by Heide Goody
“What are you doing here, Lori?” he whispered back.
I stabbed a finger wordlessly at the huge screen that still held the picture of me having my eggy love-in. “Being the butt of everyone’s joke apparently.”
“You don’t need to hear poison like this. Don’t put yourself through it.”
“You sent her that article! How could you?”
He looked shocked. “No, I didn’t. Why would I do a thing like that? Maybe she’s a reader of that horrible rag.”
“She just said that a member of staff showed it to her!”
“I’m not the only person who works at this university!”
People around us were starting to make very English noises of disapproval. It started as gentle coughs and moved on to full-blown tutting. Eventually, one woman broke ranks. She leaned over and said, “Do you mind?” (which is as close to a full-blown riot as middle England gets).
James apologised and turned back to me.
“Maybe – just maybe – you’ve irritated more than one person at this university, eh?” he suggested, not unkindly.
Well, that didn’t make sense. I was a ray of sunshine in pretty much everyone’s life. And, as that not-entirely-true thought skipped through my mind, I caught sight of someone leaning over the balustrade of the upper level of the hall. Rex McCloud stood there stroking his beard like an evil genius.
“Bastard!” I hissed.
“Well, really!” said the woman who had ‘do-you-mind?’-ed us moments before.
I stood involuntarily. I wanted to march up there and give Rex a piece of my mind. But if I served him first, there might not be enough for Bernadette.
As I stood there, I happened to see a uniformed figure entering the hall from the far corner: a police officer. He was moving slowly, cautiously. I turned my head. Two more were coming from another corner. They weren’t hurrying. They were making sure they had the exits covered.
I bet Sergeant Fenton was here too. I was tempted to spin round to look but maybe they hadn’t seen me yet. I forced myself to sit down.
“Bit of a problem,” I said.
“What?” said James.
“I might have publicly threatened to kill Bernadette Brampton.”
“The vice-chancellor?”
“Yes, for squealing to the police because we murdered Adam.”
“Which we didn’t do.”
“No. But now I’m here and she’s here and the police are here too.”
“What?!”
He stood to look. I hauled him down.
“What’s happening, Dad?” said Theo, sliding into the space beside James.
“Lori,” said James. “Lori is happening.”
“Some of us are trying to listen to the speech,” said the do-you-mind woman. “Some of us are interested in what she has to say.”
I gave an involuntary bark of bitter laughter. It was enough to finally draw Bernadette’s attention our way. She stared at me and then, when she recognised me, she did whatever was the next step up from staring, a sort of uber-staring or staring squared.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” she said to the hall, “we are deeply honoured today to have the young lady from the article with us.” She held out a hand towards me. “Perhaps come to take her own first tentative steps on the road to education and success, I give you Lori Belkin!”
Her tone was meant to be withering and condescending but there was a smattering of applause. That was probably just politeness. The British will applaud anything if they’re told to. More pressingly, the police knew exactly where I was and I could see them slowly converging on me.
“I’m sure,” said Bernadette, fixing me and James with a glare, “Lori has come, as an example to us all, a penitent before this church of learning, ready to sit and listen to the wisdom of her betters.”
Next to me, James looked stunned and confused. You know the phrase rabbit in the headlights? Well, James looked more like a rabbit that had been pistol-whipped, hung up by its thumbs and then told that its carrot supply had been napalmed. Not me though. I was the rabbit that wasn’t going to take any more of this headlight crap.
I quickly recalled my priorities.
I thrust Theo’s tablet into his hand. “You left this in the shed, Theo. I didn’t want you to be without it.”
I grabbed James’ stunned face and gave him a big smushy kiss. “You are a wonderful man and I don’t deserve you. I wish I did.”
I stood up and made for the stage.
“Sit down, Miss Belkin,” commanded Bernadette Brampton.
“Lori!”
The shout was from behind me. I would recognise that world-weary voice anywhere. It was Sergeant Fenton the long and long-suffering arm of the law. I turned.
“Sergeant Fenton,” I said. “I’m in the middle of something right now.”
The policewoman was halfway down the aisle towards me. She beckoned me towards her.
“Come with us, Lori. No one else has to get hurt.”
Hurt?
“I just wanted to put the record straight,” I said.
“And we can do that down at the station.”
I suddenly saw what this was: speak nicely and calmly and get silly little Lori out of there before she causes a scene (or murders Bernadette Brampton or whatever). No one was actually interested in my view of things. No one actually cared what I had to say.
“But she’s saying horrible things about me,” I said, shaking my finger at Bernadette on stage.
“Yes,” said Sergeant Fenton. “And I’m sure she’s sorry. You are sorry, aren’t you, Ms Brampton?”
“I am not!” said Bernadette.
Sergeant Fenton cast an exasperated gaze to the heavens and dashed forward to grab me. I ran, leapt onto the stage and turned to face the audience. There was a ripple of gasps in the hall, although I think quite a few people thought this was all an elaborate roleplay to engage prospective students. The encircling police officers – wow! There were at least two dozen of them! – all froze. Their eyes were fixed on my hand, which had involuntarily gone to the pendant at my neck.
