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  But it hurts to smile.

  If Dad had a Monday meeting in London, he’d often go in on Sunday and ‘make a weekend of it’; meet up with old friends, then get to his hotel in time for an early night. We’d spend the Sunday evenings watching a film together, or whatever sport was on, our phones clamped to our ears, the tiniest delay in the sound from each other’s TVs like an almost-echo. We wouldn’t speak for ages at a time, but I’d hear him shuffling on his bed, or coughing, or just breathing, and it would be like he was next to me. I’m thinking of those evenings now, a bag of peas on my face.

  But it hurts to smile.

  Alongside the selection of bad TV I flick through, my aching mind wanders in and out of a few other things – Mum, school – but keeps coming back to last night. The party. How I was. Who I was. It felt like no time had passed at all since I was that relaxed with Jamie. I remember just … glowing. That’s the right word – glowing. The beers helped, I think. They don’t help now though, as I interrupt myself to get another glass of water to try to squash my headache.

  But it wasn’t just that. I’d felt somehow whole again. Delicate, maybe, but definitely whole. And that song. The dancing, arms wrapped around a group of people. Dana.

  What had I said to her? I can’t remember big chunks of it. I follow the swirling patterns on the lounge ceiling as I try to recall, but like them my thoughts just go round and round and round.

  And it hurts to smile.

  I camp out in the lounge until pretty late before hauling myself off to bed, and I sleep deep into Sunday. I’ve just showered when Mum gets home, opening windows and complaining about the smell of ‘cooped-up boy’ as I come down the stairs.

  I let her cradle my head as she asks about the cuts on my face, feeling like a little kid again. It’s so comfortable on her lap. I tell her I was texting Jamie, fell up the stairs and hit the banister. She jokes that we can’t have two of us coming apart at the seams. Mentioning Jamie was a good idea. She says she’s glad I’m talking to people again, and I let her dab some anti-germ cream on the cut and the worst of the bruising. I notice she’s crying a little as she does this.

  My eye is still half-closed when I wake up for school the next morning. Again, Mum’s hand holds my face before I leave.

  *

  The Biology test isn’t going very well. It’s stuff I know, but my concentration is waning, and my cheek pulses, hot and urgent. Quite a few people have noticed it. It’s hard not to, to be honest. Jamie sought me out before the first bell and asked me if I was OK. And Louisa said she’d seen my trail of peas when she’d walked home on Saturday morning. Her smile widened when she realised how embarrassed this was making me.

  I’m not sure what people want to ask me about more, the fact that I got drunk, or being punched by Dana’s boyfriend. Will says he used to be in the army, that I should count myself lucky to still have a head on my shoulders at all. Someone punches him on the arm, as if he’s made a distasteful joke.

  Mr Walters has seen me too. He’s watching me from the front of the room, and I know he’s picked up on the gossip in the corridor and on our way in.

  I want to crawl under one of the big wooden benches.

  As he collects up the test papers at the end of the lesson, he looks at me for a long time, as if he’s about to say something. I keep my head down and shuffle things around in my bag. After what seems like ages, he moves on.

  *

  The rest of the day goes by slowly, but every time someone stops me in the corridor, or whispers across a desk about Friday night, it slows down even more. People run up behind me and clap me on the back, or half spin me around to ask what it felt like to get punched, whether I’m going to get him back.

  Mike tells me he knows a guy – a friend of his older brother – that Dana’s boyfriend put in hospital just before last Christmas. ‘He wasn’t there, my brother, but he said his mates were all back from their first term at uni, in the pub, the Green Man, you know? And one of them said something about British military intervention, or something like that. He wasn’t even talking to Dana’s boyfriend. and wasn’t anywhere near him, but apparently the guy crossed the pub and nearly took the back of his head off with a pint glass. He’s a psycho, Josh. Watch yourself, yeah?’

  I find myself wincing as each person comes towards me, and before the afternoon’s lessons, I wait in the toilets for the corridors to go quiet before walking to English.

