The Declaration

and on the top there was an engraving of a flower. It was taken away when he was caught, though. The Catchers found it, even though he’d hidden it in his mouth, and they told him that the Central Administrators would be very interested in it. They gave it to a man in uniform at the place they took him to before they brought him to Grange Hall. And the man kept asking him questions, and told him they needed more information for his file. Peter wouldn’t tell him anything and kept asking for his ring back, but the man wouldn’t give it to him. Peter said that when we’ve escaped, he’s going to get the ring back somehow. He said that once he’s got it back, he’s never going to take it off again.
    The people who took him in when he was a baby and all the others who had him after that could have gone to prison for looking after him, he said, or even have been hanged, but they did it anyway because they said that ‘children are important’ and ‘every life matters’. And they made him feel special and loved, while he was with them.
    Then when he was ten, the people looking after him got arrested, but the Underground Movement smuggled him out of the house before the Catchers could find him, and my parents said they’d hide him and look after him. He said that’s how he knew my parents were the kindest and most wonderful people, because they were ‘risking everything’ for him and he wasn’t even their child. Imagine what they’d do for you, he said.
    I can’t imagine anything. I can’t even imagine having parents.
    When we’re on the Outside, Peter said he’ll take me to the field where we can run around.
    I’ve never seen a real field.
    I like the sound if it, though.
    Peter said he’d come to the desert with me, if I wanted. He said we could live there.
    He said that we belonged together because he was born with a flower and I was born with a butterfly and that flowers and butterflies need each other for survival.
    I think I’d like to live in the desert with Peter. I think I’d like . . .
    Anna woke with a start, and sat bolt upright. She was on the floor of Female Bathroom 2, her head resting on her beautiful pink suede journal. Quickly, she looked at her wrist and her heart jumped when she realised it was 5.30 a.m. – in just thirty minutes, the morning bell would go. How had she let herself fall asleep? If she got caught now, everything would be ruined.
    Or would it? She thought for a moment, her nose wrinkling in concentration. She had to do something bad enough today to go to Solitary. Wouldn’t being caught out of bed at 5.30 a.m. be just the thing? But immediately she rejected the idea; being caught out of bed was one thing, but being caught with a journal that clearly described their plans for escape was a pretty stupid idea.
    She hadn’t even been going to write in the journal but she couldn’t help herself. She was bursting with the information Peter had given her, and writing everything down had helped to calm her mind. It had also made it more real. Now she’d written everything down, it had to be true.
    Quickly, she stood up and, putting the journal safely back in its hiding place, she tiptoed out of the bathroom, along the corridor and into her dormitory. Everyone was asleep, she noticed with relief, even Sheila, whose little snores could be heard clearly from the corner of the dormitory.
    Looking around her cautiously, Anna slipped into bed. Closing her eyes, she found herself picturing the Outside in her head – although the only images she could conjure up were of Mrs Sharpe’s house, so she superimposed on to them the things Peter had described. But even as she allowed herself to dream of a new life, she knew how unlikely it was she’d ever really see it for real.
    Even if they did get out, they would be fugitives. Surpluses that didn’t Know Their Place. And she would never now get the forgiveness of Mother Nature.
    Lying in bed and pulling her blanket around her, Anna shivered. Whether it was with cold, fear or anticipation, she wasn’t sure; all she knew as she drifted back to sleep was that from today, her life was going to change. Today, for good or ill, everything was going to change.
    Sheila opened her eyes and watched silently as Anna fell asleep. She’d waited for her in the corridor, waited for over an hour. And then she’d seen Anna’s outline coming back up the stairs, but Anna hadn’t gone back to the dormitory. So Sheila had slipped after her, so