Guyliner

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Stuart says as we walk out of Music. The corridors are heaving and I struggle to get my bag over my shoulder without banging into somebody and receiving a torrent of protesting abuse.
“Not so bad?” I snap irritably. “Please, it was one of the worst lessons of my life.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, Aaron. I mean, its’ only a detention.”
Of course-I should have expected a detention. After promising me so many excuses, Stuart walked into class and when questioned about our inability to turn up on time, he simply shrugged and said we were just late. Our teacher frowned at both of us, and acted very unfairly, not dismissing us to our seats and privately passing us a detention slip, but standing us up in front of the whole silent class, proclaiming our lack of punctuality to a group of sniggering chav’s. She said she’d expect as much from Stuart-he’s always winding up late to Music and shrugging his detention off with a flick of his hand.
“But really, Aaron, I expected better from you. I thought you liked my lesson-you’re very good at it. This really isn’t good enough. If Mr Swann here is dragging you down, we’ll have to split you up. I wouldn’t want him interrupting your talents.”
That made me blush in modesty and Stuart gape in disbelief at her cheek. Our teacher still didn’t dismiss us to our seats; she made us stand at the front of the class while she explained our task and then had a ‘quiet word’ with us about our delayed arrival. Stuart sighed all the way through it as she lectured him about his belatedly attitude and when he raised his eyebrow in a devastating manner, she started on a rant about unsatisfactory demeanour. Finally, she let him go off to his keyboard but told me to wait; she wanted to chat with me as well. I cringed my way through a harangue about standards before she paused and sighed, shaking her head.
“Honestly, Aaron, you’re such a good pupil. You’re talented, and you’re the only one who behaves in this lesson. Don’t let your principles slip, for my sake.”
I think I blushed again.
“Is it Stuart? If he’s making you late, then I’ll have no problem splitting you two up.”
“No, Miss, its fine,” I said. “I’d better be going to play now.”
“Come on, Aaron, don’t pull that face,” Stuart says, elbowing me in the ribs. “I know it’s like your first detention ever, but there’s no need to look so beat up about it.”
I remain in a stony silence.
“At least you’re doing your detention with me,” he offers and I snort, folding my arms.
“Oh, joy; I’m doing my detention with you! You’re the one who landed me with it to start with!”
He doesn’t answer back; he simply raises one eyebrow again.
“You’re very sarcastic.”
“It’s a genetic gift I inherit from my wonderful father,” I say, again with heavy sarcasm. The other eyebrow is raised.
“You don’t like your dad?”
“Believe me; the great burning hatred is not unrequited.”
“You always use such long words,” Stuart says but without a sigh or irritation or a mocking, sneering tone. “I wish I was that smart.”
“I’m not smart. My father has bullied me into speaking properly,” I tell him, slightly tacken aback by the longing in his voice. Stuart simply laughs.
“Do you always call him father?”
“Not at home,” I admit and then add, rather sheepishly. “At home, I’m forced to show counterfeit respect for him. He expects me to speak properly at home and most of the time, I do but I throw in some slang now and again, just to wind him up. He hates my ‘vulgar expressions’ and ‘dim-witted responses’.”
“It sounds like things are pretty strict at your house, then.”
“Very,” I sigh sadly. “It doesn’t feel like home at all. It’s just….shelter. There’s no love there, no trust. I can’t be myself.”
“How do you get away with wearing eye liner to school then?”
“He doesn’t agree,” I accentuate. “He hates it. He says worse things than this lot, sometimes. He really does hate me.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Stuart says without sounding awkward.
“Oh, he does. He’s always doing stuff to drive me mad, always picking at me. Like this morning…..”
I trail off, thinking about Dad’s date again. Will he be back by the time I get home, or will he be hours behind? Will he even come back at all? That wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose, but Wil would drive me insane, whining and pleading.
What if Dad brings this Sarah back with him?
“Aaron? You’re dreaming.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, distracted. “I’m just thinking, that’s all.”
“About?”
“My father.” I sigh, look at the floor then start to explain. “He’s on a date you see, though he won’t admit it. It’s…it’s disgusting and vile and…”
“Your dad’s on a date?” Stuart says, looking at me. “What about your mum?”
I disgust myself then and I tell him she left a long time ago.
Why don’t I tell him the truth? Am I embarrassed, am I ashamed? Am I humiliated by my mother, by her choice?
