The Red Ribbon Read online

  Hunger got the better of me. I pulled the bread out from inside my dress and started nibbling the crust. Rose swallowed . . . then politely turned away. I chewed as quietly as I could. It was no use.

  “Here. Have some,” I said.

  “Me? Oh, I’m full,” she lied. “Couldn’t manage another mouthful.”

  “Don’t be stupid . . .”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  We munched together. The difference was, I picked and ate crumbs from the front of my dress. Rose acted all polite and swept them away.

  Next I contorted myself to take my stupid shoes off. Apart from the fact they gave me horrible bloated blisters, they were the closest thing I had to a pillow.

  Rose tilted her head, just like a squirrel testing a nut to see if it was sound or bad. “Can you hear rustling?”

  “It’s rats.”

  She shook her head. “Not rats, or bedbugs.”

  When I moved to get less uncomfortable she said, “It’s you! You’re rustling.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You are — you’re positively crackling.”

  “It’s your imagination.”

  “If you say so.”

  I scowled. “Who says rustling’s a crime? I can rustle as much as I like.”

  “Absolutely. But if I found out you’d taken one of the fashion magazines from the fitting room, someone else might too.”

  Red with embarrassment, I pulled the copy of Fashion Forecast Monthly out of my sleeve, where it had been rolled all day.

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “You know what They’ll do if They catch you with it?”

  I didn’t know precisely what the punishment would be; just that it would be bad.

  “Oh, come on — it’s just one magazine,” I blustered.

  “It’s still stealing.”

  “It’s called organizing here.”

  “It’s still stealing.”

  “So?”

  “Weren’t you taught that stealing’s wrong?”

  I almost laughed out loud at that. Of course I knew stealing was wrong. I never took a single penny of Grandad’s tobacco money on my way to the shop. I never pilfered so much as a spool of thread from Grandma’s sewing box. There was one time she caught me with her purse and she gave me a monster lecture on respecting people’s property, even though I tried to tell her I just wanted to play with it. That was true. It was a big leather crocodile of a purse with snap fasteners on the outside, gut-red lining, and a rusty zip on the change pocket. Crocodiles were fast, tough, and capable of eating anything.

  I said, “They stole everything off me when I got here. That was wrong too. Anyway, are you going to tell on me?”

  “Of course not!” Rose said scornfully. There was a pause, before she asked in her oh-so-upper-class accent, “Aren’t you going to look at it before you give it back?”

  “If I give it back.”

  I passed Rose the magazine. She stroked the front cover. “My mama used to despair at my reading this rag, as she called it. Said I’d be better off reading good books, or writing my own.”

  “Your mother called Fashion Forecast Monthly a rag? It’s got design reviews, editorials, the letters page, and sketches and photos . . .”

  “I know!” laughed Rose. “In full, glorious color! Isn’t it all so brown here?”

  “Lights-out!” yelled Girder.

  From brown to black: darkness. So much for a fashion fix. I was now terrified I’d be found out as a thief, hauled from my bunk and . . . and what the guards did next wouldn’t be good. So far Carla was the only Birchwood guard who seemed halfway human.

  Quietly: “Hey, Rose . . . thanks for the tip about the jacket lapels today.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Where’d you learn to sew?”

  “Me? Oh, a lady came to the palace and I had lessons with her. When I was little I dreamed of having a dress shop. Or a bookshop. Or a zoo — I was quite fickle.”

  I shifted in the straw. Rose couldn’t have a dress shop! That was my plan! And how silly she was, pretending she’d lived in a palace.

  “Ella?” Rose whispered a few minutes later.

  “What?”

  “Good night.”

  “You too.”

  “Sleep well.”

  Fat chance.

  A pause.

  “Ella, shall I tell you a bedtime story?”

  “No.”

  Another pause.

  “Ella?”

  I turned over on the lumpy straw. “What now?”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” came Rose’s voice in the darkness. “Bread’s good, but friends are better.”

