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He sat on the bench, slouching, though his mother had told him a million times not to. When he had thought it over, he couldn't understand what was wrong with slouching. It was more comfortable than sitting up, so why bother? Something to do with 'long-term posture problems' apparently. Beyond him. He could always change eventually.
That is what was occupying his mind on this particular morning, as all his friends were learning how to decline in foreign languages. He couldn't be bothered with school. Actually he hadn't even realised lessons had started today - he was too busy gazing into thin air while his mind occupied itself with its simple pleasures.
He had heard adults talking about 'regretting not listening in class', and wishing they had further education, and he saw the 'Adult Education Centre' every time he walked to school (he usually missed the bus), so he couldn't see the point in teaching children when they didn't want it. Why not wait until they yearned for education, as adults did, then send them to adult schools? He was proud of that deduction. It took him ages to work out.
The noise of his classmates shouting at him awoke him from his trance. They were shouting something about the next lesson:
"Hey, thicko! Time for your English lesson with Mr. Worthen! You like Mr. Worthen, don't you? He uses your mother, doesn't he? Do you speak Eeengleesh?"
He didn't like what they were saying. He didn't usually understand their taunts, but he disliked the tone of voice. He thought for a drawn out second, and decided to go to his English lesson. He wanted to finish that doodle in his exercise book. He got up and started walking towards the room, shoving his hands in his pockets. Nerve cells fired in his foggy brain. Little tendrils made long, detoured connections. Hands. In pockets. Should be...
He walked back to the bench, and picked up his bag, half carrying it, half dragging it back towards the English room.
"Are you paying attention, boy?"
He looked up, thought for a while, then realised that Mr. Worthen was addressing him. Angrily.
"Y-yes."
"Yes sir," retorted the teacher.
"OK," he said, looking down at his doodle again, defensively. A giggle arose from the class.
"Are you even aware that I had asked you a question?" asked the teacher.
"Uh... um..."
"Speak up!"
"O-oh. Yes."
"Yes what?" asked Mr. Worthen, half angrily, half mockingly. He racked his brains. It couldn't be yes please; that was what his mummy always said. He was sure it was something that the teacher had just said. Something to do with asking questions -
"Oh dear," sighed the teacher, talking under his breath so the giggling children couldn't quite make out his more profane language, "whatever shall we do with you, boy? With your GCSE examinations approaching remorselessly... you are the epitome of stupidity, my boy. I wish I could congratulate you, but it is a talent that is not looked up to in social circles. I wonder if being so effortlessly thick is frustrating. You probably don't even know what I'm talking about..."
He did know what 'frustrating' meant, he thought indignantly. Wasn't too sure about 'remorseless', though. Something to do with food? Too long. Too many long words together. He wished the teacher could speak more slowly, like his mummy did. Never mind. He had lost interest anyway. He was busy giving odd looks to the boy in front of him who was sucking in his cheeks and making goldfish expressions at him.
The bus journey on the way back wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He took a schoolbus, because his mummy was too worried about him travelling with the public. The public sounded really mean, he thought. As far as he could tell, there were two... teams. The public and the private. He was part of the private club. It said so on his driveway. The private must be the goodies and the public were the baddies, like on TV.
He looked out the window to check he didn't miss his stop. That happened a lot. Usually no-one on the bus would tell him. He guessed they were too shy. He was shy, his mummy said so.
He faced forward again, and slightly down. He found that if he stayed in this position for long enough, motionless, sometimes the boys at the back would stop throwing their padloads of paper and empty drink cartons at him, and shout at him instead. He preferred that. It didn't hurt.
He felt a tapping on his shoulder. He looked up to see who it was, expecting a punch round the face as he turned, like last time, but it didn't come. This time is was the quiet girl who always sat at the front. She subtly motioned for him to look out the window. It was his stop. But the boys at the back caught on. They had seen the subtle nudge. A siren of 'woo' and 'aww' arose from the crowd of boys behind him; 'they're in looove'. He wouldn't mind being in love. He had never tried it before, it was meant to be fun.
An hour later, as he trudged across the green towards his home, having missed his stop, distracted by the mocking coos of the boys at the back of the bus, he felt meditative. He was thinking. Nothing relevant, you realise, just thinking. He remembered seeing a big circle with the countries of the world painted on it at his neighbour's house. He had called it a globe. Apparently that's what the world looked like. He wasn't stupid, though. He knew it was much bigger and bumpier.
And the world couldn't be round. If it was, nobody could live on the other side, because they'd fall off. He didn't believe in gravity. He could prove it didn't exist, too. Gravity was the stuff that stuck you to the earth, so if you became unstuck, you'd fall, right? He jumped. There you go. Now why hadn't all those really intelligent scientists thought of that? Too busy, obviously.
He walked up his drive, listening to the crunching of the gravel beneath his feet. He stuck out his hand so it tapped against the chicken-wire fence. He leant against the front door, and stumbled in as it opened with unexpected ease.
"Oh, hello darling," his mother drawled. He wasn't sure if he liked being called 'darling', but he couldn't think of anything else a mummy would call her son. He checked that he had remembered his bag (last time he lost that, it cost his mummy fourteen pounds and ninety-nine pence, and that was a big number), and dropped it inside the front door as he slumped himself into the tattered reclining chair in front of the TV.
