Rebels In the Making

A short story that I wrote for school about a young girl in an institute that all young girls in her country are forced to live in, called JIRRACS.

Rebels in the Making.

1.

Silence. Not a sound to be heard, nor a whisper in the air, except the barely audible rustle of the breeze.  Thousands of teenage girls stood to attention, in huge blocks, each 50 people wide. Gazing across the sea of heads, each with hair scraped back into tight, regulation buns, I could just about make out the edge of the male yard, and the blocks of teenage boys behind the giant barbed wire fence, their backs straight and hair closely cropped.

The 1600 hours assembly was the closest the girls at JIRRACS " the Juvenile Institute for Raising Responsible Adult Citizens in Society " ever came to the boys’ yard. The High Authorities believed that mixing teenage girls and boys before we reached marriageable age would merely confuse us, so after young people were taken from the CEC " the Childhood Education Centre, for children of ages 6 " 13 " and moved to JIRRACS, the genders were split. After we graduated from JIRRACS, the Authorities would match each of us with a suitable husband or wife. That way we could all raise families and fully contribute to Society, but until then, girls didn’t see boys and boys didn’t see girls.

The tall, grimy clock tower at the front of the yard ticked forward, the only noise sounding through the still, grey air. As the hand slid ever closer to 1600 hours, every eye in our yard followed it. I could all but taste the change in the atmosphere. From where I was standing, near the centre with all the other 15 year olds, I had a good view of the other girls. The changes in them were slight, but noticeable. Girls who had previously been slouching, or leaning on one leg, drew themselves up to full attention. Grey cloth clad shoulders were pulled back, buns and ties hastily tightened, as my peers tried to smarten themselves. Had I not been too busy trying to hide the tiny smudge on my cuff, I’m sure I would have noticed the boys doing the same in their yard. Nobody wanted to look scruffy at assembly.

Last minute preparations completed, the sea of girls gradually became still, the already overpowering sense of uniformity enhanced even more as they stood to attention again. I could barely even pick out my closest friends, Sumitra and Lela, as they stood in the crowd. There! Far away, near the edge of one of the 14 year olds’ blocks, I could just make them out. Backs straight and faces grim, they stared straight ahead without noticing me. Like me and every other girl in our compound, they wore the JIRRACS uniform; grey skirts down to the knees, a charcoal pullover and black tie. Had it not been for the large, purple birthmark spattered across Lela’s face, there would have been nothing to distinguish them from the other girls.

I was relieved to see them. I knew they could do nothing to protect me, nor I them, but it was good to see a couple of friendly faces. Had we been waiting for any other assembly, I’m sure they would have sought me out, or tried to stand next to me if they could. They were clearly the closer friends in our trio, I was just the third wheel, but they both did their best to include me in everything, and protect me from the wrath of the Authorities and Form Masters when they could. Today though, attempting to get closer wasn’t an option. Today was different. Today was dangerous. Today was Discipline Day.

2.

Discipline Day came around once a fortnight, and was incorporated into our usual daily assemblies. After the bulletins and occasional speeches from the big screen that were the norm, our High Head would come forward. It was his job to read out the crimes from the past two weeks, along with the punishments given for each one. Nobody ever knew if they were going to be caught out for some kind of misdemeanour until Discipline Day, but punishments were harsh and plentiful, and it never seemed to be too late to add somebody’s name to the list. Perhaps the suspense and the fear created was the main purpose of the Day, but the Head certainly always seemed to me to read out the punishments with an undeniable relish, especially when corporal punishment was involved. If it wasn’t corporal punishment, the most common form of discipline was “detention” " an hour a day, for a set time period, spent ditch digging, lap running or scrubbing the kitchen floors. It was always hard, painful work, and you got little sympathy for illness or injury, so I was understandably desperate to avoid it.

As the final tones of the gong died away, the huge blocks of girls all turned as one, moving to face the towering screen that hung above the stage at the front of the compound, and saluting in unison as the JIRRACS logo appeared above. There we stayed, waiting in deathly silence, for our High Head to appear. Finally, after a pause just long enough to be noticeable, but certainly long enough to remind us who was in control, he strolled onstage. A surprisingly short man, the High Head didn’t have an overpowering physical presence, but the air with which he carried himself was enough for him to command the entire area. This was a man with complete power over who graduated from JIRRACS, and who was deemed unfit for Society. The High Head decided the fate of every single girl before him, and he knew it. He walked with the kind of cockiness only one who saw himself as far more important than all those around him could ever achieve as he sauntered leisurely towards the lectern.

“Good morning, young citizens.” he spoke clearly into his microphone. “Be at ease.”

The soft thump of a thousand hands hitting the girls’ sides could be heard throughout the yard as they dropped their hands from their salutes and stood quietly once more. The High Head cleared his throat and launched into his speech without hesitation, not caring in the slightest whether or not any of the girls missed it. I strained my ears, trying my hardest to hear the daily bulletin. There wasn’t much that interested me, just the usual reminders; any girl caught eating food that didn’t follow the institute’s ideas of an appropriate diet would be punished, anyone caught out of their beds after curfew would face severe consequences, the entire boys’ yard and the fence surrounding it was completely off limits, all girls must follow the dress code to the letter… The list went on. I listened hard, not wanting to miss anything. Though I often felt like just ignoring the JIRRACS regulations,  I tried to follow the rules for the same reason that I think everyone else did - I didn’t want to be the only girl in the compound to stand out.  At JIRRACS, being marked as different was never good. Being different meant you might not graduate, and then you would never escape.

