Kick the Moon

by Muhammad Khan

  Amma is a superwoman to put up with all our stupid problems without going on a killing spree.

  Experimentally I lift off the ice pack. The inside of my nose feels like it’s been burned with a flame thrower, but the outside is numb with frostbite. Result! Now the only thing left to decide is whether to go back on the field or hide out here for the next forty-five minutes. No contest. Grabbing my sketch pad and pencils, I quickly lose myself in my art.

  In the creative zone, time and reality are meaningless concepts. So it’s a shock when I hear loud banter as the lads barge back into my private art studio. I quickly hide my drawing in my bag as Mr Kumar marches over to the communal showers and turns the water on.

  ‘Good game, lads! But you stink like skunks. In and out of these showers double quick, then off you go. No hanging about,’ he barks.

  ‘Come on, sir,’ Imran says, bashing his football boots together like boxing gloves, scattering mud all over the floor. ‘Tell us who your Man of the Match was.’

  Mr Kumar gives him a withering look.

  ‘It’s all right, sir,’ says James, who’s vice captain of the school team. ‘I know it’s me, so …’

  Imran bops him on the head with a boot.

  James touches his hair and inspects the mud on his fingers. ‘Oi, you wanker!’

  ‘Man of the Match was –’ Mr Kumar uses his beer belly to give a drum roll – ‘Imran Akhtar!’

  Imran raises his arms, throwing his head back with delight. ‘Thank you, fans!’

  I roll my eyes, then do a double take. The expression on his face, the hazy lighting and the Christlike pose is perfect for a PakCore victory sketch. I reach for my phone, then stop. If someone catches me taking a picture in the boys locker room, I am so dead. But damn, that pose is too good to miss. Imran sheds his clothes and heads for the shower.

  ‘Out the way!’ he bellows, shoving a kid from the prime spot right at the front.

  I pull out an aloe vera shower wipe and rub it over my chest, then scrub my pits. Amma wrote the school a letter informing them that as a practising Muslim, I wouldn’t be showering communally. Thank God, because compared to these dudes, my body is jokes. The bullying would never end.

  ‘Who do think is the fittest teacher in school?’ James asks. Same shit, different day.

  The boys in the shower begin throwing out names. Someone says Mrs Waldorf, to bellows of laughter and disgust.

  ‘You got granny problems, mate,’ Imran says. ‘Me? I got a boner for Ms Mughal.’

  I flinch. Thought we’d agreed Ms Mughal is off limits. A teacher like that is not wank material; she’s like the older sister you wish you had. But this is Imran changing the rules again.

  ‘That teacher is fine as hell,’ James agrees. ‘I’d bang her.’

  James and Imran play one-up, laughing about the increasingly disturbing things they’d like to do to my maths teacher. My heart beats faster, stomach churning with lava. Jasmine’s face flashes before my eyes – her mint-green knickers and tears of shame. It’s not my fault – I didn’t do anything …

  But I should have done something.

  ‘SHUT YOUR MOUTH!’ I roar.

  Imran turns his head slowly, observing me through the deluge of warm water. ‘You say something?’

  ‘You heard,’ I reply, my voice cracking, my breath coming in panicked little gasps.

  ‘Ooooh,’ some little stirrer says. ‘Kid thinks he’s hard.’

  I square my chicken-bone shoulders as Imran continues to stare at me over a bulging deltoid.

  ‘Hush yourself, unless you wanna get bodied.’ He turns his back, dismissing me.

  ‘Then don’t talk shit about women!’

  Imran steps out of the shower and glares at me. ‘I’ll talk about who I want, when I want. Understand, little man? And about your mother and your sister.’

  ‘Do that and watch.’

  Every head turns to look at me in surprise, but nobody is more surprised than me. Why can’t I shut up? In two minutes, the pips will go, and I could go home alive instead of zipped up in a body bag.

  Imran’s large wet feet slap the locker-room floor as he strides towards me, completely unconcerned by his nakedness. My life flashes before my eyes.

  ‘Come at me, bro,’ he says, raising his chin.

  ‘Look, I ain’t starting nothing,’ I say, dropping my eyes, because frankly I don’t want to die. ‘Just don’t talk so much shit about women, OK? Pisses me off, bro—’

  His fist connects with my jaw, whipping it so fast, I think it might actually have spun round twice. The locker room swims in and out of focus. Punch-drunk, by some miracle I keep my feet. My throbbing lips are another matter. Touching them paints my palm in red making this the goriest day of my life.

