The bird sculpted a wide arc in the sky and then perched on a high tree top. Daniel saw it, and raised his hand to see more clearly.
‘They’re beauties. We have to watch them from getting the chickens when they’re small, but I think they’re elegant, don’t you?’
Daniel shrugged.
When they got there, the school was an old building surrounded by run-down huts. He didn’t like the look of it, but followed Minnie up the steps. She hadn’t made an appointment and so they had to sit and wait. He didn’t like schools and he felt the ceiling of the place pressing down on him. Again, she seemed aware of how he felt.
‘It’s all right, pet,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to start here today. We just need to get you enrolled. After you’re all booked in, we’ll get you some new togs. You can choose them yourself. Within reason, mind you, I’m not made of money, like,’ she said, leaning into him.
She smelled almost floral. The definite ming of last night’s gin, but then the lemon and the damp smell of her wool, the chickens, and somehow the whiff of the summer grass they had brushed through as they walked to the school. For a moment, smelling her, he felt close to her.
The head teacher was ready to see them. Daniel expected Minnie to ask him to sit outside, but she pulled him up by the elbow and together they stepped inside the head teacher’s office. He was a middle-aged man, with thick glasses. Daniel hated him before he had even sat down.
Minnie took ages to get into the chair beside Daniel, in front of the head’s desk. She unwound her scarf and took off her coat and then spent time rearranging her cardigan and skirt. Daniel noticed that she had left muddy footprints which trailed from the waiting room into the office.
‘Minnie,’ said the head teacher. ‘Always a pleasure.’
Daniel could see from a triangular nameplate on his desk that his name was Mr F. V. Hart.
Minnie coughed and turned towards Daniel.
‘Yes,’ said Hart. ‘And whom do you have for us today?’
‘This is Daniel,’ said Minnie, ‘Daniel Hunter.’
‘I see, and how old are you, Daniel?’
‘Eleven,’ he said. His voice sounded strange in the room, like a girl’s. Daniel looked again at the carpet and Minnie’s muddy boots.
Mr Hart’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Daniel. Minnie opened her bag and put a piece of paper in front of Mr Hart. It was paperwork from Social Services. Mr Hart took it and lit his pipe at the same time, biting hard on to the stem and sucking until the dirty, heavy smoke drifted over Minnie and Daniel.
‘It seems we don’t have his papers in from the last school he was at. What was the last school he was at?’
‘Maybe you could ask him? He’s sitting right there.’
‘Well, Daniel?’
‘Graves School in Newcastle, sir.’
‘I see. We’ll request it. What kind of pupil were you there, Daniel, would you say?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. He heard Minnie breathe, and thought she might be smiling at him but when he turned she wasn’t looking at him. Hart raised his eyebrows and so Daniel added, ‘Not the best.’
‘Why do I sense that to be an understatement?’ said Hart, relighting his pipe and sucking until smoke blew down his nose.
‘This is your new start,’ said Minnie, looking at Daniel. ‘Isn’t it? You plan on being proper exemplary from here on in.’
He turned to her and smiled, then turned to Hart and nodded.
The next morning, Daniel awoke with the thought of the new school pressing on him, heavier than the blankets of his bed. So many new schools. He listened to the chickens in the yard outside and the pigeons cooing in the gutters. He had dreamed about his mother again. She was lying on the couch in the old flat and he couldn’t wake her up. He called an ambulance but the ambulance wasn’t there yet and so he was trying to wake her, trying to give her the kiss of life as he had seen on television.
The dream was close to something which Daniel had actually experienced. Gary, his mum’s boyfriend, had beaten up Daniel and his mum and then left, taking most of the money and a bottle of vodka with him. Daniel’s mother had spent what was left of her dole money on a hit because she said she wanted to feel better. When Daniel woke in the middle of the night she was hanging off the couch with her eyes half open. Daniel had been unable to wake her and had called an ambulance. In real life the ambulance came quickly and they revived his mother. Daniel had been five.
Again and again he dreamed of her. Each time he could not save her.
Daniel lay on his side and reached into the bedside drawer. His hands closed on the egg, which was cold as a stone now. He warmed it in the palm of his hand. Again he reached into the drawer, his fingers searching for the cheap gold necklace that she had worn around her neck and given to him one day when he was good. When he was good.
It was gone.
Daniel sat up and took the drawer out. He placed the egg on his pillow and searched through the drawer for the necklace. He upturned the drawer, and shook out the sock and the children’s books, the biros and old stamps torn from envelopes which had been left in the drawer by her other children. The necklace was not there.
‘I can’t go to school,’ he told her. He was dressed in the clothes she had laid out for him: white vest and pants, grey trousers and a white shirt. He had done the shirt up in a hurry and the buttons were mismatched. He stood before her frowning, with his hair sticking up.
Minnie was spooning out porridge for him and dropping aspirin into a glass for herself.
‘Course you can, love. I’ve made your lunch.’ She pushed a bag of sandwiches towards him.
He stood before her trembling, the egg in his right hand. His clean socks were getting all hacky mucky from her kitchen floor.
‘Did you steal my necklace?’ He could only whisper it.
Minnie raised an eyebrow at him.
‘It was in a drawer with the egg and now it’s gone. Give it back, now.’
Daniel threw the egg on to the kitchen floor and it smashed with a splat that sent Blitz skipping back to his basket.
Minnie bent and put the sandwiches into his school bag. He ripped the bag from her and threw it across the floor after the egg. She stood up very straight and clasped her hands in front of her.
‘You have to go to school. If you replace the butterfly, I’ll replace the necklace.’
‘I’ll smash yer fuckin’ bu’erfly if you don’t gimme my necklace, you thieving old cow.’
She turned her back on him. He thought about getting the knife out of his pocket but the knife hadn’t worried her before. He turned and ran upstairs. He had hidden the butterfly under his mattress.
‘Here,’ he said, putting it on to the work surface. ‘Here’s your stupid bu’erfly, now give me the necklace.’
She was wearing his necklace. He couldn’t believe it. She took it off and handed it to Daniel, then put the butterfly in her pocket.
‘So, what have we learned from that, Danny?’ she said as he got his breath back.
‘That you’re a fat thieving slag.’
‘I think we’ve learned that the both of us have precious things. If you respect mine, I’ll respect yours. Do you remember the way to school?’
‘Fuck off.’
He slipped on his shoes and slammed the door, dragging his school bag behind him. On the way he kicked at the nettles and dandelions that grew. He picked up stones as he went and threw them at the cows, but they were too far away. Billy Harper wasn’t on the swings, so Daniel stopped and swung them right round so that none of the other children could play on them. He was late for school but he didn’t care.
He didn’t care about last chances or new starts. He just wanted everyone to fuck off and leave him alone.