The Territory (23 page)

‘NO!’ I must have shouted aloud as all eyes turned to face me and the invigilator hiss-shouted, ‘Silence. All eyes to the front.’

My paper was collected with all the others and my stomach started to eat itself.

The afternoon’s exams were a bit of a blur. English was OK. I think my essay hung together and made sense and I included loads of ‘powerful’ verbs and ‘persuasive’ language. Art was a bit of a joke as I’m rubbish even at scale drawing, but all I could/can think about was the Chemistry paper and those blank pages.

When the bell to mark the end of the final exam tolled, I couldn’t join in the yells and mad celebrations that seemed to break out. I caught sight of Jack’s face in the distance. Tired but kind of relieved and almost happy looking, so he must have had an OK day, which I’m so pleased about. I couldn’t face him though. Didn’t want to talk about it as talking would just make it even more real. I slipped down a side corridor and shunning dinner, headed back to my dorm knowing I’d get a few minutes peace there, at least until everyone had finished eating.

Solitude didn’t seem to help either though. I pounded my pillow and then started sobbing into it. It wasn’t only me that I’d doomed. It was my entire family. Mum and Dad are as stubborn as I am and would insist on coming with me. Results Day was in just two days and after that I’d never see Raf again either. Just thinking his name was enough to get me bawling again. I needed him.

For no massively logical reason, I started sprinting down the corridor to the men’s. Hoping he’d somehow be in there again. The cubicle was occupied and I ran up to it, and knocked.

‘What the hell?’ came a reedy, nasally voice. Not Raf’s. Of course it wasn’t Raf’s. What was I thinking?

Feeling even more of an idiot, I slunk back down the corridor to my dorm. I kicked open the door, ready to sob back into my pillow, when I saw a figure sprawled out on my bed. Raf.

I was so happy to see him that I couldn’t even form proper sentences. ‘Not in the men’s,’ was all I could manage.

‘No,’ he replied, smiling wolfishly. ‘I don’t spend all my time there, you know?’

I moved forward and I think my pale swollen face must have then been directly under the light as he seemed to register my horrific appearance and all mockery vanished.

‘God, Noa, are you OK?’ he whispered gently. ‘I thought today would have been a great day for you. I mean these are some of your best subjects. I thought we could celebrate together. It all being over, I mean.’

I told him about my Chemistry fiasco and I could see worry lines form on his face and his eyebrows starting skulking just like Dad’s. When he finally spoke it was with quiet determination.

‘You’re over-reacting Noa. You’ll have done really well in the other sciences and Maths, you’ll have extra percentage points in the bag so you’ll still totally average 70 per cent. I’m not worried.’ But his eyebrows didn’t look so convinced.

‘I’ve got to average 72 per cent, remember. And what if I don’t? What if they take me away and that’s it? I’ll die some horrific death in some swamp. And I’ll never get to see … lots of people again.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Raf urged. ‘I think I’ve passed and there’s one thing I’m sure of and that’s you’re way smarter than me. You are massively smart, Noa. You’ll get to stay, no doubt. And even if
I fail, you’ll stay and Jack can look after you.’

‘But I don’t want Jack,’ the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. ‘I just want you.’ And the brutal honesty of my words hit me. Despite everything he’s done for me, despite the years he’s been my best friend, if it comes down to a choice, I choose Raf.

And then in that same moment, I saw Raf’s face fall and heard the door to the dorm slam. On autopilot I ran to the door, opened it and just disappearing round the bend at the end of the corridor, I saw a huge frame and a beacon of carrot-red hair.

I’m like some massively unlucky charm. Do not approach unless you’re at least touching wood and chucking salt over your left shoulder.

We were woken by the sirens at 3am, those of us that had gone to sleep. No one understood what was going on. Everyone in my dorm thought it was probably a fire drill, the sort we have at school every six months, where we have to file out onto the playing field at the back and get counted while the lamest, keenest students in yellow jackets check for the non-existent source of the non-existent flames.

We weren’t left to think for long though. The door to the dorm was thrown open with a bang as the handle crashed into the cupboard behind. Filling the entire doorframe was a massive guard who ordered us to follow him in silence. He’d already collected a long line of students, most of whom I recognised from Hollets, and he propelled us towards the exam hall, picking up more and more students on route. Down other corridors we glimpsed similar processions and even saw one girl getting thrown against a wall by a guard for some unseen offence. It was feeling less and less like a fire drill and more and more like a military crackdown. Even though we’d been ordered to be silent, different theories were being whispered up and down the line until just one dominated.

There was a runner.

Helena in Mr Forbes class’s cousin had apparently had this happen to her. The siren meant someone had been seen breaking out of the Waiting Place and it only stopped when the fugitive had been caught by the guards or their dogs or shot resisting capture. Sometimes, the whispers gleefully asserted, the runner had to be shot because they’d been so badly mangled by the dogs. Either way, the siren normally stopped in less than twenty minutes.

