An explosion throws me into the air. The walls have disappeared, the ceiling is falling.
I’m on the floor. There’s a pain in my head. My brain must be bleeding.
I’m crawling over bodies.
There’s no sound, only the ringing in my skull.
‘Mum!’ I can’t hear me calling. ‘Lilli.’
I breathe a grey cloud and swallow it and it wants to choke me.
There’s blood as I drag myself away.
I cough so much that I sick murky bile on to the ground.
‘Lilli?’
I’m outside and it’s still dark, only lights by the fence. People are walking, running. There are people not moving.
Where are the guards?
Another explosion breaks through my silence. It’s close by, but I’ve nowhere to hide. I lie on the ground and try to cover my head.
My eyes, my throat, they’re burning.
My arms won’t protect me.
I feel blood on my leg.
‘Ruby!’ I can hear Lilli. She’s calling me. I look for her, but there’s just thick dust and bodies. ‘Ruby.’ I stand up and follow her voice, run towards it.
‘Lilli!’ I have to wade through the screaming. ‘I’m here.’
I see her standing alone, her arms by her side. Her face is bleeding, the blood falling on her shoulder.
‘Where’s Mum?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head, but has no expression, no pain, no fear.
We search among the people, but everyone is calling out and Mum won’t hear me shouting. I hold Lilli’s hand and we search, but I can’t find her. I can’t find my mum.
‘We need to look in the building,’ I say, but it’s no longer there, not as it should be. The stairs stick out like bones in the ruins and I run towards them. There’re so many bricks. I let go of Lilli and start to pick them up, one by one.
‘Mum,’ I call. My fingers lift the dark rubble. Everywhere there’s dust. ‘Mum.’
There’s an arm and I move the bricks, but it isn’t her. She’s not my mother, this woman, her eyes staring into hell.
Everywhere there’s screaming, the sounds growing and fading, binding tight around my skull. It’s hard to see through the dust because I’m crying when I don’t want to be.
Don’t let them see you upset, my mum says. But who is here to see? There’s no sign of the guards, no guns at my back.
‘Help me, Lilli,’ I say and together we dig through the bricks, moving everything we can, but it’s a mound in front of us. The air is still thick with clouds of shattered wall. If Mum is under this, how will she be able to breathe? ‘Hurry,’ I say and I force my arms to move.
The dust begins to lift and Lilli walks away from me.
‘Mum?’ I hear her say. I look to where she stands by the body of a woman lying on the ground. I don’t want to get up, but I do. I see myself step closer. She lies on the ground, on her side, as if she’s asleep. One of her arms is stretched out. There’s a wound on her forehead, the blood from it spilling into her hair.
I kneel down next to her. ‘Get up, Mum,’ I whisper. But her eyes are closed. ‘We’ve got to go.’ Her mouth is slightly open and there should be a word there, but she doesn’t reply. I wipe the dirt from her fingers. ‘It’s time to go,’ I tell her, but she doesn’t move.
‘She’s breathing,’ Lilli says and she’s shaking our mum’s arm. I think I should hold her back, but now I see it too, the slow rise and fall of Mum’s chest.
‘Mum,’ I cry and I’m wiping her blood and pulling her to sit as a helicopter above suddenly takes the sounds of the world around us. Lilli says something that I can’t hear as our mum opens her eyes. She sees me and she sees Lilli and she reaches out to touch my cheek, but the helicopter is circling and I don’t know who it is or where the guards are. It flies away and the shouting comes back.
‘What happened?’ Mum asks, looking around.
‘I don’t know.’ I try to wipe the dust from her face, as everywhere around us people are screaming. ‘We have to go. Can you stand up?’
Mum nods, but she’s so confused as she leans on me and takes Lilli’s hand.
Her body staggers, but her eyes are strong.
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I can walk.’
The gate into the men’s section is open and people are pushing, running towards the entrance of the camp.
‘What about the guards?’ Lilli asks. We look around at the jagged ruins, the choking clouds disintegrating to let the shapes of suffering through, yet there’s no one here to shoot us.
