I Am Not a Number. Lisa Heathfield

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