If Callum could choose an Easter egg…

Callum is the main character in Noughts and Crosses, a book about racial segregation in modern-day England. However, it has a twist: the blacks – Crosses – are the ruling class, the whites – noughts – their minions. Callum is a 15-year-old white boy who desperately tries to keep his childhood friendship with Sephy, a young black girl whose dad is a top minister.

So, it’s Easter. The Cross families have taken over car parks of shopping centres with their 4x4s and Mercs, buying all sorts of decorations and fancy chocolate eggs to celebrate this religious festival, second only in the calendar year to Crossmas.  

Whilst the Crosses panic-buy giant black eggs – made from the darkest of chocolate – to commemorate the rising again of Jesucross, noughts all over the country are only allowed small white eggs. That’s if they can afford them, not least find any. Noughts aren’t allowed outside of their homes over Easter, having to watch the magnificent Easter carnivals parading down the streets from behind their grimy broken windows.

Secretly, however, underground groups of noughts meet from Good Friday through to Easter Monday all round the country. They huddle around sacred copies of the original Bible, only a few of which are left since the burning and retelling of the religion to suit Crosses.

Callum sits in the dark with a group of noughts, round a fire, listening to stories from the Bible. He takes a large black chocolate egg and places it on the fire. The reflection of the flames flicker in his eyes as the smell of burning cocoa floats to the nostrils of the noughts, smiles creeping across their faces.