by Gillian Chan
“So, Mike,” Chaz said, “I’ll come with you this morning and get you settled in at Dufferin High, do all the paperwork, stuff like that, okay?”
I hate that kind of meaningless talk. Just tell me what you’re doing. Don’t make it like I’ve got a choice, because I haven’t. If I said that it wasn’t okay with me, all I’d get is a shitload of trouble. I utilized the all-purpose grunt, which seemed the safest thing to do.
All of these places have their routines. It doesn’t usually require much in the way of smarts to work out what’s going on and what you should be doing. Once backpacks had been retrieved, everyone congregated in the hallway. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, but nothing serious. The younger kids drifted over toward Lucy. She wasn’t happy for some reason.
“Adam, get over here!” The gentleness of her tone was at odds with the impatient look on her face. “You know you have to come with me now, not Chaz.”
So, shadow boy had a name—Adam. He was a sad-looking kid, small and scruffy, a big nose dominating his face. He looked hopefully at Chaz, who smiled at him but gestured that he should go over to where Lucy was waiting with the others. Lucy patted him on the shoulder. “C’mon, Adam, it’s not so bad. Chaz has to do the high-school run.” She guided him into the middle of her group as if she were afraid he might make a run for it, then herded them out the door.
There were about six of us left then. Paddy was there, the rat-faced boy whose name I learned was Matt, some others who hadn’t made much of an impression on me so far, and, surprise, surprise, Jacob. If you had asked me to guess his age, I would have put him as no more than eleven or twelve. He was small and slight and by the looks of his face about thirty years away from puberty. I guess looks are deceiving, though. He clambered into the ancient van that Chaz backed up in front with the rest of us. I couldn’t believe that he was in high school: I guessed that he didn’t go to school at all and was homeschooled by Chaz, and was only coming along for the ride because there was no one left at home to look after him.
Chaz motioned that I should sit up front with him. Jacob sat in the seat behind me. None of the others sat next to him, but I watched in the mirror as most of them took a poke at him in some way as they went by, “accidentally” hitting him with their bags or bringing an elbow back to connect with his head. He said nothing, but it was like watching a blind come down, each little thing drawing a shade further across Jacob’s eyes.
Dufferin High looked like just about every other school I’d been to: a big early-twentieth-century pile of red brick surrounded by a swirling mob of kids. Without so much as a good-bye, everyone piled out. Jacob shot out first like a rabbit down a hole. I presumed that it was to avoid a second helping of jostles and hits as the others went out. Whatever. I was kinda pleased that he had a measure of self-preservation, even if it didn’t kick in all the time. Paddy headed off with Matt in tow to join a group that I could tell was nothing but trouble. I expected that Jacob would be waiting for Chaz and me but there was no sign of him.
I stopped, looked around for him.
“Come on, Mike,” Chaz said. “Let’s get down to the office and get you signed in.”
I broke one of my rules then. I asked a question. “Where’s Jacob?”
Chaz smiled ruefully. “If he’s got any sense, trying to stay out of the other kids’ way.” He paused for a moment, as if he was considering whether he should say more. “You’ve probably noticed that he’s a little different.” He snorted. “Yeah, you’d notice that all right. I saw you watching him last night. I don’t think you miss much, even if you don’t say a lot.”
He was right, but I didn’t like it that he’d got me pegged. I just shrugged.
Chaz walked toward the building, and I followed him through the sea of kids. “Yep, Jacob’s a bit of a mystery. He was found on the street about three months ago, unconscious, beaten up for sure but no sign that he had done drugs. They checked him out thoroughly at the hospital, kept him there for a couple of days, then sent him to us. The police put out appeals for anyone who knew anything to come forward, but no one ever has. For a while, they thought he might be deaf-mute.” Chaz was definitely a talker: he didn’t seem to require anything other than an audience to get him going. “But it was more like he had just shut down.” He chuckled. “Jacob still does that when things get to be too much for him. Must have been a particularly bad day at school yesterday—he hasn’t done the behind-the-TV bit for a while. He came to us straight from the hospital, and it was probably two weeks before we even got his name and age out of him.” Chaz pulled open the door that led to the school office and motioned for me to go ahead of him. “Jacob Mueller, aged fourteen, although you wouldn’t think it to look at him. He hasn’t volunteered anything else. We know he can read and write, but not that well. We know he only likes the plainest of foods, nothing messed around with, but that’s about all.”
