Fifty Fifty

by S. L. Powell

  ‘I should have considered your feelings before I laid into him,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry. It’s a shock for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘It would have been a shock however I found out,’ Gil said. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He found he could breathe again, as long as he did it carefully. He watched Jude put the cigarette between his lips and light it, then inhale deeply and blow the smoke out into the room, just the way he had when Gil had first seen him in the tree.

  ‘The problem is . . .’ Gil went on, and then stopped, distracted. Jude had whipped the cigarette out of his mouth and was stubbing it out furiously on a corner of the desk. ‘You don’t have to do that,’ said Gil. ‘I really don’t mind if you smoke.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jude. ‘I shouldn’t inflict it on you. I can wait. Go on.’

  ‘It’s just – I don’t know what to do now. Now I know about all the stuff in that booklet you gave me, I want to do something. I want to tell Dad he’s wrong, for a start. But talking to him is . . .’ Gil shook his head. ‘It’s impossible. He’s always got an answer. I mean, yesterday I decided I’d become a vegetarian, and he even had an answer for that.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Jude.

  ‘He said it was pointless being a vegetarian because things like milk and butter all lead back to meat in the end. So the only logical thing was to become a vegan and give up animal products altogether.’

  ‘He’s right, actually,’ said Jude. ‘Clever git.’

  ‘So are you a vegan?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Gil didn’t know what to say. He’d been a vegetarian for less than twenty-four hours and already it felt difficult. How did anyone have the willpower to be a vegan? What on earth did you eat if you weren’t allowed cheese or butter or eggs?

  ‘Giving up meat is a fantastic start,’ said Jude, gently. ‘Meat production is almost as sickening as the stuff your dad’s involved in. Don’t give yourself too hard a time if you can’t do everything at once.’

  ‘So what else can I do?’

  ‘Well, don’t argue with your dad, for one thing. It’s a waste of time and it’ll wear you down. You’ll never convince him. It’s like trying to convince a dog not to eat its own sick – it’ll just keep going back to it once your back is turned. Your dad’s whole reputation is built on animal experiments. He won’t give it up just like that. But you can talk to other people – your friends at school, people on the streets – tell them about the reality of animal experiments. People don’t know half of what’s going on, and they need to know. I can give you leaflets to hand out if you like. You can boycott products that are tested on animals. You can write to shops and manufacturers and tell them you’ll stop buying their goods unless they change their policy on animal testing.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’

  ‘Amongst other things, yes.’

  Gil saw Jude glance up at the photo above his desk, and then immediately look away as if he’d been caught spying.

  ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’ Gil said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jude.

  ‘What were you doing, in that picture?’

  ‘Liberating a dog that was used in experiments.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Can’t tell you. Sorry,’ said Jude.

  ‘If I wanted to do that too, would you let me help you?’

  Jude shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous, Gil. If I got caught I’d go to prison. I can’t drag you into that.’

  ‘So are you planning to shut down the labs where my dad works?’ asked Gil.

  Jude nodded.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that either.’

  ‘But you’re really going to do it?’

  ‘If we can work out a strategy,’ said Jude quietly. ‘It’s a tough one. The place is probably as well-defended as Buckingham Palace, for one thing.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I reckon you’ve got a bit of a revolutionary streak, haven’t you? Just like your namesake.’

  ‘Who’s my namesake?’ Gil didn’t have a clue what Jude was talking about.

  ‘Gil Scott-Heron. When you first told me you were called Gil I thought you might be named after him.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The revolution will not be televised,’ said Jude, in a really bad American accent. He leapt up, pulled a CD off the bookshelf, and slid it into a tiny music system. ‘Listen.’

  Gil listened. It was like a rap poem, but it was full of names he didn’t recognise and he only understood bits of it. He looked at the face on the CD cover, a black man with big afro hair and a beard, bellowing into a microphone. You could see the veins in his head and neck standing out with the effort.

