Numbers

  “Time’s up!” Howls of protest. “Stop writing, please. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t finished. Now, instead of handing them in to me, I’m going to ask you to read them out loud.”

  Outright rebellion — cries of “no way” and “get lost.” I felt cold inside, knew I’d made a mistake.

  “I want you to stand up and speak the words you’ve written. No one’s going to be laughing at you. You’re all in the same boat. Give it a try.”

  The barracking subsided.

  “Amber, you start. Come up to the front. No? All right, stand where you are, and read it out in a nice, clear voice so we can all hear.”

  And so he went, ’round the class. Holidays, birthdays, days off. Kind of what you’d expect. Then one kid, Joel, described his little brother being born, and the room took on a different feeling. Suddenly, everyone was listening as he told us about helping his mum in their bathroom at home, wrapping up the baby in an old towel. A couple of the girls said, “Aww” when he’d finished, his friends high-fived him as he made his way back to his seat. Fair play to him, he’d done a good thing, but I felt sick inside — the thought of that vulnerability, the innocence, the knowledge that the end is written for them even on their first day — it’s too much. I don’t do little kids.

  Spider was next. He shuffled to the front of the class, stood shifting his weight from foot to foot, eyes on the page in front of him. You could tell he wanted to be anywhere but there. “Ah, man, do I have to do this?” he said, flapping the page down to his side, stretching his neck back to look up at the ceiling.

  “You do,” McNulty said firmly. “Come on, we’re listening.” And he was right. The class was quiet, everyone was getting into this.

  “OK.” Spider drew the paper up in front of his face, so he couldn’t see us and we couldn’t see him. “My best day was when my nan took me to the seaside. It had a great name, like Weston-Super-Something. We went on the bus for hours, and I went to sleep. When we got there I’d never seen so much space in my life. The sea went on for miles and there was this huge beach. We had chips and ice cream, and there was donkeys. I had a ride on a donkey, weirdest thing ever, but great. We stayed somewhere, had a couple of days there, just me and my nan. Bloody brilliant.”

  A couple of kids started braying in the back row, but in a good-humored way. Spider’s shoulders dropped a bit as he relaxed. Job done, he went back to his seat.

  And before long, it was my turn. My skin was tingling, I could feel every nerve ending in my body as I waited for McNulty to say my name. Finally…“Jem, I think it’s your turn next.”

  Inside my clothes I felt naked as I walked up to the front. I turned around, kept my eyes down, didn’t want to see everyone looking at me. Perhaps I should have made up something there and then, just pretended I was like everyone else, spun a cozy little tale about the perfect Christmas, presents ’round the tree, that sort of thing. But I don’t think that quick, not when I’m the center of attention. Are you the same? Is it only afterward that you think of what you should have said, the killer response, the put-down that would make them stay put down? Standing up there, scared, panicking, I didn’t have any choice but to read out my words. I took a deep breath and started to speak.

  “My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, like usual. Wishing I wasn’t here, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards — we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it’s gone, anyway. Tomorrow may never come. There is only today. This is the best day and the worst day. Actually, it’s crap.”

  There was a pause when I stopped speaking. I didn’t look up, just leaned against the whiteboard, aching with embarrassment. The silence was filling my ears, deafening me. Then someone shouted out, “Cheer up, love. It might never happen!” and the familiar jeering and barracking started up.

  A crashing sound made me look up. Spider was vaulting over the rows of tables and chairs. When he got to the joker in the back, a kid called Jordan, he drew his arm back and slammed his fist into the guy’s face. The room erupted as Jordan fought back and the rest of the kids turned into a baying pack, gathering ’round in a tight, overexcited little knot. McNulty sprinted to the back of the classroom and barged his way through the crowd, wrenching shoulders apart and squeezing between bodies.

  I crumpled up the piece of paper and let it fall to the floor, then slipped out of the door and along the corridor. I had just one thought in my mind — to disappear, find somewhere I could be on my own. I never wanted to go back to that torture chamber again. I stayed out for hours, nowhere in particular, all those places where nobody sees you and nobody cares, until I got tired of walking in the dark.

  Back at Karen’s, I went ’round to the kitchen door. I’d expected her to be in bed by the time I got home — it was gone midnight, after all — but she was sitting at the kitchen table, cradling a cup of tea, her face a washed-out gray. She’d had the lot, Karen: babies, little kids, “problem” teenagers like me. Twenty-two foster kids. Worn her out. I clocked her number again. 07142013. She only had three years to go.

  “Jem!” she said. “Are you alright? Where’ve you been?”

  “Out,” I said. I didn’t have it in me to explain everything. Where would I start?

  “Come in, Jem. Sit down.” She didn’t seem angry just then, only tired.

  “I just wanna go to bed.”

  She opened her mouth, like she was going to start in on me, then thought better of it, just let out a big sigh, and nodded.

