First published in Great Britain in 2019

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2019 Lisa Heathfield

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978 1 4052 9386 0

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1869 1

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

For my brother and sisters Philip, Lara, Emma and Anna – for choosing hope and love as your weapons of choice.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SIX MONTHS LATER

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

They say I am number 276.

And that I can’t escape.

They tell me what to do, what to wear, where to go. They try hard to hollow us out, to shrink us, to make us so that we can’t exist.

But they don’t see inside of me. The part of me that they’ll never destroy.

They call me number 276, but that’s not my name.

My name is Ruby West. I am fifteen years old.

And I won’t let them silence me.

CHAPTER ONE

‘Our country was sinking into a black hole, but you voted for us to save you. We will re-establish order and we will make you safe. We will make our country strong again.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party

It’s his gun I see first. Hard metal tucked into his belt, his fingers touching the tip.

A soldier, in our street.

I’m behind him now, a few metres away. Close enough to see how his green uniform has been ironed with a line down the back, like some weird backbone pushing through the material. And there’s the red slash on his arm to show us he’s a Traditional. As if we didn’t know.

His boots are big, but they’re quiet on the pavement. He’s quiet. And he’s walking so slowly that I have to go past him. He turns and looks at me as I do, but I keep facing straight ahead. I don’t want to see his hair, his eyes.

I smell him though, a jolt of aftershave. And he’s whistling, quietly. I want to run, but I can’t, I must keep walking, concentrate on the houses ahead. I bite my lip, taste my strawberry lip balm.

His whistling stops. I feel his eyes on me, on the undercut above my bare neck.

‘The school day starts soon.’ It’s his voice, speaking to me.

A hand suddenly links through my arm and drags me forward. It’s Destiny. She’s in my year at school and even though I don’t think we’ve ever even spoken to each other, right now I want to hug her.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Or we’re going to be late.’

She leads me away from him, away from the soldier and his gun, and we’re running around the corner and leaving him behind.

When we’re far enough away we slow down and Destiny unloops her arm from mine.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

She shrugs and smiles. ‘No problem.’

‘I can’t believe that there are soldiers on the streets,’ I say.

‘It’s a bit terrifying.’

‘Do you reckon they’d use their guns?’

‘Why carry them otherwise?’ Destiny says. It should feel odd to be walking along together, but that soldier has looped a strange thread of fear between us.

‘Why do you think they’re here?’ I ask.

‘Apparently it’s to keep us safe.’

‘From what?’

‘Precisely. They’ll blame it on the Core Party, as they always do.’

‘Because of the protests?’

‘They’ll pretend it’s something like that. My mum’s not surprised though. She thought it’d happen as soon as the Traditionals got into power. She’s only surprised that it’s taken them three months.’

I don’t remember seeing Destiny with glasses before. They’re nice. The frames are thin and almost bubble-gum pink against her skin.

‘My stepdad says John Andrews is actually mad,’ I say.

‘Your family didn’t vote for them then?’

I feel vulnerable suddenly. I realise I don’t know for sure what side Destiny is on. Since the election and the new government some people have really shown their true colours.

‘No,’ I tell her, trying to make my voice sound proud in what I believe in.

‘I’m a Core supporter too,’ she says. ‘Although my mum told me I shouldn’t say either way.’ There’s her laugh again. I wonder how it can be so strong when we’re on a street that might have another soldier around the corner. ‘She says we haven’t seen anything yet.’

‘There’s worse to come?’

I watch the cars drive past as they always do when I walk to school. The familiar sounds of their wheels on the road, people leaving their houses, a woman pushing a buggy on the pavement opposite. How much can really change? How much bad can a new government really do?

‘They made Hannah Maynard go and change her skirt,’ Destiny says.

‘Who did?’

‘The soldiers. They told her it was indecently short.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Completely.’

‘They didn’t put that in their campaign speeches,’ I say.

‘They’re all about traditional values, aren’t they? We should’ve guessed they’d eventually come round to the way we dress.’

‘They’ll have us in high collars and skirts that touch our ankles.’

We’re silent for a bit. Around us it’s getting busier the closer we get to school. The gates are still a walk away but even from here I can see two soldiers standing either side of them. I look over at Destiny but I can’t read her face – it’s kind of neutral.

‘Are we still going to go in?’ I ask.

‘Of course.’ Yet when she looks up at me I can see she’s not neutral after all. There’s rebellion deep in her eyes. ‘They’re not going to stop me doing anything.’

We’re nearly there when I reach up for my ponytail and pull down my hair, letting it fall dead straight to my shoulders.

‘Ruby!’ I hear Luke call my name as soon as I walk through the door. Whatever the chaos of everyone getting into school, we always wait in the same spot for each other. And after one year, two months and five days I still get that crazy blood-flip when I see him. Even though he recently cut off his curls, he still looks beautiful.

‘Hey.’ He’s leaning against a wall as he kisses me, but I pull away from him.

‘Did you see them?’ I ask, remembering the soldier’s smell. His eyes on me.

Luke puts his arm round my shoulder and pulls me close enough to feel the beat of his heart.

‘They’re only people,’ he says. ‘Just in different types of clothes.’

‘But they’ve got guns,’ I remind him.

‘They’re just here to scare us. So don’t let them.’

The bell for tutor time rings out.

‘Did your dad know they’d be here?’

Luke shrugs. ‘He suspected. But sometimes journalists are the last people to find out. People try to hide everything from him.’

‘Hurry up, you lot.’ Our head’s voice ricochets down the corridor, scattering everyone.

‘See you in Art,’ Luke says, kissing me before I head off to my tutor room.

Mr Hart is looking for something in his drawer. It’s only a matter of time before the pile of books on his desk topples.

‘What do you think of the soldiers?’ Sara asks. I put my bag on the chair and sit on the table, my back to the front of the classroom.

‘There weren’t any on my street.’ Conor swings back on his chair, his new shoes up on the table next to me. He hates them. When the Trads brought in a no-trainer rule in all schools he tried to start a petition, but it didn’t get very far.

‘My dad told me not to be frightened of them,’ Sara says. ‘That they’re here to do good.’

‘What good ever came from people with guns?’ Conor snaps at her.

‘Don’t be so arsey,’ Sara says. It’s not like these two to fight. ‘I thought you of all people would like seeing men in uniform.’ She leans over and pulls one of his blond curls and lets it ping back into place.

‘Leave it, Sara,’ he says, swatting her hand away.

‘Settle down!’ Mr Hart shouts from the front.

Sara moves my bag so I can sit. Conor takes his feet from the table but doesn’t stop rocking backwards.

‘Sir,’ Sara calls out. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Do you mean right this moment?’ Mr Hart asks, adjusting his tie so it goes wonky the other side. ‘Or in the country in general?’

‘Both.’

Normally at least a few people are still talking, but now it’s more silent than I’ve ever heard it in here.

‘Well, right this moment we have soldiers outside our school.’ Mr Hart coughs and rubs his hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘And the country in general seems to be in the grip of a maniacal political party who want to take us back to the Stone Age.’

‘With John Andrews as the caveman,’ Conor says.

‘As he’s their leader,’ Mr Hart says, ‘it would appear so.’

‘Surely, sir,’ Ashwar says. ‘He’s just trying to make a better place for all of us to live.’

‘All of us?’ Mr Hart says. ‘Or just the people like him?’

‘By like him,’ Ashwar says, ‘do you mean people who believe in the family unit? Who believe in a safe country?’

‘It depends what your definition of better is, Ashwar,’ Mr Hart answers. ‘I’m not sure that dictating how we think and what we do is necessarily better. Take, for example, their proposed law about single-sex schools throughout the country. You do realise that would mean this school will no longer exist as it is? You’d all be split off, divided.’

‘It’s been proved that they work,’ Ashwar says. ‘Grades are consistently higher when boys and girls are separated.’

‘But it’s about choice,’ Mr Hart says.

‘We’ve had choice for tons of years and look where that’s got us,’ Ashwar says.

‘Do you actually work for the Trads, or something?’ Conor asks and a few laughs scatter about.

‘I’m just saying that perhaps it’s better to finally be told what to do. To have someone in charge who has the guts to put their beliefs into place.’

‘Are you mad?’ Conor asks her. Even though we all know she’s not. Ashwar is a straight 9 student and probably heading for Oxford.

‘I think she’s got a point,’ James says.

‘You would agree with her,’ Sara says. ‘You just want to know the colour of her knickers.’

Laughter cuts into the atmosphere again and James’s face goes so red I think he might explode.