At school the next day, his life changed. He wasn't yet sure how significant the change was to become, but he felt it was important. He decided to get revenge on the bullies.
He had caught the bus this time, so he decided to go to the first lesson whatever it turned out to be. Before that was assembly. Assembly was a mistake. He got in to trouble for not turning up to the last few mornings. Then, unfortunately, the first lesson was Maths. That was worse. He hated maths. He couldn't get the hang of fractions, let alone pies. You know, that little bridge thing.
Anyway, he turned off and almost fell asleep. He was right in the middle of a big thoughtless daze, just after a light daze only thinking of being thoughtless, and the teacher jarred him. At first he almost told the teacher to shut up, but then he remembered where he was.
"What's your name, boy?" threatened the teacher, slitting his eyes, tapping a pencil against his register whilst gazing down at him. Quick, he thought, answer...
"Um..."
"Um? Um!" exclaimed the teacher furiously, "couldn't your poor, hard done by - and probably very patient - mother think of a better name, Mister... Um? Am I pronouncing it right? Um? Ummmm?"
He thought about it. The teacher obviously meant mummy. Hang on... oh, he was confused. He did what he always did when he was confused.
"Yes."
Seething. The teacher was seething. And the pupils were laughing. He could hear them quoting the little episode in whispers behind him, giving funny voices to the two butts of their less-than-private joke: 'Doesn't even know his own name! Ha! Mister Um! Haha! Am I pronouncing it right? Yes! Hahaha!'
"Get out of here, you... you - damn... idiot!" It was obvious the teacher had restrained more than he said. "Leave the room! And don't come back!"
He picked up his bag, stuffing it with his books in one defeatist sweep, and shuffled out of the classroom, glared at by everybody around him. He walked up the corridor in a bad mood, the sound of laughter fading away behind him.
At the end of the day, he stood at the bus stop, trying not to fall when the boys from the back of the bus pushed him, his maths teacher approached him again.
"Ah, there you are boy. I am ecstatic to be able to inform you that you have just been suspended. Please do not turn up to school until this day next week, when you should be prompt and well-behaved. I'm afraid it's a case of ship out and shape up, boy. You will receive a letter from the school officially confirming your punishment. So there."
The bullies loved that. The second the teacher was out of range, they proceeded to fulfil their necessary task. Make him feel as bad as possible.
"Hey, you, Mister Um! What's your mummy gonna say? Aww... poor Ummm..." they said. He despised the 'Um' label. Unfortunately, he made his hate known. Next it was coming from all sides, like a swarm of humming birds. He tried to ignore it, but when he thought he saw the girl who always sat at the front of the bus join in, he burst out in tears. It was the only way he could manifest his anger: he couldn't hit them, or make a witty retort, and he had tried ignoring them.
"Sissy Mister Um! Nyah! Poor little thing! Crying! Aww!" They pushed him around. He was breaking down. He felt helpless. Disturbing images flashed across his mind, of mutilating the bullies - of locking them in a room with the maths teacher forever. They chanted rhymes. The noise and oppression enveloped him, but he couldn't do anything about it. He fell to the floor and they started pushing him with their feet. The velocity of the nudges increased.
Just as it seemed like it would never stop - just as it looked like it might get out of hand, the Messiah arrived. His saving grace materialised. The bus came. He rolled out of the way to avoid being trampled. He got up and brushed himself down. He wiped the tears from his face. He wanted to get home as soon as possible. He couldn't walk; his legs hurt (his whole body hurt). He decided to get on the bus, bullies or no bullies.
That was a mistake. The bullies got worse, taunting him, 'umming' and chanting insults. He ignored them in his usual motionless stance, but they were even more physical than normal, and he couldn't avoid drink can projectiles. Especially half-full ones. Ouch.
He couldn't sleep that night. He hadn't told his mummy about the suspension - but it took a while to figure out what it meant. He felt so angry at the bullies, but he could only bottle his emotions up.
How was he going to convince his mother that he was going to school without actually going? How was he going to get his own back on the bullies? He wished he could go back in time, or swap lives for a moment. He needed help from someone who knew stuff. An adult. But all the adults in his life were unavailable. He couldn't speak to his mummy for fear of letting on his secret, and all his teachers hated him.
His mummy flicked through the mail. She loved it when he was at school. No clumsy explanations about all the things he didn't understand. So he'd been suspended. Oh, she wasn't meant to know - he hadn't told her - but she could see right through him, and he wasn't very good at hiding secrets. She hadn't stopped him from going to school, because then he'd realise she knew about the suspension. As long as she remained faithful in his eyes, nothing else mattered. All she had to do was keep him relying on her, apart from that she couldn't be bothered with him.
Bill, tax reminder, bill, bill, second eviction warning... usual stuff. Ah, there it was. The letter from the school. She hadn't expected it today. They must have been keen.