It makes me feel sick with myself. She’s my mother, for goodness sake. She’s the only person I could ever trust and I disown her, all because she was depressed. I’m refusing to acknowledge her just because a total stranger might feel sorry for me, might make fun of me.
I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to turn into my father. He’s just shrugged her off. He took her for granted in life and now she’s dead, he’s refusing her existence. She was his wife but she shamed him, she showed him up. It wasn’t a pleasant death, it wasn’t a ‘nice way to go’ death. It was a weak person’s death; it was an embarrassing, shameful death. It was a death that offered to show him up in front of the other business men he longs to be. He declines to stay tied to a woman that appalled him by her death, by her depression.
I hate my father.
“Aaron? Hey, is anyone in there? Are you dreaming again?”
“Just thinking,” I mutter, blushing violently as he grins. Does he think I’m some kind of swot, some kind of neurotic philosopher who doesn’t know how to switch off?
Well, it’s not my fault if I am.
“You always think,” he criticizes. “Just let go! It’s Break, time to have fun.”
“Oh, joy,” I huff and he pouts.
“You’re being sarcastic again.”
“I know, I know,” I groan. “Look, it was the way I was raised. I’ve lived in a lying, cynical, mocking household forever. I’m used to it by now. And anyway, I have to be sarcastic otherwise Perryman and the rest will think I’m weak.”
”They think you’re weak anyway,” Stuart reminds me.
“Oh, thank you for that thoughtful insight, Stuart, that’s made me feel so much better!”
“Sarcasm again!” It’s his turn to huff. “Honestly, Aaron, this is why nobody wants to hang round with you.”
I cast him a withering look, stung, and stalk off on my own.
“Aaron! Aaron, wait! I didn’t mean it like that! Aaron, wait! Will you stop being so touchy?!”
“Vermeer, being touchy? That’s a new one!” someone calls and I call something back before stomping down the corridor. I can hear Stuart’s army boots behind me, but I ignore them. I ignore him until he wraps his fingers around my wrist, very lightly, and carefully pulls me to a halt, almost tenderly. I snatch free of his grip, outraged.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he offers and I snort, crossing my arms.
“Oh no, nobody ever means it like that, of course. It just always accidentally slips out.”
“It did!”
“Oh, sure,” I snap, trying to muster a haughty expression. I just can’t do it. Stuart’s looking at me pleadingly, widening his hazel eyes until they turn almost extraterrestrial.
”Stop it,” I retort. He just blinks.
“Stop what?”
“Stop looking like an albino bambi,” I grumble, but the heat has gone from my dispute. He grins victoriously and I pout, sulking.
“I love it when you pull that face,” he jokes-at least, I think he’s joking. “You look so cute when you can’t get your own way.”
“Shush!” I say frantically, terrified someone will hear. He just grins again but lazily this time.
“You’re way too anxious,” he tells me. “Why are you so worried of what people think of you?”
“Our lives have been very different,” I remind him. “I’ve been brought up strained by paranoia and full of woes and uncertainties, scared of admitting myself to the world. You, obviously, have not.”
Stuart chews on his lip.
“When you say scared of admitting yourself, what do you mean?”
“Nothing.” Cue more blushing.
“You must mean something. You can’t just say something and not have a meaning behind it.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.”
“Must you always over-analysis stuff like this?” I moan and he nods.
“Aaron, just tell me. I mean, it can’t be that-“
“My dad thinks I’m gay,” I blurt out all in a rush. “He always has done, ever since I was a little kid. It scares me to think what he’ll do if it turns out I am.”
”Oh.” Stuart seems fairly calm about it. “I expect, he won’t do anything.”
I give a shaky, indecisive laugh. “You don’t know my father, do you?”
“Yeah, but you’re his son. Surely he wouldn’t mind if you were gay or not.”
“I think he would. He’s very weird about this kind of stuff. He would mind terribly.” I shrug. “And I’m not his son, not really.”
Stuart pulls a face, thinking. “You’re adopted?”
”No.”
“Then you are his real son!”
“Yes, but he doesn’t treat me like that. He doesn’t treat me like he treats Wil. He doesn’t want me to be his son, and I don’t want to be his son.”
“Is this an indication to another ‘I hate my father’ rant?” Stuart guesses. “Cause I’ve kinda gathered that by now.”
