One of Us Page 2

  I can’t face school today. But I can’t bear to stay in here, on my own, so I’ll go.

  Yesterday’s clothes are in a heap on the floor, still giving off that horrible stench. I pull on clean black jeans and a gray shirt, then slump back down on my bed. It’s so tidy in my halfway house room, like nobody lives here. Maybe it would feel more homey if I stuck up some photos. But I don’t have a single photo. Not even one of my parents. Grandma didn’t like to be reminded. She wouldn’t talk about them either, so all I have are their names, John and Jane Child: short, honest citizen names like mine.

  I bundle the heap of stinking clothes, even my winter coat, into a plastic bag, and shrug on my summer jacket instead. On my way downstairs I have to stop in the brick stairwell to catch my breath. When I reach the lobby, I stuff the clothes into the bin and wait for the receptionist behind her glass partition to release the doors for me. She doesn’t even look up and we don’t know each other’s names. At least in the children’s home some people smiled at you. Head down, I huddle into the thin black cotton of my jacket and walk quickly out into the square.

  Then I stop. I don’t want to pass the station. I look around me. There are Brotherhood men in their checked shirts—Brotherhood women too, with checked scarves or red ribbons around their hats, long skirts swishing. I know they’re just people rushing past on their way from the bus depot. But do any of these anxious strangers know who planned the bombing? Could one of them have another device nestling in their coat or secured in their backpack? Under their hats, are those women secretly pleased? But their faces look closed, revealing nothing.

  I thought I could go to school today, but now I know I can’t. I could walk around the far edge of the square to the cafe. But this is my town. Why should a Brotherhood bomb drive me out of it? I make my feet walk right past the cordoned-off entrance, and I fight down the nausea and force myself to look. On the newsstand the headlines scream: BROTHERHOOD SUICIDE BOMBER ON TRAIN. The police are mostly in uniform but some are wearing leather jackets and black jeans like the young man who rescued me yesterday. He’s not there, though. Three brown-and-white spaniels wait beside a van, tense and alert, tails wagging.

  Across the road there’s a coffee stand under an awning, with nearly as many police crowded inside as there are at the station. The air crackles with walkie-talkies.

  I think about the people who died in the train, deep underground. Under their coats and hats, some of them were citizens and a few of them Brotherhood, just like the people crossing the square with me now. They thought they were going to work, or school, or somewhere normal, that day. Yesterday. It could have been me. I think of the little boy. Why couldn’t someone have stopped it? Nothing has changed after all these years since the Strife ended. Grandma said they would always be waiting for a chance to destroy the fragile peace, to destroy us. And now that the Reconciliation process has started, will they destroy that too? Was she right?

  The cafe is lit up, a little boat on a gray sea. In the glass door I see my own thin and anxious face, my black hair scraped any-old-how behind my ears and flicking over the collar of my jacket. The door dings as I push it open, and the smell of coffee greets me. I feel better. Safe. The cafe is back to normal, not a medical post today. Fred is emptying the coffee machine. The TV is on as usual, blaring news of the bomb, same as yesterday.

  Fred pours me a cup of strong tea. No sugar this time. I sit in my corner and pick up a magazine.

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  I look up. It’s him: the guy from yesterday. He’s wearing his leather jacket and jeans, like the detectives outside the station. Everything about him shouts, “Undercover!”

  I only realize I’m smiling when I see he’s smiling too. “Hello again.”

  I reach over and yank my bag off the opposite seat.

  He sits down, puts his coffee down in front of him. His police ID badge falls from his hand onto the table. Oskar Reynard. I pass it back to him.

  “Horrible photo.” He makes a face as he takes it from me. “So, how’re you doing this morning?”

  “OK.” My voice comes out in a croak. It’s not just nerves; I still keep coughing all the time.

  “It’s a shock,” he says. “Easier for me to deal with, because I’m busier than usual.”

  “Mmm.” I look at him, and his gray eyes meet mine. I wonder what horrible things he has had to look at, whether he is the one who has to tell people their loved one has died.

