grimms8

There’s nothing else to do. Pizza Face and me with our duffle hoods up, in driving rain, are kicking a ball against the washhouse wall, playing wallie. You have to kick the ball against the wall as hard as you can and the other guy has to do the same. It’s not as easy as it looks, because if you catch it right and glance it sideways against broken brick it rolls down towards the close mouth, onto the cobbled wet it lies behind the wall. That means you’ve won, because not even Franz Beckenbauer and Jimmy Johhstone, with their legs tied together, would be able to bend it from there and hit the wall. Sometime the ball rolls behind one of the bins. You can haul it out of the road. That’s allowed. Or you can chip the bins, I’m not very good at that but Pizza Face is. Usually he wins because he wants to win more than me and if he doesn’t win he has a berky and wants to play another game. I don’t mind.

‘How come you werenae at school yesterday?’ Pizza Face asks.

I snigger as the ball hits off one of his feet, then the other and hits the wall square. ‘Slept in. And I’d a bit of a cough.’

I do a fake cough and grog green against a wonky bin lid. I lean into Pizza Face, shouldering him, in an attempt to make him miss the ball.

‘Fuck off,’ he says, grunting, in an amused way. He gives the ball an almighty blooter and it ricochets and hits against the side of one of the overflowing bins. We tramp together, heads down, to get it. I pick the ball out of an oily puddle. Even if I hauled all the bins out of the road I’d still not be able to hit the wall. Pizza Face grins because he’s won. He lifts one of the lids and has a quick look inside the bin, but we’ve already checked for goodies, and it smells of fish, but you never know. I pass him the ball. He is to go first because he won.

‘But I heard whit happened to you,’ I say, in a tone of admiration. ‘Bloody hell!’

Pizza Face slams the bin lid down. A clattering sound the wind takes the noise round the enclosed walls. Shrugs as if he’s not bothered, but I can tell that he is pleased.‘I stuck him with the compass,’ he says. ‘But you should have heard him squealing as if I’d shot him. Greetin, like a wain. His leg stuck to the chair. All that noise and it wiznae my fault. All I did was ask to borrow a pencil off him. And he said, “NO”, even though he’d two, just sitting there, doing nothing. And he wears specs and he’s looking at me as if I’m the daftie.

“You should be black ashamed of yourself,”  that fat cow, Mrs Thompson said. “You’re nothing but a thug.” And she grabs my by the shoulder, hauling me out in front of the class. And everything is in an uproar, chairs pushed back, necks bottling,  wanting to see what has happened, everybody talking and speculating. Rosie Doyle is in the seat behind me. She stands up, swanning it, as if you get a gold star for standing up, leaning over my shoulder. And she’s pretty and she knows I like her, everybody does, especially Mrs Thomson, so I smile. And she squeals when she sees the compass stuck into Martin Monaghan’s leg and falls back down on her chair.

“Oh my god, I think he’s killed him,’ Rosie Doyle says and falls into a mock faint.

 ‘Mrs Thompson stuck me outside the door, where there’s nothing do dae. Then sent me to the headie. McMurtie. I hands him the note from her. And I can see him eating it up. Next thing he’s got me by the ear, baldy cunt.

“I think there’s something seriously wrong with you,” McMurtie says. “And we need to send you to a school for mental defectives. It most probably runs in your family.” And he lets up with the twisting of the ear, dives into the drawer of his desk and pulls out his leather tawse.  He grips it as if he means business, “I’m going to make an example of you. The only cure I know is to whip it out of you.” His face is red and contorted like a bean bag. “Hands up,” he says. “I’m not going to let you leave here until you apologise for everything you’ve done.”

‘Ninety-nine is ninety nine,’ I said. ‘Fuck off.’

‘Long-division. Fuck off. Fuck off.’

‘Primary 4b, Fuck off. Fuck off.’

'And I’ve got my hands over my ears. ‘Listen, I’m not listening. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off.’

'And he’s trying to pull my hands away from my ears and get me to hold them up so he can give me the belt. But he can’t. As soon as he lets go I stick my hands back over my ears. And that drives him even madder and he gives up and starts whipping me with the belt around the legs and bum. And I’m shouting at him ‘Fuck off. Fuck off baldy. You can’t hurt me. Primary 4b. Primary 4b baldy. Fuckin cunt. 4b. Prick. Clydebank Bundy ya Bass. Ninety nine is ninety nine. Then he starts smacking me on the back of the head and telling me to shut up. And how he’ll need to get my dad to school. But my dad would knock him out with one punch. Then he yips some shite about getting my mum up to the school. But he cannae, because she’s no’ well. She’s in hospital. Ward Nine. She made a mistake and tried to take some tablets she shouldnae have. Baldy cunt. And he’s trying to make me greet. But he’ll never do it. Never. He can’t hurt me. ‘You’re just a fucker,’ I tell him.’      

He flicks the ball up and starts playing keepie-up. He’s pretty good at it and can get to a hundred, but he catches the ball wrong and he’s showing off, takes a swipe, and misses.

‘You’re a stupid cunt,’ I tell him.

‘Aye, so are you,’ he says. ‘Whit dae yeh want to dae now?’

‘Dunno.’ I nudge the ball with my foot. Pass it against the wall. ‘Whit dae you want to do now?’

‘You know whit,’ he says with venom. ‘He's nothing but a fuckin’ dobber.’

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘That baldy old cunt, McMurtie.’

‘Aye,’ I say. I’m not going to start disagreeing with him.