  “OK, we’ll talk about this in the morning. We will talk about it.” A threat, not a promise. “I’d better ring the police — I reported you missing. Here, take this with you.” She handed me her cup, still three-quarters full.

  I went upstairs, put the cup down on the table next to my bed, and climbed under my blankets without getting undressed. I propped the pillows up and reached for my tea. It was only when the warm, sweet liquid hit my bloodstream that I realized how cold and empty I was.

  I was dog-tired, but couldn’t close my eyes. So I sat there through the night, sheets pulled up to my neck, until the light seeped ’round the curtains and, somewhere between being asleep and being awake, I registered the start of another grim day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  McNulty’s class was still buzzing from all the drama. I had to face them on my own, as Spider had been suspended for three weeks. As it turned out, he never went back to school again. I guess if he’d known that, he’d have done more than give Jordan a black eye and a split lip. There were rumors flying around about him being interviewed by the police, all sorts, and what Jordan was going to do to him when they were both back in circulation. But for the time being, they enjoyed sticking the boot into me.

  “What you gonna do without your boyfriend here? No one to defend your honor.”

  “Jem and Spider sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  Obviously, I told them where to go, but it didn’t make any difference. They were like a pack of dogs with a bone.

  I took it for a couple of days and then I couldn’t stomach it anymore. I’d set off for school like normal, then cut off ’round the back of the shops, make my way across to the park or down to the canal, and hang out on my own. Don’t feel sorry for me, it was just what I was used to. Been the same everywhere I’d lived, every school I’d been to. You can put up with a certain amount, but it gets to a point when you can’t take it any longer, you just need to be away from it. Lots of kids feel like that, but especially me. School lumps you in with so many people, like so many battery hens, and, as you know, I don’t really do other people. Everything’s easier if I keep myself to myself.

  Those few days I did a good job of keeping out of Spider’s way, too. I saw him a couple of times, but I made sure he didn’t see me. That whole thing at school had been, well, embarrassing. What did he think he was doing, wading in like that, making a scene of us both? Made me feel a bit sad when I thought about it. For
a few weeks there, I’d had a friend, sort of. But like everything else, it’d got too complicated, it had to stop. If the Jordan incident had shown me anything, it had shown me what I already knew: Spider was trouble, the sort of trouble I didn’t need. Kind of missed him, though.

  And, what do you know? I couldn’t keep him out of my life, anyway. Like a bad smell that follows you around, or a piece of chewing gum stuck on your shoe, Spider turned up again soon enough. You might say I couldn’t shake him. You might say we were meant to be together.

  Anyway, that Wednesday I’d taken my eye off the ball for a minute. I was watching someone, an old dosser. He’d bumped into me ten minutes before, asked me for some money, and I’d followed him along the High Street. Now he was digging about in a dumpster on the other side of the road, and I was leaning against a wall, watching, when a familiar sourness drifted into my nostrils and someone said in my ear, “Whatcha doing?”

  My attention was all on the old bloke, so I didn’t look ’round or nothing, just said to him, like we’d only seen each other five minutes ago, “Spider, what’s the date today?”

  “Dunno, twenty-fifth?”

  The old bloke had pulled something out of the dumpster, half a burger in its wrapper. He looked around quickly, seeing if anyone else was after it, and our eyes met for a second. There it was again, his number: 11252010.

  He tucked the burger under his armpit and crossed his arms, then started scuttling off down the road. I set off after him.

  “Where you going?” Spider called out, puzzled.

  “I wanna go this way.”

  He caught up with me. “What for?”

  I stopped, keeping an eye on Grandpa as he weaved his way through the crowds, and lowered my voice. “I wanna follow that guy, the old one in the sweater.”

  “What you up to? We don’t need to rob no one, Jem. I got money.” He patted his pocket. “If you want something, just ask.”

  “No, I don’t wanna rob him, just follow him. Like we’re spies,” I said quickly, trying to make it into a game.

  His face said, You’ve lost your marbles, but he just shrugged and said, “OK.” And we kept on walking, stepping up the pace as Grandpa turned a corner ahead of us. He’d gone down a side street, not so many people there. We got within about thirty feet of him when he turned ’round and clocked us. He knew I’d seen him get that burger out of the trash. Looking startled and shifty, he turned ’round again and started half running, half walking.

  “We’ve been rumbled, man,” Spider said. “Whatcha wanna do now?”

  I wanted to see what would happen to him, but I didn’t want to frighten the old guy, not on his last day.

  “Let’s hang back a bit. He’s heading for the park, yeah? Let’s let him get in there and then go in. Wanna smoke?”

  We lit up and then started walking slowly toward the park. At the far end of the street, Grandpa was hurrying along. He got to the end, where the main road is, with the park on the other side. He checked under his arm — yeah, the burger was still there — then looked back over his shoulder. Although we were way back, I knew that he could see us, that he was getting agitated. I was about to say to Spider that we should call it quits when, still looking back, Grandpa stepped out into the road.