‘This is our chance,’ I say. But at every step I wait for the earth to explode and take us.
I see now, through the fence, there are vans arriving, yellow steps painted across them. The yellow steps of the Core Party.
‘Take Mum with you,’ I say to Lilli.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I won’t leave Destiny,’ I say.
‘Ruby!’ It’s Mum shouting to me, but already I’m running against the tide of panic, through the waves of broken people, to the door I need. I find the light switch and the corridor blinks into life.
Inside here it’s so quiet and I stop, seeing only the closed doors. Where is the general? Will he be in his office while the other guards flee and his camp falls apart? There’s a noise behind me and I whip round, arms raised, but it’s my mum, her face sharp with distress as she stands holding Lilli’s hand.
‘Where’s Destiny?’ she asks, her cough violent, rattling into the silence. And so I take them with me, leading them, knowing that at any time a gun could be aimed at us. I barely breathe as we walk past the general’s room and I wait to see him standing here, but he doesn’t come. We run past the cupboard and no one tries to stop me as I open the furthest door.
There’s the same strong smell of disinfectant, the same taste of despair.
‘What is this place?’ Mum whispers as she pulls aside the first grey curtain. Three children lie in separate beds, staring terrified at us. ‘What have they done to them?’ Mum tries to lift the nearest girl, but she cries out in pain.
I go to stroke back the girl’s sweat-stained hair. ‘We won’t hurt you,’ I tell her. ‘But you have to be brave.’
She winces as Mum wraps her naked legs in the sheet and gently picks her up. ‘How many more?’ Mum’s voice is still ribbed with dust as Lilli rips back another curtain.
‘Zamal,’ she says. And he’s here. One of the sterilised. A wave of nausea hits me, but I breathe deep enough to push it away, to stay strong for him. He doesn’t speak as I lift him from the bed.
‘Is Rimi here?’ I ask, but he only looks at me with wide eyes and I know the answer. ‘Can you stand up?’ He nods, but his legs buckle and Lilli has to break his fall.
‘I’ll carry him as well,’ Mum says. ‘You find Destiny.’
‘But what about the other children?’ Lilli asks.
‘We’ll come back for them, I promise,’ Mum tells her, as I run to the curtain at the end.
Destiny is strapped to the mattress. Her head is locked back, headphones clamped to her ears and a screen plays so close to her face that it touches her. I yank it all away but she barely flinches.
‘Help me,’ I tell Lilli and we untie the leather straps and I lift Destiny. She falls against me, her head rolling back until only the whites of her eyes are showing. ‘Destiny, it’s me, Ruby.’ She blinks slowly, a strange groaning coming from her. ‘You’re safe now,’ I tell her.
She’s only bones, but still Lilli and I struggle to carry her between us, her feet dragging on the floor. I find my last grains of strength to hold her as we leave the building, into the chaos of people searching, crying.
‘Get to the gate,’ Mum tells us, blood tangled deep in her hair as she clutches Zamal and the little girl tight.
Someone pulls me back. I turn and Luke is standing in front of me.
‘Ruby,’ he says. And it’s all I hear.
His dad is beside him, his s
hirt torn.
‘Help us,’ I say and his dad takes Destiny from me, holding her as a child.
‘I’ve got you,’ he tells her.
There’s the sound of a helicopter returning, somewhere deep in the sky. ‘We’ve got to hurry,’ Mum says, as Luke reaches out to carry Zamal, shielding him from everything around us. I keep Lilli’s hand in mine.
It’s like this that we find our way to freedom.
SIX MONTHS LATER
My name is Ruby West and I am not a number.
I do exist.
I have courage and I have hope.
But I will never forget.
I wake as I do every day, in Mum and Darren’s bed. Lilli is curled next to me, her hand linked around my wrist even though she’s still asleep. It’s barely light outside, but it’s enough to see her eyes locked tight against the nightmares that haunt her. I should wake her. Sometimes I do. But I think that reality might be even worse than those dreams.
Instead I lie back on the pillow and pull the sleeves of Darren’s jumper further over my hands. I’m sorry, I whisper to him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I rub the arms of his jumper over my eyelids again and again, not caring if I scratch my skin raw. I need it to wipe away the pain inside me, but it never does.
