School for Nobodies

by Susie Bower

  By the time she hit her teens, susie bower had lived in 8 houses and attended 7 schools. This theme continued in her working life: she’s been a teacher, a tour-guide, a typist, a workshop facilitator, a PA and a painter. She formerly wrote and directed TV programmes for children at the BBC and Channel 4, for which she won a BAFTA Award, and she currently writes audio scripts. School for Nobodies is her debut novel. Susie lives in Bristol.

  For Charlie and Dave

  with love

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  THE GIRL WITH NO NAME

  THE FIRST MESSAGE

  IN THE MIRROR

  THE TRUTH

  THE SECOND MESSAGE

  TWO SCHOOLS

  MY THREE WORST THINGS

  THE PARTY

  TO BOARDING SCHOOL

  IT MUST BE A MISTAKE

  NOBODIES, AND CUSTARD

  UNREGISTRATION

  RULE THREE

  THE TALKING STICK

  THE ROOM OF REFLECTION

  DO YOU BELIEVE ME?

  IN MR GOLD’S STUDY

  IN THE WOOD

  THE RESCUE

  A FERAL BOY

  SECRET MUSIC

  GOOD AND BAD CIRCUS

  THE SHOW

  DODGING FERAL

  FERAL SPOILS IT

  NEXT DOOR

  I FIND HER

  THE LION TRAINER

  MIDNIGHT

  SECRETS

  INTO THE WOOD

  UNDER THE MOON

  NIGHT VISITORS

  THE NEXT MESSAGE

  SHAPESHIFTER

  COUNTDOWN TO NOON

  TRUTH AND LIES

  IT ALL GOES WRONG

  ACCUSATIONS

  I SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

  NIGHT MUSIC

  PREPARATIONS

  THE DOORWAY

  THE CHOICE

  FERAL’S SACRIFICE

  MY TWIN

  THE TRUTH

  FIRE

  ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALL

  AFTERWARDS

  11TH JUNE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  COPYRIGHT

  THE GIRL WITH NO NAME

  I’m going to tell you a secret.

  Until the day of my tenth birthday, I had no name of my own.

  Sonia and Claude, who adopted me when I was three, called me Claudia. It wasn’t my name—it was their two names joined together.

  Even worse, their last name was Finklebottom.

  Only, they pronounced it FinkleBOME, because it sounded posher.

  Sonia was tall and skinny, had pouty lips and wore long dangly earrings and overalls smeared with paint. She told everyone she was an artist. Claude was short, fat and bald, and made lots of money in the City. He talked in an old-fashioned way, and called Sonia vomity names, like my little piggy wiggy and pootlekins. His chins and belly shook when he laughed—haw-haw-haw!—and Sonia’s mouth always crinkled up in disapproval like a cat’s bottom until he stopped.

  My birthday began like every other day, except that two envelopes were propped against my plate. A little bit of me hoped, every year, that inside one of the envelopes would be a ticket to the circus, but that never happened. I’d been crazy about circuses ever since I was small—I’d secretly read every single book about them in the school library. Each year, the circus came to town and everyone at school told me about the acrobats in their sparkly leotards, and the way the clowns squirted water at the crowd, and how daring the tightrope walkers and the trapeze artists were. But Sonia and Claude disapproved of circuses, so I’d never actually seen one in real life.

  I opened the first envelope. Inside was a birthday card. It had a picture of a girl holding a basket of kittens. She had long, shiny hair and a perfect, pretty face. Inside, it said:

  To Claudia,

  Wishing you a happy birthday.

  Sonia and Claude

  There was no ‘with love’, and not even one kiss.

  The second envelope contained my present, which was a donation to a charity called Save the Andalusian Donkey. There was a badge which said: i saved a donkey today!

