Half Bad

* * *

  Annalise’s brothers Niall and Connor have blue eyes with silver glints. They are also instantly recognizable as O’Brien brothers by their blond hair, long limbs, and handsome faces. I avoid Annalise at breaks and lunchtimes, as I know if her brothers see us together she will be in trouble. I hate it that they might think I’m afraid of them, but I really don’t want to cause trouble for Annalise, and in this huge school it’s easy to avoid people if you want to.

  At the end of the first month it’s drizzling that fine misty rain that quickly covers your skin to let you wash yourself clean. I’m round the back of the sports hall, leaning against the wall and considering the alternatives to an afternoon of geography when Niall and Connor turn the corner. From their smiles it seems that they have found what they are looking for. I don’t move from the wall, but I return their smiles. This is going to be more interesting than the Mississippi delta.

  Niall starts with, “We’ve seen you talking to our sister.”

  I can’t understand when or where, but I’m not going to bother asking, and I give him one of my “so what” looks.

  “Just keep away from her,” Connor says.

  They both hang back looking uncertain what to do next.

  I almost laugh, they are so inept, and I don’t say anything, wondering if that is it.

  It may well have been but then Arran appears behind them and blusters in with, “What’s going on?”

  As they turn to him they change. They’re not afraid of Arran, and they’re not about to let him see they have been a little cautious with me.

  They say, “Piss off,” in unison.

  When he doesn’t, Niall advances on Arran.

  Arran holds his ground, saying, “I’m staying with my brother.”

  The bell marking the end of lunchtime starts to ring, and Niall shoves Arran on the shoulder, saying, “Piss off back to class.”

  Arran is forced to step back, but he then takes a step forward, saying, “I’m not going without my brother.”

  Connor is looking at Arran and has half turned away from me, and it is just too tempting seeing the side of his face like that. I hit him hard with my version of a left hook. Before Connor’s body touches the tarmac I sink down low to the ground behind Niall and jab him hard in the back of his knee with my elbow. He falls too, and so dramatically that I only just get out of the way. I am still low, so I punch Niall twice in the face, but I know I have to be quick to go to cover Connor. I rise, kick Niall in the side as he rolls away from me, and get Connor with a boot to his shoulder as he is getting up. Niall, though, is more of a danger, being bigger and much the tougher of the two, and he knows enough to roll away again as I start a run at him. I don’t connect my kick, though, as Arran has grabbed my shoulders, surprisingly powerfully, and is dragging me away. I don’t resist much. I’ve done enough.

  Arran’s arm is round me as we walk back to the school building. He is holding me tight, pulling me to him, but as we near the entrance he shoves me away. It’s an angry shove.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  Was I laughing? I hadn’t realized.

  Arran carries on into school, his arms out as if he needs to fend me off. The door slams shut behind him.

  More Fighting,

  Some Smoking

  I don’t go back into school that afternoon. I go to the woods and from there make my way home, timing my arrival to coincide with Arran’s and Deborah’s. I wait for Arran to say something, but he is giving me the silent treatment. It goes on all evening. I think he will relent when we go to bed, but he is already tucked up and switching the light off as I come into the room. I put the light back on and stand with my back to the door.

  “I’ll tell Gran about the fight tomorrow.”

  The lump under the bedclothes doesn’t respond.

  “You know fighting’s normal, don’t you? Most boys do it. It would be weird if I didn’t do it.”

  Still nothing.

  “I laughed because we’d beaten them. I was relieved. Let’s face it, I had you on my side; we were at a disadvantage.”

  He still doesn’t react.

  “It doesn’t mean I’m the Devil.”

  Finally he stirs and sits up to face me. “You know they’ll say you started it.”

  Of course I know. I know that even if I don’t fight, even if I avoid Annalise, even if I get on my knees and lick Niall’s and Connor’s boots, it will make no difference; they will do what they like and say what they like, and what they say will be believed. Arran still hasn’t accepted that there is no hope for me. He looks miserable, though.

  I sit on my bed and ask, “Do you get a lot of stick for being my half-brother?”

  “I’m your brother.” And he gives me that look of his, the most-gentle-person-in-the-world look.

  “Do you get much stick for being my brother, then?”

  “Not much.”

  He’s pretty hopeless at lying, but I love him more than ever for trying.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I’ve lived with Jessica all my life. Those jokers are amateurs.”

  * * *

  I wonder when Niall and Connor will come back at me. My main concern is that they will go for Arran, but they don’t. Maybe they realize that is stupider than just getting their revenge on me.

  After the fight I leave school at lunchtimes and hang out in the streets nearby, avoiding the O’Briens and everyone I can, but it’s a miserable existence and within two weeks I’ve had enough of hiding.

  I’m leaning against the wall in the same spot as for the first fight when Niall and Connor round the corner. I know they’re going to be more prepared this time, but I think that if I get Niall down first I have a decent chance against them.

  They run at me and I see that they are more prepared; Niall is holding a brick.

  The best form of defense is attack. I’ve heard that somewhere. So I run at them, shouting as loud as I can—bad stuff, swear words.

