Pigeon English (6 page)

If the killer threw the knife in the river it could be gone to the sea by now. It could already be too late. Asweh, it was very nervous. I didn’t want them to get away with it. We went quiet again for better searching.

There’s even no fish in the river. It made me feel proper sad. There should be fish even if they’re not tasty ones. There’s no ducks left either, the smaller kids killed them with a screwdriver. The babies just got crushed. We didn’t see the murder weapon. We only saw a wheel from a bike all rusty and bent up. Next time we’ll bring torchlights and gloves for digging in the sharpest weeds.

The launderette is a shop just for washing machines. It’s at the bottom of Luxembourg House. The washing machines don’t belong to any one person, they’re for everybody who lives in the flats. You have to pay them money to make them work. Every machine is big enough to fit a person inside. One day I’m going to try it. I’m going to sleep inside it, it’s one of my alltime ambitions.

You can use any machine, it doesn’t have to be the same one every time. My favourite is the one nearest the window, somebody wrote a poem on it:

Round and round my skivvies go,

Where they stop, nobody knows.

Round and round go my smalls,

A lovely hammock for my balls.

We have to pretend we didn’t see it or Mamma will make us use another machine.

The clothes take donkey hours to wash. Me and Lydia play a game. We watch the clothes going round in the other people’s machines. Whenever we see a pant it’s a hundred points. If we see a bra it’s a thousand. You have to be very quiet when you call them out so Mamma doesn’t find out about the game. You have to shout in a whisper.

Me: ‘Pant!’

Lydia: ‘Where?’

Me: ‘There, look! The white ones.’

Lydia: ‘They’re the same ones!’

Me: ‘No, those had little flowers on. These are plain, see. A hundred points!’

Lydia: ‘Confusionist!’

One time I saw a pair of cowboy boots. They were pink. The lady was actually washing them in the washing machine! It was brilliant. It was a million points. Lydia will never beat me now. You’ll never see pink cowboy boots again as long as you live.

Altaf is very quiet. Nobody really knows him. You’re not supposed to talk to Somalis because they’re pirates. Everybody agrees. If you talk to them you might give away a clue to where you keep your treasure and the next thing you know, your wife has been strangled alive and they’re throwing you to the sharks. Me and Altaf don’t have to go to RE. Mamma doesn’t want me to hear about the false gods, she says it’s a waste of time, and Altaf’s mamma thinks the same thing. Instead of doing RE we go to the library. You’re supposed to study but normally we just read a book. It was me who started talking first. I just wanted to know what Altaf thinks. Would he rather be a robot or a human.

Me: ‘I think a human’s better because you get to eat all the fine food. Robots never get to eat any of it, they don’t need food.’

Altaf: ‘But a robot’s better because you can’t get killed.’

Me: ‘That’s true.’

In the end both the two of us decided we’d rather be a robot.

Altaf’s going to design cars when he grows up. You should see his drawings, they’re bo-styles. He’s always drawing cars and crazy things. He drew a 4×4 with a gun at the back.

Altaf: ‘It’s so the enemies can’t get you. It’s a special gun that never runs out of bullets. And all the windows and the body’s all bulletproof too, a tank could even drive over it and it wouldn’t get squashed.’

Me: ‘Nice! If they make a car like that I’ll definitely buy it!’

I don’t think Altaf can be a pirate if he can’t even swim. He’s scared of the water even with armbands on.

Mamma doesn’t like the shows, she says there’s too much jibber-jabber. Her only favourite show is the news. Somebody dies on the news every day. It’s nearly always a child. Sometimes they’re chooked like the dead boy and sometimes they’re shot or run over by a car. One time a little girl got eaten by a dog. They showed a picture of the dog and he looked just like Harvey. The little girl must have pulled his tail. Dogs only attack people who are cruel to them. Somebody should have told her to never pull a dog’s tail, they don’t like it. Nobody told her and that’s why she’s dead.

Mamma likes it best when it’s a child who died. That’s when she prays the hardest. She prays proper hard and squeezes you until you think you’re going to burst. Grown-ups love sad news, it gives them something special to pray for. That’s why the news is always sad. They haven’t found the dead boy’s killer yet.