  ‘You will not be able to stay home, brother.

  You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out . . .

  Because the revolution will not be televised.

  The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner,

  Because the revolution will not be televised, brother . . .

  There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock news . . .’

  Jude bounced around in his office chair in time to the beat, and then joined in with the words.

  ‘The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,

  will not be televised, will not be televised.

  The revolution will be no re-run, brothers.

  The revolution will be LIVE.’

  Gil tried to imagine Dad at the desk in his study, chanting along to Gil Scott-Heron. It wasn’t easy, even when he remembered what Dad had told him about being arrested and nearly sent to prison.

  ‘I don’t think I was named after him,’ Gil said, as Jude flicked a switch on the music system.

  ‘Jude?’ Sally was calling from outside the door. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Jude. ‘I promised her breakfast in exchange for the cans.’

  ‘I’d better go anyway,’ said Gil. ‘I need to get back to school. They think I’m at the dentist.’

  ‘Will you be OK?’

  From the way Jude looked at him Gil knew he meant more than, ‘Will you be OK getting back to school?’ It was eleven o’clock in the morning and already Gil was worn out. Jude’s room was safe, but it could only be a temporary hiding place. Gil knew that he had to venture back out into the world again, and that later he would have to face Dad and decide what part he was going to act.

  ‘I think I’m OK, yes.’

  ‘Take some leaflets.’ Jude took a big stack out of a box under his desk. ‘Phone me any time, if you need to. And do what you can, Gil. Just do what you can.’

  Gil dawdled as much as he dared on the way back to school but still got there too early, more than half an hour before the end of morning lessons. Even after he’d spent five minutes explaining to the secretary on the front desk exactly why his visit to the dentist had taken so long, he still couldn’t avoid joining the tail end of the science lesson.

  He sneaked quietly into a room full of chatter, with everyone clustered in small groups around microscopes. Gil reckoned he had a good chance of blending in without being noticed, until he saw Louis look up from the other side of the room and beckon him over enthusiastically.

  Crap, thought Gil. Why did Louis always notice him? Did he beam out some kind of radio signal that went straight to Louis’ brain? And Ben was with him again. Reluctantly Gil began to make his way across the room.

  ‘You’ve got to help us,’ said Louis loudly. ‘We can’t do this stupid thing. Look.’

  Louis pushed Ben away from the microscope. Ben shoved him back, hard, and the microscope wobbled.

  ‘Ask Mr Montague,’ said Gil. ‘I haven’t been here, have I? I don’t have a clue what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘We’re supposed to be drawing a cell, dummy,’ said Ben. ‘But we can’t even see it.’

  ‘So?’ Gil shrugged. ‘Not my problem, guys.’

  ‘Oh, stuff this,’ said Ben, pushing the microscope away roughly. ‘You
’re no help, are you, Jillian?’

  ‘What did you say?’ said Gil, faking a smile.

  ‘I said, Jillian, that you’re no bloody help. Have you got a problem with that?’

  Gil stared at Ben’s face. Maybe he should just punch Ben hard, right between his stupid piggy eyes. Or kick him right between his stupid fat legs. But it would get him a week of detentions at least. It probably wasn’t worth it. As Gil stood considering, he became aware of Louis leaning closer to him.

  ‘Where have you been?’ said Louis suspiciously.

  ‘At the dentist,’ said Gil. ‘Where do you think?’

  Louis sniffed. ‘You smell of cigarettes. And you’ve been gone ages.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it took ages.’

  ‘So why do you smell of cigarettes? Dentists don’t smoke. Not at work, anyway. Did you sneak out of school to smoke or something?’

  ‘Jillian wouldn’t try a cigarette,’ sneered Ben. ‘Might get into trouble with Daddy.’

  Gil turned away so he couldn’t see Ben’s face.

  ‘I probably stood next to someone smoking at the bus stop, that’s all,’ Gil said.

