I pick up the spoon.
‘Are you all right, Kyla?’ She grabs my wrist just as my Levo vibrates: 4.3. She sighs. ‘You didn’t just trip on the bus, did you.’
A mind-reading dragon.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘What, then?’
I don’t say anything; just stir the soup.
‘It’s Amy, isn’t it. What did she say?’
I let go of the spoon, slump in my chair. ‘She’s angry with me, and I don’t understand.’
‘Teenage girls, what a nightmare! Boys are so much easier. Wait here.’
She stomps up the stairs; moments later returns with Amy, and yanks her into the kitchen.
‘Sit!’
Amy sits.
‘Listen up, Miss. Kyla didn’t tell me anything, all right? About your silly little boyfriend, or driving in his insane car, or anything. I put it together all by myself. Now: you two sort yourselves out. I’m going to eat by the TV.’ And she picks up her plate and stomps off into the other room, shutting the door with her foot.
Amy looks at me guiltily. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you must have told her.’
‘She’s like a mind-reader,’ I say.
‘Somehow she tricked me into confessing. And you can’t keep secrets; your face is an open book no matter how you try. I should know that. I’m sorry.’
She starts on her dinner, doesn’t say much else. But I can see it in her eyes: she won’t tell me any more secrets.
I can’t be trusted.
And that night, she stays in her own room, leaving me to sleep alone.
The driver lays on the horn. Why, I don’t know. They aren’t going anywhere: it is gridlock. The road has become a car park, right in front of heavy brick buildings with a sign hanging in front: ‘London Lorder offices’. Trapped like rats in a nest.
I scream at the driver. ‘Do something! Open the doors! Let them out!’
But he doesn’t know what is about to happen. He can’t hear me.
First there is a whistling noise, a flash of light, a concussive BANG that rips through my skull and makes my ears ring. And then the screaming starts.
Choking smoke; bloody hands beating at windows that don’t open; more screaming. Another whistle; a flash; an explosion. There is a gaping hole in the side of the bus, but most are silent, now.
I cough in the smoke, choke on acrid burning fuel, metal and worse. Stuff my hands in my ears, but the screaming just goes on and on.
Then, it stops.
And I’m not there any more. I’m somewhere – someone – else. Terror and smoke and blood, all gone. Not a memory of a past event, not nothing…just gone. A dream. No more.
No less.
I’m laughing and playing hide and seek with other children in my green place. High trees above long grasses, bright dots of purple and yellow wildflowers. I scrunch down behind some bushes, and I see: my hands, my feet. They are small. I am small. My heart thuds a pleasant thump-thump, thump-thump, from the game. Will they find me?
When my eyes open I can’t see anything. I open them wide and then wider, stand and feel my way along the wall to the window, pull the curtains aside and look out. There is no moon tonight.
It worked. Going to my Happy Place in the midst of a nightmare: it actually worked. No screaming the house down, no blackouts. A nearly acceptable 4.8 on my Levo.
But it changed in my sleep. The trees, grass, and clouds were still there. But I wasn’t alone, this time; I was playing hide and seek with children. I was younger, much younger, in that place.
The horror of the first dream is fading, the details starting to disperse like smoke drifting in the sky. Yet it still feels so real; like I was there, watching, that day, when all those students died.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENMadness.
My stomach is churning when I get on the bus the next morning. But Amy has my back.
And there she is, in her usual seat: the Slater Hater who tripped me yesterday. Sitting upright and staring out the window. I watch her carefully as we go past. She won’t catch me unawares, again.
Amy follows my eyes. ‘That the one?’ she whispers, but I don’t say anything.
When I sit next to Ben at the back of the bus, his eyes widen. ‘Poor you,’ he says, and touches my face with fingertips, a feather light touch around my lip. It bruised up over night and looks worse today than yesterday. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Only if I smile,’ I say.
He slips my cold hand in his warm one. ‘No smiling today, then,’ he says, sternly, and wipes his off.
His face, serious for once, looks different. The sameness – the happy expression all Slateds wear – is gone. His eyes still smile, though. I’m struck again by a feeling, one that says I know him and have always known him; that close to him, I am safe. My stomach lurches. Not in a bad way.
Mrs Ali is waiting for me at the Unit. She takes one look at me, and frowns. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘I fell on the bus.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes.’
‘Listen to me, Kyla: if anyone is hassling you,
tell me.
It will be dealt with. What really happened?’
I look into her eyes, and see only concern. But just when I think I might tell her everything, some voice inside says
bad idea.
‘I tripped, and fell.’
She frowns. ‘Well. If you
remember
anything else about it, tell me. Anyhow, we’ve got your test results. A clever girl, you are: it is straight into mainstream classes from today. Year 11, so you’re just a little older than the other students. Not that anyone will know if you don’t tell them: most of them will be taller than you, anyhow.’