  “I’m Oskar,” he says.

  He’s not an ordinary stranger, he saved my life. “I’m K. Just the letter.”

  He smiles. “Just K? That’s cool. Nice name.” He nods at the notebook sticking out of my bag. “No school today?”

  “Not for me.” What’s he going to do? Arrest me?

  But he just nods. “Are you feeling better now?” He takes a long swig of coffee.

  “I’m fine. A cough, and a few cuts and bruises—but they’ll go.” I pick up my cup. Even though I’m toasty warm in here, my teeth have started chattering. Why is that? I set the cup down, but Oskar has noticed.

  “Don’t worry; it’s just aftershock. Being so near the station again has probably brought it on.” He leans forward. “So, what do you want to do, when you finish school?”

  He’s only doing that thing where you keep someone talking until they feel better, but all the same I try to answer. I don’t want to tell him that I have no idea, that I hate school. Instead, I give him the answer I gave Grandma when I was five: “I want to be an artist.” I wait for him to tell me that’s not a real job.

  But he leans back, stretching his arm along the back of the other chair. “Then you should do it.”

  There’s a little silence, but not an awkward one.

  “It’s all starting up again, isn’t it?” I didn’t mean to say that, but now I keep talking. “They’ll keep killing, won’t they?”

  “Who knows, K?” The corner of Oskar’s mouth creases in a little half smile. “The Brotherhood wants to blow up the entire Reconciliation process.” His face grows serious. “We’re bending over backward in the name of peace, even removing the oath. But they have their grievances.”

  “Why? Nobody’s stopping them from becoming citizens.”

  Oskar laughs. “You really don’t know much about the Brotherhood, do you? They’ll never swear the oath of allegiance to the State. It’s ‘against their religion,’ as the saying goes.”

  “Everything’s changed, hasn’t it? Nothing will stop them.”

  “The police—” begins Oskar.

  “The police? What do they know?” I push my mug away so hard that it crashes into the salt shaker. “They didn’t see this coming, did they? They couldn’t stop it, could they? You couldn’t stop it! I saw all these Brotherhood guys at the station yesterday, but no one even asked them what they were doing there.”

  Oskar doesn’t answer. He looks steadily at me. Then he smiles that warm smile that reaches up into his eyes. Once again it makes me feel safe, just like it did yesterday. He doesn’t say sorry, or make a fake sad face. Instead he says, “Your parents must have been worried about you yesterday.”

  “My parents were killed in a Brotherhood bombing when I was two: the bomb that started the Strife thirteen years ago.” Over his shoulder and through the cafe window, I see the bleached granite of the station building, the sky so clean and matte behind it today, free of smoke. “It was at Central Station too.”

  I wait for him to say, “I’m so sorry.”

  Instead he says, “My father too.”

  We gaze at each other for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry.” I look away. “I can’t remember my parents.”

  “I remember,” says Oskar. “I was nine. My dad was a policeman.” He looks away too, staring across the square. “Yesterday must have been terrible for you. They know how many people died now. Forty-nine.”

  I think of all the other people whose lives have now been ruined. It must be hundreds. It’s too
hard to talk about yesterday.

  “I don’t remember the Strife,” I say instead. It ended when I was six. “Only things Grandma told me.” She didn’t tell me much, because we never talked about my parents and now there’s nobody to ask. And when I looked them up online, I couldn’t find anything. But even so, the Strife has always been just behind my shoulder, the reason why Grandma would freeze if she saw an abandoned bag lying on the pavement. And why she hated fireworks.

  Oskar smiles at me. “So you live with your grandma.”

  “No. She died when I was ten. I’ve moved around a lot since then.” I’m guessing that’s a good way to end the conversation.

  But Oskar says, “And now . . .?”

  “I live in a halfway house near here,” I say. “I haven’t been there long. It’s not the nicest place.”

  Oskar’s eyebrows go up.

