Mr Kenny: ‘Go!’
Mr Kenny blew the whistle and we all started running. Lincoln Garwood fell straight away. I saw him trip himself up. It even looked real. He rolled over holding his foot. I heard the scream behind me. I kept on running.
Me and Brett Shawcross were in front. Everybody else was behind us. I was in lane 4 and Brett Shawcross was in lane 6. I didn’t know which one was the luckiest. It was very close. We were both trying our hardest, you could tell. It felt brutal. Brett Shawcross has Nikes. I only have Diadoras but I was still in front. I just looked straight ahead. I wanted to win more than anything.
Kyle Barnes gave up. He ran out of wind and fell over. Everybody else was miles behind.
Everything went proper quiet. It felt like I was in slow motion even if I knew I was going fast. My legs were burning, it didn’t feel like a race anymore, I was running for my life. If they caught me they’d tear me into little pieces. I just had to get away. I just had to win or it was all over.
When I went round the last bend I thought I was going to fall off, I had to slow down to stay in my lane. When I got onto the last straight I could go fast again but my breath was running out. I started going dizzy. I remembered the spirit in my trainers. I said a quick prayer inside my head:
Me: ‘Spirit, give me your blood! Give me your quickness! Don’t let me die!’
I could see the finish line. I was nearly there. Poppy was waiting for me, she was clapping me home. It was like the biggest energy. I felt the spirit come into my lungs. I made my legs go higher, my arms swish faster. I was Usain Bolt, I was Superman. I was still alive and they could never catch me. I blew my last breath out and stretched for the line. Brett Shawcross crashed into me and we both fell over. I closed my eyes and waited for the whistle.
Mr Kenny: ‘First place, Opoku! Shawcross second!’
I won! Asweh, I couldn’t believe it! I wanted to shout
‘Yes!’
but I had no breath left. I just lay on my back. The sky was so dizzy and the clouds were all racing around. My head was all itchy. I just wanted to watch the sky and sleep. I just wanted to go around again.
Brett Shawcross: ‘Well done. Good race.’
I could feel the biggest smile grow over my face like God just painted it there with a tickly brush. It was the dope-finest kind of sick I ever felt. I’m the fastest in Year 7. It’s even official. I can’t wait to tell Papa. When I stood up again everybody wanted to shake my hand, even Brett Shawcross and Mr Kenny. Poppy squeezed me for the longest time. Asweh, it felt like I was the king. Everybody admired me and nobody was waiting for me at the gate, they know they can’t touch me until the spell wears off. Asweh, I wish every day was just like this!
Auntie Sonia will have to hide in the boat. If they find her they’ll throw her over the side to the sharks. That’s what happens: first they cut you so the sharks can smell your blood, then they throw you in the sea to get eaten. A feeding frenzy is when all the sharks come together and fight over you. When they’re finished all that’s left is your bones and a blood slick.
Mamma: ‘You don’t have to go anywhere. You can stay here until you find somewhere else.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘And have Julius coming around here making trouble for everybody? I don’t want to get you any more involved than you are already.’
Mamma: ‘It’s too late for that. It has been ever since I took his money.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘I should never have told you about him.’
Mamma: ‘How else would I have made it here? Should I have planted a plane ticket tree? I’d still be at home putting my coins in a Milo tin, ten pesewa here, fifty there. I made the choice, nobody forced me. I did it for me, for these children. As long as I pay my debt they’re safe and sound. They grow up to reach further than I could ever carry them. I’m here now, let me help you. Just tell me what you need.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘Your stove. I can feel the old me growing back.’
Mamma: ‘It’s about time. I missed her.’
Auntie Sonia rubbed her fingers all sad and slow. I waited for the black and shiny to fall away like dead paint and the new old patterns to come back. If a skink gets his tail bitten off he just grows a new one, I read it in my reptiles book. A skink is well lucky.
Mamma: ‘You can’t keep running forever.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘No, but I could hop back to where I started and try again; this time I’ll pay the extra fifty dollars to get a boat with a driver knows the difference between fishermen and the coastguard. I tell you, you don’t want to know what a Libyan jail smells like, I still dream about that smell. Adjei, my leg’s itching like crazy! Pass me that pen.’
Auntie Sonia’s foot is in plaster up to the knee. I think it was the Persuader but Lydia thinks Julius ran over it in his car. Whoever’s right gets a hundred points. Auntie Sonia isn’t telling. She just says it was her fault for not getting out of the way. She let me draw a picture on the plaster, I tried to draw my pigeon for good luck but it came out more like a duck.
