Riot Girls: Seven Books With Girls Who Don't Need A Hero

by Sara Roethle, Jill Nojack, Rachel Medhurst, Sarah Dalton, Pauline Creeden, Brad Magnarella, Stella Wilkinson

  “You mean men who want to get drunk and see women?”

  “Yes.” He swallowed dryly. “Like I said, the Enforcers turn a blind eye because it suits them too. The only thing they do is monitor the violence and take away new born babies.”

  “But there were children there, teenagers like us,” Angela said.

  Daniel didn’t answer; instead he looked down at his toes. I shivered. “I’m never going there again,” I said.

  “I should never have taken you.” His voice sounded wracked with guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have told you how pathetic the Resistance is.” He kicked at the carpet. “I guess I was just showing off.”

  I watched him, noting how in a flash he could turn from confident to vulnerable again. It made me want to hug him. “It’s okay. We wanted to see it. We wanted to see what the world was like,” I finally met his eyes. “Thank you for letting us make that decision.”

  Daniel looked at me in surprise. It was the first time I became aware of how beautiful he was. Not GEM beautiful of course – his eyes were too big in proportion to his lips, and there were large pores across his nose. But there was something about him that over the weeks I’d grown to really… well… like. I blushed and look away. Sebastian’s face popped into my mind and I was aware of my cheeks growing even more coloured with the guilt and shame of my feelings.

  “Breakfast, children!” Theresa’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs. She sounded cheerful and happy and we all piled down for scrambled eggs and bacon. My feelings were soon forgotten and instead we all enjoyed a rare moment where Theresa looked after us all.

  ~*~

  After breakfast I made my way home. The food had replenished the lost energy from using my powers but I could not take away niggling nerves tickling at my stomach. In the Slums, when Angela asked me what I planned to say to my dad, it made me think about whether I really was going to confront him.

  I waved goodbye to Angela, Daniel and Theresa through their kitchen window and stepped into the early morning sunshine. The cold weather of winter was finally turning into a warmer spring, and bright sunlight and clear sky put some extra bounce in my step. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to go home straight away. When it came to the turning towards my road I walked in the opposite direction towards the fields. Impulsively, I ripped away my headscarf and let the breeze take my hair. At the edge of the field I closed my eyes against the wind, enjoying how it felt against my skin. I relaxed there for a few minutes when I heard my name being called.

  “Mina!” shouted a man’s voice from somewhere in the field. “It’s me, Sebastian!”

  I smiled and hopped over a stile in the wall. Sebastian had on his jogging clothes. In one hand he held his Plan-It but slotted it into the pocket of his shorts as I approached.

  “Jogging?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He smiled up at the sky. “It’s a beautiful morning for it.”

  I could tell from the sheen of sweat on Sebastian’s skin that he had been working out for a while. He spoke between long breaths with his hand on his hips and the sun behind him, lighting him up like a halo.

  “I know, I’m meant to be going home but I couldn’t resist a walk.” The wind whipped up my hair and I pushed a few strands behind my ears. It didn’t seem worth it to replace my headscarf but I cautiously looked around for people. “Do you jog in the morning and night, then?”

  He laughed. “I’m not stalking you, I promise. I guess we both just like to be outdoors.”

  We walked together through the straggly weeds. “I really do like the outdoors. In Area 10, where I grew up, the ghettos backed out into this forest. It was beautiful in the mornings with the sun glinting through the branches. I used to go for a run before breakfast. It felt nice, you know, to be undercover like that, where you can just be yourself. Everywhere in Area 14 seems so… exposed. This field, the school, the town – there isn’t anywhere to hide.”

  “What do you want to hide from?” he asked.

  I paused, realising I’d said too much. “I don’t want to hide… I mean I just like privacy. You know?”

  He laughed. It was a lovely musical laugh. “And I keep getting in the way of your privacy.”

  “Oh! No, I didn’t mean…” I laughed too. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.” I fiddled with the headscarf in my hands, wanting the ground to swallow me whole. My cheeks flushed. Why was I such an idiot?

