Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (historical books to read TXT) 📕

you’re doing?’ Mrs Bawden, the deputy headmistress, appeared from nowhere to scowl down at me.

‘Pardon?’

‘What’re you doing?’

‘I’m eating my lunch.’ I frowned.

‘Don’t be facetious.’

‘I’m not. I’m eating my lunch.’

‘Get back to your own table – at once.’ Mrs Bawden looked like she was about to erupt kittens.

I looked around. I was now the centre of attention – the very last thing I’d wanted.

‘B-but I’m sitting h-here,’ I stammered.

‘Get back to your own table – NOW!’

What table? I didn’t have my own table. And then it dawned on me exactly what Mrs Bawden meant. She wasn’t talking about me getting back to my own table. She was talking about me getting back to my own kind. I glanced around. Callum and the others weren’t looking at me. Everyone else was. They weren’t.

‘I’m sitting with my friend, Callum,’ I whispered. I could hardly hear my own voice so I have no idea how Mrs Bawden heard me – but she did. She grabbed my arm and pulled me out of my chair. I was still holding on to my tray, and everything on it went flying.

‘Persephone Hadley, you will come with me.’ Mrs Bawden yanked me away from the table and dragged me across the food hall. I tried to twist away from her, but she had a grip like a python on steroids. I turned my head this way and that. Wasn’t anyone going to do anything? Not from the look at it. I twisted sharply to look at Callum. He was watching but the moment I caught his eye, he looked away. I stopped struggling after that. I straightened up and followed Mrs Bawden to the headmaster’s office.

Callum had turned away from me. I didn’t care about the rest, but I cared about that. He’d turned away . . . Well, I was slow getting the message, but I’d finally got it. God knows, I’d finally got it.

twelve. Callum

I had to get out of there. I left my lunch half-eaten and walked out of the food hall without saying a word to any of the others.

I had to get out of there.

I walked out of the food hall and out of the building and out of the school, my steps growing ever faster and more frantic – until by the time I was out of the school gates, I was running. Running until my back ached and my feet hurt and my heart was ready to burst and still I kept running. I ran all the way out of the town and down to the beach. I collapsed onto the cool sand, my body bathed in sweat. I lay on my stomach and punched the sand. And again, and again. Until I was pounding it with both fists. Until my knuckles were red raw and bleeding.

And I wished more than anything else in the world that the sand beneath my fists was Sephy’s face.

thirteen. Sephy

I spotted our Mercedes in its usual place, just outside the main school building. As I approached it, a strange man got out and opened one of the back doors for me. He had mousy-brown hair which lay flat and lank against his head, and ice-light, ghost-like blue eyes.

‘Who are you?’

‘Karl, your new driver.’

‘Where’s Harry?’ I asked, climbing into the car.

‘He decided to move on.’

‘Without telling me?’

Karl shrugged and slammed the door shut. I watched him sit behind the wheel and start the car, a frown digging deep into my face.

‘Where did he move on to?’

‘I don’t know, Miss.’

‘Why did he want to leave?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘Where does Harry live?’

‘Why, Miss Sephy?’

‘I’d like to send him a Good Luck card.’

‘If you give it to me, Miss, I’ll make sure he gets it.’

Karl’s eyes and mine met in the internal driver’s mirror. ‘OK,’ I said at last. What else could I say?

Harry wouldn’t go away and leave me, not without saying goodbye first. I knew he wouldn’t – just as surely as I knew my own name. Something horrible then occurred to me.

‘You . . . you r-really are my new driver, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, Miss Sephy. Your mother employed me this morning. I can show you my ID card if you’d like.’ Karl’s smile flitted fleetingly across his face.

‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. I sat back in my seat and clipped up my seat-belt.

We drove off. I saw some others, pointing to me and whispering or laughing or both as our car went past. My sitting at the noughts table had spread around the school like a bad dose of the flu. And I knew I hadn’t heard the end of it. Mr Corsa threatened that he was going to send a letter home to my mum and e-mail my dad. No doubt a protest to the Queen was in the offing too. And I wouldn’t have minded any of that if Callum hadn’t turned his back on me. But he had. And I was never going to forget it. He had looked away from me like . . . like he didn’t know me. Like I was nothing. Maybe Mother was right, after all. Maybe Crosses and noughts could never be friends. Maybe there was too much difference between us.

Did I really believe that?

I didn’t know what I believed any more.

fourteen. Callum

I don’t know how long I sat there, watching the sun burn into the sky as it set, watching the night grow steadily more secretive. Why had my life suddenly become so complicated? For the last year all I could think about, or even dream about, was going to school. Sephy’s school. I was so busy concentrating on getting into Heathcroft that I hadn’t given much thought to what I’d do when I actually got there. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to be so . . . unwanted. And what was the point anyway? It wasn’t as if