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 behaviour, 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 on to 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 backwards. 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 windscreen 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 centre. 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 centre 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 sitting smoking we wander the sports centre. 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. Afterwards we go out back to practise 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 centre 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 grey 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, practising kung fu.’