One of Us Read online

  “Any little thing, no matter how small,” says Oskar. “Something that seems like an insignificant detail to you might be the missing piece of a bigger picture.”

  “There’s a boy called Jeremiah. Jeremiah Elyard. He was at the Spring Meeting with his family, I think.”

  “Ah.” Oskar turns to look full into my face, and I see then that his eyes look worried. “The Spring Meeting. Go on.”

  “It’s only that they were talking about . . .” I try to remember exactly what I heard. “How they want action, and they’re tired of words.”

  Oskar smiles into my eyes. “That’s very good, K,” he says. “I didn’t expect you to have anything so soon.” He takes out his phone and notes something down. “Jeremiah Elyard. Well done. Now,” and he puts his phone back in his pocket, “it’s funny you should mention the Spring Meeting, because I want you to get me the list of names of everyone who attended.”

  “They had a visitors’ book . . .” But before I have time to ask him more, his phone rings.

  Oskar leaps up. “Hello? Col? One second, K.” He walks toward the trees, his voice trailing away.

  I stand up and pull my jacket around me, because fine rain has started to fall. It’s heavier than it looks, so I move toward the shelter of the trees.

  I can hear Oskar talking now, his voice low and urgent. “Not Mona?” His voice cracks. “Mona Talbot?” There’s a long silence. Then his voice, very low. “Yes. Yes. I know. Bye.” Twigs snap as he walks back to the clearing. But he doesn’t appear immediately.

  When he does, his face is drawn and gray. “K.” Oskar reaches into his jacket pocket to replace his phone, but it falls to the ground. “I’m sorry.” He stoops to pick it up, grabbing his helmet and jamming it onto his head. “Got to go. There’s been another incident. A bomb scare. At a school in the New City.” He tries to smile at me, but his eyes keep roving toward the road. He looks back at me, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “K . . .” His gaze travels down my Brotherhood clothes, my wool shoulder bag, and my shoes.

  I glance down. Everything is right. I remembered the hat.

  “Now, this is important.” His eyes stare into mine, full of sadness.

  “OK. Oskar?” I want to ask him what’s wrong.

  “Next time we meet, someone called Ril will come, OK? She’s your ‘social worker.’” He makes speech marks in the air.

  I nod. “Ril.” At least I won’t have to see Sue Smith again.

  “You remember?” Oskar seems so worried. Or maybe he’s tired. “She’s the one who went to see Brer Magnus before you joined the Institute.”

  I nod again, ignoring the hard lump lodged in my throat.

  “I’ll be in touch very soon too.” He gives my shoulder a warm pat. “OK?”

  I can’t believe I’ve only been with him for a few minutes. “Oskar,” I begin. “I really need to talk to you . . .”

  He moves his hand under my elbow. “You’re doing great, K. Don’t forget the list. I’ll see you soon.” He propels me across the road. “You must stay strong. Ril will be in touch. Soon, very soon.”

  I swallow my disappointment. It isn’t Oskar’s fault that he has to go. I know I can’t ask him, but something has clearly gone badly wrong. I’m sure it’s more than the bomb scare. It’s certainly something urgent, maybe dangerous. Something he couldn’t share with me.

  He watches me scramble back through the fence into the Institute’s grounds. I wish he’d made the hole bigger. Oskar pulls the wires back together so that you can hardly tell they’ve been cut. He raises his hand in a silent wave, mouths the word “Ril,” and runs lightly into the trees on the other side of the road. I wait until I see his motorbike roar out and away down the hill toward Gatesbrooke.

  I don’t know what to do now. I was counting on talking with Oskar. I was so sure that he would help me see things clearly again. I wanted to ask him about the Gatesbrooke Massacre, why our soldiers did those terrible things. In the quiet woods all I can hear is the dripping of the leaves.

  Then I hear the throbbing of engines, growing louder up the Gatesbrooke road. First a motorbike appears. Oskar! I think, for one glad moment. Then another motorbike roars past, and another. Then a car crammed full of people, windows open, shouting. And a minibus, its windows filled with yelling faces. Not Brotherhood—that’s clear. Citizens. But where are they going?