‘I think what you have to consider,’ Mr Hart says, waving a book in the air to quieten us, ‘is why John Andrews and his party are really introducing these new rules. Could it be less about what’s good for society and more about control?’

‘Curfew for anyone under eighteen definitely seems like control to me,’ Conor says.

‘Or could it be that they just really care about what happens to us?’ Ashwar says.

‘The Core Party care,’ Conor tells her. ‘They stand for Champion Of Rights for Everyone, if you remember.

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’ Ashwar glares at him. ‘But they didn’t get voted in, did they? People voted for the Traditionals. They’d had enough of our country sliding towards oblivion.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Conor says. He manages not to shout it, which is pretty impressive for him. For years he was angelic Conor, terrified of spiders and wasps, but since his mum got ill anger sometimes turns him inside out.

‘My mum voted for them,’ Sara says. ‘But she didn’t expect them to start telling us what we can and can’t wear. Even half her wardrobe isn’t suitable by their standards.’

‘Well, I’m not complaining about the length of her skirts,’ Leo says, smirking at her.

‘Shut up.’ I reckon if Sara had a book in her hand she’d lob it at him.

‘Maybe John Andrews is right,’ Ashwar says. ‘That without the trigger of provocative clothing, rape crime will go down.’

Conor slams his fist on to the desk. ‘You seriously believe it’s a girl’s fault if she’s attacked? Because of the way she dresses?’

‘I seriously believe that it’s a complex topic,’ Ashwar says calmly. ‘No other government has tried to face it and we’re left with a country that’s rotting from the inside out.’

‘Sir,’ Conor shouts. ‘You’ve got to stop her spouting this bullshit.’

Mr Hart waves his book from the front again, but this time he looks like he has fury in his veins. ‘I think –’ he says, his voice raised enough to get everyone quiet, ‘– that if we voted again now, some of your parents who ticked a box for the Traditionals might change their mind.’

‘It’s a bit late though, isn’t it,’ Conor mumbles.

‘Yes,’ Mr Hart says. ‘Yes, it is.’

The only class I have with Luke is art. Sara says I only took it so I could be with him and I think she might be right. I’m rubbish at drawing, but Luke is like the next Picasso or something.

‘You okay?’ he asks, sitting on the stool next to me. He puts his hand underneath my hair and I can feel his palm against my skin. When he kisses me I wonder if the Trads will stop this too. If they say short skirts lead to promiscuity and teenage pregnancies, what will they think of outright kissing?

‘Everything’s just a bit weird,’ I say.

‘There was nearly a fight in maths,’ Luke says.

‘So much for the Trads bringing peace and harmony.’

Miss Mason bangs her giant paintbrush on her desk. It’s her way of getting our attention and somehow it’s always worked.

‘There’s a change of plan for our lesson today,’ she says. She’s wearing her long hippy dress as usual so she’ll be fine with any new rules the Trads impose. ‘The whole of Year Eleven are having an assembly in the hall.’

‘Now?’ someone asks.

‘Yes.’ Miss Mason goes to the door and opens it. ‘In silence though. Other year groups are still working.’

‘Miss, I really want to finish my still life,’ Kaylee moans.

‘I’ll open the room at lunch for anyone who wants to make up the time.’

‘No thanks,’ Conor laughs, walking across the top of the tables to get past everyone.

‘Off there,’ Miss Mason tells him and he jumps down, using Kaylee’s head to support him.

‘Wanker,’ she says, swiping at him.

‘Language,’ Miss Mason says.

‘The Trads will knock your head off if they hear you say that, Kaylee,’ Conor says.

‘I said silence,’ Miss Mason shouts.

‘What’s going on, miss?’ Luke asks as we pass her.

‘I’ve just been told to get you all to assembly,’ she says as she flicks off the light and closes the door behind the last of us.

There’s a soldier standing at the front of the hall. It looks wrong that he’s here inside our school. Next to him Mr Edwards, our head, paces up and down, directing people where to sit, filling up the chairs from the front. Luke squeezes my fingers before he lets go of my hand.

Normally in assembly there’s so much noise, people shoving and shouting, calling out to each other. But there’s something about the soldier that sews all our mouths shut. All except Tristan.

‘He’s fit,’ I hear him say.

‘Shh.’ Sara yanks his arm. Since the Traditionals have come into power they’re suddenly very vocal about what they really think of gay people. They say it’s a choice and they’ve made it clear which way they want people to choose.

Luke and I manage to sit together and when everyone is inside, the big double doors close and we all look to the two men at the front.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ Mr Edwards says. I can tell he’s nervous as he exaggerates looking at his watch. ‘Yup, it is still morning, just.’ A few of the teachers around the edge try to laugh, but there’s nothing from any of us. ‘Right, well, I’m going to hand over to Chris Stewart, a member of the Traditional Party.’ Mr Edwards steps to the side, his hands strangely clasped together. I’ve never seen him fade in the presence of anyone before. He normally struts around like some sort of demented peacock.

‘Thank you,’ Chris Stewart says. He clears his throat, his hand balled in front of his lips. ‘I’m very proud to be here as a representative of John Andrews and the Traditional Party.’ He’s older than the soldier on my street this morning. And he doesn’t have a gun, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. ‘As you all know, this is a very exciting time for our country, because for too long we’ve been at the mercy of people with weak vision and weak focus. We are different. We bring change. We’re determined to restore our country to be the great place we know it can be.’ He looks so smug standing there, as though he’s expecting us all to jump to our feet and high five him or something. ‘The Traditionals are not just a party of words but of actions. Already our policies are working. Since we came to power three months ago, violent crimes are decreasing. With us leading you, I promise that your quality of life will continue to rise.’

He’s convincing, I’ll give him that. I know a lot of people will be lapping this up, oblivious to how much will be destroyed for this so-called life. Like our voice, our freedom. I nudge Luke gently with my arm and he nudges me back. Thank God for his sanity in this madness.

‘We know,’ the soldier continues, ‘that much of the country voted for us. People knew it was time for change. And we believe in the importance of solidarity. We know that you want to be as proud of the party you voted for as we are proud of you. Therefore, from today, you are all instructed to wear a band on your arm depicting your allegiance.’

Mr Edwards takes a step backwards. It’s obvious that he didn’t know this was going to happen.

The soldier’s smile doesn’t seem friendly to me. ‘Some of you look confused,’ he says. He looks like a snake. ‘Let me explain it more clearly. You are about to come up here and choose a band of either the Traditionals or the Core Party. You will wear that band at all times.’

There’s not even a murmur. Two hundred silent students. I glance around, but everyone just stares at the front.

Two soldiers appear from the side door carrying a box each. And both are carrying guns slung over their shoulders. They put the boxes on a table. Across the front of one there’s the red slash against the green of the Trads, the other has a rectangle of purple with four yellow upward steps. One soldier slices a knife across the top of one box, then the other.

‘The decision of which band you choose must be your own,’ Chris Stewart says from the front. ‘Don’t be influenced by your friends. And if your parents were foolish enough to vote for the Core Party, know that you don’t have to follow them. They may be frightened of change, but this is your chance to stand up to them, to be your own person. Break free of their chains.’

‘What an idiot,’ Luke whispers so quietly that it’s probably only me who hears it.

‘The front row first,’ Chris Stewart says. No one moves until he points to the girl on the end. ‘You,’ he says. ‘Come and choose your band. The rest will follow in silence.’

She’s a new girl. I don’t know her name, but she goes straight to the Traditionals’ box. She reaches in, pulls out an elasticated green band and pulls it over her school jumper to the top of her arm, turning it so that the red slash is clearly visible. Chris Stewart pats her on the back and she smiles up at him as though he’s some sort of hero or something.

It’s Shaun Williams next and he doesn’t even hesitate before he chooses the Trads. Then James and Ashwar from my tutor group and Tristan. He’s not laughing now as he pulls the green band up his arm.

I don’t know if they all really want to, or if it’s the men holding guns behind them that make them do it.

Sara is first in the second row. I know her mum voted for the Trads as she wanted a change. She said other governments had led us nowhere and she wanted to give someone else a chance. Her dad couldn’t decide so he hadn’t voted. But Sara? She’s been my best mate since our first day in this school and her head is screwed on right.

She gets to the front and hesitates. She looks at Stewart who watches her, before she walks past the Core’s box and puts her hand into the one for the Trads. I drop my head down. Luke reaches over for my hand and this time he doesn’t let go.

I don’t want to see any more of it. I don’t want to believe that it’s happening. So I close my eyes. Are they doing this with Year Eight? Are they going to make my sister choose?

