Me: ‘I think the door will be blue.’
Lydia: ‘I think it will be green.’
Both the two of us were wrong. The door was brown. They’re all brown.
It was my job to test everything. I won the job because I asked first. If you snooze you lose. First I tested all the lights. They all came on straight away. Then I told it:
Me: ‘Lights working!’
Then I tested all the taps. They all worked. You didn’t even have to wait donkey hours for the water, it came straight away. I tested the taps in the kitchen, then the bathroom. Then I told it:
Me: ‘Water working!’
Then I tested the floor for loose bits or holes. I did it by jumping all over. I jumped on every bit of floor. It took donkey hours. I made it go faster by dancing a little bit. Then I told it:
Me: ‘Floors good!’
Then I checked all the roofs for holes where the rain might come in. All I had to do was look at the roofs. It was easy.
Me: ‘Roofs good!’
Lydia: ‘Shut up, I’ve got a headache!’
Then I tested for furniture and other things. I went around looking for things and whenever I found them I just told it:
Me: ‘Got a sofa!’
Me: ‘Got a table!’
Me: ‘Got a bed!’
Me: ‘Got another bed!’
Me: ‘Got a fridge!’
Me: ‘Got a stove!’
I told everything I found, even if it was only small. I opened all the cupboards and drawers and told what was inside:
Me: ‘Got knives!’
Me: ‘Got forks!’
Me: ‘Got spoons!’
Lydia: ‘I go sound you! Shut up!’
Me: ‘Got plates!’
Me: ‘Got bowls!’
Me: ‘Got a smasher!’
Asweh, there were so many new things it even made my eyes go blurry. I never suspected to see so many new things just in one day. I even forgot Papa wasn’t there. I only remembered at night when Mamma was snoring. When Papa’s there he rolls her on her side like a big sausage so she can’t snore anymore (Mamma says she doesn’t snore but how would she even know, she’s asleep!).
The carpet in my room wasn’t big enough to reach all the floor. You can still see some wood underneath. I lifted up the carpet to look for money. Somebody wrote a greeting on the floor:
Fuck you
I don’t think the greeting was for me. Nobody even knew I was coming.
I don’t know what the money’s for. It isn’t for rent because Mamma got our flat from Ideal Lettings. I don’t know what Julius does except he drove us to our new flat and he’s in love with Auntie Sonia. He’s always slapping her behind. She just lets him do it even when she nearly fell through the door. Grown-ups are stupid like that. They even like it when it hurts.
Auntie Sonia: ‘See you, kids!’
Julius: ‘Come on, let’s go!’ (Slap on the behind.)
Auntie Sonia: ‘Ow!’
Then Mamma’s face goes all hard and she smashes the tomatoes like she’s trying to kill them. She says I can’t get a ring like the ones Julius has because only bogahs wear them.
Me: ‘Not just bogahs, the president as well.’
Mamma: ‘Advise yourself! Only bogahs. Now stop making squeeze-eyes at me.’
If I had a ring like that everybody would think I’m the ironboy. If they roughed me I’d just blow them with the ring hand. It’s so heavy it would knock them into the middle of next week.
I woke up when the boy did, flew straight over through the bluster and the branches. We watched the wind do its thing and then later we dreamed together. We dream each inside the other. We pass on our goodwill messages, they send us their requests and we put a word in, for seashells if not for speedboats. We live and breathe within the boundaries of our charges; we reach out for them when the bridge between them and their god is blocked.
A tree fell down on the green. It must have happened in the night. It was proper rainy and windy last night, I watched it all with my pigeon. He flew away when I went to open the window but I knew it was him.
Me: ‘See you later, pigeon! Don’t be a stranger!’
The tree just blew over. It fell on top of somebody’s house. It didn’t go through, it just landed on the roof. You could see the roots and everything. I climbed up about halfway to the top. It’s easier when the tree’s already fallen, you just walk up it. It’s even too easy. Some smaller kids were trying it but they couldn’t get that far. I was going to show them how but if you’re late for Registration your name goes in the black book. If your name’s in there three times you get a detention and the teacher’s allowed to rape you (it’s the same as dirty blows but even worse).