  I wait by the fence until they’ve all passed and the engines have faded into the distance. Then I see a bicycle, its rider plugging up the hill, head down against the drizzling rain, standing up on the pedals. It’s a moment before I recognize Serafina. Where has she been? She must have left long before school ended. She doesn’t see me, hidden behind the fence in the trees, and I don’t call out to her, because then she might spot the damaged wire.

  She has disappeared around the corner when I hear the shouting begin, far up the hill near the Institute. And now all those cars and buses have stopped. They’re angry citizens. And Serafina’s going to ride straight into the middle of them!

  If I try to run after her on this side of the fence, the dense undergrowth will slow me down too much. I tear at the wire to find the broken bit, and yank the flap open again. This time as I scramble through the hole, the jagged edge grazes my other leg. But I don’t stop to look at it. I don’t look around to check whether anyone could be watching me. I start running up the hill behind Serafina.

  I hope she gets off and pushes her bike as the hill gets steeper. Then maybe I’ll be able to stop her before she rides into the middle of the angry crowd.

  But all I can think is that I’m on the wrong side. I’m running into danger to save a Brotherhood girl from my own people.

  CHAPTER 11

  IT’S HARD RUNNING uphill in pumps that slip and slide on the wet road. Brotherhood girls are supposed to walk, like ladies. Instead of team games on the field, we have to do dancing in the gym. I still can’t see Serafina. I thud around the corner where the road straightens out before it reaches the Institute. There she is, next to the last of the cars parked roughly up the grass verge. She is standing beside her bike, hesitating, because of the noise coming from the direction of the Institute: the shouting and chanting and glass smashing. Come on, Serafina, turn around!

  I keep on running. I’m too far away to shout. We’re on the wrong side of the perimeter fence. I think of the graffiti outside the gate, and now this. Maybe it happens all the time. No wonder they have such heavy security.

  Serafina begins pushing her bike slowly toward the last bend, then stops again.

  Now we can both see the mob at the gates in front of the bikes, cars, and minibus. So many people crammed into so few vehicles. The chanting sounds like hundreds: “Hoods! Hoods! Murderers!” They are rattling the outer gate, and some of them are assaulting it with crowbars. Others lob bottles over the top. An alarm rings frantically. Where are the police? Huge, dripping red letters already cover the walls—more graffiti. Any moment someone will turn around and see us, Brotherhood girls alone on the wrong side of the wall.

  Serafina turns and sees me at last. Her face is rigid with fear.

  “Serafina.” I grab her arm as I reach her. “Go back! Quick!”

  She nods and starts to maneuver her bike around to face downhill, her hands clumsy with terror. That’s when some of the protestors see us. In their dark pants and jackets they look as if they’re in uniform. More faces turn to look, and they all wear the same expression. It’s half revulsion and half a kind of angry joy, because they’ve come here for a target and Serafina has given them one. It makes them all look the same: parts of the crowd rather than individual people.

  “Hoods!”

  Then more voices, a chorus of voices. “Hoods! Hoods!”

  A stone whizzes through the air and hits Serafina’s bike.

  In spite of the danger we’re in, I feel anger surging up through me. What did she ever do to them? A bit of me wants to pick up the stone and hurl it back. They’re as bad as the Brothe
rhood!

  Serafina has straddled her bike. “Get on the back!” she shouts.

  I clamber onto the crate rack, sidesaddle because of my long skirt, and we begin to wobble down the hill. We start to build up speed. If we can get around the corner, maybe we’ll be able to hide in the bushes until they’ve gone. I cling onto the rack with my fingers. Behind us, footsteps and shouts thud down the road.

  We’re almost at the place where Oskar waited for me. The bike is whirling down now, faster with my extra weight. I lean toward Serafina’s ear to tell her to turn to the left, when something shoots over me and smashes into Serafina’s head. Glass shatters into the road. The bike wheel twists sickeningly to the left as Serafina slumps sideways. Then we’re falling, the bike skidding away from under us. The road rushes up to meet me.

