Bad Influence

by William Sutcliffe

  ‘There you go, then,’ says Carl, putting my fist where he wants it.

  I’m still trying to think of an answer when the first hit gets me. It’s so hard that my hand is knocked right down to my side. The corner of the pack has dug right in behind my biggest knuckle, and a curl of skin has flipped upwards. Underneath, there’s colourless stuff that isn’t skin. It’s whitish, then it goes red in front of my eyes. I feel like someone’s stuck a big needle into me and left it there.

  ‘One,’ says Carl.

  My heart’s thumping and my brain’s racing, but it also feels as if nothing’s happening up there. It’s like my head’s gone numb. It’s like I can’t stop what Carl’s doing. He repositions my fist where he wants it and raises the pack not up to shoulder height like before, but right above his head, as far up as it’ll go. He hits again. This one’s even harder and it’s on exactly the same spot. You’d think he was trying to bang in a nail.

  ‘Two,’ he says.

  It feels more like a knife than a pack of cards. The pain shoots up my arm as if everything’s screeching inside. A bead of blood comes out of the hole in my skin, a perfect little, red blob that with Carl’s third hit splodges all over the knuckle.

  He counts them off, right up to eight, his tone of voice trying to stay the same, but gradually changing as he stops being able to hide how much he’s enjoying himself. His cheeks, which are normally so pale you can almost see through them, become flushed with colour as if he’s eaten a big bowl of hot soup.

  By the time he finishes, my eyes are pricking with tears and my whole body feels trembly, but when I look down at myself, everything’s still.

  My hand’s a mess. Sometimes you forget it’s you all the way to the middle of your body, in different layers of red squelchiness. My knuckles look like someone’s ripped me open to see what’s inside – to see if it’s still me under the surface.

  It’s when I see Olly staring that it’s hardest not to cry. You’d think my hand was dead by the way Olly gawps at it, with his mouth wide open, eyes not blinking.

  My chest’s going up and down like I’ve been running. I can only get air into me in gasps. I try to breathe normally, but I can’t. Through a blur of tears, I look up and see Carl’s hand stretched out flat, the cards neatly piled in his palm. It’s my turn to cut.

  I’ve got to the end of the round. I haven’t cried. I haven’t bottled out. If I leave now, it’s OK. I’ve lost, but I haven’t been humiliated. If I take a card, I’m in for the round, and I could lose again. I could easily lose again to Carl. But if I don’t take a card, I’ve missed the opportunity to get him back.

  Chances are, it’ll be my turn on him, now he’s had his turn on me. I can easily hit just as hard as him. I can show him what it feels like. He’s cheated by hitting me with the edge of the pack, and he should pay for it. It’s not fair if he doesn’t have it done back to him.

  For ages I stare at the cards. No one says anything or tries to rush me. They know what I’m thinking. The edge of the pack is splodged with red. No one’ll be able to use it again without thinking of my split-open hand.

  Sometimes when you’re deciding what to do, you act like you’re thinking about the different options, but you’re not really thinking anything. You’re just waiting to see what your body does. It’s as if your body tells your head what to do, not the other way round. You’re just waiting, not thinking.

  It’s a surprise when it happens – when my arm goes out and picks a card. The real shock is when I look at it. It’s the four of clubs.

  Olly’s next. Ten of diamonds.

  Then Carl. We see the card before he does. Queen of hearts.

  ‘Unlucky, Ben. It’s me and you again,’ he says.

  ‘No. It’s ten all. It’s a play-off.’

  ‘Queen’s higher than a ten.’

  ‘Not according to your rules,’ I say. ‘Ten’s ten and queen’s ten. That’s a draw.’

  ‘But a queen’s higher. I won.’

  ‘It’s not higher. It’s a ten.’

  ‘Queen always beats ten.’

  ‘Not if a queen is a ten. It’s a draw. They’re your rules. It’s a play-off. You and Olly.’

  Carl shrugs, like he can’t be bothered to waste his time talking to me and holds what’s left of the pack out to Olly. Olly cuts again. Jack. Then Carl. Five.

  It’s Olly on me. I could run for it now and they wouldn’t stop me, but it’d look bad, and I’d miss out on my chance to get Carl back. Olly won’t hit me any harder than I hit him. With my hand the way it is, though, anything is going to really hurt.