  I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just the ghost of a guilty conscience about stealing — I mean organizing — the magazine. It wasn’t just hunger either. No, I couldn’t sleep because Rose snored. Not great gasping, snorting snores like my grandad, in the next bedroom back home. Rose did little snuffly snores that would be cute if she weren’t lying right next to me.

  What would Marta do?

  Poke her in the ribs.

  “Mm, tickles,” Rose murmured, without waking up.

  I lay awake, refusing to think about anything except what I’d sew in the morning.

  The whistle blew at four thirty a.m., same as every day. We all scrambled down from our bunks to run for roll call. There was a roll call morning and evening. All Stripeys had to be counted to make sure we hadn’t vanished into thin air, or something equally improbable, such as escaping. The guards had Lists. There were no names on the Lists. Names would have meant we were human. Stripeys had numbers.

  Stripeys had badges, too, made of colored cloth sewn onto our dresses. The badge you had showed exactly why They had decided you weren’t fit to live in the real world anymore.

  Most bosses had green triangles. That meant they’d been criminals even before they came to Birchwood. Rose’s badge was a red triangle, which told everyone she was a political enemy. How could such a dreamy dipstick be considered a political threat? Obviously They didn’t like book readers. They didn’t like people of my religion either. Worshipping the wrong god meant you got a star. It was like the gold stars we used to get at school for good work, only this star meant you were the absolute lowest of the low. Most Stripeys had the star. Starred prisoners were treated worst of all.

  I hated the star. I hated the badges, and the Lists too.

  It wasn’t dramatic at first, out in the real world. It began with little things. Last to be picked for sports at school (because Your Sort aren’t good in teams). Graded worse on exams (You and Your Sort must’ve copied from each other to get so many answers right). Ignored at the back of the class, when my hand was up (Does anyone know the answer? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?).

  Little things became big things. In science class the teacher made a boy stand at the front while his head was measured. “Look at his color!” the teacher mocked. “And the skull measurements are clear — he’s from the wrong race. Utterly inferior.”

  I squirmed at my desk but didn’t dare say anything in case I got called up.

  At school assembly one morning the head teacher announced, The following pupils must now stand and leave the premises . . . He had a List. My name was on it. I have never, ever felt so embarrassed as when walking out of the auditorium with hundreds of eyes watching. When I got home, Grandad threatened to go flush the head’s head down a toilet. I went to a new school instead. One only for people on Lists.

  It got worse. Houses and shops and synagogues vandalized. Books burned. Neighbors taken away at night in trucks with bars instead of windows.

  Ignore all that nonsense, Grandma used to tell me. It’s just bullying, and you can’t give in to bullies. There’s nothing wrong with who we are.

  If there was nothing wrong with us, how come we’d ended up in a prison like this?

  Here in Birchwood, the main thing was to be on a List for work. If you didn’t work, you didn’t live. Simple as that.

&nbs
p; Roll call was the worst thing ever, especially in predawn darkness. Stripeys lined up in rows of five to be counted by the bosses. If anyone was late, the count began again. If anyone was missing — again. If anyone collapsed from hunger or tiredness or the cold (or all three) — again began the count. Yawning guards clustered together, wrapped in black cloaks. That morning, I thought I saw Carla, off in the distance, smoking, with a great black dog panting at her side.

  Rose was at my side. When no Bosses were near she suddenly whispered, “I can embroider. If you like, I’ll sew ivy sprays on the lapels of the green jacket you’re making.”

  I glanced over. “Really? Are you any good?”

  Rose stuck her tongue out at me. It was so unexpected I almost laughed out loud, and that would have been lethal. Laughing wasn’t allowed at roll call. (Technically talking wasn’t either, but this was frock-talk, and therefore irresistible.)

  “Sorry, I mean, thank you,” I whispered. “Ivy’s nice. My grandma once had to embroider white satin ivy leaves on a wedding dress. It’s supposed to symbolize marriage, because it twines and clings.”

  “And it’s poisonous,” Rose said, with a glint in her eyes.

