Mr H has just fired a dud and everyone knows it. Hector looks him in the eye. “I’m a clown, Dad. Turning me into a chess-playing clown isn’t going to make me inconspicuous.”
His dad sighs and glances at me. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Hector shrugs. “If you like.” But what he means is “It’s not going to change anything.” His dad trudges off upstairs, looking tired, and Hector mooches against the wall, looking sulky.
I put on my coat. “I should go, Hector, it’s getting late anyway.”
“OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are you sure? If your dad doesn’t want—”
“I said I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Unlike Mr H, I know when to give in. “See you tomorrow, Hector.” I leave him there with his teeth gritted and his hands full of teaspoons.
Sometimes I add up all the hours I’ve spent playing football since I started high school (about 150 so far) and think about all the things I could have been doing instead. I could have flown to Australia and back three times, watched six complete series of The Vampire Diaries, mastered the art of sword swallowing. Or had 300 root fillings, which would still have been more fun than running around in the mud on a freezing cold morning being kicked in the shins.
It’s a little-known fact that I was once asked to be in the junior school football team. You wouldn’t expect a guy who owns eight bow ties to be good at football, but I was. I was fast, had good reflexes, good aim and I never let a goal in. One day Mr Duggan pulled me aside and informed me, with a big grin like he was making my day, that I could be in the team.
“Er … no, thanks, Sir.”
He put a finger in his ear and waggled it, as if he must have misheard. “What’s that now?”
“I said no, thanks all the same, I’d rather not.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not too bad, you know – your ball control is good. You just need to remember which half of the pitch your goal is in.”
“It’s not that. I know I can kick a ball, I just don’t see the point.” And I had better things to do than participate in organized violence four times a week.
He let me go but he clearly didn’t believe a word I’d said, which is ironic because I was being honest for once. He just couldn’t imagine that any boy wouldn’t be desperate to be in the football team. I never told anyone I’d been offered a place. You get enough grief around here for being rubbish at sport; it would be a million times worse to be good enough for the team and turn it down.
I still have to play during PE though. I deliberately fluff my passes, and Duggan lets me and Hector play on the wings, because he’s not interested in anyone who isn’t the next Wayne Rooney. We usually ignore what’s going on and muck around with the spare footballs. I can balance one on my neck, flip it up in the air and catch it on my head, but you get zero credit for that, except from Hector, who applauds every time.
PE is last period on a Tuesday and we take the long way round from history to the changing rooms. Today we’re being slower than usual because Hector can’t walk and talk at the same time without tripping.
“I spent all last night researching,” he says excitedly.
“Researching? Do we have homework?”
“Not homework. Way more important. The secret of success in any battle is preparation: I am totally set to convince my dad that clowning is a legitimate career and I should be allowed to do the show. I’m going to talk to him tonight.”
“I don’t know that he was against clowning itself; it was more the idea of you as a clown. Probably dreading the injuries. And you did tell him you wanted to join an organization that has one member in a coma already.”
He waves away my concerns. “Did you know that the first proper clown was a guy called Joseph Grimaldi? Way back in the early nineteenth century!”
“Hector, have you been to my house? Have you met my parents? Do you know what we do at weekends? Yes, I know that.”
“And did you know that coulrophobia is the fear of clowns? Loads of people have it.”
I look him over critically. “I can see how that could happen.”
He ignores me. “But they reckon there were clowns right back in ancient Egypt too!”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Wikipedia.”
“If you wanted to know about clowns, you could have just asked me. For example, did you know that clowns are the least dateable people in the whole circus?”
“Ouch! Anyway that’s rubbish; everyone likes a good sense of humour. Did you know that some people think the reason clowning has been around so long is because humans have a deep psychological need to deal with difficult issues through comedy?”
“Well, duh.” (I did not know that.)
“And that in ancient times, clowns also traditionally worked as priests!”
“What!”
“So if you think about it, I’m following in my dad’s footsteps!” He pops his red nose on and waves his hands about like ta-dah!
I laugh. “I don’t think he’ll see it that way.”
His face falls. “No? That was sort of the whole basis of my argument. You don’t think he’ll go for it?”
“I think calling him a clown, and his religion a circus act, might not be a strategically clever move. Why don’t you show him your beanbag tricks instead?”
“I tried that.”
“And?”
“I smashed a bottle of communion wine.”
“Oh.”
Someone behind us says, “Hey, Bert and Ernie! Move it!” and we’re almost knocked over by Kitty and the Bond Girls as they barge past in their PE kits, hockey sticks slung over their shoulders like rifles. Hector’s still wearing his red nose and one of the girls shudders and says, “God, I am, like, terrified of clowns. I think it’s the make-up; I mean, they could be anyone under there.”
Kitty swings round and stops, blocking our path. “Don’t be stupid, Jas, they’re not scary, they’re just sad. And if you want to see who’s under there, you just…” She reaches out and plucks the nose off Hector’s face. “Oh, look, it’s Hector the Holy Ghost. I had no idea, what with your clever disguise and all.”
“Give it back, Kitty,” I say.
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself, princess?”