  ‘Don’t ever disrespect me, fam,’ Imran growls. ‘Understand? Even when I’m on your sister, you shut your mouth and enjoy the show.’

  Laughter explodes around me, boys’ faces melding into one nightmarish creature – a bloated demon with a thousand cackling mouths. Tears fill my eyes, and my skull creaks, straining against a rapidly swelling brain. Kablam! A detonation behind my eyeballs sends shockwaves of adrenalin fizzing through my body.

  Finally I have become PakCore, the destroyer of thugs.

  As the superpowered instrument of Imran’s comeuppance, I rush towards him, an unstoppable force—

  I trip and spill, forehead striking the centre of Imran’s chest with a schlap before I rebound and hit the floor. I close my eyes, bracing myself for the biggest shit-kicking of my life. Hope Amma doesn’t miss me too much …

  A united gasp forces my eyes open.

  The next few seconds happen in a fast-cutting blur. Imran’s left foot is planted in the middle of the looped handle on his sports bag. His ankle shifts, and the strap snaps taut with the sound of a whip. His right foot clumsily stomps on Noah’s mud-caked football boots, the exposed studs stabbing his sole. Then he’s falling, all six feet of him, muscular legs whooshing up into the air. One! The back of his head strikes a clothes hook. Two! It cracks against the side of the bench. Three! His head slams against the moulded floor tiles with a reverberating thud. Only the sound of Thor’s hammer could be louder.

  Stunned, we all stare at Imran lying flat on his back, eyes closed for business.

  ‘You all right, bruv?’ someone asks.

  No answer.

  I scramble up and nudge Imran with my foot. He doesn’t move. My heart drops through a bottomless abyss. This cannot be happening.

  ‘What have you done?’ booms Mr Gilchrist.

  I turn round slowly. Mr Gilchrist stands with his feet apart, blazing with fury. I glance back, hoping Imran’s unconscious body was nothing more than a revenge fantasy I cooked up in my stupid, comic-obsessed brain. But it’s still there, only now his head is surrounded by a crimson halo of blood.

  Shit. I just killed Imran Akhtar.

  My mind begins to unravel. In confusion, I grab my bag to place over Imran’s exposed junk. That’s when Gilchrist loses it and pulls me away. My bag hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. In hindsight, I realize it looked a lot like I was trying to finish the job instead of spare Imran’s blushes.

  ‘Right, you little terror!’ Gilchrist booms, dragging me along the corridor. ‘We’ll have your parents in, and you can explain this to the police.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’ Mr Kumar asks, scratching behind an ear, eyes twitching nervously.

  Mr Gilchrist secures me in a headlock as I thrash about.

  ‘For God’s sake, man!’ he yells. ‘Call an ambulance and send the other boys home!’

  Live teacher-on-teacher rage. Shit got serious. The fight goes out of me, and Mr Gilchrist hauls me to his office like a rag doll.

  I’m sat in between Amma and Dad, on the opposite side of the table from Mr Gilchrist and the police liaison, Officer Pryce. I’m still in my bloodstained PE kit, knobbly knees knocking together, holding an ice pack to lips that look like freshly done butt implant
s.

  ‘We’re so sorry,’ Amma says. ‘He’s never done anything like it in his life. I promise you, he’s the gentlest boy in the world.’

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ says Dad, trying to rub off the last of his thinning hair. He’s still in his grocer’s apron. ‘Imran’s a good lad and twice this one’s size.’

  ‘Good lad, my foot!’ Amma says, snorting. ‘The Akhtar boy is nothing but trouble. Terrorizes his own mother!’

  ‘The point is,’ Dad says, ‘how could Ilyas have landed a blow on Imran? That’s David and Goliath right there!’

  All this time, Dad’s been telling me to stand up for myself, and when I finally do, he sides with the enemy. I hate my life.

  ‘I didn’t, though!’ I say. ‘It was an accident, Dad. He was mouthing off, saying all this stuff about …’ I pause – can’t bring myself to repeat the dirty things Imran said in my mother’s presence.

