Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman [types of ebook readers .txt] 📗

we’d all say. So is it any wonder that she can’t bear to think of herself as one of us any more? Is it any wonder she can’t even leave this house any more? Her mind hasn’t been right since ’cause she’s still hurting. So leave her alone. D’you hear me? D’YOU HEAR ME?’

Jude nodded. I nodded, even though Dad wasn’t talking directly to me. I turned to look at Lynette. My sister, Lynette.

‘Dad, she’s bleeding.’ I pointed.

Dad was by her side in a second. Lynette’s palms were bleeding where she’d banged them into the cracked mirror. Lynette was staring down at the crimson patches on her hands as if she’d never seen her own blood before. She looked up to stare at her reflection in the mirror, as if she’d never seen her face before either.

‘Where’s Jed, Daddy?’ Lynette whispered.

‘Jed?’ Dad looked stricken. ‘Honey, Jed went away a long, long time ago. Let me clean up your hands.’

Lynette pulled her hands out of Dad’s grasp. She turned them this way and that, before she slowly raised her head to look at Dad. That faraway, peaceful expression she always wore was dead and gone.

‘Where am I?’

‘At home.’ Dad’s smile was as fake as plastic. ‘You’re safe now. I’m here. I’ll look after you.’

‘Where’s Jed?’ Lynette looked around the room.

‘Listen, honey, Jed and his family moved away a long time ago. They’ve gone. He’s gone . . .’

‘Not a long time ago . . . Yesterday . . . Last week . . .’ Lynette’s voice was barely above a whisper.

‘Darling, it was years ago,’ Dad persisted.

‘I’m . . . I’m seventeen?’

‘No, love. You’re twenty. Twenty last April.’ Dad swallowed hard. ‘Come on, let me . . .’

‘I thought I was seventeen. Eighteen . . .’ Lynette buried her face in her hands, smearing her cheeks with blood. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

‘Lynette, please . . .’

‘Lynette, I didn’t know.’ Jude stretched out his hand towards Lynette. She slapped it away.

‘Keep your hands away from me,’ she said with vehemence.

Jude’s hand fell to his side. ‘My nought hands, you mean?’

Silence. Lynette looked down at her hands again.

‘Your hands are the same as mine. The same as theirs.’ And Lynette turned and ran up to her room before any of us could say another word.

Dad and Jude regarded each other and, never before had I seen either of them look so . . . lost. Looking at them made my eyes begin to sting and water but I stared and didn’t blink, waiting for the feeling to, if not die, then at least lessen to the extent where I wouldn’t make a complete fool of myself. I turned so Dad and Jude wouldn’t see my expression and caught sight of myself in the mirror.

My face was the reflection of Dad and Jude. My expression was theirs. My thoughts and feelings and hates and fears were all theirs, just as theirs were mine, and though I like to think I’m quick and on the ball, I hadn’t even realized. Until now.

twenty-seven. Sephy

I stood in the doorway, watching Mother sip at her glass of white wine. I realized with a start that I had to think back a long way to remember seeing her without a glass of Chardonnay in her hand.

‘Mother, can I have a party for my fourteenth birthday?’

Mother looked up from her magazine. That’s all she ever did, read and drink, spend time in the gym or the pool and drink, shop and drink. And the only things she ever read were those glossy magazines with impossibly beautiful women on the cover and inside. Women with polished mahogany skin who looked like they’d never had a pimple in their lives – nor a decent meal either come to that. Women with teeth which shone like fresh snow in sunshine.

Something else struck me. I’d never seen a nought in any of my mother’s magazines. Not one. No white or pink faces anywhere. In fact, there’d actually been something on the news at the beginning of the year when the first nought model was featured in one of the high fashion magazines. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about at the time. To be honest, I still couldn’t.

‘A party, eh?’ Mother’s voice brought me back to the here and now. ‘I don’t see why not.’

And that was it! I was so surprised, I couldn’t speak. I’d expected far more of an argument!

‘After all, your teenage years don’t last very long. You should make sure you enjoy every moment of them,’ Mother smiled.

I wondered how many glasses of wine it had taken to bring on this good mood. And even though I knew I was being uncharitable, I still resented the glass in her hand for making Mother happy where my sister Minnie and I couldn’t.

‘Where would you like to have it?’ Mother continued.

‘Couldn’t we have it here, in our house?’

‘I suppose so.’ Mother shrugged. ‘We could take on some extra help for the day to help out. D’you want an entertainer or a magician?’

‘Mother, I’ll be fourteen.’

Mother raised her eyebrows. ‘So?’

‘So I’ll have an entertainer!’ I smiled.

Mother smiled back. One of our rare moments of connection.

‘So how many guests d’you think you’ll have?’ asked Mother.

‘Everyone in my class. And some of my cousins. And my other friends from ballet school and riding. About forty odd, I suppose.’

‘Fine. Run along and talk to Sarah. Get her to sort it out.’ Mother’s nose was already back in her magazine.

I might’ve guessed Mother wouldn’t want to get her hands dirty. And with a personal secretary and chauffeur and maids and servants, why should she? But I would’ve loved it if she’d been interested enough to even ask me what I wanted as a birthday present. Oh, I got birthday and Crossmas presents from Mother and Dad. It’s just that they never bought them. They never even chose them. Mother’s secretary Sarah had very good taste. But each