“You don’t understand. Obviously your father is perfect.”
“Obviously, my father is not perfect,” Stuart argues. “If my father was perfect, he would have a better house and a better job. If my father was perfect he wouldn’t have let the car run out of diesel when we were driving to France last year so we had to wait with two screaming babies in the car for three hours. If my father was perfect, he wouldn’t have let my sister get pregnant when she was seventeen. So. My father is not perfect.”
I stick my bottom lip out.
“You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” Stuart says but he smiles as he says it. “Cheer up-we’ve got French next.”
“Awwww, no,” I groan. “I hate French.”
“At least you’re not sitting between Aled and Conner.”
“I have a table to myself-far worse.”
“Do you feel lonely?” Stuart asks, with surprise in his voice. I shoot him a look.
“No. I’m fine.”
The bell rings and I groan.
“Come on, time for French!” Stuart smiles brightly, dragging me down the corridor and up the stairs. I stumble, and snatch my arm from his grip when we get up to the main corridor and he actually looks almost hurt.
We line up outside our French class. Thankfully, Jamie and Chantelle are very stupid and are in Set Four, not Set One like Stuart and I. The down side is that Aled and Conner and Liam and Steven and Robbie, a whole gang of Jamie’s cronies, are.
“Ah, how sweet, Snowy and Vermeer are walking to class together!”
“Shame they don’t sit next to each other!”
”Oh, we’ll see,” Stuart purrs, almost flirtatiously and then Madame Genevieve lets us inside. I sit on my own, at a table at the front, right by the projector. Madame Genevieve must think I’m lonely too because she always picks on me to answer questions. I shuffle over to my table and sit down next to the empty seat. Madame Genevieve starts us off with some verbs which I don’t understand so I sit, chewing my pen and doodling faces on the edge of my French book.
“Stuart Swann,” I hear Madame Genevieve call across the classroom. “What are you doing?”
“It’s Aled and Conner Miss, they’re winding me up!”
“It’s Madame Genevieve, Mr Swann, not Miss,” she sneers. “Stop your messing around, right away.”
“But Miss, it wasn’t me, it was Aled and Conner!”
“Stop, now!” snaps Madame Genevieve. “Get on with your work!”
“But Miss-“
”Stuart Swann, stop answering back right away otherwise you’ll be spending forty five minutes with me after school.”
“Miss-s!”
“Right, that’s it! Move here, to the front and I swear, if I hear another word out of you, it’ll be straight to the Head!”
I keep my eyes on my work as Stuart gets up, gathers his things and swoops down the classroom. He flings his books down on the table, draws the chair back and sits down next to me, leaning forward to whisper.
“Told you so.”
“You are hopeless,” I say, my mouth twitching into a grin. “You just never give up.”
“I can’t help it. When I want something, I’ll make sure I get it.”
In horror, I feel a warmth creep across my skin, turning my albino pallor crimson with delight. I let my hair swing forward, a protective curtain, but Stuart can probably feel the heat radiating from me.
“Hey, you, why are you hiding?” Stuart wants to know, poking me in my side with the end of his pencil. “Come on, I’m useless at French verbs. Help, please?”
“I don’t know either,” I reply, too cowardly to look up. “I’m so incompetent at French.”
“Trust you.”
“You’re regretting coming to sit next to me now, aren’t you? Next time, pick a guy who actually enjoys Modern Foreign Languages.”
”Nah, it’s Okay. I’m more the tragic, romantic depressed poet type, myself.”
”I was joking, Stuart.”
“I’m not,” he says and there’s actually honesty in his voice. Thankfully, Madame Genevieve interrupts him, tapping his book and saying, in very threatening terms, that if he doesn’t complete Exercise Two he will be personally assassinated by the Head. We both fall silent, pretending to work. I still don’t brush my hair back, just in case. My cheeks still feel warm, glowing with pleasure.
I can’t remember the last time this happened, but it may have had something to do with Jessica.
Somehow, Stuart and I manage our way through French without working and we’re finally free. Li still hasn’t turned up; he’ll be wasted, I expect, and scared we’ll smell it on his breath. Li gets drunk very easily, and by now he will probably be passed out in an alley somewhere, with Jodie and Sonya and Janice and their friends, their fake hair sticking to their pink, drunken faces.