‘I’m not ashamed.’ The voice that makes me look up is Conor’s. He’s pulling a purple Core Party band up his arm, positioning it so that the yellow steps are visible for everyone to see.

‘Ignorance is not something to be proud of,’ Chris Stewart says, glaring at him. I think Conor is going to say something else, but the soldiers with the guns stand straight and he walks back to his seat.

There are a handful of people in the rows in front who have the purple band. The logo of the steps are meant to represent walking up to a brighter, better future, yet not enough people seem to be listening. Or are they just scared? I wish my dad was here, as he’d tell them not to be intimidated. But he lives so far away now that he might not even know this is going on.

It’s my turn. Our line stands up and I follow Jen along the length of chairs. Luke is behind me. The air, all of the sounds, seem to have been sucked from the room as we walk to the front. I can’t tell which I feel more – defiance or fear. But there’s never any doubt about which I’ll choose.

I don’t look at the soldiers, at their empty eyes and loaded guns, as I pull the purple band over my wrist and the sleeve of my jumper. The material it’s made of is stretchy and clings to my arm. I twist it so that the steps face out and as I walk back to my seat I keep my head held high. I look calm, but if you sliced me open now you’d see my heart struggling to keep up with its beating.

I sit down and for a while I don’t look at Luke. I know his dad is a strong Core supporter as he goes to meetings with my mum and my step-dad, Darren. And I know Luke’s thoughts and that he’d want to choose that. But did he? With bullets so close by, did he stay strong to his beliefs?

‘Look at me, Rube,’ he whispers. I do. He has a purple band on his arm.

I want to smile, but I can’t.

In the corridor, everyone is strangely quiet. No one quite looks in each other’s eyes.

‘I want to find Lilli,’ I say to Luke. ‘She’s normally in the canteen at first break.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Luke says, putting his hand in mine. I try not to see people’s arms, but there are far, far more green bands than purple. I’ve never felt vulnerable in school before, but I do now. It almost feels like being dropped in the sea and circled by sharks. I have to remind myself that everyone is just the same as they were this morning. No one has really changed.

At least it feels normal in the canteen. It’s not as busy in here as it is at lunchtime, but there’re still lots of people talking and plates being thumped on to trays. Luke and I walk past tables, towards the one where Lilli and her friends are huddled together. They’re the girls she came up from primary school with. The Tight-Knits they used to call themselves, before other kids took the mick.

Lilli is laughing but stops the moment she looks at me. She moves her arm back, but I’ve already seen the green band.

‘She chose the Trads,’ I say to Luke, pulling him to slow down. He looks confused, but when he glances at Lilli I know he sees it too.

‘Ruby,’ he says, putting his hands on my shoulders. ‘She would’ve felt alone in there and just copied her friends.’

‘But she’s not a Trad.’

‘I know. But this is what they want to happen. They want Core families to rip themselves apart, so they can show proof that we’re the bad ones.’

‘Darren’ll be furious.’

‘He won’t. He’ll understand,’ Luke says. ‘And if she falls out with him then she’ll need you by her side.’ He bends down to kiss me. ‘You can do this.’

My sister’s table is completely quiet when we get to it.

‘Hey, Lils,’ I say, hating the fact that my voice sounds so forced happy. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes,’ she says, but she doesn’t look it.

‘What are you eating?’

‘Just a doughnut.’

Her skinny arm has that green armband clamped round it, but I concentrate on looking at her face instead.

‘Enjoy it,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to check you’re all right.’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good. Love you, Chicken Bones,’ I tell her, faking a smile. She doesn’t make a fuss that I just called her that in front of her friends. Instead, she looks like she might cry, which’ll be far more embarrassing for her than some stupid nickname. So I pull Luke away with me.

As we walk out of the canteen I look around. Hannah Maynard has a green band on. Her boyfriend, Tre, who I know is a Core, has a Trad band glaring from his arm. By the door we pass Hunter Melville. He’s kind of like the boss of Year Eight. He puts his arm out to show me as we walk by. A Core. I smile at him, genuine now. At least there are bits of surprising light in this grim day.

I don’t see Sara again until lesson four. I’ve wanted to text her, but Mr Edwards has clamped down on phones so bad recently that I don’t want to risk him taking mine for a few days. Sara’s sitting in her usual seat, the empty chair next to her waiting for me.

‘Hey,’ she says.

‘Hey back,’ I say. ‘Have you been hiding from me?’

‘No.’ Her face is shocked and tells me she has. ‘It’s a weird day.’

‘Yeah.’

Miss Hajiev walks into the classroom. She has the green band with the slash of red on her arm. So they’re even getting teachers to do it too.

‘This thing doesn’t change anything,’ Sara says, pointing to the Trad band on her own arm.

‘Course not,’ I say.

‘Right, class,’ Miss Hajiev says. ‘You’ve homework to hand in, I believe.’

There are groans from people as the air tries to click back into its normal place.

‘I bet it’s only for a few days.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. But the word just balances there. It doesn’t step into a patch of truth.

I wait for Luke after school. I want to feel more confident and look everyone with a Trad band in the eye, but instead I keep focused on the floor as I stand here, scuffing my shoe backwards and forwards until I make a strong line in the dust.

A gob of saliva lands in front of my foot. I look up and Shaun Williams is standing so close, with bully sunk deep in his eyes.

‘Core scum,’ he says. People glance over, but no one stops.

‘Rather that than be a Trad,’ I say, pulling my bag closer on my shoulder.

‘You can’t hide it any more,’ he says. ‘So you’ll just have to keep watching your back.’

‘Or what?’ Luke says, appearing at my side. He’s at least a foot taller than Shaun, but Shaun is wider.

‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ Shaun says.

Luke just laughs. ‘We’ll look forward to it. Now ’scuse us, we’ve got better places to be.’ And he grabs my hand as we start to walk away.

‘What, like a Core meeting, or something?’ Shaun shouts. ‘I wouldn’t risk going to one of those if I was you.’

I look back without even meaning to. Shaun raises a finger at me and slices it across his neck. I want to think of an insult, but my mind fills with nothing.

‘He’s not worth it,’ Luke tells me. And at least we’re together as we hurry away from the school, away from the weird day, from friends who are suddenly strangers. Through all the streets, only stopping when we get to the low wall that runs along the side of the disused railway track.

Normally we’re not that careful as we jump over the bricks that lead to the overgrown slope, but today I don’t want anyone to see.

‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’ I ask. Part of me wants to get home, even though Mum isn’t back from work for another hour. Maybe I should be there with Lilli – but what are we going to say to each other now I know what she chose? Will she hide the band under her bed and lie to Mum and Darren?

‘There are no rules about where we can and can’t go,’ Luke says, looking around before he walks slowly through the long grass. ‘Yet.’

I follow him. We always try to zigzag to the bottom, so there’s no path to give us away. Not because we’ve ever been frightened of being caught before, but just because this is our place and we don’t want anyone to find it. Today, I just run down, needing to get to the bottom fast enough. Luke holds up the broken barbed-wire fence and I crawl underneath, holding it for him until he’s through.

We hold hands as we slip behind the line of trees and walk further down until we’re on the track. I never step on the metal bits, even though it hasn’t been used for years. Instead I walk on the piles of leaves in between.

For the first time since this morning’s assembly I feel as if I can breathe normally. I reach up to yank off the purple band on my arm and stuff it into my bag. Down here, with the branches of trees touching each other above our heads, life feels normal again. There are no soldiers. No strange rules being introduced. No jealous guarding of some national identity. We can say what we want, wear what we want. I start to roll up the waistband of my skirt, so ridiculously high that I know my knickers show.

‘If I like short,’ I say, ‘I’ll have short.’ Luke turns to look at me and he nearly falls over.

‘Ruby.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t do that to me.’

‘I’m not doing anything to you,’ I say. ‘I’m doing it for me.’ And I brush past him, swaying my hips as I hook up my bag on my shoulder.

Our hut is there as it always is. Something solid in this madness. Something hidden and secret and us. I think it was something to do with the trains – maybe a signalman’s hut. Luke says it was for a rabbit-shooting man. There was an animal skeleton inside when he first discovered it after he moved to our town and that was all the evidence he needed to create a bogeyman in rabbit skin.

I spin the numbers on our padlock until it opens and am about to push on the door when Luke puts out an arm to stop me.

‘Close your eyes first,’ he says.

‘What for?’

‘You’ll see.’

And so I do and I’m expecting to feel him kissing me, but instead I hear him rustling in his bag.