I saw a bird nest in the tree. It was very sad. The birds all fell out when the tree came down. They must be dead by now. The tree had squashed them. I just knew it.
Me: ‘When we get out of school I go climb to the top and check the nest. If there’s any birds still inside I go adopt them.’
Lydia: ‘Advise yourself, you don’t know how to look after them.’
Me: ‘It’s easy, you just feed them worms until they’re strong enough to fly again.’
The babies only eat worms. They can’t tell the difference from a real worm and a Haribo worm. It’s only until they’re big enough to fly on their own. I love all the birds, not just pigeons. I love them all.
If you’re a policeman and somebody needs to ease themself really bad you have to let them do it in your hat. Connor Green told me.
Me: ‘How! I don’t believe it!’
Connor Green: ‘Swear to God.’
Dean: ‘It’s true, man.’
Me: ‘What about a soldier? Can you do it in their hat?’
Dean: ‘I dunno. I don’t think so.’
Me: ‘What about a fireman?’
Connor Green: ‘No, I think it’s just police.’
Me: ‘You’re pulling my leg!’
Connor Green: ‘Ask him then, go on.’
Me: ‘You ask him.’
Mr McLeod: ‘Shhh! Keep it down over there!’
It was a special assembly. The policeman was talking about the dead boy, how if we knew something we shouldn’t be scared to tell. Nobody will get you for it. The policeman won’t let it happen.
Policeman: ‘You can stop this person doing the same thing to someone else. We’ve got to work together to stop him. So if you can help us, tell your parents or your teacher or ring the number on the poster, and we’ll treat anything you say in the strictest confidence.’
You didn’t know to trust him or not because he was too fat. It just didn’t feel right. A fat policeman is just a liar, he can’t even chase the bad guys properly. Somebody in the back row shouted pig, except they disguised it like a cough. The policeman didn’t even catch the trick, his detective skills are proper low.
Dean: ‘He’s useless, man, we could do his job better than him. He probably just works in the control room. He probably just sits at a desk all day eating Pot Noodles.’
Me: ‘He’d never catch the killer in a million years.’
You didn’t believe the killer could be a kid. It just felt too crazy. We looked around at all the faces for if they had killing eyes. It was too hard. Everybody just looked normal. It couldn’t be them.
Me: ‘Did you see anybody?’
Dean: ‘Not really. Did you?’
Charmaine de Freitas has piggy eyes but that’s just her style. They’re not red.
Me: ‘Girls can’t be killers, can they?’
Dean: ‘Sometimes. They usually just push ’em down the stairs though or poison ’em. They don’t usually stab ’em, it’s not their MO. I don’t think we’ll find the killer here, someone would’ve heard something by now.’
Me: ‘Back to the drawing board.’ (It just means you have to start again.)
Connor Green: ‘Traffic warden’s another one. You can piss in their hat.’
Dean: ‘Yeah, that’s another o
ne. I knew I forgot one.’
I was going to talk to the policeman but I had to stay undercover. If the killer’s friends saw us together they’d know I was on the case, and if you grass they flush your head down the toilet. We just asked the policeman if we could try on his handcuffs instead. He wouldn’t let us for if we used them on each other. (He was right. We were going to put them on Anthony Spiner and chain him to the fence but he guessed it and ran away before we could capture him.)
Scars look better on white people. You couldn’t see my scars very good because my skin’s too dark. They still looked bo-styles. You just had to be near.
I made them in Citizenship. We were supposed to do the test but we were finished already (it only asks you things about what happens in England, like what side of the road do they drive on and what meat is safe to eat). I only used the felt tip, I didn’t use the marker pen because the fumes make you high. It’s easy to draw a scar. It’s just one line with little lines going through it like this:
The big line is the cut and the lines going through it are the stitches. It’s the correct way to draw a scar. It’s what most scars look like, even a zombie’s.