  “It’s okay, I know what you meant. I was just teasing you. And I know exactly how you feel, except for me it was kind of the opposite growing up.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, encouraging him. I wanted to know more.

  “My family lived in London before we moved here and in London you are never alone. There aren’t any fields or forests anymore, just streets and shops and shopping centres and buildings everywhere. The streets are full of people, and the tube is crammed with even more people, so vast that you just get lost. You become nothing but a face in the crowd.” He turned to me and smiled. “That’s how it’s opposite to you.” He paused. “You know I’m jealous?”

  “Of what?” I said.

  “Of you! Of your running through a forest like that. I would love to do something that cool. That’s why I love the field here.”

  I had never thought about it like that. I thought back to the night before in the Slums with all those people crammed into the tiny shelters. Then I remembered something else, something that I wanted to ask Sebastian. “Hey, you grew up in London, right?”

  “Yup.” He grinned.

  “Do you really have big film-stars there? Do they make all those films and stuff that they say they do?”

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting that question,” he said with a laugh. “When I was a young boy, I remembered lots of fancy processions on the street. There would be men announcing winners over the Tannoys and people cheered. There were films. We watched them on the screens. And then there were loads of soaps, which my mum got completely addicted to. She used to cry when it finished.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his usual laugh, there was a bitter edge to it. “Eventually it just became competitions.”

  “I knew it,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” I smiled. “Actually, that wasn’t my real question.” I admitted.

  “Somehow I didn’t think it would be.” He flashed me a smile, white teeth aglow.

  “What you said about your dad… And Elena not hurting me anymore.”

  “I was expecting that question,” he said with his smile growing wider. “And I wish I could tell you more.” His Plan-It beeped from his pocket. He took it out, a small white rectangle, and pressed some buttons. I looked closely and saw the tiniest speck of something flash across his eyes and he frowned. “Mina, I am sorry. All I can say is that you are not ready yet.” He put his hand on my arm. “And you have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.” My body tingled. “But I have to go.”

  He turned to leave and my eyes instinctively followed him. I just wanted to talk to him more, get to know him. There was something about Sebastian that made me want to be around him. But then there was something about Daniel too, and I found that I couldn’t be around one of them without thinking about the other.

  “Stupid, stupid girl,” I chastised myself.

  “What did you say?” Sebastian asked, turning back.

  “Oh, nothing,” I replied, mortified.

  “Okay,” he said. I watched him begin to walk away but then stop and turn sharply on his heel. “Why don’t we get coffee tomorrow?”

  I nodded. I shouldn’t have, but I did. He told me a time and a place and assured me it was safe before leaving me with yet more unanswered questions.

  18

  “CONCENTRATE ON the pencil again, Mina,” Dad said, pacing the basement. “After we’ve done this I’ll teach you how to box.”

  “What do you know about boxing?” I scorned.

  “You’d be surprised,” he said with an infuriating smile. “I used to be ra
ther good at it when I was your age. Your Grandfather put me forward for a few amateur fights.”

  “Something else I didn’t know about you,” I mumbled into my tunic sleeve. I was sat cross legged on the floor of the basement with the pencil inches from my knees.

  “What did you say?”

  “Oh! Nothing,” I replied. Instead I let the anger of my dad’s lies take over. The pencil flew into the air, hovering a few feet above my head.

  “That’s it! Good!” Dad exclaimed. “No, direct it. Make it float towards the wall. You have to concentrate hard now, imagine it moving. You need to visualise it.”

  I concentrated hard on the pencil, imagining it moving towards the wall. I memorised the room and closed my eyes, focussing on the picture in my head, seeing the pencil fly through the air like a paper aeroplane.

  “You’re doing it!” Dad clapped his hands together. “Mina, that is really quite incredible.”

  I opened my eyes and the pencil dropped to the floor. “Didn’t quite make it to the wall,” I said.

  “No, but you were focussed and you directed it. Do you know what that means?”

  I shook my head.