Finally the daily bulletin was completed, and the small, powerful man who stood onstage raised his head from the sheet he had been reading, to glare down at the crowd. His sharp gaze felt like it was piercing straight through me, and I’m almost positive that every other girl in the compound felt the same.

“As you well know girls, today is Discipline Day.” He addressed the teenagers in front of him. “Here at JIRRACS, we have one goal. That goal is….?”

As one, the crowd chanted back to him: “To raise, confident, responsible, independent adults to contribute to Society!”.

 It was a familiar question, and we all knew the reply. The mantra had been constantly drummed into our heads from the second we arrived at JIRRACS, and our cry rang out through the yard, filling the entire compound with our voices.

“That’s right” cried the High Head. “And why is Discipline Day so important?”

“To correct those on the path to wrongdoing so that they may achieve their full potential!” came the answering cry. Again, every girl in the yard knew exactly what to say, and was well rehearsed as they sounded out in a single voice.

“Exactly. Remember young ladies, The JIRRACS centre and the High Authorities have only got your best interests at heart. Never forget it. Now, the following girls must report to their respective form heads for disciplinary action, the rest of you will soon be free for recreation hour.”

3.

 Every eye in the compound turned towards the screen above him as the JIRRACS logo slowly faded, to be replaced by a huge list of names, signalling the unfortunate souls who had been selected for “correction”. As huge as the screen was, the writing was still barely large enough to read. Clearly, the people responsible for making up the list had struggled to fit the hundreds of names in. After scanning anxiously down the screen to see if I had been called up (the lists were in alphabetical order by age, so even with the size it wouldn’t have been hard to find) I breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe for another fortnight, at least. I was hardly ever called out anyway, so I’m not sure why I worried so much every week. I suppose it was all the horror stories you heard, of girls on Discipline day worked to the bone, or fainting from the pain of the corporal punishment.

The girls remained silent, out of fear mostly, yet the change of atmosphere in the air was palpable. Most of those in the crowd were restless now, happy to go through another week without punishment, though the occasional sob could still be heard escaping the lips of whatever poor girl had been relegated to the worst punishments. I strained my neck, catching the eyes of Sumitra and Lela. It was fairly obvious that they had both escaped punishment too, as I could see Lela looking about her joyfully, and even Sumitra, who barely ever showed emotion, was smiling in relief.

The clock tower at the front of the yard again chimed, signalling the quarter hour. This was normally the time that the daily assembly finished at, yet the High Head showed no signs of moving. Looking around the yard with his piercing eyes, he cleared his throat to speak again.

Instantly, there was silence.

“Now girls,” He said. “I know this is the time when you would normally return for your recreation hour, but today is slightly different. I’ve notified the Form Masters who will be overseeing your break that you will all be a little late, as I have something very important to say.” He signalled to somebody standing at the side of the stage, and a girl, around my age, was pushed up.

Her uniform was grubby and wrinkled, her face sunken and covered in scars. Her long, bright red hair hung loose at her shoulders, wild and untamed. She looked over the mass of girls, looking angry and terrified. As she shuffled along the stage, I barely concealed a gasp - I knew her. The second I made the connection, the High Head beat me to it.

 “Elizabeth Reynolds!” He cried. “I’m sure some of you, especially those who are older, will remember her. Well today, at 0200 hours, a search party discovered this girl hiding in the desert outside our compound, where she had been living for 3 weeks, after rejecting the hospitality at JIRRACS and choosing instead to live the life of a savage! Today I plan to make an example of Miss Reynolds, so you can all learn from her mistakes!

Liz Reynolds - the “bad girl” of our year. Always in trouble, never achieving any of the Authorities’ targets, never showing respect, and always incredibly proud and haughty to the adults, she was one of the strongest girls I had ever met. I could picture her clearly, from what must have been just a few days before she disappeared. She had always carried herself with the same levels of confidence and pride as the High Head himself! While other girls (myself included) shied away from Form Masters and followed every rule to the letter, Liz had looked the adults in the eyes as an equal and had refused to act like she was anything else. We had never spoken, as we weren’t in any of the same classes, but I remember hearing about her antics in a mixture of horror, fascination and (dare I say it?) admiration. I could honestly never decide if she was incredibly brave, or just incredibly stupid.

As I thought about it, I realised that I had never really noticed that Liz had gone. There had been no warnings or announcements, and as we didn’t normally mix it was perfectly normal to go a while without seeing her around. Had I been paying enough attention, I probably would have noticed that her name didn’t appear on Discipline Day (as it inevitably always did), but I hadn’t been looking. The last time I had laid eyes on Liz must have been just a couple of days before she left the compound. If anyone was ever going to do something so outrageous and unthinkable as leaving the institute, it would have been her. It was hard to believe that anyone would have even tried to run away from JIRRACS! The compound was impenetrable, and therefore inescapable.

However, this wasn’t the Liz that I once knew. The girl that stood onstage was a shell of the proud, confident teen that had constantly stood up to Form Masters and bullies alike. Her sunken cheeks made her seem weak and frail, and her expression may still have been wild, but the fear in it was obvious, and the fire had died in her eyes. Whatever had happened to her over the past few weeks had clearly damaged her, possibly beyond repair.

