Aaron Connor

by Nathan Davey

  Anyway, I was walking across the tarmac towards the portacabin. The wind blew across discarded empty crisp packets, which caused them to fly across the playground. Occasionally a collection of crisp packets would get caught by a swirling wind and spin around like a tornado. It was so quiet at this time of day. Within a few hours this space would be full of kids again, joyfully heading home and escaping education until they had to return after a couple months of holiday.

  I quickly ran down the steps and jumped the last few. I walked past the technology classrooms which were producing loud scraping and roaring sounds from the wood cutting machines. Walking around the corner I came across someone wearing a face mask, like one a doctor would wear, while spray painting a door for art (because of the fumes, you’d have to do this kind of work outside). He was doing a stencil of Big Ben (NOT Elizabeth Tower thank you very much!) in red paint, it was pretty good actually.

  I passed the bike racks, where a boy in a green hoodie was trying to break the chains from one of the bikes with a tiny pen knife. Climbing over the grass I passed the basketball/football courts, where some poor overweight kids were having a P.E lesson. Passing the Geography buildings I finally arrived at the ugly portacabins.

  I leaned up against the wall just by the stairs to wait for Lizzie. There was only a minute or so of the lesson left to go, so I wasn’t going to stay there long. The cold wind blew against my face and sent icy chills across my skin. The shadow cast by the portacabin made me feel even colder. The world felt cold and grey. Everyday seemed to be cold and grey. I hated it.

  Moments later a teacher came out of the main building, saw me and approached me. She was skinny, grey haired and had the face only a mother would love. She peered down at me through her tiny glasses. She looked at me in disgust, as if I were a giant bug or something.

  “Why aren’t you in lesson?” she asked,

  “I an’t got a lesson” I replied, “I just had a meeting with Mr Bertgill and I’m now waiting for a friend to come out”

  “Yes, yes, a likely story. You’re bunking off that’s what you’re doing. I know it’s your last day, but it’s still a school day nonetheless.”

  “Honestly, madam I’m telling the truth!”

  “Why should I believe you, you little trouble maker. I’m in a hurry and I need to get to class. I don’t want to see you here when I come back, do you understand me?”

  She then turned on her heels and click-clacked back into the Geography building. I’d behaved quite well while I’d been at school. Yet all of the Teachers thought I was a nasty little trouble maker, by making an assumption based on how I looked. This also meant that whatever I’d say would instantly be diagnosed as a lie. I could point at a cat and say: “That’s a cat” and they’d reply: “don’t give me that you bad pup, that’s obviously a parrot!” and they’d be right in that argument, as they’d be in suits and I in a tracksuit. That was my lot in life, as unfair as it may be.

  I wished that my Mum would buy me some other clothes, she didn’t though. She kept on buying Adidas and Reebok brand makes, ready to fuel my Teachers for some more fun sessions of putting me in my place as lower class scum. I was so fed up of the entire world bullying me. All of modern society hated people like me. Of course, there was nothing I could do about it . . . yet.

  The school bell rang finally and kids flooded out of the many doorways from all directions. From the doorway of the portacabin I could see Lizzie’s class file out and climb down the stairs before walking off into the distance, towards the main hall for the final assembly. At last Lizzie emerged in her favourite purple hoodie jumper and came down the stairs to join me.

  “Hey Aaron!” she said cheerfully, “we were just watching Finding Nemo, I love that movie”

  I still don’t get what it is with girls and Disney. Us lads grow out of it and start watching Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith movies. Girls still seem to be able to watch Disney movies without any ridicule. It’s like, normal for girls to still like Disney when they’re older. If a guy admitted that he still liked Disney, he’d get a nice big punch in the face.

  Just by looking at me, Lizzie could tell something was bothering me. She had known me for so long that she recognised the signs of all of my funny moments. She knew when I was upset, angry or depressed. It was like having a human mood ring as a mate. She could tell by my expression that I was feeling quite low. Her humorous smile was replaced with an affectionate frown of concern.