  I hold my fist out, and Olly stares at it as he gathers the pack together.

  ‘You can submit now if you like,’ says Olly.

  ‘No, he can’t,’ Carl butts in.

  I shake my head. ‘Don’t want to,’ I say.

  Olly takes my hand and positions it in the best spot. He holds it gently, and I can feel the warmth of his fingers against mine, which are cold and shaky. In his other hand he’s got the pack of cards. He’s not holding it stabbing fashion, like Carl, but normally, like before.

  He raises the pack towards my red and pulpy knuckles, and holds it still, measuring the distance for his hit. I can see that the pack is trembling in his hand. He’s breathing fast and noisily through his nose. For ages, he doesn’t move.

  ‘You can’t even do it!’ says Carl. ‘You’re such a dork!’

  Then the pack goes up and bangs down into my knuckles.

  After such a long wait, it comes when I’m not expecting it, and I can’t stop myself crying out in pain. Even though he’s not doing it nearly as hard as Carl, it’s just as sore. My hand went slightly numb first time round, but now I can feel everything.

  ‘One,’ says Carl.

  Olly positions himself for a second hit, and there’s another long pause. Finally, it comes. I’m more prepared this time, and I don’t make any noise, but a tear that’s been building up in one eye spills over and runs down my cheek. I try and wipe it away before the other two notice, but they both see.

  ‘Two,’ says Carl.

  Olly puts the cards out again, ready for his third hit, and this time the wait goes on and on. Eventually he says, ‘I resign. I’ve lost.’

  ‘Don’t be a girl,’ says Carl.

  ‘I’ll be what I want. I’ve lost,’ says Olly. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You can’t resign in the middle of a round.’

  ‘I don’t want to play any more,’ he says.

  He drops the cards on the floor, walks away and lies on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. You can see that nothing’s going to change his mind.

  Carl scoops up the cards, shuffles them into a pack and holds them out to me, his clear blue eyes glinting with how much fun he’s having.

  ‘Me v. you for winner, then,’ he says.

  I stare down at the pack, stacked neatly on Carl’s palm. If I lost again, I reckon he could cut through to the bone.

  ‘Did you learn this at the unit?’ I say. ‘From the other psychos?’

  He shrugs. ‘Your cut,’ he says.

  I slap the underside of his hand and cards fly everywhere.

  ‘I’m bored,’ I say. ‘I’m going home.’

  And I walk out.

  On the way back, I rub some gravel from the driveway of number 30 into my cheek, so I can tell Mum I fell off my bike. Before she sees them, I put plasters on my knuckles.

  She believes the story, but at dinner I can tell by the way Donny looks at me that he knows I’ve lied.

  On Monday, Olly stares at my hand right through register, and on the way to assembly he tries to apologize for what happened.

  ‘He’s not normally like that,’ he says. ‘I reckon he’s just got it in for you.’

  ‘I’m going to move desks,’ I say.

  There’s a spare place near the door, sharing with Eric, who only ever gets called Blob. It’s like Siberia back there, but I have to do it.

  Blob’s only frie
nd is Kwok, who’s new and doesn’t speak English. Kwok’s got a brother in the year below who also can’t speak English, and who’s also called Kwok. They’re both tiny. Three Kwoks would weigh one Blob.

  The View from Next to Blob

  I need special permission from Mrs Dickson to move, and she warns me that I won’t be allowed to go back. You can’t change desks more than once a term. I don’t even hesitate. I just tell her I have to do it.

  At the back, next to Blob, it’s another world. All I’m thinking about when I ask to move is who I’m getting away from. It doesn’t cross my mind to worry who I’m going towards. It’s a long time since Blob had anyone sitting next to him and, as far as he’s concerned, I’m his saviour. I’m his new friend. Fact is, I’d rather saw my own legs off than be Blob’s friend. If you’re willing to be seen with him, you might as well give up. You can’t sink any lower than Blob.

  But when you’re sitting next to him, he’s not so easy to avoid. I can’t tell him to go away and shut up, which is what I want to do every time he tries to talk to me, because we’re stuck at the same desk. Normally, you just avoid Blob. Everyone does. But now I can’t.

