by Mike Bursell
“So you won't identify them?” she sounded very disappointed, but I noticed that she was testing me by using the word “won't” again.
“Honestly, I really can't,” I insisted.
“All right. If that really is the case, then I think we're done here.” I made to get up again, but she continued, “If there's anything you think we should know, you know what to do, yes?”
“Call you?” I hazarded.
“Call any Enforcer station, yes, and tell them that you have information.” She, too, got up. It seemed that the interview – or questioning – was over. “You may go.”
I left with the Superintendent to find Mum sitting outside, awaiting her turn to go in. She had obviously popped home quickly, as she was looking a little puffed out, and was in full uniform this time. “OK?” she asked.
“She did very well,” her colleague said, before I had the chance to answer. “Why don't you go into the library to talk to Ms Martin? I think Enforcer Officer Turnbull wants to speak to your mother.”
Mum nodded an OK, and I headed into the library, where Ms Martin was waiting. She looked up, tears in her eyes.
“I couldn't identify them,” I said. “Not any of them. She asked, and I said I couldn't.”
She got up, and put her arms around me. It felt strange, but then I realised, as her body started to shake with sobs, that it wasn't a hug for me, but for her, and so, gingerly, I put my arms around her in return and wondered whether being an adult wasn't maybe harder than I'd always assumed.
She sent me back to my class for the last ten minutes or so of the school day, and as I entered, all eyes in the class looked up at me. There was only one set that I needed to meet. I looked into Danni's eyes, and gently shook my head, once. Then I sat down at my desk and as the enormity of what had happened began to dawn I me, something shifted inside me and started to cry in relief, just as I realised that a number of the girls in the class around me were doing just the same.
Chapter 13 – They need us to hate each other
I'd wanted to spend the time after school up in my room, trying to sort through the confusion that I felt. Had I been right to call Mum? Didn't Ryan maybe deserve what had been coming to him? Had I worked for the Enforcers by even getting help?
Mum must have realised that I was in a bit of a state, though, because she kept me busy helping to prepare the meal until Denise and Si arrived for supper. They had come round at Mum's request, and we spent the first part of the meal chatting about random stuff: church services and stories, mainly. Mum clearly knew that I could have told the Enforcer a lot more than I had, and although we didn't discuss that part in detail, I knew that she was proud of me because she kept singing my praises to Denise and Si, and she made me my favourite pudding: blackberry and apple crumble. We talked about pretty much anything apart from the events of the day at school, and it was only after Mum had to leave the table to take a phone call that she raised the subject at all.
“That was the hospital,” she announced as she came back to the table.
“And?” asked Si.
“They're both going to be fine. Joe's badly bruised and they were worried about his liver, but it looks like that's not going to be a problem. Ryan is … Ryan's under armed Enforcer guard...”
Denise almost spat a mouthful of food out at that. She didn't seem impressed, or convinced that he needed – or maybe deserved – such treatment.
“... He's got a broken leg, one broken and three cracked ribs, his jaw is also broken, though that's not as bad as they initially feared, and he's got a really interesting set of bruises that will take a while to sort themselves out. He won't be coming back to school for a while, and if his parents have any sense, he won't be going back to our school at all.” Mum breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“And if you hadn't turned up in time?” Si asked.
“Well, Lena? What do you think?” Mum asked, turning to me.
I'd been wondering about this all evening. “I'm not convinced they would have stopped. I'm not sure: I've never seen people acting like that before. It was scary. Really scary. Am I over-reacting, Mum?”
“No. I don't think you are.”
“They wouldn't have stopped?” Denise asked.
“That's the way it looked to me. I think I got there just in time. Thanks to Lena.”
“But if they hadn't stopped?” Denise probed.
“They'd have carried on, and nobody would have stopped them. Someone might have tried, but they probably wouldn't have got anywhere. And he'd probably be dead by now.” She poured herself another glass of wine, and took a sip. “And we'd have at least one murderer in the school. Thanks to some very fast thinking, we don't have any.” She looked over at me and raised her glass in salute.
And then I realised that she was at least as concerned about the girls as she had been about Ryan. I am so glad that my life isn't as complicated as hers is.
