Home Girl

by Alex Wheatle

  “They your best friends?”

  I thought about it. “Haven’t got best friends,” I said. “They’re the only ones who chat to me, I s’pose. I might as well not exist for the rest of ’em. They think I’m weird.”

  “If you want you can invite them around.”

  I busted out a giggle. “Ha ha ha! No way! Kim will hijack your purse before you have a chance to tell her to sit down. And Nats, she doesn’t like stepping in strange peeps’ houses. She’s funny like that. I was staying with my nan for the weekend and Nats once trod all the way from Notre Dame to see me in Ashburton. She was hunting for Kim. She was going cadazy with worry.”

  “We could all do with friends who worry about us like that,” said Colleen.

  I nodded. “Anyway, when she came to my nan’s gates, I told her that once she finds Kim she should sink a few of her mum’s stress pills to calm her down. And she wouldn’t come in. She just waited outside in the rain till I got ready. She wanted me to help her hunt for Kim.”

  “I can understand that,” Colleen said. “She was desperate to find her friend.”

  “I s’pose so. Kim goes all ghost on us now and again. Sometimes I need to be on my lonesome to think about stuff, she’s always telling Nats. Nah, Nats got some serious abandonment issues.”

  “What are the teachers like at your unit?”

  “Boring. There’s only a couple of teachers there in any one day. Loads of staff though. We don’t have too many standard lessons. We have talks and stuff. Personal development, they brand it. Usually it all ends up with everybody cursing and fisting off . . . Were you ever expelled?”

  Colleen kept her eyes on the road ahead. “Er . . . yes, I was.”

  “Yeah! What for? Fisting off with some bitch? Nah, you don’t seem the type to maul somebody. Jacking from a shop? Can I come in the front?”

  “Of course.”

  Colleen pulled over. I jumped into the front passenger seat and Colleen rejoined the traffic.

  “Going missing from school?” I pressed again.

  “No.”

  “Setting fire to the science lab?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Allowing a teacher to touch ya? Or a bruv in an older year?”

  Colleen narrowed her eyes and gave me a hard look.

  “Then what was it?” I wanted to know.

  Colleen full-stopped for a second and then swallowed a fat worm. “Fighting.”

  “Fighting? No jokes? You?”

  “Yes, me, Naomi.”

  I scoped Colleen from eyebrow to toe corner. “You’re not a hard-curb bitch,” I said. “Or you don’t look like one. What trauma licked you?”

  “Let’s not use the word bitch,” Colleen said. “My dad certainly wasn’t the best in the world, nor was my mum. But they weren’t canine.”

  “Sorry.”

  She hot-wheeled on for about half a mile in silence. Needles of guilt pricked my brain.

  “I was fourteen,” she started again. “And even shorter than I am now.”

  “I wouldn’t call you a hobbit,” I said.

  Colleen smiled. “I’d just started at a new school—Smeckenham Girls,” she revealed. “I was seeing this fifteen-

  year-old guy who was going to the mixed Coloma School down the road. I thought he was the hottest thing ever in a basketball kit. But we all do at that age.”

  “When you say seeing, you mean linking up with him, slurping tongues, and doing stuff, right?”

  “Er, yeah.”

  “Did he bust your rosebud?”

  “Did he what?”

  “Bust your rosebud,” I repeated. “Destroy your virgin status?”

  “No. It was just . . . Anyway, the guy was two-timing me with this other girl that I didn’t know about. And as luck had it, she went to Smeckenham Girls too. As soon as I found out I broke up with the guy. But his other girlfriend wouldn’t leave me alone. She called me a slag, a whore, a slut. Called me every name under the sun.”

  “What an uber-bitch. Did you clong the brain matter outta her? Did you make her donate a mug of blood to the curb drain?”

  “Language, Naomi.”

  “Sorry . . . did you . . .” I struggled to find a word that wasn’t a curse. “Did you switch on her? Do her in? Bang her up?”

  Colleen took her time in answering. “I could just about cope with all the name-calling,” she said. “And I tried to ignore her.”

  “Then how did it all boot off?”

