Being Me

by Pete Kalu

  ‘I’ll get you this time,’ says his mum.

  Marcus does a big, lip vibrating sigh and says, ‘No chance.’ He squats in front of the coffee table. His mum shows him a dice then starts shuffling the tumblers quickly, so fast I can’t track which tumbler the dice is under. As she does this she’s chanting, ‘left, right left, left-left, right’. She stops.

  ‘Which one?’ she calls out to him.

  Marcus taps a tumbler. The left.

  His mum lifts it. The dice is there.

  ‘Lucky sod,’ she says, ‘Again!’

  Marcus does his dimple grin, runs his hand through his hair and shrugs. His mum lines up the tumblers again. She redoes her routine.

  ‘Choose!’

  He taps middle this time. He’s right again. Marcus chooses right four times in a row but his mum won’t let up. The soup smell has got an under-sniff of burn to it now.

  I twitch my nose. ‘Is something burning? I ask innocently.

  ‘Oh, sheez,’ says his mum, and scrambles off the sofa.

  I check my phone. Mikaela hasn’t rung in all this time.

  Marcus plonks himself down next to me as his dad clears the coffee table, parks a baby mat on it and starts changing Leah’s nappy.

  ‘You shouldn’t of let my mum off the hook,’ Marcus says, digging me in the ribs. ‘I can always spot the dice, she’s too slow.’

  I chuckle. ‘Something was burning.’

  ‘She likes you,’ his dad says of Leah, who has wrapped four little fingers around one of mine.

  She’s adorable. I try some baby talk. ‘Googoo, gaagaa.’

  ‘Brumusshh,’ replies Leah, gurgling.

  Marcus groans.

  ‘You the girlfriend then?’ his dad says to me.

  ‘I’m helping her with her maths homework,’ Marcus says, quickly.

  ‘Righty-o,’ says his dad, with a wink at me.

  ‘Who wants stew?’ Mrs Adenuga calls out.

  ‘Do you want some help?’ I ask her.

  She nods and we go into the kitchen. As I’m helping find plates, Leah has crawled in and wrapped herself between my legs. Mrs Adenuga corners me. ‘I hope that episode was a one-off, young lady,’ she says.

  I nod. I want to hide in the washing machine.

  ‘I can’t have my son corrupted,’ she adds. ‘He’s got prospects. He might even make it to university.’

  She makes university sound like reaching the top of Mount Everest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I won’t do it again.’

  ‘But why, Adele? I’m not being funny but your family is loaded. You’re not shoplifting for nappies like most of them round here.’

  Suddenly, I’m crying again.

  ‘Don’t cry, love. What’s done is done.’

  She scoops Leah out of the vegetables in the bottom of the fridge where she’s crawled in, closes the fridge door with her bum and puts her in my arms while she rounds up the rest of the plates. Leah glides a finger through my tears, fascinated. Then she makes a sad face, copying mine. She looks so unbelievably sad. I smile my biggest smile. Leah smiles too. I wipe my face, because I don’t want Marcus seeing me like this. Leah wipes hers.

  ‘She’s smitten,’ says Mrs Adenuga, as she bustles around the tiny kitchen. ‘She really likes you.’

  We’re soon sat at the table, eating mutton stew. More accurately, Marcus’s dad is chomping mutton stew; his mum is dipping her spoon into mutton stew while having an animated conversation on the phone about a Caravan Windows Conference; Marcus is pouring stew directly into his face from his plate, and Leah is trying to flick stew puree at me with a tiny plastic spoon. Occasionally, she allows me to take the spoon from her and stick it in her mouth, loaded with stew.

  ‘What is mutton?’ I ask.

  ‘I dunno,’ belches Marcus. ‘Dad, what’s mutton?’

  ‘Mutton is goat,’ his dad replies. ‘Don’t be rude, Marcus, just because you’ve got a guest.’

  ‘Sheep,’ his mum corrects his dad, even though she’s still on the phone.

  ‘What we are eating is goat,’ his dad says emphatically to Marcus, but really to his wife. ‘And this goat has been inaccurately named mutton by your mother.’

  ‘I cooked it, I should know. It’s mutton,’ his mum holds firm. ‘Sheep.’

