The Territory Read Online Free

returned to normal, his body stiffened and he unplugged.
    ‘Test me on something,’ he commanded.
    ‘What percentage of people in the Wetlands die from malaria?’ I asked.
    ‘Eighty-four per cent,’ he fired back.
    I nodded.
    ‘Great – always like to check the upload worked,’ he said smugly and then opened up a comic on his Scribe.
    Jane the Pain put her head round the door at 7pm to ‘see how we were doing’. She congratulated Charles for having finished his homework (yeah right – well done for sitting still and twitching for two minutes) and looked at me with pity again, as if I were some sort of special case denser for still studying.
    When I got home I shut myself in the bathroom and used Dad’s shaving mirror to look at the back of my neck. There are the bumps of the vertebrae, some downy fair hair and three moles. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have two holes there instead. Plugging a lead into your body. Would it be uncomfortable? Would it get hot when the electricity flowed? It just seems so sick. I feel ill if I do something as supposedly harmless as use my fingernail to clean inside my ears. I always visualise it getting stuck or my hand somehow slipping and it accidentally getting rammed into my brain.
    One of my moles seems a bit raised. I hope it doesn’t grow a hair. Ms Jones has a hairy mole on the left side of her face, just under her ear, and it’s reek.

    History is just a massive bunch of lies.
    It was the twenty-third Anniversary of the Territory today so normal lessons were suspended and we just did History all day.
    It kicked off, as it always does, with a ridiculously long assembly. We had to sing the anthem and listen to Mr Daniels droning on about strength in adversity and the birth of our ‘Glorious Territory’ blah de blah de blah. I’m surprised they didn’t make us wave flags or something equally malc.
    I can recite the official version of f by heart I’ve heard it so many times. Daisy can too. We once paraded around her bedroom wearing sheets tied round our necks reciting it in loud voices. Thinking back now I’m not sure what the sheets were for. Some kind of superhero cape? ‘Territory Man to the Rescue!’
    Anyway here it goes:
    ‘After the Great Floods, over half of the world’s land mass, including that of Old Britain was under saltwater. The south of Old Britain was submerged and the flooded eastern areas, now known as the Wetlands, became uninhabitable. The soil was saturated with salt so no crops could grow and any remaining freshwater became a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitoes. Everyone in Old Britain moved to the central dry land now known as the Territory, but there wasn’t enough land to support and feed the existing population. These were the Dark Days. War and famine raged. Then came a new era of peace. The new government, the Ministry, recognised that limited space requires limited numbers. It was imperative for the survival of mankind that the best minds stay in the Territory. Therefore on 1 June 2036 the Fence was built and it was determined that all future children sit a Territorial Allocation Assessment in the summer of their fifteenth year. Those that pass may remain in the Territory, but those that fail will be detained and resettled in the Wetlands. The test is fair as it applies equally to all children regardless of colour, background or creed.’
    Then the whole assembly has to join in: ‘Limited space requires limited numbers. Difficult situations require difficult decisions.’
    I made sure I was sitting next to Jack and Daisy. Us Norms have to stick together on Territory Day, just to make sure none of us reacts. Which is hard. Very hard.
    This is what they never say in Assembly:
    It’s massively unfair that the adults didn’t have to sit the TAA. Do you really think they would have voted for it if they had? And now it’s too late. ’Cos no one gets to vote anymore. And to start with, the TAA supposedly wasn’t