“Do you see, ladies, what happens when you leave the safety of JIRRACS?” cried the High Head, looking far more worked up than I had ever seen him.

“You are not yet ready to leave the compound, and if you try to make it on your own without our guidance, you will sorely regret it! Miss Reynolds learned that the hard way, so let this be a lesson to you all! I would advise you all to reflect upon what happened to her when you see her, and vow not to follow in her footsteps. Do you not agree, Elizabeth?” He turned towards Liz and she shied away, cringing in fear. Hesitantly, she nodded.

“Good! Thank you for taking the time girls, you may return to your afternoon activities. Oh, and could Miss….” He looked down at his sheet. “Maya Richards please wait behind - the Depute would like to speak with you.” With that, he descended from the stage and left the room, with Liz trailing behind him.

4.

My heart sped up. Maya Richards " That was me! I was terrified. What if I was to be given extra punishment, more work? It must have been important to pull someone out of recreation hour " the schedules at JIRRACS were very strict " but I had no idea what I was wanted for. I caught the eyes of Sumitra and Lela as they filed out with their block. I tried to show them with my expression that I wasn’t worried, that everything was fine, but I think I ended up looking more terrified than ever. I would have to talk to them after.

As soon as all the blocks of girls had filed out, and the yard was empty apart from me, I started to move. Shaking, I shuffled forward towards the stage, where the Depute was waiting for me. I wasn’t sure where he had come from - as I hadn’t seen him during assembly - but that was nothing new. A tall, wiry man, the Depute moved with surprising speed and had the uncanny knack of appearing in places you could have sworn you were alone in. Many a girl had ended up on the Discipline Day rota after being just a little too loose with their tongue while they thought they were safe from the security cameras that were hidden around the school, not realising that there was an eavesdropper in their midst. In JIRRACS, the walls may not have had ears, but with the Depute around they didn’t need them. I approached the stage in trepidation, trying to mask my fear as I tried to frantically work out what I had done to deserve this special attention.

 “Ah, you must be Maya, correct?” The Depute asked, and I nodded, hoping my thumping heartbeat wasn’t too obvious.

“Well Maya, I’m sure you saw Miss Reynolds on stage today, yes?” His features morphed into an expression probably meant to resemble sympathy, but came out frightening.

“It’s a terrible thing that she decided to leave our hospitality at JIRRACS, and the Authorities are working especially hard with the JIRRACS staff to make sure this terrible event is dealt with. We believe that Elizabeth may become better adjusted back into decent society if she has a….. friend to help her through things.” At this, he looked pointedly at me. I stood, dumbfounded. I may not have known what to expect, but I certainly hadn’t seen this coming. I didn’t even know Liz!

“After looking at the school records, we saw that Miss Reynolds wasn’t particularly sociable within her classes and form group, and so we looked for a girl from the opposite side of her year. When we asked the Form Masters, yours’ was the name that constantly came up. You are said to be considerate, hard-working and attentive " all qualities that the High Authorities admire. We would like you to mentor Elizabeth as she starts back up with her lessons, from what we hear you will be just the kind of positive influence that she needs if she is going to achieve her full potential!”

After finishing this speech, the Depute smiled. He knew I would never dare to say no. Without giving me a chance to even reply, he turned on his heel and left, saying “Thank you Miss Richards, you may return to your classes now, and you will be notified as to when your tutoring sessions with Elizabeth are going to start.”

There I stayed, gaping at the spot where the Depute had been standing, and wondering what on Earth had just happened.

5.

The next few days passed uneventfully, I kept my nose to the grindstone, but my thoughts kept wandering back to Liz. I just couldn’t understand what could possibly have reduced a girl who was once so proud, so strong, to the half-crazed, terrified teenager I had seen the week before. Truly, the world outside JIRRACS must have been an awful place.

It was only after a full week had passed, as I was working in the kitchens for my afternoon chores that I heard from the Depute again. I was sitting in the corner alone, peeling potatoes for the day’s dinner, as the rest of my form group messed around with soap suds and bubbles. I sat where I was,  watching Lela and Sumitra laugh and joke over their work. I sighed, Sumitra and Lela had been getting closer and closer, and more often than not I was being left in the dust. Ever since I had told them about the supposed tutor sessions, they seemed to have been pulling away from me, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t bring it up, for it was always possible that I was just being paranoid, and I didn’t want to seem strange.

Sometime into the chore period, while I was trying my hardest not to pay attention to the other girls in the room, I felt the atmosphere change. Gradually, voices that had previously been laughing and joking became silent, with more following as they caught on. Hearing the difference, I looked up. Standing in the doorway, looking as grim-faced as ever, was the Depute, and he was staring right at me. He beckoned towards me, not paying the slightest attention to any of the other girls. Quickly, so as not to keep him waiting, I dropped my knife and the potato I had been working on and followed after the Depute. As I trailed behind him, and out of the room, I could feel Sumitra and Lela’s gazes boring into my back.

The Depute didn’t seem to have any intention of talking to me as he led me through the winding corridors of the JIRRACS institute. I soon lost track of where we were in the labyrinth of bright, cold corridors that was our compound, but it took me a while to realise that I didn’t recognise the rooms we were passing at all. I thought I knew most of JIRRACS by heart, but the Depute was leading me somewhere new, and unfamiliar. I swallowed, scampering to keep up and trying not to show my nervousness.