When I arrived at school the next morning, it was really weird. I'd wanted to talk things over with Mo the night before, but he'd warned me that morning that he was going out with his parents for a family supper for some reason, so wouldn't be able to talk. If I had been able to speak to him, he might have been able to warn me what to expect. Immediately on arriving, I sensed that I was getting way more attention than I was used to, with everybody looking at me. Really not what I'm used to. I was trying to work out what to make of it all, and whether it was positive or negative, but as I went to my locker to put my stuff away, Jenny Taylor approached me. Taking my arm, she gently but firmly pulled me towards to the girls' toilets.
I was worried for a moment, but when I saw the look on her face, I decided there was nothing to worry about. She seemed tense, but more apprehensive than dangerous. As we entered, I saw the group of girls who had originally been gathered by the gym the day before, all leaning heavily against the sinks. Jenny blocked the door so that nobody else could get in. It would have been really threatening, if it weren't for their body language, which reflected fear, though the look in their eyes was more complex than that.
Danni approached, and then stopped, thirty centimetres or so in front of me.
“You called your mother,” she said. It was a statement. She couldn't have been sure, as I didn't think that any of them had seen me on my phone, but it was a fair enough assumption.
“I did,” I confirmed.
“Because she's in the police.” Again, a statement.
“Yes.”
“And then you spoke to that Enforcer. And you didn't tell her who … who attacked him.” She looked down at the floor. “You didn't tell her it was us.”
“No.”
She looked back up at me. “Why?”
“Why what?” I asked.
“I kind of understand why you called your mother.” She paused. “I can't say it made sense at the time, but ...” Maybe she realised that it had been for the best. “But, well, you didn't tell the Enforcers who we were, did you?”
She clearly knew I hadn't, or she and the others would at least have got a call by now. Or been hauled off to a camp. But she really didn't seem to understand. It occurred to me, suddenly, that they might think that I was going to hold the knowledge over them, maybe try to blackmail them at some time in the future.
I looked around at them, anger rising like a rocket inside me, furious at their stupidity. “Don't you get it?” I demanded, voice rising. “Don't you understand?” I looked around at uncomprehending faces, all of them looking shocked to see little, unimposing, ignored Lena take them on. “It's what they want. It's what they need. The Government, the Enforcers. They need us to turn against each other. They need us to hate each other. They need us to do – to do what you did. What you nearly did. He's going to live. But he might not have. Did you think about that?”
I was shaking with emotion, though I couldn't have told you exactly what that emotion was. It wasn't just anger and fury, but also frustration, exasperation and fear, all rolled into one.
&n
bsp; “Let me out of here,” I demanded turning on Jenny, who was still in front of the door. I've had enough of this: enough of all of you. Although she was getting on for 18-20 centimetres taller than me, Jenny moved smartly aside from the door, as if intimidated, and I stalked out, grateful that the bell went just then to call us all to assembly.
It was the assembly that Denise had been planning. She had talked the night before about how guilty she felt that she hadn't got round to organising it earlier, but Mum was adamant that it probably wouldn't have made any real difference: Ryan was just going to do what he was going to do, and the girls would just have reacted as they did, whatever anybody had said. Now was a good time to have to talk to the school, to try to calm things down.
Ms Martin first told the school that both Ryan and Joe were going to be OK. I was surprised that she started with Ryan, but as she gave the news about Ryan, there were some hisses and boos, which quickly subsided when she mentioned Joe. If she had started with Joe, I wasn't sure how easily she would have been able to control the noise. A clever move.
She then introduced Denise, who came onto the stage with a rabbi who had once come into school to give us some Religious Education lessons, and Mr Singh, a Sikh who ran the local post office, and had two daughters who had recently finished school and left home to become National Service “Volunteers”. None of them mentioned the events of the day before even once, and the focus was ostensibly purely on the respect that different religions teach that we should hold for those around us, together with the importance of peace and reconciliation. You would have had to have been an idiot not to get what it was really about, though, and everybody – pupils and staff – was very quiet as they filed out of the hall: I decided that Denise had done a good job, and wondered whether Mum was right in saying that having the assembly earlier wouldn't have helped, or whether she was just trying to save Denise from feeling too guilty. Complications, complications.
First period was difficult. I hadn't known what to expect from Jenny, Danni and the crowd, but they weren't the problem. In fact, they seemed unsure what to make of me, and generally avoided me. I'm not known for speaking up or losing my temper, and I was already regretting let anybody see that side of me. But there were whispers and glances from other quarters which I was really uncomfortable with.
