Noughts and Crosses (15 page)

‘Alex Luther, my left buttock!’

‘Ryan, language!’ Mum told him off.

‘Meggie, get real!’ Dad said impatiently. ‘Alex Luther is barely living, just about breathing proof that trying to change the way it is by using peaceful methods doesn’t work. That blanker has been in prison more times than any eight prison governors I know.’

‘Don’t call him that,’ Mum said furiously. ‘It’s bad enough when ignorant Crosses call us blankers without us calling ourselves by the same name.’

‘We name it, we claim it,’ said Dad.

‘Nonsense! We use it, Crosses think they can too. Besides, that’s not my point. Alex Luther is a great man . . .’

‘I’m not saying he isn’t, but the General is making more of an impact than Alex Luther.’

‘And if my granny had wheels she’d be a wagon!’ Mum snorted.

‘What’s your point? The General is . . .’

‘A warmonger!’ Mum’s tone made it very clear what she thought of the General, the anonymous head of the
Liberation Militia. ‘Killing and maiming always make more of an impression than peaceful protests and sit-ins and passive resistance, but that doesn’t make it right.’

‘The General . . .’

‘I don’t want to hear one more word about the General. You talk about him as if he were God’s brother or something.’

‘As head of the
L.M
., he’s the next best thing . . .’ Dad replied.

In response, Mum used a series of words I’d never heard her say before. I left her and Dad arguing about the General versus Alex Luther and crept down the stairs. Weren’t the two of them ever going to sleep? I’d already been waiting half an hour for them to give up and shut up. How many times had they had the same argument? No-one ever won. It just made them mad at each other. What was the point?

I glanced up at the clock in our living room. Two-thirty in the morning. Earlier, Sephy had left her usual message that she wanted to talk to me urgently. We had a secret signal. She’d phone three times, each time letting the phone ring twice before calling off. That way she didn’t have to talk to anyone or let my mum and dad or Jude know that she was phoning. Of course the phone ringing then stopping drove Mum and Dad nuts but the trick was not to do it too often. If I needed to get hold of her urgently, I did the same thing, although it was more tricky phoning during the day because one of Sephy’s house servants usually picked it up pretty quickly. Once I heard the signal, I knew Sephy would phone me between two-thirty and three in the morning – whenever it was
safe for her to sneak out of her room and use one of the phones in her house. When I phoned her with our signal, we’d usually meet in her rose garden around the same time of night. So here I was, hovering over our one and only phone like a vulture, waiting for the first brrrr to sound so that I could pick it up before it disturbed everyone else in the house.

Quarter to three came and went, as did three o’clock. At five past three I decided that Sephy was obviously not going to call me. Maybe it’d just been too difficult to get to a phone. I was heading up the stairs when the first trill sounded. I’ve never moved so fast. But even then a full brrrrrr rang out before I could pick up the receiver.

‘Callum?’

‘Shush!’ I whispered. I anxiously looked up the darkened stairs, listening intently for the sound of a bedroom door opening. Moments passed. Nothing.

‘Sephy?’

‘Sorry I’m late, but Mum came down ten minutes ago and she’s only just gone back upstairs.’

‘That’s OK.’

Sephy’s voice barely made it to a whisper, the same as mine. I was standing in our living room talking to my best friend in the pitch dark. It made it feel adventurous and illicit somehow.

‘Callum . . .’

‘I’m glad you phoned.’ I got in first. ‘What lessons do we have tomorrow?’

‘Double Maths, then History. English, P.E., I.T. and Music in the afternoon. Where’s your timetable?’

‘I left it at school,’ I replied softly. And then something
Sephy had said sunk in. ‘Oh no, not History!’

‘What’s wrong with History?’

‘Mr Jason,’ I said grimly. ‘He’s going to use the lesson to stick it to me the way he always does.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘If you don’t know then I can’t tell you,’ I said.

Silence stretched between us.

‘You still there, Sephy?’

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ Sephy replied.

‘So why did you want to talk to me?’ I asked. ‘What was so urgent?’

‘What’re you doing on the twenty-seventh of September, that’s two weeks on Saturday?’

I frowned into the darkness. ‘Nothing as far as I know. Why?’

‘D’you want to meet up for my birthday?’

‘Sure. But your birthday’s on the twenty-third, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but I’m having a birthday party at the house on the twenty-seventh. You can come round.’

I’d obviously misheard her. ‘Round to your house?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I see.’

‘See what?’

‘You want me to come round to your house?’

‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’

‘I see.’

‘Stop saying that.’

What else did she want me to say? Why was she inviting me to her house when her mum would take one look at me and have me carried from the building? What was the point? What was she up to?

‘You’re sure you want me to come over?’ I asked.

‘I’m positive. Will you?’

‘Does your mum know you’re inviting me?’ At first I thought Sephy wasn’t going to answer.

‘No,’ she said at last.

‘But you are going to tell her?’

‘’Course.’

‘Before or after I turn up at your party?’

‘Don’t be so ruddy smart!’ Sephy snapped, which more than answered my question. ‘So are you coming?’

‘If you want me to,’ I said slowly.

‘I do. I’ll give you all the details after school tomorrow. OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Bye, Callum.’

I put down the phone, getting it right first time now that my eyes were accustomed to the dark. Sephy wanted me at her birthday party, knowing it would cause nothing but trouble.

