Noughts and Crosses

Noughts and Crosses is the first book in the series.

Summary
Persephone "Sephy" Hadley is a Cross, with dark skin, and the daughter of a wealthy senior politician, Kamal Hadley. Callum McGregor is a nought, with white skin. They used to play together when Jasmine, Sephy's mother, employed Meggie, Callum's mother, as a nanny. However, Jasmine fired Meggie for being unable to provide an alibi for her when Kamal confronts Jasmine's about his suspicions of her infidelity. Only then did Meggie realise her mistake. Since then, Sephy and Callum's friendship has been secret, their usual meeting place is on a small beach near Sephy’s home. As best friends, their relationship is frowned upon by society.

Callum is one of the first few noughts to start at Heathcroft, a high school for Crosses that now accepts the best-performing noughts.As the group of noughts entered the playground, crosses were confronting them; Sephy shouted at them to stop and said they were acting like ‘blankers’(a derogatory term used for noughts).Callum is shocked and angry by Sephy’s words and makes Sephy promise never to use the word again. Their friendship resumed as perusal. Sephy is overjoyed to find that Callum is in her class after helping him pass the entrance examination. However, most of her classmates do not accept her association with a nought. The two develop a more intimate connection, and Sephy does not care about the opposition and even sits with at a table with noughts. That angers Callum, but the two make up. Sephy is confronted by two girls, in girl’s toilets, because she is friends with Callum. And she is beaten up and vows that no one would have the opportunity to do anything like it agin.

Meanwhile, Callum's elder brother, Jude, and his father, Ryan, join the Liberation Militia (LM), a violent terrorist organisation against Cross supremacy.

Callum's troubled elder sister, Lynette, commits suicide by throwing herself in front of a bus. Only Callum knows that it was suicide, as Lynette had left him a secret note that talks of her depression after an attack on her and her Cross boyfriend. Everyone else thinks that it was a tragic accident, despite all of her previous suicide attempts. Callum never reveals this information and takes it to his grave.

Jude and Ryan are accused of lethally bombing the Dundale Shopping Centre, which was committed by the LM. Callum is also accused after he tells Sephy to get out of the shopping centre but goes free for lack of evidence. Callum has to leave school, and Ryan faces the gallows. Jasmine, remembering that she used to be friends with the McGregor family, secretly hires a prominent Cross lawyer to defend Ryan. Escaping hanging, Ryan gets a life sentence but is killed by an electric fence, supposedly in an escape attempt.

Sephy decides to get a new start and persuades a reluctant Jasmine to let her attend a boarding school, Chivers. Sephy has not heard from Callum for a week, this was a result of Jasmine preventing Callum to see her when he turned up on her doorstep, so she writes him a letter asking him to run away with her and telling him that she will be leaving for Chivers if he does not contact her. However, Callum does not read the letter until just before Sephy leaves. Callum sprints to Sephy's house and fails to catch up with the car as it pulls out of the driveway. Having not seen Callum running behind, Sephy concludes that their friendship is no longer as important to him as she had thought. Callum took this as a sign that they were not meant to be as everything in his life had collapsed previously, he joined the L.M against his mother’s wishes.

Years later, Sephy returns home from Chivers. She enters the house and discovers that Callum had left her a letter telling her to meet him at the family's private beach. Sephy decides to meet up with him but later she finds out that Callum is there with others from the LM to kidnap her and hold her hostage. Jude punches Sephy in the stomach, and the gang members take her to their hideout. The members of the LM deliver a message to Sephy's father, Kamal, to release at least five LM members from prison and pay money if he wants to see Sephy alive.

The LM's second-in-command, Andrew Dorn, visits Callum and his cell members. Andrew informs Kamal of where two of the LM team members are during the mission. One is killed, and the other is put in jail.

During a time alone, Callum visits a hurt Sephy in the room where she is being held, to get her blood on her shirt to send to her father as proof.Callum cuts her deeper then he meant to out of anger and then regrets his actions. Callum tries to help Sephy by gently rubbing her stomach which relieved some of the pain, He reveals to Sephy that he tried to catch up with her before she left for Chivers, and he was unable to catch up with her. Their love rekindles and, after Callum whispers that he loves her, they make love. And again for a second time. Afterwards, Sephy cannot seem to stop crying, as she redressed. At this point Jude walks in and sees Sephy half undressed, with her jumper on inside out.He calls Callum an idiot for sleeping with her.

Sephy escapes into the woods and is soon chased by Jude and Morgan, the other survivor. Callum finds her and gives false instructions to the others. Callum then aids Sephy in her escape. Sephy tells Callum that she had seen Andrew, without knowing his identity, in her house with Kamal, which shows that Andrew is a government informer.

Callum tells the rest of the gang what Sephy said about Andrew. The members agree to split up and keep a low profile for six months and not meet up until Callum's birthday.

Sephy feels an unusual tummy bug come on. Her sister, Minerva, asks if she is pregnant, which Sephy denies. Sephy takes a pregnancy test, which reveals she is pregnant with Callum's child. Meanwhile, Callum is working as a mechanic, as a cover, and hears Kamal on the radio, denying rumours that his daughter is pregnant. Sephy's parents learn of her pregnancy and pressure her to have an abortion, but Sephy repeatedly refuses.

Callum then meets with Sephy in the Hadleys' rose garden. Sephy confirms the rumours, and they decide on names for the child: Ryan, after Callum's father, if it is a boy, and Callum suggests Rose if it is a girl. Callum is found in the garden and is arrested. No one believes Sephy when she maintains that she was not raped and is not allowed to testify. Callum has his trial and is sentenced to be hanged. Kamal tells Sephy that if she keeps her child, Callum will be hanged, but if she has the abortion, he will serve years in prison instead. Kamal makes a similar offer to Callum but also wants Callum to say publicly that he raped her. Both decide to keep the baby.

On the day of Callum's hanging, he asks his guard, Jack, to deliver a letter to Sephy personally. Callum is then led to the gallows. He fails to find Sephy in the crowd before the hood is put on. He then hears Sephy shouting, "I love you Callum!". He shouts back, "I love you too". Sephy watches the trapdoor open and sees Callum's limp, lifeless body hanging from the noose. She hears Callum shouting to her but is unsure if she heard the word 'too' so she cannot be sure that Callum heard her.

The story ends with a newspaper cutting announcing the birth of their child, Callie Rose. Sephy decided to name her child ‘Callie’ as it closely resembles her father’s name and Rose because Callum chose it. After the birth, Sephy tries to have Callie Rose’s surname changed to mc Gregor but is told she can not since she would need Callum’s permission.