Resistance will not be tolerated

Chapter 1

Copyright © carpe_lucem 

All rights reserved by the author

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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“Wait!”

The hustle and bustle of books being shoved into well-worn rucksacks, shouted excuses at exasperated teachers and the cheerful chatter of liberated students reached its peak at four in the afternoon, when the bell out its punctually shrill ring.

“Hey, wait up!” I shouted in vain over the rising clamour of voices and laughter. I pushed past a group of second years wearing more make-up than clothes, throwing them an apologetic smile which was answered with a dozen death stares. “Hey!” I gasped, a note of irritation in my voice at the girl who was looking up at me innocently - as though she hadn’t agreed to wait for me while I asked Mr Matthews about the last question of the algebra homework. I looked at her pointedly as we stopped at our lockers. And with a look of such convincing realisation, that would have fooled anyone except me, she gushed, “Oh, so sorry Tab…completely slipped my mind…” then she gabbled something unintelligible about her latest object of adoration, Justin something. I didn’t bother to pay attention as she described with excruciating detail how he’d smiled at her as he walked past her standing waiting for me, and how she couldn’t help but walk alongside him. Elsa always had to have a boy (or a girl, on one occasion) whom she was hopeless in love with. She’d wait outside their classes, memorise their timetables, even push and shove to just be behind them in the lunch queue. Some may call this stalking, but Elsa always referred to it as an ‘in-depth study’ of her future spouse. These infatuations never lasted, so I felt no obligation to listen as she re-enacted Justin collecting his work then looking ‘flirtatiously’ at her as he returned to his seat.

I knew for a fact that this particular Justin had been seen sneaking behind the eco-classroom with Maisie Kingsford during lunch, but I wasn’t about to break through Elsa’s incessant monologue any time soon and the tears that would be sure to follow weren’t worth my trouble.

“…well Eliza said he did anyway, but how would she know?” she droned as we walked through the gates onto the bustling street that joined onto Northridge. “What do you think, Tab?”

“Hmm?” I turned to Elsa in surprise. Usually she was satisfied with my standard-issue “yeah” or “absolutely”, but it was obvious from the look on her face Elsa was not going to accept anything short of five syllables as an answer this time. 

“Well, do you think Justin has a tattoo of a skull on his chest or not?” I breathed out in relief as the moment passed and I fobbed her off with a rumour I had heard that actually it was a treasure chest on his inner thigh.

It was something of a breath of fresh air as I reached the end of my road, where Elsa and I went our separate ways every afternoon.  I turned the handle of our faded red front door as quietly as I could – there was always a chance Dad was sleeping. He slept a lot nowadays, because of his bad leg. Mum said he was just tired, but I knew there was something wrong with it. He used to just have a battered old walking stick, but now he used full-on crutches and even then only when he got out of bed.

I needn’t have worried though, because as I slipped inside into the hall I could hear the tinny sound of the television and knew it must be Dad, because he was the only one allowed to use the TV in the study. I hung up my coat on the hat stand George had made in DT and climbed the stairs to my bedroom, carefully avoiding the sixth step up, as we were all convinced the next time anyone trod on it their foot would punch a hole right through the staircase into the downstairs bathroom.