‘Okay,’ he says and when I open my eyes he’s holding a necklace. It has Ruby spelled out across it in small looping letters. ‘For you.’ And he laughs. ‘In case you hadn’t guessed.’

Everything else is silent around us. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And I really mean it.

‘As are you.’

He puts it around my neck, his arms leaning lightly on my shoulder as he does the clasp.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I love it.’ And I kiss him, taking every drop of the dread and confusion of the day and making it disappear. My hand finds Luke’s Core band and I yank it from him. I don’t want to open my eyes and see it there.

We stumble into our hut and I kick the door closed.

‘Wait,’ he says and he pushes me away.

‘I don’t want to,’ I tell him, but he ducks away and goes to the table by the wall.

‘I want to draw you first. Like that.’

‘In my knickers?’ I raise my eyebrows at him.

‘No. In your skirt like that.’ He’s all serious now, like he gets whenever he’s near his art stuff. He grabs his sketchbook from beside the wall. ‘If they really are going to ban short skirts, I need something to remember it by.’

‘That just sounds like an excuse.’

‘Maybe,’ Luke says and smiles that smile that he knows will make me do anything. ‘Seriously, Rube. You look beautiful. I need to catch that.’

I put my hair back into its ponytail and feel the softness of my undercut, before I hold the necklace Luke gave me and trace my fingers along the letters of my name.

‘You know, I love you more than popcorn,’ I tell him.

‘With sugar or salt?’

‘Both.’

‘Good. Just checking.’ And he gets his sketching pencils from his bag.

‘Are there any biscuits left?’

‘A few, I think.’

They’re in a tin that his grandad used to keep his ration book in. His dad was going to throw it away, but Luke managed to save it and bring it here. It’s on the floor next to a bottle of water. The tin is stiff to open and the smell of it always makes me feel a bit ick, but I’d never tell Luke that.

‘Do you want one?’ I ask him.

‘I’m all right,’ he says, as I knew he would. He doesn’t eat when he’s drawing. Something about him not wanting to confuse the senses. I watch as he lights a couple of candles next to his paper. They shine up on to him and make him look carved from stone.

I take the tin with me and go and lie on the rug on my side. It’s more of an offcut of carpet we found in a skip one day, but it was brand new, so we carried it between us all the way from Sydney Street, next to the park. I stretch out my legs and have to shuffle up a bit so my feet don’t press into the chair. The biscuit is definitely stale.

‘Eugh,’ I say, as I drop the rest of it back into the tin. ‘It’s bendy.’

‘They’re meant to be,’ Luke says, his pencil in his mouth as he straightens his sketchbook. ‘They’re called bendy biscuits.’

He looks up at me and it’s always in this moment that he sees me differently. I’m not just Ruby. I’m sort of more than me. I’m every line, every shadow that makes up the person I am. All my imperfections too. My nose that could be straighter, my eyes that I wish were brown. The strange splodge of a birthmark above my knee that is clear as anything with my skirt like this.

‘Hang on,’ I say and I have to move a bit to get the Core band I threw on the floor. I pull it over my head and it squeezes tight over my eyes, before I leave it around my mouth.

‘You’re not going to be able to breathe,’ Luke says, but I shrug. ‘Or speak.’ I pull the band back up until it rests on my forehead.

‘Good point,’ I say.

‘Ready now?’

‘Yup.’

I’m hoping that me lying here like this might distract him enough from his drawing, but my luck’s not in. I could lie here naked and he’d probably still just study me and scribble away, detached yet somehow more involved all in the same moment. Maybe one day I really will strip off completely. See if he manages to keep his concentration then.

‘Darren says the Core supporters are planning big demonstrations about the Trads wanting to close our borders,’ I say. ‘He won’t let me go to any though, which isn’t fair if your dad takes you to them.’

‘Mm.’

‘I reckon the Trads should introduce a rule that stepdads don’t have to be listened to. I wouldn’t protest against that one.’

Luke is lost in his world of pencil and paper. He has this expression when he draws – frowning but with one eyebrow a bit higher than the other. And he always has one pencil in his hand, one in his mouth. I’ve warned him about lead poisoning, but he says he’s happy to die for his art.

‘How can women ever vote for him?’ I ask, deciding to reach for the bendy biscuit after all. It’s meant to be ginger, so if I ignore the fact that it doesn’t crunch like it should, I can concentrate on the taste instead. ‘I reckon if they could all vote again tomorrow, loads of women would change their mind. Because it’s not like the Trads were completely honest in their campaign, were they?’

‘No one ever is.’

‘They talked about strengthening the family unit, but there was no mention of banning new mums from work.’

Luke doesn’t answer. There’s just the faint scratch of his pencil.

‘Sara chose a green band,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘How could she? Her parents voted Trad, but she should know better. I thought she was stronger than that.’

‘People are scared.’

‘To stand up for what’s right?’

‘Yes. When there are guns involved. Definitely.’

I take another biscuit. ‘These are disgusting.’

‘You need to stay still.’

‘I’ll keep my legs still. Draw them while I’m eating. Or better still,’ I say, hitching my skirt even higher. ‘Eat my legs while you draw.’

‘Rubes.’ Luke looks pained. ‘It’s difficult enough for me to focus as it is.’

‘Don’t then,’ I say. ‘Come and join me here.’

‘I will,’ Luke says. ‘When I’ve finished this.’

I pout at him, but I know it won’t make any difference, so I settle myself as comfortable as I can to wait it out.

‘I feel bad that I didn’t go home with Lilli,’ I say. ‘If she didn’t go to a friend’s she’ll be at home worrying about what I think. Whether I’m going to tell Mum or Darren.’ I pick at the carpet in front of me.

‘Are they both at work?’

The door to our hut suddenly slams open. I sit up and grab the Core band from my forehead as a soldier walks in.

‘What’s going on here?’ He doesn’t look at Luke, only at me, his eyes going from my face to my bare legs. Luke starts to get up. ‘Don’t move,’ the soldier shouts.

‘We’re just hanging out,’ Luke says, raising his hands with his palms facing out. I don’t know how he speaks. My voice has wound itself tight round the trigger of the soldier’s gun.

‘You’re indecent,’ the man says to me. My legs burn under his glare and I try to pull the skirt longer.

‘We weren’t doing anything,’ Luke says. I don’t look at him again, but I can hear fear flickering in his words.

‘Where’s your ID?’ the soldier asks.

‘In my bag,’ Luke tells him.

‘Get it.’

Luke goes from his chair to the wall. He has to turn his back on the soldier as he picks up his bag. In the front pocket is his ID – the one everyone over the age of thirteen now has to carry. Luke walks the few steps across the hut floor and hands it over. The soldier scans it, before he throws it back.

‘Now yours.’ He uses his gun to point at me and my brain switches blank. All I can see is how close the trigger is. How I could blink and it will all be over.

‘Ruby,’ Luke says. ‘He needs your ID.’ He nods at me calmly, even though panic must be biting every cell in his body.

‘Fine,’ I say. I stand up and pull my skirt to its normal length, but even though it reaches my knees now, I feel completely exposed. I try to stop my hands shaking as I unzip my bag. I’m determined not to show the soldier that I’m afraid as I hand him my ID, looking him hard in the eyes. He stares at my card, then scans it before he hands it back.

‘I’ll escort you from here,’ the soldier says. ‘It’s clearly an unsuitable place for two young, unmarried people to be. You won’t be coming back.’

If he didn’t have that gun I’d thump him. Or at least swear at him or something. Instead, like obedient lambs, Luke and I head towards the door.

‘You’ve forgotten something,’ the soldier says. He jerks his head towards Luke’s Core band on the floor. ‘Or you could put it in the bin and choose the option of a better future.’

‘No thanks,’ Luke says, as he bends down to pick it up and pulls it up his arm.

‘Put on yours,’ the soldier tells me. There’s a strong part of me that wants to hide it in my bag, to deny my beliefs and make my life easier, just for a moment. But I pull the Core band up my arm too.

‘I’ll follow you out,’ the soldier says.

I hear him close the door to our hut. Luke and I walk side by side, our hands almost touching. The tunnel through the trees doesn’t feel safe any more. The air is cold. The soldier walks behind us, his boots heavy on the leaves. I don’t think he walks on the railway line, but I wish he would. I wish they’d suddenly turn it on and send a thousand volts through his Trad body.

He’s close behind us, but I can feel his gun as though it’s pressing on my back. Pressing between my shoulder blades, the tip of it boring into my skin. The bullet released.