  ‘Sticks and stones, young man!’ says the officer, leaning forward. With bulging biceps and silky black hair, the woman looks perfect for the role of She-Hulk. ‘You’re in high school,’ she continues. ‘If you’re going to be assaulting every kid who calls you a nasty name, you’ll end up in prison before you’re eighteen! Do you understand?’

  I grunt. Amma gives me a sharp prod.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ I say, sulkily.

  ‘Well,’ says Mr Gilchrist, eyeing my written statement distastefully. Beside it are another two. They could literally be from anyone. No shortage of offers to back up golden boy Imran against a wasteman like me. ‘It appears the attack wasn’t altogether unprovoked. But violence is never the answer, as Officer Pryce has just outlined for you. Now according to Stanley Park rules, there are sufficient grounds for a permanent exclusion—’

  Amma gasps.

  ‘But,’ he continues, raising a finger, ‘we take a liberal approach here, and I do believe Ilyas is a good lad at heart – current actions notwithstanding. If we don’t give our own another chance, then what sort of a school are we? I’m going to recommend to the principal and governors five days of suspension, effective immediately, followed by one week of hour-long after-school detentions with me.’

  ‘But what about his GCSEs?’ Amma looks fraught. ‘He can’t afford a week out of school.’

  Dad nudges her and shakes his head. She ignores him, large eyes imploring Mr Gilchrist to reconsider.

  ‘The school has a legal obligation to provide work for your son to continue his studies at home. It will all be uploaded to the school’s virtual learning environment, Mrs Mian.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Gilchrist – you know as well as I do that his studies will suffer. How can a fifteen-year-old self-motivate for an entire week?’ Amma blinks like a sad owl.

  ‘Your son is the cause of another student missing out on his classes for who knows how long,’ Gilchrist points out. ‘The medics have advised us they are on top of the situation, and Imran should have no lasting damage, but one simply cannot underestimate the negative impact this will have on his GCSEs.’

  What about smoking pot and disrupting every class he’s in? I want to shout. What effect will that have on the idiot’s results? And what about what he did to Jasmine? What will that do to her GCSEs? And let’s not forget Imran never does any homework, anyway. You’re only giving him a free pass cos of all the cups he’s won for the school.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Amma says pulling a tissue out of her handbag to dab at her eyes.

  ‘Please don’t cry, Amma!’ I beg, reaching for her.

  She stiffens. ‘I’ll stop crying when you thank these nice people for giving you a second chance.’

  ‘Chance? One week’s suspension and five hours of after-school detentions! How is that a chance?’

  Amma waits for my rude outburst to cease before continuing. ‘And you promise me –’ the rebuke in her eyes is painful – ‘promise me you’ll never raise your hand to another student ever again, no matter how much they provoke you. What’s the point of your teachers making allowances for you to do your Friday prayers if you’re going to attack people?’ She sniffs. ‘I thought we raised you better than that.’

  My own eyes fill with tears of frustration. I don’t want to let Amma down, but if only she knew the truth, she’d see that I was trying to stand up and do the right thing. But the world in my head – the one in which PakCore swoops in and saves the day – is not the world I live in.

  On the drive home, I sit in the back, sinking lower and lower as my parents argue over why I’m such a screw-up.

  ‘No more hanging out with the bad boys! You’re grounded until further notice.’ Amma catches my eye in the rear-view mirror, her brow like a scrunched-up paper bag. ‘I don’t care how cool it makes you feel. Associate with skunks, and you start smelling like one.’

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ Dad says, hanging a sharp left that sends me sweeping across the back seat and banging my head against the window. ‘Hanging around with Imran’s what taught him to be assertive. It’s miles better than hanging with artsy-fartsy anoraks and sissies.’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake! It’s not the 1950s, Osman,’ Amma snaps. ‘Ilyas isn’t like you or Amir. He’s a gentle, intelligent sort of boy.’

  ‘You ’avin’ a laugh? Amir was so intelligent, he got summoned by Uncle Moneybags himself! S’why the selfish git buggered off.’ He shakes his head. ‘Promised his old man he’d help out with the family business so I’d pay his college fees, then pulled a fast one.’

  On and on it goes.

  Gently squeezing my throbbing nose, I lower my head till my tears gather into a massive droplet on the tip. I’m not manly enough, clever enough or even gentle enough. Not only am I completely useless, but I’m wrecking my parents’ relationship too.

