Free Renegade by Kerry Wilkinson Page A

that, he wasn’t just the kid that always had dirty hands, suddenly he was
Ayowen.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘I didn’t have the courage to speak to him for a year!’
    I am used to my chest and ribs hurting but this time it is because of laughter as I cannot control myself. Suddenly, I am no longer Silver Blackthorn: Offering and renegade. I am Silver
Blackthorn: immature teenager. It feels good to let go.
    ‘What happened when you spoke to him?’
    ‘He mispronounced my name. He called me “Jel-Ah”, instead of “Jee-lah”. I was so pleased he said something to me that I didn’t bother correcting him. He
called me the wrong name for about three years.’
    I cannot stop myself from laughing again and it feels good to be talking about something that isn’t the King.
    ‘What does he look like?’ I ask.
    ‘This is going to sound strange but the main thing I remember are his eyebrows.’
    ‘
Eyebrows
?’
    Jela shrugs. ‘I’m not sure. They’re really symmetrical and when he smiles they angle up in this way that fits with the rest of his face.’
    I still don’t understand.
‘Eyebrows?’
    She sniggers: ‘I know it sounds stupid. Anyway, what does Opie look like?’
    ‘He’s a little like Knave: blond and messy. Before I left, he’d started growing this little piece of stubble just because he could. It looked like he’d glued bristles
from our sweeping-up brush to his chin.’
    Jela giggles but the way she sounds so girly reminds me of Opie’s brother Imp, when he once asked me why I wasn’t like a proper girl. In the past I have sometimes wished I could be
that person others expect me to be but now I’m not sure I will ever get that chance.
    ‘You missed something out,’ Jela says, sitting up. ‘What happened to Opie’s shoe?’
    I smile as I remember. ‘He spent about forty-five minutes looking for it and was getting angrier and angrier. He kept turning to the other lads, saying: “One of you must have taken
it”. The whole time, he refused to take the other one off in case that went missing too, so he was hobbling around in one shoe before he gave up and limped home. When everyone had gone, I
sneaked out and fished it from the hedge, before leaving it on his front porch when it got dark.’
    ‘Ah, so you were good to him after all?’
    ‘Well I did spend the next few years calling him “Dopey”, “Mopey” and “No Hopey”, so I could have been a bit nicer.’
    We share some water and talk more about our upbringings until it is time for Imrin and Pietra to keep watch. Because it is light, I think I’ll struggle to sleep but after resting my head
on my blanket and cuddling my tortoise, it feels like only seconds until Faith is nudging me awake, pointing to the dimming skies and saying we should start moving.
    Walking at night is better from a safety point of view but the natural beauty of some of the scenery is lost without the light. Despite many of the villages being destroyed, there are still vast
green fields and glistening lakes that would have been magnificent during the day. Until the Offering, I had barely left Martindale and can tell from the others’ reactions that few of them
have seen anything other than their home towns and villages.
    We stop to eat and rest every few hours and even though we have cans to eat from, Faith catches squirrels with basic snares and her knife so effortlessly that it is as if she has been doing it
forever. We light fires within tree lines and use our blankets to stop the orange glow from giving our position away.
    At the end of our second night of walking, we find the remnants of another battered, abandoned town and sleep in a partially collapsed house, taking it in turns to share a real bed as the others
keep lookout. Over the course of the journey, I realise how everyone’s skills are working together for the group. Faith can do almost anything physical; she never runs out of energy and can
climb and hunt. Imrin is terrific with