  There’s a squealing in my ears all through the lesson and again I can’t concentrate. When Mrs Burgoyne asks me a question, I don’t hear her. The first I know of it is when the class start laughing. I think someone made a comment. Mrs Burgoyne is looking down at me. It’s definitely not the look. I have some trouble in placing it, despite having one eye half-closed. It’s a look I’ve not seen in a long time. It’s got a smile in it.

  *

  I shrug off the last few questioners at the end of school and walk home alone. No one seems keen to follow or walk with me; everyone probably thinks I’m just going back to normal after having a holiday from my solitude on Friday night. I walk the same road that I emerged onto in those gritty, early hours of Saturday morning and I pause, staring at the patch in the hedge that I vaguely recall pushing through.

  Apart from a broken stinging nettle flopping out across the pavement like a trip-wire, you’d never know anyone had been through it.

  FOURTEEN

  The noise in the corridors and the noise in my head both quieten down as the week goes on. People seem to forget about what happened, or perhaps because I won’t talk about it they forget a bit quicker. Pretty soon, it’s Thursday.

  I failed the Biology test. It wasn’t an important one, but since we started this year, all the teachers keep saying that everything is important, and that we can’t afford to fall asleep at the wheel, and that we must keep our eyes on the prize. Mr Walters is no different.

  Despite our conversation a few weeks ago, when he said I was doing fine – better than fine – he pulls me to one side on my way out of his lesson.

  ‘Josh, I think it would be a good idea for you to come to the catch-up session after school today.’

  Everyone knows the catch-up session isn’t really there for catching-up. The only people that go are four or five boys who miss a lesson every week because they get alternative provision because they can’t cope with school, which means that every Wednesday, they get taken in the school minibus to team building sessions, which are normally in the woods and involve lighting fires and cooking toast, or courses which teach them how to build walls. They’re not the kind of kids I want to spend time with.

  ‘I really think it would help, Josh. There’s a couple of things on the test that you missed. Real howlers. Are you OK at the moment?’

  I nod.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to your mum and she’s fine with you staying. So I’ll see you after school, in here, OK?’

  I nod again, and force a weak smile, ‘Thanks, Sir.’

  ‘Hey, that bruise has really come up. It’ll stay pretty colourful for a few days but should start healing soon. Fell up the stairs, your mum said?’

  The noise comes back into my ears again; a high-pitched whine, like a little electric motor that’s running too fast.

  ‘Your mum told me on the phone. Looks like you did a real number on yourself.’ He leans a tiny bit closer, then adds, ‘I hope you punched it back.’

  Another weak smile. There’s a taste in my mouth that’s a bit like blood and my cheek flushes warm again.

  ‘Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.’ Mr Walters taps the side of his nose.

  *

  After the bell for the end of the day, I walk back to Mr Walters’ classroom.

  There’s always a strange atmosphere in a school after everyone has gone home. The corridors seem surprised that they’re not full anymore. They’re like arms that have forgotten how to be arms. I used to think it was the school relaxing after a long day, but walking through the scie
nce block this afternoon I get the feeling the corridor is watching me, almost willing me to be noisier, quicker, more boisterous, to make up for the fact I’m one person, not one hundred. It feels like it misses being full.

  I breathe in as I step through Mr Walters’ door. Four faces look up as I enter. Hard faces. Closed faces. The conversation, that I’d heard from outside stops.

  ‘Josh, hi. Grab a stool there.’ Mr Walters sits with his feet up on the desk, pointing to a bench in the last but one row. A newspaper is open across his stretched out legs. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘What do you think they should do to him, Sir?’ asks one of the closed faces. It’s a boy I haven’t been in a class with for years. I see him around school sometimes, wandering the site during lessons.

  ‘Well, Brendon,’ answers Mr Walters. ‘Some would say we should extend the freedoms and privileges of our country to him because he’s here. And that he’s human and so deserving of proper treatment, regardless of his thoughts or actions.’