  Sonia and Claude didn’t appear at breakfast. Sonia said I was too restless in the mornings, which gave her a migraine. She and Claude wanted a girl like the one on the card—a girl who smiled nicely and sat still. The trouble was, I couldn’t. It was like I had an everlasting itch just out of reach for scratching. My feet needed to tap, my fingers to wiggle, my legs to jump and dance and kick. And my mouth needed to talk a LOT, and to say shocking and unusual things, and I had to press it closed so it wouldn’t. Every time Sonia snapped, ‘Be quiet, Claudia!’ or Claude said, ‘Turn that frown upside down—haw-haw-haw!’, I got That Feeling. Have you ever had it? The feeling where your insides are about to erupt like a volcano, or crash like a giant wave, or fizzle and hiss like a bolt of lightning—so you have to wriggle about, or else explode.

  I didn’t tell anyone at school that it was my birthday. Afterwards, I cycled back to the Gables, which was the name of Claude and Sonia’s house. I dumped my bike in the garage, hurried up to the front door and let myself in.

  The Gables was painted grey on the outside, in a colour called Cool Pavement, and white on the inside, in a colour called Arctic Fox. There was a notice just inside the front door which said: remove shoes and wash hands!—because the furniture was white, and so were all the rugs and carpets, and Sonia had One Of Her Turns if she spotted a fingerprint or a footprint.

  I took off my shoes and put them in the shoe rack, and raced upstairs before Claude or Sonia spotted me. My room (which was also painted white) was up in the attic, as far away as possible from Sonia and Claude’s part of the house. It had:

  a television (for educational and instructive programmes only),

  a laptop (for homework only),

  a walk-in wardrobe, full of horrible, muesli-coloured cardigans and skirts with pleats and brown leather sandals,

  and a bathroom, which Sonia called the Wet Room. It had white towels and white quilted toilet paper. It used to have a mirror, only I took that down and hid it under my bed.

  Sonia made sure the neighbours knew all about the television, the laptop, the Wet Room and the walk-in wardrobe.

  ‘We’ve given her everything a child could want,’ I once overheard her saying on the phone to Mrs Weebly next door. ‘Of course, we adopted her out of charity. Who else would take her on, with that problem?’

  That problem was the burn mark on my face. Shrivelled and pink and ugly, it ran from my left eye, down over my cheek to my chin. Ever since a boy shouted Scab Face in the street, I wouldn’t look at myself.

  I asked Sonia and Claude how I got it.

  ‘An accident,’ muttered Sonia.

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  Sonia frowned. ‘A fire.’

  ‘My… my face got burnt?’

  Sonia’s lips went all tight, the way they did when Claude told one of his jokes, and she picked at a dry patch of green paint on her overalls.

  ‘You’re upsetting Sonia,’ said Claude, putting his arm round her shoulders and murmuring in her ear. ‘It’s all right, pootlekins.’

  Sonia shrugged his arm away. ‘I’m not upset,’ she snapped. ‘I just don’t see the point in raking up her background. And don’t call me pootlekins!’

  ‘Quite right, poot—er, precious poppet,’ said Claude. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie. Water under the bridge.’

  ‘What background?’ I said.

  ‘The subject is closed, Claudia,’ Sonia said. ‘I forbid you to speak of it again.’

  ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ said Claude, and that was that.

  Or it was, until today.


  THE FIRST MESSAGE

  Four thirty until five thirty was timetabled as Outdoor Activity and it was My Best Thing, the one hour I looked forward to all day. The garden was long and thin and boring, like Sonia. She’d made Claude build a posh shed halfway down it, where she painted enormous pictures of naked people with triangular faces and eyes in the wrong places. The shed had a sign above the door which said, the studio —and I was strictly forbidden to enter it.

  But if you walked past the Studio and down the manicured lawn, at the very bottom you’d find a high brick wall with a gate in it, and if you pushed the gate open you found yourself in an overgrown, secret place. In a corner was a collection of broken pots and garden furniture and a compost heap, where Claude emptied the grass from his ride-on mower. There was a rough circle of lawn in the middle. It was here that I practised my cartwheels and somersaults and walked on my hands and dreamt about being in a circus.

  Best of all, there was Tree.

