I Am Not A Number – Lisa Heathfield

I want to tell him about the general’s office and everything I’ve seen. ‘Were you any good?’ Luke asks. ‘No. It was odd.’ Destiny’s head appears next to him and I try to keep my smile in place as a stone falls heavy in my stomach. Jealousy is definitely an emotion I need to work on.

‘Are you going to join us?’ Destiny asks, wriggling out her whole body and standing up. I glance at the red material on her arm, where she’s tucked her number underneath. ‘You’re breaking the den,’ a boy squeals, as he rushes to the back and holds it steady. ‘It doesn’t look like there’s room for three.’ As soon as I say it I know how it sounds. ‘Always room for you,’ Luke says, jumping up and leaning in to kiss me. I don’t really let him and I can’t tell whether it’s because of Destiny, or because I still haven’t brushed my teeth since I came to the camp.

It’s stupid as all I really want to do is spend the entire day with his arms round me. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Want to come under the sheet, then?’ It’s that smile. It somehow puts everything right. He should be the one who’s in charge of the country – everyone would just melt and do whatever he asked. ‘Alone?’ I ask. ‘Alone,’ Luke says, taking my hand. ‘I have to take this beautiful girl into the den,’ he tells the watching children.

‘To explain a special mission to her.’ ‘Can we go too?’ I hear a boy ask. ‘In a minute.’ There’s not much space, but it’s enough to hide both of us inside. Immediately, Luke’s lips are on mine, but I push him away. ‘What were you doing in here with Destiny?’ I ask him.

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2019 Lisa Heathfield The moral rights of the author have been asserted First e-book edition 2019 ISBN 978 1 4052 9386 0 Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1869 1 www.egmont.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children.

We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet. Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers. OceanofPDF.com For my brother and sisters Philip, Lara, Emma and Anna – for choosing hope and love as your weapons of choice. OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN SIX MONTHS LATER AUTHOR’S NOTE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OceanofPDF.com They say I am number 276.

And that I can’t escape. They tell me what to do, what to wear, where to go. They try hard to hollow us out, to shrink us, to make us so that we can’t exist. But they don’t see inside of me. The part of me that they’ll never destroy. They call me number 276, but that’s not my name. My name is Ruby West. I am fifteen years old. And I won’t let them silence me. OceanofPDF.com CHAPTER ONE ‘Our country was sinking into a black hole, but you voted for us to save you.

We will re-establish order and we will make you safe. We will make our country strong again.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party It’s his gun I see first. Hard metal tucked into his belt, his fingers touching the tip. A soldier, in our street. I’m behind him now, a few metres away. Close enough to see how his green uniform has been ironed with a line down the back, like some weird backbone pushing through the material.

And there’s the red slash on his arm to show us he’s a Traditional. As if we didn’t know. His boots are big, but they’re quiet on the pavement. He’s quiet. And he’s walking so slowly that I have to go past him. He turns and looks at me as I do, but I keep facing straight ahead.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 20a979837174c591
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,796,610 bytes (1.713 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781405293860, 9781780318691
• Pages: 221
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 396.2 minutes
• Total Words: 79,241
• Total Characters: 410,599
• Average Words per Page: 358.56
• Average Characters per Page: 1857.91

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