  Niall is surprised enough to hesitate and I push him away, swerve past him and land a poor punch on Connor, who is a pace behind. But somehow Niall reaches back and grabs my blazer. I pull away from him, but Connor gets his arms round me, pinning my left arm to my body. I try to punch him with my right, but it’s all over.

  Niall catches me on the side of the head with the brick and Connor is clinging on to me.

  Then I get rammed in my back, which must be with the brick again. But still I’m okay.

  Then

  T

  H

  U

  D

  It reverberates down my spine and stops me dead.

  I’ve been hammered into the tarmac like a nail.

  Connor’s hands push him away from me.

  He’s staring at me. He looks pale, mouth open. Afraid.

  Then he isn’t there.

  And slowly, slowly the tarmac rises up to my face and I have time to think that I’ve never seen tarmac do that before and wonder how . . .

  * * *

  My body is cold . . . and lying on something hard. My cheek is squashed into something hard. I taste blood.

  But I feel okay. Strange but okay.

  When I open my eyes everything is gray and fuzzy.

  I focus. Oh, right the playground . . . I remember . . .

  I don’t move. The brick is there, lying on the tarmac. It doesn’t move either. The brick looks like it has had a bad day as well.

  I close my eyes again.

  * * *

  I’m in the woods near home. I vaguely remember walking here. I’m lying on my back looking at the sky and aching everywhere. I don’t sit up but feel my face with my fingers, millimeter by millimeter, slowly daring to work my way to the bits I know are bad.

  I have a fat lip that is numb and a
loose tooth, my tongue is sore for some reason, I have a bloody nose, my right eye is swollen, and a cut above my left ear is oozing blood and a sort of sticky mucus. A dome has grown on the top of my head.

  * * *

  Gran bathes my face and puts lotion on the bruises that have appeared on my back and arms. My scalp starts to bleed again and Gran shaves the hair around the cut and puts some of her lotion on that too. She does all this in silence once I’ve told her whom I’ve been fighting.

  I look in the mirror and have to smile despite my fat lip. Both my eyes are black and there are other colors too—purple, green, and yellow—coming out. My right eye is swollen shut. My nose is puffy and tender but not broken. My hair is shaved above my left ear and the skin covered with a thick yellow lotion.

  Gran allows me to miss school until my eye heals. Thankfully by then my bald patch has begun to grow over.

  On my first day back Annalise sits next to me as I paint. She whispers, “They told me what they did.”

  I have been thinking about Annalise and her brothers a lot in my days at home. I know it would be sensible to ignore her, and I’m fairly sure that if I ask her to she will avoid me. I have a little speech about it worked out, something along the lines of, “Please, don’t talk to me anymore and I won’t talk to you.”

  But Annalise says, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

  And the way she says it—the way she sounds like she is sorry, like she is genuinely upset—gets me angry. I know it isn’t her fault and it isn’t even my fault. And I forget my crummy speech and all my crummy intentions and instead I touch her hand with my fingertips.

  * * *

  Annalise and I spend the art lessons whispering and looking at each other, and I build up to well over two and a half seconds. I want to stare in private, though, and so does she. We begin working out how we can spend time together, alone.

  We devise a plan to meet at Edge Hill, a quiet place on Annalise’s way home from school. But every time I ask if today is the day that we can meet, Annalise shakes her head. Her brothers are guarding her, sticking close to her whenever she is out of classes and out of school.

  Annalise isn’t the only one being guarded. Once I am back at school, Arran and Deborah make a point of staying with me from the bus to the classroom. Arran escorts me home and misses lunch to be with me.

  School is becoming unbearable, despite Annalise. The noises in my head are still there, and although I do my best to ignore them, sometimes I want to rip them out of my head and scream in frustration.

  A few weeks after my beating, my head is hissing. It is Computer Technology and I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, I’m not interested, I don’t care. I make an excuse that I need the toilet, and the teacher doesn’t seem to mind as I walk out of the classroom.

  The quietness of the corridor is a relief, and with nothing better to do I amble to the toilet.

  I walk in just as Connor is coming out of a stall.

  I take less than a second to register my chance and launch at him, landing a flurry of punches, and when he sinks to the floor I put in a few kicks.

  Connor does nothing but try to protect himself. He never even tries to hit me. My attack isn’t stopped by him but by Mr. Taylor, a passing history teacher. He drags me off Connor and I am swamped in Mr. Taylor’s sweaty chest, where he keeps me tight while Connor writhes on the ground, whimpering for all he’s worth.

  Mr. Taylor tells Connor, “If there’s something seriously wrong with you, stay still. If not, get up and let’s have a look at you.”

  Connor stays still for a few seconds before getting up.

  He doesn’t look too bad to me.

  “Come with me. Both of you.” It isn’t a request or even an order, more of a resigned comment.

  Mr. Taylor has a grip on my wrist so tight that blood is cut off from my hand. We head down lots of empty, squeaky corridors at speed and abandon Connor at a medical room I never knew existed. Then Mr. Taylor swerves me in the direction of the headmaster’s office and we come to a carpeted stop in front of the secretary’s desk.

  Mr. Taylor explains the situation to the secretary, who nods, knocks on the headmaster’s door, and disappears inside. We only have to wait a minute before she reappears and tells us we can go in.

