Driftwood

by Driftwood (epub)

  At the top of the lane, we see Murphy, Fergus and Tom on bikes. Fergus and Tom pedal off into the distance, but Murphy skids his BMX in front of us, and we swerve off the road and into a ditch.

  ‘Idiot!’ I snap at him. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’

  Murphy raises one eyebrow, watching us clamber out of the ditch.

  ‘You’re looking very cute today Slater,’ he says with a sly grin. ‘Been trying out your girlfriend’s make-up? Sweet.’

  Paul frowns and huffs and turns away but his cheeks flush pink.

  Murphy smirks. ‘Don’t want to worry you, but I think a ratty old crow just died in your hair.’

  I wait for Paul to answer back, but instead I can feel him curling up inside himself, cringing, cowering. His shoulders slump and he tugs down the sleeves of his jumper and stares at his scuffed-up baseball boots like they’re the most fascinating things he ever saw.

  ‘Get lost, Murphy,’ I say, but it sounds feeble, even to me.

  ‘Don’t worry, Hannah, I’m going,’ Murphy grins. He leans over to Paul and tugs on one green plait, his voice low and menacing. ‘Don’t try this look at school, Muppet. Seriously. I’ve been very patient, but you’re starting to bug me.’ Then he cycles away, whistling.

  ‘Is Krusty OK?’ I ask, sneaking a look in the basket.

  ‘Think so.’

  ‘You have to stand up to him,’ I whisper.

  ‘Not so easy’ Paul says. ‘I can’t. You know why. If the social workers find out there’s a problem, they’ll pull the plug on this foster placement and drag me back to Glasgow like they have every other time, and I really don’t want that to happen, Hannah. Let’s just leave it, OK?’

  So we do.

  At the beach, Paul finds a couple of magic stones, chucks his worries out to sea. Krusty chases along the surf while Paul sticks a couple of gull feathers in the sand with a circle of seashells round them. He makes a star shape from tiny bits of driftwood with nuggets of seaglass in the middle, and a spiral from shells and tiny white pebbles.

  ‘More beach magic?’ I ask.

  Paul nods. ‘The feathers represent travel and freedom,’ he says. ‘The shells represent home, family The stones are strength. The seaglass is love, beauty, art.’

  I know he’s making it up as he goes along, but it sounds cool, convincing.

  ‘What about the driftwood?’ I ask.

  ‘The driftwood?’ Paul repeats dreamily. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘No,’ I protest, but he just smiles, turning a smooth, pale branch of twisted wood round and round in his hands.

  ‘The sea smoothes away all the rough edges,’ Paul says softly ‘But it bleaches out the colour, the life, as well. Driftwood is different from other kinds of wood.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Paul agrees. ‘Sometimes it can be salvaged, made into something useful or good, like Jed does. Other times, it can’t. It goes back to the sea.’

  Later that week, Paul and I are sharing a milkshake at the cafe in Kirklaggan when Karen McKay and her mates come in. They are loud and giggly and draped in Kirklaggan High footy scarves, squashing into the window seats and ordering cappuccinos.

  I remember that today was the regional final of the school footy tournament. Kit has been playing and Joey has been watching, and Karen and her crew have clearly been watching too. Judging by the mood they’re in, it looks like Kirklaggan have won.

  ‘What was the score?’ I call over, and Karen turns and looks at me like I’m some especially unpleasant kind of insect.

  ‘Three-one to us,’ she says grudgingly. ‘Kit scored the last goal.’

  ‘Cool,’ I say.

  Karen turns her gaze to Paul, taking in the panda eyes and the black crow’s feather that seem to have become permanent features. She stifles a smirk. ‘Don’t you know anyone normal, Hannah?’ she calls over.

  ‘What, like you?’ I ask. ‘No. Lucky me.’

  It’s a question I’ve asked myself, though.

  We get up and leave, making out like we planned it that way all along.

  CHAPTER 18

  McKenzie kicks off the new term with a whole-school assembly aimed at stamping out green hair, panda eyes and any last shreds of creativity and daring. He hands out a copy of the new, revised school uniform code, with added clauses that outlaw dyed hair, make-up and plaits on boys.