What was she up to? There was only one reason I could think of, but if I was right, it would mean that Sephy didn’t think of me the way I thought of her. If I was right, it would prove that to Sephy I was a nought first and everything else came afterwards.

I couldn’t get to sleep. I turned to the left, then turned to the right, I lay on my stomach, then lay on my back. I’d’ve stood on my head if it would’ve done any good. I just couldn’t get to sleep. What had seemed like a good idea at the time was now growing fungus all over it and beginning to smell. I wanted Callum at my birthday party. Hell, if things were different, he’d be the first on my invite list.

But things weren’t different.

I lay on my stomach and punched my pillow. Why was nothing ever simple?

‘The purpose of today’s history lesson is to show you all how famous scientists, inventors, arts and media celebrities and other people of note are all people, just like you and me.’

‘But we already know that, sir,’ Sade said. ‘I mean, what else would they be?’

I’d been wondering that myself.

‘When we think of great explorers or inventors or actors or anything else, it’s sometimes very easy to think of them as “out there” – somewhere above and beyond us. I want all of you to realize that they’re just like you and me, that we too can aspire to greatness. Anyone in this room can be a scientist or an astronaut or anything they want to be if they work hard and are determined.’ Mr Jason looked directly at me when he said that, the familiar look of contempt on his face. What was it about me that rubbed him up the wrong way? Was it just my colour he despised so much? I couldn’t help being white, any more than he could help being black. I mean, he wasn’t even that black anyway. He was more beige than brown, and a very light beige at that, so he had nothing to gloat about. I smiled secretly to myself as I remembered the saying Dad was always spouting: ‘
If you’re black, that’s where it’s at. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re white, say goodnight
.’

When you got right down to it, Mr Jason had less cause to look down on me than Mrs Paxton who was dark, dark brown, but she was totally different. She treated me like a real person. She didn’t see me as just a colour – first, last and always. I liked her. She was like an oasis in this scorching hot desert.

‘Now then, can anyone tell me who invented automatic traffic signals which led to the traffic lights we use today, and he also invented a type of gas mask used by soldiers during World War One?’

Everyone sat silent. Slowly, I put my hand up. Mr Jason saw my hand but looked around for someone else to ask. Everyone else’s hands stayed down.

‘Yes, Callum?’ Mr Jason asked reluctantly.

‘Garrett Morgan, sir.’

‘Correct. What about this one, class? Who pioneered blood banks?’

Once again, no hands went up – except mine.

‘Yes, Callum?’ Mr Jason’s voice was now tinged with sarcasm.

‘Dr Charles Drew,’ I replied.

‘And I suppose you also know who was the first person to perform open heart surgery?’

‘Dr Daniel Hale Williams.’

‘The first man to reach the North Pole?’

‘Matthew Henson.’

All eyes were upon me now. Mr Jason gave me one of the filthiest looks I’ve every had in my life.

‘The saying “The Real McCoy” is named after?’

‘Elijah J. McCoy,’ I replied.

Mr Jason drew himself up to his full height. ‘Why don’t I just sit down and you can teach this lesson?’

What did he want from me? He was asking questions that I knew the answers to. Was I supposed to just sit there and pretend to be ignorant?

‘Can anyone tell me what all these scientists and pioneers really had in common?’ Mr Jason asked.

A few more hands went up at that. Mr Jason wasn’t the only one who was relieved – not that I was going to answer any more questions anyway.

‘Yes, Harriet?’ said Mr Jason.

‘They’re all men?’ Harriet replied.

‘Our examples are, but there have been plenty of women pioneers and scientists and achievers as well,’ Mr Jason smiled. ‘So can anyone tell me what else all the people mentioned have in common?’

There were a couple more guesses after that – like, ‘They’re all dead,’ ‘They all won the Nobel prize’, ‘They all made a lot of money from what they did’ – but none of them were right. And it was so obvious. At last, I couldn’t stand it any longer. My hand crept up.

‘Ah! I wondered if we were going to hear from you again.’ Mr Jason directed more of a smirk than a smile in my direction. ‘So what’s the answer then, Callum?’

‘They were all Crosses,’ I replied.

Mr Jason’s smirk grew so wide I’m surprised he didn’t swallow his ears. ‘Correct! Well done!’ He started moving round the class. My face burned pink then scarlet as every eye in the class turned on me.

‘Throughout history, from the time our ancestors in Cafrique sailed to other lands and acquired knowledge of gunpowder, writing, weapon-making, the arts and so on, we have been the dominant race on Earth. We have been the explorers, the ones to move entire backward civilizations onwards . . .’

I couldn’t let him get away with that. My hand shot up again.

‘Yes, Callum?’

‘Sir, I read somewhere that noughts have made a significant contribution to the way we live today too . . .’

‘Oh yes? Like how?’ Mr Jason folded his arms across his chest as he waited for my answer.

‘Well, for example, Matthew Henson was
joint
first to the North Pole. Robert E. Peary was with him.’

‘Robert who?’

‘Robert Peary. He was co-discoverer of the geographic North Pole.’

‘How come I’ve never heard of him then?’ Mr Jason challenged.

‘Because all the history books are written by Crosses and you never write about anyone else except your own. Noughts have done lots of significant things, but I bet no-one in this class knows . . .’

‘That’s quite enough.’ Mr Jason cut me off in mid-tirade.

‘But, sir . . .’

‘How dare you spread these pathetic lies about nought scientists and inventors?’ Mr Jason’s hands were clenched at his side now and he glared at me furiously.