Sannah drummed her fingers on her knees impatiently. She'd been outside the Head's office for fifteen minutes now. What was happening in there?

She inched towards the door, trying to tune her ears to the noise inside. Nothing. All she could hear was the lull of conversations and screens bleeping in the offices down the hall.

Sannah closed her eyes, leaning against the wall behind her. The administration buildings were the only ones with air-con, and her arms were all hairs and goose flesh. She shivered, only partly from the cold.

What has Judit done?

What if they're giving her a methy injection, right now?

They wouldn't. Judit would be shouting and screaming, and Sannah would hear that. Besides, there was no reason. Judit was a good kid. There must be some mistake. But why else would she be called to Head?

Sannah's mind started arguing the case against a range of phantom accusations, finding alibis, providing proofs of Judit's innocence. This is off kilter. She stopped her wild thoughts in their tracks. I don't even know what she's supposed to have done.

And perhaps she had done something? All that running after Lox and Dek, who knows what she might do to impress them?

Or maybe she hadn't done anything, and it didn't matter anyway?

Back at Goldmay, a boy once accused Sannah of stealing his wallet. He swore it had disappeared from his bag at lunchtime. Sannah had stayed in the classroom to work on an extra merit project, and she was the only one there.

They tore her locker apart, didn't find anything. Still believed him though—

of course they did. It didn't matter Sannah was top of the class with an exemplary record. She had brown skin. Exotic.

Sannah would've been expelled, sent to security school, except they found the wallet: he'd left it in his dad's car. She was cleared, but she never got an apology. And now here she was, at security school anyway. Life was that kind of bitch.

The worst part of all of it had been Mum. She'd driven Sannah away from school that day in her boyfriend Laine's vinyl-smelling car, pulled up in a lay-by. Sannah had cried so much she felt washed out, her brain pulsing. She just wanted her mum to comfort her, rail against the injustice of it all.

Of course she didn't.

Their mum had had this expression, sometimes, when she looked at Sannah. Something like uncertainty. Distrust. She had it then, in that car, on that rinsed-white winter's day, children's shouts from a nearby playground thin on the air.

"Why did you do it?" Her mum was in a purple tailored coat, her always-straightened hair pulled into a tight chignon. Her gloved hands were tight on the steering wheel, eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

"I didn't." Sannah started crying, gulping and ragged. Even her mum thought she was a thief.

"Not stealing. I know you didn't do that. Why did you sit alone in a classroom, where you knew people kept their things? Why would you act so suspiciously?"

"It's not suspicious! It wasn't my fault!"

"If you hadn't been there, would it have happened?"

It wouldn't. But that didn't mean...The unfairness of it all was a concrete wall, right in front of Sannah's face.

"We're Exotic, Sannah. What do you see when you see Exotics in the news, online? That's the way people see you. You have to show them you're not like that. You have to prove yourself. You can't get lazy."

It's not fair, Sannah had thought, curled up miserably in the backseat. This wasn't her fault. Why was Mum always harder on her than on Judit?

But she knew why.

Because of the genetic accident that meant Judit had pale skin, and could pass for Generic. Because Judit looked like their dad.

Who cared that Sannah was half Generic too? They could tell from looking at her she was all bad.

Mum was right, though. The web was full of positive role models: female scientists, artists, actresses and heroines. And all of them were Generic.

The Exotics were the felons on Albia's Most Wanted. The bruise-fleshed girls on porn pop-ups, grinding on Tahki Leoni videos. The addicts, murderers and thieves. It made shame tingle on Sannah's skin, but she couldn't change the way things were.

No wonder the school thought Sannah took the wallet. She probably would have though that too. Mum was right—Sannah had to prove she wasn't what she looked like.

But what if you are? Mum was, after all.

Yes. Despite all her talk, all that exaggerated respectability, Mum had been a criminal, just like any other Exotic. That's why she was in prison. That's why Sannah and Judit were struggling to survive in security school.

And she had done it.

Sannah had hoped, painfully believed, known, for three stomach-ache days after she found out Mum was gone that it was a false accusation, she was innocent, just like Sannah had been.

But it wasn't. Despite everything she'd said, all the harsh lessons she'd inflexibly meted, their whole life was a lie. Their mother had tried to kill someone. Their mother was a thief.

It was the last thing Sannah had ever said to her.

Did you do it, Mum? Did you really hurt him like they said? Did you take the money?

Yes I did.

She had never felt so betrayed.

Sannah shivered in the chilly school corridor, the feelings as close and raw as the day it happened. She forced them away. It was like trying to fold fog into a suitcase, but she did it.

She wasn't sad about losing her mum. Not then, not since. Shocked, angry, scared—sure. But not sad. Being an orphan was what it was. It had pros and cons.