  ‘What, you went on the bus?’ Louis frowned.

  ‘Yes. So what?’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be grounded. If your dad won’t even let you come to school by yourself, how come he let you go to the dentist by yourself?’

  ‘So you don’t believe me?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Louis.

  ‘That’s your problem, then, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you’ve been to the dentist, what did you have done?’

  ‘A filling,’ said Gil. ‘A big one.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Oh, yeah!’ said Ben enthusiastically. ‘Let’s see! Did it make you cry, Jillian?’

  Gil walked away, right over to Mr Montague’s desk, and as soon as the bell rang he headed straight for the door. Louis managed to catch him up in the corridor on the way to the canteen.

  ‘Are you hacked off with me or something?’ he puffed.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gil. ‘For hanging out with Ben again.’

  ‘I wasn’t hanging out with him. You weren’t there, remember? Mr Montague put me with him. I didn’t have much choice. God, I hate science.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Gil. He thought of Jude’s booklet, and the pile of leaflets in his bag. ‘The whole thing’s sick.’

  ‘But you’re good at it,’ said Louis, looking puzzled.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I like it, does it?’

  They had reached the canteen. Hardly anybody else was there yet, and Gil headed straight for the usual counter. So it would be sausages, chips and beans again. Gil picked up a sausage with a pair of tongs and then remembered with a jolt that he wasn’t supposed to be eating meat any more. What was he meant to have for lunch at school if he didn’t eat meat?

  Louis watched in astonishment as Gil held the sausage above his plate for several seconds.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

  ‘Thinking,’ Gil said sharply.

  After all, he thought, gazing hungrily at the sausage, Dad couldn’t control everything he did at school. He could be vegetarian at home and carnivorous here and Dad wouldn’t know any different. Unless someone told him. Like Louis, the blabbermouth. But then Jude was a vegan, and that was really something to look up to. Gil had told Jude he was a vegetarian now, and if he wanted Jude to take him seriously he ought to stick to his promise. In any case, who knew what suffering the pig had been put through before it was turned into school dinners?

  Gil dropped the sausage on to Louis’ plate and moved on.

  ‘You’re weird,’ said Louis as they slid into the plastic canteen seats. ‘Why have you only got chips and beans?’

  ‘I’m a vegetarian,’ said Gil.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t you like meat any more?’ Louis speared a sausage with a fork and waggled it under Gil’s nose. ‘Look – meat! Lovely meat!’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Gil. ‘I just think it’s wrong to kill animals for food.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is, you loser.’

  Gil never bothered coming up with proper answers for Louis. Louis wasn’t Dad. He never really argued. He agreed with pretty much anything anyone told him.

  ‘I don’t think I could give up meat,’ said Louis thoughtfully through a mouthful of sausage. He watched Gil eating chips for a while and then said suddenly, ‘You can chew all right, then? With your massive filling.’

  ‘What?’ It took Gil a moment to remember his imaginary dentist’s appointment. ‘Oh, yeah. It’s fine.’ He patted his cheek.

  ‘Wow! That’s great!’ said Louis, his voice full of fake relief.

  Gil waited until they were in the playground after lunch before he showed Louis the leaflets Jude had given him. He had a pretty good idea of how Louis would react, and he wasn’t disappointed.

  ‘Oh my God, Gil!’ Louis howled. ‘What are you trying to do, make me throw up?’

  There was a picture of another monkey on the leaflet, but this one looked as if the top of its skull had been sliced right off. A drop of blood oozed down its forehead.

  ‘This is one of the reasons I’m a vegetarian,’ said Gil.

  ‘It’s gross,’ said Louis, studying the photo with a frown. ‘Is it real?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes they make these things up to shock you, don’t they? Or they make it look worse than it is, anyway. Hey, I read about this horrible thing they do with monkeys! I can’t remember where now. It’s some place where they like to eat monkey’s brains, but they like them really fresh. So they get a monkey, and they saw the top of its head off, so you can see the brains – just like the one in this picture – and then they give you a spoon. Like you were going to eat a boiled egg. And the monkey’s still alive. How gross is that?’

