Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,17
unless I called on my secret friend. My hand tightened around the handle of the knife in my pocket.
“I don’t like you, Jem, and I don’t like your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my —”
“Shut up! I’m talking.” He liked it, that feeling of power. It irritated me, how a prick like him had to have all his boys there to intimidate me. I know I should have kept my eyes down, said nothing, perhaps taken a punch or two, let it all blow over. But he’d got under my skin, and I wasn’t thinking straight.
I pulled the knife out and held it in front of me. “No, you shut up. I don’t want to hear it. I just want you to let me get past and leave me alone.”
They’d all frozen. Every one of them was looking at the blade. Taking the advantage, I shoved past Jordan, who gave no resistance. I had a split second of feeling relieved before I ran straight into McNulty. Instantly, he grabbed my wrist and squeezed so hard that the knife fell to the ground. Still holding me, he took a hankie from his pocket, bent down, and picked up the knife in it, like a copper on the telly retrieving his evidence. There was no mistaking his air of triumph. He’d got me now. He’d got the evidence. Tosser.
“It’s all over, bell’s about to ring. Get on to your classrooms,” he boomed. “You,” he said to me, with grim satisfaction, “are coming with me.”
With my wrist still clamped in his grip, he led me to the headmaster’s office. We didn’t wait outside like usual. Still holding on to me, McNulty walked straight past the school secretary in her office and knocked on the head’s door, walking in there and then, full of self-importance. “Headmaster, we’ve got a serious issue to deal with here. I caught Jem Marsh threatening another pupil with a knife on school grounds.” He placed the knife on the head’s desk.
The head, who’d been signing some papers, visibly recoiled, like McNulty had lobbed a ticking bomb in front of him. “Right. I see,” he said, looking rapidly from me to the Nutter and back again. Then he picked up the phone. “Miss Lester, ring the police and ask them to come here, please. We’ve got a pupil with a knife. Yes. Thank you. And ring the home contact for Miss Marsh. They’d better get down here, too.”
And then it started: the questions, the lectures, the accusations, the disappointment. Not just the head and the police; they got Karen and my social worker, Sue, in, too. The office was bulging at the seams by the time they were all there. “I don’t think you realize what trouble you’re in — carrying an offensive weapon, threatening behavior, and this on top of disruptive behavior in the classroom, insolence, bullying…”
And on and on and on. I blanked them all out, just sat there while they talked at me. I wanted to believe that if I just kept quiet, eventually they would run out of steam, and it would all go away, but even I couldn’t kid myself this time. The knife sat on the desk in front of me — a silent witness. Big mistake bringing that to school, I kept thinking. Big mistake. This was serious business now. I was well and truly in the shit.
Eventually, it was agreed that I would be interviewed further at the police station. You could feel the ripple of excitement passing through the school as I was carted away in the cop car. There were kids hanging out of the windows, others gathered in doorways. As they led me out, I thought, This is probably the last time I’ll be here. But I didn’t care about the school or the kids there. It was only when I thought about Spider that I felt a sharp twinge in my stomach. If they locked me up now, would I ever see him again?
They did it all formally — booked me, searched me, took my fingerprints. I think they were doing it to frighten me, but I wasn’t that bothered. I’d kind of withdrawn from everything. I was there, but I was keeping myself to myself — watching what was going on, but not feeling it.
I went along with everything, didn’t cause no trouble, but didn’t tell them one thing. They tried being nice: “You’ve got to understand that it’s very dangerous to carry a knife. It’s just as likely to