  Only when I am standing in front of Mr. Brown’s desk does Mr. Taylor let go of my wrist and sit down heavily in the chair by me. The chair creaks.

  Mr. Brown taps on his keyboard and doesn’t look up.

  Mr. Taylor explains that he has found me fighting.

  Mr. Brown continues to tap on his keyboard throughout the story of my fight and then for a while more. He seems to be reading what is on his screen. Then he takes a deep breath, turns to Mr. Taylor, and thanks him for his vigilance.

  Mr. Brown takes another deep breath and looks at me for the first time. He gives me instructions about acceptable behavior, instructions about my detention, and instructions to go back to my class. He’s obviously done this before and rattles through the whole procedure in less than five minutes.

  I have to go back to class. Computer Technology will still be going on.

  “No.” The word comes out of my mouth before I even think it.

  Mr. Brown says, “What?”

  “No. I’m not going back to that class.”

  “Mr. Taylor will escort you back.” Mr. Brown says this with finality, and turns back to his computer.

  Mr. Taylor starts to grunt as he rises from the chair.

  I shove him back down.

  “No.”

  I turn and snatch Mr. Brown’s keyboard from under his hands, which are left poised above the bare desk. I smash the keyboard into the side of the computer and push the whole lot of it onto the floor.

  “I said, ‘No.’”

  Mr. Taylor is still sitting down, but he grabs hold of my wrist again and pulls me to him. I don’t resist but use his momentum to turn and slam into him, and we topple backward. Mr. Taylor flaps his arms in an attempt to fly us back upright. It isn’t going to happen. But I am now free and, unlike Mr. Taylor, I have a soft landing.

  I get to my feet and walk out of the office.

  I’m not sure that I’ve done quite enough for expulsion, so I grab the secretary’s chair and throw it through the window then head to the front exit, setting the fire alarm off on my way out. Just to make sure, I smash the windshield of the headmaster’s car with the secretary’s chair that has handily landed nearby.

  The police are waiting for me when I get home.

  * * *

  I have to go back to the school, but only once, when I have to formally apologize to Mr. Brown and Mr. Taylor. For some reason, I don’t have to apologize to Connor. Gran complains about paperwork and the visits from the Community Liaison Officer. I have to do fifty hours of community service.

  There are four of us doing community service, cleaning the sports center. I think the days might pass more quickly if we do something—even clean—but Liam, the oldest and most experienced in terms of repaying the community, won’t have any of that. We spend the first hour pretending to look for mops and brushes; at least I pretend but Liam just wanders around. Then we go outside for a break and a smoke. I have never smoked before, but Joe is an expert and can blow rings, and rings through rings. He teaches me all he knows.

  Occasionally the muscular young man who works on reception at the sports center comes out and tells us to go back inside and clean. We ignore him and he goes away.

  I spend most of the time sitting out the back, smoking and listening to the others talk.

  Liam has been caught stealing many times. He takes anything, valuable or valueless, useful or useless. Stealing is the point, not the thing being stolen. Joe has been caught shoplifting, and Bryan crashed while joyriding and still has his neck in a brace.

  When we aren’t s
itting smoking, we wander the sports center. I sometimes carry a mop. Saturday mornings are the busiest. Joe and I like to watch the karate class. It’s for children, from beginners up to black belts. Afterward we go out back to practice our smoking.

  One Saturday, after karate finishes, we see that Bryan has an expensive-looking pair of Nikes on. He says, “I might get fit now. Now I’ve got the neck brace off.”

  Liam says, “Too right, mate. Just do it, that’s my motto.”

  Joe and I lie on our backs on top of the low wall and get out our Marlboros. I am working on a series of three rings with a small one going through the center of them all. I have nearly got this to work when someone comes out of the emergency exit and shouts, “Which one of you shits has taken my trainers?”

  I finish blowing smoke and look over at the boy. He is one of the black-belt kids, but he is in jeans now, though still barefoot.

  Liam and Bryan have disappeared.

  “I want them back. Now!” Black Belt Boy advances on me and Joe.

  I don’t get up but lift my feet in my scruffy boots, saying, “I haven’t got them.”

  Joe sits up and bangs the heels of his old gray trainers on the wall, but doesn’t say anything. He blows a smoke ring and then a beautiful cigar-shaped missile of smoke that sails through the middle of the ring into the boy’s face.

  I sit up and say, “We saw you practicing kung fu.”

  “Karate.”

  “Right . . . karate. You’re a black belt, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you can knock me down I’ll get you your shoes back.”

  Joe laughs. “Oh yeah, a challenge.”

  “But if I knock you down you let whoever’s got them keep them.”

  Black Belt Boy doesn’t need to think about this for more than a second. He is a head taller than me and at least ten kilos heavier, and I guess he’s fairly sure I am no black belt. He gets straight into his fighting stance and says, “Come on then.”

  I take the cigarette out of my mouth and reach across as if to pass it to Joe, but at the same time I raise my legs to put my feet on the edge of the wall and launch myself at the boy, jumping on to his shoulders with my knees. He is on the floor in a second and I manage to land on my feet.