Noughts and Crosses Read Online Free Page A

down house with a lock on the front door and a little garden where we grow veggies.’ I opened both eyes. It never worked. I hesitated outside my house – if you could call it that. Every time I came back from Sephy’s, I flinched at the sight of the shack that was meant to be my home. Why couldn’t my family live in a house like Sephy’s? Why didn’t any nought I knew of live in a house like Sephy’s? Looking at our rundown hovel, Icould feel the usual burning, churning sensation begin to rise up inside me. My stomach tightened, my eyes began to narrow . . . So I forced myself to look away. Forced myself to look around at the oak and beech and chestnut trees that lined our street, lifting their branches up to the sky. I watched a solitary cloud slowdance above me, watched a swallow dart and soar without a care in the world.
    ‘Come on . . . you can do this . . . do this . . . do this . . .’ I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Steeling myself, I pushed open the front door and walked inside.
    ‘Where’ve you been, Callum? I was worried sick.’
    Mum launched in before I’d even closed the door behind me. There was no hall or passageway with rooms leading off it like in Sephy’s house. As soon as you opened our front door, there was our living room with its fifth-hand threadbare nylon carpet and its seventh-hand cloth sofa. The only thing in the room that was worth a damn was the oaken table. Years before, Dad had cut it and shaped it and carved the dragon’s leaf pattern into it, put it together and polished it himself. A lot of love and work had gone into that table. Sephy’s mother had once tried to buy it but Mum and Dad wouldn’t part with it.
    ‘Well? I’m waiting, Callum. Where were you?’ Mum repeated.
    I sat down at my place around the table and looked away from Mum. Dad wasn’t bothered about me – or anything else, for that matter. He was totally focused on his food. Jude, my seventeen-year-old brother, grinned knowingly at me. He’s a really irritating toad. I looked away from him as well.
    ‘He was with his dagger friend.’ Jude smirked.
    I scowled at him. ‘What dagger friend? If you don’t know what you’re talking about you should shut your mouth.’ Don’t you call my best friend that . . . Say that again and I’ll knock you flat . . .
    Jude could see what I was thinking because his smirk broadened. ‘What should I call her then? Your dagger what?’
    He never called them Crosses. They were always daggers .
    ‘Why don’t you go and get stuffed?!’
    ‘Callum, son, don’t talk to your brother like . . .’ Dad didn’t get any further.
    ‘Callum, were you with her again?’ Mum’s eyes took on a fierce, bitter gleam.
    ‘No, Mum. I went for a walk, that’s all.’
    ‘That had better be all.’ Mum banged down the dinner pan. Pasta sloshed over the sides and onto the table. Seconds later, Jude had whipped up the overspill and it was in his mouth!
    Astounded seconds ticked past as everyone at the table stared at Jude. He even had Lynette’s attention – and that was saying something. Not much brought my sister out of her mysterious world.
    ‘How come the only time you move faster than greased lightning is when food is involved?’ Mum said, her lips twitching somewhere between disgust and amusement.
    ‘It’s called incentive, Mum,’ Jude grinned.
    Amusement won. Mum started to laugh. ‘I’ll give you incentive, my lad!’
    And for once I was grateful to Jude for drawing attention away from what I’d been doing all afternoon. Iglanced around the table. Already Lynette was turning away, her head bowed as always, her attention on her lap – as always.
    ‘Hi, Lynny . . .’ I spoke softly to my big sister. She looked up and gave me the briefest of smiles before returning her gaze to her lap.
    My sister looks like me – the same brown hair, eyes the same shade of grey. Jude’s got black hair and brown eyes and looks like Mum. Lynny and I don’t look like Mum or