“That’s OK, Finch, she can have it,” Hector says. “I just hope she doesn’t mind that I sneezed into it five minutes ago.”
Kitty’s expression turns to deep disgust and she drops the nose. “Beyond gross,” she says, narrowing her eyes at us before spinning on her heel and walking away.
“Bye, Kitty!” we chorus after her, grinning and high-fiving each other.
Thanks to Kitty, we’re even later for PE than usual, not that we mind. In fact, we take so long getting changed that we’re last out, and when we reach the pitch, everyone else is already doing sit-ups. Duggan, who’s never forgiven me for turning down the opportunity to be damp, cold and muddy four times a week, looks us up and down and says, “Took you lads long enough. I’d ask what you were doing in there but I don’t want to know.” The rest of the class bleat their collective sheep-laugh at him.
“Good one, Sir,” Davy says, and Duggan says, “Shut it, you lot!” but you can tell he’s delighted at his own joke. They lower it to a titter and Hector lies down on the ground and starts forcing his elbows to his knees with everyone else.
“Problem, Sullivan?”
I’m still standing there. And there is a problem, but I don’t know how to say that. I just know I’m so furious my chest is tight. It was just a joke, not even an original one, and the thing about Duggan is he’s so sarcastic, if you argue with him he’ll reduce you to a crimson, whimpering infant.
He’ll never apologize, not to a student, not in front of a class, not in a million years. There’s no way I can win this, but the thought of lying down at his feet makes me feel physically ill.
“I’m not playing.”
“You’re what now?” He
gives me a nasty grin, like he’s enjoying this.
“I won’t play.”
“Are you sick?” Everyone’s sitting up now, watching the entertainment.
“No. I’m just… I’m just not playing.”
“Oh, come on, Sullivan,” he says pleasantly. “You can play on the wing if it’s too rough for you. Even Mr Hazzard here doesn’t object to that, do you, Hazzard?”
Hector doesn’t answer, but he does make a motion as if to get up and I know he’ll walk off the pitch with me if I want him to. But that would only make everything worse and I shake my head subtly at him.
I walk away, legs shaking, and consider my options while Duggan’s voice booms out behind me. “Right, you lot, press-ups! Start now, stop when I say so!”
I could go straight to Cooper and complain that Duggan humiliated me and Hector in front of the class. I could talk to Miss Allen; I can’t see her having much impact on Duggan but she’d listen at least. I could tell Mum and Dad, who’d march straight down to Cooper’s office. I even think about telling Lou, who would follow Duggan down a dark alley and make him wish he was never born.
But I know I won’t do any of these things, because they all involve telling people what Duggan said. And then Duggan would say I’m getting my knickers in a twist over nothing, it was just a joke and he says it to the last two boys out of the changing room every week so they’ll hurry up next time, and no one else minds so why should Hector and I be any different?
In the end I stand there in Duggan’s office and stare at the wall over his head while he reads me the riot act. And I take my week’s detention meekly and my essay on sportsmanship without a murmur, hating him so much I could kill him, and the only person I tell anything to is Birdie.
They give me lunchtime detentions so I can still go to the hospital after school. I’m supposed to be grateful for that, and I would be, except that lunchtime detention is picking up litter; Coop believes in us making ourselves useful. I have to scour the yard and the sports fields with a bin liner and a pair of rubber gloves, picking up all the filthy crisp packets, Coke cans and takeaway wrappers wedged under hedges and in damp, manky corners. Hector tries to walk with me, but the rule is you have to do it on your own. So he sits on the yard wall and drops biscuit wrappers so I have to come over and he can tell me the latest Wikipedia circus fact that I already know.
Of course, when there’s a litter picker, people search their bags and rifle through their pockets for extra stuff to drop, which means I spend half my time following Kitty and the Bond Girls around. They chuck bits of sandwiches and everything, and my only consolation is that they must be starving by the end of lunch.
I’ve almost got the whole yard clear when I spot a last crisp packet, blowing in and out between a few pairs of trainers. Pretty nice trainers. And a lot cleaner than mine, which are now muddy from tramping about the football pitch after Coke cans. I walk as slowly as possible towards James, Adi and Davy, wishing the bell would ring.
It doesn’t, and I have to spend several humiliating seconds chasing the fricking crisp packet around their feet while they laugh and kick it out of my way. James puts a foot out and steps on it just as I grab it. I look up murderously at him and he steps back.
The bell finally rings and Adi and Davy move off, but James is still standing there as I tie up my bin bag and take my gloves off.
“You doing this all week then?” he says.
“Yep, feel free to raid your bins at home, folks!” I pat the bin liner, which is starting to leak fluid. “Plenty more where this came from.”
He just looks blankly at me. “Well, if you wouldn’t rile people up… Duggan’s a bully; you shouldn’t get in his way.”
“You think? Thanks for the heads-up! Do tell me more about what you think, please, because I really care.”
His face hardens. “I’m just saying. Why do you always have to turn yourself into a target?”
I blink at him. Does he think I’m standing here with my sad bin liner for fun? By choice? I’m about to open my mouth and say God knows what when I suddenly think, You know what, I can’t be arsed. I shake my head and walk away instead.