  “It means that you are beginning to control your gift. And that makes you even more powerful.”

  I didn’t feel powerful. Not after standing back and watching Emily taken away. Not after collapsing in the Slums. Not after stupidly agreeing to meet a GEM when I shouldn’t even talk to him. I felt weak.

  “I have to say,” he continued as he removed boxing gloves from a high shelf. He groaned slightly as he reached, reminding me of his age, “you are much more accomplished at this than I thought you were going to be. Have you been using your power?”

  I didn’t answer and instead looked at the floor.

  “I won’t be mad, Mina. As long as you are careful.”

  “I used to practice in the woods,” I admitted. “But I was not very good and most of the time it didn’t even work.” It was all true, I just left out the parts from school and in the Slums – well if he could miss out vital bits of information I could too.

  “Whatever you did has laid the groundwork for our training very well.” He tossed me the boxing gloves. “Now, let’s have a go at boxing. I think you will enjoy it very much.”

  I pulled the gloves on unenthusiastically and made my way over to the punch bag. “What do I do?” I said with a sneer. “Just hit it? Doesn’t seem to need much skill.”

  Dad raised his finger as though I had prompted an interesting point. I imagined him doing this to his students and wondered if they’d found it as tempting to test out a pair of boxing gloves on his chin.

  “Punching a bag – maybe. But! Becoming a boxer does require skill. Going against an opponent takes up not just physical strength but mental strength too. Now, first we’re going to start with the punching. Bend your elbow, yes… that’s right. A little more… now move your arm away from your torso…”

  I punched the bag as hard as I could, Dad, holding the bag from the other side, was almost knocked over. “How was that?” I asked cockily.

  He sighed. “Is there something the matter, Mina?”

  My cheeks reddened. I wasn’t ready to confront him yet. “No. Nothing.”

  “You’ve been sullen ever since you came home from Angela’s. Did you have a falling out?” He looked at me with such concern that I felt my bravado slip.

  “No,” I said. I sighed and relented. “Now, teach me how to be a boxer.”

  ~*~

  I trained with my dad all weekend. Despite everything that happened in the Slums I really enjoyed boxing and I enjoyed his company even more. It was for that reason I didn’t mention the Resistance meeting. Soon it was Sunday afternoon and all I could think about was Sebastian. I’d memorised the time and place and I told Dad I was meeting Angela – I no longer felt guilty about lying to him.

  He’d told me the address of a small coffee shop in the centre of town and I approached cautiously. The Blemished were not banned from the affluent areas of our small town centre but most of us stuck to the market to buy and sell from our own people where we were comfortable. We rarely went into GEM owned shops, like the Café Sebastian directed me to.

  It sat between a butchers and a delicatessen. It was small and quaint and Sebastian sat in the window, smiling, which relaxed me. I opened the door tentatively and went inside. The teller behind the counter stared at me and I froze, bracing myself for abuse, or derision and scorn, or all three, but instead he simply nodded in greeting.

  He turned to Sebastian and raised his eyebrows. “Back room?”

  “No, we’re fine here,” Sebastian answered firmly. Then he turned to me. “What would you like to drink? Do you want to sit down?”

  “I don’t know, and yes,” I said. I smiled and tried to move nonchalantly over to a chair as though I went to Cafés all the time. Instead I tripped on my tunic and Sebastian stood to help me sit. I settled in the chair and glanced around, looking for people staring. The Café was empty. “You choose for me.”

  Sebastian smiled and turned to leave but I stopped him by putting my hand on his arm – a bold move for a Blemished girl. I immediately regretted it and pulled away but Sebastian didn’t seem to notice. “Why did he ask if we wanted to go into the back?”

  Sebastian hesitated. He seemed reluctant to explain. “There are GEMs who fall in love with Blemished girls. It is a safe place for them here.”

  I gasped. “Did you think––?”

  “No!” Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Of course not. I wouldn’t. Don’t worry. You and I are not doing anything wrong, which is why we don’t need to hide. We’re just two friends getting to know each other.”