  Colleen took in a long breath. “One afternoon I passed her in the school corridor. I was on my way to home economics—what do they call it these days? Food technology or something? Yes, that’s it. We were going to make a Victoria sandwich cake that afternoon. My bag was heavier than usual.”

  “And then?”

  “She made a comment.”

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “We got into an argument, name-calling and stuff. She said, At least I haven’t got a mental mum, you effing slut! I totally lost it.”

  “I woulda cold-potted her with something that roasts fat turkeys. Liberties!”

  “I grabbed her hair and just tried to rip it from her scalp.” Colleen’s eyes got bigger and she stopped blinking. “People were jumping on my back but I wouldn’t let go. She was screaming . . . I held on for as long as I could. I was dragging her head along the floor. I remember an ambulance coming. Flour and eggs were all over the place. I lost my little bottle of vanilla essence and my caster sugar. Teachers were pulling me away but I put up a fight because I wanted to find my vanilla essence. I was really pissed at not being able to make my cake.”

  “I woulda been pissed too,” I put in.

  “I . . . I didn’t even know where my mum was living at that point,” Colleen went on. She finally blinked. “But in a way . . . in a way I wanted to make the cake for her. Stupid, really.”

  “It’s not stupid,” I said. “You had issues.”

  Colleen tried to raise a smile. “I ran to the toilets. I wouldn’t come out for ages. It seemed like there was a million people outside my cubicle.”

  I squeezed Colleen’s shoulder and gave her one of my special smiles. The kinda smile I used to give to Dad when he rolled home sober. “I used to try and bake my dad stuff. One time I tried to make him little fairy cakes but the frucking—”

  “Language, Naomi.”

  “—gas cut off before they were cooked. No funds on the gas card. Had to wait to finish ’em two days later. I was really pissed with Dad when he donated half the cakes to his pub mates that night. I let him know about it in the morning by spilling my porridge over his jeans. Anyway, that mega bitch you had a brawl with had it coming.”

  Colleen thought about it. Her face switched back to foster-carer mode. “No, Naomi,” she said. “I was wrong. I was making her pay for everything that went wrong with my life. Making her pay for my mother leaving me and so many issues that I had.”

  I shook my head. “I still woulda clonged her.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Colleen dropped me off at my PRU unit. She gave me a five-pound note for lunch and said she’d be back at three thirty p.m. to pick me up. I watched her roll away and wave goodbye before I stepped through the parking lot and to the entrance. I thumbed the entry-phone buzzer and made faces at the closed-circuit camera that was scoping me from a high position on the wall. “It’s me! Naomi. Whass-a-matter with you? Don’t you recognize me? Let me in.”

  The buzzer sounded. I pushed the door open. The reception area had an L-shaped beige sofa with diversity cushions just to the right of the door. Dated teen magazines were scattered on a coffee table. Behind a counter, parked on a stool, and goggleboxing a computer screen and a closed-circuit TV monitor was Marie. She scrubbed up pretty neatly for a woman of thirty-nine but her rouge was a bit tomato-ketchupy and her nails coulda shanked a bulletproof vest. I loved her leopard-print top though.

  “Morning, love,” she greeted. “Glad to see you’re back
with us. Moving again, was you? You must be dizzy, love, with all the moving about you do . . . Kim’s missed you.”

  “All right, Marie,” I replied before turning right into a hallway. I didn’t wanna get into a long convo with her. Marie could go on a bit about Love Island, wherever she was thinking of going on holiday, her latest boyfriends, clubbing, and whatever cocktails she sunk on a Friday night.

  “They’re in the lounge,” Marie called. “Richard’s giving a talk.”

  Richard’s always giving a talk.

  * * *

  The lounge walls were covered in posters warning about drugs, more drugs, and the whole alphabet of sex diseases. It leaked into my head so much that it messed up my appetite for bananas.

  A television sat in a corner and above it another poster asked everybody to report bullying. Richard stood in the middle of the room. He was wearing a light-blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves and black jeans. He’d be fit if he wasn’t hobbit size. I mean, Hermione never fell for one of her dwarf-sized professors, did she?