Auntie Sonia: ‘Anyway he’d never let me leave, I know too much. I should count my blessings, at least I can get decent painkillers, I’ve been eating Percocets like they were M&Ms, feels like I’m in the States again, it’s great. Can I have those back please, Doctor? Thank you!’
I had to give the crutches back. They were making me dizzy anyway. I opened the door for Auntie Sonia and checked the corridor for enemies. The coast was clear.
Auntie Sonia: ‘Have you seen what they did to your door?’
We all looked where Auntie Sonia was looking. It was there in big letters scratched into the wood:
DEAD
The letters were all sharp and skinny where they were written by a knife instead of a pen. My belly went cold before I could stop it.
Auntie Sonia: ‘Who did that?’
Me: ‘Probably a junkie. There’s millions of them around here.’
I followed the word with my fingers to feel for a clue. It was only for pretend: I knew already who did it and who it was meant for. Jordan’s always writing warnings with his war knife, it shows the enemy he means business and freaks them out. At least I’m not scared of the stringy bits on the banana. I always eat them. Jordan always pulls them off. It’s only banana string, it can’t even hurt you. Jordan’s not even that tough. I got a splinter from the A but it didn’t hurt.
Lydia: ‘You should see what they wrote on the stairs. I F—ed God Up The Arse.’ (She only whispered it for if Mamma sounded us.)
Auntie Sonia: ‘Lydia!’
Lydia: ‘I’m just telling it.’
Me: ‘Who’ll feed your tree if you go away?’
Auntie Sonia: ‘I can take it with me, it’s only plastic.’
Asweh, it even made me feel sick. I never knew the tree was plastic. I thought it was a real tree. It was a mean trick.
Me: ‘Why do they make trees from plastic? It’s just crazy.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘They’re easier to look after. Real trees need food and the right kind of weather. You can take a plastic tree anywhere and it doesn’t die if you forget to feed it. They’re for people who can’t be trusted with a living tree.’
Mamma: ‘Don’t say that.’
Auntie Sonia: ‘You know it’s true.’
It’s actually a good idea when you think about it. It’s safer than a real tree. A plastic tree is only a lie if it pretends to be a real tree, if you know it’s plastic then it can’t be a lie.
Some superheroes were born that way. Superman came from a planet where everybody had powers. Storm and Cyclops and Iceman had the X-gene all along.
Altaf: ‘It’s just in their blood from when they’re born. They started showing their powers when they were still babies.’
Me: ‘Wicked!’
Altaf: ‘I like it better when they were born normal. Like Spiderman, he was just normal until the spider bit him. He didn’t even want to be special. He just wanted to get on with his life. But then when he got his powers he realised he needed them all along.’
Me: ‘How?’
Altaf: ‘He needed to be strong for when the bad crimes started happening. He didn’t even know they were coming but God knew all along. God sent the spider to make him ready. I wish it would happen all the time like that. I could have saved my papa then.’
Me: ‘Why, what happened to him?’
Altaf: ‘He died in the war.’
Me: ‘Did you see it? Did the helicopters have guns on them?’
Altaf: ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see them, we ran away before the Ethiopians came. I heard the tanks though. They were well loud, it was like an earthquake. My papa was going to follow us when the fighting finished but he got hit with a rocket. They weren’t trying to get him, he just got in the way. He just went into smoke. If I had my powers I could catch the rocket but it wasn’t my turn yet. I didn’t even know about superheroes then, nobody told me until I came here.’
Altaf went back to his drawing. It looked like half a man and half a lion. I bet he calls it Lion Man. Altaf is the best drawrer by far.
Me: ‘You should give him night eyes. Lions can see in the dark.’
Altaf: ‘I’m going to.’
Me: ‘Guess what: Snake Man is real, I saw him.’
Altaf: ‘Where?’
Me: ‘It was on YouTube. I actually saw him being born. Just type in snake eats boy and you’ll see it. Don’t worry, he spits him back out again. It’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. I knew it was real.’
Altaf: ‘Wicked!’
I like it better when they’re born normal. Then it could happen to anybody. It could even happen to me, I just need to meet a radioactive spider or eat the right poison. I’d ask for invisible, flying, mind-reading and superstrength. They’re the best powers for winning wars and catching the killer. I won’t have a costume though, it would just bring attention on myself. The costumes just look gay.
