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

I scrunched up the paper and threw it in the already overflowing bin. Start again.

Dear Sephy,

I’m just going to come right out and say this. I don’t know how you managed to get all that money together to help my dad but I love you for it. Our lawyer, Kelani Adams, is really on our side, to the extent that the judge has threatened twice to hold her in contempt of court.

I don’t know how, but some day, some how, I’ll make it up to you. I just want you to know that I’ll be for ever . . .

Another sheet of paper scrunched up and thrown in the bin. I folded my arms on the table and rested my head on them. Good or bad, every aspect of my life lay in the hands of others. Kelani Adams, the jury, my so-called education at Heathcroft, even with Sephy. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was all there was or ever would be to my life. I was so sick and tired of being this helpless.

Over the last few months, I’d had a recurring nightmare about being in a cardboard box, no bigger than I was. A normal, simple cardboard box. But no matter how hard I pushed or punched, I just couldn’t smash my way out. In fact the more I tried, the harder it became. And in my bad dreams, it was only when my hands were bloody and I was gasping frantically for breath that I realized I wasn’t in a box at all. It was a coffin. And once I realized that, I stopped struggling and just waited to die. That’s what terrified me the most.

I stopped struggling and waited to die.

seventy-three. Sephy

At last the trial was over. The jury was out, considering its verdict. I was actually flicking from TV station to TV station trying to find any news item that would bring me more up to date. I’d seen the so-called evidence weighed up by numerous experts on any number of news programmes as well as in the papers. And they all thought Callum’s dad was guilty. No-one ever came right out and said so. There was a lot of useless talk about the ‘balance of probabilities’ and the ‘pros and cons’ of the case and discussions on the evidence. Funny, but I’ve never been the slightest bit interested in the news before. Now suddenly I couldn’t stop watching it. When Minnie started moaning in my ear about watching something else, I went up to my room to watch it in peace and private.

Ryan McGregor wasn’t guilty.

So why did I feel like I was the only person in the world – the only Cross in the world – to believe that?

seventy-four. Callum

Mum and I held hands as we waited for the foreman to speak. Hope and hopelessness churned in my stomach like oil and water.

‘Foreman of the jury, have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?’

‘We have, Your Honour.’

‘D’you find the defendant, Ryan Callum McGregor, Guilty or Not Guilty of the crime of Political Terrorism?’

Why was he taking so long to speak? Answer the question . . . What’s your answer?

He opened his mouth and said something but I didn’t hear. Why couldn’t I hear? I shook my head and leaned forward, concentrating hard. Had he spoken? I’m sure he’d said something. I saw his mouth open and close. I licked my dry lips, feeling sick. I looked at Mum. Her expression was carved in granite. Next to Mum a blonde woman buried her face in her hands. The man next to her shook his head in disbelief. Why couldn’t I hear anything? Maybe because I didn’t want to hear.

‘D’you find the defendant Ryan Callum McGregor, Guilty or Not Guilty of the murder of Aysha Pilling?’ The clerk’s voice rang out like a gunshot.

And I heard the verdict that time. God help me, I heard it.

THE WAY IT IS . . .

seventy-five. Sephy

I sat on our garden swing, twisting it this way and that. I didn’t actually swing any more – that was kid’s stuff. I just . . . twisted. It was hot. Too hot.

‘Sephy, what’re you doing?’ Mother yelled across our garden at me.

Uh-oh! Trouble! I’d come home and gone straight out into the garden, when I knew Mother did her nut if she saw me messing about in my school uniform.

‘Come here please,’ Mother hollered.

I was going to shout ‘why’ but I thought better of it. For the last couple of weeks, Mother had got worse and now I just did as I was told and kept my head down as far as she was concerned. And for the most part it worked. Jumping off the swing, I ran to the house.

‘Go to your room and put on your navy-blue dress and your blue shoes.’

‘Which blue dress?’ I frowned.

‘Your Jackson Spacey one,’ Mother told me as if it was obvious.

My eyebrows went up at that. That dress had cost over one thousand pounds and Mother told me I was not to wear it without her express permission. The last time I’d worn it was when I’d snuck out of the house to Callum’s after Lynette had died. I and my dress had gone down like a lead balloon then. It kind of made me loath to put the thing on again.

It wasn’t a special Saturday and it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. Or had I forgotten someone? No . . . Today was 24th July and the next birthday was my sister’s and that wasn’t until the middle of August.

‘Why do I have to get dressed up?’

‘Because I said so,’ Mother snapped. ‘Do as you’re told. And tell your sister to hurry up as well.’

‘Where’re we going?’

‘No more questions,’ Mother said, edgily. ‘Go!’

I headed for the kitchen door, turning in the doorway to ask