  Crashing in armchairs and giant cushions were my classmates: three black boys, two white, a black girl, a mixed-race girl, and two white girls. Wearing orange leggings, a micro jean skirt, a Kung-Fu T-shirt, and neatly topped off with orange spiky hair was Kim. A silver stud sexed up her nose and a gold ring glinted in her bottom lip. She was don’t-even-have-to-try pretty.

  “Naomi! You’ve gone all ghost on me,” she called out. “Where’ve you been?”

  Everyone in the room looked at me. I felt proper awkward.

  “I moved, innit,” I replied. I played with one of my braids. “Had issues at my last place.”

  “They don’t give me untold days off when they move me,” complained Kim. “Why aren’t you moving back in with us? Haven’t you tried every other foster family in the whole of Ashburton and yonder? Move back with us, sistren.”

  “I—”

  “Can we save our greetings and conversations until break time?” asked Richard politely.

  “We’ll catch up later,” said Kim. “Who braided up your hair?”

  “My new foster—”

  “Girls!” Richard raised his voice. “Now, where was I?”

  Nats pointed at my braids. “Looks good,” she said. “I . . . I thought you’d be going to another school.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Nats looked a bit disappointed. She still had her anorak on. She was wearing sky-blue tracksuit bottoms and pink sneakers. Her hair extensions snaked past her elbows.

  “Next thing she’ll be injecting her arse with steroids to try and look like us,” spat Cassandra, a sixteen-year-old black girl lying curled up on a cushion in front of Nats. She had brown braids and matching brown lipstick. Her eyebrows were tattooed on. She gave me a brutal eye-pass and kissed her teeth. A cold gust of fear blew through me.

  “Take an iced smoothie, Cass,” Kim dismissed her.

  Cassandra kissed her teeth again and hardened her eyebrows. I tried to delete her from my radar.

  “Don’t worry about Cass,” said Kim. “It looks on point. I might get my hair done like that when it grows a bit.”

  “Who asked you to jump in the argument?” barked Cassandra.

  “What are you?” yelled back Kim. “I can’t remember you giving birth to me so don’t tell me squat. I’ll join whatever argument I want.”

  Nats moved and sat right up close to Kim.

  “You think I’d want you as my mum?” crackled Cassandra. “I’d murk myself if I came out of your crotches.”

  Same unit, same issues, same beefs.

  It booted off.

  As she launched herself at Cassandra, Kim was held and pulled back by Richard and another male member of the staff. Arguments brewed and boiled for the next ten minutes with nuff pushing and barging. Every third word was a curse. I stared at the floor and played with one of my braids. What else can I do? Nats tried to calm Kim by caressing her shoulders and giving her a hug. Richard stood in the middle of the room with his arms outstretched.

  “Now that we’re calm again, I’ll pick up where I left off.”

  I was the only one listening to him cos the others were thumbing their mobile phones.

  “We have to learn to resolve our disputes in a calm manner,” continued Richard. “When we resort to violence we often regret it afterward.”

  “I won’t regret it,” interrupted Cassandra.

  “Far better to have a frank and honest discussion about the issues at hand,” Richard said.

  The ultimate social wanker speak.

  “I’m gonna be real, Richard,” Kim chimed in. “This talk is your most boring yet. When are you showing us the film?”

  All eyes were on Richard except Cassandra. She was giving me a chronic side-eye. I can’t lie, my nerves clawed the inside of my belly.

  “Okay,” agreed Richard. “But please watch and consider how a little argument spirals out of control. Try to learn from this.”

  “Just put in the frucking film,” a bruv demanded from the back of the room.

  “Any more swearing and the DVD will be ejected,” warned Richard.

  “Just put the fricking DVD in,” another bruv raised his voice. “It’s the only reason why I touched down here today.”

  The class settled down to watch the film. It was about two fourteen-year-old bruvs falling out over a smart phone they had found. It ended with one of them carving the other. Throughout the drama, Cassandra side-eyed me. This is getting zombies-in-the-hood scary now. What have I done to her? Try not to look at her. Stay with Kim and Nats.