  ‘He’s losing it,’ Joey whispers, peering up at McKenzie as he stalks across the stage. ‘He can’t enforce this. Half the girls wear make-up and plenty of them dye their hair too. As for the plaits thing, it’s downright sexist. You can’t just say that girls are allowed long hair and plaits and boys aren’t – it’s probably illegal.’

  ‘It also says that frayed skirts, fishnets, striped socks and platform soles are not allowed,’ I point out.

  ‘Yeah, but they’re like, so last month,’ Joey whispers. ‘It doesn’t say anything about bin-bag minis.’ She does a little shimmy so that her homemade skirt, constructed from a black garden-refuse sack, flutters out. The biker boots have been replaced with neon-pink jelly-shoes, and the plain black tights are tastefully laddered and torn.

  This is a battle Joey will always win. McKenzie doesn’t stand a chance.

  ‘To enforce the new rules,’ McKenzie booms out, ‘I will need the support and cooperation of every pupil here. Kirklaggan High is a fine school, and I will not stand by and let it become a laughing stock. Certain elements here believe they can flout the rules and make a mockery of our school uniform, all in the name of individuality. Well, let me tell you, boys and girls, school is not about individuality. It is about teamwork, pulling together, standing firm against those who would like to see authority overthrown!’

  ‘See?’ Joey hisses. ‘Lost it. Totally.’

  A posse of S2 lads troops up on to the stage, including Murphy, Fergus, Tom and Kit. It’s the footy squad, fresh from their success in the regional high school finals. They all look very smart and wholesome. Kit must have borrowed a school blazer, as he swapped his own for a Blink 182 CD sometime last year. As McKenzie presents the captain of the team with a shining silver trophy, he seems not to notice Murphy’s expensively highlighted hair.

  ‘These are lads we can be proud of,’ McKenzie booms. ‘Smart, sporting, successful – a credit to the school!’

  Everyone cheers as Murphy holds the silver trophy high above his head. McKenzie, beaming with pride, shakes hands with each boy in the team, and the cheering reaches fever pitch. Even Joey is clapping.

  ‘Just for Kit,’ she whispers.

  As we file out of the hall, I catch sight of Paul, shuffling along with the other S2s. He is wearing perfect uniform, just about, apart from the sweatbands on his wrists and the baseball boots and the way his shirt sleeves hang down over his hands. It’s just his hair and his panda eyes that are such a threat to the school.

  As I watch, he trips and stumbles, and the boys around him laugh. He stumbles again, and I wonder why none of the teachers can see what’s happening. Because it is happening. The bullying has started again.

  ‘You think he’d do something to tone down his hair,’ says Kit, who hasn’t repeated the experiment with the blood-red hair gel because it left a pink tidemark round his ears. ‘And the make-up. Every morning, McKenzie makes him scrub it off. Why can’t he learn? Is he stupid, or what?’

  ‘Stubborn,’ I say

  ‘Stupid,’ says Kit.

  We’re on the school bus, sitting across the aisle from each other, bowling along towards Paul and Joey’s stop.

  ‘Tell your friends to lay off the bullying, Kit. He doesn’t deserve it. They’ll listen to you.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Kit says. ‘He’s asking for it, isn’t he? He should stop pushing the rules, keep his head down.’

  ‘Would they like him, then?’ I ask.

  ‘Hannah, they’ll never like him.’

  The bus shudders to a halt and Paul and Joey get on. Joey sits next to Kit and Paul sits
next to me. He has orange and black eyeshadow today, and what look like a couple of pheasant feathers in his hair.

  ‘Chicken feathers?’ Kit asks, and starts making clucking sounds until Joey tells him to shut up. I can’t rely on my brother for help. He’s starting to be part of the problem.

  ‘Won’t see you at lunch,’ Paul says softly. ‘Detention again. Sorry.’

  ‘McKenzie is useless,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you tell him what’s going on? Or tell Jed and Eva.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You can’t just let them make your life a misery!’ I protest.

  We hang back and get off the bus last, but it doesn’t make any difference, because Murphy is waiting for us on the pavement, chewing bubblegum. He blows a huge bubble, then takes the sickly pink gum out of his mouth, stretching it between his fingers.

  ‘Hey, Muppet!’ he shouts. ‘I thought I told you to shove off back to Glasgow? Loser. Gay-boy.’

