Resistance Will Not Be Tolerated by carpe.lucem (smallest ebook reader .TXT) 📖

“Wait!”
The hustle and bustle of books being shoved into well-worn rucksacks, shouted excuses at exasperated teachers and the cheerful chatter of liberated students reached its peak at four in the afternoon, when the bell out its punctually shrill ring.
“Hey, wait up!” I shouted in vain over the rising clamour of voices and laughter. I pushed past a group of second years wearing more make-up than clothes, throwing them an apologetic smile which was answered with a dozen death stares. “Hey!” I gasped, a note of irritation in my voice at the girl who was looking up at me innocently - as though she hadn’t agreed to wait for me while I asked Mr Matthews about the last question of the algebra homework. I looked at her pointedly as we stopped at our lockers. And with a look of such convincing realisation, that would have fooled anyone except me, she gushed, “Oh, so sorry Tab…completely slipped my mind…” then she gabbled something unintelligible about her latest object of adoration, Justin something. I didn’t bother to pay attention as she described with excruciating detail how he’d smiled at her as he walked past her standing waiting for me, and how she couldn’t help but walk alongside him. Elsa always had to have a boy (or a girl, on one occasion) whom she was hopeless in love with. She’d wait outside their classes, memorise their timetables, even push and shove to just be behind them in the lunch queue. Some may call this stalking, but Elsa always referred to it as an ‘in-depth study’ of her future spouse. These infatuations never lasted, so I felt no obligation to listen as she re-enacted Justin collecting his work then looking ‘flirtatiously’ at her as he returned to his seat.
I knew for a fact that this particular Justin had been seen sneaking behind the eco-classroom with Maisie Kingsford during lunch, but I wasn’t about to break through Elsa’s incessant monologue any time soon and the tears that would be sure to follow weren’t worth my trouble.
“…well Eliza said he did anyway, but how would she know?” she droned as we walked through the gates onto the bustling street that joined onto Northridge. “What do you think, Tab?”
“Hmm?” I turned to Elsa in surprise. Usually she was satisfied with my standard-issue “yeah” or “absolutely”, but it was obvious from the look on her face Elsa was not going to accept anything short of five syllables as an answer this time.
“Well, do you think Justin has a tattoo of a skull on his chest or not?” I breathed out in relief as the moment passed and I fobbed her off with a rumour I had heard that actually it was a treasure chest on his inner thigh.
It was something of a breath of fresh air as I reached the end of my road, where Elsa and I went our separate ways every afternoon. I turned the handle of our faded red front door as quietly as I could – there was always a chance Dad was sleeping. He slept a lot nowadays, because of his bad leg. Mum said he was just tired, but I knew there was something wrong with it. He used to just have a battered old walking stick, but now he used full-on crutches and even then only when he got out of bed.
I needn’t have worried though, because as I slipped inside into the hall I could hear the tinny sound of the television and knew it must be Dad, because he was the only one allowed to use the TV in the study. I hung up my coat on the hat stand George had made in DT and climbed the stairs to my bedroom, carefully avoiding the sixth step up, as we were all convinced the next time anyone trod on it their foot would punch a hole right through the staircase into the downstairs bathroom.
“Tabatha?” My mum’s voice called up from the kitchen. I could smell some kind of casserole cooking in the oven. I dumped my bag on my bed and ran down to help, as George wouldn’t and Dad couldn’t. “Good day, darling?” Mum asked as I began laying the small wooden table where we ate every meal. But something wasn’t right – I glanced up from the cutlery draw. Her voice seemed taught and as I looked closer I could see the tell-tale red blotch underneath her nose that always appeared whenever she had been crying. I chose not to say anything. Mother hated it when I pointed out any weakness, either physical or financial, within the family. Even if I had, the false jolliness afterwards would set us all on edge and that wasn’t worth it, especially with Dad being ill and all.
“S’up, nerd?” smirked George, striding into the kitchen and unnecessarily jolting my arm, causing boiling hot casserole to slop onto my wrist. I gasped in pain, and ran over to the tap to run my hand under the cold water. Typically, the cold tap was only letting out a few drips at a time, so I had to settle with the lukewarm hot water. Mum, unfortunately, had been too preoccupied with slicing the carrots to notice the incident. I scowled at George, who gave me an inquiring grin before smirking at my now raw-red wrist.