  I can’t move straight away. When I can, I sit up and look behind me for Serafina. She’s lying on the ground with her head in a hawthorn bush and her hair over her face. A thin line of blood trickles down her neck. From up the road comes the buzz of a motorbike.

  Oskar!

  But it’s coming from the Institute gates—the wrong direction. I don’t even have time to stand up before the motorbike appears and swerves around to stop several feet away from the twisted bicycle. Serafina lies still. I kneel in front of her, hoping they won’t see her.

  The black-clad passenger on the back of the motorbike climbs off. It’s a woman. She laughs an expectant, excited little laugh, which is much worse than the cry of “Hoods!” Her head turns toward me, eyes invisible behind the darkened visor. Behind me a blackbird calls urgently in car-alarm rings. She takes a step toward us. Her boots are black leather with gleaming silver toe caps.

  I look up at the visor. “Don’t hurt her!” I cry.

  But she smiles. She draws back her foot. It’s not Serafina she’s looking at, but me.

  “Stop! I’m one of . . .”

  Her foot shoots out and kicks my chest. As I fall sideways, she pulls my hat away, catching at my ear. Then she carefully raises her visor and spits into my face. I feel the warm glob ooze down my cheek. I’m struggling to catch my breath.

  “Dirty Hood.” A flash of silver glints as her boot moves back again. I cover my face with my arms. From downhill a van growls toward us.

  But from the motorbike a man’s voice calls. “Get back on. Police!”

  She doesn’t go immediately. She bends down to me. “I’ll be back.” Then she turns and throws her leg over the motorbike. It roars away in a torrent of skidding and engine whine.

  I crawl back to Serafina, gasping for air. “Serafina! Come on, I can get us back inside.”

  But she doesn’t say anything. I pull her hair back but her white face stays still, tilted to the side, her curls tangled into the thorns. The van is almost level with us, but it isn’t the police. It’s an old white van, its cab full of Brotherhood people, yelling and screaming, getting ready to join the fight at the gates. I can’t tell if they’ve seen us. I turn back to Serafina.

  I pull her hair loose. I feel as if I’m moving in slow motion. There’s no time to be gentle, but Serafina doesn’t notice anyway. Her forehead is beaded with tiny drops of sweat, but I can feel her breath on my cheek. Relief flows through me. I lift her up a little and she slumps against my shoulder.

  “It’s OK, Serafina,” I say. “I’ve got you, it’s OK.” Her weight throws me back against the bank. Her arm falls against me, and she groans.

  The noise up the hill is getting louder. At any moment they could get here.

  “Serafina? Serafina!” Maybe if I can wake her up, I can help her walk across the road and through the hole in the fence.

  I try to take the weight off her arm because it’s hanging loosely from her shoulder and I think it’s hurt. “Serafina!”

  Serafina groans again, without coming around. Then I hear someone calling me. “Verity! Verity!”

  It takes me a moment to realize that’s my name. I twist around, my chest aching as I move. There’s nobody on the road.

  But then I see a figure standing on the other side of the fence.

  Greg.

  CHAPTER 12

  OUR EYES MEET across the road and through the wire diamonds of the fence. There’s no time for our usual wariness. Carefully I lay Serafina down against the bank and climb to my feet. I run across the road toward Greg, calling as I go.

  “Serafina’s hurt. We were attacked. They’re coming back.” My eyes search frantically for the hole, but I can’t see it. With a sinking heart I realize that this isn’t the place where I met Oskar after all. Greg is looking up at the fence to see if he could climb it, but it’s too high, and there are rolls of barbed wire along the top. “There’s a hole,” I say, still breathless, “it’s by the big oak.”

  I run down alongside the fence, my breath gasping in my throat. On the other side, Greg crashes through the undergrowth. Then I see the oak towering above the other trees. “There it is!” But where’s the hole? I search frantically by the long grass.

  Greg barrels out of a bramble thicket. “I can see it!” He crouches down in front of the hole. “You got through here?”

  “Yes.”

  It’s hardly big enough for him. I start pulling the wires toward me, away from Greg. It’s difficult, with my right hand wet from the blood on Serafina’s neck. I wipe it on my skirt.

  Greg starts clambering through.