I’ve never got drunk before, just to rattle my father. If he’s an alcoholic, I’m never going to drink in my life.
Stuart leads me down to the canteen, chattering all the way, about his family mostly. I pay attention, laugh in appropriate places and keep my curtain of hair over one side of my face. I’m paranoid, watching and waiting for the comments to start.
“Calm down,” Stuart tell me sternly while he’s queuing up for something. “You’re not going to get ambushed.”
”Ha, I wish,” I mutter darkly and he sighs.
“Nobody’s going to target you….stop worrying!”
“Look, I wish I could, but I can’t,” I protest. “It’s the way I was born.”
“You can’t use that as an excuse all the time, y’know.”
But still, he finds us a table at the back of the canteen and sits with his back against everyone else, almost shadowing me from view.
“Not eating?” he asks and I shrug-I’d barely noticed. “You haven’t been eating for a while, you know, not properly. You’ve lost loads of weight.”
”No, I haven’t, I’m still as fat as I was.”
”You’re not fat…quite the opposite now. You’re wasting away. You’re just skin and bones.”
“Ple-ase,” I drawl sardonically. “I’m hardly anorexic, am I?”
“Compared to what you used to be, then yes,” Stuart argues. “You must have noticed.”
I pause to look down at myself. My skinny jeans are close, too close to my skin though the label sticking out of the back clearly says Size Large. My blazer’s too tight, even though it’s an old one of Dad’s. If I’m almost anorexic, Stuart must be a walking skeleton.
“I’m not hungry,” I offer and he raises an eyebrow. “I’m not! Don’t look at me like that!”
He continues to look at me sternly and I bite my lip because, although I hate to admit it, he looks almost cute when he’s pretending to be angry.
“You’re chewing your lip,” he says slowly. “You’re eating your face! Of course you’re hungry!”
”I am not eating my face! Where do you get all of these bizarre things from? Was your mother on some kind of drug when you were born?”
“Oh yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “You are eating your face, you know.”
“I’m chewing my lip-so?! It’s a habit!”
”No,” Stuart points out. “It’s cannibalism.”
“You’re so strange.”
“You’re so starving.” He pushes a slice of pizza across the table towards me. “Eat.”
I look down on the slice warily. It does not look like pizza-it looks diseased. The bubbles of cheese are a stinging, unhealthy yellow, seeping tomato blood. It’s covered in meat, dead bits of flesh, slimy and discoloured.
“I’m vegetarian,” I say, looking up. Stuart sighs.
“You are not.”
I’m certainly considering it now.
“Eat, and stop being difficult,” he scolds. “It’s only a bit of pizza.”
“It looks like a concoction of contaminated, raw deceased animal skin,” I sniff, pushing it gingerly away from me. Stuart sighs again.
“No wonder you’re not eating if you analysis food like this. Must you always be so challenging?”
“I am not being challenging,” I say, wounded. “I’m just telling you that I am seriously considering becoming a vegetarian.”
“Fine, then, if I can’t please you…” Stuart takes the pizza from me and shoves the wedge in his mouth, the cheese foaming around his mouth. I feel my nose wrinkle in disgust as he chews it.
“Wha’?!” he protests. I shake my head.
“How can you eat it? It’s disgusting.”
“It’s food, you nut.”
I grimace. “Please, don’t talk with your mouth full. You’re spraying me with bits of dead cow.”
Stuart rolls his eyes and continues to eat.
“When’s Li coming back then?” he asks once he’s finished. I shrug.
“No idea. If he got really drunk, he won’t bother coming back at all. He does it all the time.”
“He leaves you on your own in Music? Some friend.”
“Li’s my only friend,” I remind him. “He’s better than no friends at all.”
“What about me?” Stuart protests, outraged. I roll my eyes.
“You are some albino bambi following me around because your mother told you to be nice to the weird kids because nobody likes them. That’s what you are.”
“I am not an albino bambi!”
“You are the palest person I have ever seen in my life and you dye your hair white,” I sigh. “You’re albino.”
“Fine, but I’m not bambi.”
“You are. You widen your eyes, pretend to be innocent and, as I said earlier, follow people around earnestly so they take pity. You are Bambi.”
Stuart pauses for a minute, thinking, and then pokes his tongue out at me.
“Okay, you win, Flower.”
I do a double-take. “Flower?!”