Connor Green draws his scars like this:
The big line is still the cut. The dots are where the stitches were. The stitches have been taken out. The dots are where the needle went in.
I like my way the best. I just think it’s better, that’s all.
Connor pretended like he got his scars from fighting a terminator. I pretended like I got mine from fighting asasabonsam.
Connor Green: ‘What the f— is that?’
Me: ‘He’s a kind of vampire. He lives in the trees. He eats you if you go too far in the forest.’
Connor Green: ‘Wicked.’
There’s a forest outside my school, you go past it every time you have to run a lap around the field. The apples that grow from the trees are poison, you’re not allowed to eat them. Asweh, all the tree fruits around here are either poison or disgusting. Even the mushrooms are too dirty to eat. Connor Green ate them once and he fell asleep for three whole days, when he woke up he forgot what his name was or his favourite Poptart flavour, he had to learn it all over again. I don’t think it’s fair. Why have a fruit tree if you can’t eat the fruit? It’s just a mean trick.
I couldn’t even climb on the tree. When I got there it was already too late, the sawmen were cutting the branches off and putting them on the back of their truck. They had chainsaws. Everybody had to stand back. It was proper vexing. I hated the sawmen. They were very mean, you could tell. It felt like the tree was being tortured. A smaller kid was watching with me. He loved it. His eyes were all big. He even wanted them to cut the branches off.
When the sawmen got to the branch where the bird nest was they stopped the chainsaws and one of them climbed up and got the bird nest out. He put it on the bonnet of the truck and let me look inside.
There was nothing inside. Not even eggs. There was nothing.
Smaller kid: ‘I knew there’d be nothing there. A cat must’ve got ’em.’
Asweh, I wanted to kill him on the spot. The blood just came from nowhere and made me proper red-eyes. A cat didn’t get them. They were only babies.
Me: ‘A cat didn’t get them! Stupid!’
I pushed the smaller kid over. He fell down in the mud. He wasn’t even suspecting it. He just got up and ran away. It was brutal. I even wanted him to cry, he deserved it.
I wanted to take a branch to remember the tree with. I was going to plant it to see if the tree came back to life but the sawmen wouldn’t let me. They thought the tree belonged to them.
Sawman: ‘Sorry, matey. We need it.’
Me: ‘Why?’
Sawman: ‘It’s just the rules. Sorry.’
They’re just stupid. The tree doesn’t belong to them, it belongs to everybody. I only let them take it because they had chainsaws. The hole where the tree used to be just felt too crazy. It made me proper sad, I don’t even know why.
Sellotape can do lots of different detective jobs. You can catch fingerprints in it or hairs. You can use it to make traps. You can stick your notes down so they don’t blow away. You can even catch the criminals themself if you have enough, like if you made it into a spiderweb. Only it would take all the sellotape in the world to hold a fully grown person.
We tested it first with our fingerprints. It worked a treat. You could see all the tiny patterns. Everyone’s patterns are different.
Dean: ‘Sweet. I told you it’d work.’
We were back at the river. We were checking all the surfaces for if the killer left his fingerprints there when he was disposing of the murder weapon. We were going to check the murder scene first but Chicken Joe chased us away, he thought we were going to steal the new flowers the dead boy’s mamma planted in the railings. Someone already stole the beer bottles, it was probably Terry Takeaway.
Chicken Joe: ‘Get out of it, you little sickos! Have some f—ing respect!’
Me and Dean: ‘We’ve got respect, we’ve got respect! We’re only helping!’
Chicken Joe: ‘F— off before I call the coppers!’
Dean: ‘Your chicken’s rancid! It’s got maggots in it!’
That’s why we were checking at the river instead. Fingerprints only stick to some surfaces like metal and plastic. They don’t stick to leaves or grass. We split up to make us go faster. You just had to stick a piece of sellotape on every surface that the killer might touch. If any fingerprints got stuck it meant the killer was there.
Dean: ‘We’ll get a sample from the murder scene later. If we can match a fingerprint from where the boy was killed to one from where the knife was hidden it means whoever you saw must be the killer.’