I hear movement close by. I know it’s Mum getting up from the mattress on the floor.
‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ she says and I feel her stroke my hair from my face. But I want it left there, covering me, hiding me from the world.
‘It’s not,’ I reply and when she hugs me I pretend that it’s Darren’s shoulder my tears fall on to.
Mum makes us breakfast as she does every day. I don’t want to eat it but I must, because Lilli copies everything I do.
When we first returned – after the assessments and prodding and probing and questions, questions, questions – I couldn’t be anywhere. I couldn’t be in our home without Darren. And I couldn’t be outside where terror peeled me back, layer by layer. So I sat and existed in burrows of memories. Deeper I went every moment, down tunnels of gunshots, seeing the general’s face at every turn. Deeper, even when the earth from above began to drip down, filling my eyes, my nose, my mouth until I was choking and Mum would have to drag me back, shake me free.
Always, Lilli would be sitting, staring at me.
Mum picked the earth from my ears until I could hear and swept the mud from my eyes until I could see how my sister was fading in front of me. And so now, every day, I eat my breakfast. And every day Lilli eats hers too. I put on my school uniform because then I know she will. I do my shoes and hold on to my bag and take her hand before I open the front door and together we walk each step.
Our dad phones us as he does each morning now. It’s nice to hear his voice, but it hurts so much too because it makes me miss Darren even more. Dad comes to visit us as much as he can, but Darren isn’t here and the hole that’s left sometimes burns too bright to even think.
At school, Luke waits by the gate – never inside where he used to be. I want to feel happiness when I see him, but I’m not there yet. One day, maybe. For now having him by my side is enough. We go into our school knowing that the Traditionals are not here. They’re no longer in power, but they’ve left behind a shattered country that can’t quite find all the pieces to make itself whole again.
Lilli’s Tight-Knits meet her and take her from me and will protect her for the day.
Sara is by my locker.
‘Hey,’ she says. And I nod and try on a smile as she links her arm through mine.
She’s asked about the camp, but understands that I can’t speak of it yet and is careful with the scars she can’t see. One day I’ll find the courage to tell her the truth about Darren. About how he died because of me. And maybe I will tell her how I hid under a coach to escape. How I met a man in a shop who phoned my dad and set off a chain of events that led to the bombing of the camp. The bombing that the Cores on the outside carried out before dawn because they thought we’d all be sleeping. The bomb that killed so many innocent people as they walked down those stairs. That made the general and his guards run for their own lives. The bomb that also set us free.
Sara knows about the children who were taken, because the world talks about them. Of those who were brutally sterilised. And of those, along with Rimi, who were found safe in a home not far from the camp, their indoctrination only just begun, the damage reversible. She knows too of the vanished twins. At night I sometimes dream of them. I like to pretend that they are living in the mountains, waiting for us to find them there.
Conor is lost to us too. He spends his days and nights sitting next to his mum as she struggles for each breath. Her treatment started again when she left the camp, but she’s too frail, too ill. Conor is riddled with an anger that seeps from his skin and though I try to find a way through to him, he’s so far away that I don’t know if he’ll ever return.
Mr Hart has not come back to school. I have heard that his wife did not survive. I wonder if there’s reason enough for him to wake every day. I’d like to think there is.
Destiny isn’t in the corridors. She isn’t in the classrooms or the canteen. We don’t walk along arm in arm, meeting each other’s friends. Instead I wait for the minutes to tick by until I can visit her. Later, Luke and Lilli and I will go to the place where she’s looked after. We’ll sit and talk to her and hold her hand. Lilli will do her make up and I will paint her nails. Maybe today she will recognise us. Maybe it’ll be today that she raises her head on her own and says my name with a smile.
Every day I tell her that she’s loved. I tell her that our society is being rebuilt. I tell her that there is kindness and that it outweighs the bad. That the sky is still blue and the sun still rises. I tell her that we are no longer numbers. That we are free. I tell her this, because I have to believe it myself. The more I say it, the more it is true.