Finally, after what felt like far too long, we stopped. Turning round to face me for the first time since he came to the kitchen, the Depute handed me a letter, not even bothering to look me in the eye. It seemed that now he knew I was doing what he wanted, I was once again beneath him.

“Read this, then enter. Good luck.” He said, striding purposefully away.

Inside the letter was a passkey for the door, a map of the route I would need to take to get to and from the room I stood in front of (I did notice that it carefully omitted large portions of the compound, leaving me with just enough information to get where I needed to go), and a set of instructions: Go in, stay an hour, go through our year’s classwork so that Liz isn’t too far behind when she returns to lessons, then leave, and say nothing about Liz’s progress to my friends. It was as simple as that. The lessons were to be daily, during recreation hour. I was fine with that if I was honest; I never really enjoyed recreation hour anyway, and I had started to dislike it even more now that Lela and Sumitra were pulling away from me.

I was less fine with the prospect of entering the room Liz seemed to be staying in, without any clue of what to expect inside. My stomach churned with nervousness. However, time was of the essence, and if I was late for roll call after recreation hour I was sure nobody would be coming to bail me out. Swallowing my nerves, I slid the passkey through the slot, and pushed open the door.

6.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting Liz’s place to look like. If I had been pushed, I suppose I might have guessed it would be some kind of bare dungeon, or possibly a sort of hospital ward. Everything would be cold and clinical, or dark and damp. Of course, there would be nothing comfortable in it at all. I certainly hadn’t expected the sight that greeted me.

Liz’s room was Spartan, with no personal touches, but it seemed welcoming enough. I didn’t really see much of the room’s details, though I did notice that it was actually quite similar to the dorm I slept in, but I was barely paying attention. My eyes were instead drawn to the girl sitting at a desk in the far corner of the room. Liz. I almost tripped over my own feet as I stared at her in shock. The strong, confident girl I had known long ago was certainly nowhere to be found, but neither was the half-crazed savage that had stood on the stage at Discipline Day only a few days before. Already the colour was returning to her skin, her cheeks beginning to fill out. Her fiery hair was scraped back into the exact same regulation bun as mine, and her uniform was pristine. Her sea-green eyes, once full of passion, were now carefully guarded, and something fundamental in her had changed. She looked the way I would expect any girl at JIRRACS to appear.

 In other words, she looked exactly the same as everybody else.

I wasn’t sure when I had begun to get emotionally attached to the girl I had yet to say a word to, but I had to admit that I was relieved to see her healthy again. I tried to just be thankful that Liz was ok, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling I got as I looked at this newly changed Liz. I think she could see it on my face, as when she finally met my eyes, there was a faint hint of sardonic humour in her expression.

“You must be Maya then?” She looked me up and down, and it felt as if she was looking straight through me.

“Well, we only have an hour together, so we’d better get down to business. We wouldn’t want to displease the Authorities now would we?” she said.

It was the sort of statement that any teacher or girl at JIRRACS would say, a perfect example of a girl trying to achieve the potential that the Authorities saw in her, but when Liz said it I was sure I could hear the slight sarcasm in her tone, and possibly a hint of bitterness. Maybe the old Liz hadn’t died completely. For some reason the thought that she might not be fully broken warmed me. Though I would never admit it aloud, it seemed horrible to me to think that a bright soul such as Liz’s could be extinguished.

She looked me in the eye, as if testing me for my reaction. I had no idea what to say however, and she merely shrugged, as if disappointed. I was relieved to see that the textbooks for our year were lying on the desk that Liz sat at, as I hadn’t had the opportunity to pick up mine. Silently, I sat down next to her and opened a book.

 

7.

It took weeks of tutoring sessions before Liz and I had a proper conversation, and in that time things had gotten a lot worse between Lela, Sumitra and I. As time went on, I felt them pull farther and farther away from me. Our friendship had always been rocky, and with me disappearing every day to a remote corner of the compound and returning without a word of what had transpired, things were worse than ever. If I was honest, we weren’t really very well suited as friends anyway; Lela was a sweet girl, but she preferred to float through life without thinking too deeply about anything, and Sumitra may have been incredibly clever, but we never really seemed to be on the same wavelength.

In contrast, Liz and I constantly seemed to be on the same page during the schoolwork that we were doing. When I tried to explain an issue I had learnt in class, I often found that Liz had thought through the problem in a similar way that I had, and had come to the same conclusions as me. She was witty and intelligent, and far more academically gifted than she had ever let on before she had run away, so much so that I often found that she was actually ahead of me in the classwork, despite not having been to a single lesson.

Strangely enough however, was the fact that even though she was clearly far ahead of quite a few girls in our year, Liz still showed no signs of ever being integrated back into regular classes. Not that I was complaining, for although we had yet to speak outside of classwork, the tutoring sessions with Liz were still fast becoming the highlight of my day. Still, I just couldn’t understand it.

8.

One day, the curiosity got the better of me. I hadn’t wanted to be the first to break our “silence” and talk about something other than lessons, but I had to know.

“Liz?” I asked, and she raised her head from the Society Ethics book that she was studying to look up at me.

“You’re clearly far ahead of most of our year,” I started, and I noticed that Liz’s normally carefully controlled expression had slipped slightly, showing her evident pride when I mentioned her academic ability, “so why haven’t you been put back into normal classes? Surely these tutor sessions aren’t really needed? Not that I mind, of course…” I studied her face anxiously, worried that I had somehow insulted her, or ruined the bond that had slowly been growing between us.