So that's why he was suspended. Truancy - well, punishment for that was inevitable - consistently and repeatedly not paying attention in class - no surprise there - and the last straw was disappearing when asked to go outside to be told off. Oh well. She thought of what he would be doing right now. Probably confronting his teachers, making up some story about why he was there and not at home where he was supposed to be. Makes a change; it's usually the other way around.
He was actually doing something very different at that very second. He was doing something slightly out of character. His face was red, His teeth were clenched. He was heaving, just having been crying. His hands were busying themselves tearing up pieces of paper. Not just any paper.
The boys from the back of the bus were having lunch together, laughing with each other about their recent bullying successes. They had left their bags outside the dining room. All in a row. Unprotected.
And now almost empty. He pulled out the last book, a French text book, grabbed it at the top on either side, and moved one of his hands down, away from the other, supplying him with the satisfying ripping sound and the sweet taste of revenge as he threw the two parts across the room. He sat on the floor, exhausted by his exertions.
And he was hit hard by the door to the dining room as it was opened too far by... one of the boys from the back of the bus. Upon seeing their bags empty and their contents strewn across the hall floor, they had left their lunches and come to torture him. He tried to get up and run, but they forced him back against the wall.
"Look over there!" shouted one of the boys. He did. His shin was smashed to the back of his leg. He crumbled into a sitting position, fighting the lump in his throat, rubbing his aching leg.
"Look over there!" the boy repeated, pointing in the opposite direction. He looked, hoping for the salvation of a teacher. Suddenly, he felt the impact of a fist colliding with his stomach. He couldn't breathe... his eyes opened wide as he fought to work his lungs. It was getting darker... then his breath began to return. That must be what being winded was really like. He was breathing very quickly now, and a couple of hits later he was recumbent and bleeding.
He lost count of the number of kicks that were weakening his ribs. He was sure his leg was broken - they'd jumped on it quite a few times already, and they kept threatening to jump on his face. The number of voices doubled - tripled. They turned into an indiscriminate hum.
He was sure he could hear chanting... he was losing consciousness... he let his head fall to one side... he saw a crowd of people standing around in a big semi-circle, rooting for the bullies or cowering away from the violence but still helplessly watching... in the background he saw his maths teacher breaking through the crowd... saved!
But the teacher stopped at the front... and just watched...
He woke up in the sick room. No, this wasn't the sick room. He was still lying down outside the dining room. He was shaking and bleeding from his nose and his mouth. He vaguely saw the bullies' bags, still deprived of their contents. He looked up. Hang on... the bullies were still here... and the crowd... and the maths teacher. He hadn't been knocked out after all. Oh well, at least the bullies were getting a good telling off now...
But they weren't! The maths teacher just told them to go away. Didn't even reprimand them! The teacher left, without even asking if he was alright! It was so... so -
Unfair!
Mr. Worthen rushed up to him now. He propped himself up against the wall. Mr. Worthen asked if he was OK. He was convinced he wouldn't be able to talk, but he tried.
"Yes." It came out clearer than he expected. "I think I broke a leg."
"Does this hurt?"
"Ow! Um... well, actually - no. Not really. But they were jumping on it!"
"Just bruised. Badly, but you'll recover. Who did this?"
He looked at the crowd. Bit of sympathy.
"It was the boys from the back of the bus," he answered, "and the maths teacher joined in..."
Mr. Worthen looked at him in a funny way and produced a handkerchief from his pocket, applying it to the blood that was flowing from his nose.
"Hey, aren't you the 'um' boy? Weren't you suspended?"
Oh boy.
He wanted to make a good impression for his first day at the new school. He was glad the old school had offered that compensation, so he could afford a couple of terms at this specialist school. His mum said it was a good idea, so it must be. In retrospect, he thought things had turned out quite well in the end. Bit of a turmoil getting there, but it was a happy ending.
He remembered how the girl who always sat at the front of the bus bravely stepped forward from the crowd and supported his accusation against the maths teacher. He had loved that moment. And when the crowd suddenly started telling all to poor Mr. Worthen; about how the maths teacher was so unfair and about how the bullies terrorised them.
When the facts were strained out in the end, the bullies got suspended (and when their mothers heard why, some of them were even taken away from the school), and when it was realised that the maths teacher was actually making up things to punish people for, he was fired at once. When his mother complained, she received a modest compensation for the inconveniences caused to her son. Well, small is relative. It was the biggest cheque she'd handled since she'd lost her job. It made her smile. He liked that.
He remembered watching the assembly the morning after the event. He had smiled when the schoolchildren cheered upon hearing the reason why the boys from the back of the bus weren't there that day. He had laughed when the schoolchildren hysterically erupted into a fit of mutual celebration as they were informed of the headmaster's decision to fire the maths teacher. He had sniffed when he saw the girl who had always sat at the front of the bus (and he had hid when they caught each other's eye through the window). He cried with elation when the bus passed him, with the seats at the back vacated.
But now he had other things to think about. He was going to make a good impression in this school. He was going to be liked.
He sat on the bench, slouching. He turned his head to see who he had sat next to.
"Hello," he ventured.
The girl he was addressing realised that she had been gazing at him and snapped out of it, dropping her lunch box. He helped her pick everything up.
"Thanks," she said shyly.
He could get the hang of this 'love' thing...
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