Nish’s wife fell over. The policeman pushed her, I saw it with my own two eyes. Her shoe fell off. I picked it up for her. She was crying. Her toenails were painted red. They looked crazy and lovely. Her lips were red as well. There was meat everywhere. People were stealing it. I wanted to kill them.
Noddy: ‘Oi, put that back, you thieving bastard!’
Pisshead: ‘F— off, baldy!’
More policemen came to stop the thieves. They locked up Nish’s van so nobody could get inside. Then they took Nish and his wife away. They put chains on their arms. Both the two of them were crying now. It made my belly go cold. Nish is from Pakistan, I saw the flag in his van. It has a star and a moon, it’s my second favourite flag after Ghana.
When there’s a star on a flag it stands for freedom. The star points in all directions, it means you can go anywhere you want. That’s why I love stars, because they stand for freedom.
Me: ‘Did they poison somebody?’
Noddy: ‘No, they didn’t poison nobody.’
Me: ‘Why are they taking them away? I don’t get it.’
Lydia: ‘Advise yourself. You’re so lame.’
Noddy: ‘They just lost their ticket, that’s all.’
Me: ‘What ticket?’
Dean’s mamma: ‘I never knew they was illegal. Their mince’s better than the crap you get off the butcher’s. His is all fatty.’
Noddy: ‘I s’pose their luck had to run out sometime. Three pound please love. I can do you a discount if you buy another lot, three for four pound.’
Dean’s mamma: ‘Go on then.’
Dean’s mamma was buying socks. You can get them with all different sports men on the top, like one playing tennis and one playing football and one riding a bike. I’ve even got them myself. I bet you a million pounds they’re for Dean.
Me: ‘What will happen to them now, will they send them back? Is there a market in Pakistan?’
Lydia: ‘Of course there is, stupid. There’s a market everywhere.’
Me: ‘Do they have trains that go under the ground?’
Noddy: ‘I don’t know about that one.’
I hope they do. I hope Pakistan is as nice as here. If I had to go home I’d miss the tube the most. And my friends. Poppy likes it the most when I chase the clouds away for her. I just kept watching the cloud until it moved and the sun came out again. Poppy didn’t believe it was me, she thought it was just the wind. I still think it was me.
Me: What ticket were they talking about? Have we got one?’
Lydia: ‘He means a visa. He only said ticket because he thinks you’re stupid. Oh, I forgot, you are stupid.’
Me: ‘Is it the same visa Julius sells? I heard him talking on the phone one time. He said he can sell a visa for five hundred. Why doesn’t Nish just buy one, then he can stay.’
Lydia: ‘You can’t really buy them. The ones Julius sells are no good.’
Me: ‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’
Lydia: ‘They don’t work, they’re fakes. Forget about Julius, he’s a crook. If you bought a chicken from him by the time you got home it would just be an egg again.
Me: ‘Our visa works though, doesn’t it?’
Lydia: ‘Yes.’
Me: ‘Are you sure?’
Lydia: ‘Yes, I’m sure! Don’t disturb!’
I hope our visa works. If they try to take us away I’ll just go invisible, then when they can’t see me I’ll sneak up behind them and get their acid spray and spray them until they burn away to ashes. I wish I thought of it before Nish’s wife got her head trod on.
The next time I see Dean I’ll ask him how he likes his new socks. If I think they’re bo-styles then so will he.
Connor Green says Mr Staines’s real first name is Seaman. It’s because he was in the navy. I don’t even believe it. Mr Staines is too fat to be in the navy, he’d sink right down to the bottom. I can remember all my French now without looking in the book. I can make a whole conversation. Mr Staines even says my accent is very good. I only know one conversation. It’s for when you meet somebody for the first time, to tell them who you are:
Me: ‘Je m’appelle Harrison Opoku. J’ai onze ans. J’habite à Londres. J’ai deux soeurs. J’aime le football.’
Do you want to know what it means? It means, My name is Harrison Opoku. I’m eleven years old. I live in London. I have two sisters. I like football. It sounds better when you say it. Just writing it’s not as much fun.
The first thing everybody would do if they went to France is go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and do a massive spit. We all agreed. Only Connor Green would do a piss instead.
Connor Green: ‘Except the people at the bottom would probably try and catch it. They drink piss in France, innit. They think it makes them live longer. Thick bastards.’
Jordan was the first choice for a spit sample because he loves spitting so much. It wouldn’t even be hard to get a sample, he’d just give it to me straight away.
