Chapter 24

Chapter 24

I received the summons to Mrs Prenton's office at afternoon registration. Rob was already there when I arrived and didn't look at me when I walked in. That was probably for the best – didn't want to give the impression we were in any way a unit, I suppose.

I stood next to him, both of us facing Mrs Prenton as she sat behind her huge wooden desk. Everything about her was just so. The coiffed hair. The two-piece suit. Blue, of course. Maggie Thatcher would be proud. The copy of Wildflowers was placed in the middle of the desk. Our handiwork was pretty good, if I do say so myself.

"I must be going mad," she said.

We both stared forwards.

"Or else you think I'm stupid."

I made sure to keep my face neutral. It was killing me; I craved approval, especially from anyone in authority, but I had to keep a poker face.

She flipped through the book. "This is a copy of 1984 by George Orwell."

"Like I said, I've never seen it before in my life," Rob replied.

She turned to me. "Jamie?"

"I didn't read it."

"Well, I know it wasn't this yesterday. So what do you think happened?"

We both shrugged in unison.

She gave an annoyed sigh. I could tell she wasn't buying this, but she was out of options. "OK, let's pretend for a moment that there were no shenanigans with this book since we last spoke. What seems odd to me, then, is that anyone would put a fake cover on this book, and that a parent would feel the need to contact the school because of the obscene content. That's quite the mystery, don't you think?"

Rob sniffed. "Is it a mystery? Isn't 1984 about totalitarianism, mass surveillance and censorship? I feel like a lot of people would hate those themes being laid bare, especially when there are so many parallels with where our world is heading at the moment."

"I'm not following, Robert." Mrs Prenton smiled – a dangerous sort of smile, like she was hoping he'd say too much and incriminate himself. I sort of hoped he'd shut up – we'd gotten away with it – for now. This wasn't the time to mess it up.

"I'm pretty sure there's a scene in the book where Winston has to remove references the Party don't approve of from a newspaper?"

"I believe there is," Mrs Prenton said.

Rob nodded. "Right. And in the context of the whole book, that's obviously portrayed as a bad thing."

"Yes, of course," she agreed, her smile still fixed in place.

"Removing information is a bad thing. A thing people do to maintain power, because you can only maintain power by controlling the narrative."

I was holding my breath. Rob was like a courtroom lawyer, and I was amazed Mrs Prenton didn't seem to see where this was heading. So, maybe Mrs C was right – people like Prenton were so convinced they were right, they couldn't even imagine that they might be wrong.

"The book serves as a warning, certainly."

"That controlling access to information is a way of maintaining power?"

"Absolutely."

Rob nodded, satisfied. He gave it just a beat, before: "So, how is that different to what the Conservative party did with section 28?"

Prenton closed and opened her eyes, as if her patience was waning. "What exactly are you saying here, Robert?"

"What he's saying," I jumped in, "is that maybe the person who put the fake cover on the copy of 1984 was making a point about censorship – a kind of protest if you will – and maybe the parent complained because they didn't appreciate the themes of the book and felt it didn't align with their own political viewpoint. I mean, most of the people around here vote Conservative, don't they?"

"And what does voting Conservative have to do with the events of 1984?"

"Nothing, I guess," Rob said. "One's about a totalitarian, fascist bunch of money-grabbing liars who are only out for themselves … and the other is a work of fiction."

Fuck's sake. Why was he determined to screw this up?

"You class your own father among all that, do you?" Prenton said, her fingers now steepled in front of her.

Rob shrugged.

"Well, you're both very pleased with yourselves, aren't you?" she said. "But don't for one minute think I'm not on to you, because I very much am. You can bleat all you want about censorship, but we don't allow books that promote homosexual lifestyles in the library for the same reason we don't allow books that promote being a Nazi – because they're damaging and dangerous. And I think you'll find, if you bother to read the newspapers, that the majority of people in this country agree." She leaned across her desk a little. "I will protect the students of this school from inappropriate material. And when I find out it was you who broke in here and swapped the book, you'll feel the full force of the law, because that will be classed as breaking and entering. Get to your classes."

