Lisa Heathfield - I Am Not a Number

‘I don’t find anything to laugh about,’ Mr Hart says, ‘when people have ended up seriously injured.’

‘All through faults of their own,’ James says.

We weren’t at fault. We were only there protesting – doing nothing else.

‘So you believe everything you read on the internet, do you?’ Mr Hart says.

‘Those riots were real. There’s no way they were staged by the Trads.’

‘From what I understand, they doctored the footage,’ Mr Hart says.

‘Doctored?’ Ashwar asks.

‘Edited it,’ Mr Hart tells her. ‘The news only showed a half truth. Probably not even that.’

‘They’re not going to broadcast a blatant lie,’ Ashwar says.

‘Aren’t they?’ Mr Hart glares at her. ‘You’ve all heard enough about fake news.’

‘I know what happened,’ I say. ‘Because I was there.’ I feel every single person in the classroom turn to look at me. My skin blazes red.

‘The Cores faked those images,’ someone shouts from the back.

‘They didn’t.’ My voice is shaking. I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to ever be there again, but I have to let them know the truth. ‘Everyone was calm, but then the soldiers started attacking us.’

‘You provoked them,’ James says.

‘We didn’t,’ I say, feeling stronger now. ‘There wasn’t a riot or anything. The Trads started it and we were crushed.’

James claps his hands slowly. ‘Nice one, Westy. You’re pretty good at twisting real events.’

‘That’s enough,’ Mr Hart says.

‘Oh, so now you’re trying to silence the truth?’ James says. ‘I’m simply pointing out the lies, but you won’t let me have my say?’

‘What I won’t let,’ Mr Hart says, anger spinning around him, ‘is a bully stay in my class.’

‘Are you sending me out for voicing an opinion?’ James smirks. ‘An opinion that is, in fact, the truth?’

‘I’m simply giving you a warning.’

‘I wonder what the Trads would think if they found out a teacher was calling them liars, sir,’ James continues. ‘That you’re accusing them of editing footage of the protests. I reckon they’d be quite interested to know.’

‘This conversation is ending right now,’ Mr Hart tells him. ‘I’ve a register to finish.’ He’s trying to stay calm, but his jaw is tense. I think his hands are shaking too. ‘Jermain,’ he says, glancing up.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Lucy.’

‘Yes.’

Sara nudges my arm. ‘Were you really there?’ she whispers.

‘Yes.’

‘Was it frightening?’

‘Yes.’ I can see the real Sara in her eyes. The worry for me, the confusion. ‘Can we hang out at break?’ I ask. ‘We could go to the oak tree?’

She doesn’t smile, but at least she nods.

‘I think what James has forgotten to point out, sir,’ Ashwar says, as soon as the register is finished. ‘Is that the Core supporters started riots this morning too and they got completely out of control.’

‘They were a direct response,’ Mr Hart says, ‘to the unprovoked attack of citizens last night.’

‘It was self protection,’ Ashwar says.

‘The Trads weren’t under any threat,’ I say. But it’s barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

‘What I don’t understand, Ashwar,’ Conor says. ‘Is how come your family vote for them?’ He’s swinging back on his chair, but Mr Hart doesn’t pick him up on it. ‘You’re Muslim, right?’

‘None of this is about religion.’ Ashwar’s eyes are steel on him.

‘No. But some of it’s about race,’ Conor says. ‘By tightening the borders, they’re basically saying they only want Brits living here. If they’d done that before your parents or grandparents or whoever arrived here you wouldn’t have been allowed in.’ Conor lands the front legs of his chair heavily on the ground. ‘How can that be okay?’

‘I don’t have to agree with everything they stand for,’ Ashwar says.

‘But it’s a pretty major thing,’ Conor carries on. Mr Hart watches from the front of the classroom. His arms are crossed, but his Core band is still showing.

‘It’s worth it for the other policies,’ Ashwar says. ‘Did you know that that seventy per cent of A and E departments are taken up with drunk people at weekends? Seventy per cent, Conor. How can that be a good use of public money?’

‘There are other ways to deal with it than banning drinking in public and increasing the legal age,’ Conor says.

‘Are there?’ Ashwar looks around. ‘No other government has wanted to tackle it and see where it’s got our country. Nothing is getting better. It’s getting worse. We need a change and we might not like all of the Trad’s policies, but it’s a small price to pay if the rest of it is working.’

‘Is it?’ Mr Hart asks. ‘As Conor brought up the subject of immigration, let’s talk about that.’

Cameron yawns loudly from the back.

‘Am I boring you, Cameron?’ Mr Hart asks him.

‘Just a bit,’ Cameron says and people around him laugh.

‘I can see nothing boring in people being forced from their homes.’ Anger is beginning to tick through Mr Hart. ‘They’ve lost everything: their communities, their families, their way of life. They don’t want to leave everything they love. They don’t want to trek hundreds of miles carrying everything they own on their backs. They don’t want to put their children in blow-up dinghies and set out across an ocean that might drown them all. They do it because they have to.’

‘But what about our country?’ James challenges him. ‘If the Core Party had it their way we’d let them come here and wreck our way of lives and our homes . That’s not exactly right, is it?’

‘These people don’t wreck our homes, James. They actually boost our economy, but that never really gets reported, does it?’

‘Perhaps because they don’t boost it enough,’ James says.

‘So what would your solution be?’ I ask James.

‘We should just send them back.’

Send them back? As if they’re objects, not people.

‘I would hope,’ Mr Hart says, ‘that if the roles were reversed and it was our homes and families blown apart, that we would find compassion somewhere. That people would help us and let us in.’

The bell cuts him off. There’s a longer pause than normal before we all get up.

I get a message on my phone as I walk out of the classroom. People are believing the lies , Luke texts.

I know , I reply. I’m scared .

Don’t be.

Meet at oak at break? Sara coming too .

Okay .

Someone smacks the back of my head. It’s hard enough not to be a joke, but there are too many people pushing in front and behind me to know who it was. Shoulders, elbows squeeze down the corridor to first lesson. It’s the same as always but everything has changed. The crush of it unwinds memories of last night and although I can breathe now my lungs remember. The splinters still thread through them and I have to push past people, get out of the way, to reach a space where I feel safe.

It’s starting to rain a bit as I walk to the oak tree. The sky feels tight, dripping down headaches the way it does before a storm. I think Sara might use it as an excuse not to turn up, until I see her legs sticking out from where she’s leaning against the trunk the other side.

‘You’re here,’ I say when I get to her.

‘I said I would be.’ She doesn’t look angry, but there’s an edge to her words.

‘How are things?’ I sit opposite her, cross-legged. The leaves above us are umbrella enough for now.

‘A bit odd,’ she says. She picks a blade of grass and its roots come up too.