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

‘You should’ve called louder then. I was down on the beach.’

‘Don’t be cheeky. I told you not to wander off today.’ Mother started dragging me up the stairs behind her.

‘Ouch!’ I banged my shin against one of the stone steps where I’d been too slow to pick up my feet. I tried to bend to rub my bruised skin but Mother was still dragging me.

‘Let go. Stop pulling me. I’m not luggage.’ I pulled my arm out of Mother’s grasp.

‘Get in the house now.’

‘Where’s the fire?’ I glared at Mother as I rubbed my arm.

‘You’re not to leave the house for the rest of the day.’ Mother entered the house. I had no choice but to follow.

‘Why not?’

‘’Cause I said so.’

‘What’s the . .?’

‘And stop asking so many questions.’

I scowled at Mother but she was oblivious – as always. To her, my dirty looks were water off a duck’s feathers. The warm, wonderful afternoon was excluded from our house with the closing of the front door. Mother was one of those ‘refined’ women who could make the quiet closing of a door as forceful as a slam. Every time Mother looked at me, I could feel her wishing that I was more ladylike, like my scabby big sister, Minerva. I called her Minnie for short when I wanted to annoy her, because she hated it so much. I called her Minnie all the time. She loved our house as much as I hated it. She called it ‘grand’. To me it was like a bad museum – all cold floors and marble pillars and carved stonework which glossy magazines loved to photograph but which no-one with half a gram of sense would ever want to live in.

Thank God for Callum. I hugged the knowledge of how I’d spent my day to myself with a secret smile. Callum had kissed me. Wow!

Callum had actually kissed me!

Wowee! Zowee!

My smile slowly faded as a unbidden thought crept into my head. There was just one thing that stopped my day from being entirely perfect. If only Callum and I didn’t have to sneak and creep around.

If only Callum wasn’t a nought.

two. Callum

‘I live in a palace with golden walls and silver turrets and marble floors . . .’ I opened my eyes and looked at my house. My heart sank. I closed my eyes again. ‘I live in a mansion with mullion windows and leaded light casements and a swimming pool and stables in the acres and acres of grounds.’ I opened one eye. It still hadn’t worked. ‘I live in a three up, two down house with a lock on the front door and a little garden where we grow veggies.’ I opened both eyes. It never worked. I hesitated outside my house – if you could call it that. Every time I came back from Sephy’s, I flinched at the sight of the shack that was meant to be my home. Why couldn’t my family live in a house like Sephy’s? Why didn’t any nought I knew of live in a house like Sephy’s? Looking at our rundown hovel, I could feel the usual burning, churning sensation begin to rise up inside me. My stomach tightened, my eyes began to narrow . . . So I forced myself to look away. Forced myself to look around at the oak and beech and chestnut trees that lined our street, lifting their branches up to the sky. I watched a solitary cloud slowdance above me, watched a swallow dart and soar without a care in the world.

‘Come on . . . you can do this . . . do this . . . do this . . .’ I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Steeling myself, I pushed open the front door and walked inside.

‘Where’ve you been, Callum? I was worried sick.’

Mum launched in before I’d even closed the door behind me. There was no hall or passageway with rooms leading off it like in Sephy’s house. As soon as you opened our front door, there was our living room with its fifth-hand threadbare nylon carpet and its seventh-hand cloth sofa. The only thing in the room that was worth a damn was the oaken table. Years before, Dad had cut it and shaped it and carved the dragon’s leaf pattern into it, put it together and polished it himself. A lot of love and work had gone into that table. Sephy’s mother had once tried to buy it but Mum and Dad wouldn’t part with it.

‘Well? I’m waiting, Callum. Where were you?’ Mum repeated.

I sat down at my place around the table and looked away from Mum. Dad wasn’t bothered about me – or anything else, for that matter. He was totally focused on his food. Jude, my seventeen-year-old brother, grinned knowingly at me. He’s a really irritating toad. I looked away from him as well.

‘He was with his dagger friend.’ Jude smirked.

I scowled at him. ‘What dagger friend? If you don’t know what you’re talking about you should shut your mouth.’ Don’t you call my best friend that . . . Say that again and I’ll knock you flat . . .

Jude could see what I was thinking because his smirk broadened. ‘What should I call her then? Your dagger what?’

He never called them Crosses. They were always daggers.

‘Why don’t you go and get stuffed?!’

‘Callum, son, don’t talk to your brother like . . .’ Dad didn’t get any further.

‘Callum, were you with her again?’ Mum’s eyes took on a fierce, bitter gleam.

‘No, Mum. I went for a walk, that’s all.’

‘That had better be all.’ Mum banged down the dinner pan. Pasta sloshed over the sides and onto the table. Seconds later, Jude had whipped up the overspill and it was in his mouth!

Astounded seconds ticked past as everyone at the table stared at Jude. He even had Lynette’s attention – and that was saying something. Not much brought