‘We’re okay,’ Luke whispers. I nod and look ahead.

We reach the broken part of the fence and I crawl through it, knowing that the soldier watches every part of me. Luke follows and holds back the wire mesh for the soldier, who looks vulnerable as he crawls on his hands and knees. A little boy, just for a moment, before he stands up tall again.

‘I’ve got all your details now,’ he says, tapping the scanner at his side. ‘Both your names, where you live. Your families.’ He looks at each of us. ‘We’ll be watching you.’

We walk up through the long grass.

‘Go straight home,’ Luke whispers to me.

‘You too.’

I want to kiss him but daren’t even touch his hand. Instead, I turn and start to run, my feet hard on the pavement. I don’t stop until I’m home.

Mum is already in the kitchen. My blood is still stumbling from that soldier’s close breath. She puts down the kettle when she sees me.

‘You’ve got one too,’ she says, touching the Core band on my arm. ‘They came into work.’ She takes off her coat and there’s a band of purple on top of her nurse’s uniform. ‘Apparently it’s just in our area, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re being used as some sort of trial. If it works they’ll make the rest of the country wear them.’

‘Brilliant,’ I say.

‘Did they make Lilli choose?’ she asks, as she puts her coat over the back of a chair.

I nod. I don’t want to tell her, to even say it out loud, that Lilli chose a Trad band. But Mum can tell by my face.

‘Don’t be angry with her,’ I say. Mum looks knackered as she sits down. ‘She only chose it because her friends did. And if it’s just a trial for a few days then it’s not a big deal.’

Mum nods. ‘I’ll go and talk to her. I think she’s in her room.’

She gets up again already and it looks like she’s carrying a hundred weights on her shoulders. In the doorway she stops.

‘Ruby, I’m not sure these bands are just for a few days. I think things out there are going to start getting ugly.’

‘Like how?’

‘I’ve never known our country to feel so divided and that’s not a good place for it to be in. There are all sorts of rumours about arrests and blocking off streets, but with so many lies it’s hard to know what’s true.’

‘The Core Party speaks the truth,’ I say.

‘Mostly,’ she says, before she goes up the stairs.

The kitchen is usually a bit of a sanctuary for me. Second to my bedroom, it’s my favourite place in our house. But now it somehow feels hollowed out and any air that’s left slides inside me when I breathe and sits like a dead bird in my stomach.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Enough of the swarms of people entering our country. We will close our doors against the scum of the world, those who suck our country dry.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party

‘You’re not coming and that’s final.’ Darren’s talking with his mouth full, which Mum always tells us not to.

‘You’re not my dad,’ I say quietly, but loud enough for him to hear.

‘No, but he’s your stepdad, so that’s the next best thing,’ Mum says. ‘Besides, we need you to stay home to look after Lilli.’

‘But I want to come.’ Tonight’s demonstration is apparently going to be the biggest local one yet. The armbands they gave out earlier have unsettled the Core supporters and people want to protest before the Trads have a chance to make the rest of the country wear them.

‘Well, you can’t.’ Darren has finished his meal in about one second. I don’t think he means to slam his fork down quite as hard as he does. ‘Nothing is worth putting you girls at risk.’

Lilli might lap up this violin talk from him, but it doesn’t work with me.

‘Then how come it’s okay for Mum to go with you?’ I ask.

‘Because we’ll be fine,’ Mum says. ‘And it’s better than us sitting back and doing nothing. We have to stand up to them before things go too far.’

‘Dad would let me go,’ I say, but even though he’s a hardline Core supporter I’m not sure he would.

‘Well your dad’s not here,’ Mum says, taking my sharp words and throwing them back so they hurt me instead. ‘And if he chooses to live hundreds of miles away then he loses the right to make day-to-day decisions.’

Darren stands up. He’s usually the one who makes us all wait until everyone’s finished eating. Even on those nights when he wants to rush off to the gym.

‘Will the protest make a difference?’ Lilli asks. She looks so young. When I was twelve all I had to worry about was whether my hair was the right length.

‘We’ve got to try something to make them listen,’ Mum says. But she must know that even if we all had megaphones and shouted from the tallest hill, the Trad’s ears are so bunged up with their prejudices and their egos that they’ll never hear us.

‘Don’t answer the door to anyone,’ Mum says. She’s all wrapped up for winter, even though it’s only September. Maybe she feels protected underneath her coat and scarf.

‘Just stay inside and watch a film together,’ Darren says, putting his hand on my arm. He’s frightened, I can tell. Underneath a weird energy that’s fizzing off him there’s something deeper that he’s trying to hide.

‘Will it be dangerous?’ Lilli asks.

‘Of course not,’ Mum says. ‘It’s just a peaceful protest to get our voices heard.’

‘You said it might be a risk,’ I say to Darren.

‘We’d just prefer you to stay here and look after Lilli,’ he tells me.

‘I don’t think they’ll be expecting so many of us,’ Mum laughs, as if she’s just going to a party or something.

‘They’ve got guns, Mum,’ I say and her smile disappears.

‘They only have them to scare us. They won’t use them, Ruby,’ Darren says.

‘How do you know?’ Suddenly I don’t want my mum to go. I don’t even want Darren to go.

‘They’ve got messed up ideas,’ Mum says, ‘but they’re not murderers.’

‘Can’t you stay here?’ Lilli asks as Mum kisses her on the head.

‘We have to stand up for what’s right,’ she says.

‘Come on, Kelly, we’ve got to go,’ Darren says and he opens the front door.

‘I love you, Mum,’ I say, but I’m not sure she hears as she’s already walking down the path.

Darren hugs Lilli, but he knows not to try with me. ‘We won’t be long, but don’t stay up if it’s late.’ And he waves at us as he runs after Mum.

‘Right,’ I turn to Lilli, my voice too bright. ‘Popcorn and a movie?’ She looks at me as though she’s waiting for the walls around us to crumble into dust. ‘They’ll be fine, Lils,’ I tell her over my shoulder as I walk into the kitchen. ‘They’ll be back before we know it.’

I get a message from Luke as soon as I open the cupboard.

Dad and I are going to the protest.

I’m not that surprised. His dad’s taken him on protest marches since before he could walk. But it makes me feel even more annoyed that Darren won’t let me go.

See you there, I text back before I even think about it.

You’re coming?

Yes. I’ll look out for you.

I close the cupboard and go into the sitting room. Lilli is already curled up on the sofa.

‘Change of plans,’ I say as casually as I can.

She looks up from her phone.

‘You don’t want to watch a film?’ she asks.

‘We’re going to the protest.’

‘We can’t.’

‘Of course we can. Our voice is important too.’

‘But Mum and Darren said we couldn’t.’

‘We’ll only go for a bit. If we’re back before them they won’t even know we were there.’

‘I could stay here on my own,’ Lilli suggests.

‘You know you can’t. It’s too late.’

‘Peggy’s next door. If anything happens I can call her.’

‘She’s like a hundred and fifty years old,’ I say. ‘She’s not going to be much good if you pour boiling water down yourself. Or flood the house or something.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘It’s not. It could happen.’ I put out my hand to pull her up, but she stays sitting. ‘Please, Lils. I really want to go.’

‘What if the soldiers are there?’

‘They probably don’t even know it’s happening. But even if they are there, Mum says they won’t actually do anything.’ I walk into the hallway and hope she’ll follow. ‘Luke’s going to be there.’

Lilli appears within a second. I think she might love him almost as much as I do. ‘Is he allowed to go?’

‘He’s going with his dad.’

‘Will we see him?’

‘Hopefully.’

‘Okay,’ she says and already she’s looking for her shoes as I put on my coat. I try to ignore the doubt that’s pulling at me as she sits on the bottom stair to tie her laces.

‘Mum’ll kill you if she finds out you’ve taken me.’ Lilli’s spinning a bit from the excitement. This is a big deal for her as she never usually does anything she’s not meant to.

‘She’d kill me if I left you here.’

Lilli jumps up, grabs her coat and hooks her arm through mine. ‘Then you’re dead either way, aren’t you?’

As soon as we’re outside, I know it’s not a good idea. Our street seems strangely silent. One car drives past then turns the corner at the end. The lamplights are on even though it’s not completely dark.

‘Are you warm enough?’ I ask Lilli and she nods.

Most houses’ curtains are closed, but Bob Whittard’s are open and he’s sitting in his armchair, so I wave to him when he looks up. He doesn’t wave back. He doesn’t even smile. It feels like a hard line is being drawn down between those who support the government and those who are against it. Surely it’s something we can scrub out now, before it gets too deep?

