I Am Not a Number

‘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.