Fifty Fifty (13 page)

Louis watched in astonishment as Gil held the sausage above his plate for several seconds.

‘What are you
doing
?’ he said.

‘Thinking,’ Gil said sharply.

After all, he thought, gazing hungrily at the sausage, Dad couldn’t control everything he did at school. He could be vegetarian at home and carnivorous here and Dad wouldn’t know any
different. Unless someone told him. Like Louis, the blabbermouth. But then Jude was a vegan, and that was really something to look up to. Gil had told Jude he was a vegetarian now, and if he wanted
Jude to take him seriously he ought to stick to his promise. In any case, who knew what suffering the pig had been put through before it was turned into school dinners?

Gil dropped the sausage on to Louis’ plate and moved on.

‘You’re weird,’ said Louis as they slid into the plastic canteen seats. ‘Why have you only got chips and beans?’

‘I’m a vegetarian,’ said Gil.

‘Since when?’

‘Since yesterday.’

‘Don’t you like meat any more?’ Louis speared a sausage with a fork and waggled it under Gil’s nose. ‘Look – meat! Lovely meat!’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Gil. ‘I just think it’s wrong to kill animals for food.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is, you loser.’

Gil never bothered coming up with proper answers for Louis. Louis wasn’t Dad. He never really argued. He agreed with pretty much anything anyone told him.

‘I don’t think I could give up meat,’ said Louis thoughtfully through a mouthful of sausage. He watched Gil eating chips for a while and then said suddenly, ‘You can chew
all right, then? With your massive filling.’

‘What?’ It took Gil a moment to remember his imaginary dentist’s appointment. ‘Oh, yeah. It’s fine.’ He patted his cheek.

‘Wow! That’s great!’ said Louis, his voice full of fake relief.

Gil waited until they were in the playground after lunch before he showed Louis the leaflets Jude had given him. He had a pretty good idea of how Louis would react, and he wasn’t
disappointed.

‘Oh my God, Gil!’ Louis howled. ‘What are you trying to do, make me throw up?’

There was a picture of another monkey on the leaflet, but this one looked as if the top of its skull had been sliced right off. A drop of blood oozed down its forehead.

‘This is one of the reasons I’m a vegetarian,’ said Gil.

‘It’s gross,’ said Louis, studying the photo with a frown. ‘Is it real?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes they make these things up to shock you, don’t they? Or they make it look worse than it is, anyway. Hey, I read about this horrible thing they do
with monkeys! I can’t remember where now. It’s some place where they like to eat monkey’s brains, but they like them really fresh. So they get a monkey, and they saw the top of
its head off, so you can see the brains – just like the one in this picture – and then they give you a spoon. Like you were going to eat a boiled egg. And the monkey’s still
alive
. How gross is that?’

‘You just made that up.’

‘No, I didn’t. It’s true.’

‘Look, forget about all that rubbish,’ said Gil. ‘This monkey is from a lab where they do animal experiments. Don’t you think
that’s
horrible?’

‘What sort of experiments?’ Louis looked interested. ‘Why do you think they’ve taken the top of its skull off?’

‘Just to torture it, probably.’

‘There must be a reason. They wouldn’t do it for nothing. I wonder what they were trying to find out?’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? The monkey’s in pain. It’s horrendous.’

‘How do you know it’s in pain?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Louis! How would you feel if you had the top of your bloody head cut off and someone was poking about in your brains?’

‘That depends what bit of the brain they were poking about in,’ said Louis seriously. ‘I saw a programme about it.

You can stimulate loads of different bits of the brain, even really deep inside it. But it only hurts if you stimulate the pain centres. The rest of it doesn’t hurt at all.’

‘You mean you don’t
care
that animals get randomly chopped up like this?’

Louis wiggled his head. ‘I don’t know, really. I mean, what if you find out something important – you know, something that’s going to cure AIDS or cancer or whatever, and
save millions of lives? I think it’s kind of fifty-fifty for and against. It’s complicated, isn’t it?’