Jordan: ‘F— off man, I ain’t spitting in that!’
Me: ‘It’s clean.’
Jordan: ‘I don’t care. What you want my spit for anyway, what you gonna do with it?’
I bit my lips to stop the smile coming. Lying is OK if it’s for a good reason.
Me: ‘It’s for my Science project, to test how well germs survive in spit. You get loads of different spits and you put the germs in them, and the spit that kills the germs first is the special one. You could have a cure for something in your spit. It could make you a fortune.’
Jordan: ‘I don’t wanna be a cure, let ’em die, I don’t give a f—. Just get it away from me, man.’
I threw the bottle in the bin. Another idea bites the dust! Adjei, nobody wants to help the investigation. It makes you feel like everybody’s the bad guy except you. It’s very lonely. I haven’t even got a favourite gun yet. I haven’t really thought about it. If I had to choose it would probably be a supersoaker. They sell them at the market. They only fire water. It’s proper brutal, the water goes really far. You have to ask the person for permission before you soak them for if they don’t like it, otherwise there’ll be a ruckus. I’m going to get one in the summer holidays.
Jordan’s favourite gun is a Glock.
Jordan: ‘It’s what all the toughest gangsters use. Have you seen it?’
Me: ‘No. What’s it like?’
Jordan: ‘It’s the sickest, man. It’s the most powerful. If I shot you with a Glock it’d take your head off. It shoots dumb-dumbs, innit.’
Me: ‘What the hell are they?’
Jordan: ‘They’re these special bullets that can go through walls and everything. It’s well deadly. That’s the first gun I’m gonna get when I’ve got the cash.’
Me: ‘Me as well.’
Jordan: ‘You can’t have a Glock, it’s mine. You didn’t even know about it till I told you.’
Me: ‘I still love it.’
Jordan: ‘Yeah, well not as much as me. I love them the most.’
We were waiting for the bus to come. We were at the bus stop opposite the flats. If you wait inside the bus stop they can’t even see you. You only jump out when the bus is coming, then it’s a mighty surprise. They don’t even have time to stop you.
You get ten points for every time you hit the bus anywhere. You get fifty points for hitting a window. If you hit the big window at the front where the driver sits it’s a hundred points. If the window breaks it’s a thousand.
If you hit the tyre and it goes down and the bus crashes it would be a million points but nobody has ever done it. It’s next to impossible.
Jordan’s better at throwing. He can get more power. It’s only because he beat me to the smoothest stones. I only had pointy stones and they’re not aerodynamic (aerodynamic means it flies through the air better. My stones weren’t aerodynamic because they’re too sharp).
Jordan has seen a Glock in real life. He even held it. It was one of his missions for the Dell Farm Crew. He had to bury a gun.
Jordan: ‘They always keep a gun buried somewhere for when they need it. They’ve got loads of them all over the place, innit.’
Me: ‘Why don’t they just keep it in their house?’
Jordan: ‘Don’t be a retard, what if the police found it?’
Me: ‘Did you shoot it?’
Jordan: ‘No, there weren’t no bullets in it. You keep the bullets somewhere else, you don’t keep ’em with the gun. I still fired it though. I pulled the trigger and everything. It was well sick.’
Jordan loved it, you could tell. His eyes went all big. He says it’s safer to bury the gun in somebody’s garden because only they go in there. If you buried it on the green where lots of people go, it’s a bigger chance that somebody will find it and take it away.
They don’t even know the person who owns the garden. They don’t even ask them. It’s usually an old person. Then they don’t know anything about it. If somebody asks them about a gun they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s just safer like that.
Jordan: ‘You always bury it at night. You pick somewhere quiet where there’s no streetlights and that. Only bury it a little way down, like next to a flower or a rock or something so you remember where you put it. You’ve gotta be well quick though; if you’re followed it’s game over, they’ll kill you for giving the hiding place away. I only done it two times.’
Asweh, planting a gun just felt too crazy! At least if you’re planting plants they’ll grow into something. A gun doesn’t even grow into anything. I pretended like I planted a gun and a lot of baby guns grew up from the ground. Then I sold them at the market.
Me: ‘Get your baby guns here! Two pound a pound! Baby guns, nice and fresh!’
It was very funny. Planting a gun is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of, I swear by almighty God.
You should always know where to find a gun if you’re in a hurry, you never know when you’ll need it. You’ll mostly need it for a war or to do a robbery with. It makes the robbery easier.
Jordan: ‘If they see a gun they won’t give you no shit, innit, they’ll be so scared they’ll give you whatever you want. It’s easy, man.’
