Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Noughts and Crosses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Division, and Tragedy
Awareness and Privilege
Love, Lust, Power, and Violence
Friendship
Youth, Innocence, and Growing Up
Family
Summary
Analysis
Sephy finally understands what the proverb saying to be careful what you wish for means. She’s spent months helping Callum study for the Heathcroft exam and praying for him to get in—and now that he’s at Heathcroft, everything is terrible. Sighing, Sephy tells herself she can’t sit in the bathroom stall forever. She just wanted to escape everyone’s stares, and she’s afraid that she and Callum aren’t friends anymore after last night. So when the bell rings, Sephy gets up.
Sephy is finding it difficult to accept that her world is far more racist than she thought it was—though she’s not quite mature and aware enough to realize that’s what’s actually happening. She also doesn’t have the empathy yet to understand that Callum is struggling with feeling like a second-class citizen, if not worse, wherever he goes.
Themes
As Sephy unlocks her stall door, though, three older girls, Joanne, Dionne, and Lola push Sephy back into the cubicle. They shove Sephy and tell her to never sit with the “blankers” again—everyone else at school will start treating Sephy like a “blanker,” too. Dionne asks why Sephy even wants to be around the noughts, since they smell bad and eat weird foods. Sephy says this is nonsense; Callum bathes daily. The older girls share a look and then push Sephy onto the toilet lid.
Joanne, Dionne, and Lola want to put Sephy in her place and make it clear that even trying to be nice to the noughts won’t be tolerated—they’re going out of their way to uphold society’s racism. The girls saying that noughts smell bad and eat weird foods is extremely racist. It suggests they see noughts as almost an entirely different species—and as subhuman.
Themes
Lola warns Sephy to stay away from the “blankers” again. Shocked, Sephy asks if the girls have even spoken to noughts before. Joanne says she has—when they serve her in restaurants. And all noughts are criminals and involved with the Liberation Militia anyway. The news, Lola says, doesn’t lie about the noughts. Remembering something Callum said, Sephy says the news tells people what they want to hear. She says noughts are people. At this, Lola slaps Sephy, and the girls exchange some punches. Finally, Joanne and Lola each grab one of Sephy’s arms. Dionne beats Sephy up.
Joanne saying that she’s spoken to noughts when they serve her illuminates how Joanne thinks the power dynamic should be: she should only have to speak to noughts when they’re in service positions and she has power. This is extremely racist and classist. In particular, Lola saying that all noughts are criminals mirrors racist sentiments in the real world that insist Black people are criminals—which isn’t true, and is just dehumanizing.
Themes
