One of Us by Jeannie Waudby Page B

Institute. There she is, next to the last of the cars parked roughly up the grass verge. She is standing beside her bike, hesitating, because of the noise coming from the direction of the Institute: the shouting and chanting and glass smashing. Come on, Serafina, turn around!
    I keep on running. I’m too far away to shout. We’re on the wrong side of the perimeter fence. I think of the graffiti outside the gate, and now this. Maybe it happens all the time. No wonder they have such heavy security.
    Serafina begins pushing her bike slowly toward the last bend, then stops again.
    Now we can both see the mob at the gates in front of the bikes, cars, and minibus. So many people crammed into so few vehicles. The chanting sounds like hundreds: “Hoods! Hoods! Murderers!” They are rattling the outer gate, and some of them are assaulting it with crowbars. Others lob bottles over the top. An alarm rings frantically. Where are the police? Huge, dripping red letters already cover the walls—more graffiti. Any moment someone will turn around and see us, Brotherhood girls alone on the wrong side of the wall.
    Serafina turns and sees me at last. Her face is rigid with fear.
    â€œSerafina.” I grab her arm as I reach her. “Go back! Quick!”
    She nods and starts to maneuver her bike around to face downhill, her hands clumsy with terror. That’s when some of the protestors see us. In their dark pants and jackets they look as if they’re in uniform. More faces turn to look, and they all wear the same expression. It’s half revulsion and half a kind of angry joy, because they’ve come here for a target and Serafina has given them one. It makes them all look the same: parts of the crowd rather than individual people.
    â€œHoods!”
    Then more voices, a chorus of voices. “Hoods! Hoods!”
    A stone whizzes through the air and hits Serafina’s bike.
    In spite of the danger we’re in, I feel anger surging up through me. What did she ever do to them? A bit of me wants to pick up the stone and hurl it back. They’re as bad as the Brotherhood!
    Serafina has straddled her bike. “Get on the back!” she shouts.
    I clamber onto the crate rack, sidesaddle because of my long skirt, and we begin to wobble down the hill. We start to build up speed. If we can get around the corner, maybe we’ll be able to hide in the bushes until they’ve gone. I cling onto the rack with my fingers. Behind us, footsteps and shouts thud down the road.
    We’re almost at the place where Oskar waited for me. The bike is whirling down now, faster with my extra weight. I lean toward Serafina’s ear to tell her to turn to the left, when something shoots over me and smashes into Serafina’s head. Glass shatters into the road. The bike wheel twists sickeningly to the left as Serafina slumps sideways. Then we’re falling, the bikeskidding away from under us. The road rushes up to meet me.
    I can’t move straight away. When I can, I sit up and look behind me for Serafina. She’s lying on the ground with her head in a hawthorn bush and her hair over her face. A thin line of blood trickles down her neck. From up the road comes the buzz of a motorbike.
    Oskar!
    But it’s coming from the Institute gates—the wrong direction. I don’t even have time to stand up before the motorbike appears and swerves around to stop several feet away from the twisted bicycle. Serafina lies still. I kneel in front of her, hoping they won’t see her.
    The black-clad passenger on the back of the motorbike climbs off. It’s a woman. She laughs an expectant, excited little laugh, which is much worse than the cry of “Hoods!” Her head turns toward me, eyes invisible behind the darkened visor. Behind me a blackbird calls urgently in car-alarm rings. She takes a step toward us. Her boots are black leather with gleaming silver toe caps.
    I look up at the visor.