  Tree was my friend: tall and ancient with huge twisted roots and helpful knots for footholds. There was a sitting place halfway up, like a nest, and when I wriggled in and settled into the curve of the branches, it felt like Tree was hugging me. Tree’s leaves hung down around me like soft hair and when the breeze whispered through them, Tree sang to me. Sometimes I’d see how long I could balance on a branch with my arms stretched out. Sometimes I’d hang upside down like a monkey and pretend I was swinging on the flying trapeze. I’d chatter like a monkey too, telling Tree all the forbidden things.

  Things I dreamt of, such as:

  Having a real family, and especially a sister, who’d be my best friend. Who wouldn’t roll her eyes when I spoke, like Amelia Peacock did. Or stare at my burn all the time, like Emma Crouch.

  Running away to join the circus.

  And things I wished would disappear, such as:

  The burn on my face.

  Sonia and Claude.

  Today, the garden was full of birdsong and magic. Orange poppies bobbed in the wind and wildflowers buzzed with fat bumblebees and fluttered with butterflies. I stood and breathed in the smells of cut grass and warm, soft earth and rose petals until I couldn’t stand still a second longer and I whirled in circles, faster-and-faster-until-I-was-dizzy and I had to lie on my back on the grass while the world spun.

  Then I saw it. The balloon.

  It was a red one, fat and full, and its string had caught high in Tree’s branches. It bobbled about cheerfully as if Tree was holding it and wishing me a happy birthday.

  I got to my feet, still dizzy, and stared up at it.

  ‘Is that for me, Tree?’ I asked.

  A breath of wind blew Tree’s leaves into a rustle, like a whispered yeeeeeeeeesss and I knew I had to get it.

  I began to climb. Up past my sitting place, further than I’d ever been before. It was like climbing a ship’s mast at sea—the higher I went, the more the wind gusted among Tree’s branches, and the more Tree rocked. If only I could climb on, up and up till I got to the sky, till the world turned blue.

  Now I could see right over the wall to the Studio and the house. Of course, climbing Tree was strictly forbidden. But at this time of day, Sonia liked to recline on the white chaise longue (a posh name for a sofa), reading magazines with titles like Wallpaper and House Beautiful, while Claude, home from work, chuntered around the neighbourhood in his most prized possession, an ancient car he called Mildred. He wore aviator’s goggles and sounded the horn at unfortunate cats.

  The balloon was just out of reach, its string wound around a twig. I wedged my foot in the fork between two branches… stretched up as far as I possibly could… and reached… and reached…

  … until my fingers found the string.

  I tugged. But the balloon stayed stuck. There was a label attached to it and it was this that had got tangled in the leaves. I tugged harder, and harder still, but it just…

  … wouldn’t…

  … budge.

  Suddenly—so suddenly that I almost lost my balance—there was a wild flapping of wings in the branches. A little blue-grey dove, its feathers dappled with soft patterns, landed on the branch beside the balloon. It gazed down at me with dark eyes, its head on one side.

  Turrrr… turrrr! it called, and my tummy suddenly filled with a warm, huggy sensation—like when you drink hot chocolate.

  Then the dove reached to the tangled string and, using its bill, gently pulled the label loose.

  The balloon came free.

  The dove watched as I wound the string safely round my wrist. Then it gave its strange, purring cry—turrrr, turrrr—and was off, spiralling up into the sky, higher and higher. My heart fluttered, like there were wings in my chest. I stared at the dove until it was nothing but a speck in the blue.

  It was harder climbing down, because the balloon kept getting caught in the branches. I so wanted to read that label. But I made myself wait. It would be my reward for getting back in one piece. At last I jumped down from Tree into the circle of grass.

  Then I read the label. There were just two words written on it: pop me.

  I sighed. I’d never had a birthday balloon, and this one was so big and red and yummy. I didn’t want to jump on it, so I carried it over to the rose bush and looked for a long thorn. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I pushed the balloon down on it.

  BANG!!!!!

  The sound echoed round the garden. I stood very still and listened, in case Sonia stalked out to see what was disturbing the peace, or Mrs Weebly peered over the fence, saying she could swear she’d heard a gunshot.

