The Territory (16 page)

Mum’s been acting really weirdly recently as well. Tonight, when she was putting on the washing, I told her about Amanda still not being at school and she came out with, ‘Maybe her parents have been transferred somewhere like the Fourth City and she’s had to change schools.’
I laughed, assuming that Mum was being freakily specific as a joke. Mum can have a weird sense of humour. I think it’s being a scientist. Most of the people she works with are similarly socially inept. But this time Mum joined in laughing a split second too late and just seemed to burrow deeper into the washing machine.

I never thought it was possible to work this hard. Today I’ve done nine hours at school. Sport’s gone. It’s now extra Maths. Lunch hour has been cut to twenty minutes. First break’s gone.

Then after school it was straight to Jack’s for another three hours of science.

And I hardly slept last night. Scientific fact: too much cortisol (that’s stress hormone) in your system can cause insomnia. Not exactly what I need at the moment.

But not sleeping’s sometimes better than actually sleeping. No nightmares. They’re getting more and more vivid, the nightmares I mean. In the most frequent one, I’m sitting down to eat at our table, but it’s just me by myself. I’m vaguely aware that Mum and Dad are somewhere, but I can’t see or hear them. And there are flies everywhere. And they’re biting me again and again. I look at my plate and the mucor morphs into this enormous fish that then turns and looks up at me, and it’s got my face.

I guess I’m trying to blame it all on work, on stress, but maybe I’m just a properly rubbish friend and a selfish pain.

Something just seemed to flip in my head when Jack didn’t get the Force and Motion section of Physics for the third time. I couldn’t help it. An exasperated, ‘Aaaaggghhhh!’ burst out of me and I said, ‘Come on, Jack, you’re killing me.’ And then there was just the worst, the loudest silence ever.

All I’d meant was that he was stressing me out, but he took my words literally and started pacing around the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. I was worried he might hit me or something, but then the anger seemed to fizzle out inside him and he went all quiet. When he finally spoke, he said maybe it’d be best for me to study by myself as he was dragging me down. That I needed to focus with my two point deduction. That he’d never forgive himself if he was the reason that I failed and got sent to die.

And I tried to talk him round. I cracked rubbish jokes. I even did a stupid dance for him. And big baby eyes. But nothing worked. He was adamant. ‘I’ve loved you forever, Noa,’ he said.

I blushed, wanting to put my hands over my ears, block out the one conversation that I didn’t want to have. But he seemed to read my mind and stood close, pinning my hands to my waist and forcing me to look him in the eye.

‘No more jokes, Noa. Not now. Just listen. I love you. I loved you when we were six and playing with Rex. I loved you when we were ten and doing running races in People’s Park. I loved you when we were twelve and learning how to make ourselves faint by holding our breath too long. I’ve loved you every day of my useless life and I’m not going to be the one who kills you.’

I don’t know what the right way to react would have been but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it. All I could think was, This is so horrifically awkward, run away! and that’s basically what I did. I said I had to get home, that this wasn’t the time, and scurried off, away from the look of hurt in Jack’s eyes.

I’d always sort of known this day would come. That there was and always had been this thing between us. I’d always thought that when we did have THE conversation, that thing would have built and built and we’d sort of end up together and it’d be the sort of relationship which is even more amazing because you’d been friends first. But why now? Why when we’re sitting exams in days? Why when I’ve met Raf and have completely fallen for him?

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine kissing Jack. Burrowing into his arms. But even in my imagination, his arms morph into Raf’s arms and his lips into Raf’s lips.

‘
Class-time’ always means trouble.

We had a non-timetabled Class-time session with Ms Jones so were ten minutes late for Geography. Normally a bonus. Geography is such a pointless subject. Just one step below RS. At least there’s no RS in Year 10. There’s no RS section in the TAA, although Dad says with the Archbishop gaining more and more influence that might change. But, not meaning to sound totally selfish and everything, it doesn’t affect me so right now I really don’t care.

Anyway, Ms Jones gathered us all round with a fake look of concern on her evil, reptilian face. I sat next to Jack and tried to smile at him in a ‘look, everything’s still cool between us’ kind of way, but he refused to look at me. Ms Jones told us that Amanda Marsden wouldn’t be returning to Hollets. That Amanda had asked Ms Jones to say goodbye to her classmates on her behalf and to wish us well in the TAA. Yeah, right. Like they were close. Everyone looked a bit suspicious. This was not the Amanda we all knew and didn’t love. Did she ask Ms Jones to snog Hugo goodbye for her? That’d be more her style. People do leave all the time as there aren’t that many good jobs going so if your mum or dad get transferred, off go all the family, you don’t really get a choice in the matter. But everyone always says goodbye themselves and teachers never make a big deal about it. And no one leaves two weeks, sorry thirteen days, before the TAA.