“Yeah,” Stuart shrugs. “Flower, y’know, from Bambi. He’s the skunk.”
”Gee, thanks.”
”Well, you have black hair and pale skin….”
“So that makes me look like a skunk?”
He shrugs again, giggling. I shake my head, watching him warily.
“I don’t know whether to be angry at you for calling me a skunk or worried for you for knowing the characters from Bambi.”
“Hey, I have two little nieces,” he says. “It’s all we watch in my house. That, and stupid Cinderella and Snow White.”
”I don’t mind Snow White. She’s pretty cool.”
”Yeah, I suppose. She’d be a Goth if it wasn’t for all the animals and singing.” Stuart stops, staring at me. “You know, Aaron, you kinda look like Snow White.”
”What?! Oh, I don’t believe you! First you’re calling me Flower, now you’re saying I look like Snow White! How many other Disney characters are you gonna associate me with?!”
He just giggles.
“And anyway, Snow White’s a girl,” I snap and then I shout. “You’re calling me a girl, you hypocritical pig!”
”Hey, hey, calm down,” Stuart says. “I’m not calling you a girl.”
I slump in my seat, pouting.
“And anyway, how am I hypocritical?”
“You were calling me a girl-I mean, look at yourself. You’re too feminine for words,” I sneer and instantly regret it. He blinks, hurt.
“Oh, yeah, like you see many girls going round looking like this,” he tries to joke but I’ve hurt him, I know I have.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” I offer awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I guess.”
”You suck at reassuring people, you know.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not used to apologising. In my house, we insult each other and manage to get away with it.”
“I’d so think you’re an only child if it wasn’t for the fact I know your brother,” he says. “You’re so jealous and paranoid and sarcastic.”
“I know,” I sigh and say no more. I can’t help it. I can blame it all on the way I was raised, but it’s not, it’s the way I’ve grown as a person. I’ve lost my mother and my sister, the only people who loved me. I’ve been bullied, I’ve been pushed away. I’ve become a recluse, hiding myself from everyone else. At least, that’s the idea. It seems the more I hide, the more people find me.
Amy Lee once said that we’re all broken but we’re not fallen at the same time because there’s always a chance we’ll get back up, but just this time, I don’t believe her. I’m broken and fallen and shattered. A part of me has been destroyed and I know I’m never getting up again.
I am jealous, paranoid, sarcastic, neurotic, apathetic, histrionic, temperamental, disheartening and provocative, I know, but it’s the way I am. It’s not my fault if people don’t like it-I don’t like it either.
Li doesn’t turn up at Registration, so I know he won’t be coming back today. We have Maths and Geography this afternoon-Li hates them. I consider bunking off myself but I’m too much of a coward. I trail along to Maths, on my own because Stuart out-shines me here and is in Set One. I’m all the way down in Set Three and I sit at the back of the classroom, with Jamie and Chantelle calling out insults.
I’m going to be late, but I don’t care. I’m walk at a slow pace, dragging my feet. Stuart has barely talked to me since our argument at Lunch and I’m surprised at the hole it’s left in me.
I just automatically snapped at him. He’s on my side but I’m so wound up, so mistrustful that I thought his simple, harmless joke was an insult, was abuse. It wasn’t his fault; it was me, being my usual suspicious self.
I am late to Maths but my teacher just frowns and tells me to get to my seat instead of giving me a detention. She waits until I’ve sat down before turning back to the whiteboard, writing up equations. There is no hope that I will ever understand Maths, let alone Algebra. I have no idea why they have to introduce letters to it all-letters are for English and that’s it.
Absentmindly, I start doodling all over my Maths book, little girls with snowy skin, jet-black hair and scarlet lips, bats perched on their shoulders and wolves howling at their heels. ‘Snow White’ I label it and draw more strange adaptations to fairy tales and kiddie cartoons-Alice In Wonderland, Evil Carebears, The Wizard of Oz and My Bloody Pony. I’m just starting on a zombie Bambi when Shannon, the girl who sits next to me, nudges me in the ribs sharply.
“Hey, Vermeer,” she hisses. “Stuart Swann asked me to pass this to you.”
She holds out a piece of file paper, folded up with my name written on the front in Stuart’s bubbly, round scribble. I take it from her and slowly unfold it, reading it under the table.
