Part 1

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1. The lessons are really boring.
2. Jason and I don’t have the same break times.
3. There isn't any kids work up on the walls.
4. Mum and Dad can’t give us any days off.
5. There’s a lot of blood.

​

*

​

When I come downstairs in the morning, Jason isn’t wearing his school uniform.

I tell him he’s going to get into trouble.

He tells me I look like a watermelon.

I look down at my new uniform. It’s a pink blouse and a green skirt. He sort of has a point.

I try out a new bad word I learned from one of the magazines that he hides at the bottom of his wardrobe. At first he looks shocked, then impressed, then gives me a high five.

Sometimes I think Jason and I could be friends.

Mum walks in and I decide to point out that Jason isn’t wearing his uniform, in case she hasn’t noticed.

Jason jabs me in the ribs. Maybe we aren’t ready for friendship yet.

Mum sighs and tells me to change back into my normal clothes because we are not going to school today. She says that her and Dad think it would be better if we have a family day together instead.

Mum has never ever said anything like this before.

I ask her if she’s dying.

She says no.

I ask if Dad is dying.

She says no.

I’m not sure I believe her but a family day out sounds more fun than starting at a strange new school in a watermelon uniform, so I allow myself to be bundled into the car.

*

​

“Will I have to live with Jason? By myself?”

“We’re not dying,” Mum repeats. “Jason, help her with her seatbelt.”

Jason grabs the seatbelt from me roughly and mutters something about me being useless.

“But I mean, if you did,” I say.

“I’m not looking after you. You’ll have to stay with someone else,” Jason says.

“Enough!” Dad says. “Nobody is dying.”

I still feel worried, but I don’t want to make them angry, especially if they’re dying, so I stay quiet.

Suddenly, Dad slams on the brakes. We’ve only just made it out of our driveway but the kid from next door has appeared from out of nowhere and is standing right in front of our car. Our car bumper is only a few centimetres away from him and if dad stopped any later he would have flattened him like a pancake.

I expect Dad to get out and make sure he’s okay, but he doesn’t. Instead, Dad reverses quickly and then drives around the boy and right onto the street.

For the first time, I look out of the car window and I let out a scream. Every single neighbour on the street is standing outside of their house staring right at our car, watching as we leave. Mum, Dad and Jason pretend that they haven’t noticed but they look like they’re trying hard not to look out of their windows too.

Dad speeds up and we drive for what seems like a long, long time.

I need to pee.

Dad tells me to hold it but I tell him I can’t.

He tells me I have to.

I cry.

Mum persuades him to stop at the side of the road. She takes me to pee on the grass like a boy. Once I’m done, Mum hurries me back in the car so fast that I bash my head on the door.

Strangely, Jason doesn’t laugh at me. In fact, he shouts at Mum to be careful.

Dad tells Jason to watch his mouth.

It’s supposed to be our family day out but everyone is angry again and it’s all because we moved to this stupid new house.

*

​

I’m just drifting off to sleep when we finally stop outside of a big leisure centre. The leisure centre mustn’t be very popular because there are no other cars in the car park. I helpfully point this out but Mum and Dad don’t find it helpful.

I reach to take my seatbelt off but Dad tells us all to stay where we are. He gets out and locks us in the car behind him, before walking over to the Leisure Centre entrance.

He comes back only a minute later, his face all white, and gets back into the car without another word.

As we’re driving off, I look up and swear I see faces looking at us from the windows of the Leisure Centre, even though the car park is empty. At first I think maybe I’m imagining it because I’m still half asleep, but I look over at Jason and he’s looking at the faces too.

We stop at a bowling alley, a trampoline park and a soft play area, but each time Dad comes back a minute later and drives off, each time gripping the steering wheel harder and harder until his hands turn white.

“They’re going to have to go to school,” Dad says.

Jason shouts that it's unfair and Mum lets out a sob. I tell Dad that I need to go back to change into my watermelon uniform else I’ll get in trouble.

Dad doesn’t answer any of us. He just keeps driving.

By the time we arrive at school, Jason is shouting that they are irresponsible parents and Mum keeps crying and telling us she is sorry.

I want to ask what is so bad about this school that it’s making everyone so upset, but I’m scared of the answer.

*

​

Our new town is much smaller than our old one, so my school and Jason’s big school are at the same place, in two different buildings right next to each other.

Before we moved, Jason had told me that while we’re at school, I have to pretend not to know him. He mustn’t have meant it because when we arrive, he slams the door without saying bye to Mum and Dad, walks around to my side to help me out and then holds my hand all the way in.

I don’t think Jason has held my hand since I was a baby. A little part of me wants to tell him I’m not a baby and I don’t need my hand held, but the other part of me grabs his hand tight.

We are late so it’s already the first break of the day. Jason takes me to the playground outside of the lower school building where everyone is playing. None of the kids even look at us and I can’t see any teachers.

Jason goes off to find a grown up, and I sit watching a group of kids playing.

Five kids hold hands to form a circle, and a boy sits in the middle.

The group sing:

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

And the mouse has caught the cat.

As soon as the song finishes, the boy leaps up and runs, trying to force apart their arms and break the circle. The other children grip onto each other tightly to stop him breaking out.

I finally smile. I played a game a bit like this in my old school, except we had a better rhyme. I wonder whether I should offer to teach them my rhyme, but I’m too shy to say anything so I just carry on watching.

The boy hasn’t managed to break the circle, and the other kids push him back with their arms so he falls on the floor. He gets up, his knee a little bit grazed, and they start the song again.

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

And the mouse has caught the cat.