  “Is something up?” she asked,

  “Just come back from Bertgill” I said, that was all I needed to say as she then gave me a nice warm hug,

  “I still don’t know why he keeps picking on you! You haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “Just the way of some people” I replied sadly, “how are you? Are you ok?”

  “Yeah I’m fine. Let’s go then, before Bertgill yells at you some more!”

  She wrapped her arms around my right arm and we linked. I could smell her perfume, it was fantastic. It smelt like strawberries. I couldn’t help but smile. I looked into her incredible eyes with a weak smile. She gave me a cute little peck on the cheek which made me feel a lot better. I could feel my cheeks going red, I blushed like they do in an old cartoon. I know, embarrassing init?

  Lizzie giggled and pulled me along to make me walk with her. We walked together towards the main hall. School was pretty boring all year round. But the end of year assembly was so boring, that you began to lose the will to live after the first few minutes.

  No doubt there will be a long winded speech from the Head Master which will make us feel more desolate then before. Another certainty was that the assembly would feature some performances from the drama students. They’d probably do some drama piece about slavery, or the holocaust, or drug addition or some other depressive rubbish.

  I knew this was going to be a “barrel of laughs”.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We filed into the main hall one by one in a long line, winding and bending our way through the corridors like a river. Every face was full of dread as the doorway leading into the hall drew nearer. I and Lizzie were at the back of the line, where we played Angry Birds on her phone while we shuffled along.

  At the front of the line were Teachers who were all gesturing us into the hall like they were landing a plane. To them we were no more then cattle. They’d been here for years and they’d seen hundreds of kids like this. We were all the same in their eyes. They’d never remember us afterwards. Ha! As if they’d wanted to remember us.

  Soon we began to approach the front of the line, so Lizzie turned the phone off and put it into her handbag. The last thing she wanted was a telling off, especially on the last day of school before the summer holidays. She was just about as prone to being told off as I was.

  We eventually got through the doorway into the main hall. We split up to go and sit with our form groups. I hated this. All of the people in my form were all smart arsed arrogant sods who hated me. I wanted to sit with Lizzie, but Lizzie also had to go and sit with her form full of dickheads.

  My form was right at the front of the hall. I sat next to Bert, who was probably the smuggest person I’ve ever met. He was quite fat, had the face of a hamster and had blonde hair made into a crew cut. He always smelt of cheese and onion crisps and was always talking about some book he’s going to write but has never started. I have no doubt that he was going to go far academically. I wished I had the ability to learn like he does. Some blokes are luckier then others I suppose. Bert didn’t talk to me. I knew he wouldn’t. He just shuffled away from me to talk to his other clever clog friends.

  To the other side of me was a girl named Louise. Louise was stunning and looked just like that singer Katy Perry. Of course, like most pretty girls, she was not interested in me. She was more interested in handsome lads with no personality and who treated the girls as no more then sex objects.

  I still don’t understand that. After all the lovely, kind, considerate and caring blokes that com
e their way, girls still always go for the dickhead. Why is that? Why do they always go for someone who tries to tear their bras off in front of everyone at parties? Why do they go for the one who’ll keep on sleeping around without telling them? Why are all the nice guys in the world left lonely while all the undeserving sods get all the love and attention? I don’t understand it and I doubt I ever will.

  The sounds from everyone talking were tremendous. The noise echoed across the entire hall like we were inside a church. Mr Bertgill was standing before the hall, looking furious that the students hadn’t stopped talking after seeing him standing there. I could see that famous thick, red vein begin to pulse on his forehead. He looked like he was going to explode from the pressure.

  “SHUT UP!!!!!” he screamed, “SHUT YOUR GOBS!!”

  The room suddenly fell silent. All faces were pointing towards the nasty old headmaster. He looked down at us all through his thick glasses. I could see his hair was thinning dramatically, most probably due to stress. If he keeps getting angry like that, his head will be as bald as Matt Lucas.

  Once he was happy that everyone had his attention, he took in a deep breath and began to talk as if the outburst had never happened. Teachers are good at that.