Suddenly, Liz sat up, abandoning the textbook she had been reading completely, and looked at me. There was a playful light in her eye, and she looked more animated than I had seen her since before she had run away. She smiled widely.

“Gee!” She said, clearly trying not to laugh, “You took your time! I thought you were never going to talk to me like a human being!”

I was shocked by this sudden change in her attitude. Whatever I had thought Liz was going to say, this sure wasn’t it. My mouth opened and closed uselessly, a hundred different questions on my tongue.

“W-w-what do you mean?!” I asked, in a state of utter confusion, but she held up her hand to silence me.

“It doesn’t matter”, she laughed. “I’ve just been waiting a long time for this. You said you wanted to know why these sessions are still going on?” Shyly, I nodded. I may not have known what had sparked this sudden change in her demeanour, but at least I could solve one mystery before I worried about the many other conundrums that seemed to come along with Elizabeth Reynolds.

“Well,” she said, smiling broadly, “you may find me to be pretty good at this schoolwork stuff,” she gestured to the books, “but somehow, whenever the Authorities try to test my progress, I seem to suddenly forget everything I’ve learnt! It’s so strange!” Her tone had become one of exaggerated innocence, and when her eye slid down in a wink I knew that she was joking. My eyes widened in surprise as I realised what she was implying.

“You mean,” I whispered, shocked “that you throw the tests?! Why?!” I didn’t know what to say, it seemed crazy to me that anyone would hide their intelligence from the Authorities, for apparently no good reason. Then again, Liz did seem to do things that defied all explanation, I thought wonderingly, as my mind again travelled back to her escape and capture the previous month. Liz clearly had no intention of explaining her reasons for deliberately failing, and I knew better than to ask again. If Liz had wanted to tell me, she would have done so.

9.

Time passed, and Liz and I grew closer than ever. My years of obedience at JIRRACS had left me hesitant to rebel, but I gradually became more and more comfortable around her. Slowly but surely, we started studying less and chatting more (it wasn’t like Liz needed the tutoring anyway), for which I was grateful. We didn’t talk about anything particularly serious, and it did often seem like we were both carefully avoiding talking about Liz’s escape, but I began to open up to her, and I found myself really hoping that she would do the same. I told her anything that happened to be on my mind, and in return, she told me stories of the old tricks she would play, before her attempted escape. As my other friends began to pull away from me, I found myself turning to Liz for comfort and guidance. I wished that she would tell me about herself more, but I didn’t want to pry, for fear of ruining the friendship.

Contrary to what I had first thought when I met her at the first tutoring session, the proud, fiery Liz from before the escape was certainly not dead. The girl I sat with every day was nothing like the image her smooth uniform and strict bun put forward. She was proud and intelligent, with a strong sarcastic streak, and clearly had no real desire to comply with the JIRRACS aims for her. However, though it was pretty obvious to me that Liz was still every bit the untameable spitfire she had always been, it seemed that she went to great lengths to hide that side of her from the Authorities. Although she was still throwing the tests, Liz still seemed to be refraining from too much outward rebellion in her personal prison. Whether or not the Authorities suspected that Liz was more than she seemed, she certainly wasn’t giving them any proof.

After months of talks with Liz, carefully skirting away from anything that could possibly wreck our tentative bond, I began to feel the atmosphere during our talks change. Liz seemed restless and agitated, she would pace about her room like a caged tiger (a comparison I suppose was actually quite fitting, given the situation), with a faraway look in her eyes.  Talks of her tricks from when she was younger ceased altogether, and I found that my tales of problems with friends, schoolwork and suchlike were falling on deaf ears. Something was different with Liz, though she showed no signs of telling me, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what.

10.

Perhaps I had gone too long being in the dark, perhaps I had just reached the end of my tether, or perhaps it was Liz’s new, preoccupied manner that pushed me over the edge, but I had had enough.

It was a Friday in early December, and the JIRRACS grounds outside Liz’s one, small window were laden with snow. We were sitting at the desk in the corner of the room as per usual, our textbooks open, but otherwise ignored. As the annual End of Year Exams were coming up, for once Liz and I weren’t the only ones studying, and all around the campus the sound of the JIRRACS girls’ panicked scribbling could be heard as they studied for their tests. It was to be our last study session for a week, as the timetables changed during exams, and recreation hour was always the first thing to be cancelled for the test week. As we sat at the desk, the click-clack of Liz’s short, chewed fingernails was all that could be heard as she drummed them against the desk.

Finally, I snapped. Slamming my book against the desk, I rounded on her, struggling not to grimace in guilt as she jumped and stared at me with wide eyes, like a frightened rabbit.

“Okay!” I cried, “Are you going to tell me what’s up or not?”.

I could see Liz’s eyes studying my face, trying to gauge my emotion, but I kept my expression firm. Liz’s shoulders slumped. Looking at me with scared, guilty eyes, she muttered:

“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

I almost laughed aloud. “Hadn’t noticed”?! After all the time I’d spent in her room, getting to know her, picking up on her slightest habits and ticks? I raised my eyebrow, unable to convey exactly how naïve it was for her to hope I wouldn’t notice her agitation through words. Liz laughed bitterly, and nodded.

“Yes,” she sighed, “It was a bit much to hope. I guess I do owe you an explanation huh?”