  Paul puts his hands in his pockets and turns his face away. A pink, bubblegum missile scores a direct hit into his hair, but Paul seems barely to notice. We walk along in silence, skirting the school grounds and going in through the teachers’ car park to avoid McKenzie.

  ‘Why d’you let him get away with it?’ I explode suddenly, when we reach the quiet and shelter of the kitchen bins. ‘How can you stand it?’

  I reach up to drag the sticky pink gum out of Paul’s hair, but it’s just a tangle of green hair and gunk and feathers. The gum smells sweet, but it disgusts me. It’s been in Murphy’s mouth.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Paul says dully.

  ‘It does!’ I rage. ‘Paul, I can’t get this out. We’ll need to find some scissors.’

  ‘Use this.’ Paul takes a flick knife from his pocket and opens the blade. He tests it with his fingertip, drawing a bright bead of blood.

  ‘What are you doing with a knife?’ I say horrified. ‘The hair and the make-up, that’s one thing, but this… you could hurt somebody!’

  Paul looks at me with soft panda eyes and gently shakes his head. ‘Hannah, you know I’d never do that.’

  ‘No, but if McKenzie found out…’

  ‘He won’t, will he?’

  I take the knife gingerly and slice the bubblegum from Paul’s hair, letting it fall on to the concrete below. His hair looks kind of hacked about, but at least the pink mess has gone.

  ‘You shouldn’t let him call you those things,’ I say sadly. ‘Don’t you hate it? Doesn’t it hurt you?’

  Paul shrugs and rearranges the pheasant feathers.

  ‘He called you loser,’ I say disgustedly. ‘He called you gay.’

  Paul trails a finger along my lip, nudging it into a smile. He tilts my chin up, makes me look right into his sea-green eyes. My lips tremble, and my heart begins to race.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Paul repeats. ‘Hannah, don’t worry about me. It really doesn’t matter what Murphy thinks.’

  Then he smiles and shrugs and slowly walks away.

  CHAPTER 19

  Paul is in trouble. I don’t know how many times a day Murphy and his crew call him names, push him, shove him or kick him, but I know it’s plenty. I can see him pulling back, building a wall round himself, a shell. The hair and the feathers and the panda eyes are just a part of it.

  Don’t touch, the shell says. I’m tough, I’m strong, back off.

  It isn’t working. Murphy and his mates look clean and smart and wholesome, but they are the kind of kids who stomp through rock pools in their wellies, smashing shells, pulling the legs off crabs while the grown-ups look on fondly.

  Every lunchtime, Paul is in detention. Joey is usually with Kit, so I hang out on my own in the art room, picking at my lunch and washing palettes for Miss Quinn.

  ‘Just you again today, Hannah?’ she asks. ‘What’s happened to Paul? I was hoping he’d get to finish that portrait of you before the competition closing date. I’d love to put it forward.’

  ‘Paul’s in trouble with Mr McKenzie,’ I tell her. ‘He’s getting detention the whole time because of the hair, the feathers, the black eyeliner. Mr McKenzie’s trying to wear him down, but Paul won’t give up.’

  ‘Ridiculous rules,’ Miss Quinn says under her breath.

  ‘Paul’s just – different,’ I say, trying to explain.

  ‘I know, Hannah,’ she says. ‘I’ve noticed, in class, the other kids like to wind him up. I won’t have that, of course, but there won’t always be a teacher around to sort things out. He is OK, isn’t he? He’s not unhappy?’

  I frown. Paul is unhappy. You can see it in his eyes, in the way he walks, even the way he smiles. It’s been there all along, right from the first moment we met. It’s something the shell can’t disguise, and it may even be the reason Murphy and the others give him such a hard time. He’s like a little kid with kick me scrawled in chalk across the back of his coat.

  ‘Paul’s had a rough time, Miss,’ I say. ‘In the past, y’know. But he’s OK now. He is settling in.’

  ‘Well, tell him that if he has any problems, he can always come to me,’ Miss Quinn says. ‘Sometimes it helps to talk.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are the two of you busy after school?’ she asks then. ‘If you had a couple of afternoons to spare, you could work on the portrait after half three. I mean, Paul may not fancy that, especially after all the detentions, but…’

  ‘I’ll ask him, Miss,’ I say. ‘I think he’ll be up for it.’