  “Bend it out,” I say, clutching at the wires. I try to hold them back but they tear into his jeans.

  He stands up, panting. “Where is she?”

  I point uphill. We both run across the road to where Serafina lies in the ditch, still unconscious. Greg kneels down beside her.

  “She needs an ambulance,” he says. “We’ll have to take her back through the fence and carry her up to the school.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no time, and it’s too far. The rioters might be coming back.”

  Greg looks behind him into the undergrowth. There’s a large laurel bush, vivid yellow in the gloomy light. “There?” He slides his arms under Serafina and half-carries her into the middle of the laurel. I follow him inside, bending her knees so that her feet are hidden under the leaves. Serafina starts groaning again.

  Greg sits in the leafy cave of the laurel bush with Serafina cradled in his arms. Her head is lolling down and I put out my hands to support it. Over Serafina’s wild brown hair, dotted with tiny white raindrops, our eyes meet again the way they did in Art this afternoon. Greg’s eyes are very dark, just as I drew them. He’s breathing fast, trying to be quiet. His breath puffs against my face. We both stay very still, listening. Please stop groaning, Serafina.

  If they come back, they’re certain to find us.

  I can feel Greg’s arm vibrating as he struggles to hold Serafina without moving. His breath has stilled.

  He didn’t tell anyone about the swimming. I want to trust him. He lets out a long hiss of air. He has a little scratch down his cheek. It’s not bleeding, but the skin is red and drawn up into a row of bumps. I find myself thinking I should have used pen and ink instead of pencil to draw him this morning, because of the clean lines of his cheekbones.

  Serafina’s head feels very heavy. I don’t like the snuffly, snoring sound she’s making.

  I peer out through the wet leaves. The road is empty. Dark clouds are stealing the daylight.

  “We should call an ambulance.” Greg has a phone to keep in touch with his family overseas.

  He frowns at me.

  “With your cell phone.”

  “You can’t get a signal in the Institute grounds,” he says.

  “Not in there,” I say. “But out here you can.”

  He shakes his head. “I never get a signal outside the gate.”

  Oskar’s phone worked here. But I can’t tell Greg that. “Come on, Greg—just give it a try!”

  He stares hard at me. Then he gets out his phone and punches in the emergency number. “Ambulance,” he says. He listens to
the twittering voice. “On the road out of Gatesbrooke, a few minutes downhill from the Institute.” He pauses again. “They can look for the bike by the side of the road.”

  I hold Serafina up until he’s finished the call.

  “You were right.” His brown eyes bore into mine as he tucks the phone back into his coat pocket. “Now we just have to wait.”

  I look away. He must know I met someone here today—someone who cut a hole in the fence. Maybe he was watching. Maybe he saw Oskar. Anyway, it’s too late now to worry about what he’ll do.

  I meet Greg’s eyes. I’m not going to beg for his silence. I have so much to lose, but I look steadily at him.

  He stares back at me. His hair has gone black in the rain. There’s no future or past, just this moment, the two of us trying to save Serafina.

  But the ambulance doesn’t come. We lay Serafina down on the earth. Time ticks by.

  “Call them again?” I suggest.

  Greg gives a short laugh. “What for?” he says. “They won’t come, will they? Not for us.”

  From up the hill there’s a sudden bang—an explosion that makes me scramble to my feet. Then an engine roaring down the hill. What if it’s the woman on the motorbike again?

  I pull the laurel leaves apart. But it’s the white van I saw before. It screeches to a halt next to Serafina’s bike. The passenger door opens and a Brotherhood boy gets out, looking up the bank toward us. I freeze, but Greg clambers out into the road.

  Serafina groans, so I don’t hear what Greg says to the boy, but when I look up again, they are both running toward us, pushing the leaves aside.

  “It’s OK,” Greg says. “They’re going to take us to the hospital.”

  I look over at the van. The back doors are open and inside I can see Brotherhood men and one girl sitting silently, watching us from the benches on either side, tension crackling off them. They’re all wearing balaclavas or scarves wrapped over their faces. Greg and the other boy are already carrying Serafina over to the back of the van.