Then finally, after months of keeping me in the dark, months of never opening up about anything, Liz began to speak. Her soft voice filled her room as she spun her tale. Afterwards, I almost wished she’d kept her secrets to herself.

11.

The frosty air was bitingly cold as I hurried from Liz’s room, my skirt flapping around my legs. Liz had talked for the full recreation hour - and then some - and now I was late for roll call. I marched briskly to the courtyard " the penalty for running was almost as bad as the one for tardiness " and tried my hardest to push away all thoughts of Liz’s story from my mind. The things she had told me about were ridiculous, I knew they were! Still, I simply couldn’t shake the image of Liz’s face as she told her story, shining with a kind of fiery passion that I hadn’t seen from her in a long time.

Together we had sat, and I had waited quietly while Liz had told me her story. I admit, when I asked her what was bothering her, I hadn’t expected the answer I got.

“I suppose we’d better start at the beginning” she’d told me, a faint smile on her lips.

 She had gone on to describe to me her childhood, before even the CEC had taken her in. She spoke of her parents, of the way they would dance with her, smile and laugh with her, and fill her life with the kind of love you simply didn’t see at JIRRACS. Her expression had morphed from a scared, guilty look to an adoring smile as she remembered them, but her face soon turned sour as her story went on.

“Rebels”. The word used officially to describe adults who refused to comply with the goals that the High Authorities set for them; adults who tried to leave their home country, who constantly flouted the law or " God forbid " spoke badly of the High Authorities. Girls at JIRRACS were always taught that they were dangerous to society, and the only fate that ever awaited them was life imprisonment, or execution. The word “rebel” was generally spoken in a hushed whisper, with fearful tones, but when Liz used it she spoke with a sarcastic air, as if the entire idea of rebels was ridiculous.

“Rebels.” She said. “That’s what they called my parents. You see, my mum and dad knew of a….. settlement, far out of the country, where people live without all the rules and regulations and fear that you get here. I don’t know how they found out about it, but when I was 5, they decided they had had enough with Society’s boundaries. The authorities had deemed them an “ill-matched couple”, because my dad came from a rich family, and my mum from a poor one, so they wouldn’t let them marry. Mum and dad weren’t having it, so they decided to leave.”

I sat, open-mouthed and gaping in shock as she told me of her parents’ plans to escape into the wild, and find a settlement to live in. I couldn’t believe it. I was talking to the daughter of rebels! Escaping to the wild was a ridiculous idea, everyone knew that, there was no way they could ever have succeeded! My panicked thoughts were proved right as Liz went on. She spoke of the way the laughter started to die in her house only a few months after the escape plans were formulated, and of the way her parents gradually stopped smiling and joking. She told me of the day the dancing stopped, and the way that, even at 5, she knew there was something badly wrong.

Then finally, she came to the day her parents had been caught.

“I don’t know how the Authorities found out,” She said bitterly, “but my house was raided one night, and my parents…. They were shot dead in front of me.”

I gasped in horror. Though I had been constantly reminded since a young age that execution was more than rebels deserved, the thought of Liz watching while her parents’ life bled out from them was too horrific to handle. I was suddenly very glad that my parents had been strict, law-abiding citizens.

Even as I was thinking this, Liz was continuing with her story. She spoke of her immediate move to the YCFE, a year earlier than was customary, and of her problems settling in. I listened in quiet wonder to her tales of rebellion from a young age, and of her long-harboured hatred of the Authorities (I stifled a gasp at that part and looked around nervously " though I knew we weren’t being overheard " for such talk was enough to keep a girl from ever graduating!) for her parents’ deaths, and of the way she had constantly plotted to escape from the country that she held responsible for killing her mum and dad. After almost an hour of non-stop speaking, Liz finally got to her escape from JIRRACS, nearly six months before the conversation we were having.

“The settlement that my parents were looking for exists! The Authorities always told me that my parents were deluded, and I nearly believed them, but I found out the truth. It’s far out into the wilds, too far for anyone to get to without help, but there’s a party that comes twice a year, and picks up escapees! If you know the right people to ask, they’ll take you far away from this hellhole, and into a new life!” Her eyes shone with excitement.

Somehow, I decided I didn’t want to know how she had found all this out. Our talk was getting majorly dangerous, and I began to squirm in my seat, nervous. Liz didn’t notice, or if she did, she chose to ignore it. Speaking softly, she described the way that, on June 28^th the year before, she had snuck out of her dorm, intending to leave JIRRACS behind once and for all.

She laughed sadly.

“I didn’t make it 5 minutes.”

The Deputy. I had always thought that the man had an uncanny ability to know things that nobody else did, and of course, he had heard all about Liz’s scheme. Liz shuddered as she described her absolute terror when the Deputy had laid his hand on her shoulder, ready to march her back to JIRRACS. Even I felt a little ill as she recounted the way that he had ignored her desperate tears, his face completely expressionless.

For a second, Liz looked as if she was about to say more, then she closed her mouth resolutely. Starting again, she chuckled.

“And then came the ‘tutoring sessions’ with you. The Authorities wanted you to be a ‘positive influence’ on me, so I was naturally all set for making your life as difficult as possible, but I’ll admit, when you walked through my door I was intrigued.”

I was baffled. “Intrigued?” I asked, “Why?”

Liz looked me up and down, as if deciding what to say. Finally, she smiled at me.

“You were scared.”

I must have looked confused, because she decided to elaborate.

“The Deputy had asked you to do something, for the good of the Society, yeah?” I nodded, unsure of where she was going with this.