  All was silent. The balloon was a shrunken sliver of red rubber lying in the grass. And there was something else: something which must have been hidden inside it.

  It was a scroll of paper, tied with a gold satin ribbon. Not the sort of paper Claude used in his printer, but thick and heavy, like parchment. What could it be? My fingers trembled as I untied the ribbon and unrolled the paper. Written across it, in old-fashioned script, were the words:

  Look in the mirror, if you dare.

  Your name is hidden under your hair.

  My name? A shivery feeling made my knees wobble, and I reached up to my hair and felt around.

  Nothing.

  It was probably Claude’s idea of a joke. Maybe he’d tied the balloon to the top of Tree to send me on a wild goose chase on my birthday. I could just see his fat belly shaking with laughter—haw-haw-haw!

  There again, Claude and his belly would never get up Tree.

  Carefully, I pushed the message into my pocket. Then I threw my arms as far as I could around Tree’s trunk.

  ‘Thank you for my birthday present,’ I whispered, as Tree’s branches creaked in the breeze. ‘And I will dare to look in the mirror. I’ll do it right now!’

  And I raced up the garden path, before I could change my mind.

  IN THE MIRROR

  Back in my bedroom, I groped around under the bed until my fingers found the mirror I’d hidden. I dragged it into the Wet Room—it was very heavy—and hung it back on its hook.

  I pulled out the parchment scroll from my pocket and read the words again.

  Look in the mirror, if you dare.

  Your name is hidden under your hair.

  I really, really didn’t want to look at myself.

  I wasn’t a coward. It was just that my burn took up all the room. People’s eyes got stuck to it, like it was a magnet. No one noticed the rest of me—my browny-gold eyes, the freckles on my nose, or the flurry of marmalade-coloured curls down my back—except when Sonia glared at the curls as if she was itching to brush them flat. But she refused to let me have them cut.

  ‘No, Claudia!’ she snapped. ‘Short hair is not appropriate.’

  Which was strange, considering her own hair was cut above her ears.

  I made myself stop thinking about Sonia. The mirror was waiting for me. Dust lay like a mist over its surface and I could only just make out the shape of myself. Taking a deep breath, I wiped the gla
ss with my sleeve, and looked.

  There it was, my burn. Like a map of a strange country no one wanted to visit. I tore my eyes away from it, scooped up a handful of my curls and lifted them above one ear. There was nothing there. Then I did the same on the other side. Still nothing.

  I turned sideways to the mirror, grabbed all my hair, twisted it high into a ponytail, then tied it in place with the gold satin ribbon.

  What was that, on the very back of my neck, just below where my hair grew? I twisted my head and screwed up my eyes. Was it writing? Blue and faint, like…

  A tattoo.

  Tattoos, like curly hair, were among the many things that Sonia disapproved of.

  ‘They’re common, Claudia,’ she sniffed. (‘Common’ was Sonia’s worst word.) ‘And they’re so ugly.’ Her eyes went straight to my burn, as if to say I was ugly enough without a tattoo.

  It was no good. However much I twisted and turned, I couldn’t make out the strange blue writing.

  Back to my bed I went, scrabbling underneath it until I found the hand mirror—the one that used to be on my chest of drawers. I stood with my back to the full-length mirror and held the little mirror up to my face.

  Then I saw it quite clearly. A name and a date, written high on the back of my neck:

  FLYNN

  11 JUNE

  Today was 11th June. My birthday.

  And Flynn? I reached up to my neck and ran my fingers over the word, as if it could speak. If only my real parents were here. If only I could ask them. On and on I stared, until my arm began to hurt and I had to put the mirror down.

  Was Flynn my real name?

  I whispered it to the mirror.

  ‘Flynn.’

  Short and true and real. Claudia made me think of claws, of Sonia’s long painted nails. Flynn just felt… right. It felt like it belonged to me.

  My own name. The name my real mum and dad gave me on the day I was born. This was My Best Birthday Present Ever. That same warm, huggy feeling filled my tummy again.