  “My social worker moved me there because I’ll be sixteen this year and out of care. It’s nowhere near the children’s home so I had to move schools as well.”

  I wait for that look that means he thinks I’m nothing. Just another stray, washed up from the Strife. But instead he leans forward and says, “Where did you live with your grandma? Here in Gatesbrooke?”

  “No.” Although, technically, Yoremouth is a suburb of Gatesbrooke. I look closely at him. Why is he so interested? I’m not going to tell him where Grandma and I lived. I’ve only just met him, after all. Although he seems genuine, and I like the tiny chips of gold in his eyes, which look gray-green today. “By the sea,” I add. I think of the nights when I used to sneak out of the window and run down to the shingle beach in the wind and the darkness.

  “Just the two of you, eh?”

  “Yes. I didn’t go to school, she taught me.” I don’t know why I’m telling him all this. Only my social worker knows my story. “Maybe that’s why I don’t like school.”

  He laughs, and then there’s a silence between us.

  It’s nice that he didn’t pretend things are OK, when they’re not.

  It’s nice that we understand each other, without needing words.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE DAYS PASS. I don’t go on trains or buses anymore, so I haven’t been to school since the bomb. Instead I wander around the New City or read in Fred’s Cafe. Sometimes Oskar’s there too. I delete the texts from the new social worker who came to see me after the bomb. And the messages from school. It’s no big deal because none of them really care anyway. This afternoon, after passing a lonely day in the gray New City library, I picked up a free newspaper on my way out, scanning the headline before tucking it into my backpack: CAN RECONCILIATION SURVIVE?

  The words prey on my mind as I walk home along the river, watching the seagulls wheeling overhead. When I turn the corner into the square, it’s crowded with people. A stranger’s elbow softly bumps against my arm in the crush, and suddenly I feel even more alone than ever. This isn’t just the normal crowd of rush hour. I hug my bag against my chest, my heart starting to thump. Not again.

  But there are no sirens. No smoke.

  I take a few deep breaths and walk across to the station. About a hundred people are standing in front of the entrance, in silence. Each of them holds a candle, and there are more candles standing in jars and cans in a circle on the pavement in front of them. In the gathering dusk they glow with a friendly light, flickering as the wind skates by. I stand still for a moment, counting the candles in the circle. Forty-nine. One for each person who died. The people all have their heads bowed. They almost look like statues in their dark coats and scarves and their stillness. It’s a vigil.

  Are these the relatives? I need to pass them to get to the halfway house, but it feels disrespectful to just walk by. Grandma and I used to light candles when we were sad, or if someone died. I’d light one now if I could. I stare into one of the glowing pools of light, watching the wick stoop into the pool of oil.

  Then I hear chanting in the distance. I turn, looking around to see who’s doing it. A mass of protestors pushes its way along the main street, their Brotherhood clothing vivid red in the fading light. The marchers’ chant cuts through the city’s rumble.

  What are they doing here? Can’t they even leave people to grieve in peace? As they get nearer I see that some of them are holding placards, black and white against the red check of their clothes. I read the words, but can’t take in their meaning. How can they do this, here, and now?

  NO CURFEW

  NO OATH

  NO SEGREGATION

  Movement ripples through the people at the vigil, faces turn in shock. At first they remain silent but then there’s a shout and the orderly crowd of mourners breaks apart as some people hurl themselves toward the marchers, while others slip away.

  I want to run toward them too, rip the placards out of their hands. But instead I stand frozen, smelling the smoke again, seeing the man with the suitcases, his head resting on the edge of the platform, his lips forming soundless words.

  Sirens . . . I really can hear them. Police vans tear across the square from all sides, surrounding the Brotherhood protest. In the stampede a candle jar smashes at my feet. I try to turn and leave but the press of people pushes me toward the Brotherhood protestors. Beside me a hand reaches down to grab a jar and it whizzes through the air over our heads. A woman from the vigil sinks to her knees in the broken glass, but when I try to pull her up, she shakes me off.

