The Declaration

around London, which were only announced half an hour before. Peter relished the idea of a revolution, and when they were alone, he talked excitedly about the battle ahead, but it made Anna nervous. People always died in battles, and she didn’t want to lose anyone else. Especially not Peter.
    ‘So come on,’ Peter said impatiently, his eyes darting around in their familiar manner but with excitement now, not trepidation. ‘Let’s go outside. Let’s go scare the old people.’
    He grinned encouragingly, and Anna, who could never resist Peter, put her journal down, smiling.
    ‘Get Ben’s coat,’ she instructed Peter as he leant over to kiss her, then she started to put on her shoes.
    But as Peter left the room, she picked up her journal again. Perhaps it was time to stop writing, she thought to herself as she flicked through the pages. Perhaps it was time to start living instead. But not before her journal was properly finished. The new fable of Anna and Peter had barely started, she knew that, but that didn’t mean that her journal couldn’t have its own ending.
    Thoughtfully, she picked up her pen and turned to the back page, then started to write.
    Life on the Outside is very different from Grange
    Hall. Better different. Wonderful different.
    There are no Rules, and no Instructors. There’s no beating, or punishments, and I’m learning to cook with food from the maximarket and learning to plant vegetables in the Allotment.
    We have a computer in our house, and it tells us the news and we can talk to people with it. Peter’s teaching me to type, and he says I’m going to be very Valuable to the Underground because of my ‘inside knowledge’ of Surplus Halls. He told me that the Underground say all of us are Valuable because we’re ‘young, and the young are the future’.
    Being Valuable is different from being a Valuable Asset, though. No one owns me any more, they said. I can do what I want with my life. All of us can.
    I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet. Peter wants to fight for the Underground – he’s always talking about ‘war’ and ‘revolution’, and he insists that they’re going to stop Longevity, and that afterwards there won’t be Surpluses any more.
    I worry more about the Surpluses now, though. About Sheila, and Tania and Charlotte and even Charlie. Because they’re still at Grange Hall, still in that cold, grey prison, working to pay for their Parents’ Sins, working to be Valuable just because Legal people got here first.
    I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. And when I ask Peter, he frowns and talks about the ‘bigger picture’ and needing to focus on the cause, not just the effect.
    I don’t know about that. But I do know that the world is the most beautiful place to be and that we’re very lucky to be here. I know that we have to live each moment because we won’t be here for ever, and that I wouldn’t want to be anyway, because knowing something’s going to end makes you appreciate it more, makes you want to savour every moment.
    And I know that I won’t sign the Declaration, even if it makes me different, even if it makes me suspicious. Because no one needs to live for ever.
    I think that sometimes you can outstay your welcome.
    I also know that I’m not Surplus Anna any more.
    I am Anna Covey: Opt Out.

GEMMA MALLEY
    Gemma Malley studied philosophy at Reading University before working as a journalist and a civil servant. The Declaration is her first book for young adults and she has completed the sequel, The Resistance . She lives in London with her family.

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York
    First published in Great Britain in September 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
    36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY
    First published in the USA in October 2007 by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
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    This electronic edition published in November 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
    Copyright © Gemma Malley 2007
    The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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