  On the front of the newspaper, from behind which Mr Walters is talking, is a middle-eastern man. He’s shouting at the camera whilst being bundled into the back of a van by police officers.

  Mr Walters continues, ‘Some people, on the other hand, are not so sure. There is an argument that leniency here may come back to bite us on the arse.’

  There is always a small ripple of laughter when a teacher swears; in this classroom it’s a gruff ripple, more like a deep rumbling.

  I know what they’re talking about. I caught a bit of the news on Saturday afternoon and they were talking about a deportation – there have a been a few recently, high profile ones. The middle-eastern man is a radical cleric, whose mosque – up north somewhere – has been accused of promoting terrorism.

  Mr Walters continues, ‘The new government, Brendon, voted in with quite a majority, take the second view. They say that if certain people are preaching against the country in which they are living, they should look for another place to live.’

  ‘Too right, Sir, he’s a—’

  ‘Brendon, before you say something I’ll have to report,’ Mr Walters’ eyes flash over to me for a second, ‘I wonder if you would extend that logic to anyone born in this country. Should people be asked to leave if they propose violence against the state or towards the people in it?’

  ‘Even white people, Sir?’ The voice comes from another of the closed faces. A tall boy with a thin, pointed face and almost a full beard. His wide-set eyes are rimmed with pink. He brings to mind one of those dogs you’re not allowed to own anymore because they keep mauling people. I’ve never met him before.

  ‘Yes, though we know it’s wrong to differentiate on the basis of colour, don’t we, Vince? Now, enough politics for one day. Do you boys have your workbooks?’

  A flat chorus of yeses.

  ‘Time to get on then. I need to sort Josh out.’

  Four heads turn again to stare at me. I try not to, but I meet Vince’s eye. Almost automatically, I nod slightly in greeting.

  ‘What’s that poof doing here?’

  I’ve never heard Mr Walters shout before. From the fact that all five of us jump a few inches in our seats, neither have the others. His voice goes off like a gun shot. The words seem to lash into Vince, physically. The effect is definite. Vince seems to shrink. It doesn’t last long and it doesn’t have to.

  ‘Josh, Vinny has something to say to you.’ Mr Walters returns to his usual calm, soft tones.

  Vince bristles at the childish nickname, but keeps his mouth shut.

  ‘Vince?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Josh.’ Vince’s voice is barely above a growl.

  Mr Walters raises his eyebrows at me.

  ‘’S OK,’ I mumble.

  ‘There you are, Vince, a nice, polite boy come to join our group. Perhaps it’ll rub off on you. Now, Josh. Page twenty-six in this one, just give it a read and try the quiz on the next page. Should be OK for starters.’

  I look at the textbook he holds out to me. The front cover says ‘A Level’.

  ‘Should be appropriate for your intellect, I think?’ Mr Walters winks.

  I open the book and make a start.

  *

  About half an hour later, as I’m working through the textbook, Mr Walters gets up from his desk, picking up his coffee mug.

  ‘I’ll be five minutes, ladies. No funny business.’

  As soon as the door shuts, Vince is at my desk, leaning hard against it, his clenched teeth not far from mine. There’s a definite smell of tobacco on his breath, and under his close-cropped hairline, I see a vein throbbing.

  ‘Prick. I will cut you if you look at me again. Understand?’

  I nod.

  ‘Vin, leave it. Just ’cause Walters battered you, don’t take it out on the new kid.’

  Vince wheels round. The boy he’s looking at was in my geography class for just one term, years ago, but I don’t see him much now. His name is Alan. We used to sit on the same table. He would always complain that my coloured pencils were blunt and had broken leads, and once blamed me because I’d throw them across the table to him when he wanted to borrow them. He said I should take more care of my things. I was never sure if he was joking or not.