Cheer up Flower; it makes Bambi cry when you’re upset
S. S
Xoxox
And he’s draw a cute little skunk pulling petals from a daisy. It’s so simple but so sweet and stupid and lovely. I trace over the picture with my finger. He’s taken time with it, shading it the markings round the skunk’s eyes and adding detail on each petal. I feel myself smile as I re-read it….cheer up, Flower….
“Aaron Vermeer, what are you doing?”
I sit up straight, suddenly shocked by Ms Mercer’s strict voice. Everyone laughs and I feel myself blush. She’s glaring at me haughtily.
“You’re late to my lesson and when you finally get here, you don’t concentrate. I know Maths isn’t your strongest point but please, do try and look as though you’re interested. I understand that half of the pupils in this class are asleep, but I won’t stand you hunching up under the table and sniggering like an ape in captivity.”
I blush even more. I hate her.
“Well in, Miss!” Jamie laughs and she doesn’t even bother to quieten him. She’s still glaring at me.
“Whatever were you doing?” She pauses, head to one side. She probably thinks she looks intelligent and stern but she simply looks idiotic. “Well? We’re all waiting. You’ve held up this lesson twice now, I think it would be thoughtful of you to share with us.”
I swallow and try hiding the note in my pocket but it doesn’t work. Ms Mercer hears the sound of crumpling paper and darts forward. Before I know it, she’s snatched it from my hand and holding it above my head.
“What’s this, Mr Vermeer? You shouldn’t be passing notes in my class.”
“I wasn’t passing notes, Miss.”
She ignores me and continues. “What is it, a love letter or some kind?”
“Oooooh, Vermeer’s gotta love letter!” Jamie whistles and everyone laughs. I blush again and Ms Mercer raises an eyebrow.
“Please don’t read it out,” I whisper under my breath, praying but Ms Mercer has other ideas. She reads the note out, waving it around in the air so everyone sees the skunk and the kisses. They all fall about laughing and she smirks too, in such a way that I want to pull at her blonde bob until it falls free from her scalp.
“What does this mean, Aaron? Would you care to explain?” she smiles horridly. “And who’s S.S?”
”It’s Stuart Swann, the other pansy boy!” someone yells and they start laughing again, tears in their eyes, holding on to each other, bent over, making crash remarks. I put my head down, cringing with embarrassment and shame.
“I suggest that you keep your personal life out of my classroom in the future, Mr Vermeer. Please tell this Mr Swann to stop distracting you from your Algebra,” Ms Mercer concludes, holding out the note. I snatch it from her, stuff it in my pocket and hunch over my text book. I can almost feel the note burning in my pocket as everyone continues to laugh. It feels like little Flower has stabbed me in the chest.
I take a while packing my bag once the bell has gone so I’m the last out of Maths. I take my time, dragging my feet down the practically empty corridors. I let my hair fall forward and I watch my Converse trudge across the grey floor tiles.
“Hey, cheer up Flower!”
Stuart comes up beside me, winding his arm around my shoulders.
“Did you like my note?”
“No,” I mutter, taking his arm away from my shoulder. I know I’ve hurt him again.
“Why not?”
“Because my maths teacher caught me reading it and read it to the whole class,” I say bitterly. “Apart from that, I suppose it was a nice note. It was sweet.”
“I specialise in sweet,” he grins cutely and I notice he has a gap between his two front teeth. “Who is your Maths teacher?”
“Ms Mercer. She’s evil.”
“Yeah, I guess she is-though next time, don’t get noticed, you daft banana! There’s a reason why it’s called a secret note.”
“Hmm, I suppose.”
“Hey, what’s wrong? You look really fed up.”
“I am.”
“Why?
“I just am, Okay? I’m always like this. It’s called depression.”
“You’re not depressed,” Stuart scoffs. I roll my eyes.
“Look, just because I’m not cutting myself….” I trail off, my throat tight. “Come on, we’re late again.”
Our Geography teacher hasn’t turned up by the time we get down to Geography and the whole class is lined up outside, throwing paper planes and chewing gum. Jamie’s at the front, flicking his blonde fin from his eyes. He suddenly stops, smiling wickedly.
“Hey, Swann, that was such a sweet love note you wrote Vermeer! I loved the picture of the bunny rabbit!”
“It was a skunk, you idiot.”
“That’s not a pleasant thing to compare with your boyfriend now, is it?”