  Every day, as soon as I sit down, he starts right in asking me what I did last night and what I watched on telly and what I had for dinner, coming out with stupid question after stupid question. He doesn’t have a clue about how normal people talk, and it just goes on and on. You can see how happy he is that he’s got someone to talk to, even when I hardly answer him. I never ask him anything back, and he doesn’t even mind.

  None of the normal ways of letting someone know you don’t like them work on Blob. He’s always too close and too loud and too keen, and there’s nothing I can do to make him leave me alone. It’s being seen talking to him that I hate, but I can’t avoid it.

  One day he turns up at school carrying a thin pile of envelopes. I reckon there’s only about four of them and, when he gives me one, I have a horrible feeling about what it’s going to be. No one’s watching, so I open it as quick as I can, in front of him, and it’s exactly what I was afraid of. It’s an invitation to his birthday party.

  He stands there, gazing at me with his big, wet eyes, waiting for an answer. It’s the best opportunity I’ve had to shake him off. I’d never go to his party in a million years, and if I just say that to him – if I just tell him the truth – then he’ll have to stop pestering me. All it would take is to say no. It wouldn’t be so cruel. I’d be doing him a favour.

  But I just mumble, ‘Thanks,’ and slip the invitation into my desk.

  It’s register, except Mrs Dickson hasn’t arrived yet, so everyone’s mucking about. Most of the boys are running round after Martin, who’s got a ball he won’t throw to anyone except Scott, and the girls are in gossipy little groups, mainly near Verity’s desk. Olly isn’t there yet, even though it’s late. A few days recently he hasn’t turned up at all and, even though he brings a note, I think he’s bunking. His mum’s got a typewriter.

  I watch Blob go round the room. He gives the next envelope to Kwok, who smiles and nods, and puts it in his desk. Blob mimes that he wants Kwok to open it in front of him, but Kwok doesn’t understand and just keeps smiling and nodding, until Blob gives up.

  He goes over to James next, who’s a bit blotchy and smells of wee. James sits next to Kwok on the desk in front of us. James takes the envelope and says in a voice so loud that everyone stops and stares, ‘EEEERRRRR – WHAT’S THIS?’

  Blob tenses up. Everyone’s looking at him, even Martin and Scott. ‘It’s an invitation,’ he says, so quietly you can hardly hear him.

  ‘TO WHAT?’

  Blob takes ages to answer, and eventually just tries to snatch the envelope back, but James is too quick and he pulls it out of reach, then stands on a chair so Blob can’t reach him.

  With everyone watching, James opens the envelope and reads aloud at the top of his voice: ‘PLEASE COME TO MY PARTY ON SUNDAY 3RD. 8 GLENWOOD CLOSE. 3 TILL 6. GAMES! CLOWNS! TRAMPOLINING!’

  ‘CLOWNS? says Scott.

  ‘How are you going to do trampolining?’ says Martin. ‘You won’t bounce – you’ll just blob.’

  Everyone laughs, even the girls.

  ‘CAN I COME? CAN I COME?’ shouts Scott.

  ‘You can have mine,’ says James and chucks him the invitation.

  It’s not a good throw, and Blob runs after it, but Scott gets there first. He chucks it to Martin, and like an idiot Blob runs round and round the room trying to get it back, until Mrs Dickson comes in and tells him off. While she’s shouting at him, Martin deliberately stands where Blob can see and rips the invitation up into tiny pieces, which he sprinkles on Blob’s chair.

  People are horrible to Blob because they’re afraid of him. They aren’t scared he can hurt you or do anything bad to you; they’re afraid in the way you’d be afraid of a disease. The outcast disease. If you get too close, you might catch it. And I’m too close.

  I’d never have thought it was possible. I’ve always had lots of friends. People like me. But from the back of the class, next to Blob, I begin to feel that everything’s slipping away. The minute I don’t have Olly, I don’t seem to have anyone.

  However nasty I am to Blob, however much I try to show everyone that I’m not his friend, I can feel people are beginning to think of me differently, and the harder I try to get things back to normal, the worse they become.