  I suddenly felt cold and very small. “Yes. Friends.” I forced a smile.

  Sebastian left for the counter, chatted amiably with the teller, and after a machine made hissing noises, came back with a large mug of something hot and steamy. He placed it down in front of me. All I could see was a caramel coloured creamy froth with something brown sprinkled on top.

  “I brought you a Mocha,” he said triumphantly. “It’s coffee flavoured with chocolate.”

  The only coffee I drank came out of a jar and left a bitter after taste. This was different. It was sweet, thick and the froth tickled my nose.

  Sebastian broke into a fit of laughter and I frowned. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing… it’s just…” He laughed again. “Lean forward.”

  I obeyed and he reached towards me, wiping something from my nose with his thumb. As he did so I happened to glance out of the window to see a red haired woman staring back. She had a face like thunder, eyes glaring with hatred. I knew her. It was my teacher – Mrs Murgatroyd – Murder-Troll. She looked straight at me, holding my gaze without blinking. Her lips sneered back. The hair on my arms stood on end. My heart quickened. I blinked away and she was gone.

  “This is a mistake,” I said breathlessly. “I should not be here.” I went to stand up but Sebastian grabbed hold of my arm.

  “Wait. What’s wrong?” He asked. “Is it because you saw your teacher? It doesn’t matter, you know. We’re not in school. We aren’t doing anything wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “You don’t understand,” I pleaded. “It’s okay for you. You’re not the one who has to wear this.” I tore at my headscarf. “You’re not the one whose friend is taken away from you because she’s having a baby. You don’t live in ghettos and get treated like second class citizens… no, not even that. We aren’t even citizens, we’re Blemished.” My legs began to shake and I felt a tingle in my fingers, the table top bounced a fraction, spilling the mochas. “Don’t you see? We can never be friends. I can’t even look at you. We are doing something wrong. This… this is all wrong. I can’t be here.”

  I fled from the café. Sebastian called after me but I didn’t stop.

  19

  I COULDN'T DECIDE what I was the most upset about: Mrs Murgatroyd seeing us through
the glass, embarrassing myself so completely, Sebastian calling me a friend or my own stupidity for agreeing to meet him in the first place.

  Why did I even care? It wasn’t like there could be any future between us. No relationship between a Blemished and a GEM ended well. We weren’t supposed to mix. It was illegal for a start. I stomped through the town, ignoring the market sellers, the giggling GEM girls and the low murmur of electric cars. I was so blinkered to the world that I walked straight into Elena Darcey, knocking us both to the ground.

  She picked herself up, dusting the dirt from her pretty denim dress, and I clambered to my feet with a lot less grace. I nodded as if to apologise and went to walk away but she stopped me.

  “Wait, Mina,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said curtly without meeting her eyes.

  She moved in front of me, blocking my path and for a moment I thought she was about to start bullying me again. But instead she reached into her handbag, a small pastel pink clutch bag, and pulled out a packet of tissues. “You’re crying.”

  “I am?” Confused, I reached up and touched the skin beneath my eyes to find them damp. She was right. I took the tissues and dabbed my eyes. “I didn’t realise.”

  “I do that too, sometimes,” she said. And then she smiled at me. It was a genuine smile, not the kind of sneer I was used too, and her eyes lit up.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “No problem, Blem,” she said. The insult didn’t feel like an insult this time, more like a nickname. There was affection behind it. Her Plan-It bleeped and words flashed over her eyes. “Oh! Gotta go!”

  I stared as she walked away, the tissue crumpled in my fingers. Just when I thought I understood the world and the way things worked, something changed my mind. Before Area 14 I understood that I was Blemished and the GEMs were more important. I understood that I was here to serve them and not to be their friends or their girl-friends. I’d been happy to resent them, even hate them. But now I liked two GEMs. I liked Sebastian and I wanted to know more about him. I even liked Elena and could see us as friends in another life. The lines were blurring. The world was confusing. I went home with thoughts buzzing through my mind.