  “Now, this has been a very eventful year” Bertgill began, “Our charity event for the local children’s hospital has raised over £70. We have seen one of our own Miss Blakely prosper in London’s West End in the hit musical “Who Gives a Rat’s Arse?” And we even saw our Ian Rangers win the county football cup, for the first time in several years. We have all noticed your test scores go flying above the average margin, which has overfilled us with joy!”

  Even when he said the last line he showed no change of emotion on his face. His expression was stone cold for the entire speech and he spoke in a monotoned drone, which seemed to have the ability to drain the energy from the listener. He droned on and on with empty compliments about students, who themselves looked uncomfortable with what the old man was saying about them.

  “Now we are to be entertained” said the Head Master, with a slight air of sarcasm, “by the school’s popular rock band M.P.N.T”

  There was a huge cheer from the audience. It was so loud it made me jump in my seat. I looked back and saw some girls wearing tank tops two sizes too small, so that their underdeveloped breasts would look bigger. On the tank tops, written in felt tip pens, were the words: “we love you M.P.N.T!” . . . sad init?

  The curtains opened and there was the band, in all their drippy, greasy haired glory. They all wore lumberjack shirts in different colours as well as uncomfortable looking tight skinny jeans. The girls in the audience went mad. You know I was talking about those nasty boys that girls always fancied, that was them standing on the stage.

  The spotty faced singer stood before the microphone wearing round sunglasses, in an embarrassing attempt to be like John Lennon. He blew a kiss out to the girls who cried even louder. I sat there in the chair cringing at the whole thing. It was like I’d taken a wrong turn and found myself in the audience of a Justin Bieber concert.

  “Ello’ girls!” said the lead singer,

  “I LOVE YOU ALAN!” screamed a girl in the audience,

  “I love you too” Alan replied, blowing the girl a kiss, “this is our first song, it’s called Shoes You So Stinky”

  What came next, from the amplifiers, were these drippy sods trying to create music. They were failing tremendously. The vocals sounded like Bob Geldolf with constipation. The guitar was out of tune as well as the bass. The drummer wasn’t drumming as much as he looked like he was having a seizure. I looked around the hall to see students and teachers alike clapping and cheering along to the badly written song.

  I caught Lizzie’s eyesight across the room in-between other people’s heads. She looked just as disgusted as I felt. I returned the look. She mouthed something to me silently and slowly:

  “THIS – IS – SHIT!”

  “I – KNOW” I replied with a smile.

  I and Lizzie then found it hard to not laugh, as the so-called band played on.

  Suddenly, with furious force, the singer ripped the microphone from the stand as the song built to the chorus. I remember seeing that and thinking: oh bloody hell, it’s all happening now! At this point the singer climbed up onto the bass drum and stood there singing the song. I didn’t believe in god. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop me praying for that stuck up prick to tumble off the drum and fall on his arse. How I wanted him to stumble and rip those daft jeans in the process.

  I don’t like to judge people based on their looks, as people do it to me all of the time. I was disgusted by the way these people acted. Their look is only secondary to why I don’t like them. For instance, the Hardcore Metal blokes with their piercings, tattoos and freighting clothes, were in fact the nicest guys I’ve ever met. You can have a pretty nice chat with Metal guys, they’re brilliant.

  The “Indie” as they liked to be called are varied. They sing like they’re from London, which alone is annoying, and they all think their going to be the next Oasis or something. Its fine for blokes to have dreams, I an’t saying anything about that, but don’t go around saying “I’ll be this” and “I’ll be that” because you don’t know how that dream will pan out. What if you don’t make it and your left working at the local paper shop, who’s going to look like right a pleb then?

  Thankfully the band played their last chord to a standing ovation. Everyone stood and clapped and whooped, everyone except for me. I remained in my seat and stared around me in confusion. It was then that I realised just how much I didn’t understand the world around me. It wasn’t that I was being cynical about everything, everything just seemed like shit to me.

