Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,4

you all to listen. At the moment, with the attitude you’ve all got now, that’s where you’re heading. However, if you apply yourselves a bit more, concentrate, make the best of your last year here, it could be different. If you get some certifications, get a good report from school, credits toward a degree, you can achieve so much more.”

“My mum works on the checkout.” That was Charmaine, two seats along from me.

“Yes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but, you, Charmaine, could be the store manager if you wanted to. You all need to look a bit further, realize what you can achieve. What do you see yourselves doing? Come on, what are you going to be doing in a year, two years, five years? Laura, you start.”

He went ’round the room. Most of the kids hadn’t got a clue. Or rather, they knew his first assessment had been pretty accurate. When he got to Spider, I held my breath. The boy with no future, what would he say?

Of course, he rose to the challenge. He sat on the back of his chair, like he was addressing a crowd. “Five years’ time, I’m gonna be cruising the streets in my black BMW, got some vibes on the sound system, got money in my pocket.” The other boys jeered.

McNulty looked at him witheringly. “And how, Dawson, are you going to do that?’

“Bit of this, bit of that, sir. Buying and selling.”

McNulty’s face changed. “Theft, Dawson? Drug dealing?” he said coldly. He shook his head. “I’m almost speechless, Dawson. Breaking the law, peddling in misery. Is that all you can aspire to?”

“It’s the only way any of us are going to get any cash, man. What do you drive, sir? That little red Astra in the parking lot? Teaching? Working for twenty years? I’m tellin’ you, I ain’t driving no Astra.”

“Sit down on your chair, Dawson, and shut up. Someone else, please. Jem, what about you?”

How could I possibly know what was going to happen to me? I didn’t even know where I was going to be living in a year’s time. Why was this man torturing us, making us squirm like this? I took a deep breath and said, as sweet as I could manage, “Me, sir? I know what I want.”

“Oh, good. Carry on.”

I made myself look him right in the eye. 12252023. How old was he now? Forty-eight? Forty-nine? He’d go just around the time he retired, then. On Christmas Day, too. Life’s cruel, isn’t it? Christmas spoiled for his family for the rest of their lives. Serve him right, the cruel bastard.

“Sir,” I said, “I want to be exactly…like…you.”

He brightened for a second, a half smile forming, then realized I was taking the mick. His face shut down, and he shook his head. His mouth was a hard line, you could see the bones sticking out as he clenched his jaw.

“Get your math books out,” he barked. “Wasting my time,” he muttered under his breath. “Wasting my time.”

On the way out of class, Spider high-fived me. I didn’t do that stuff normally, but my hand went up to meet his like it had a mind of its own.

“Like your style, man,” he said, nodding his approval. “You got him good. Result.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Spider?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t do drugs, do ya?”

“Nah, nothing heavy. I was just winding him up. Too easy, innit, sometimes? You walking home?”

“No, got detention.” I needed to hang back for a couple of minutes, let the crowds of kids thin out. Karen would be waiting outside the gate. She was walking me to and from school at the moment, just until I’d “earned her trust.” No way I was going to let any of this lot see me with her. “See ya around, then.”

“Yeah, see ya.” He drop-kicked his bag through the classroom door and swung out after it, and as I watched him I thought, Stay away from drugs, Spider, for Christ’s sake. They’re dangerous.

CHAPTER THREE

It was one of those gray October days when it never really gets light. The rain wasn’t exactly falling — it was just there, hanging in the air, in your face, blotting everything out. I could feel it soaking through my hoodie, starting to make my shoulders and the top of my back go cold. We were ’round the back of the shopping center, where the concrete slabs of its walls met the dull green streak of the canal.

“We should go in the shops, at least it’s dry,” I