Waves .4

PART 1

 

I don’t know what’s worse, living on the Grove Estate or goin to Katherine Bails.

I walk through the school gates by myself as per… Everyone else walks in twos, threes or gangs, mongin out on their phones.

So, it's a bit mad to see Edgar come bowlin over to me across the main square.

We bump fists.

Hi Jay, where you been?

Around.

What you been up to? he says.

I got a kitten.

What sort?

Black and white.

Dogs are better.

Nah nah, cats.  

What’s its name?

I struggle for a second cos he knows about the real Tracey Clarke so he’s gunna think I’m a right perv namin my kitten after a girl I like. A total random name pops into my head and I go, Terry.

He does a snide laugh then says, So it’s a boy?

A girl.

You called a girl cat, Terry?

Girls can be called Terry too.

I suppose, he says, givin me this odd look.

Most of the blocks in the school are closed off cos they’re falling down so we usually have lessons in fucken portacabins. Me and Edgar go through the heavy doors of the only block with classrooms we can use and walk up the stairs. A window is boarded up after it was kicked in, which took some doing as the thick glass is wired. There’s graffiti and tags on the walls. Edgar’s smarter than me. I mean smarter in both ways – in how he dresses and his braininess. We went to the same Primary school and he was always getting maths questions right. Teachers fucken creamed themselves over him, callin him cheeky cos he’d mouth off and get into trouble too. There are certain kinds of troublemakers that teachers like and Edgar’s one of those. We sorta hang out in secondary school at break times, now and then, but I know he gets cussed for bein seen with me.

He takes a bar of chocolate from his trouser pocket and I realise I’m starvin.

I think we should do that charity work, he says.

I already guessed he wanted something from me. I say, Nah nah.  

Come on.

It’s well snidey, I say, feelin my mouth fucken watering.

You wanna earn some money?

Course.

Then do it.

I’m watching him finish the bar.

Check this out, he says and he sees if anyone is lookin and slips off the shoulder straps of his rucksack. He pulls out a collection tin and a couple of coloured tops that look like the team bibs we wear for PE when playin football or basketball. He shakes a tin with a cancer sticker on the front, a slot on the top, and he grins as coins rattle inside.

You nicked a charity tin?

He blanks what I say an goes, We knock on doors and tell people we’re collecting for charity and they give us money. Simple.

But we’re not collecting for charity.

No, we’re collecting for us.

He must have seen me lookin craven at the chocolate. He reaches in his bag and gives me one.

Nah, you’re alright.

Take it, he says, handing it to me and I unwrap the bar, trying not to look hungry but we both fucken know my stomach is pinchin.

You in? he asks.

Feels kinda snidey, I say, thinking about the fifty quid I already took from the old lady that I still haven’t given back. 

It is a bit snidey, he admits.

Seriously.

Cash money, Jason.

Cash money? You sound like a rapper.

Dollars, yo, he says, putting on his lame American gangsta voice and laughin.

I’ve nearly swallowed the whole fucken bar like a penguin gulps a fish.

Go on then, I’m in. When?  

I’ll let you know.

He makes me take another choccie bar and a bag of crisps.  

We reach our floor and he walks to his Form Class, which has brainy kids in it, an I go to mine, which is 99 percent retards.

And that includes the fucken teacher.

 

***

My brother Mike warned me about Mr Leonard. Told me the guy is a proper spoon.

Jason Smith.

Yes, sir.

I see you’ve decided to join us today.

Fake laughter.

See me after registration.

What for?

Sir.

Eh?

Say, sir.

What for, sir.

After registration.

More pretend chuckles.

He takes the register. I can hear Johnny Moran and Krish Singh whispering about me from the table behind and creasin. Saying how mum called out a washing machine repair man cos she didn’t know how to switch it on. Ha ha. They’re tryin to make Sharon McBride laugh. All the boys make jokes in front of her cos of her big jugs. It’s fucken tragic to watch.

I look out the window. I can see the top of Big Ben. The Headmistress, Mrs McNeil, tells us we’re the closest state school in the country to the Houses of Parliament. I don’t know why she keeps boastin about it to us. She goes on in assembly about these private or public schools where posh kids go and creams herself when she says, But this is the nearest state school to Westminster.