The exact same thing happens again. The boy tries to break the circle and the other kids hold on tight. The boy falls again, on the same knee, at exactly the same angle. This time, when he gets up, there’s a little droplet of blood running down his leg from his knee.

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

The cat has caught the mouse

And the mouse has caught the cat.

The same again.

This time, when he gets up, his knee is covered in dirt and blood is running down his leg onto his socks. It’s the kind of cut that would make most kids cry but nobody seems to notice, not even the little boy himself.

Jason comes back and tells me I should wait in the playground until the end of break and go in with the other children. For a minute, he looks like he doesn’t want to leave, but then he pats my head like I’m a dog and walks towards his school building.

There are no kids on the big playground, so it looks like my school and Jason's school have different playtimes. I’m kind of disappointed since Jason is being so nice to me that maybe we could have played together sometimes.

When I turn my attention back to the boy in the circle, his leg is so covered with blood that I can’t see his skin anymore. I want to run over and ask if he needs help, but I can’t seem to make myself. The way that nobody seems to even notice he’s hurt makes me frightened somehow, and instead I go and sit on a bench under a tree.

There’s another girl there, reading. At least, she’s holding a book in front of her and staring at the page, but her eyes aren’t moving at all. The front cover of the book has no pictures or writing on it - just a plain, grey, dusty cover.

I’ve never seen a book like it before so I move a bit closer to see what’s on the pages. She slams the book shut before I can see, but doesn’t lift up her eyes to look at me.

I am just about to try talking to her when all of a sudden, even though there is no bell and no teacher shouting, she stands up and, along with every single other kid in the playground, walks to the end of the playground and lines up silently.

I follow them but I don’t know what line to get in. For the first time since arriving, I see a teacher, who looks at me and points at the third line along without a word.

As we walk inside the building, I notice that the corridors and the classrooms are all completely bare. My teacher doesn’t tell me her name and doesn’t ask mine either. She just points at the table I should sit at.

As soon as everyone is seated, they start reciting ‘2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12…’

I join in. I’m good at my times tables.

The class start over again. ‘2, 4, 6, 8…’

We recite our two times tables 37 times before the teacher even speaks.

She tells us that it was a great Maths lesson and that now it is time for English.

She makes us get out our reading books and copy out every word carefully. I point out that I don’t have a reading book and she tells me to take a dictionary from the pile and use that.

Before I’ve even got to ‘abacus’, I am very sure that I’m not going to like my new school at all.

*

​

My mind wanders and I look out of the classroom window to see that the big school have gone outside for their break.

I scan my eyes around and find Jason. He looks like he’s not having a good day either. He’s sitting on a wall, alone, staring at the floor.

In fact, everyone’s staring at the floor. They’re standing around in groups, but nobody is actually talking to each other or looking at each other at all.

That is except for one boy who is kicking a football around by himself. He kicks it over to Jason and it lands near Jason’s foot. Jason looks up and kicks it back.

Jason is really good at football which means he is really good at making friends. It’s easy for boys to make friends. Sometimes I wish I were a boy so I could kick a ball near someone and be their friend.

Mum and Dad say that girls can play football too but in my old school that never happened. The boys played football and the girls played other games about having make believe babies and being make believe vampires and living in make believe castles. They never seemed to like my make believe ideas.

Jason is better than the boy at football, but the boy doesn’t seem to mind. They both look kind of happy. Happier than the other kids who are stood around staring at the floor anyway.

Suddenly, Jason stops and starts coughing. He reaches his hand up towards his mouth and he wretches. Blood pours out of his mouth all over the floor.

I push my chair back quickly and rise to my feet. Jason is grabbing hold of his ears like he can hear a loud noise and now blood is pouring from them too.

I turn to get my teacher’s attention and I nearly jump out of my skin. My teacher is stood right in front of my desk, and she’s looking from me, to Jason out of the window, back to me.

She’s smiling.

“My brother…” I say. “Help him, he’s-”

But when I look back, Jason is stood upright still playing football with the boy, as if nothing has happened. There’s no blood on him or on the floor.

Was I imagining it?

The teacher is still smiling in a way that makes me want to run right out of the classroom and never come back.

“In this class, we focus on our work,” she finally says, before walking back to her desk.

*

​

For the rest of the day, I avoid looking out of the window, or at the teacher, or at any of the other kids in my class.

When lunch comes, I eat as slowly as possible and then go outside and sit alone on a wall.

In the afternoon, we copy down a list of artists from the board for Art class and then do silent reading, where I take the dictionary back out again.

It’s so hard not to lose focus that I have to bite on the side of my mouth to make sure I don’t start daydreaming.

I leave the classroom at the end of the day with the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. My teacher, whose name I still don’t know, stops me on the way out.

“You and your brother need to be wearing the correct school uniform tomorrow,” she says. I nod, without looking at her and walk as fast as I can out of there.

Jason is waiting for me in the playground, staring at the floor as well. At first I’m not sure if he’s seen me but then he grabs my hand without a word and marches me out of the gates so fast that I trip and he has to hold me up to steady me.

Once we are out of the gates and around the corner, I burst into tears.

He crouches down to make us the same height and hugs me. At first I’m happy to see that his nose and his ears look okay, and I decide I must have been imagining it after all. But when he moves away again, I see a smudge of blood on his collar. I reach out to touch it and he moves my arm away from him and folds his collar so the blood can't be seen.

We walk further around the corner and find Dad waiting in the car for us. Before we get in, Jason whispers to me, “We aren’t going back there tomorrow, okay? No matter what Mum and Dad say.”