  ‘OK, you’re right. Mutton argue!’ his dad says, in the tone of “mustn’t argue”. This has him and Marcus killing themselves laughing. His mum fails to see the joke.

  Later, after Marcus has tried and given up teaching me the rules of quadratic equations, he drags me into the kitchen to help with his washing-up duty.

  ‘How’s it going at home, after, you know . . . what happened?’ he asks me.

  ‘How do you think it’s going?’ I reply.

  ‘So they know?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Hey, I’m on your side.’

  ‘Just drop it, OK? Pass a plate.’

  He passes a plate. ‘But why, Adele?’ he says, like it’s a maths problem he has to solve.

  I’ve had enough. ‘Why! Why! Why! Everyone keeps asking me why. Because. That’s why!’

  We finish doing the dishes in silence. His dad comes in and says, ‘Like a proper married couple you two are!’ He takes a beer from the fridge and goes back into the living room.

  I leave shortly after. Mikaela does not pick up when I ring her from my taxi home. I manage to avoid everyone in the house. I go to bed with a headache.

  CHAPTER 15

  AUNTIE ASTONISHED, LIES & LETTERS

  It’s Monday morning, I’ve got the biggest headache ever, and I’m late. Dad drives me to school in silence. He hasn’t shaved and he doesn’t even have his work tie on. He doesn’t look at me throughout the whole journey.

  Monday morning assemblies are painful experiences. Rows of unwilling learners are lined up by jaded teachers to be bored to death by dull speakers. Usually, as a special treat, at the end of the assembly, a particularly ungifted and untalented member of the Gifted And Talented Club will play out of tune on an oboe or similar. If I could sell ear plugs for the event I’d have been Britain’s first fourteen year old millionaire by now. Mikaela has filed in before me. I try to catch her eye but she’s ignoring me so I ignore her back.

  The new Head takes to the stage. I think she’s Asian. She’s in a grey suit and speaks twenty-two carat English. It seems she astonishes easily:

  ‘I’m astonished,’ she trills, ‘that you have come into this Assembly Hall so quietly. Thank you, each of you. I am also astonished at the attendance records I have been shown. You have all made such a big effort to get to school on time and not take days off needlessly. Ninety-six percent. Well done. Give yourselves a round of applause.’

  We applaud ourselves with the lack of enthusiasm only Mondays can deliver. The new Head gets through a few other things she’s astonished about, before she starts to “note” things, then she’s “puzzled” by things. I’m back to listening when she makes it to being “seriously concerned” with things.

  ‘I have been reliably informed,’ she intones, ‘by the police no less, that there is a Criminal Gang operating from this school, stealing things from city centre shops. A Criminal Gang!’

  I look across. Mikaela is six shoulders along from me. She’s stopped breathing.

  ‘I’m seriously concerned. Why any girl would consider it a good idea to do such a thing is beyond me. You have your whole future ahead of you. You are brimful of promise. Don’t sacrifice that. Thieves always get caught in the end. Always.’

  Auntie Astonished takes a breath then continues. ‘I’m sorry to have to speak like this to the ninety nine point five percent of you who have done nothing wrong. Most of you have been exemplary. I’m astonished at your good behaviour and achievements in general.’

  I’m guessing Auntie Astonished taught Maths before she became a Head teacher.

  ‘On a more pleasant note, we are fortunate to have ....’ She reads from a card. ‘Jessica B
arker, no, Jemima Barker, no, Gemma Barker. Is she here?’

  There is a kerfuffle up front and the Chosen One emerges.

  ‘Yes, Gemma Barker from our Gifted and Talented Club is going to play a short piece on her clarinet. Big hand for Gemma!’

  After a limp applause, Gemma duly massacres something Mozart allegedly composed.

  I go into English and find Mikaela has a New Best Friend and is not sitting at our desk. Instead some other girl is there and Mikaela is sitting with her New Best Friend at the next desk along. It’s the first time we’ve ever sat apart in English. Everyone in class is feeling the vibes. I decide I’m not even talking to her. The lesson gets going. It’s how to write haiku.

  Mikaela whispers across at me in four syllables. ‘Are you OK?’

  I don’t answer. If I did it would be in eight syllables: ‘Stupid question. What do you care?’

  Her hair is in braids again, with blonde streaks this time. She’s swishing her head this way and that, making sure everyone notices. How could somebody grow enormous blonde streaks of hair over a weekend? Not possible. Duh. Like everything else about her, it’s fake.