“It’s an inside joke, you wouldn’t get it.”
Stuart may think being smart and off-hand here, but he’s digging an even bigger hole for me to climb in and die. It’s Okay for him. He does not take himself seriously. He enjoys taunting them, he has the clever come backs to baffle them and wind them up. He can get away with it, but I can’t. As soon as he starts living up to the rumours, I start counting the mistakes in my head because I know I’m going to pay for them later. He probably doesn’t realize it, but I’m at stake here too. I’m the victim for his intelligent, witty retorts. He has nothing to worry about.
“Yeah, well, will you and your little toy boy get to the end of the line-I don’t wanna catch some disease,” Jamie sneers. “I feel so sorry for your parents.”
“Don’t bother,” I say, more to myself. My father probably feels sorry for Jamie, having to sit in the same room as me.
Finally, before things get too heated, our teacher arrives and lets us into the classroom. She tutts at Li’s empty seat and asks us if he’s ill.
“Yeah, Miss, he caught some disease off Vermeer,” Conner says and everyone laughs, apart from Stuart who mouths something to his back.
I continue with my warped Alice in Wonderland sketches all through Geography because I find it hard to get interested in rainfall. I draw fluffy bunnies with vampire teeth and huge, staring black eyes and the Cheshire Cat wearing black lipstick with twenty rings through his tail, hanging by a noose from a tree. I even start on a whole host of cartoon kittens with crazed pupils, blood dripping from their open mouths, complete with razorblades for claws. Stuart leans over casually to inspect them.
“They’re really good,” he whispers. “But Miss is looking at you so I think you’d better stop.”
I put my pencil down and get on with my essay. I’ve already had a letter written home this year about me not paying attention in class, drifting and drawing ‘warped, morbid images’ all over my school books. That did not go down too well at home.
Eventually the bell rings and I’m set free. I walk down to my locker to get my books and wait for Wil. I don’t know why Dad insists that I walk home with him. He does not enjoy my company and I do not enjoy his. He’s probably in danger if he walks home with me-I’m a target for sticks, stones and school books.
I get to my locker and collect a few books and dispose of my essay folder. Wil is late-it’s now half past. I sigh, close my locker and wait.
“Hey, you, walking home with anyone?”
It’s Stuart. He probably followed me down here.
“I have to walk home with my brother.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do,” I sigh impatiently. “My father insists on it.”
“And what your dad insists, you obey, is that it?” Stuart smirks and I glower.
“Look, you don’t understand. I have to listen to my father. Yes, I wind him up and don’t comply with all of his rules, but when my brother is concerned, I have to.”
“Listen to yourself,” Stuart says. “You sound like a robot! He’s your dad, not a military leader.”
“There’s a difference?”
“There should be. He’s your dad; you should be comfortable with him. I am, with my dad. He let my dye my hair and everything. He’s cool with it.”
“Our families are very different,” I remind him. I swallow, remembering. This Sarah isn’t going to be the latest addition, is she?
I see Wil sloping down the stairs, his Converse slapping the floor miserably, his long brown hair scraped over his face. He looks up, almost earnestly, when he spots Stuart.
“Hey, Aaron,” he says and I blink, surprised-was that a greeting? “Who’s this?”
I roll my eyes but Stuart flashes my baby brother a dazzling smile, showing of all his pearly teeth.
“I’m Stuart,” he introduces himself, still shooting out sparkling grins. “I’m Aaron’s friend.”
“Aaron’s friend?!”
“Yes, William, I am not completely incapable of communicating with the rest of the human race, you know.”
“Could have fooled me,” he snorts and then turns to Stuart. “Aaron’s a recluse, always shut and cold. You can barely get a nice word out of him.”
“Aw, I reckon I’m gonna be the one to thaw him out,” Stuart laughs, winking. “Oh, cheer up, Flower, stop sulking.”
”I’m not sulking,” I snap. “Come on, Wil, let’s go.”
I give him a push to get him going but he sighs loudly and doesn’t move.
“Don’t you huff at me! We need to go, otherwise Dad’ll be wondering where we are.”
“Dad’s on a date, you moron.”
“He said he might be back, stupid. I want to get home, come on.”
I give him another push, furious at him for making Stuart laugh at me. He’s still laughing, snorting through the gap in his teeth.
“What?” I snap ,enraged. I almost plant my hands on my hips in protest but decide it’s too childish.