  The chanting is all around me now, and screaming too and the screech of sirens. But there’s a gap in the crowd. I duck under a raised arm and weave through the people, tearing away in the opposite direction from the station.

  I keep running uphill toward the Old City, head down, hood up, so that I crash into a man on the curb in front of me.

  “Hello, stranger.” He grabs my arms to steady me.

  It’s Oskar. He’s wearing glasses today, fine gold-rimmed ones.

  “Did you see it?” I try to catch my breath.

  He stares over my head, down to the square, and I turn and look too. The vigil has broken up and the police, shields and batons in front of them, are arresting Brotherhood rioters. Sirens pulse over the shouting and the smashing of glass.

  “Mmm.” Oskar smiles. “Busy times.”

  “Don’t you have to go down there?” I lean forward, my hands on my knees, sick from running and the lingering smoke and grit in my throat. If I let myself start coughing, I think I’ll throw up.

  “That’s not what I do.” He waves a hand toward the square. “This isn’t a big deal. It’ll all be over in a few minutes.”

  I sink down on the curb. “What do you do?” I ask. “Do you have to stop people and ask them if they saw anything? Is that why you’re here?”

  Oskar takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes. “K,” he sighs. “You must realize I can’t discuss my work?”

  I feel my face flush. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right. I can see why you’d want to know.” He sits down beside me and puts his glasses back on. “I didn’t mean to snap. My day hasn’t gone too well.”

  I look up at him. “Same here.”

  “Something wrong at school?”

  Everything. “Not really.” And then, because he’s looking so kind, and so interested behind his unfamiliar glasses, I tell him that I haven’t been there since the bomb.

  “But you’ll have to go back.” Oskar frowns. “What about your exams?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve skipped too much school. I think I’ve messed it up.”

  “Come on, K,” says Oskar. “You can’t just give up. What about your social worker?”

  I make a face. “I don’t take her calls.”

  “Ask her to go and talk to them. Explain why you haven’t been there.”

  I think about social worker Sue Smith with her neat black suit and businesslike smile. I can’t imagine her going into school to try and plead for me. “You don’t know her.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t like me. She isn’t on my side.”


  “So what?” says Oskar. “It’s her job to support you.” He stands up. “I’ll walk you home, shall I?”

  That would be OK, wouldn’t it? The halfway house is on the other side of the square and it would be nice not to have to go near the station on my own. “All right.” I stand up and we start walking. The river Gate rushes alongside the road, high with rain and the coming spring tide.

  “You know something?” Oskar looks sideways at me. “Not everything about my job is secret.”

  “No?”

  “The police can’t fight terrorism without the public,” says Oskar. “All kinds of people are involved, one way or another.” He stops, looking over the wall down into the churning water.

  I lean against the rough parapet, its damp chill spreading through my thin jacket sleeves. “Then how do you keep it secret?”

  He laughs, tapping the side of his nose. Then his face turns serious again. “Because each person only knows what they need to know.”

  We start walking again, toward the bridge. A tram rattles over it, full of standing Brotherhood people going home from their jobs in the New City. On the other side—their side—a Brotherhood bar has its doors wide open, in spite of the cold, and people have spilled out on to the riverbank, their clothes bright red against the monochrome of the concrete bridge and the dark river. An angry murmur rises from the crowd. They look like they’re gathering to head down to the square.

  “Let’s cross the road,” says Oskar, his voice quiet beside me. He takes my elbow and leads me to the other side.

  We turn into a narrow road away from the trouble, and Oskar starts speaking again. “It’s a network of informants, K,” he says. “We need all kinds of people, all ages, all backgrounds.” He looks into my eyes. “But there’s one thing they all have in common. You know what it is?”

  I don’t say anything, because I’m not sure what he means.

  Oskar leans closer. “They all have a reason.” His voice is low but full of feeling. “Like you and me. People who’ll go the distance. If we don’t stop it, who will?”