The Declaration

quietly Anna didn’t hear a thing. And she’d watched, her brow furrowing with curiosity as Anna softly opened the door to Female Bathroom 2 and went inside.
    And now, hours later, she was back. Anna had secrets, Sheila realised, and she wanted to know what they were.
    Looking around the dormitory, and satisfying herself that everyone was asleep, Sheila pushed back her covers and slipped lightly out of bed, then padded gently out of the dormitory and down the corridor.
    A few moments later, she arrived at Female Bathroom 2, opened the door and closed it behind her.
    Then she pursed her lips and frowned, looking around the sparse room, not knowing exactly what she was looking for, but certain, nonetheless that she was in the right place. This wasn’t the first time Anna had disappeared into this bathroom. There had to be something in here. Some clue.
    She moved over to the scrubbed basins, got down on her hands and knees to survey the floor, and finally sat on the bath and sighed, rubbing her arms with her hands to stay warm.
    And then, suddenly, she noticed something. A slight gap between the bath and the wall. Not something that would stand out to anyone who didn’t know the value of secrets, but which Sheila instantly recognised as a hiding place. Quickly, she hopped into the bath, taking care to wipe her feet first so that she didn’t leave a single speck of dust in it, and carefully slipped her thin, pale arm down the side of the bath. Moments later, she pulled out Anna’s journal, the softest, pinkest thing that Sheila had ever seen.
    She opened the book and began to read. As she worked her way through the first few pages, her eyes widened with indignation. But she couldn’t read it all now. Not when the morning bell was due any moment. Carefully, Sheila put it back in its hiding place and, checking that the coast was clear, she darted back down the corridor to her dormitory and slipped into bed just a few seconds before the violent ringing started, announcing the beginning of another day.

Chapter Thirteen
    For the second time that week, Anna found herself not wanting to eat her breakfast. But, feeling Sheila’s gaze on her over the table at Central Feeding, she forced herself to swallow spoonful after spoonful of the filling but tasteless porridge. No one must suspect a thing, she kept thinking to herself. Particularly Sheila.
    She got through her training sessions that morning without any hiccups; had gone to Female Bathroom 2 to retrieve her journal, which was now burning a hole in her left overall pocket; and had even managed to carve out enough ingredients to make an extra Cornish pasty in Cookery Practical, which she had wrapped up and hidden in her right pocket for Peter, wondering as she did so how she had become so adept at breaking rules. Mrs Pincent had once told her that Surpluses were naturally evil, and Anna had seen it as a challenge – to prove to Mrs Pincent just how not evil she was. But now she knew that Mrs Pincent had been right. And she didn’t even care.
    When she’d been a Middle, and before she’d been made a Prefect, Anna and the other girls in her dormitory would sometimes find time just before the night bell to tell each other fables and stories about Surpluses who had tried to escape. The tales originated from overheard snatches of conversations, dark warnings given by Domestics and the girls’ own feverish imaginations, and each was more horrific than the next. There was Simon, the Surplus who thought he was Legal, and scaled the walls of Grange Hall only to be burned alive by a flame cast down from an angry sun. There was the story of Phillippa, the Valuable Asset, who worked as a housekeeper and gradually forgot that she was Surplus. She started to eat her mistress’s food, to sit in her chair and to refuse to take orders, and one day she left the house without permission, stepping into the forbidden Outside alone. The first thing she did was to pick a flower from her mistress’s garden, a red rose which she had often admired from inside the house. She brought the rose to her face, smelling its sweet scent and feeling the softness of the petals against her skin. As she brushed it against her cheek, she felt a sudden pain and cried out, but it was too late. The rose had extended its thorns and attacked Phillippa, tearing out her eyes, and ripping up her skin before leaving her, helpless and valueless on the garden path, where she was found by the Catchers and