I Am Not a Number. Lisa Heathfield
the classroom. She has the green band with the slash of red on her arm. So they’re even getting teachers to do it too.
‘This thing doesn’t change anything,’ Sara says, pointing to the Trad band on her own arm.
‘Course not,’ I say.
‘Right, class,’ Miss Hajiev says. ‘You’ve homework to hand in, I believe.’
There are groans from people as the air tries to click back into its normal place.
‘I bet it’s only for a few days.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. But the word just balances there. It doesn’t step into a patch of truth.
I wait for Luke after school. I want to feel more confident and look everyone with a Trad band in the eye, but instead I keep focused on the floor as I stand here, scuffing my shoe backwards and forwards until I make a strong line in the dust.
A gob of saliva lands in front of my foot. I look up and Shaun Williams is standing so close, with bully sunk deep in his eyes.
‘Core scum,’ he says. People glance over, but no one stops.
‘Rather that than be a Trad,’ I say, pulling my bag closer on my shoulder.
‘You can’t hide it any more,’ he says. ‘So you’ll just have to keep watching your back.’
‘Or what?’ Luke says, appearing at my side. He’s at least a foot taller than Shaun, but Shaun is wider.
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ Shaun says.
Luke just laughs. ‘We’ll look forward to it. Now ’scuse us, we’ve got better places to be.’ And he grabs my hand as we start to walk away.
‘What, like a Core meeting, or something?’ Shaun shouts. ‘I wouldn’t risk going to one of those if I was you.’
I look back without even meaning to. Shaun raises a finger at me and slices it across his neck. I want to think of an insult, but my mind fills with nothing.
‘He’s not worth it,’ Luke tells me. And at least we’re together as we hurry away from the school, away from the weird day, from friends who are suddenly strangers. Through all the streets, only stopping when we get to the low wall that runs along the side of the disused railway track.
Normally we’re not that careful as we jump over the bricks that lead to the overgrown slope, but today I don’t want anyone to see.
‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’ I ask. Part of me wants to get home, even though Mum isn’t back from work for another hour. Maybe I should be there with Lilli – but what are we going to say to each other now I know what she chose? Will she hide the band under her bed and lie to Mum and Darren?
‘There are no rules about where we can and can’t go,’ Luke says, looking around before he walks slowly through the long grass. ‘Yet.’
I follow him. We always try to zigzag to the bottom, so there’s no path to give us away. Not because we’ve ever been frightened of being caught before, but just because this is our place and we don’t want anyone to find it. Today, I just run down, needing to get to the bottom fast enough. Luke holds up the broken barbed-wire fence and I crawl underneath, holding it for him until he’s through.
We hold hands as we slip behind the line of trees and walk further down until we’re on the track. I never step on the metal bits, even though it hasn’t been used for years. Instead I walk on the piles of leaves in between.
For the first time since this morning’s assembly I feel as if I can breathe normally. I reach up to yank off the purple band on my arm and stuff it into my bag. Down here, with the branches of trees touching each other above our heads, life feels normal again. There are no soldiers. No strange rules being introduced. No jealous guarding of some national identity. We can say what we want, wear what we want. I start to roll up the waistband of my skirt, so ridiculously high that I know my knickers show.
‘If I like short,’ I say, ‘I’ll have short.’ Luke turns to look at me and he nearly falls over.
‘Ruby.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t do that to me.’
‘I’m not doing anything to you,’ I say. ‘I’m doing it for me.’ And I brush past him, swaying my hips as I hook up my bag on my shoulder.
Our hut is there as it always is. Something solid in this madness. Something hidden and secret and us. I think it was something to do with the trains – maybe a signalman’s hut. Luke says it was for a rabbit-shooting man. There was an animal skeleton inside when he first discovered it after he moved to our town and that was all the evidence he needed to create a bogeyman in rabbit skin.
I spin the numbers on our padlock until it opens and am about to push on the door when Luke puts out an arm to stop me.
‘Close your eyes first,’ he says.
‘What for?’
‘You’ll see.’
And so I do and I’m expecting to feel him kissing me, but instead I hear him rustling in his bag.
‘Okay,’ he says and when I open my eyes he’s holding a necklace. It has Ruby spelled out across it in small looping letters. ‘For you.’ And he laughs. ‘In case you hadn’t guessed.’
Everything else is silent around us. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And I really mean it.
‘As are you.’
He puts it around my neck, his arms leaning lightly on my shoulder as he does the clasp.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I love it.’ And I kiss him, taking every drop of the dread and confusion of the day and making it disappear. My hand finds Luke’s Core band and I yank it from him. I don’t want to open my eyes and see it there.
We stumble into our hut and I kick the door closed.
‘Wait,’ he says and he pushes me away.
‘I don’t want to,’ I tell him, but he ducks away and goes to the table by the wall.
‘I want to draw you first. Like that.’
‘In my knickers?’ I raise my eyebrows at him.
‘No. In your skirt like that.’ He’s all serious now, like he gets whenever he’s near his art stuff. He grabs his sketchbook from beside the wall. ‘If they really are going to ban short skirts, I need something to remember it by.’
‘That just sounds like an excuse.’
‘Maybe,’ Luke says and smiles that smile that he knows will make me do anything. ‘Seriously, Rube. You look beautiful. I need to catch that.’
I put my hair back into its ponytail and feel the softness of my undercut, before I hold the necklace Luke gave me and trace my fingers along the letters of my name.
‘You know, I love you more than popcorn,’ I tell him.
‘With sugar or salt?’
‘Both.’
‘Good. Just checking.’ And he gets his sketching pencils from his bag.
‘Are there any biscuits left?’
‘A few, I think.’
They’re in a tin that his grandad used to keep his ration book in. His dad was going to throw it away, but Luke managed to save it and bring it here. It’s on the floor next to a bottle of water. The tin is stiff to open and the smell of it always makes me feel a bit ick, but I’d never tell Luke that.
‘Do you want one?’ I ask him.
‘I’m all right,’ he says, as I knew he would. He doesn’t eat when he’s drawing. Something about him not wanting to confuse the senses.