As we get closer to the park there are more people about. They’re mostly as silent as we are as they scurry along towards Hebe Hill. There are soldiers too when I told Lilli there probably wouldn’t be any. One is standing at the end of Shaw Street, two more along Beck Avenue.

I hold Lilli’s hand tight as we take a shortcut through the alley. It’s darker in here and has a strange quiet, as though a lid has been put on the world. Ahead, there’s the entrance to the park and there are so many people, but I don’t know if seeing them all makes me feel safer, or more scared. I don’t recognise anyone, but the determination on their faces is all the same.

‘Have you texted Luke?’ Lilli asks.

‘I will when we’re in there.’ Although I’m not sure now how easy it’s going to be to find him.

We go through the park’s gate and have to follow everyone along the path. The flower beds either side are still filled with delphiniums, the first flowers Dad taught me to name. Seeing them makes me miss him, so I text to tell him that we’re here to protest against the Trads. I think he’ll be proud, but I know I won’t get a message back soon. I’ve learned the hard way not to wait for a reply.

From where we are we can see people covering the top of the hill. Someone is holding a megaphone, but their words aren’t clear enough yet. I feel better now that we’re here. I’m excited more than scared and I think Lilli is too, judging by her wide eyes and smile as she looks around.

‘Can you see Mum anywhere?’ I ask.

‘Shall we hide if we do?’

‘Perhaps.’ I know Mum would be angry, but maybe she’d be a little bit pleased that we’re protesting too.

There’s a crowd in front and behind us. I didn’t know there were so many Core supporters in our town. They’ve probably travelled in from a bit further away, but I’m surprised so many people want to show it. I wonder if some of them have come over to our side since the election? Since the government’s ideas have got crazier and crazier. I can’t imagine that everyone who voted for the Trads will be happy with restricted internet use and having their relationships monitored.

It’s almost single file again as we curve around the edge of the playground. I used to spend hours here, being pushed on the swing by Mum and Dad, then me pushing Lilli, then friends pushing each other and being told to leave. There’s no one there now. The swings aren’t moving, there are no shadows on the slide. Tomorrow there’ll be children laughing again, but for now we walk past with hardly a word.

There’s more space around us when we get to the hill. Hebe bushes are planted in random clumps for us to walk around. Their colour matches the purple of the Core symbol, so it seems that nature is on our side too. I reach out to touch the flowers. They look a bit like thistles, but they feel like feathers. If it was daytime there’d be tons of bees on them.

‘There are lots of people here,’ Lilli says, looking up at me.

‘How very perceptive of you, Chicken Bones,’ I say and she thumps me.

Three men are at the top and they must be standing on some sort of stage. They stick out above everyone. Two of them hold the purple Core Party flag, with its yellow steps going up the middle. The other has the loudspeaker and now we can hear his words. They rumble through the crowd in front of us and light a fire round my bones.

‘We won’t be forced into silence!’ the man shouts. ‘We won’t be ruled by bigots who love only to hate.’ The people around us are even louder now and I start to cheer with them. ‘We will champion your rights because each and every one of you has a right to free speech, a right to freedom of movement. A right to freedom!’

I’m glad we came here. It’s good to feel a part of this, to feel we might finally make a difference. That things really might change.

‘Our rights should be at the core of our society.’ His words thunder from him as people cheer again.

I look up into the sky. It’s a clear night and stars are beginning to reach out. Thousands and thousands of them watching, looking back at us. It makes me feel part of something even bigger.

‘We want to live in a tolerant country!’ The man’s words jump among us, landing on our hands, our ears, our skin. They skim up to the leaves and I imagine the wind picking them up and taking them to whisper in strangers’ ears. To let them see. Let them believe too. ‘A country that does not judge. Does not turn away those who cry for our help. We champion the rights of everyone, regardless of your class, your faith, your sexuality, your roots.’ The roar from the crowd is thick enough to touch. My arm stays in the air like everyone else’s. ‘It’s not a solution to cut down those who cry for help. Instead, we will listen. We will care. And we will rebuild our society from the foundation up. We won’t cease in our fight to champion the rights for everyone.’

‘Champions! Champions!’ My voice joins in with the chant, but Lilli stays silent, her arms by her side.

We’re getting pushed forwards. More people must be coming from the back.

‘Core Party for peace!’ the man with the loudspeaker calls above us all.

Suddenly we’re pushed so far forward that Lilli stumbles and I only just manage to pull her upright again. The crush is instant and people start to scream.

‘It’s okay,’ I tell Lilli. ‘They’ll make space.’ But it’s getting difficult to speak.

People scramble on to the stage and the man with the megaphone falls and disappears. And I see now, through gaps in the shoulders, that there are soldiers with plastic shields and they’re driving themselves into the protesters, forcing us together.

‘I can’t breathe,’ Lilli says, as more bodies press into us.

There’s yelling and it seems so distant as I lose my grip on Lilli’s hand. Everyone is pushing us, pushing everywhere, trying to run, but there’s nowhere to move. We’re all stuck and more people keep pounding into us and there’s nowhere for us to go.

My breath is being squeezed from me.

‘Get back,’ someone shouts. A woman beside me falls and I try to reach for her, but she’s sucked under and trampled on.

‘Lilli,’ I say, but the word is only a pinch of letters.

Mum. Luke.

My sister has tears in her eyes, but I can’t hear her crying.

We’re heaved forwards, my feet barely on the ground. My lungs are being crushed and there’s not enough air.

I see Lilli lifted, pulled up. A man grabbing her with one arm, pushing her over the heads of others.

‘Ruby!’ she screams, but I can’t see her. My eyes hurt. How can there be so much air above us, just out of reach?

We move forwards. I trip over something soft, but the pressure of the bodies around me keeps me upright. People are shouting, desperate. Get back. Make space.

We move as a dying animal, down the side of the playground as people pile over the fence, stumbling and falling. There’s screaming as we spill forwards until there’s space, enough air now.

‘Lilli.’ My voice is too quiet. Yet my breathing is easier, just splinters in my lungs now. ‘Lilli!’ I don’t want to be crying, but everywhere there are people shouting and none of them are my sister. The man lifted her up and she’s gone.

I’m being pushed further along and I look up as a soldier raises his baton and he brings it down on a man. I hear him hit him, a deadening thump on bones and I know I have to get away from here. But I can’t get through, because people are fighting back, charging into the soldiers. I’m stumbling over crushed banners and there’s nowhere to hide. And everywhere there are the distorted faces of the soldiers behind their transparent shields. Just their eyes through their helmets and they raise batons and they strike out and I’m too close as panic burns my chest.

Someone in front of me falls, clutching his eyes. A soldier has a spray and I see him grab a woman by her coat and she begs as he holds the can close to her skin. And so I run. Past stumbling bodies, through a cloud of terror, wading through cries I’ve never heard. I’m at the fence with others and we’re clambering over it, someone helping me so I don’t fall.

I make it to the alleyway, but I’ve left my sister behind and my phone is ringing and it’s my hands that take it from my pocket and my mum’s voice is shouting and I tell her that I don’t know where Lilli is. Terror seeps from me into the wall at my back.

‘Lilli’s here,’ I hear my mum say.

She’s at home.

I run, the phone in my hand, through the streets I thought I knew, past houses with doors closed to me. I see someone running towards me and I know it’s Darren and he reaches me and hugs me so tight.

‘You’re safe,’ he says and I don’t know whether it’s my lungs, my heart, or my head that hurts as he pulls me towards our home. Where my mum is standing in the doorway and she holds me before I’m even inside and when our front door shuts behind us the relief to be safe is bright.

‘Jesus, Ruby,’ Darren is shouting.

‘You said the protest would be okay.’ I can’t make sense of the words I want to say.

‘I never said that.’

‘This isn’t helping,’ Mum says. ‘They’re back now.’

‘Where’s Lilli?’ I ask.

‘In the sitting room,’ Mum tells me.

‘She thought she was going to die, Ruby,’ Darren says.

‘But they’re both safe,’ Mum glares at him. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

‘We could have lost them.’ Darren’s voice is still too loud. ‘You saw it there, Kelly. You saw what those Trads did. They took a peaceful protest and they turned it into a deathtrap.’

‘I’m not going to have this discussion now.’ Mum goes into the sitting room and I’m left with Darren in front of me, his anger sharp.

‘The soldiers were hitting people,’ I tell him. ‘But we hadn’t done anything wrong.’ He steps forward to hug me, but I won’t let him. Sirens call in the distance. ‘Why did they do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ is all he answers.