‘But how could anyone get out?’ I whispered to the guy in front of me. ‘This place is like a prison.’ My question was whispered up the line and an answer duly returned.

‘There’s a flat roof you can reach from the first floor. From that you can climb over barbed wire and jump down over the wall. It’s a ten-foot drop though. You’d probably break your legs.’

Inside the exam hall, we were herded into groups according to school. We were so tightly crammed it was impossible to see beyond the first circle of faces so I couldn’t seek out the comfort I craved from Raf, or Jack for that matter, not that he’d probably feel like comforting me. In a robotic monotone our guard began to read out names and check them off against this long list. When it was your turn you had to answer and go up to a screen and press your fingertip onto the touch-pad to prove your identity. So no one could go up twice to cover for the runner. The list was alphabetical. I answered mechanically to Noa Blake and touched the screen. Although I obviously am and always have been Noa Blake, I still had a moment of blind panic when I touched the screen and there was a fraction of a second delay before the little circular light turned from red to green. ‘Raf Ferris’ was answered by a ‘yes’ and my stomach double-flipped in relief. My mind kind of zoned out for the rest of the Fs to Ls. Then the guard called, ‘Jack Munro’, and there was silence followed by a frantic low-level buzz of speculation. ‘Jack Munro,’ the guard called again. Again there was no reply and the buzz grew louder. The guard grabbed the radio from his jacket. ‘We have the runner. The runner is Jack Munro. I repeat Jack Munro.’

No one could believe Jack had run. No one apart from me and Raf anyway. To me it all made horrific, logical sense. Jack, who cared more about me passing than him, who’d sheltered and protected me all the way to this hellish place, now running away, throwing it all away because I’m a horrible selfish user. All my mind could do was replay over and over again the image of Jack running; running down the corridor; running away from me; and my mouth opening and saying over and over, ‘But I don’t want Jack, I don’t want Jack.’

Raf managed to worm his way through the knot of students to hold my hand, but for once I got no warmth from it. His touch just intensified my guilt.

And as Jack’s ‘best friend’, everyone came to ask me why I thought he’d done it. After the exams, they all thought he’d been smiling, relatively happy, not acting like someone who’d definitely failed and was going to take desperate measures.

And then the siren stopped. Radios crackled and the guards started marching us back to our dorms. No word on Jack. I begged one guard to at least tell me if Jack was alive or dead, but he acted like I didn’t exist. ‘Please!’ I tugged on his arm, but then he hit me so hard that I was on the ground, tasting metallic blood for the second time in my life.

On the way back to the dorms I saw various students passing money to Hugo. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Bernard who was in front of me. ‘Sweepstake,’ Bernard replied. Bernard mistook my scowl for confusion. ‘On how long it’d be till they got him, I mean,’ he explained. ‘Hugo won, of course.’ Then, I think out of some emotionally inept attempt at comfort, he said, ‘It was twenty-three minutes. Jack did well.’

Bastards. Complete utter bastards.

Results Day. In ten minutes I find out whether I’ve passed or failed.

At precisely 11am the guards will herd us back into the exam hall to get our results. According to Helena, who seems to know more than anyone else about this place, the hall will be split into three by floor to ceiling bars. One massive cage that everyone gets put in to start with, with a raised stage at the far end. Two doors off the stage each leading to a smaller cage.

Everyone’s name is called out in turn followed by your percentage. You have to go forward, fingerprint identify yourself and either a green or red light shines. Then a guard opens the door to the relevant smaller cage.

Like some sick game-show host.

Green light
–
right-hand door
– congratulations, you’re a winner, your prize is: Life!

Red light – left-hand door –
bad luck this time, you’re a Fish. But here’s a consolation prize of a mosquito net and some iodine tablets.

There are loads of extra guards with massive guns to prevent you trying to escape after the announcement or ‘do a Jack’ as every freakoid is now calling it.

There’s still no word on Jack. Raf says, ‘No news is good news,’ but we both know he’s just trying to cheer me up as that’s a lame saying that means nothing. Everyone’s convinced he’s dead. Because surely they’d tell us if he was still alive. Wouldn’t he be allowed visitors or something? But maybe not. A regime that hunts down teenagers with dogs probably isn’t that up on human rights.

Any sort of noise and I think the guards are here already. I think I’m going to be sick. After Jack’s escape, I’d kind of forgotten that I’ve most likely failed. I remember now though. Oh God, I remember pretty damn clearly.

The results were boomed out of loudspeakers as soon as we were all rammed into the large holding cage. The air was charged as the first result came. ‘Finn Abbott … 73 per cent.’ I didn’t know him. He was from another school and too far away for me to see if he had a Node or not. He screamed with joy, leapt onto the stage, pressed his finger to the machine and swaggered into the right-hand cage.