“You two, arguing away! Ah, I wish I had a younger brother.”
“Feel free to frequently borrow mine for any length of time,” I offer. “He will not be missed.”
Wil pushes me now.
“Get off, you freak! Come on, we’re going home.”
“Oh, shut up, Aaron! You think just cause you’re older than me, you can tell me what to do-“
“Yeah, cause I can! Now, say bye- bye to Stuart and get your butt moving!”
Wil and I pout at the same time, which only fuels Stuart’s giggles.
“Oh, you can shut up too,” I groan. “You two are driving me mad!”
”Don’t pull that face,” Stuart coos. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Aaron!”
He skips away, blowing kisses as he goes and leaves me stranded, caught in a confused, embarrassed dream, with my ratty brother at my side, tugging at my sleeve and asking me why I’m blushing.
Wil is just as quizzical as we’re walking home, demanding answers. He seems very offended when I go off into my little dreams.
“Come on, Aaron! Stop being such a pain!”
“I am not being pain! You’re just jealous because I’ve got friends and you haven’t!”
“You have not got friends; don’t pretend to be that popular!”
“I have so! I’m not a freak like you!”
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Wil grins horribly. “I’ve heard Jamie Perryman and Aled Jones and Conner Murray. They all think you’re weird. They hate you.”
I behave childishly, I’ll admit to that. I give Wil a shove, yelling stuff at him and stalk off, down the short-cut instead of walking the proper way with my pig of a brother.
The short-cut to my house is through the cemetery. It’s an old, crumbling cemetery, dating back from the Victorian Ages. It’s not used for burials anymore and lays, an abandoned patch of gloom in the middle of my home-town. Nobody bothers to lock the gates anymore and I slip in, unnoticed. It’s silent, with only the birds disturbing the peace. The air’s very close today, the sun illuminating the dry bushes and mossy gravestones. I tread carefully in between graves, twigs snapping under my Converse boots. When home gets too much for me, or I feel lonelier than ever, I come down here, to the cemetery. There’s a stone bench under a dead willow but I sit in the hollow of a tree, in amongst the branches, where nobody can see me.
I just long to stay here, to sit in my tree, drawing my knees up to my chest and dream. After my many years of spending Break times and holidays alone, I’ve become an expert at dreaming. When we were holiday, Wil used to run down to the beach and play cricket or rugby with the other bullet-headed boys, falling and tumbling and brawling in the sand. I was often left out of these diversions, unless Mum forced Wil to include me. I didn’t want to join in and preferred to sit on a rock and dream. I had imagination and I would conjure up stories in my head. Dreaming has never let me down.
I can’t stop today though. If I stay in here too long, Wil will mooch off home and tell Dad I abandoned him which will land me in more trouble than I am already in. Sighing, I walk through the cemetery and out the stiff iron gates at the exit, walking out into the street leading to my home. Wil isn’t there so I cross over and walk home on my own. My pace dwindles as I get closer and closer to home. I’m reluctant to get there, to see my father…and maybe this Sarah with him.
I round the corner and see my father’s car is not in the driveway. There is no sparkling BMW parked up outside my house. He’s not back.
I should be happy. He hates me-he’ll just shout at me for something or other. I just can’t help the anger, the betrayal. He’s not home.
Wil is in his room when I get in, with Three Days Grace screaming from his iTunes. I walk into the kitchen, dragging off my tie and flinging my blazer across the worktop. I get a glass from the big cabinets over the aga and slope to the fridge, bringing out the cherry soda. There are two notes stuck to the fridge, one by Blu-tack and the other by a magnet from Barcelona. The first is from Mrs Luft, telling Dad she’s ironed all our laundry, thrown away the Greek salad in the fridge because it’s out of date, watered the plants in his study and bought him the bottles of wine he wanted. She also tells him to ask me to bring mugs back up to the kitchen when I’ve finished with them-she’s been in my room again.
The second note is from Dad, scrawled quickly on a Post-It.
I’ll be back by half-past-four. There’s cold chicken salad in the fridge.
Aaron, stay out of trouble
I glance at the clock-its four-o-clock now. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
At five, I make the salad for Wil and I, but neither of us each much. I do my homework, finish some painting and read a bit of a script, waiting.
I wait until half-past-ten and then I give up and go to bed.