CHAPTER THREE

‘You told us that you’d had enough and we listened. Enough of broken families. Enough of soaring crime rates blighting our country. Enough of our people hungering for jobs.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party

I’m awake before my alarm clock and watch the sun start as a square of light in the corner of my ceiling, until it spreads across my room. I hold out my hands and stretch my fingers as far as they can go and then count them, slowly, feeling the sound of each number on my tongue.

I breathe in until I can’t any more. Hold my breath. Hold it. Hold it. And imagine what it’d be like to not be able to let it out. My lungs would be crushed until I close my eyes and drift away.

The door opens and I gasp for air.

‘Darren doesn’t want us to go to school,’ Lilli says. She walks across my room, lifts the corner of the duvet and gets into bed. I shuffle closer to the wall, but still her feet are cold against my legs. She sleeps with them outside her duvet. She likes to face the bogeyman straight on. ‘But Mum says we have to go.’

I lean over her to turn on my phone.

‘What do you want to do?’ I ask her.

‘Stay here. But Mum says we can’t.’

On cue, the door opens and Mum comes in, the purple band clear on her arm.

‘Up you get,’ she says, opening the curtains so roughly I’m surprised she doesn’t pull them down. ‘You can’t be late.’ As though everything is normal. That life hasn’t just spun away into a black hole.

‘Lilli doesn’t want to go,’ I say.

‘There are a lot of things none of us want to do,’ Mum says. ‘But we have to.’ She’s sorting through the pile of clothes on my chair, finding my school clothes. ‘This could’ve done with a wash.’ She holds up my sweatshirt.

‘Are you going to work?’ I ask. Lilli and I don’t move from the comfort of my bed.

‘Of course. It’s an ordinary day, Ruby.’

‘How can it be?’

‘It has to be,’ she tells me.

My phone beeps, but Mum grabs it before I have a chance.

‘I’ll take this downstairs. You can have it when you’re dressed,’ she says and she’s out of the room before I can challenge her.

‘Just for the record,’ Darren says. ‘I don’t think any of you should go.’ He’s standing next to the fridge, both hands round his mug of coffee.

‘You’re not helping,’ Mum says, as she grabs her car keys from the side.

‘And you’re not thinking straight, Kelly,’ Darren tells her. Mum stops and stares at him.

‘The only people not thinking straight are those bloody Trads, Darren. If you want to take out your frustration on anyone, take it out on them.’

‘And get a bullet through my head for my trouble?’ Darren’s words snap out of him and make everything go still.

‘So we just crawl into our holes like they want us to?’ Mum says. ‘Don’t go to work, don’t go to school, just stay in our homes and wither away until they completely destroy our country? Is that what we should do?’

‘I don’t know any more,’ Darren says.

‘Well, I do,’ Mum says, wrapping her scarf round her neck. ‘School is the safest place for them.’

‘How do you figure that out?’ I haven’t seen Darren look this furious in ages.

‘The Trads are going to be on their best behaviour after last night,’ Mum says. ‘They may have managed to twist the truth about the protest, but they’ll be hard pushed to keep people on their side if they hurt kids in a school.’

Darren visibly winces.

‘What do you want to do, Ruby?’ he asks me.

I look at them both standing there and memories of the protest whittle dread into me. But I know I’ll be frightened anywhere.

‘I want to go,’ I say. Maybe Mum’s right and we’ll be safer there. Or perhaps I’ve just conditioned myself to say the opposite to Darren.

‘That’s sorted then,’ Mum says, as she storms out of the room and I follow her. Darren comes into the hallway.

‘At least let me drive you and Lilli there,’ he says to me.

‘If you have to,’ I say.

Mum grabs her bag from the hall table before she opens the front door. Something makes her stop still.

‘What is it?’ Darren pulls the door wide open. Someone has painted a giant C across the wood, going from the top all the way to the bottom.

‘Who’s done that?’ Lilli asks.

Mum shakes her head in that way she does when she’s trying to be strong.

‘I’d hazard a guess it’ll be the Traditionals,’ she says.

‘Why on our door?’

‘I bet it’ll be on the door of every Core household,’ Darren says.

‘I don’t want to go to school,’ Lilli says quietly.

‘You don’t have to,’ Darren says before Mum can speak. ‘I’ll stay here with you.’

Mum nods. ‘Okay,’ she says, less determined now.

‘Ruby?’ Darren looks at me. Part of me wants to stay here with Lilli, to stay safe behind the walls of our home where no one can touch us, where I don’t have to wear this stupid purple band for everyone to see. But Mum is going to work. And I want to see Luke.

‘I’m still going to school.’ I need something to distract me from the nightmare our country seems to have stumbled into.

‘Could we clean the paint away later?’ Lilli asks Darren.

‘I doubt they’ve made it that easy for us,’ Mum says as she steps outside.

I’ve never known our school to feel like this, as though even the walls are watching and judging. And there’s a strange link between all of us wearing Core bands. People I’ve never spoken to before smile and nod at me in the corridor. And people who I thought were vague friends look away.

Never before in my life has it been awkward between Sara and me. But now a strange, invisible wall has been stacked up between us.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘Hey.’

And that’s it. The scariest thing in my life happened to me yesterday, but I can’t even talk to her about it. She should be the first person I want to tell about the protest. She’d be able to put it right somehow, find a way to even laugh today, but she seems distant. I can’t tell if it’s because she doesn’t want to know, or is scared to ask if I was there.

‘Did your parents tell you not to talk to me?’ I ask, attempting a smile.

‘No.’ She shakes her head.

Mr Hart comes in late, his purple band strapped to the outside of his jacket. He doesn’t have to tell us to be quiet. We already are. He’s halfway through the register when James puts up his arm, a green band clear to see.

‘Sir,’ he says. ‘Doesn’t what happened last night prove something?’

‘And what exactly is that, James?’ Mr Hart’s expression is cold. If he wasn’t a teacher I think he might thump him.

‘That the Cores are out of control and violent. That if they came into power it’d be a joke.’

Violent? It was a peaceful protest until the Trad soldiers waded in.

‘I don’t find anything to laugh about,’ Mr Hart says, ‘when people have ended up seriously injured.’

‘All through faults of their own,’ James says.

We weren’t at fault. We were only there protesting – doing nothing else.

‘So you believe everything you read on the internet, do you?’ Mr Hart says.

‘Those riots were real. There’s no way they were staged by the Trads.’

‘From what I understand, they doctored the footage,’ Mr Hart says.

‘Doctored?’ Ashwar asks.

‘Edited it,’ Mr Hart tells her. ‘The news only showed a half truth. Probably not even that.’

‘They’re not going to broadcast a blatant lie,’ Ashwar says.

‘Aren’t they?’ Mr Hart glares at her. ‘You’ve all heard enough about fake news.’

‘I know what happened,’ I say. ‘Because I was there.’ I feel every single person in the classroom turn to look at me. My skin blazes red.

‘The Cores faked those images,’ someone shouts from the back.

‘They didn’t.’ My voice is shaking. I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to ever be there again, but I have to let them know the truth. ‘Everyone was calm, but then the soldiers started attacking us.’

‘You provoked them,’ James says.

‘We didn’t,’ I say, feeling stronger now. ‘There wasn’t a riot or anything. The Trads started it and we were crushed.’

James claps his hands slowly. ‘Nice one, Westy. You’re pretty good at twisting real events.’

‘That’s enough,’ Mr Hart says.

‘Oh, so now you’re trying to silence the truth?’ James says. ‘I’m simply pointing out the lies, but you won’t let me have my say?’

‘What I won’t let,’ Mr Hart says, anger spinning around him, ‘is a bully stay in my class.’

‘Are you sending me out for voicing an opinion?’ James smirks. ‘An opinion that is, in fact, the truth?’

‘I’m simply giving you a warning.’

‘I wonder what the Trads would think if they found out a teacher was calling them liars, sir,’ James continues. ‘That you’re accusing them of editing footage of the protests. I reckon they’d be quite interested to know.’

‘This conversation is ending right now,’ Mr Hart tells him. ‘I’ve a register to finish.’ He’s trying to stay calm, but his jaw is tense. I think his hands are shaking too. ‘Jermain,’ he says, glancing up.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Lucy.’

‘Yes.’

Sara nudges my arm. ‘Were you really there?’ she whispers.

‘Yes.’

‘Was it frightening?’

‘Yes.’ I can see the real Sara in her eyes. The worry for me, the confusion. ‘Can we hang out at break?’ I ask. ‘We could go to the oak tree?’