“I’m only saying,” he mutters again, but this time I’m not turning round. Birdie was right. Even James is right. No target, no act.
But on the way out of school, Kitty and her whole crowd walk past me (or through me, to be more accurate), dropping rubbish every few steps between the school doors and the yard wall. Kitty turns to blow me a kiss as they walk out the gates and I stand there with tomorrow’s litter swirling around my feet.
Right, that’s it. I tried fighting back, I tried walking away. Nothing works. I’m sick of Kitty, I’m sick of Duggan, I’m sick of school. I’m sick of being everyone’s punchbag. I can’t do a thing about any of them, but there’s one thing I can do. I turn and march back into school, down the deserted corridors, and knock loudly on Cooper’s office door.
One good thing about Coop is he’s never too busy to talk. You might have to watch him eat his lunch or help him tidy his office, but he never sends you away. I sit in my usual chair and wonder if this is the first time I’ve ever been invited, rather than ordered, to sit in it.
He says, “What’s up, Finch?” and I take a deep breath and tell him about the night of Birdie’s accident. I tell him about seeing James, I tell him about chalk dust and how it gets everywhere if you’re anywhere near the trapeze, I tell him that Birdie would never do anything risky alone. I tell him about James and Sinead coming to the hospital, I tell him that Kitty and James have had it in for me and Birdie for like ever (which he knows, everyone knows), and I tell him that I am one hundred per cent certain that James had something to do with Birdie’s fall.
Throughout it all he never moves. Then, when I’m done, he folds his hands and props his chin on them. I wonder if he’ll phone the police right away or talk to James’s parents first.
“Finch,” he says eventually, “you can’t go around making unfounded accusations.”
For a second I’m speechless. But only for a second. “Unfounded! It’s not unfounded. It’s totally founded! I’ve just told you all about it; it’s obvious he had something to do with it!”
“I know you boys don’t get on—”
I roll my eyes. “That’s the understatement of the year. But it has nothing to do with this. Or maybe it does! Maybe he went down there to do something to me, and Birdie just got in the way! That’s even more evidence! But whatever happened, it was still his fault, and you have to do something about it.”
“Listen, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of this. And without any real evidence, Finch…” He all but shrugs at me. “As I say, it’s just an unfounded accusation.”
I snort at him. “Typical. All they do is make unfounded accusations about me, but when I do it… What about all the stuff they’ve said about me over the years? No one bothered to stop all that, did they?”
“I know what they’re like, Finch, but they say that sort of thing to all the boys. They say it to each other; it’s just a joke.”
“It shouldn’t be a joke. I mean…” I swallow. “I mean, what if it was true?”
“Oh.” He sits back in his chair. “I see.”
“No, I’m not saying it is, that’s not the point. But it’s true for some people, isn’t it? So it shouldn’t be a joke.”
“Do you want me to speak to them?”
“No! Look, this isn’t about me, I just wanted to tell you about James!”
“Do you want me to talk to your parents about this?”
“No, they’ve got enough to deal with.” My head is starting to ache. I take fistfuls of my hair in my hands and say slowly, through my teeth, “I want you to ask James about Birdie!”
“OK, Finch, calm down, I’ll have a chat with James.” But I can tell he’s just saying it. “I know you’ve got a lot going on at the moment and—”
“Forget it.” I stand up. If he’s not going to take this
seriously, I’m not sitting here listening to him feel sorry for me.
Hector is sitting on the wall outside. “There you are, I thought I’d missed you. Why are you late?”
“I had to talk to Cooper.”
“Why, what did you do?”
“Oh, right, just assume the worst about me, like everyone else in this dump.”
“Well, when was the last time you talked to Cooper when you weren’t in trouble?”
“Very funny.”
“Very true.”
I slump on the wall beside him. “I told him about James.”
“You didn’t!”
“Yep. I told him he was there that night, that he knows something, and that he probably did something.”
“I thought we were going to wait until we had proof.”
“I couldn’t wait any more.”
“What did he say?”
“He ignored me.”
“Oh. Well, we knew he probably wouldn’t listen,” Hector says. “Not without proof. But you did your best, that’s all you can do.”
“I’m not upset about that. Birdie will tell me what happened when she wakes up anyway.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I fold my arms. “I’m just sick of it. Of everyone.”
“Yeah, but what can you do? Don’t waste your energy on them, they’re not worth it.”
“Easy for you to say, you’ve only just got here. I’ve been putting up with this crap for years.”
Hector snorts. “You think I didn’t get this kind of thing in the city? There were a hundred and eighty kids in my year alone. And two of them came to my birthday party. Do you know what that is as a percentage?”
“No, I’m crap at maths.” He’s trying to cheer me up and I’m not having it. “It’s still better to be ignored in a big crowd than be treated like a freak every day,” I say.
“That’s just a small-town thing; they’ve nothing more interesting to do. I think in the city you’d be pretty cool.”
“That’s great but I’m not in the city, I’m stuck here.” I hunch over my folded arms and kick at the wall with my heels. “I suppose you’ll move back to Belfast as soon as you get the chance.”
Flying Tips for Flightless Birds Page 15
