‘I…’ Mum sighed. ‘…I don’t know if this year’s problems with the time off and whatnot that Dad and I had will be better next year. Let’s just wait and see how things turn out.’
‘But Dean Moran’s mum works in an old folks’ home and his dad’s a postman but they always manage to—’
‘Bully for Mr and Mrs Moran,’ Mum used the voice that means you’re talking too loud, ‘but not all jobs are as flexible, Jason.’
‘But—’
‘Enough, Jason!’
The cinema man has appeared. He judges who’ll get in and who’ll be told, ‘You may as well go home.’ The Saved and the Rejects. The cinema man’s lips twitch numbers as he paces down the pavement, slow as a coffin-bearer. His Biro scratches his clipboard. Queuers grin with relief when he passes, peering back to see who he’ll cast off as Rejects. The Saved’re such smug bastards. They’ve got a seat in the colourful kingdom in the dark. Even if it’s where the screen’s too close up, Chariots of Fire’ll run for them. Twenty people’re left between the cinema man and us. Please, let your feet come just a few extra paces along the pavement, just a few more, come on, just a few more…
Please.
Maggot
‘Jason Taylor,’ Ross Wilcox’s breath smelt like a bag of ham, ‘goes to the pictures with Mummy!’ A moment ago Mark Badbury’d been talking to me about how to win at Pacman. Now, this. I’d already missed my chance to deny it. ‘We seen yer! In Cheltenham! Queuing with yer mummy!’
Traffic and time in the corridor’d slowed down.
Stupidly, I tried to downgrade his attack by smiling.
‘What’re yer smiling about, yer oily fuckin’ maggot? Touch yer mummy up in the back row, did yer?’ Wilcox gave my tie a vicious yank. Just because. ‘Stick yer tongue in, did yer?’ He pinged my nose. Just because.
‘Taylor!’ Gary Drake hunts with his cousin. ‘That’s disgusting!’
Neal Brose looked at me like you’d look at a dog taken to the vet’s to be put down. Pity, but contempt, too, that it’d allowed itself to get so weak.
‘Give Mummy a Frenchie, did yer?’ Ant Little is Wilcox’s new servant.
Wayne Nashend’s an older one. ‘Slip yer finger in, did yer?’
Spectators voted with their grins.
‘Answer us, then.’ Wilcox has a habit of holding the tip of his tongue between his teeth. (That same tongue that tasted every nook of Dawn Madden.) ‘Or c-c-can’t y-y-yer get the w-w-words out, yer st-st-stuttery bugger?’
That shot this attack into a new dimension. A hollow pit yawned where my answer should’ve been.
‘Ross!’ Darren Croome hissed. ‘Flanagan’s coming!’
Wilcox ground his foot on my shoe like he was putting out a cigarette. ‘Dicksquirt stammerstuttery mammyshagging arse-maggot.’
Mr Flanagan the deputy head breezed by, flushing the 3GL kids towards the geography room. Wilcox, Ant Little and Wayne Nashend went but my popularity was left dying in its final spasms. Mark Badbury was going over our maths homework with Colin Pole. I didn’t approach anyone ’cause I knew they wouldn’t talk to me. All I could do was stare out the window till Mr Inkberrow rolled up.
Mist’s dulling the gold leaves and browning the reds.
Double maths is ninety minutes of pure boredom on the best of days and today was the worst of the worst. Wished I hadn’t nagged Mum to take me to Chariots of Fire. Wished I’d just gone alone and paid for myself.
Wilcox would’ve found some reason to put the boot in, mind. He hates me. Dogs hate foxes. Nazis hate Jews. Hate doesn’t need a why. Who or even what is ample. This is what I was thinking when Mr Inkberrow whacked my desk with his metre-rule. I jumped in my seat and cracked my knee-cap on my desk. Obviously I’d zoned out of the lesson again.
‘In need of a little focusing, Taylor, hmm?’
‘Uh…I don’t know, sir.’
‘A quick head-to-head to sharpen your brain, Taylor. You versus Pike.’
I silently groaned. Head-to-head’s where Kid A solves a sum on the left of the blackboard while Kid B solves the same sum on the right, like a race. Clive Pike’s 3KM’s mathematical brainbox, so I didn’t stand a chance. Which was part of the fun. Even as we wrote down the dictated equation, my chalk snapped.
Half the class giggled, including some girls.
Leon Cutler muttered, ‘What a loser.’
It’s one thing Ross Wilcox giving you a going over in public. Ross Wilcox’s doing that to loads of kids this term. But if a Mr Average like Leon Cutler slags you off and doesn’t even care that