Luke will sit in the corner of that room and he’ll open his sketchbook. Every day the raven he draws becomes stronger. The feathers form on the curves of its wings, its eyes shine. It gives me hope and strength. Strength to live and strength to speak. Because in time I will tell all who will listen that prejudice is poison. That power can turn people ugly and it disintegrates souls, but love’s roots are stronger than hate. And if we let love grow taller and wider it’ll be all that we can see.
I’ll tell how each second is precious, each moment is a gift.
In time I will.
In time.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Ruby’s story has its roots in the unbearable horrors of the Holocaust, where it’s estimated that 12 million people died in Hitler’s concentration camps. Prisoners were subjected to unimaginable suffering, including starvation, hard-labour and barbaric medical experiments. My book is set in the present day and it is, of course, a work of fiction. And yet when I was writing I Am Not a Number I had a sense of life imitating art. The influence of fascism on global politics is undeniable, from Europe to South America and the USA. Today, too often, we hear echoes of the past in the words of politicians; words of prejudice, racism and nationalism spoken from those who are meant to be leading our world. We mustn’t be the ones to tolerate this, to turn our backs. Above all else my intention is that this book carries a message of hope – hope that love and tolerance will prevail. I truly believe that, guided by the younger generation, who show such courage through their actions and protests, we can learn to replace division with unity, fear with friendship and the language of hatred with that of respect.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My biggest thank you is for my beautiful mum – in your determination to live, you showed me that every day is a gift. I’ll treasure this knowledge always and be forever grateful that you were mine.
Thank you to Miles for holding me along bumpy paths and smooth tracks, through mountains and moonrivers. And to our wonderful boys Arthur, Albert and Frank - you are my sunshine. To Philip, Lara, Emma and Anna - thank you for always being by m
y side. I love you all.
To my brilliant agent, Veronique Baxter – thank you for your endless wisdom, your kindness and your friendship – I’m so lucky to have you guiding me.
To my amazing editor, Sarah Levison – a huge thank you for your insight, your incredible intuition and the care you have given to Ruby and her story. I’m so grateful that I was paired with such a talent as you. Thank you also to Amy St Johnston for working closely on this book. And, of course, to Ali Dougal – thank you for keeping a keen eye and being a constant for Ruby. And to all the team at Egmont - especially Lisa Holton for my stunning cover, the inimitable Cally Poplak, Tiff Leeson, Ingrid Gilmore, Laura Bird, Siobhan McDermott, Hilary Bell, Sarah Garnham and Jasveen Bansal. I’m very proud to be published by you. And thank you to Susila Baybars and Becky Peacock for your enviable copyediting and proofreading skills.
Thank you to my very first readers – Samala Bernstein and Ronika Banerji – your encouraging words made me believe in this book. And to Audrey Bennett for answering random questions. And a big thank you to Brian Conaghan for reading under time-pressure and having nothing but kind words.
To my writing group – Nikki, Allie, Sandi, Debs, Suzanna and Lucy – thank you for pushing me to be the best writer I can be. And my reading group Jo, Babs, Jackie and Catherine. To Jules, Abie, Jess, Jen, Tash, Sarah D, Sarah C and Jane for sharing this strange new world. And to all the bloggers who spread the love of books – especially the stars who are Carmen Haselup, Michelle Toy and Grace Latter.
To the brilliant, sparky, interested and interesting teenagers who I’m lucky enough to meet on school visits. You are the future. Keep using your voices and know that each and every one of you counts. To librarians everywhere – thank you for working tirelessly to bring books to children; it means the world to me that you’re championing mine. And thank you to Ness, Jules and Naomi for running the best shop ever – The Book Nook at First Avenue, Hove.
I’m so lucky to have amazing friends – whether I sing with you, swim with you, laugh, talk, or pray with you, every one of you is an irreplaceable part in my life – especially Toots, Lucy, Wally, my school friends and Rolle College Alumni, The wonderful Whinneys, my forever NCTers, The Cameroons, my Pub Quiz team extraordinaire, school-gate mums and dads and Gospel choir friends.
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