Chaz moved ahead and gave the sour-faced woman behind the counter a huge, shit-eating grin. “Ah, Mrs. Pearson, aren’t you glad to see me? I’m bringing you another one of our lost lambs!”
If her face was any indication, another inmate from the Medlar House group home was just what Mrs. Pearson didn’t want. She sighed. “You’ve got all the relevant paperwork, I suppose.”
Chaz’s grin didn’t waver for an instant. “But of course! Michael McCallum, ninth grade, a smart one by the look of his transcripts. Can I leave him to your tender care?”
I decided to play a little and stepped out from behind Chaz, smiling.
She was good. I couldn’t tell if I’d shocked her or not. “I’ll get him sorted out,” she said.
Chaz gave me what was meant to be a reassuring pat on the arm. “I’ll be back to pick you up at the end of the day with the others. Have fun!” Then he was gone.
God, the day was long. I used to try to pretend that I was as dumb as I looked, but I nearly died of boredom, so now I do enough to stay in the academic classes but not enough to draw attention to myself. As long as I do what’s expected of me, most teachers leave me alone. You always get a few with a messiah complex who want to save the poor misunderstood mutilated kid, but it’s easy to discourage them if you’re shitty enough. The difficult times are the bits in between: the corridors going to and from class, lunch hour, all those times when students are for the most part unsupervised. I ignore the comments as long as they’re shouted long distance. If they’re close up, then I have to act. Nothing over the top, just a well-placed punch to the gut or a grab of the throat and shove up against the nearest locker. Most of the problems end there, but if the perpetrator’s too stupid to realize that they are outmatched in the nastiness stakes, then I am only too happy to show just how evil I can be. This gets me grief from the teachers, of course, but I’m not too proud to play the poor victim. It always works. The physical evidence is plain to see. Lunchtime, I eat as quickly as I can, then head for the library. Libraries are always safe places. I hunker down in a corner and read until class starts again.
I have to say that in terms of teachers and classes, Dufferin High was a lot better than most. My attention was engaged for at least fifty percent of the time. I kept an eye out for some of the other kids from Medlar House, but Paddy was the only one I saw. He was in the academic stream, too, which didn’t exactly shock me. We had a couple of classes together, but he made no effort to acknowledge me. In fact, he went the other way, making it clear that he was ignoring me. I kept looking for Jacob. I was curious to see how he would cope, but I only saw him once, right at the end of the day, when he came scurrying around the back of the gym to stand at the curb waiting for Chaz and the van. He looked a little worse for wear: his jeans were plastered with mud on one side, and he had a rip in his jacket. He was watching for the van so intently that he didn’t see Paddy creep up behind him. When Paddy rabbit punched him, he fell to his knees. Paddy was staring hard at Matt.
“Well?” he said. Matt a
imed a kick at Jacob’s back, but there was no real effort in it and he missed by a few inches, causing Paddy to roll his eyes in disgust.
I’d been leaning against the wall out of their line of vision, but decided to saunter over to see what their next move was going to be.
“How was the ree-tard’s class?” That was Paddy. “Were you a good boy and did they let you color?”
Jacob didn’t answer him, just knelt there, his arms hanging at his sides, his head bowed. It reminded me of this picture I saw once in history class of a British officer from World War II about to be beheaded by a sword-wielding Japanese soldier.
Paddy and Matt were so into hassling Jacob that they seemed unaware of me standing behind them. When Paddy lifted a foot and prepared to kick Jacob from behind, I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back so that he struggled to maintain his balance.
“What the fuck!” He spun around. “What did you do that for?”