  The car hit him straight on with a sickening thud. He went halfway up onto the hood and then flew through the air. It was like one of those road safety commercials on TV, but they use dummies for that, don’t they? This was real — a real body, limbs waving crazily, head jerking forward and then back, finally lying on the ground.

  We stood still for a few seconds, taking it in. People were screaming, starting to gather ’round. Spider started to run toward them. “Come on, let’s see if he’s alright.” I hung back. I didn’t want to see any more. If he wasn’t dead now, he would be soon, before midnight, anyway. Today was his day. Nothing you could do about it.

  Spider was at the end of the street now, craning over the throng. I went up behind him. Someone near me was screaming, high-pitched, on and on. Her friend led her away. I could see through the gaps to the body. A heap of mismatched old clothes with something inside. Not someone, not anymore. Whoever he was had gone now. Gone to wherever people go, where my mum was. Heaven? More like hell for my mum, I should think. Or nowhere. Just gone.

  I touched Spider’s arm. “Let’s go.” He peeled himself away from the crowd and we headed off toward his house.

  Spider was subdued, shaking his head. “We freaked him out, man. He was scared.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. He had echoed the thought that was haunting me: We’d caused it. I’d chased him into that road. If it wasn’t for me, he’d have been sat in that park, eating his manky old burger. Perhaps that’s what would have taken him, choking on a gobful of meat and bun. Perhaps he was heading for a heart attack. And the thought that I tried to keep down, but which kept coming back up: Perhaps it hadn’t been his last day today after all. Maybe meeting me had made it his last day.

  Before I knew it, we were at Spider’s. I stopped at the gate. “I think I’ll just head back to Karen’s,” I said. I needed some space to get my head around all this.

  “No, man, come inside for a bit. You don’t wanna be alone after something like that.”

  I had another reason to hesitate. Those hazel eyes that saw my secrets.

  Sure enough, Val was sitting on her perch in the kitchen. Spider bent to kiss her.

  “Got off early, did you?” she asked, glancing at the kitchen clock.

  “What?” Half-one. “You know I’ve been suspended, Nan. What’s wrong with you — losing your marbles? And Jem’s got…private tutoring.” He grinned, and Val smiled with him. She knew the score.

  “You two going to settle down and read some books now, then?” Her gaze switched to me — direct, seeing, nowhere to hide.

  “Actually we need to chill a bit. Just saw an old bloke get run over.”

  She put down her cigarette.

  “He alright, was he?”

  “No, killed him. Died right there, on that road near the park. We saw it all.” There was a little quiver in his voice. Not such a tough guy after all.

  Val heaved herself down from her perch and shuffled over to the kettle.

  “That right? Here, sit down. I’ll make you both some tea. Nice sweet tea, that’s what you need. Bloody traffic, eh? Can’t even cross the bloody road now, can you?”

  She pottered about making a pot of tea while we crashed in the sitting room, then came in to join us with three mugs and a box of biscuits on a tray. She put the tray on the pouf in the middle and eased herself into an armchair, puffing out as she did. “No good for me back, these chairs. Go on, drink up.”

  I sipped the hot tea while Spider and his nan both sat dunking their biscuits and slurping down soggy, crumby mouthfuls.

  “So, you were just walking along and saw it all, did you?”

  I caught Spider’s eye. No need to worry, though, neither of us wanted her to know that this old guy spent his last minutes terrified we were going to mug him.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Shocking, isn’t it? You never know what’s ’round the next corner, do you?”

  Spider went off to the bog, leaving me trapped there with her. She shifted forward in her chair. “You alright, Jem? Shakes you up, that sort of thing, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Seen a dead body before? Or was this your first time?” Damn, she didn’t mess about, did she?

  I should have just told her I didn’t want to talk about it. But, like I said, there was something about her — resistance was useless.

  “Me mum,” I said, quietly. Her mouth formed an O, and she nodded like she’d known it all along. I liked that — I liked the fact that she didn’t get embarrassed or start gushing about how terrible it was. She just nodded. I kept going. “I found her, like. She died in bed. Overdose. She didn’t mean to. I mean, I don’t think so. Just unlucky.”


  She nodded again. “Unlucky. Like my Cyril. Dropped dead at forty-one. Heart attack, bless him. No one knew there was anything wrong. No warnings or nothing. He’s over there, look, on the mantelpiece.”

  I looked across to the wooden shelf above the fire. Sure enough, among the china dogs and brass candlesticks, there was a framed photo, one of those posh ones done in a studio. Black-and-white, just his head and shoulders. A handsome man, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye. Just a piece of paper in a frame, but it had the power to reach you, make you want to smile back at it.