  English drones on. Miss is doing the register. I answer to my name.

  Mikaela leans over. ‘So you haven’t lost your voice after all?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ I whisper back across the desks.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  I blank her.

  ‘What was I supposed to do?’ she moans.

  ‘Er, like maybe you could of got the Statue guy off me before they had me pinned to the floor like a squashed rat?’

  ‘But...’ she whines.

  Half the class has tuned in. People are sneaking looks at us over their shoulders. I don’t care.

  ‘That’s what I would of done. But you didn’t lift a finger, did you? ’Cos you’re a coward!’

  Mikaela’s crying now, quietly. Her New Best Friend gives me the evils. I’m not bothered. Mikaela wasn’t the one dumped in a police van with hard-core criminals. She wasn’t the one cautioned. What does she have to cry about?

  ‘Why did you have to rob the statue guy in the first place anyway?’ I say. ‘It was stupid. You silly, sad bitch!’

  The New Best Friend looks at me with a face like a slapped baby’s. ‘Did you just call her a silly black bitch?’ she exclaims. She turns to Mikaela. ‘Did you hear that, Mikaela? She called you a silly black bitch!’

  Mikaela kicks back her chair and comes flying across her own desk and mine. She gets me in a headlock and starts punching and scratching. I wriggle free and grab her waist and start shaking her. She screams for mercy, even though I’m not really hurting her.

  Then the teacher is pulling us apart. ‘You two, what’s got into you? Mikaela! Look at Adele’s face, Mikaela!’

  ‘Adele called her a silly black bitch!’ her New Best Friend says.

  There’s uproar in the classroom after that. Everyone’s arguing.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ I protest.

  Miss doesn’t want to hear it. Adele Vialli you are in big trouble!’

  She sends someone next door and they return with two Year 11 prefects. ‘Right,’ Miss says, ‘both of you, to Isolation!’

  The prefects march us to Isolation.

  I can’t believe Mikaela told such a whopper. Stupid yes. Bitch yes. But black bitch? I never said it.

  As we walk the corridors, Mikaela is sobbing and gasping. Both prefects have their arm around her and shoot ugly glances at me. I realise it would be better for me if I cried too, but I can’t be bothered. I’m not such a faker.

  It’s Mrs Duras again, looking exasperated. She puts the phone down after a couple of “I see, I see”s.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says to the prefects, ‘and bring me the First Aid kit before you return to your class.’ She looks at us. ‘Mikaela, take that seat there. Adele, over there,’ she says, pointing to another chair. ‘Adele, I would never in a month of Sundays have expected you to be using words like that.’

  ‘I didn’t say them, Miss. Did I say them, Mikaela? Did I?’

  Mikaela doesn’t answer, she just keeps up her sniffle act.

  ‘Racism is not good, Adele. All over the world people of many backgrounds are living together, learning together. Bangladeshis in Hong Kong, Sudanese in Saudi Arabia, Mexicans in America, Africans in Europe. Racism has no future, and it will not be tolerated in this school.’

  Mikaela gloats in between crocodile sniffles.

  ‘But...’ I say.

  ‘There’s no “buts”. We will be taking statements from your classmates. This will go up to the new Head teacher and she will deal with it. I’m puzzled. You’ve been best friends for so long.’

  ‘Tell her, Mikaela,’ I say. ‘I didn’t say it.’

  Mikaela hides her face in her sleeve. At that precise moment, I hate Mikaela with every cell of my body, even my dead skin cells hate her.

  One of the prefects returns with a First Aid box. Mrs Duras dismisses her, then hands me a wet wipe from the box.

  ‘What about me?’ I say, ‘what about this?’ I’ve pressed the wet wipe against my forehead and it’s already red all over with blood.

  ‘It will heal,’ Mrs Duras says, ‘it’s a tiny cut.’

  The bell goes.

  ‘Mikaela. Apologise for scratching her face.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Mikaela, with a curled lip.

  ‘Mikaela, you can go. Adele, stay here.’

  Mikaela sniffles and gloats as she leaves.

  It’s just me and Mrs Duras. I can see there’s no getting through to her so I give up trying.