‘Where’s she gone?’ David asked.

Ms Jones replied, ‘Her father’s been transferred. It’s a very high profile hush-hush position so I’d be grateful if you don’t discuss it too much with your families.’

‘But where?’ Seems like Amanda should have gone for David instead of Hugo. He’s persistent at least while Hugo was just staring at his hands. I think he was actually comparing the sizes of his thumbs. Honest to God. Freakoid.

Ms Jones fixed dead-fish eyes on David. ‘They’ve moved to the Fourth City.’

I thought I knew Mum. I thought I knew her as well as it’s possible to know another person. Turns out I was wrong.

School was cancelled today. Now this was something big. School is never cancelled. And this close to the TAA. No way. Heavy snow, heatwaves, freak sandstorms, you name it, we have to trudge to the gates of Hollets hell and freeze/bake/get sanded raw regardless. But today was different. Mum got a phone call from Sam Neville’s mum (through the school’s lame ‘snowball’ emergency call system) saying the school was shut due to a bomb scare. I wonder who would want to blow up Hollets? I mean I know loads of people who hate it, but they’re all fifteen and don’t exactly own huge supplies of explosives. I’m surprised if we’ve somehow got on to the Opposition’s radar.

The phone call came during breakfast. Dad actually looked up from his toast and paper to ask what was going on. And that is remarkable – Dad’s not a good morning person. He looks a bit like a mole first thing. Squinty eyes, glasses on, big curly hair not yet tamed into lawyer style. To be fair I look pretty much the same. Thanks Dad for those great genes!

‘I thought catching Archie Rycroft was going to stop this sort of thing,’ he mumbled through toast crumbs.

‘I guess they’re showing that it’s not enough,’ Mum replied. ‘Or maybe it’s because they abolished the SAMs.’

I wasn’t too stressed about it. We’ve basically finished the syllabus in nearly every subject and I could revise just as well at home as at school. I’ve never been one of those find-it-hard-to-concentrate people. In fact I go into super-concentration overdrive. Once, when I was studying with Daisy, she had to hit me over the head with a magazine before I realised she was talking to me. She’d tried yelling at me a few times first and I literally couldn’t hear her; I’d just blocked out any noise. Apparently that’s why I do well in exams.

Mum told me to hurry up and get dressed. I asked what all the fuss was about. After all, I could just study in my room in my pyjamas.

But Mum had different plans. I had to go to her work with her. Said if there were bomb threats the Opposition might be out to generally cause trouble. That there might be riots or street fights. My moaning was ignored and five minutes later I was dressed and out of the flat. Mum nearly didn’t even let me stop to put my contact lenses in, but there was NO WAY I was going anywhere near people in my glasses, especially as, if I was having to go with Mum to the Laboratory, it was massively likely that Raf might be going there too with his dad.

When we got to the Laboratory we had to go through the endless security: bag search, body scanners, fingerprint identification. I even had to have my photo taken for a temporary clearance pass. I blinked in the flash so my eyes were half closed in the photo and I looked like a right denser. Great that I had to have that pinned to my top all day.

Mum’s office was on the fifth floor (the lift labelled the floor ‘Disease Prevention’). It was the first time I’d been there since I was seven and had to stay off school for four days with tonsillitis. The door was marked ‘Dr R Blake: Senior Scientist’ and I felt really proud. This was before I knew.

Her desk was cluttered. There was a large computer screen, several other flashing displays, a phone and lots of photos of me and Dad. I’m sure there used to be one of her pregnant, with Dad’s arms wrapped round her swollen belly. But if so, that’s gone now. I guess nearly everyone who works for the Ministry uses a Wombpod so photos of big bellies are sort of frowned on.

Down the corridor, leading away from the lift, were loads of airlocks and I could just about make out some scientists wearing some bad-ass spacesuits. I remember thinking this is way cooler than school science. Take that, Group 1 metals! Mr Malovich would be way out of his depth here!

Mum said I had to sit in her office and revise there. That it was too dangerous for me to go down the corridor. Really dangerous. I might disrupt some major experiment or get exposed to horrific germs.

‘Do you promise me, Noa?’ she asked, all serious with extreme eye contact.

I nodded.

And I meant to keep my promise, I really did.

Just before lunchtime I was about to literally die from boredom. I hadn’t moved for four hours and my eyes were semi-glazed from focusing on my Scribe for that long. I needed to move to get rid of the pins and needles in my feet and the random cramp in my left calf. Typically I was in the middle of some well-embarrassing star jumps when Raf put his head round the door.

‘Company?’ he asked, starting to star jump in time next to me.

‘How did you know where I’d be?’ I asked, laughing.

He explained that he’d looked at the floor plan.

‘There’s only one Dr Blake here,’ he said, eyes all twinkling.