  The band walked off with their skinny spider like legs, until they were finally off stage for good. Mr Bertgill reappeared and was clapping unenthusiastically. One thing that I and the Head Master had in common is that we both knew bad music when we heard it.

  “Thank you boys” he said without any emotion, “now I shall like to talk to you for a few more minutes now about your careers ahead”

  I sat in my chair and felt horrible. I felt so depressed and useless as the Head Master told the school of possible job opportunities that I’d never get the chance to try out for. That got me thinking. A thought came to mind that made me feel very differently about the whole affair.

  Maybe I wasn’t meant to go down the ordinary route. Maybe I was meant for something better. Who wants to get a job, have a family and die with no creative excitement along the side? That’s boring. I love drawing graffiti. It’s my passion. It is the one thing that keeps me going, in a mundane world of limited opportunity for the creative soul. Was I bound for something else? Something more exciting? If the answer is yes, then how do I get there? Where do I go? What’s the next step to get there?

  I tried to not have too many thoughts of grandeur. Like I said, there’s no point in thinking about dreams when they’re still to be accomplished. Reason being is that it saves disappointment if it doesn’t happen. Besides, the journey to the goal is far more exciting and surprising then the goal itself. The more the journey is a struggle and the harder it is; the sweeter it will be then you finally arrive at the finishing line. I bet you, whatever your dream may be, when you finally get there you’ll miss the struggle of getting there, as that’s the fun part.

  As these thoughts ran through my mind, I felt a soft rubber ball hit my head. At the school store people could buy these balls, which were about the size of an orange, for 20p. These hollowed balls were seen all over school as these were the only balls allowed on site. This was because these super light balls wouldn’t smash windows when the balls hit them. I turned around to see who threw the ball at me. My eyes finally fell upon Simon Grant with his mate Forrest, who were both laughing like hyenas. I wasn’t at all surprised by this.

  Simon Grant was the classic bully, the thug, the arsehole. In fact, he’s the only person I know that actually fit
s the stereotype of the “Chav” made by B.E.N. He always wore the same sweaty and unwashed black and gold tracksuit. He wore luminous green running trainers and the same black cap. His teeth were crooked, his face was covered in spots and he stank of vomit and cheep cider. His nose was broken in several places, he was always starting on someone and making a complete arse of himself. All in all he was a nasty git. The nastiest I reckon in the whole school. No one dared mess with Simon Grant and his gang, no one. Even everyone in the Town was scared of him.

  Forrest who sat next to him wore an identical black hoodie and looked just as repulsive as his master. He had bright yellow teeth, tiny black eyes and a face like a potato. He had shaved a lot of his hair and died it bright green. The shape of his head and that green hair on top made him look like a human turnip. Forrest had several ASBOs which he bragged about as medals of honour. These included two arsons, three thefts, five punch ups and one hit and run. Blimey he was an ugly sod. Yet he had a seriously fit girlfriend. Girls, is this seriously the man of your dreams? Really?!

  Simon was the leader of a gang of youths, all of whom wore identical black tracksuits. They’d pass the time setting fire to things, stealing, drinking in empty car parks, smoking weed and scaring the hell out of old people by jumping out of the bushes when they come by. It’s odd how guys like them figure out ways to entertain themselves. Simon and his gang even made little games for themselves. One of the games was when they’d go from pub to pub and see who could steal the most ashtrays without being caught. It takes all sorts I suppose.

  Of all the people who hated me at St.Ians School, Simon hated me the most. He wanted me in his gang you see, but I didn’t want any part of it. He called me a soppy mother’s boy and tried to ruin my favourite white tracksuit by throwing food at me. He keeps trying to get me to join but each time he did so I turned him down. Every time I turned him down, the more angry he’d become.

  If this is being read out in class by a Teacher, who’s going on about the symbolic metaphor between the colours of our tracksuits, tell them to stop! No really, stop it right now! Black for darkness and white for purity, I’m right aren’t I? That’s what they’re saying, init? You Teachers have ruined some of the best books ever written by doing that, so stop it right now.