I hope we don’t get homework in the big holiday. That would suck. Everybody agreed.
Connor Green: ‘That would suck arse.’
Kyle Barnes: ‘Definitely.’
Me: ‘Too right. It would suck bigtime.’
When something sucks it means it’s the worst. It comes from America. We made a spell. It was me and Dean and Connor Green and Kyle Barnes.
Dean: ‘If we don’t step on any cracks for the rest of term, then the holidays will be sunny every day and we won’t get any homework. Agreed?’
All of us: ‘Agreed!’
The first one to step on a crack gets their head flushed down the toilet. If you only do tiny penguin steps you can stop yourself before you get to the crack. It’s safer like that. The big holiday will be brilliant. We’re going to the zoo first. Papa and Agnes and Grandma Ama will be here by then. Sometimes you even get to feed the penguins. Agnes is going to laugh her head off, she’s never seen one before. Agnes gives the best cuddles even when she puts her finger in your nose.
Then I’m going on a mighty long bike ride. It will just be me and Dean. We’ll ride our new bikes that we bought with the reward. We’ll leave early in the morning and we won’t come back until it’s proper dark. We’re going to ride all around London, to the Eye and the palace and the dinosaur museum.
Dean: ‘We can hide in the T-Rex ribs, then we can jump out when they close up for the night and we’ll have the place all to ourselves. That’d be wicked.’
Me: ‘Yeah, that would be well good, especially if everything comes alive.’
Dean: ‘We don’t want the T-Rex to come to life though, he’d eat the shit out of us.’
Me: ‘Too right!’
We borrowed Lydia’s phone. I only didn’t tell her because it’s classified police business. I was in charge of filming. I pointed the camera at Dean. I got ready to snap if the dead boy’s spirit came back. We were checking the basketball court because the dead boy used to hang out there. It was my idea to try and catch his spirit on camera. A piece of the dead person’s spirit always stays in the places he knew, even if his soul has already gone to Heaven. It might only be a tiny piece but sometimes if you look hard enough you can feel it.
Me: ‘It’s like when you go in a puddle and then when you come out you make a footprint on dry land. For as long as it takes for the footprint to dry up and disappear, that’s how long your spirit stays on the ground. It’s the same when you die, except it lasts a lot longer because your whole body and all your feelings and thoughts were there, and they weigh a lot more than just a footprint.’
Dean: ‘I get it, I get it. Just hurry up.’
I held the dead boy’s picture for extra energy. I said a prayer inside my head for him to find us. If we could bring him back just long enough for him to tell us what happened, if he could give us the name of who chooked him, then we’d have all the proof we needed and he could rest in peace for ever after.
Me: ‘Are you feeling anything yet?’
Dean: ‘Yeah, f—ing stupid. It’s not working, man. Come on, let’s go.’
Me: ‘Keep trying. Pretend like you’re the dead boy. Pretend like you can feel what he felt and see what he saw. It works better if you concentrate.’
The dead boy was brilliant at basketball. One time he scored a basket from one end of the court to the other. Asweh, it was a one in a million shot. You’ll never see one like that again. Everybody said it was a fluke but he just smiled like he planned it all along. He didn’t even bluff about it, he just carried on playing. X-Fire kept calling him a poser but he didn’t even listen to him. When X-Fire and Killa started pushing him he just pushed them back. He wasn’t scared of anything.
X-Fire: ‘F—ing poser. Anyone could’ve made that shot.’
Dead boy: ‘Go on then, let’s see you make it.’
X-Fire: ‘F— off, man, don’t be fronting me.’
Killa: ‘We’ll f—ing batter you.’
Dead boy: ‘Easy now, children. Play nice, yeah?’
I was watching from outside. I could see it all happening through the fence. First X-Fire pushed the dead boy, then Killa pushed him. Then the dead boy pushed Killa, then X-Fire pushed the dead boy again. They were all red-eyes by now. The pushing just got faster. It felt quite crazy. The dead boy pushed Killa so hard he fell back and his T-shirt got twisted and you could see the handle of the screwdriver sticking out from the back of his pant. You could even hear the slaps. Nobody was going to stop, it was like somebody pressed the wrong button and now they had to keep pushing until they ran out of batteries. All the other players just stood and watched. Most of them were smaller kids like me. They only stopped when one of them tried to steal the dead boy’s bike. He had to chase after him to get his bike back.