“George, go and fetch your father will you?” Mum asked George, who pulled himself out of his chair with a groan and went next door into the study to extract Dad from the TV. It was a good five minutes until Dad limped into the room and lowered himself carefully into his place at the table. Mum looked at him sternly, and he muttered something about presidential debates and a new chancellor. Fortunately for us, she said nothing more and we sat down to eat.
“You two should really pay more attention to this kind of thing,” Dad remarked through a mouthful of casserole, waving his fork at us.
“What, Dad?” I asked in an attempt to draw him into conversation. George rolled his eyes at me in a patronising way, like he did every time I seemed more interested than perhaps necessary.
“The debates! The debates…” he mumbled whilst sawing through a particularly tough piece of lamb. “These debates will lead to the next leader of the country could change everything, and you young people seem to have no interest whatsoever.
“Change everything?” I frowned, but George had picked up on another part of his sentence and cut in with; “We’re not that young, Dad,” he said reproachfully, “I’m turning seventeen next month, I’ll be able to drive!”
“Yes, yes, so you are...” muttered Dad, seemingly losing his train of thought.
“The debates?” I prompted. It wasn’t often I wasn’t up to date with currents affairs, and this mention of debates I hadn’t heard about in the news alarmed me. What if a teacher mentioned them in class, and I had no idea what they were talking about?
“Yes…it’s all been kept rather quiet, not much publicity. It’s quite a last minute thing…Lyle wasn’t an original candidate, you see, but he made an application a couple of weeks ago and it turns out he’s a rather gifted speaker…can turn a hall of cattle farmers into a mob of raging nationalists with a few words, is what I’ve heard. Hugely exaggerated I imagine…not possible…simply unheard of…” My father’s explanation faded out as he forced an enormous forkful of stew into his mouth and chewed frantically on the stringy meat. Mother always said he ate as though he never knew where the next meal was coming from.
“So you reckon Brady will be re-elected again this year?” I asked curiously. I hadn’t heard a thing about this Lyle, and it intrigued me.
“I imagine so…” shrugged Dad, wiping his mouth with a piece of kitchen paper. “But Lyle is saying all the right things, I’ll give him that. He’s accusing Brady and the Roses of leading us into the depression two years ago, and there’s not much anyone can say to defend them.” He shrugged again and asked George for the salt, before turning to me. “Why the sudden interest in politics, anyway?” he asked suspiciously. I felt my cheeks turning red. I wasn’t ready to tell my parents my plans, not yet.
“Just curious,” I smiled innocently.
George raised an eyebrow at me from across the table, and with a spiteful smile said loudly, “Tabatha fancies herself applying –,” but before he could finish the sentence I kicked out from under the table, aiming for his shin opposite me. But it wasn’t George’s howl of pain that echoed out around the kitchen. I had kicked Dad’s bad leg by mistake.
I jumped up, guilt turning me brick red. “I’m so sorry!” I yelped clutching my father’s arm as though that would take his pain away. He looked up at me, wincing as he did.
“It’s alri-,”
“What on earth was that for?” snapped Mother, leaping up and fussing over my father, brushing away my white hand and pushing me away from him, cutting Dad off in mid-sentence.
“I didn’t mean –,” I began to explain that I hadn’t meant to kick Dad, that actually it had been George who was my target, before I realised this would mean telling Mum and Dad what George had been trying to say. “It was an accident,” I finished weakly, hoping this way everything would be forgotten.
“Accident my hat!” scorned Mum. “I could feel it going -,” then she stopped suddenly in the middle of her scolding, and slumped lifelessly in her chair, all the anger leaving her at once. “Just go and do your homework,” she sighed heavily, heaving herself back up to fetch Dad a pack of cold peas for his leg. As I left I saw a smug smile flash across George’s face, before he turned it into a smile of sympathy for Dad. I breathed out in irritation, and trudged upstairs ready to immerse myself in historical dates and algebraic equations.
However, before I opened my textbooks, I reached under my mattress and pulled out the single piece of paper that could change everything for me. It was creased and torn from the many times it had been shoved hurriedly under my pillow, and smudged with pencil marks and dirty finger prints, but the text was still legible. It was a scholarship application form to Stonewall, a private school on the other side of town, because why would anyone with any cash in their pockets choose to live in the Northridge District, where knife crime was commonplace and not being mugged after eight was a miracle? I needed to get out of here, I was meant for more than this. And this piece of paper was my one way ticket to success.