“Well, any other girl would have been completely confident, maybe even excited that the Authorities were asking her to do something. They would have trusted the Authorities completely, but you didn’t! You were nervous. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it showed to me that you didn’t really trust the Society, whether you thought you did or not. I hoped that, given time, you could become a good friend to me. Apparently, once we started talking, you proved me right.” She grinned shyly.

Now I knew Liz was talking rubbish. Of course I trusted the Authorities completely! She was just making things up, to confuse me, that was it! This was what happened when you mixed with the daughter of rebels! I needed to get out, I knew I did, but I had to know something first. Struggling to keep in my anger, I asked through clenched teeth. - “Well that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t explain why you’re so very anxious now?”

Liz sighed slightly.

“Maya, don’t you see? The party from the settlement in the wild only comes around every 6 months, the next one is 2 weeks away, and if I can’t get to them then I’m going to be stuck at JIRRACS and in this awful Society for another half-year! I didn’t want to ask, but you’ve got to help me. I can’t escape from this place alone, not with all this extra security. Now you see why I needed to throw the tests, I need you! Please!” Her voice was rising in desperation as she saw the panicked look on my face.

 Liz wanted me to help her escape!? It was ludicrous, and wrong, and it would never work! First the accusation of me not trusting the Authorities, and now this?! Liz may have been a rebel in the making, but I certainly wasn’t. Besides, what was so bad about our Society anyway? I needed to get out of her room before she ruined everything. Glancing down at my watch, I jumped up in alarm as I saw that I was already 10 minutes late for roll-call. Liz had been speaking for at least an hour.

Standing up, I stumbled away from the desk, and from Liz herself. I needed to get to roll call, then take the first opportunity I found to tell somebody all about Liz’s plans. With a barely audible mutter of    “I " I " I have to go!” I ran from her room, and into the cold air of the corridor, leaving a dejected Liz sitting alone at her desk.

12.

When I reached the courtyard that roll call was held in, something made me stop. Maybe it was fear of my inevitable punishment, or maybe some kind of hidden instinct, but I paused. Hiding behind a pillar, I had a clear view of my year as they stood to attention before Form Master Richards, who was calling out the roll.

“Maya Richards!” He called, looking down at his scroll of names, but his cry was met with silence. Finally, he looked up, confused. I couldn’t blame him for his puzzlement; I had never missed a roll call in my life. Finally, the slightly annoyed voice of Sumitra rang out into the silence.

“She’s probably with that Elizabeth Reynolds still, too good to go to roll-call like the rest of us!”

A murmur broke out amongst the girls, and one called out “She’s been studying with her for an awfully long time, hasn’t she?”

Form Master Richards held up his hand, and the girls immediately fell silent.

“Come now, girls.” he said. “You all saw what Liz looked like when she was brought back to our facility. She was all but feral, it’s no wonder she needs so much time and help to get back on her feet. Let’s think, if only 3 weeks in the wild can reduce a girl to the state she was in back then, we must all be thankful for the security and protection that JIRRACS gives us! Now back to roll call!”

He looked back to his scroll, all business once more. I stumbled backwards, reeling in shock, all thoughts of roll call forgotten.

3 weeks.

Liz had been gone for 3 weeks.

My mind spun with a thousand questions. If Liz had been gone for 3 weeks, why did she tell me she was caught after 5 minutes? Was she lying, or did something else happen during the time she had disappeared? Certainly nothing in the story that she had told me really explained her shell-shocked, broken demeanour when she had appeared on the courtyard stage so many months ago…

Not even considering the penalties for missing roll call, I stumbled through the corridors and into my dorm room. The other girls weren’t due back for another hour. I collapsed onto my bed, unable to think anymore.

13.

I went through the following week in a daze. After I missed out on roll-call, the group of girls pulling away from me grew from just Sumitra and Lela, to most of my year. I admit that I didn’t really help matters, as I was far too preoccupied with finding out what had really happened to Liz to bother with being sociable. I’m sure my Form Masters noticed that I had barely said 2 words to anyone all week, and that I was zoning out in classes, but nothing was said. I was so out of it that I was fairly sure I failed every End of Year Exam that I took, sometimes handing in test papers with absolutely no answers written in!  My lack of attention in lessons, coupled with my skipping roll-call, would almost certainly result in my name taking a place on the Discipline Day list in a fortnight, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was the upcoming Friday, and finding out the truth.

After what seemed like forever, my appointment with Liz finally came around, and when the time came, it was all I could do not to race to Liz’s room as fast as my legs would carry me. No matter how desperate I was to find out the truth, if I started running the chances are I would be stopped by a Form Master, and I was still thinking clearly enough to accept that that would just waste more time.

I unlocked the door and entered the room nervously. Liz turned to face me, the relief obvious on her face. It was clear that she’d been terrified that I wasn’t going to come. I felt a small pang of guilt for putting someone who I had thought my friend through such worry with my dramatic storm-out the week before, but I quickly pushed it aside. This visit wasn’t about friendship, it was about answers.

“Elizabeth.” I said, keeping my voice formal. I felt a little silly using her full name, as she had always been simply Liz to me, but I felt I needed to show that I meant business. Quickly, without giving Liz the space to interrupt, I explained all that I had remembered the week before, and my confusion when I realised that Liz’s story didn’t match the events that I remembered.