  ‘You just made that up.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. It’s true.’

  ‘Look, forget about all that rubbish,’ said Gil. ‘This monkey is from a lab where they do animal experiments. Don’t you think that’s horrible?’

  ‘What sort of experiments?’ Louis looked interested. ‘Why do you think they’ve taken the top of its skull off?’

  ‘Just to torture it, probably.’

  ‘There must be a reason. They wouldn’t do it for nothing. I wonder what they were trying to find out?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? The monkey’s in pain. It’s horrendous.’

  ‘How do you know it’s in pain?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Louis! How would you feel if you had the top of your bloody head cut off and someone was poking about in your brains?’

  ‘That depends what bit of the brain they were poking about in,’ said Louis seriously. ‘I saw a programme about it.

  You can stimulate loads of different bits of the brain, even really deep inside it. But it only hurts if you stimulate the pain centres. The rest of it doesn’t hurt at all.’

  ‘You mean you don’t care that animals get randomly chopped up like this?’

  Louis wiggled his head. ‘I don’t know, really. I mean, what if you find out something important – you know, something that’s going to cure AIDS or cancer or whatever, and save millions of lives? I think it’s kind of fifty-fifty for and against. It’s complicated, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. It’s not complicated at all. It’s incredibly simple. Animal experiments should be banned.’

  Gil waited for Louis to give in and agree, but he didn’t say anything.

  ‘So are you going to help me hand out these leaflets or what?’ Gil said after a while.

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘I’ve got a whole stack of leaflets.’ Gil thrust a hand into his bag and pulled some out. ‘I’m going to give one to every single person in this school.’

  ‘Where did you get these from?’ ask
ed Louis. ‘Is this what you were up to this morning?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Gil said, sarcastically. ‘There was a big pile of them at the dentist, so I just helped myself.’ He offered a handful of leaflets to Louis but Louis didn’t take them.

  ‘I don’t know about handing them out,’ said Louis. ‘I’m sure we’re not supposed to do stuff like that. We’ll get into trouble, won’t we?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Louis. It’s not a big deal. The most we’ll get is a detention. You don’t really care about that, do you?’

  ‘I don’t want to get a detention for handing out stupid leaflets.’

  ‘So you’re not going to help me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look, just do it.’

  ‘Make me,’ said Louis, folding his arms.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you today?’

  ‘Oh, it’s me that’s the problem, is it?’ said Louis crossly. ‘As usual.’

  Gil gave up, and walked across to the other side of the playground to hand out the leaflets by himself.

  It didn’t take long to get rid of them. Some of the girls took one look and ran away, but others gathered into groups and stood around shrieking about the ‘poor little monkey’. The boys made less fuss, but Gil thought they seemed much too entertained by the leaflet, calling their mates over to look at the monkey as if it wasn’t a real creature at all but just a bit of CGI from the latest computer game. Why didn’t it bother them the way it bothered him? Gil sighed, and then saw Ben coming towards him with a leaflet.

  ‘Now this,’ said Ben, waving the leaflet, ‘this is cool. It’s really sick.’ He laughed loudly and went to slap Gil’s hand, but Gil avoided him. ‘Nice one, Jillian.’

  Most people glanced at the leaflet and dropped it where they stood. By the end of lunchtime the playground was carpeted with paper. Hundreds of pairs of monkey eyes stared up into the sky.

  Gil looked at the playground and a feeling of gloom settled over him. What would Jude say? It hadn’t been a great success. As he turned to go inside he saw that Mr Montague was waiting at the door. He was holding one of the leaflets.

  ‘Just come with me for a minute, Gil,’ he said, opening the door of an empty classroom. He sat on the edge of a desk, and waved Gil towards a chair.