I realised, after a while, that there was a fair number of people who considered me almost as much a Youth Traitor as Ryan, for calling Mum and stopping the girls in their attack. This group was mainly made up of people who had heard about the events second hand, and hadn't seen the ferocity of mob of girls as they'd laid into him, but it wasn't just them.
Some people who had been there either didn't realise how serious it could have got, or really didn't care. They worried me. There was another group who were suspicious of me, as I had called Mum in, and had then been seen by a couple of people talking to the Enforcer Officer. This seemed to make up the main group. I wondered to what extent people had always distrusted me because of Mum's job, and whether, for some of them, this most recent set of events merely served to confirm their suspicions.
I went through the day worried that something might erupt, and half expecting a nasty note in my locker or something, but it seemed that Denise's assembly had made some impact on the school, and so there was nothing specific said or done. It didn't feel good, though: just knowing that people were talking about me, and thinking things about me which just weren't true. I'm used to being out of the “cool gang”, and not even having many proper friends, but there's a difference between people leaving you alone, and people actively noticing you, in a negative way.
I didn't have any lessons with Mo that day, but I couldn't wait to speak to him. He had chess club that night, so I had to wait until after supper before I gave him a call.
“How was chess club?” I asked, when he answered.
“No Ryan,” he said.
“No surprise there, then,” I said.
There was silence.
“Jenny and Danni and that lot wanted to ask me about the phone call,” I said. “Before assembly. I explained what happened. Why I did it.”
“I heard,” he said, and was silent.
Weird: this isn't like him. He's usually much more talkative than this. “And it was a strange day.”
Still silence.
“You still there, Floyd?” I enquired.
“Yup, I'm here,” he replied, hesitantly.
“What is it?” Then, I suddenly realised what it must be, and my entire body went cold. He thinks I'm one of them after all. Calmly, I put the receiver down. Then I hugged myself close, and tried hard not to cry, but didn't succeed.
Chapter 14 – The Perfect Undercover Family
I put the phone down under the bed, away where I couldn't see it. I didn't want to look at it, and I didn't want to have anything to do with Mo. I've spent so much time on this. I've risked so much, and he has, too. How come he doesn't get it? What was I supposed to have done? Let them kill him?
Mum called up, asking if I wanted anything, but I couldn't answer her. After a minute or so, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. “Lena? Lena? Is everything OK?” She knocked on my door.
I didn't respond, and after a while, I could hear the handle turning.
“Lena?” She pushed the door open.
I looked up at her, and she looked down at my face, which had to be puffy from the crying.
“Oh, darling.” She came over, sat down on the bed next to me and put her arm around me. “What's up?”
It said something for how paranoid I'd become that the first thing I thought of was to be glad that I'd moved the phone out of sight. I shrugged at her question.
“Bad day at school? Boy trouble?”
I shrugged again. “Neither.” Thought a bit about it. “Both. I don't know.”
She held me close and I buried my face in her shoulder. The tears, which had stopped for a bit, restarted.
“Want to tell me about it?” she asked.
We separated, and I leaned my back up against the wall, while she sat on the end of the bed. It took me a minute or so, but after much sniffing and a couple of tissues, I was ready to talk. “People at school … don't understand.”
“They don't understand what? Why you called me? Why you didn't identify the girls?”
I looked at her hard.
She moved close to me, and whispered conspiratorially. “You thought I couldn't tell?” She half-laughed, though without much humour. “That Enforcer might have been taken in, but I know you better, little one. I could tell immediately that you knew who they were.” She reached over and gave my knee a gentle swipe.
I humphed through a sniffle. She knows me too well. “They don't – well some of them don't – get why I called you.”
“I'm not surprised. People don't always think. And even when they do, what they think isn’t always very pleasant. Either way, they've got the weekend to get over it and work out what they really believe. I'm hopeful that I won't be the only parent sitting down and talking to their son or daughter tonight.”
“How much do other families talk about this sort of stuff, though?” I asked.
She sat back, brow furrowed in thought. “I don't know. The Government is trying to change how families work, and split them down age lines, but I don't think it's that simple.” She looked a little sad. “I'm sure that there are some parents don't really treat their children as people: but I suspect that's always been the case.”