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Chapter 85
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
Mum appears behind Callum to say that someone’s downstairs for him—and she asks what he’s doing. Callum says he’s going away, “somewhere where [he] can make a difference.” Mum asks Callum to give her love to Jude and keep his head down. As she turns to go, she asks what to do about Sarah downstairs. Callum says he doesn’t want to see her.
Mum understands immediately that Callum is leaving to join the LM. At this point, she seems to have given up on her earlier goal of trying to keep her family together, safe, and distant from violence. So now, she has to resort to just offering her support in case Callum decides to ever return.
Themes
Once Mum is gone, Callum throws a shirt in his bag. He’s supposed to meet someone outside the bus garage. It seems ridiculously contrived, but if it makes Jude happy, Callum will do it. Once the front door closes, Callum heads downstairs. Mum points to the letter Sarah left, but Callum says he’ll get it tomorrow when he returns for his other things.
Readers can infer that Sarah has brought Sephy’s letter to Callum—and because he’s not interested in seeing Sarah, it seems likely he won’t meet Sephy in time. For now, he’s too caught up in his newfound purpose to give any time to someone, like Sarah, who he sees as helping his enemies.
Themes