I smiled and said nothing. I could see the calculation on his face as he tried to decide whether it was worth striking back. Evidently not. He shrugged his shoulders back into his jacket and mumbled something to Matt, who didn’t answer, just watched me warily.
Chaz pulled up as I was helping Jacob to his feet and picking up his backpack. Jacob attempted to pull free and bolt for the safety of the van, but I kept a tight grip on his arm, holding him back until everyone else had gotten on. There were empty seats on either side of the aisle right behind Chaz. I roughly pushed Jacob into one and flung myself down into the other. Before I turned to stare out the window, I saw Chaz watching me in the rearview mirror.
“Good day, Mike?” he asked.
I shrugged. Define good.
“Boys?” He was trying the old extend-the-question technique in the hope that someone would answer, as if this would bolster up the facade of normality that he obviously wanted to pretend existed.
“I think Jacob learned to play football today.” Paddy sniggered and looked at Matt for confirmation of his wit, but Matt was staring out the window.
Chaz didn’t say anything, but I saw his eyes narrow as he looked back at Paddy. The rest of the journey back to Medlar House was silent, which was just fine by me. I sank down into my seat, thinking about how not much got by Chaz. He didn’t act on everything he saw, but I realized it didn’t mean he was indifferent, maybe just that he was biding his time. He needn’t think that I would open up to him anytime soon, though. Being taciturn is what works best for me. It’s caring about other people that gets you neck deep in the shit.
Chapter Three
Like I said, all institutions, even if you try to make them sound better by calling them a home, have their own routines. By the end of my first week at Medlar House I had my own routine going, too, which kept me amused and made it bearable.
Chaz and Lucy were the main “house parents.” One of them was always on the premises, and there were various other social worker types who filled in for the one who was having time off. They were okay, for the most part, especially since they left me alone. There was one I didn’t like much, Bob. He was a lazy so-and-so, and Paddy took full advantage of this to strut his stuff. We were expected to chip in with chores and help in the kitchen. There was a rota and it was strictly enforced. I didn’t mind it much. I liked the kitchen work; I had often cooked for Jon and myself.
Lucy, or Luce, as everyone called her, focused on the younger boys. There were four of them—the youngest was eight—and old Adam the Shadow was in that lot. He looked maybe like he was about nine, but he could have been older; he was small. Luce was the hip mommy. Everyone liked her, but we ran rings around her. When Chaz was off and Luce was on her own with Bob to help her corral us, things had a tendency to fall apart—not so badly that there was a great investigation, but let’s just say that the weaker ones got bullied a bit more, and if you had something to do that you shouldn’t be doing, this was the time to get it done.
Adam the Shadow amused me. I saw a lot of him because wherever Chaz was, there he was, too, and Chaz’s responsibility was us, the older ones. Unless we needed to be divided up, like for school or something, Chaz was pretty tolerant of Adam, and never sent him packing. If I’d been him, I would have. It was like having a small dog follow you around, desperate for any kind of attention, just wanting to be liked.
“Mr. Mazzone,” he’d say, ever so politely. “What time is lights-out tonight?” Adam was weird that way; everyone else called Chaz by his first name. And the question itself was bogus, too, because lights-out was the same time every night—9:30 for the younger ones, 11:00 for the rest of us.
“The usual time, kiddo,” Chaz would reply. “Why, have you got big plans for tonight?”
Adam would give Chaz a smile, then he would start up again. “That’s late for me. I’m used to going to bed earlier. My mother insisted that I get ten hours of sleep a night. She said it was good for me.”
Sometimes Chaz would take the bait and engage in the conversation further: “Yeah, well, Adam, you can always go up to bed before lights-out. If you want to, that is.”
It didn’t really matter if Chaz answered or not. Once Adam got going, he could keep up the questions and observations all on his own. An answer was a bonus, but he didn’t need much more than an acknowledgment to keep going. I guessed it was just a way of keeping close to Chaz. The poor kid seemed terrified if he wasn’t nearby. I didn’t know his story, but I figured it was probably going to be a doozy. Chaz was always kind, never impatient, and I kinda warmed to him because of it, not that I would ever let that show.