Why had my unconscious mind done that? Well, I had nothing to protect myself with but my words and, yes, my pendant. Hadn’t I turned to it when life became too challenging? And how small and petty my use of it had been! Magicking up foxes to win an argument, conjuring tasty pies to feed a hungry boy. All the good I could have done with it and what had I done? Nothing of value at all. And now I grasped it because I couldn’t cope with a situation blown out of all proportion by a little misunderstanding and some poorly chosen words.
I saw all this clearly and, one might have thought that, in the light of such a revelation, I might have chosen my next words with fresh wisdom and care.
But what I said was: “Don’t make me use this.”
Now, I liked to think I had grown as a person in recent weeks, that new-Lori was a more mature, thoughtful and worldly individual than old-Lori. Old-Lori, after some hours or days of reflection, might have concluded that “Don’t make me use this” was unfortunate phrasing and that those five words had made everyone in the room recategorize Lori from “crazy bitch” to “mad bomber” (everyone apart from a ten year old boy who probably understood exactly what I meant). However, new-Lori – more mature, thoughtful and worldly – had seen the error in her decision in a matter of seconds so she followed it up with: “It’s okay. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Oh, Lori!
Towards the back of the room, some people were starting to get out of their seats.
“No, don’t leave!” I shouted. “I have to tell you something!”
The people stopped. What would you do if a mad bomber with their finger on the pendant – I mean detonator – instructed you not to run away?
“You have something to tell us?” said Sergeant Fenton down in the aisle, trying really hard to maintain her friendly, gentle tone. “We’re willing to listen.”
I took the microphone from Bernadette, w
ho had frozen in place with a look of terror on her face. Perhaps I looked like a wild-eyed terrorist. When it came to Bernadette, I wasn’t even sorry.
I turned to face the audience.
“Hello everybody. I probably don’t need to introduce myself. You’ll have spotted that I’m Lori, from the article.” I pointed to the giant screen behind me, just in case anyone was in any doubt.
“What do you want to tell us?” said Sergeant Fenton.
I thought.
“I suppose I want to talk to the young people in the audience. The teenagers. The sons and daughters.” I raised the microphone to my mouth. “Um, it’s easy to mock someone when they’re presented in a negative way like the newspapers did with me, like Bernadette did with me” – off to the side, Bernadette whimpered and tried to sidle away – “but I thought you might be interested to hear my side of things, just in case it turns out to be something similar to your side of things.”
I saw some of the youngsters in the audience sitting up and taking notice, some of them pointing their phones at me.
“Let me start off by saying that most of what was in that article was factually correct. I’m not necessarily proud of everything that I’ve done.” I nodded. It was true. “But,” I said, “something that I do want to question is why my generation is constantly being criticised by older people. Millennials – are you happy for me to call us all Millennials? – are measured against criteria that are just no longer valid.”
There were some mumblings from around the room and I knew I had their attention. It was time to use some examples that had appeared in the forum discussions that Cookie had orchestrated. I could be a channel for those angry voices.
“I’m going to give you some examples, I’ve heard from other people, people like you, since that article went live, and they’re not happy.”
I reached into my pocket to get out my phone.
“Don’t do it!” squeaked Bernadette and stuck her fingers in her ears as though I was reaching for a fire cracker, not a smartphone.
“I know that the older people in the audience will be rolling their eyes right now. They can’t understand why we’re so wedded to our phones. Our lives are on these phones, and it’s just not as weird as you think it is. It’s just a phone, Bernadette. I’m checking a few facts. Right.” I looked at the facts I’d googled. “Let’s talk about how wealthy we are compared to our parents. It’s not just a small gap we’re talking about, it’s a vast chasm that is increasing all the time, as the Baby Boomers, who currently hold most positions of power are moving the goal posts to protect their own interests. If you were buying a house in the nineteen-eighties – people like your grandparents or maybe your parents – how much would you need to spend, compared to the average salary?”
I looked around the room.
“Four times. The average house then cost four times the average wage. What about now? What do you think that number has moved to?”
I paused again to check my phone, hoping that the number was correct.
“Ten times?” suggested a voice from the audience.
“Fifteen times,” I said. “Fifteen! Who could hope to get on the housing ladder when the increase is so massive? The thing is, it’s not just about buying a house, is it? The older generation have failed to preserve all of the benefits that they enjoyed themselves when they were our age. Where is our free university? Where are the good pensions? There is a horrible, pervasive middle-class myth that poverty is simply caused by a poor work ethic.” I liked that line. I took it word for word from someone who’d posted a response to Cookie, but I needed all the help I could get. The room seemed to be on my side though.