  I start getting picked later and later for football at playtime, and when Blob comes and asks if he can join in, which he never normally does, I can tell it’s because I’m there – because he thinks I might let him play. Usually I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t want him on my team, but I wouldn’t mind him playing. Now, though, it makes me so crazy that he thinks he’s my friend, and that he lets himself show it in front of other people, that I just start swearing at him and telling him he’s too fat for football, and then I’m kicking him, again and again, on his big, flabby bum, and he starts crying, but I still don’t stop.

  When I turn round, I think everyone’s going to be laughing, but they’re not. They’re just looking at me like I’m nuts, and I realize I’ve made everything worse.

  The day after that, Blob tells me his party’s cancelled.

  I always thought you were where you were. I thought things stayed put. Now I know different. The world’s slippery. All it takes is for one thing to shift, and everything can slide away. People you’ve known for years can change their mind about you just like that, without warning, not one at a time, but all at once, in a gang. As soon as you touch the outcasts, you become one of them, and everyone just abandons you. It’s like falling off the edge of the world.

  Even Mum notices, and starts asking me why I’m acting funny and not going out, and why I don’t see Olly any more.

  ‘Is it because he smokes?’ she asks.

  ‘I DO STILL SEE HIM,’ I say. ‘I SEE HIM AT SCHOOL EVERY DAY. HE’S MY BEST FRIEND.’ I don’t know why I’m shouting.

  ‘Why don’t you see him at the weekends? Have you fallen out?’

  NO!

  She frowns and asks me what’s wrong, so I leave the kitchen and slam the door.

  She follows me all the way up to my room, sits on the edge of the bed, and starts saying in a slow, quiet voice, like she’s explaining a chemical formula and we’re the only two scientists in the world who understand it, that she doesn’t want me spending time with boys who smoke, and she’ll be livid if she ever suspects me of smoking, but she doesn’t want me to think I shouldn’t go out at all. ‘The world’s full of people who do bad things, and everyone does some bad things,’ she says, ‘but that doesn’t mean you should hide yourself away from everyone. Just because I got cross with him doesn’t mean you should never see him again. The last thing I want is you just moping around at home. He’s your best friend. You should visit him. And if you don’t want to see him, you should start seeing other people. You can’t just stay in all the time. Just because Rachel’s doing it doesn’t mean
it’s grown-up or clever. You have to go out and do things.’

  She’s so way off and so stupid I want to cry. I can feel tears coming, but not because I’m upset. It’s just anger and frustration and the way no one understands what’s happening, so I run off again, this time out of the house and down the street. I don’t have anywhere to go, so I just wander round, thinking, trying to figure out what I can do to make things better, but I don’t have a single idea. I can’t think of anything that could get my life back to how it was. I can’t think of how I’ll ever be normal and have normal friends ever again.

  Mum wanting things to be better just makes everything worse. The way she stares at me, like she’s always trying to figure out why I’m not happy, makes me crosser and crosser, and makes me want to tell her less and less, and just seeing that look in her eyes reminds me straight away about everything that’s wrong, and everything I least want to think about.

  I hate her. I hate Mum and I hate everyone else, too.

  Mcdonald’s

  For Olly, things change just as fast. All his life he’s had me to keep him on track, but now I won’t even speak to him. He tries with me for a while, but when he realizes I’m not just in a temporary huff he gives up, and soon we both act as if the other one’s invisible.

  Carl’s got him now. It’s game over. He’s beaten me.

  Which means Carl has to think of a new game, and by watching how Olly changes I can guess what it is. I don’t know what the rules are, or how it’s going to happen, but I know for certain that it’s about winning and losing, and that Olly’s going to lose.

  Without me sitting next to him, straight away Olly’s attention begins to wander in class. He starts getting in trouble for not listening, and then for not doing his work. He chucks things around with Scott and Martin, but it’s never them that get caught, it’s always Olly.

  Some boys enjoy being in trouble, but you can tell Olly hates it. You can tell he doesn’t ever quite know what’s going to happen next. He’s got a different look in his eyes now, sleepier and more alert at the same time, like he can’t be bothered to do much, but is ready every second to defend himself. And I’m sure he’s bunking. I don’t know where he goes, or what he does, but it’s easy enough to guess who he’s with.