She doesn’t smile, but at least she nods.

‘I think what James has forgotten to point out, sir,’ Ashwar says, as soon as the register is finished. ‘Is that the Core supporters started riots this morning too and they got completely out of control.’

‘They were a direct response,’ Mr Hart says, ‘to the unprovoked attack of citizens last night.’

‘It was self protection,’ Ashwar says.

‘The Trads weren’t under any threat,’ I say. But it’s barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

‘What I don’t understand, Ashwar,’ Conor says. ‘Is how come your family vote for them?’ He’s swinging back on his chair, but Mr Hart doesn’t pick him up on it. ‘You’re Muslim, right?’

‘None of this is about religion.’ Ashwar’s eyes are steel on him.

‘No. But some of it’s about race,’ Conor says. ‘By tightening the borders, they’re basically saying they only want Brits living here. If they’d done that before your parents or grandparents or whoever arrived here you wouldn’t have been allowed in.’ Conor lands the front legs of his chair heavily on the ground. ‘How can that be okay?’

‘I don’t have to agree with everything they stand for,’ Ashwar says.

‘But it’s a pretty major thing,’ Conor carries on. Mr Hart watches from the front of the classroom. His arms are crossed, but his Core band is still showing.

‘It’s worth it for the other policies,’ Ashwar says. ‘Did you know that that seventy per cent of A and E departments are taken up with drunk people at weekends? Seventy per cent, Conor. How can that be a good use of public money?’

‘There are other ways to deal with it than banning drinking in public and increasing the legal age,’ Conor says.

‘Are there?’ Ashwar looks around. ‘No other government has wanted to tackle it and see where it’s got our country. Nothing is getting better. It’s getting worse. We need a change and we might not like all of the Trad’s policies, but it’s a small price to pay if the rest of it is working.’

‘Is it?’ Mr Hart asks. ‘As Conor brought up the subject of immigration, let’s talk about that.’

Cameron yawns loudly from the back.

‘Am I boring you, Cameron?’ Mr Hart asks him.

‘Just a bit,’ Cameron says and people around him laugh.

‘I can see nothing boring in people being forced from their homes.’ Anger is beginning to tick through Mr Hart. ‘They’ve lost everything: their communities, their families, their way of life. They don’t want to leave everything they love. They don’t want to trek hundreds of miles carrying everything they own on their backs. They don’t want to put their children in blow-up dinghies and set out across an ocean that might drown them all. They do it because they have to.’

‘But what about our country?’ James challenges him. ‘If the Core Party had it their way we’d let them come here and wreck our way of lives and our homes. That’s not exactly right, is it?’

‘These people don’t wreck our homes, James. They actually boost our economy, but that never really gets reported, does it?’

‘Perhaps because they don’t boost it enough,’ James says.

‘So what would your solution be?’ I ask James.

‘We should just send them back.’

Send them back? As if they’re objects, not people.

‘I would hope,’ Mr Hart says, ‘that if the roles were reversed and it was our homes and families blown apart, that we would find compassion somewhere. That people would help us and let us in.’

The bell cuts him off. There’s a longer pause than normal before we all get up.

I get a message on my phone as I walk out of the classroom. People are believing the lies, Luke texts.

I know, I reply. I’m scared.

Don’t be.

Meet at oak at break? Sara coming too.

Okay.

Someone smacks the back of my head. It’s hard enough not to be a joke, but there are too many people pushing in front and behind me to know who it was. Shoulders, elbows squeeze down the corridor to first lesson. It’s the same as always but everything has changed. The crush of it unwinds memories of last night and although I can breathe now my lungs remember. The splinters still thread through them and I have to push past people, get out of the way, to reach a space where I feel safe.

It’s starting to rain a bit as I walk to the oak tree. The sky feels tight, dripping down headaches the way it does before a storm. I think Sara might use it as an excuse not to turn up, until I see her legs sticking out from where she’s leaning against the trunk the other side.

‘You’re here,’ I say when I get to her.

‘I said I would be.’ She doesn’t look angry, but there’s an edge to her words.

‘How are things?’ I sit opposite her, cross-legged. The leaves above us are umbrella enough for now.

‘A bit odd,’ she says. She picks a blade of grass and its roots come up too.

‘I used to think those were a fairy’s legs,’ I say, pointing to them.

Sara laughs. ‘You always were a bit strange.’

I want to tell her that there’s a part of me that still believes it, but she’s shredding them apart already.

I hate this awkward feeling that’s sitting between us now.

‘Luke’s going to be late,’ I say. ‘Aldridge is having a go at him about homework.’

‘Okay,’ Sara says. And the wall goes up again. Somehow I have nothing to say to a friend who I can usually talk with all day and night.

I watch the rain falling.

‘You don’t have to support the Trads you know,’ I say, ‘just because your parents do.’

‘Same back to you,’ she says.

‘But I believe in what the Core Party says.’

‘All of it?’

‘Most of it.’

‘So why can’t people believe in most of what the Trads say?’

‘Because they’re wrong.’

‘So says you.’

‘And so says you up until recently.’

‘Can’t I change my mind?’

‘I don’t think you have,’ I say. ‘I think you’re supporting the Trads because you’re scared.’

‘Scared?’ Sara does a laugh that isn’t really one.

‘Yes. Like we all are. Since the soldiers came with the guns.’

She pulls up a clump of grass this time. Too many fairy legs to count.

‘You know they now say they’re going to really limit our internet.’

‘Mum says that’s good. We can actually chat like in the olden days.’

‘I’m serious, Sara.’

‘Well, what would the Core Party do? Make us use it until our brains explode?’

‘They don’t think banning the internet is the solution to cutting depression. They want to do active things, like put more money into mental health.’

‘Can we talk about something else?’ Sara asks. I know she feels the fracture that’s opening up between us.

‘But what about the Trads putting up the age of consent?’

‘It’s to cut teenage pregnancies,’ Sara says, but I know her heart isn’t in it.

‘More like it’s to cut all the fun from our life.’

Sara breathes out as though she’s fed up with me, fed up with it all. ‘Can’t you tell me something I want to hear about?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like why is grass green?’ she says. ‘If the bottom bit in the earth is white, how come the top bit is a different colour?’ Sara crosses her legs and we sit opposite each other with our knees almost touching. She’s like my mirror. ‘Because surely, if they’re exposed to the sun all the time, they should be bleached-white. Or at least a bit sucked-dry yellow from the wind and everything.’

‘I do actually know the answer,’ I say. Sara’s laugh is genuine this time. It makes me want to hug her tight and tell her that we’re going to be okay.

‘I thought you might, mega-plant-brain.’

‘It’s not really green,’ I tell her. ‘It’s the chlorophyll in them. It absorbs all the other colours and has no use for the green so sort of chucks it out again.’

‘Of course it does.’

I hold Sara’s hands, one and then the other. ‘I’m not going to let all this Trad and Core stuff make us fall out,’ I say.

‘Nor am I,’ Sara replies. She puts up her pinky finger and hooks it through mine as we used to do at primary school.

The thunder is so sudden that we scream. We’re laughing as we jump up and grab our bags. And I don’t care that the rain really starts on us as we run back to school, because I’ve got my best friend by my side, our fingers still linked.

‘Love you, Starry,’ I shout.

‘Love you right back, Rudey,’ Sara laughs, wiping under her eyes so that the rain can’t paint mascara down her cheeks.

‘Do you want a lift, Luke?’ Darren asks him.

‘I’m all right, thanks.’

‘You’ll get soaked,’ Darren tells him.

‘I like the rain,’ Luke smiles. There’s a soldier close by so I know he won’t want to kiss me, but he squeezes my hand. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Get in, Ruby,’ Darren says through the window. ‘I’m blocking the traffic.’

But it feels wrong to just leave Luke like this. Since we’ve started going out, I don’t think we’ve ever said goodbye without at least a hug. So I lean in to kiss him, just quickly, but enough to feel his lips on mine.

A car horn behind us ruins it.

‘Ruby,’ Darren shouts.

I don’t bother to check if a soldier has noticed us before I get into the car.

‘Not your wisest move,’ Darren says as he starts the engine.

‘They can’t lock me up for kissing my boyfriend.’

‘You might just have to play along with them for a bit,’ Darren says, as he starts to drive. ‘Until things settle down.’

In the mirror I can see Luke walking away, his bag on his back.

‘What if I don’t want to?’ I ask.

‘They’ve got guns, Ruby,’ Darren says. And it’s enough, that one small word, to pull me right back into reality.

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