"You have a death wish," I muttered to Rob as we paced down the corridor.

"You only just realized?"

I shook my head. "All that, and now you've as good as told her we did it."

"It's no fun if she doesn't know. She can't do anything about it. She has zero evidence."

I didn't understand him. On the one hand, he claimed to be scared of his dad, and desperate for no one to find out. On the other, he was happy to dice with death. He was like someone with a peanut allergy licking the chocolate of a Marathon bar (or Snickers, as we are now supposed to call them), and getting a weird thrill out of the fact that if they licked a bit too much, or the wrong bit, it could literally kill them. What the hell was that about?

He stopped and groaned as we approached the door of English. "Bollocks, I haven't got my pen with me, I'll have to—"

"I can lend you one."

He glanced at me, seeming almost reluctant. "OK, thanks."

I tried not to smile as I reached into my rucksack to fish one out. "Oh, also … thought you might like these." I handed him the tube of fruit Polos I'd got from the vending machine at the end of lunch. "I still feel bad for not bringing food," I explained.

He looked at the fruit Polos but didn't take them. "Jamie—"

"Have them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"We're not doing this. I know what you're doing, and we're not doing it."

I stared at him, then shoved the Polos into his unexpecting hands. "We're not doing anything, they're just fucking Polos, get over it."

I walked into the classroom.

Soundtrack: "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" – because of what I'm about to do, and because, actually, I'm no longer sure how much I care.

Ms Wilkins gives me back the essay I handed in late about themes in Wuthering Heights. It's an A+, even though it was late, and even though I know it's basically the same recycled garbage almost everyone else came up with. It's perfect. And just what I needed to do this.

And I tell her. I say, "I don't deserve this."

She stares at me.

And I go on: "I was thinking about Rob's angle, actually. And I think he's right. That book isn't about love. Well, maybe it is on the superficial level, but actually, yeah, it's about loss. It's about grief."

"I don't disagree it's an angle, Jamie," Ms Wilkins said. "The difference is, Rob copied his work from a study guide."

"You sure about that? And even if he did, what, mine's more original? Is it, though? Is it really? Or am I just recycling the same predictable points we've been coached to make to pass the exam? Because that's what this is, isn't it? A box-ticking exercise? You can pass the exam as long as your thoughts are considered to be the right thoughts."

"You can think what you like, as long as you don't copy someone else's words."

"But that's what we're all doing! Isn't that the point? We're told what to think anyway, we're told how to answer the questions. None of us are really being original, we're just parroting what we've been told to parrot. So what does it matter?"

I might – possibly – have got away with it, had I not added "it's bullshit" under my breath by way of an ineloquent finale. That landed me in detention.*

"What the hell are you playing at?" Beth hissed as we made our way out at the end of the lesson.

"I think I'm finally being real," I told her. "Do you hate it?"

"I'm … alarmed by it. Although I think I respect it."

I smiled. "Dan asked you out yet?"

"Um…" She blinked. I'd taken her by surprise with that question. "No. Not yet."

"Why don't you ask him?"

She stared at me.

"Take positive action." I shrugged. Then I spotted Rob hanging by the wall of the corridor, waiting for me. "I'll catch up with you later, OK?"

Beth followed my gaze to Rob, then looked back to me. "Yeah."

I waited until she'd gone, then walked up to him.

"All right, big balls, you've made your point," he said. "Whatever your point actually is."

I met his eyes but kept a poker face.

He cracked a smile, then checked the coast was clear. "I should be able to do Monday. How's eight o'clock in the car park behind Shop 'n' Save?"

That felt like an eternity, but I still grinned.

"Hm. That put a smile on your face." He rolled his eyes and turned. "Now you'd better get yourself to detention, you bad, bad boy."

*That's it. That's my equivalent of making crystal meth. I hope it raised your pulse as much as it did mine.