You don’t even have to shoot it, you only have to point it at them. The gun just makes everything easier.
Jordan: ‘I can’t wait to shoot someone though, man. I’d shoot them in the face, innit. I wanna see their head explode, that’d be wicked. I wanna see their eyes pop out and their brains splash all over the place. Bus!’
The bus was coming. We got ready. I had my stones in both hands. I waited for Jordan’s command. My heart was going proper fast. I was aiming for the side, Jordan was aiming for the big window at the front. You’re not allowed to run until you’ve thrown all your stones. I waited. The bus was slowing down.
I needed to break a window. I needed a thousand points to catch up.
Jordan: ‘Now!’
We jumped out. Jordan threw his first stone. It hit the big window but it didn’t smash. I threw all my stones together. I didn’t even aim them, I just threw them as fast and as hard as I could. The first one missed but the second one hit the side and bounced off. There were people getting off the bus. They didn’t even try to stop us.
Jordan: ‘F—ers!’
Jordan threw his second stone. It whizzed past someone’s head and hit the edge of the window. The bus driver got red-eyes, we could see him. It looked like he was going to burst out of his skin. Asweh, it was brutal. I only went cold when I saw Mamma coming. She was getting off the bus. She looked right at me. I don’t even know how it happened, it was the worst luck ever.
Jordan: ‘Leg it!’
We just ran. I was too scared to turn around. I wanted to puke. I didn’t stop until we got to the tunnel. We got our breaths back.
Jordan: ‘All mine hit. One on the window and one on the edge, a couple on the side. What about yours?’
Me: ‘I don’t know. One on the side I think, that’s all.’
Jordan: ‘You’re shit, man! I win!’
Me: ‘My stones were too sharp, that’s the only reason.’
I didn’t even care. I don’t even need the points that much. We got to the other side of the tunnel. Mamma was waiting for us. My belly went cold again. Everything was finished.
Mamma: ‘Ho! What do you think you’re doing? Tell me I didn’t just see that. What do you have to say?’
Me: ‘Sorry, Mamma.’
Mamma: ‘You stupid boy. I go sound you. Get yourself home right now.’
Mamma started pushing me. Jordan started laughing. I just wanted to die.
Mamma: ‘And you’ll stay away from this boy.’
Me: ‘It was an accident. We were only playing around.’
Mamma: ‘He’s a waste of time. If I see you around this boy again there’ll be big trouble.’
Mamma pushed me to the door of my tower. Just as I looked behind me the spit hit me in the face. I even felt it go in my eye.
Jordan: ‘There’s your sample, pussy boy!’
Jordan gave me the dirty finger, then Mamma. I wiped my eye with my sleeve before the germs got inside my brain. Now me and Jordan are enemies for life. It all happened too quick.
Me: ‘Fuck off!’
I don’t even know who I was aiming at, Jordan or Mamma. I didn’t even care anymore. I could feel the words when they came out, they were all dry and sharp like knives. It was hutious but I couldn’t stop it now.
Mamma: ‘What did you just say? I go beat the black off you!’
Mamma sounded me. It made thunder in my ears like the sky god’s birthday.
Mamma: ‘Don’t ever let me hear that word coming from your mouth again. I don’t need your nonsense. Advise yourself, Harrison. Have a think about what you’ve done.’
I know what I did, I ruined everything. It’s all broken and it’s my fault. I knew it was true, I could feel it deep down. I should have been good. I should have been good but I let myself forget and now God’s going to destroy us. He’ll probably kill Agnes first just to teach me. I couldn’t breathe right. I didn’t even want to. I practised what it would feel like to be dead. I held my breath for as long as I could but it felt too crazy. It made my head go proper blurry and I had to start breathing again. I’d ask for a hell of air holes in my coffin. It would be easier, that’s all. They could be the windows of the aeroplane.
Your superstitions tickle me, I see it all the time in the touching of buttons, the scattering of salt. It’s kind of sweet, you think if you dress death in costume and ritual he’ll defect to your side. You think you can distract him just by making more of yourselves, keep chipping off the old block and blind him with the splinters. So don’t throw stones, we’re just doing what comes naturally. I puff out my neck feathers, keep bowing. A bit of tail-dragging to bring her under my spell. See these colours, this strong breast? Our children will be champions, immune to all those
—osises
and
—coccuses
that ravaged your forebears. That’s it, put your beak in mine, this will only take a few seconds. Bingo!