Like, so fucken what?

I stare at the Union Jack on top of Big Ben, flappin in the wind and I start daydreaming about modern warfare. Picturing armies on the march. Shells explodin on the PE block. Blowing up the tarmac pitches used for footie. Seein the flames and the shrapnel. Tanks crashing through walls. Soldiers with helmets biting the pins off grenades and lobbin them. Firin machine guns.

I feel a nudge in my side. Anne Trinh is smiling at me, offerin chewing gum. She’s the only person in the class who sits next to me. The rest kept holding their noses, calling me a dustbin, makin choking sounds, flopping onto other desks.

I can’t lie, Anne’s smile creeps me out as she’s so fucken skinny that her teeth look too huge for her mouth like a cartoon monster. I can see her collar bones pokin through her skin.

We both pop gum when Mr Leonard ain’t looking.

He finishes the register and there’s the sound of squeaking chair legs on the floor as we take our bags with us to the next class. We’re rushing out the doorway, pushin and shoving. Mr Leonard shouts at us to walk normal.

Smith, he says.

I feel a twist cos I thought he’d forgotten.

Come here.

Busted, says Krish from behind.

I turn round and Krish kisses his teeth at me. Watcha lookin at?

A fucken gangsta retard, I wanna say, but I don’t.

I stand by Mr Leonard’s desk. He’s wearin a suit and tie. The science teacher, Mr Santini, likes to wear bright ties and animal print ties and he laughs with us when we tease him for how pap they are. Not Mr Leonard, his ties are like fucken funeral serious and you know that if he wasn’t a teacher he’d be Old Bill. I stand waiting for the rest of the class to leave, looking at his coffin shaped tie. Ready to bury me. He tells the last person to shut the door behind them. They pull the door but it don’t shut and he huffs, walks over to close it, and then starts shovelling dirt.

Smith, you missed three days in a row.

No, sir.

I take the register and speak to your teachers. You’ve not been here so pack it in with the absurd lying.

I’ve been ill, sir.

So, you’re admitting you have been off?

I look at him.

What’s been the matter?

My stomach, sir.

Where’s your doctor’s note?

I didn’t get one, sir. Me mum told me I just needed to stay home and rest.

It’s my mother. Not me mum. Learn to speak properly. Now, maybe I need to call your mother in and speak to her about your attendance and this illness.

No, sir.

Excuse me.

I’ll tell her, sir, bout the note.   

There’s shoutin and laughing in the corridor. Mr Leonard wants to order them to shut up but he’s too busy shovelling dirt, craven to jump on my grave.

Look at you, he says. Your shoes are falling apart. The collars of your shirt are black. Did you wash this morning?

Yes, sir.

He does this face like he doesn’t believe me.

If you miss one more day this Term, there’ll be consequences. Do you understand? This cannot keep happening. 

Yes, sir.

This is serious, given your history, he says.

I know, sir.

He looks at me. What’s in your mouth?

Nothing, sir.

He picks up the bin next to his desk. Holds it under my chin and says, Spit the gum out.

I think about swallowing, but I know people die from eatin chewing gum.

Detention, says Mr Leonard.

Please, sir.

Tomorrow after school. I’m tired of repeating how tedious it is to find these little spit slabs underneath the desks in my classroom.

Mr Leonard places the bin on the floor. Get to your next class and don’t even think about missing lessons or you’ll be in front of Mrs McNeil.

I take my rucksack and leave the classroom with a yes, sir, no, sir… 

The next class is double science and that makes me wanna shoot myself in the face with an Uzi.

I walk to the derelict home economics block. They say it needs to be knocked down cos it’s unsafe. I heard rumours that the whole school is gunna be sold off and turned into flats for posh pricks with Porches and Beemers.

I find a place in a doorway where the doors are chained shut so I can sit and have a smoke without no fool botherin me.

Mike told me that in Australia they call fag breaks, Smoko.

I look at the flats opposite. Watching a pensioner hobble along a third-floor balcony. She stops and then disappears indoors. I bet she’s gunna make herself a fry-up.