  Richard wanted a discussion following the film but neither he nor his staff put up too much resistance as we decided to take our first break of the day twenty minutes early. I followed Kim and Nats to the canteen. We all bought a bag of crisps, a chocolate bar, and a Coke can each and parked at a table. Cassandra and her sistren Yoanna sat down at the opposite end of the room. I could feel the hate from their eyes.

  “So is it a long-term ting at your new place?” Nats wanted to know. “You won’t be coming back to the unit?”

  “No,” I replied, “it’s just a temp ting. For maybe a week or so.”

  “You’re living with black people,” said Kim. “What’s that like?”

  “The food’s different,” I said. “They’re a bit stricter. You have to eat at the dinner table an’ all that. I didn’t even have a TV in my room when I first got there. I had to put up a fierce resistance about that.”

  “Liberties,” said Kim. “What about the dad? Not a prick-o-phile, is he? Watch him, Naoms. I’m telling ya, most of them foster dads are pedos—that’s why they’re in the fostering game. You reported Mr. Holman, right?”

  “Er, kind of.”

  “What d’you mean, kind of? You told me he was tickling on your bathroom door and on your bedroom door when you were getting changed. That’s how they start, Naoms.”

  “He wasn’t,” I tried to explain before Kim got into her flow.

  “They start by being all nice to ya,” she relaunched. “Being polite and all that game. Buying you sweets, sneaking you smokes, and giving you hard liquor. Some of ’em even buy you little presents, earrings and perfume. Remember the one who bought me a phone? The ultimate dick-o-phile! They’re trying to get you to trust ’em. But underneath all that malarkey they want to put their grimy fingers up your business. That’s what they wanna do, Naoms. They don’t even bother to keep their fingers clean. They don’t even wash ’em after they’ve been to the bog. They put one up there and when they get excited they put another up there. Make sure you report Holman to your social worker. Freaking prick-o-phile. If he ends up in prison they’ll fly-kick the spunk outta him.”

  “I will,” I nodded.

  “And don’t let your new foster dad anywhere near the shower when you’re in it. He might try and peep through the keyhole and all that lark.”

  “It’s all right,” I managed to get a word in. “I’ve given him warning. He knows not to
fruck about with me. His toes have to stay downstairs while I’m in the shower.”

  “Good!” said Kim. “I still dunno why you’re even allowing your social worker to take you to foster homes. You wanna squiggle a fat full stop on that one. What’s her name again?”

  “Louise.”

  “You wanna sack her, like yesterday,” Kim insisted. “Slap her face with her P45 and boot her outta your life.”

  “She’s . . . all right,” I said.

  “You’re better off linking with us. How many times do I have to broadcast that?”

  “It—” Nats started. She stuttered. “It . . . it might work out all good with your new people. You never know, not all foster carers are—”

  “Anyway, your hair looks on point,” Kim blocked Nats’s flow. “Just like them black singers. Makes you look real pretty-duper-licious. Bruvs will be twisting their necks to look at ya.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nats stared at Kim. She didn’t look too happy. After two weeks of being away from Kim and Nats, I still didn’t quite know where my toes fitted around their relationship. I always felt like the spare tire in the trunk—only to be of use when needed.

  “Don’t worry what anyone says,” Kim continued, raising her voice. “Last time I looked, there isn’t any law against white chicks having braids.” She reached out a hand and felt the texture of one of my braids. “Must’ve taken ages.”

  “About five hours in all,” I replied.

  “It suits ya,” said Kim. “Exposes your big crusty forehead a bit but it works.”

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  Nats looked at Kim. “I could . . . I could do your hair for you,” she offered.

  “You can do your own, Nats,” Kim responded, “but can you do other peeps?”

  “Of course,” Nats said. “I’ll do it tomorrow, before we get here. I’ll get up at snore o’clock if you like.”

  “Nah,” said Kim. “Everyone will be saying I’m copying Naoms.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Nats. “Not a problem. I’ll even do it in a better style than Naoms is repping.”

  “It’s all right, Nats,” Kim said. “Don’t want you getting up early just for moi. Chill.”

  I glanced at Cassandra. She side-eyed me and whispered something to Yoanna. My belly chopped and churned like a mad sea.