  I meant to put the pilfered copy of Fashion Forecast Monthly back, truly I did. The trouble was, the fitting room was endlessly busy that day, with clients having final tweaks to their concert frocks. At one point the door to the fitting room opened, and I could see right through. A short, mature woman was being shown clothes modeled by the giraffe I’d met on my first day. Her real name was Shona. The older woman was wearing a grass-green wool crêpe dress, so she definitely wasn’t a guard. Marta seemed to be treating her like some kind of goddess.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Frog, whose real name was Francine. Froggy Francine was good at sewing bulky fabrics and plain stitching.

  “You don’t know who that is?” Francine whistled under her breath. “Sweetheart, she’s the reason we’re all here. She’s Madam H.”

  “Who?”

  “Only the commandant’s wife! A real fashion lover! Started out with a couple of seamstresses working in her attic — her home’s just on the edge of Birchwood — then she set up this workshop so all the officers’ wives and the guards could have fancy clothes. They got jealous, see, with her always looking so smart. That lad’s one of her kiddies.”

  I looked again and saw a little boy. That was enough to make me gawk. You never saw children here. Never. He was dressed in neatly pressed shorts and shirt. His hair was combed and parted. His shoes were gleaming.

  The boy squinted through the open door at us. Francine mimed pulling a throttling rope around her neck. The boy backed away and hid in his mother’s skirts.

  “One day they’ll all hang for what they’ve done to us,” Francine muttered. “Father, mother, the whole rotten family.”

  She must’ve seen the look on my face. “He’s just a kid!” I said.

  “So are you, sweetheart. So are all the kiddies that go up the chimneys — pouf!”

  At first when I heard about people going up the chimneys, I thought they were being made to clean them. Much as I wanted to carry on believing that, there was too much smoke, too much ash. Too many people who arrived and vanished.

  Don’t think about it. Think dresses.

  I held fast to the image of smart Madam H., the most important client in this universe. I memorized her face, her coloring, and her figure. Right there and then I decided I’d make clothes for her one day. Dressmakers need a prestigious client list. Otherwise you ended up dressing whoever comes through the door.

  The door to the fitting room closed completely. Too risky to try and put the magazine back now. I figured if no one had missed it, I might as well keep it. Why shouldn’t I? It was none of Rose’s business what I did. None at all. I didn’t care what she thought, either.

  I did remember that Francine had asked for scraps of pattern-cutting paper, back on my first day. When the guard at the end of the room wasn’t looking, I carefully tore a page of ads from the magazine. They were for things I’d almost forgotten existed. Perfume. Soap. High-heeled shoes. That made me think of Grandma taking me shopping just before the new school term. She’d been wearing sensible block heels, a little worn down at the sides. I was in my boring school shoes. That didn’t stop me from ogling the sparkle of evening shoes covered in sequins and diamanté.

  “Fine feathers butter no parsnips,” she’d muttered. Whatever that meant.

  I’d heard tantalizing rumors of some sort of shop in Birchwood. They called it the Department Store. They said it was a land of plenty.

  Anyway, while Marta was busy bullying some other seamstress, I poked Francine under the table.

  Did you still want paper? I mouthed.

  Francine raised her eyes to the ceiling and mouthed a very big thank you! I passed her the page, hoping she wouldn’t mind it was only the ads.

  The ungrateful lump never even looked at what was printed on the sheet. She tore it into four, heaved herself off her stool, and headed for the toilet, waving the paper as if it was some kind of award she’d won. When she came back from the lavatory, the paper was nowhere to be seen.

  So much for generosity.

  One memory: Rose jumping down off our bunk, crying, “Life, life, life!” She put her arms in the air and whirled around and around till we were all dizzy watching. “I love being able to move! I love breathing! I love bread! I could just kiss everything and marry everyone!”

  Girder chewed her evening ration thoughtfully. “Well, she’s cracked, that’s for sure.”

  Spring mud turned into summer dust.

  We baked.