  ‘Fuck you.’ Vince grumbles back towards his seat, but not before knocking my textbook onto the floor.

  I move to pick it up.

  ‘Sit still!’ Vince shouts, his pointing finger like a dart, inches from my nose. Brendon laughs. ‘Leave it there.’

  Vince struts back to his seat as Alan comes over, bends down and picks up the textbook, dusting it off with a sleeve.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmur.

  Alan gives me the briefly raised chin of recognition. ‘What are you in for?’ He plants his elbows on the desk, leans on his hands.

  ‘Messed up a test.’

  ‘What a ball ache. You should be more like us. They don’t let us take tests anymore, right, lads?’

  A murmur of agreement.

  ‘Thing is, Josh, they think we’re junk anyway. What’s the point of ruining the school’s place in the league tables for kids like us?’

  Vince is carving something into the bench with a compass. He hears Alan’s comment and digs even harder.

  ‘Mustn’t grumble though, eh? I’m gonna join the army anyway. You seen this?’ He gets his phone out of his pocket and turns it in my direction. The screen is full of greasy flesh colours and jerking movement.

  I look away.

  ‘Not your kind of thing? Best looked at in private I guess. How about this?’

  The next video starts shakily. It shows a street at night. Across the road, behind a row of parked cars, two men are running, the camera tracking their hooded heads. They come up quickly behind a third head, this one with a white or yellow cloth wrapped around it. It takes a second to realise it’s a turban, but by this time the head has disappeared beneath the roofs of the cars.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll turn the sound up.’

  Behind the background noise of nearby traffic, and the breathing of the person filming, there’s a muffled thud, thud. It sounds like stamping. Then there’s a loud noise, halfway between a moan and a scream. The two heads, who have been standing where the turbaned man fell, come out from between the parked cars, running towards the camera, shouting ‘Go, Go.’ The camera goes shaky again, following the back of one of the hooded men, and then the clip ends.

  There’s a few seconds of silence. I think I know what I’ve just seen, but I’m not sure.

  ‘Good, right? The prick didn’t know we were coming. No chance we’ll get done. And no CCTV on that road – my brother told me.’

  Then it clicks. Alan’s face looks a lot like Carl’s, the man who hit me. Alan’s hair’s a bit longer, his jaw rounder, but the resemblance is unmistakable now.

  ‘That’s my brother, running off in front of me,’ he says, playing me the last half of the clip again. ‘He used to be in the army. Knows just how to do a raid like
that. He says if I work on my fitness I could be invable as an infantryman.’

  ‘Invaluable. Prick,’ says the fourth head. I don’t know him. He doesn’t introduce himself.

  ‘Invaluable, yeah, whatever. He was a great soldier, my brother. Too good. They wouldn’t let him stay. He was too dangerous. You can’t have soldiers who can think for themselves, can you?’

  ‘Right, yeah.’ I don’t know what else to say.

  ‘But I’m not clever like him. So I’ll be alright. But this is good, right?’ Alan’s eyes are lit up with excitement. His finger hovers over the play button again.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Al!’ An urgent voice from the stool nearest the door.

  Alan is still sauntering back to his place as Mr Walters re-enters. He looks quizzically at Alan, then at me. I quickly open the textbook again, to a page I can’t even pronounce the title of, and start reading.

  Mr Walters sits back at his desk. In the brief moment that I look up, he raises his mug at me.

  FIFTEEN

  I spend a long time packing my bag after Mr Walters tells us we can go. I’m the last one in the room, and as I come out into the corridor, I listen for the other boys’ voices. I’m not keen on walking the way they’re walking.

  Outside the school buildings, I see them heading down the main drive and towards town, so I turn the other way and head for the side gate that opens out onto the housing estate and the park. It’ll more than double my walk home, but I’m OK with that.

  As I’m crossing the road before the park, I hear someone calling my name behind me. I ignore it and speed up, but the shouting gets nearer and nearer until it’s at my shoulder.