Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,3

jeering, shouting out to him.

The Nutter wasn’t impressed. “What do you mean by bursting in here like that? Go outside into the corridor and come back in like a civilized human being.”

Spider slumped forward with an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Ah, come on, sir. I’m in now, aren’t I? I’m here.”

McNulty spoke quietly, but with force, if you know what I mean, like he was just managing to keep a lid on things. “Just do what I say, and we’ll start again.”

“What you doing this for, sir? I don’t need to be here, but I’m here. I’m ready to learn, sir.” An ironic look to the rest of us, met with an answering jeer. “Why d’ya have to give me all this grief?”

The Nutter took a deep breath. “I don’t know why you’ve decided to join us today, but something has brought you here. Now if you want to join in, and I hope that you do, you need to go out, come in quietly like I’ve asked you, and we’ll get on with the lesson.”

There was a long pause, while they eyeballed each other. The rest of us went quiet, waiting to see how it would play out. For once, Spider was almost keeping still, standing there, staring at the Nutter, with just one leg jiggling. Then he turned and went out, just like that. Every eye in that classroom watched him go and kept watching the empty doorway. Had he gone for good? There was a low murmur as he reappeared, drawn up to his full height, cool as anything. He paused on the threshold. “Morning, sir,” he said and nodded in the Nutter’s direction.

“Good morning, Dawson.” There was a wary look in McNulty’s eye, not sure how to take Spider’s apparent backdown. Worried that victory had been too easy. He placed the comprehension sheet, some paper, and a pen on Spider’s desk. “Sit down, lad, and do your best with this.” Spider sauntered over to his desk, while McNulty returned to the front and stood there, watching us. “OK, everyone, settle down. Twenty-five minutes to go. Let’s see what you can do.”

But Spider’s unexpected return had broken the mood. We were agitated now, a bit of a buzz going ’round. Everyone was fidgeting; there was backchat, chair legs scraping on the floor. McNulty kept picking away at people, trying to get back on top of things: “Eyes on the page, please.” “Keep your hands to yourself.” He was fighting a losing battle.

As for me, the words in front of me swam and danced. They were meaningless, a pattern, nothing more, like Chinese or Arabic. Because I couldn’t stop myself wondering if I was the reason Spider was back. Down by the canal I thought I’d felt the start of a connection, and it had scared me. I’d avoided him since then, but I’d no reason to think that Spider had given me a second thought, until now. Because I could have sworn that as he’d sauntered over to his desk, he’d winked at me. Bloody nerve. Who did he think he was?

After lunch, the Nutter had had enough. Against a background of noise, laughter, general chat, he suddenly stopped. “Right, books away, pens away, paper away. All of you. Now!” What was he up to? “Come on, get on with it. All your stuff away. We need to talk.” Rolled eyes, yawns — yeah, we got it, here comes the pep talk. We put our things in our bags or stuffed them into pockets, and waited for the standard bollocking: “Unacceptable behavior…Letting yourselves down…Lack of respect…” But it didn’t happen.

Instead he walked up and down between the desks, stopping and saying something to each of us before going on to the next one. “Unemployed.” “Checkout girl.” “Garbageman.” When he got to me, he didn’t even pause. “Cleaning lady,” he said and carried on walking. He worked his way back to the front, turned and faced us. “OK, how did that make you feel?”

We stared at our desks or out the window. It had made us feel exactly how he wanted us to feel. Like shit. We all knew what sort of futures were waiting for us after school, didn’t need a puffed-up little tit like him to remind us.

Then Spider blurted out, “I feel fine, sir. It’s just your opinion, isn’t it? It don’t mean shit. I can do anything I want, can’t I?”

“No, Dawson, that’s the whole point, and I want