Me, I want an egg ‘n cheese McMuffin with a McFlurry.

I feel my guts pinchin.

 

***

I tell myself Mr Santini don’t see me come into class. He’s busy telling someone off.

Anne points to a spare stool from the bench opposite. I’m glad she’s back after being off for ages. Other idiots in the class give us looks and start laughin. Doing boyfriend and girlfriend faces. Whatever. I take my stuff out my rucksack and Anne slides the worksheet in front of me. I look at what we’re supposed to be doin and I can feel my head goin like when the internet don’t connect.

Fucken eagle eyed Santini ain’t missing a trick. He wears those funny ha ha ties but he knows how to give evils. He walks back to his desk at the front of the class and says, Smith, you’re late.

Sorry, sir.

What’s your excuse?

Mr Leonard wanted to speak with me, sir. It’s his fault.

Fake chuckles.

Come fetch your own worksheet from the front.

I get off my stool, hearin, Fetch boy, and fake barks. Sharon McBride makes a washin machine comment and the boys start creasin the loudest. Anne says some of the girls in the class only pretend to like Sharon. They talk about her behind her back cos they think she wears tight tops to show off her jugs to get attention from some of the men teachers. 

That’s enough, says Mr Santini.

You never know with him cos one minute he’s all jokes and the next he’s all up at you. I take the worksheet and go back to the stool and everyone starts chattin and Mr Santini tells them to be quiet but they keep talking and he takes a fat folder and slams it on his bench and yells Quiet so loud he goes red.

Anne gives me a look with her eyes like she thinks Mr Santini might have gone mental.

Some teachers do. When it happens they call it a breakdown.

Mr Santini talks about waves that move through the air that you can’t see or anythin, goin in different directions, back and forth, up and down, like mum’s fucken moods, and I side-eye Anne and she’s writin down these long, boring words and she catches me lookin and moves her sheet nearer. I try and listen to Mr Santini, wanting to show Anne I can be brainy, that I don’t need to copy. I guess I like her, cos she’s alright Anne, not pretty or anything, and I think about asking if she wants to go for a smoke after class, wondering when I should ask, if I could scribble a note and push it in front of her, but she might pie me off, and anyway she’s a boffin, listening to what Mr Santini says about energy and matter and I can feel the connection going in my head.

Mr Santini yells at Krish for aiming an elastic band at Sara Zondi.

I draw a picture of a kitten with fangs dripping blood and show it to Anne and she frowns at me like I’m having a breakdown too.

Time drags.

Krish must have said something snidey to Sara Zondi or fired his elastic band. Whatever it was, I bet he wishes he could take it back. She kicks off, launchin onto him, draggin him to the floor, smackin an scratching him. Everyone flies off their stools, knocking them over to race to the bench where the fight is going on. Krish is trying to push Sara off, but she’s total crazy, propa on top of him an fast, ragin, grabbin his hair and ripping a chunk out from his head and we all make this vom sound cos there’s blood on the hair and he starts bleeding.

Mr Santini has to yank her off, pulling her, putting his arms round her, stopping her from throwin her arms and kicking her legs. He has to fucken wrestlemania her from the classroom.

Krish ain’t so gangsta now. He’s on the floor, trying not to blub.

Anne kneels next to him, handin him tissues. Get some water, she says to me.  

I don’t want to. He’s had this coming, acting the hard man. Anne looks at me and she has these kind, caring eyes and I go to my bag and take out a Dr Pepper. I give it to Krish and because he’s such a dick he refuses to take it. I guess he can’t be seen catchin my germs, stressin about his rep when he’s been whipped by Sara Zondi.  

Drink it, says Anne, taking the can from me and opening it for him.

He sits up and drinks the fizzy medicine, holding tissues against his scalp, checkin out the bloody clump of his own hair on the floor.

And everyone else, all they can say is, Oh my days.

They’re craven to get their mobiles out to take pics. 

A teacher comes in and starts bawlin at us to get back on our stools.

 

***

Part II https://www.abctales.com/story/mark-burrow/waves-part-ii