‘No. It’s not complicated at all. It’s incredibly simple. Animal experiments should be banned.’

Gil waited for Louis to give in and agree, but he didn’t say anything.

‘So are you going to help me hand out these leaflets or what?’ Gil said after a while.

‘What are you on about?’

‘I’ve got a whole stack of leaflets.’ Gil thrust a hand into his bag and pulled some out. ‘I’m going to give one to every single person in this school.’

‘Where did you get these from?’ asked Louis. ‘Is this what you were up to this morning?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Gil said, sarcastically. ‘There was a big pile of them at the dentist, so I just helped myself.’ He offered a handful of leaflets to Louis but Louis
didn’t take them.

‘I don’t know about handing them out,’ said Louis. ‘I’m sure we’re not supposed to do stuff like that. We’ll get into trouble, won’t
we?’

‘Oh, come on, Louis. It’s not a big deal. The most we’ll get is a detention. You don’t really care about that, do you?’

‘I don’t want to get a detention for handing out stupid leaflets.’

‘So you’re not going to help me.’

‘No.’

‘Look, just do it.’

‘Make me,’ said Louis, folding his arms.

‘What the hell is wrong with you today?’

‘Oh, it’s me that’s the problem, is it?’ said Louis crossly. ‘As usual.’

Gil gave up, and walked across to the other side of the playground to hand out the leaflets by himself.

It didn’t take long to get rid of them. Some of the girls took one look and ran away, but others gathered into groups and stood around shrieking about the ‘poor little monkey’.
The boys made less fuss, but Gil thought they seemed much too entertained by the leaflet, calling their mates over to look at the monkey as if it wasn’t a real creature at all but just a bit
of CGI from the latest computer game. Why didn’t it bother them the way it bothered him? Gil sighed, and then saw Ben coming towards him with a leaflet.

‘Now this,’ said Ben, waving the leaflet, ‘this is
cool
. It’s really sick.’ He laughed loudly and went to slap Gil’s hand, but Gil avoided him.
‘Nice one, Jillian.’

Most people glanced at the leaflet and dropped it where they stood. By the end of lunchtime the playground was carpeted with paper. Hundreds of pairs of monkey eyes stared up into the sky.

Gil looked at the playground and a feeling of gloom settled over him. What would Jude say? It hadn’t been a great success. As he turned to go inside he saw that Mr Montague was waiting at
the door. He was holding one of the leaflets.

‘Just come with me for a minute, Gil,’ he said, opening the door of an empty classroom. He sat on the edge of a desk, and waved Gil towards a chair.

‘Now, Gil,’ he said, tapping the leaflet with the back of his fingers. ‘I admire your commitment, and I’m sure this is an issue you feel strongly about. But you know,
don’t you, that it’s against school rules to hand out this kind of literature on school premises. It’s not political, exactly, but even so we can’t allow it. Some of these
animal rights groups are pretty extreme, and it would make things difficult for the school if we were seen to be encouraging young people to join them. Do you understand that?’

He said it kindly, with no hint of a threat that Gil could hear.

‘Yes, sir,’ Gil said.

‘Do your parents know about your interest in this?’

‘Um – kind of.’

‘Your father’s a genetic scientist at the university, isn’t he?’

‘Uh – I think so, yes.’

‘You’re an intelligent young man, Gil. You don’t plan to follow in his footsteps, then?’

Gil thought that he would rather shovel crap for the rest of his life than have anything to do with what Dad did for a living, but of course you didn’t say that sort of thing to a
teacher.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said.

‘And is everything else OK? There’s nothing you want to talk to me about?’

Gil looked down. Mr Montague’s eyes were searching his face, and it made him intensely uncomfortable. He really didn’t want to be having this conversation. It was way too
personal.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, looking at the floor. He waited until Mr Montague started to speak again.

‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for me to take further action. Just – well, be careful, Gil. Be careful about what you get mixed up
in. And I really don’t want to see any more of these leaflets. I’d like you to clear the playground before you go up to registration, please.’

