The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart Page 0,11

that he uses to calm his nerves and dull his melancholy. No matter how often I water the flowers that are my memories of the little singer, they’re being starved of sunlight.

Madeleine goes to great lengths to comfort me, but she never wants to hear any tales of the heart. Arthur hardly has any memory eggs left in his pouch, and he sings less and less.

On my birthday, Anna and Luna come over for the evening – it’s the same ‘surprise’ every year. As usual, they’re having fun putting perfume on Cunnilingus, but this time Luna gets a little over-enthusiastic when she douses him. The hamster stiffens in a spasm and keels over, stone dead. The sight of my faithful companion stretched out in his cage makes me very sad. A long ‘cuckoo’ escapes from my chest.

As a consolation prize, I get a geography lesson on Andalusia from Luna. Ah, Andalusia . . . If only I could be sure that Miss Acacia was there, I’d leave right away!

Four years have gone by since my encounter with the little singer, and nearly three years since I started school. I still look for her everywhere, but I can never find her. Little by little, my memories are being crushed under the weight of time.

On the night before the last day of school, I go to bed with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I don’t get a wink of sleep. I’m too busy thinking about what I want to achieve tomorrow. Because this time I’ve made up my mind, it’s time to conquer the Amorous West. I just need to find out where the little singer is right now. And the only person who can answer that question is Joe. I watch dawn tracing the shadows to the beat of my tick-tock.

It’s 27 June and we’re in the school playground under a blue sky, so blue you’d think we were anywhere but Edinburgh. The sleepless night has sharpened my nerves.

I make straight for Joe, with more than purpose in my stride. But before I’ve had a chance to say anything, he grabs my shirt collar and hoicks me off the ground. My heart creaks, my anger overflows, the cuckoo hisses. Joe taunts the crowd around us.

‘Take off your shirt and show us what you’ve got on your chest. We want to see your thing that goes tick-tock.’

‘Yeah!!!’ roars the crowd.

With a swoop of his arm, he rips off my shirt and jams his nails into my dial.

‘How does this open?’

‘You need a key.’

‘Hand it over.’

‘I haven’t got it here, it’s at home, so leave me alone.’

He picks the lock with his little finger, niggling at it furiously. The dial gives way in the end.

‘See, we don’t need a key after all! Who wants to have a grope?’

One after another, students who’ve never said a word to me take it in turns to tug on my clock hands and activate my gears. They’re hurting me and they’re not even looking at me. The cuckoo can’t stop hiccuping. They clap and laugh. The whole playground joins in: ‘Cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo!‘

Something flips inside my brain. Dreams anaesthetised for years, pent-up rage, humiliation . . . everything is headed for the floodgates. The barrage is about to give way. I can’t hold back any more.

‘Where’s Miss Acacia?’

‘I don’t think I heard you properly,’ says Joe, twisting my arm.

‘Where is she? Tell me where she is. I’ll find her, whether she’s here or in Andalusia, do you hear me?’

Joe pins me face down to the ground, so I can’t move. My cuckoo is singing at the top of its voice, I feel like my oesophagus is on fire, something’s changing inside me. Violent spasms shake me every three seconds. Joe turns around triumphantly.

‘So, you’re setting off for Andalusia just like that?’ he asks, through gritted teeth.

‘Yes, I’m leaving! And I’m leaving today!’

My eyes are bulging, so is my throat, and my movements too. I’m turning into a pair of shears that will chop up anyone and anything.

Pretending to be a dog sniffing a turd, Joe brings his nose close to my clock. The whole playground bursts out laughing. This is too much. I grab him by the neck and ram his face against my clock hands. His skull cracks loudly against my wooden heart. The clapping stops dead. I deal him a second blow, more violent this time, then a third. Time seems to stand still. I’d love a photograph to document this moment. His first cries for