  ‘Excellent,’ says Miss Quinn, sipping her coffee. ‘I’m usually around till at least five. Come any day you like – and bring your own Cherryade!’

  So, most days, Paul and I fall into the habit of staying after school to work on the portrait. Some days, Miss Quinn pulls the blinds shut and sets up a spotlight to make a strong light–dark contrast, and I sit there for an hour at a time, my face warm from the spotlight, staring into space, dreaming.

  In the background, Miss Quinn wanders about the room setting up still-life arrangements, mounting artwork, marking homework or filling in progress sheets. Sometimes, she comes over and looks at the portrait, nodding, smiling. Other times she points out a way Paul could improve things.

  One Tuesday afternoon, I get to the art room to find Miss Quinn on her way out, a bundle of files and papers under her arm.

  ‘There’s a staff meeting today, Hannah,’ she tells me. ‘I won’t be back over till five or so, but you and Paul are welcome to use the room. OK?’

  ‘Right, Miss, no problem.’

  The door shuts behind her. I wait for Paul, but there’s no sign of him. We agreed to come up today, but maybe he’s forgotten? I slouch down the stairs and out into the deserted courtyard. I sit on a low wall for a while, soaking up the spring sun, but there’s nobody around at all.

  I wonder if maybe Paul has committed some extra-evil crime and been punished with a rare after-school detention? He had black nail varnish on this morning, I remember. I walk over to the main school building and sneak down beside the hall windows, standing on tiptoes to peer inside.

  McKenzie stands on the stage, pointing at a flip chart and waving his arms around, while three rows of staff snooze quietly in front of him. Staff meeting. No detentions today – except for the teachers.

  Paul must have headed home on the bus. I’m kind of hacked off with him, but there’s not a lot I can do. I decide to head up to the high street to kill some time and wait for the five o’clock bus home. I cut across the grass, because there are no teachers about to tell me I can’t, and head down towards the kitchen block on the way to the carpark exit.

  I’m right beside the big kitchen bins before I realize there’s something going on, and by then it’s too late. I’ve found Paul and I’ve found Kit and I’ve found Murphy, Tom and Fergus. I wish to God I hadn’t, but it’s too late – they’ve seen me, and I’ve seen them, and my face flares scarlet and I feel sick. I’m shaking, and I can’t tell whether it’s from fear or anger.

  ‘Hannah,’ says Kit, comin
g towards me, taking my arm. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  I pull away from his touch as though it burns me. I look at my brother, his smiling face, his dark hair spiked up carefully, just the way Joey likes it. If she could see him now, she’d never find anything to like about him again.

  My brother puts his hands up, palm outwards, still smiling.

  ‘It’s OK, Hannah,’ he says. ‘Nothing to worry about. There’s been a bit of bother, but I’ve got it all under control now. Just clear off and we’ll talk about it later.’

  But I know I don’t want to talk to Kit about this, not now, not later, not ever.

  Behind him, Murphy, Tom and Fergus are crouched round a figure lying curled up on the gravel, his blazer grey with dust, his green hair splotched with red. Blood?

  I knew they kicked footballs at him, I knew they called him names, I knew they trashed his stuff and tripped him up and flicked bubblegum into his hair, but this is something else.

  And whatever he says, Kit is not here as a spectator.

  I try to shove past him, but he grabs my arm and hangs on tight, and I can’t. ‘PAUL!’ I shriek.

  Murphy turns round, his face a mask of leering spite and anger. ‘What’s she doing here?’ he rages. ‘Man, she had better keep her mouth shut, or…’

  ‘She will,’ says Kit smoothly, before Murphy can finish the threat. ‘She will.’

  Murphy sneers at me and spits on to the gravel. ‘We’re finished here,’ he says. ‘C’mon, lads, let’s go.’

  He gets up, brushes down his trousers, grabs up his bag. The others follow suit, not meeting my eye. ‘Coming, Kit?’ Murphy asks, and Kit lets go of my arm roughly and follows them.

  I stand still till they reach the gate. Murphy turns back, laughing. ‘See you around, Muppet-boy!’ he shouts as they walk away.

  I run to Paul and kneel down beside him. His body is crumpled, folded up on itself, shaking slightly. His arms are wrapped tightly round his face. There’s a stink of something overpoweringly sweet and sickly, like cheap perfume.