She hands me a timetable. ‘Come on: tutor group for citizenship, first. Yours is in English block.’
I open the timetable and scan it, quickly at first; then again, taking more care. Tutor group, English, maths, history, biology, study hall, general science, agriculture, and Unit three times a week, whatever that means. It’s not there.
‘But what about art?’
‘What’s that, Kyla?’
‘Art. It isn’t on my timetable.’
‘No. You don’t get to take an option like the other students. We have to fit extra classes in at the Unit. There’s no room.’
I stare back at her. This can’t be happening. It is the only thing I actually want to take; part of the reason I wanted to come to school. We even had art classes at the hospital.
‘But…’
‘No buts; there’s no time. You’ll be late for tutor. If you have a problem with it, talk to Dr Winston,’ she says, and she sweeps out of the Unit. I follow along, numb. This can’t be right. Even Nurse Penny said I could take art, as long as they thought I was good enough, didn’t she? And that doctor had no interest in me or what I wanted, that was obvious enough. There’d be no point talking to her.
Mrs Ali drags me along paths and through buildings, dodging students rushing in all directions. At the class she reminds me to swipe my card, then introduces me to Mr Goodman, who is not only my form tutor but also my English teacher. Other students begin to arrive, to take their seats. And she leaves, saying she’ll be back to take me to my first class before tutor ends.
I stand uncertainly by the desk at the front, not sure what to do.
Mr Goodman smiles. ‘Wait here with me for a moment, Kyla,’ he says.
Other students come in, swipe their cards and sit down, one after another; the final bell goes. One last girl comes in and crosses from the door.
‘Late again, Phoebe?’
‘Sorry, Sir,’ she says, but she doesn’t look sorry. She sits, at the last double desk, the only empty chair left in the room right next to her: the girl who tripped me on the bus.
She looks at my swollen lip and smiles, and I look back at her, not smiling. Whispers start around the room. Do they know?
‘Quiet now, 11C,’ he says. ‘This is Kyla; she is joining our tutor group. I want you to all make her feel welcome.’
I stand next to him and look across a room full of eyes; some merely curious, some hostile, some uncertain. But all staring. At me, and at the Levo on my wrist.
‘Have a seat there next to Phoebe,’ he says.
I walk, eyes digging in and dragging my steps, making it hard to move. I pull the chair away from Phoebe as much as I can and still be at the desk, and sit. He turns to write on the whiteboard. Everyone watches Phoebe.
My Levo vibrates. I glance down: 4.4. Phoebe smirks; it vibrates harder. 4.2.
She raises her hand. ‘Sir? I think our new student is about to blow up.’
Everyone titters, and stares. So many eyes; eyes everywhere.
3.9…
I close mine.
Green trees blue sky white clouds green trees blue sky white clouds…
I hear heavy steps, and feel a hand on my shoulder. ‘All right, Kyla?’ Mr Goodman says.
Green trees blue sky white clouds green trees blue sky white clouds…
I open my eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Good girl. Now copy down your citizenship pledge from the board, please.’
I open my notebook.
Last lesson of the morning brings a pleasant surprise: Ben. He is in my biology class.
He waves when I swipe my card at the door, whispers to a few other boys who grumble and shift across, leaving an empty seat next to him.
‘How’s it going?’
I shrug, don’t say anything, but it must be on my face.
‘It gets better,’ he says, seriously. ‘Really it does. My first day in classes sucked, too.’
And I stare up at Ben, and wonder. Sometimes he seems like every other blank-brained grinning-like-a-lunatic Slated boy I’ve ever met. Yet I can see he has thoughts of his own, too. Maybe, just maybe, I’m not as different from the rest of them as it seems sometimes. Or perhaps it is just Ben: making me feel like I’m not in this alone.
He pulls a face. ‘Remember: no smiling. It hurts.’
‘Oh, yeah. Right.’ I banish the ghost of a grin that had been lurking, and smile at him with my eyes, instead.
Our biology teacher, Miss Fern, is loopy and fun. She has us picking birds we’d most like to be and looking up details in books and websites, then making a poster.
I flick through a book to start, no idea what bird to choose. Until I see black eyes, white feathers, a solemn, heart-shaped face so flat it is like a mask with dark slits.
The barn owl.
Something about the owl says
this is me.
I soon dispense with taxonomic description and dietary habits for drawing: sketching my owl in different positions to start, then settling on in flight, wings stretched wide. Absorbed in sketching, I remember just in time not to use my left hand. It takes away from the experience, but it is still good.
Miss Fern stands over my shoulder. ‘Kyla, that is awesome,’ she says. ‘You have a gift.’