Free The Territory by Sarah Govett

and I immediately let out massive groans. I am so embarrassed to be related to Uncle Pete. He’s supposed to be intelligent and everything, as he has some highish-up job in the Ministry doing something to do with statistics, but he has no social skills and offends absolutely everyone, me included. I mean he once told Jack that they had identified the ‘ginger gene’ and everyone who used a WombPod could choose to exclude it at embryo selection stage. ‘Which of course they all do!’ Guffaw, guffaw, guffaw. Idiot.
    I started ranting at Mum and Dad why couldn’t we have any decent relatives other than Ella (and sometimes, depending on mood, Auntie Vicki)? Dad said nothing but started putting on his coat to leave for work even though he didn’t actually have to go for another ten minutes and Mum shot evil looks at me.
    ‘What?’ I asked. Sometimes I think Mum forgets that I don’t have the same telepathic connection that she and Dad seem to.
    Her expression softened. ‘Sorry, love. It’s just that you know Dad’s really sensitive about any talk about relatives because of Uncle Max. It’s hard for him, you know.’
    I nodded but I don’t know really. I just know Dad had a brother who died before I was born and I’m not allowed to ask about it and if I ever try to, Dad just seems to go into standby mode.
    Anyway, this conversation, if you can call it that, meant I was late leaving for school and would have to run at least some of the way. I hurtled down the steps leading from our block on to the pavement and managed to run slap into the police witch who’d made me search through my garbage before. I mumbled an apology and thought there was no way she’d stop me this time as I had my Hollets uniform on and everything. I was wrong.
    ‘Please state your name.’ Her voice was ice.
    ‘Noa Blake,’ I replied, trying to avoid eye contact, trying to appear submissive.
    ‘Empty your bag,’ came her next command. I couldn’t believe it. Not again. Not when I clearly just had a school bag and was clearly running because I was clearly late for school. It wasn’t as if I was smuggling loads of subversive materials to some top secret Opposition meeting. But then it struck me. At the bottom of my bag was Jack’s scrunched-up picture. The one that could be ‘misinterpreted’. The one I’d forgotten to burn. My heart started to hammer and I was this terrible level of awake. Colours became more intense and all the energy in my body was buzzing around my legs. I opened my mouth but no words came out. It was like the dream in which I find out the TAA is actually a spoken test and I’ve turned mute so I fail. I’m terrible at hiding my feelings and a look of pure panic must have zipped across my face. The witch started to smile, as if she knew she was going to catch me with something terrible and get to ruin my life.
    I was just deciding whether it’d be better to try and run or to eat the picture, when I saw the squat figure of Marcus approaching.
    ‘What’s up here, Officer Hicks?’ Marcus asked, nodding at me.
    ‘Standard stop and search procedures.’
    ‘We’ll let this one go, I think. She seems pretty harmless.’ And then he winked at me and tapped me on the shoulder with his baton. ‘Now off with you, love, and hurry. Don’t want you costing your family any rations, now do we.’
    And it’s the rare times when something like this happens, or I remember that the police have their share of Marcuses, that I think maybe the Territory isn’t such a bad place to live after all.

    I hate Hugo Barnes. I really, really hate him.
    We got our Biology test results back today. Mr Hanson read them out to the class.
    Jack got 45 per cent. He tried to look like he was OK about it and even did a hilarious fish impression, but I could tell he was pretty worried. I mean it’s now only five weeks till the TAA and there’s no way that 45 per cent is ever going to be a pass, even with a SAM.
    Daisy got 67 per cent, which