  Daevon texts me on Saturday.

  I’ve been thinking about Daevon a lot. Wondering how Gilchrist of all people suddenly appeared in the boys’ changing room. Daevon was standing at Gilchrist’s elbow with an expression I didn’t recognize at the time. Now I’m thinking it was guilt.

  I wait for a reply, getting madder and madder by the minute. When it finally comes, I boil over. It’s the middle-finger emoji. I hurl my phone across the room.

  ‘Oi!’ Dad says, appearing out of nowhere. ‘Want me to confiscate your phone ’n’ all? In case you hadn’t realized, you’re in the doghouse, mate.’

  Silently fuming, I go over and pick up my phone, wiping off the dust bunnies.

  ‘Wanna work your way back into me and your mum’s good graces? Well, you’ll be working bloody hard, I can tell you! Ten minutes. Get dressed, powder your nose, then you’re coming with me to the store. It’s time you started to learn your future.’

  ‘But I gotta revise!’

  My protests fall on deaf ears. Dad blinks at me threateningly, retracting his thick neck into his shoulders. ‘Di’nt you hear what I just said? Pull your finger out! Ten minutes.’ He points at me for emphasis, then shuts the door.

  Man, I hate going to Haji Mian & Sons. All these rude people everywhere, talking loudly, stealing the plastic bags cos they can’t be bothered to spend a pound at Tesco. And don’t get me started on the abuse of the produce. Sniffing, poking and scratching. Wanna make out with a mooli? Buy the damn thing first! Of course I learned the hard way to keep my trap shut. One time, I caught a woman taking marrow biopsies with her nails and asked her to stop. She went and complained to Dad, who clipped me round the ear. Respecting elders is how we roll, even when they’re wrong.

  So I spend the whole morning in an itchy white coat stacking shelves and trying to help customers who seem to assume I can speak all five hundred Asian languages just cos I’m brown. And you should see the look on their faces when I ask them to repeat it in English.

  ‘Ilyas!’ Dad shouts for the tenth time in two hours.

  He’s up at the till serving a long line of customers. They all turn round to stare at me as I scamper over, rubbing at my war wounds. Turns out stacking shelves is a lot like playing with knives. />
  ‘Yes, Dad?’

  ‘Fetch a mop and clear up this mess.’

  I look down and see a glass bottle floating in a sea of garlic sauce. Lovely.

  In the back room, I fill a bucket with water and bung in a few drops of pine disinfectant. Grabbing a mop, and tucking a kitchen roll under one arm, I carry everything to the till. I cover the puddle in swathes of kitchen roll. The beige sauce soaks straight through, reducing them to a soupy sludge.

  ‘Pick up the bottle first, you div!’ Dad snaps. Then, turning to the woman who must be responsible for the spill, he says, ‘Honestly, what do they teach ’em in school these days?’

  This may surprise you, Dad, but cleaning floors isn’t on the curriculum. In fact, it probably counts as slave labour, since you’re making me do it for free.

  ‘Why’s he not in school today?’ Ms Nosy inquires.

  ‘This one picked a fight with a kid nearly twice his size, would you believe!’

  ‘No!’ she says, giving me evils like Dad had just told her I kill kittens for fun.

  ‘It’s why he’s got them ugly bruises under his eyes. Punched on the hooter.’

  The woman continues to stare. I take my aggression out on the floor with the wet mop.

  ‘Schools have gone soft,’ she concludes. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child. That’s what my dear mother used to say.’

  Your mum was a psycho.

  ‘Exactly!’ Dad says, reaching into her basket and pricing a packet of curry powder. ‘Used to give my elder son licks with the belt. Now he’s at Harvard studying business management!’

  ‘Ooh, you must be so proud,’ the lady coos.

  Apparently, getting beats off Dad was the secret of Amir’s success.

  ‘Thank God, don’t I? But my old woman won’t let me teach this one any manners. She’s all “Mumsnet this” and “Supernanny that”. All that modern malarkey!’

  ‘Heavens!’ says the woman. ‘The internet has made us into a nation of deviants. All this sexy-camming and selfie-shooting, I ask you! What’ve we got to show for it? Nothing but mental health problems, stabbings and suicides!’