“Your dinner’s nearly ready. I’ll see you around,” I said. “See ya!” I called out from the front door to his nan, not wanting to go in there and talk to her again. Her face appeared around the kitchen doorway. Lightning breached the gap between us as her eyes met mine again. What was it about that woman?
“Bye, love,” she said. “I’ll see you again.” And she meant it.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I want you to write about your best day ever. Don’t worry too much about spelling and punctuation. Just quickly. Write it from the heart.”
Another example of the Nutter’s cruelty, to make us think about our sad and pointless lives. What was he expecting? The day Daddy bought me my new pony? Our holiday in the Bahamas? Me, I didn’t like to look backward. What was the point? The past was gone, nothing you could do about it now. Impossible to pick out one day and say that was the best one. Easier to pick the worst one, several candidates there – not that I’d tell the Nutter about any of them. None of his business. I thought about sitting there and refusing to write anything. There was nothing he could do. But then something flipped inside me and I thought, No, I’ll tell him how it is, if that’s what he wants. I picked up my pen and started to write.
“Time’s up!” Howls of protest. “Stop writing, please. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t finished. Now, instead of handing them in to me, I’m going to ask you to read them out loud.”
Outright rebellion – cries of “no way” and “get lost.” I felt cold inside, knew I’d made a mistake.
“I want you to stand up and speak the words you’ve written. No one’s going to be laughing at you. You’re all in the same boat. Give it a try.”
The barracking subsided.
“Amber, you start. Come up to the front. No? All right, stand where you are, and read it out in a nice, clear voice so we can all hear.”
And so he went, ’round the class. Holidays, birthdays, days off. Kind of what you’d expect. Then one kid, Joel, described his little brother being born, and the room took on a different feeling. Suddenly, everyone was listening as he told us about helping his mum in their bathroom at home, wrapping up the baby in an old towel. A couple of the girls said, “Aww” when he’d finished, his friends high-fived him as he made his way back to his seat. Fair play to him, he’d done a good thing, but I felt sick inside – the thought of that vulnerability, the innocence, the knowledge that the end is written for them even on their first day – it’s too much. I don’t do little kids.
Spider was next. He shuffled to the front of the class, stood shifting his weight from foot to foot, eyes on the page in front of him. You could tell he wanted to be anywhere but there. “Ah, man, do I have to do this?” he said, flapping the page down to his side, stretching his neck back to look up at the ceiling.
“You do,” McNulty said firmly. “Come on, we’re listening.” And he was right. The class was quiet, everyone was getting into this.
“OK.” Spider drew the paper up in front of his face, so he couldn’t see us and we couldn’t see him. “My best day was when my nan took me to the seaside. It had a great name, like Weston-Super-Something. We went on the bus for hours, and I went to sleep. When we got there I’d never seen so much space in my life. The sea went on for miles and there was this huge beach. We had chips and ice cream, and there was donkeys. I had a ride on a donkey, weirdest thing ever, but great. We stayed somewhere, had a couple of days there, just me and my nan. Bloody brilliant.”
A couple of kids started braying in the back row, but in a good-humored way. Spider’s shoulders dropped a bit as he relaxed. Job done, he went back to his seat.
And before long, it was my turn. My skin was tingling, I could feel every nerve ending in my body as I waited for McNulty to say my name. Finally…“Jem, I think it’s your turn next.”
Inside my clothes I felt naked as I walked up to the front. I turned around, kept my eyes down, didn’t want to see everyone looking at me. Perhaps I should have made up something there and then, just pretended I was like everyone else, spun a cozy little tale about the perfect Christmas, presents ’round the tree, that sort of thing. But I don’t think that quick, not when I’m the center of attention. Are you the same? Is it only afterward that you think of what you should have said, the killer response, the put-down that would make them stay put down? Standing up there, scared, panicking, I didn’t have any choice but to read out my words. I took a deep breath and started to speak.
“My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, like usual. Wishing I wasn’t here, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards – we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it’s gone, anyway. Tomorrow may never come. There is only today. This is the best day and the worst day. Actually, it’s crap.”
There was a pause when I stopped speaking. I didn’t look up, just leaned against the whiteboard, aching with embarrassment. The silence was filling my ears, deafening me. Then someone shouted out, “Cheer up, love. It might never happen!” and the familiar jeering and barracking started up.
A crashing sound made me look up. Spider was vaulting over the rows of tables and chairs. When he got to the joker in the back, a kid called Jordan, he drew his arm back and slammed his fist into the guy’s face. The room erupted as Jordan fought back and the rest of the kids turned into a baying pack, gathering ’round in a tight, overexcited little knot. McNulty sprinted to the back of the classroom and barged his way through the crowd, wrenching shoulders apart and squeezing between bodies.
I crumpled up the piece of paper and let it fall to the floor, then slipped out of the door and along the corridor. I had just one thought in my mind – to disappear, find somewhere I could be on my own. I never wanted to go back to that torture chamber again. I stayed out for hours, nowhere in particular, all those places where nobody sees you and nobody cares, until I got tired of walking in the dark.
Back at Karen’s, I went ’round to the kitchen door. I’d expected her to be in bed by the time I got home – it was gone midnight, after all – but she was sitting at the kitchen table, cradling a cup of tea, her face a washed-out gray. She’d had the lot, Karen: babies, little kids, “problem” teenagers like me. Twenty-two foster kids. Worn her out. I clocked her number again. 07142013. She only had three years to go.
“Jem!” she said. “Are you alright? Where’ve you been?”
“Out,” I said. I didn’t have it in me to explain everything. Where would I start?
“Come in, Jem. Sit down.” She didn’t seem angry just then, only tired.
“I just wanna go to bed.”
She opened her mouth, like she was going to start in on me, then thought better of it, just let out a big sigh, and nodded.
“OK, we’ll talk about this in the morning. We will talk about it.” A threat, not a promise. “I’d better ring the police – I reported you missing. Here, take this with you.” She handed me her cup, still three-quarters full.
I went upstairs, put the cup down on the table next to my bed, and climbed under my blankets without getting undressed. I propped the pillows up and reached for my tea. It was only when the warm, sweet liquid hit my bloodstream that I realized how cold and empty I was.
I was dog-tired, but couldn’t close my eyes. So I sat there through the night, sheets pulled up to my neck, until the light seeped ’round the curtains and, somewhere between being asleep and being awake, I registered the start of another grim day.
CHAPTER FIVE