The Declaration

letter, had finally found a temptation that she could not resist. Now that the journal bore her writing, she knew that the stakes had been raised, and yet she could not bear to lose it, whatever the cost.
    She would simply have to ensure it was never found, she resolved as she raced towards Mrs Pincent’s office. If no one knew her guilty secret, then perhaps she could bury her feelings along with the journal and convince herself that she wasn’t evil after all, that the little fragment of peace she had carved out for herself at Grange Hall was not really in jeopardy.
    Before she turned the corner, Anna took a quick look at herself and smoothed down her overalls. Surpluses had to look neat and orderly at all times, and the last thing Anna wanted was to irk Mrs Pincent unnecessarily. She was a Prefect now, which meant she got second helpings at supper when there was food left over, and an extra blanket that meant the difference between a good night’s sleep and one spent shivering from the cold. No, the last thing she wanted was any trouble.
    Taking a deep breath, and focusing herself so that she would appear to Mrs Pincent the usual calm and organised Anna, she turned the corner and knocked on the House Matron’s open door.
    Mrs Pincent’s office was a cold, dark room with a wooden floor, yellowing walls covered in peeling paint and a harsh overhead light that seemed to highlight all the dust in the air. Even though she was nearly fifteen now, Anna had been in that room enough times for a beating or some other punishment to feel an instinctive fear every time she crossed its threshold.
    ‘Anna, there you are,’ Mrs Pincent said, her voice irritable. ‘Please don’t keep me waiting like that in future. I want you to prepare a bed for a new boy.’
    Anna nodded. ‘Yes, House Matron,’ she said, deferentially. ‘Small?’
    The incumbents at Grange Hall were classified as Small, Middle and Pending. Small was the usual entrant size – anything from babies and toddlers up to five-year-olds. You always knew when a new Small had arrived because of the crying and screaming which went on for days as they acclimatised to their new surroundings – which was why the Smalls’ dormitories were tucked away on the top floor where they wouldn’t disturb everyone else. That was the idea, anyway; in reality, you could never get away from the crying completely. It pervaded everything – both the wailing of the new Smalls and the memories the sound invoked in everyone else; years of crying which hung in the air like a ghost with unfinished business. Few ever truly forgot their first few weeks and months in the new, harsh surroundings of Grange Hall; few enjoyed the memory of being wrenched from desperate parents and transported in the dead of night to their new, stark and regimented home. Every time a new Small arrived, the others did their best to close their ears and ignore the memories that inevitably found their way into their consciousness. No one felt sorry for them – if anything, they felt resentment and anger. One more Surplus, ruining things for everyone else.
    Middles were the six-year-olds up to about eleven or twelve. Some new Middles arrived from time to time, and they tended to be quiet and withdrawn rather than cry. Middles learnt faster how institutional life worked, figured out that tears and tantrums were not tolerated and were not worth the beating. But whilst they were easier to manage than the Smalls, they brought their own set of problems. Because they arrived late, because they had spent so long with their parents, they often had some very bad ideas about things. Some would make challenges in Science and Nature classes; others, like Sheila, secretly held on to the belief that their parents would come for them. Middles could be really idiotic sometimes, refusing to accept that they were lucky to be at Grange Hall.
    Anna herself was a Pending. Pending employment. Pending was when the training really started in earnest and you were expected to learn everything you’d need for your future employers. Pending was also when they started testing you, starting up discussions on things like Longevity drugs and parents and Surpluses, just to see whether you Knew Your Place or not, whether you were fit for the outside world. Anna was far too clever for that trick. She wasn’t going to be one of the stupid ones who leapt on the first opportunity to speak their mind and started to criticise the Declaration.