Newsman: ‘Police are still appealing for witnesses.’

Me: ‘What do you think the killer looks like?’

Mamma: ‘I don’t know. He could be anybody.’

Me: ‘Do you think he’s black or white?’

Mamma: ‘I don’t know.’

Me: ‘I bet it’s one of the junkies from the pub.’

Mamma: ‘Where did you get that from? Lydia, why do you tell him these things?’

Lydia: ‘How! I didn’t tell him anything!’

A killer is the same all over the world, they never change. They have little piggy eyes and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes they have gold teeth and spiderwebs on their neck. Their eyes are red. They’re always spitting and they get their blood from the shadows. The pub is probably full up of killers but we’ll only look for the one who killed the dead boy, he’s the only one we knew. If we caught him it would be like getting Forever back. It would be like everything still works the way it’s supposed to. I’ll wait until Dean comes with me so he can be my backup. Detectives only work in pairs, it’s just safer like that.

If a dog attacks you, the best way to stop it is to put your finger up its bumhole. There’s a secret switch up the dog’s bumhole that when you touch it their mouth opens automatically and they let go of whatever they were biting. Connor Green told us. After he told us, everybody called Connor Green a pervert because he goes around putting his finger up dogs’ bumholes.

Kyle Barnes: ‘Pervert!’

Brayden Campbell: ‘Dogf—er!’

Nathan Boyd can get three jawbreakers in his mouth at the same time. Everybody knows if you swallow one you’ll die but he doesn’t even care. Nathan Boyd isn’t scared of anything. We always try to think of a bigger dare for him to do. It always has to be bigger than before.

Kyle Barnes: ‘You have to run through the whole school shouting hairy bollocks.’

Me: ‘You have to throw somebody’s pen out the window.’

Connor Green: ‘You have to lick that crack spoon.’

There was a spoon on the grass near the main gate. It was all bent and burned. It was the most disgusting spoon in the world.

Connor Green: ‘You have to put it all the way in your mouth and suck it.’

Nathan Boyd: ‘I’m not sucking that, it’s got crack on it.’

Kyle Barnes: ‘Pussy.’

Nathan Boyd: ‘F— off. Can I wipe it first?’

Connor Green: ‘No, you have to suck it like that.’

Nathan Boyd: ‘Why don’t you suck it? You’re used to sucking dicks.’

Kyle Barnes: ‘Don’t try and pussy out. You can’t ask us to dare you and not do the dare.’

Me: ‘You asked us.’

Nathan Boyd: ‘F— it then.’

Nathan licked the spoon. He gave it one good lick then he threw it away. I thought he was going to puke but he didn’t.

Kyle Barnes: ‘That wasn’t even a suck, that was only a lick!’

Nathan Boyd: ‘You suck it then.’

Nobody else would suck the spoon. Nobody else would even touch it again. Nathan Boyd is the bravest in Year 7, it’s even official. But even Nathan Boyd wouldn’t dare to set the fire alarm off. When the alarm goes off for real, the firemen have to come to put out the fire. Even if there’s not really a fire they still have to check. If it’s a false alarm and they find out who did it they go to jail. It’s a crime to set off the alarm if there’s no real fire because while the firemen are checking there could be a real fire somewhere else and somebody could die.

X-Fire: ‘You sure you ready for this? You ain’t gotta do it if you ain’t got the balls.’

If I was in the Dell Farm Crew Vilis couldn’t abuse me anymore. If I wanted to swap my trainers the other person would have to do it and there’d be no swapping back. I gave my cheesecake to Manik. I got out first. There were some people in the library but the corridor was empty.

X-Fire: ‘Just break the glass, innit. It’s easy, it’s only plastic.’

Me: ‘What if it doesn’t break the first time?’

Dizzy: ‘Just keep going till it does. We need to know you’ve got what it takes.’

X-Fire: ‘We’ll back you up, innit. I’ll tell you if someone’s coming.’

It’s best to use the side of your hand and not the knuckles. I can’t run until the alarm has gone off. Everything went proper quiet. I could feel my heart going proper fast like a crazy drum, my mouth tasted like metal. Some people came past. I had to wait until they were gone. Hurry up hurry up hurry up! Sharp-sharp! I wanted to ease myself but there was no time.