“We love you, Lori!” I wasn’t sure who’d said it, but it gave me the confidence to press ahead. “There are no opportunities. The jobs exist but they don’t pay enough for anyone to live on independently. What’s left for us? Minimum wage, zero-hour contracts. And, let me tell you, that doesn’t mean you get paid for working zero hours. No. Young people can’t afford a house, can’t afford to have children; and decent pensions have gone the way of unicorns.” There was a slight murmuring at that. Damn. Were unicorns the ones that never actually existed? I’d check later. “When Bernadette here tells you that she’s preparing you for the jobs market, I think we need to ask her where those jobs are? The opportunities that come up are likely to be snapped up by retired people who fancy a little bit extra pocket money. Let me ask you something now. Given everything that I’ve just said, why on earth are you still banging on about the goals that kids should be setting themselves? Are you seriously so deluded that you believe that the only thing holding back a young person is the inclination to work hard? If millennials are all useless snowflakes, whose fault is it? It’s either bad parenting or bad genes!”
I looked around the hall, determined to look these parents in the eye. At the back of the hall I saw Cookie, she was jumping up and down, waving like a maniac. She pointed at the two people with her. It was my parents. Holy hell! My parents! Where had they come from? I faltered slightly. What was that I’d just been saying about bad parenting? Did my dad have a frown on his face?
I couldn’t let myself get distracted now. It dawned on me that the entire hall was rapt. Those who had stood to leave were sitting again.
“What do we think, fellow Snowflakes?” I asked the young people in the room. “Are we going to do what our parents tell us, or are we going to insist that they cut us some slack? The world has changed, and they’re not changes that we asked for.”
There was a roar of approval, and I saw Bernadette flinch visibly at the change in the mood.
“Right. Enough!” shouted Sergeant Fenton. “You’ve had your say. It’s time to come with us.”
“They want me to come quietly,” I said to the crowd with a game shrug. “Should I?”
And then, something astonishing occurred. Softly, barely more than a murmur, voices were chanting.
Snowflake!
Sno-o-owflake!
Snowflake!
Snowflake!
It grew louder, slowly, like the approach of a marching band. No, the approach of an army.
Snowflake!
Sno-o-owflake!
Snowflake!
Snowflake!
It sounded like a re-purposed football chant and, sure, the lyrics weren’t very complicated but it told me all I needed to know. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t wrong. I was giddy with it. I have never in my life felt anything like the rush that comes with a huge crowd of people utterly and completely on my side.
“You’re all amazing!” I yelled.
A huge roar erupted and they screamed their allegiance. Revelling in the storm of chanting voices, I looked across at Bernadette Brampton. The vice-chancellor’s face was a whole mess of confusion, unable to comprehend what was going on.
“Blind to the realities of our world and struggling to cope with modern life, Bernadette?” I asked her, an uncontrolled grin on my face. “Don’t worry. I’d be happy to educate you.”
Sergeant Fenton had to cup her hands around her mouth to be heard over the chanting voices.
“You’ve made your point now! Please! Put the device down!”
“This?” I said, holding up my pendant. “This is just jewellery. Bought it on holiday in Crete.”
“What?”
Sergeant Fenton’s eyes widened. A split second later I was rugby tackled from the side and I went down to the ground under the uniformed bulk of Constable Stokes. This was apparently the cue for a police officer pile-on and at least three more of them threw themselves on me.
Two separate people grabbed a hand apiece and not gently either. Another, perhaps doubting my honesty regarding cheap holiday jewellery, ripped the pendant from my neck and threw it out of harm’s way.
I couldn’t see because my vision was obscured by what I feared was policeman moob but I heard Bernadette take the stand.
“Thank you, everyone. The situation’s now under control and we
can –”
The chanting would not calm down.
“If we can just remember why we’re here and –”
I could picture Bernadette flapping her arms for calm but to no effect.
“You shouldn’t listen to this woman’s dangerous talk. It only –”
The chanting drowned her out. Was that a little sob I could hear?
“She doesn’t even know how to sort her rubbish properly!” yelled Bernadette in a near-perfect crazy lady voice.
Strong hands pulled my arms together and I felt the cold steel of handcuffs.
“We need to get her out of here before this turns ugly,” said Sergeant Fenton.
As one, the police lifted me up, arms, body and legs to carry me out.
“I didn’t mean to cause a fuss,” I said.
Judging by her expression, I think Sergeant Fenton would have gladly punched me at that point. I did feel truly sorry for her.
“Don’t touch that, sir,” called Constable Stokes.
At the edge of the stage, James’ hand froze over the pendant.
“It’s a valuable Minoan artefact,” he said. “Well, possibly.”
His eyes flicked from the pendant to the constable and then to me. There was a lot of hurt in those eyes.
“It might be dangerous, sir,” said Stokes.
“It’s magic,” said Theo.
“Not the magic thing again,” sighed James.
“She’s a nutter!” declared Bernadette, a second before she was struck in the side of the head by a chocolate muffin. It was not the last complimentary goody bag muffin to be thrown at the stage and it was not the last to find its target.
“We’ll make sure Lori gets the best care,” said Sergeant Fenton and I knew what that meant: straitjackets and electro-shock therapy. Oh, yes.
“She didn’t mean any harm,” said James.
“Oh, they never do,” said the sergeant grimly.
“But it is magic!” said Theo and grabbed the pendant from the stage. “Look!”
His dad made to grab him but Theo was already turning and pointing…
Chapter 40
