The Declaration

sleep she was going to get tonight.
    ‘Look, I can’t stay,’ she said quickly. ‘I just had to warn you about Charlie. He wants to kill you, he said. I didn’t know where you were, so —’
    ‘I can handle Charlie,’ Peter said, his voice beginning to sound a bit more normal. ‘But Anna, don’t go. Not yet. Stay and talk to me.’
    Anna felt her face flush slightly and bit her lip self-consciously. The floor was freezing and damp under her bare feet, but still she sat down.
    ‘You can’t defend me, you know,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You can’t let Surplus Charlie bully you. I can take care of myself. You’re in enough trouble as it is.’
    ‘I don’t care about trouble,’ Peter said flatly.
    ‘You can’t say that!’ Anna said agitatedly. ‘When you get out . . . you have to learn how to behave.’
    ‘If I get out,’ Peter said darkly.
    Anna sighed. ‘Of course you’ll get out, Peter. You just have to Learn Your Lesson, that’s all.’
    ‘And what lesson’s that?’ Peter asked, his voice irritable. ‘Don’t get born? Don’t have an opinion? Don’t tell Charlie that he’s a bully and an oaf?’
    Anna’s eyes opened wide. ‘You said that?’
    ‘Yes, I said that. And he and five others thought they’d use my head as a football. I’m assuming that’s why I’m down here. They must have run to Mrs Pincent afterwards and said I started it or something.’
    Anna frowned. ‘Charlie didn’t say anything about telling Mrs Pincent,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know where you were either.’
    ‘What do you mean, he didn’t know where I was?’
    ‘None of us did. I mean, I didn’t know you were definitely down here. That’s why I . . . I mean . . .’
    ‘You came to find me?’ His voice was chirpy, almost teasing, and Anna felt herself redden.
    ‘I . . . I just wanted to know where you were,’ Anna said quickly. She cleared her throat. ‘So what happened? When did you get brought down here?’
    There was a pause, then Peter started to speak, his voice low. ‘I don’t know . . . They came for me last night. Quite late, because I was asleep. And Mrs Pincent kept asking me questions and hitting me when I wouldn’t answer. Then I was put in here, and they came and got me again – tonight, I suppose. She was asking questions again but then this man got out a needle and I can’t remember much until they were carrying me back again.’
    Anna frowned. This didn’t sound like a punishment she’d encountered.
    In her experience, Mrs Pincent had several ways of ‘teaching you a lesson’. There were beatings – usually with a belt, sometimes with a ruler and, very occasionally, with her bare fists; there were reduced rations, from hot food to whole meals to blankets, depending on the crime; there was extra work, often late into the night; and there was Solitary.
    ‘What questions?’ she asked. ‘Was she asking you why you were bad? Because when she does that you have to say “Because I was stupid and I won’t do it again.”’
    ‘No, they weren’t about that. She kept asking me what I knew. Who I was. Why I was here. They wanted to know where I’d been living. I think they wanted me to tell them about your parents. I didn’t, though. I didn’t say a thing. I’m far too clever for your Mrs Pincent.’
    ‘She’s not my Mrs Pincent,’ Anna said defensively. ‘And why would she want to know about my parents?’
    Anna said the words awkwardly, finding it difficult to say ‘my parents’, let alone contemplate the reality of them existing, of them being linked in some way to Peter’s encounter with Mrs Pincent.
    Anna heard something bang against the wall.
    ‘Yes, your parents.’
    ‘What was that noise?’ Anna asked. ‘And why would she care about my parents? Why would she even think you’ve met them? They’re just criminals . . .’
    ‘They’re not just criminals. Your parents love you, Anna. And they’re in the Underground Movement.’
    Anna heard the bang again.
    ‘Peter, shush, what’s that noise?’ she said nervously. ‘You’ll wake someone up.’
    ‘We’re two floors below everyone, Anna Covey. I’m not going to wake up anyone. I need to bang my head to wake myself up. They must have drugged me.’
    Anna shook her head as her logical response kicked in. ‘Surpluses aren’t allowed to be given drugs,’ she said immediately in an authoritative tone. ‘Everyone knows that. It’s in the Declaration. And stop calling me Anna