Dean knows what he’s talking about, he’s seen all the shows. I started with the watercress sign. I had to reach up on my toes to get the sellotape on there. Nothing got stuck. No fingerprints here.
Dean tried the lamppost. No luck.
I tried the path but pavement doesn’t work for fingerprints. Dean tried a big leaf for just in case. Asweh, some of the leaves by the river grow bigger than me. It’s like a jungle. No wonder the killer came this way, it’s the perfect hiding place.
Dean: ‘There was poppies here last year. They had to cut ’em down ’cause everyone kept smoking ’em. I smoked one. It was well crazy.’
Me: ‘What happened?’
Dean: ‘It just makes you tired. Your head goes all weird like you’re far away. I only smoked the seeds. You just mix ’em up with some baccy. I think you’re s’posed to use more, I only used a few.’
I was the lookout while Dean collected samples. He got some mud from the side of the river. We both looked at it proper carefully but we didn’t see any blood in it. Then we swapped and Dean was the lookout while I looked for footprints like on CSI. I was very careful. It felt lovely searching. It made everything go quiet like you were on an important mission and you were the only one who could fix it.
Dean: ‘See anything?’
Me: ‘Nope!’
Dean: ‘He’s probably covered his tracks. And it’s been raining. All the evidence probably got washed away. We just need to find some more leads, that’s all.’
Me: ‘What will you buy with your half of the reward?’
Dean: ‘A Playstation 3 probably. And a new bike and a shitload of fireworks.’
Me: ‘Me too.’
Dean’s the best partner a detective can have, he knows all the tricks. I don’t even care if he has orange hair. That’s what makes him so brainy (a detective’s best skill).
I swear by God, I thought I was dreaming at first. It didn’t even feel real. I thought under the ground was just mud and bones and the creatures who live there, when I saw the tunnels and all the lights and people, I just had to pinch myself. There was even a man playing a violin. He had long hair in a ponytail even if he was a man. Asweh, the whole thing just felt brutal. Have you ever been on the tube? There’s a million people e
verywhere all going too fast. They don’t talk to you, they just chook you out of the way with their elbows. The stairs you go down are moving, they’re the same as the ones at the airport. You can pretend like it’s asasabonsam’s teeth trying to eat you. They put blocks all the way down the middle so you can’t slide down. It’s very vexing. Asweh, if I ever see an escalator with no blocks, I’m going to slide all the way down to the bottom! It’s even my new ambition.
I wanted to run through the tunnel but there were too many people in the way. I just made an echo instead. I made the loudest echo I could and made it last for donkey hours:
Me: ‘We are in the tuuuuuuuuuuuube!’
It felt brutal. Everybody jumped. You could hear my echo on the other side of the world. I pretended like Papa and Agnes and Grandma Ama heard it. I pretended like they shouted back:
Papa and Agnes and Grandma Ama: ‘We heard you! We hope you like it!’
There’s a funny smell when the train comes. It’s like a wind. It’s hot and it smells crazy. It feels nasty when it blows on your face.
Me: ‘It’s farts.’
Lydia: ‘Advise yourself. No it isn’t.’
Me: ‘It is. It’s the farts of all the people on the train. They just went on your face. Now you have a farty face.’
When the train comes everybody starts pushing. They can’t wait to get on the train. They’re panicking for if there’s no room. Advise yourself! There’s plenty of room for everybody! The train is as long as the whole tunnel! When the train started it made my belly turn over like on the aeroplane, I nearly fell over. Everybody was bumping everybody. Asweh, it was brutal.
I wanted Mamma to stand up with us but she wouldn’t stand up. She likes sitting better. The lady sitting next to her had pink hair. It felt lovely.
Where Auntie Sonia lives looks the same as where I live. It didn’t even feel far away. There are still towers but they’re not as tall as mine, only like the never-normal flats. Auntie Sonia lives in a house. It’s in a big line of them, they all look the same except some of the doors are a different colour and some of the gardens are just pavement.
Pigeon English Page 7