Gil saved as many leaflets as he could, but most of them were ruined – ripped in half or screwed up, or trodden on repeatedly.

It was harder than Gil had expected, changing people’s minds. How many thousands of leaflets would he have to give out to make just one person think again? Even Louis didn’t want to
listen, and he was supposed to be Gil’s friend. The rest of them were a bunch of brainwashed, mindless sheep.

‘You got into trouble, didn’t you?’ whispered Louis, as Gil slipped late into registration.

Gil didn’t answer. He knew Louis would only say,
I told
you so
.

‘I could really do without this,’ muttered Dad. He wriggled his shoulders irritably and Gil shut one eye so he didn’t have to see him. It was after school on
Monday, and they were stuck at some roadworks. Ahead, a small machine crawled noisily over the surface of the road, chewing up the tarmac and spitting it out into the back of a truck. This is going
to take for ever
,
Gil thought, and he slid down as low in the seat as he could to try and make himself invisible.

It didn’t work.

‘Sit up properly,’ said Dad. The words whined in Gil’s ears like mosquitoes.

‘What for?’

‘Just sit up. You look like a slob.’

‘I’m bored. I want to be at home.’

‘And I’d rather be at work. This is the last thing I want to be doing.’

‘So let me out. I can walk from here.’

‘No. That privilege will be returned to you next week, if you’re lucky.’

‘I suppose you’re desperate to get back to work to murder a few more animals, aren’t you, Dad?’

‘Don’t be so utterly childish,’ said Dad coldly.

Gil tried to remember Jude’s advice.
Don’t argue with your dad. It’s a waste of time.
But it was so hard to keep his mouth shut. The air inside the car was thick and hot
and Gil could feel his brain squeezed and pummelled like pizza dough every time Dad spoke. He buzzed the window all the way down to give himself the illusion of escaping. Cold air streamed in,
together with the juddering noise of the road resurfacer and the stink of car exhaust and burnt tarmac.

‘Stop it,’ said Dad. ‘Shut the window.’

‘I’m hot.’

Dad pressed the button at his side that controlled the passenger window, and the window slid upwards. Gil jammed a finger on his button and the window stopped again. Then he faked a yawn, and
tipped his head sideways to rest on the edge of the half-open window. It really wasn’t very comfortable but Gil had already decided he didn’t care. He could sense Dad’s eyes
boring into the side of his head.

I dare you,
he thought.
I dare you to close the window now and trap my head in it.

The car crept towards the roadworks. Dad didn’t say another word, but the tension twanged like a guitar string.

They arrived home late, and Mum was waiting at the entrance to the driveway looking anxious.

‘Everything all right?’ she said as Gil stepped out of the car.

‘Splendid,’ said Dad, sounding totally over-the-top. ‘Roadworks. Couldn’t be better. I’ll see you about seven, OK?’

He drove off.

‘How was school, darling?’ said Mum. She put a hand on Gil’s shoulder. Then she frowned. ‘You smell of smoke,’ she said. ‘Gil, please tell me you
haven’t been smoking.’

‘I have not been smoking, Mum,’ said Gil, glad to be able to stare her in the face and tell the absolute truth. ‘Smoking is stupid.’

Mum looked pleased. ‘Let me make you something to eat.’

Gil followed Mum into the house and through to the kitchen. As she got things out of the fridge he had a feeling that she was building herself up to say something. He wondered what it was. He
thought about all the things he’d done that day that Mum would be horrified about and he hoped he wouldn’t have to lie too much if she asked questions. Lying was tricky. It was so easy
to forget what you’d said, and if he told Mum one thing and Dad another there would soon be a showdown.

‘Gil,’ Mum said at last, ‘I want to apologise for yesterday. You know, when I . . . when I dropped the plate.’ She was buttering a piece of bread with great
concentration. It seemed to be taking her longer than usual.

‘Oh,’ Gil said. ‘That.’