Adam was wary of me. At first, he would flinch if I even so much as looked at him, but what’s the saying—“Familiarity breeds contempt”? Well, that wasn’t quite true, but he got over being frightened of me in that he didn’t freak out if I was nearby, and he would try to engage me with these tentative little smiles. If Chaz were occupied with someone else then Adam would talk to me. To be accurate, he would talk at me, because I didn’t do much more than grunt in reply. It was dull stuff, the minutiae of his day, but there was a constant—his mother, or “Mummy,” as he called her, who seemed to have had strong opinions on just about everything. It got me wondering what had happened to her, because there wasn’t a chance in hell that the woman Adam described would have given him up voluntarily; she sounded like an overbearing, smothering bitch.
Adam didn’t hang out at all with the kids his own age, not even his roommate, who was this quiet, unobtrusive Asian kid. It was almost like he didn’t know how. On Chaz’s days off, he radiated this lost, shell-shocked look, as if he was thinking, “How the hell did I end up here?” He would hole up in his room if he was allowed to, and when he had to venture out into the rest of the house, I noticed that he stayed close to me. He was polite and considerate, I’ll give him that. I found that if I got a book out, even if I was only pretending to read, he would stop his stream-of-consciousness chatter.
One day, I really got into my book and, to be honest, completely forgot about Adam. “Don’t, please don’t!” Adam sounded panicky. I looked up and saw that Paddy had grabbed something from Adam. I couldn’t make out what it was exactly: a piece of paper, maybe a photograph. Paddy was holding it just out of Adam’s reach, grinning, and making like he was going to tear it up.
“Please give it back. It’s my mummy.” Adam was crying now, his tears running down his face.
“Oooh, it’s his mummy.” Paddy was good. He mimicked Adam’s slightly prissy tone dead on. “Mummy would tell the nasty, rough boy off, wouldn’t she? She’d protect poor little Adam-wadam.” Paddy looked around and was rewarded with some giggles from the others.
I looked around, too, but there was no one else who would help Adam. Jacob was there and watching, but he had his head cocked to one side as if he was listening to someone I couldn’t see. Trying to make it all one movement so that I had the element of surprise, I reared up from my seat and grabb
ed the photograph, wrenching it from Paddy’s grip. A corner of it tore off, eliciting whimpers from Adam, but I was able to give most of it back to him. He hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket.
“What did you do that for, freak?” Paddy was furious, his face twisted and red with anger. “I was just having a little fun!”
That made me mad. Isn’t that what all bullies say? That they were joking, they didn’t mean to hurt anyone? You can guarantee that if I hurt someone I mean to do it and I’ll own it. I grabbed Paddy’s T-shirt at the neck and twisted it tight, pushing the knot I made hard against his throat. “Well, now I’m having fun!”
Paddy struggled, thrashing in my grasp. He was stronger than he looked, and I had to work hard to maintain my grip. He managed to bring a fist around and caught me on the side of my face. Of course, by sheer luck, he hit the worst of my scarring and a bolt of agony shot up the side of my head. I wanted to do nothing more than curl up in a ball, but I couldn’t let him see that he had hurt me, so I loosened my grip and thrust him away as hard as I could. I was lucky; he collided with the other kids who were watching this all go down and ended up in a tangled heap on the floor. If he hadn’t, I knew he would have launched himself at me and that I would have had to fight him.
My luck held out even longer: Luce came in, having heard the noise. “What’s going on here?” she asked.
Adam started to speak. “Miss Evans, Paddy . . .”
I didn’t let him finish. “Paddy tripped and fell, didn’t you, Paddy?”
I fought down the pain that was ravaging my face, walked over to Paddy, and offered him my hand. He took it reluctantly, Luce still watching us. With my back to her my face was hidden. I bared my teeth at Paddy and then mouthed, “Don’t try it.”