  ‘Adele, wait here while I talk to the Head. Your parents will learn of this.’ Miss Duras heads off.

  Between being called a racist and the shoplifting, I guess I’m well and truly stuffed at this school. The England team chance is over for me as well, I’m sure. I expect I’ll be expelled. Where do people go when they’re expelled? It was an OK school, I think, apart from the lessons. The uniform was not all that and the food was iffy, but the rest was OK. I’m not sure I’ll bother with another school after this one. Too much hassle.

  Mrs Duras is back, acid-faced. She tells me to follow her and leads me to the Head’s office. It’s weird going past classrooms for the last time. The chatter of the eager Year 7s. The beavering silence of the Year 8s. The sweaty Year 10’s. The imperious Year 11s. Most of all, I’ll miss us, the Year 9s. I’ll miss Clingfilm, the geography teacher, Miss Dolphin’s Art class and PSHE with Mrs Richards. If I had a hanky I’d dab my eyes. I make do with wiping my nose on my blazer sleeve.

  We arrive. Mrs Duras knocks on the Head’s door. The Head has had an entry system installed outside her office, like at a doctor’s. Engaged is Red. Enter is Green. It’s currently on Red. The light flips to Green, a buzzer sounds, and I hear her call, ‘Enter!’

  Mrs Duras opens the door, shoves me forward and disappears.

  ‘You wanted to see me, Miss?’ I ask, as sweetly as I can manage.

  ‘Yes, Adele. Take a seat.’

  The number of times I’ve been asked to take a seat recently, I could fill an arena with them, I think.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. Actually, I’m not sure. My crime sheet is so long it could be any of a number of things.

  ‘It’s a very serious matter.’

  I nod. I’ve decided I’m going to be expelled so there is no point in fighting her, or even listening. I look around. The new Head has changed the office a bit. The filing cabinet’s gone. An iPad sits on an almost empty desk with some fresh pink carnations in a small vase to one side. There’s a framed photo on the other corner, but turned towards her so I can’t see who’s in it.

  When I next tune in, Auntie Astonished is well into her stride.

  ‘... quite frankly I am appalled by this behaviour. Poor Mikaela. Can you even imagine the hurt that you have caused her? You might have scarred her for life. How will she ever form
relationships later in life with this kind of example from someone who is meant to be her best friend?’

  She pauses. I smile to myself at how wrong adults can get things.

  ‘Take that smile off your face!’

  I straighten my face.

  The Head piles it on. ‘I’ve looked at Mikaela’s Achievement Reports. She is exactly the kind of girl we encourage at our school. She started with very average grades. Yet she has by hard work and persistence, climbed up the Achievement Tables and is now in the top fifteen percentile for her age. I’m astonished you should try to diminish her self-esteem in this way, it’s inexcusable. She is an exemplary pupil. A golden girl.’

  I can’t listen to any more. ‘She’s the one who went shoplifting with me!’ I blurt out. ‘She’s a thief! She goes robbing with me! How golden is that? And I didn’t say those frigging words!’

  The Head stops playing with her iPad graphs at last. She looks at me as if I’m a specimen on the end of some microscope. A light goes on in her mind. Then promptly off again.

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ she says, finally. ‘Don’t make up lies, Adele, you’ll only dig yourself in deeper.’

  I’m not bothered now. ‘Wait till the police get the shop video,’ I tell her. ‘Then you’ll see how golden Mikaela Robinson is.’

  ‘Are you serious, Adele? Or is this a ploy to distract attention from your potty mouth? It’s a very important allegation you are making.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ I say. Mikaela is obviously some kind of patron saint in Auntie Astonished’s world.

  The iPad graphs blink back up. Auntie Astonished shakes her head. ‘Smoke and mirrors, Adele. I will investigate, but you don’t fool me. You will write a letter of apology to Mikaela, and it must be contrite.’

  ‘What does “contrite” mean?’

  Auntie Astonished exhales. ‘Apologetic. And it must say you will never ever use such language again in school. You must bring me the letter. Do you understand? ’Til then you will remain in Isolation.’

  ‘You want me to write a letter apologising for something I didn’t say?’

  ‘Don’t get cute, Adele.’

  ‘But that’s so unfair!’

  ‘Think yourself lucky I don’t exclude you from school straight away, young lady. Don’t dig your grave.’