  I’d always hated the last few days of the summer term at school. We’d be bent over our desks, sleeves rolled up, clothes stuck to our backs with sweat as sunshine taunted us outside. Then came liberation — the last school bell! Tumbling into the street in a jumble of books, bikes, and happiness . . . weeks and weeks of freedom ahead!

  There was no liberation in Birchwood. Every morning, whistle-woken, we lined up in fives for roll call. By summer it was hot even at dawn. We burned in our thin dresses, with nothing but a triangle of cotton on our cropped heads. Guards moved slowly among us. They were like crows settling on a field of stubble to glean insects. They checked that our numbers tallied, that our badges were sewn on right, and that we all looked fit for work. Just like crows, they kept their eye out for treats: Stripeys who needed punishing. The guards pounced on anyone who stood out from the crowd. I saw a woman beaten unconscious because she’d dared to slick her tufty hair with spit so it looked a tiny bit more stylish.

  Sometimes Carla came by with her dog, Pippa. It panted and choked to get ahead. A yank from the leash and Pippa came to heel.

  At roll call, Carla ignored me. In the fitting room, she boasted to me about her suntan. I made her a lemon-yellow sundress — which Marta once again took credit for. Carla knew Marta was lying, I was sure of it. She said, “Do you reckon Marta could make me a swimsuit?”

  “I’m sure Marta could,” I answered demurely.

  By then I was trusted to be alone with clients in the fitting room — no more floor washing and grunt work for me! I sewed until my hands cramped and my eyes blurred. It was harder than anything I’d ever done before. My original career plan had been to learn skills with Grandma at home, then somehow save up to go to a trade college for extra finesse. After that I’d start at the bottom, in a dress business, and work my way up to owning my own shop.

  I wasn’t at home with Grandma, but I was still learning skills. Marta was surprisingly helpful when it came to teaching tailoring tricks.

  “I did train in all the very best places,” she said over and over.

  Yet Carla wanted me to make her new clothes, not Marta.

  In the fitting room one day, stripped to her slip because of the heat, Carla flicked through the pages of last month’s World of Fashion.

  “I need to work on my suntan, with a nice shorts outfit. I’ve s
een nothing that grabs me in the Department Store,” she grouched. “Here, look. See what you think.”

  She gestured me closer, as if I was a normal human being, not a Stripey. I leaned over her smooth, soap-smelling shoulder. Together we stared at happy girls posing in swimsuits and beach wraps. “Something like that spotted one on the right?” Carla suggested.

  “But nicer,” I replied.

  “I’ll be the pride of the poolside.”

  “There’s a swimming pool at Birchwood?” The words blurted out before I could stop them.

  “Not for Your Sort,” Carla huffed. “Just for proper people.”

  She pulled a silver cigarette case out of her jacket pocket and opened it with a flick, as if she were a starlet in a casino. There were five cigarettes in the case. I stared at them, still stunned by her casual words. Not for Your Sort.

  I was standing right next to her, breathing the same air, sweating in the same heat. Swap our clothes, and then what would we be?

  But we were at Birchwood. Carla was a human being. I wasn’t anymore.

  Once you were on a List you weren’t a person. Usually it meant you’d end up dead not long after, or at Birchwood, which was more or less the same thing.

  Carla shook the cigarette case at me. The gesture was obvious — take one.

  What would Rose do?

  Ignore Carla’s thoughtless generosity.

  What would Marta do?

  Stay alive.

  I took all five cigarettes.

  Mostly the guards stood in the shade during the most sweltering roll calls, leaving the prisoner bosses to go up and down the ranks, counting. Hours could pass if the tally wasn’t right. Meanwhile we fried in the full sun like eggs in a pan.

  Every day Rose stood by me. Her eyes would be fixed on some invisible spot far away. Me, I daydreamed I was eating tubs of lemon sorbet . . . buckets of lemon sorbet . . . I was bathing in lemon sorbet. Anything to avoid noticing what was going on all around: not to see, not to hear, not to smell.

  One morning, running from roll call to the workshop, I noticed that Rose’s head was bare. Bad enough that she put up with those clownish mismatched shoes; going bare-headed was madness.