“What happened to you, Liz? What made you look so scared when you stood on the stage? And why did you lie to me last week, were you trying to soften me up so that I’d help you escape?”

The questions tumbled from my lips before I could stop them, but I knew they had to be asked anyway. I looked Liz over, searching for an answer in her expression, and was surprised to see that she was smiling, though her deep green were filled with sadness.

“Maya, just, shush for a second, will you?” She said, looking almost amused. Sighing in resignation, she looked me in the eye, and began;

“Everything I told you last week was true, I promise.”

I opened my mouth to object, and to again point out that her story clearly didn’t match up with what happened, but Liz silenced me with a look.

“I said everything I told you was true, not that I told you everything.” She smirked, a faint light of humour present in her eyes, but it was gone as soon as it came.

“I’m sorry for not telling you everything before, I really am.” She did look sincerely guilty, to be fair.

“It’s just, you’ve always done what you’re told, and you’ve always had the protection of the Authorities. You’ve never been on the wrong side of their anger. I know I’m asking you to turn your back on everything you’ve ever learnt and help me escape " I guess I’m just a big hypocrite " but I always loved that naivety about you, and I didn’t want to ruin  your innocence by telling you the rest of the story. Does that make any sense?”

I shook my head, angry, but amused at the same time. It was ludicrous. Here Liz was, trying to get me to disobey the High Authorities and go against Society in a way that would get any adult killed immediately, and she was trying to protect my innocence?! It was all I could do not to laugh aloud. Sure, it was quite sweet of her to try, but in the current situation anyone could see that she was being ridiculous.

“Liz, I think I’ll decide what’s too much for me and what’s not. I’m not saying I’m even thinking about helping you, I think your entire plan is crazy " “ Liz’s face fell, but I stood my ground and pushed on. “- but I want to know the full story. After all that’s happened, you owe me at least that much. Tell me.

Liz’s face, full of guilt and indecision before I started speaking, was now set in determined lines.

“Okay,” she said, “but you have to know, I’m telling the truth here. Everything I’ve told you, and everything that I’m about to tell you, it’s all true. I know you think I’m just trying to get you to help me, but I promise that’s not right. I want you to know the full story. Trust me.”

14.

I nodded hesitantly, and Liz almost grinned in relief. Then, the smile fading from her face, she reached up and pulled off her jumper. Watching my expression carefully, she stood up, now wearing just a thin, short-sleeved shirt, her arms bare. Jagged white lines ran along her upper arms - starting just above her elbows " and disappeared beneath her shirt sleeves. Scars.  Now thin and pale, the marks on Liz’s arms were clearly remnants of  seriously deep wounds, possibly life threatening. I didn’t know what could possibly have caused them. Bile rose in my throat as I stared in horror at Liz. My mouth opened and closed uselessly. Liz smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“What I told you was true. When I tried to escape I was caught within minutes, but that wasn’t enough for the Authorities. When I was brought up onstage at that Discipline Day, what was it the High Head said?”
The memory of that afternoon, so very long ago, was clear in my mind.

“He said; ‘I want to make an example of Miss Reynolds.’” I gulped, understanding.

Liz nodded, knowing that I had caught on.

“You get it then; the Authorities wanted to scare the girls at JIRRACS. They needed me to look traumatised, so no other girl would dare try to escape! I wasn’t about to act for them, so they took matters into their own hands.”

I staggered over to a chair, sitting down before I fell on something.

“I spent 3 weeks underground, as they broke me down. They weren’t in a hurry. Half the time, I almost thought they were enjoying my pain…. The High Head himself was responsible for this one.”

She pointed to one of the thickest scars, on her left arm.

“They stretch all the way down my back….. Maya, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you this, but you have to see now. I can’t stay here! If I miss the pickup next week then I’m stuck here for another 6 months! Every time I see the people in this place I have to relive the torture they put me through. Don’t you see why I need to escape?”

Her face was desperate, her eyes pleading with me.

Hesitantly, I nodded. I had come to Liz’s room searching for answers, completely ready to find out what I wanted to know, then turn Liz in to the Authorities. I had thought Liz’s escape plans were ridiculous, a danger to Society. I thought that she was a rebel in the making, and deserved whatever punishment she got. I had tried to push aside my instincts " the ones that were screaming at me to trust Liz, and to see the Authorities for what they were; vile, inhumane creatures - and to follow what I had always been taught, but this was too much. As I looked into Liz’s eyes, I saw the pain there, the desperation, and I knew she was telling the truth.

Torture - The tool of the crazed and the angry, the evil and the cruel. Form Master Richards had often taught us that rebels liked to torment anybody that they suspected of sympathising with the Society aims. He told us that rebels used it because they were everything our Society wasn’t - evil and deranged, yet all the time the Authorities had been torturing a teenage girl, and probably others, for their own needs! Rebels weren’t evil; they were just people desperately trying to escape from the true villains " The Authorities.

Rising from my chair, I walked slowly towards Liz, my arms wide. As we fell into a tight embrace, each clinging to the other for strength, I said the words that would seal our fate forever;

“Yes.” I said firmly, almost as much to myself as to Liz. “Yes. I’ll help you.”

 

 

 

Author's Note

I would love people to review this, and tell me what they think, if you have the time or can be bothered! You don't even have to read it all if you don't want to, perhaps you could read a part of it, tell me what bit you read, and tell me what you thought of it!
I would also really appreciate ideas for how to continue? :D