Okay, there were maybe more cons than pros. But it had one big advantage, and that was not getting dragged about by an unreliable, duplicitous woman who had persistently lied to them, always put her boyfriends first, and whose sex life was more important than they were.

Mum had never been the caring type. She'd shipped them off to boarding school as soon as she could, let her concentrate on whatever dag-bag boyfriend was flavour of the month. In the holidays she was always preoccupied and distant.

They'd got home once to find she'd moved. Left the guy she'd been living with and shacked up with someone new; her inconvenient children had obviously slipped her mind. Luckily the ex knew her new conquest—they must've been friends.

He put the clueless girls in a taxi, spat instructions to the driver.

Tell your mother she's a bedswerving Exotic bitch.

So no, Sannah wasn't sad. Despite how bad Birchwood was, at least she no longer had to live with that persistent, gnawing feeling that Mum had always given her: that something bad was happening to her, just outside her knowledge and just beyond her control. Sometimes, people are exactly what they seem.

Sannah rubbed her goose-pimply arms. Maybe Judit's been accused of something she didn't do? Those cranks Dek and Lox would totally frame her. Sannah craned her ears for signs it might be methy, that she might be about to lose the only person she had.

Her fear marbled with self-pity.

No. This isn't me, she reminded herself. It's Judit. Inoffensive, Generic looking Judit. That wouldn't happen to her...would it?

There was a noise behind her, and Sannah looked up, her brain full of anti-freeze.

The Head's door opened.

***

"This is your fault. I swear to God I skitting hate you." Judit was crying, hunched over, and Sannah could hardly hear her. She couldn't grasp what was going on, and her relief at being told that Judit wasn't going to be methy'd was slowly being quashed.

"I don't understand." Sannah was running, trying to keep up with her sister. "You're going to Sherbourne?"

Is this a scholarship or something? The thought popped into Sannah's head unbidden, dragging an unwelcome jealousy with it. Of course it's not a scholarship. Does she look like she's got a scholarship?

"Don't get like that," Judit snapped. "It's not like I'm off to learn the skitting piano. I'm going to get experimented on. Have God knows what shoved into me. And it's all because of you."

Sannah tripped and righted herself. Judit was moving so fast they'd left the administrator lady a good distance behind.

"I skitting hate you." Judit stopped and turned to Sannah. She was crying, snot and tears all over her face. "I swear to God, I licit hate you."

Sannah had no idea what was going on. Judit was going to Sherbourne for an experiment? They were going to take her away? Would they hurt her? A barely-human noise escaped her lips. This can't be real. It can't be happening.

"And when I get back from whatever this is, I'll never speak to you again," Judit said through ragged tears. "It's over. We're through."

Sannah shook her head, barely able to speak. " Whatever this is, I didn't know... I promise, when you get back–"

"I don't know what you girls are talking about." The administrator had caught up with them now, and she frowned at them both, breathless, as she struggled to open the door to the dormitory block. "There is no when you get back. She's not coming back."

***

Static filled Sannah's head. All she could hear was the administrator's words on a ghastly loop. She's not coming back.

Judit was doomed, and it was somehow her fault. This was like Mum all over again. No. It was worse. Mum'd committed a crime. She'd got what was coming to her. Judit had done nothing. God knows how, but this was Sannah's fault.

Nothing made any sense. Why would Sherbourne want Judit for an experiment? What were they going to do? How was Sannah's application involved? It made no sense at all. Surely Dit had made a mistake? Sannah felt sick.

Judit was ricocheting round the room, stuffing things into a bag, sobbing. The administrator lady watched them, arms folded, occasionally glancing at the clock on her screen.

"I don't understand," Sannah addressed the administrator pleadingly. She felt like anti-matter. "Please, what's going on?'

The administrator scowled as if she didn't want to reply. "Rewilding, it's called," she said eventually. "It's for that forest. Off the news. They're making a Native tribe or something. Ridiculous if you ask me." She returned to her screen.

Native tribe. Fear prised open Sannah's breastbone, ripped out her heart. Her history text flooded back. Humans, with the capacity to be such monsters.

"Surely they can't just take her?" Sannah could barely speak. "With no warning?"

"They're not just taking her." The administrator gave Sannah a withering look. "It's all official. They have permission from her mother."

Mum. A fist of rage clenched in Sannah's sternum. I should have known. The power of that woman to ruin their lives was prodigious.

The Administrator turned and barked at Judit, "Hurry up, alright?"

Judit responded by sobbing louder, her body floppy, like it was a huge effort to move.

Sannah had an idea. She could fix this. She knew she could. "Take me," she said boldly. "Take me instead. I'll do it." She gave Judit a pathetically hopeful smile.

"You?" The administrator's lip curled as she looked at Sannah. "Why on earth would they want you? That makes no sense at all." She shook her head and extended her hand to Judit. "Come on. It's time to go."