X-Fire and Dizzy were waiting at the doors.

X-Fire: ‘Go on! Put some hustle in it!’

I bashed the alarm. I did it proper hard but the glass wouldn’t break. It just made my hand go funny. I tried pressing the glass with my thumb but it wouldn’t do anything. I wanted a hammer. I wanted to run. I looked around for help but X-Fire and Dizzy were gone, all I could hear was them laughing in the distance.

Dizzy: ‘Pussy boy!’

I just went red-eyes. I bashed the glass again. It was no good. I just didn’t have the blood. I just wanted to get away before somebody saw me. I ran down the stairs. My legs went like rubber. I thought I was going to crash but I kept going. I ran all the way down the stairs and under the bridge to the Humanities block. I made it to the toilets. Safe. My belly felt proper sick. I think the Dell Farm Crew are my enemy now. That’s what happens when you fail your mission. Adjei, my hands are too soft for everything!

Mr Frimpong is the loudest singer in church, even if he’s the oldest. He always sings the hardest from all of us. He just wants his voice to be the first one that God hears.

It’s not even fair. What if he sings so loud that God can’t hear anybody else? Then Mr Frimpong will get all their favours as well. It’s not fair when you think about it. He gets proper sweaty because he always wears a tie and his top button buttoned up.

Lydia: ‘He probably wears a tie in the bath.’

Me: ‘Don’t be disrespectful!’

Lydia: ‘Shut up, creep!’

Mr Frimpong got so sweaty he actually fell down. He went asleep and everything. The aunties all fought each other to be the first one to help him. Pastor Taylor had to slap his face to wake him up. When he woke up the aunties said Praise God. But I think it was God who sent him asleep in the first place. He probably didn’t like his singing anymore, it’s too loud.

That’s why they put cages on the windows. It’s not to stop the rogues throwing stones, it’s to stop the windows breaking from Mr Frimpong’s singing.

We said another prayer for the dead boy’s mamma and one for the police that God will give them the insight to catch the killer.

Me: ‘What’s insight?’

Pastor Taylor: ‘It means wisdom. It is a great gift God has given us.’

Mr Tomlin is probably the wisest person I know. I have him for Science. He can make a battery out of a lemon. I’m not even bluffing, he really did it: all you do is put the penny in one end of the lemon and the nail in the other end. The acid in the lemon juice is electric. The penny and the nail are conductors. Conductors make the electricity come alive. When we connected four lemons together they made enough power for the light to come on. It was quite amazing. Everybody cheered. If Mr Tomlin worked for the police they’d catch the killer in no time.

I prayed for the insight so I’d ask the right questions. Dean doesn’t believe in it so I prayed for both the two of us.

Dean: ‘Can you do one for us not getting our heads kicked in?’

Me: ‘We’ll be alright, don’t worry. They won’t kill us today, they’re too busy getting boozed.’

It was very risky but interviewing suspects is all part of the job. If you’re going to get scared all the time then you’ve got no business being a detective, you should just hand in your badge and go home. The pub smelled like all the beer in the world even from outside. We tried not to breathe in for if we got boozed (Dean says it clouds your judgement). Everybody who went in or came out could be the killer. They all looked at us like a hungry vampire. We just stayed by the door. As long as we keep one foot on the pavement we’re safe.

Dean: ‘Who are we looking for exactly?’

Me: ‘I don’t know. I think he was black but I’m not sure. I only saw one hand when he bent down to get the knife. It could have been a glove. I was quite far away.’

Dean: ‘Let’s just start with the black ones then. What about him?’

Me: ‘No, too tall. Our man was shorter.’

Dean: ‘Roger that. Alright, this one?’

There was a man by the fruit machine (it doesn’t actually give you fruit, it’s just a game they play in the pub. You feed the machine some money and it makes all the lights flash). He didn’t have any spiderwebs but he did have an earring and his eyes looked deadly like he wanted to destroy everybody. He was shaking the machine to make the lights come on and swearing. Killers always have a quick temper.