam’s apple moving in his thick neck.

Funar strolls up the corridor with a smug look on his face. “Found them,” he sings, jingling the keys in his hand. “They were in my pocket the entire time.” He smiles and unlocks the door, revealing a narrow stairway that leads outside.

Carrick stands up and storms out the door. Once outside, he looks back at me to join him.

Everything around me starts to move. The walls come closer, the floor rises up to meet me. Black spots blot my vision. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Carrick looks at me in concern. I pass out.

We never did speak.

Half an hour later, with quivering legs, I stand at the enormous wooden double doors, with their elaborately carved embellishments, that lead out to the infamous cobblestoned courtyard. I know it from the daily news, seeing people walk back and forth from the court to the Clock Tower, giving the public and the media an opportunity to see the accused and vent their feelings. Mum and Dad are on one side of me, Mum linking my arm, and Mr Berry is on the other side. We are flanked by Tina and Bark.

Mr Berry adjusts his tie. “Is this straight?” he asks Tina.

Tina nods and then throws Bark a look that is easily deciphered.

I take a deep breath as the doors open, and I am greeted with sights and sounds that I could never have prepared myself for. The first thing I see is a cabbage that flies directly at me and hits me square in the chest. Boos and hisses fill my ears and my head. Mr Berry starts walking, taking me along with him. For a moment I can feel Mum’s hesitancy, but then, as though she’s on a catwalk, she gets into her stride and I follow her lead, lifting my chin, trying to avoid the flour, eggs and spit that are flying from the public.

Mr Berry is giving me orders through his big smile: Smile, don’t smile, chin up, don’t look worried or guilty, don’t react, ignore that man, watch out for that flying dog shit. All this he says through a perfect smile. Dimples and all.

I link Mum even tighter, moving my body closer to hers, and take a quick look at her. She is holding Dad’s hand, her head up, her face completely serene and her hair in an elaborate chignon. I try to copy her, nothing out of place, composure, innocence, serenity, perfection.