‘I’ve been calling your name.’
‘So?’
‘For the register.’
‘So?’
‘So, can you answer me please?’ Miss Davis gave her elastic band another ping and the skin on her wrist flushed red. ‘Tony Dunmore.’
‘Why?’ Tricia asked.
Miss Davis sighed and looked back at her. ‘Why what?’
‘Why do I have to answer you?’
Miss Davis’s face turned as red as her wrist. ‘So that I know you are here. Jenny Edwards?’
‘Yes, Miss,’ Jenny answered, but she, like everyone else in the class apart from me, was looking right at Tricia.
‘So, are you blind as well as fat then, Miss?’ Tricia asked.
Jeremy started laughing again and I wanted to lean over my desk and shake him.
‘James Evans,’ Miss Davis said, looking back at the register. I could see beads of sweat erupting on her face like dewdrops on a tomato. I looked down at the picture of Anne Frank on the cover of my book and wondered what she would have done if she’d been trapped inside this classroom instead of the annexe.
‘I said, are you blind as well as fat, Miss?’ Tricia said.
Miss Davis continued taking the register.
‘Ha, she’s obviously deaf an’ all,’ Tricia snorted.
‘Wow!’ The word burst from my mouth before my brain had time to censor it.
I smelt Tricia leaning in right behind me. ‘What did you just say, cripple?’
I carried on looking at Anne Frank. If she could deal with the Nazis then surely I could deal with Tricia. ‘I said, wow!’
‘What did you say that for?’
I took a deep breath and turned round. In my head I could almost hear Anne Frank yelling, Go on! ‘Because you managed to say a word with four whole syllables.’ Inside my ribcage my heart started freaking.
‘Theresa Smith,’ Miss Davis called in a ridiculously fake cheery voice, as if her class was one big, happy family and she was the greatest teacher ever.
‘What?’ Tricia growled at me. She was so close I could see the clumps of blue mascara at the ends of her eyelashes.
‘You said obviously. Ob – vi – ous – ly. Four syllables. Well done.’ I clenched my hands into tight fists.
‘No talking please, Claire,’ Miss Davis said sharply.
‘What?’ I turned back and stared at her in disbelief. Why was she telling me to be quiet and not Tricia?
‘No talking,’ she repeated.
‘Yeah, shut your mouth, cripple,’ Tricia said, loud enough for the whole class to hear.
Miss Davis looked back down at the register. ‘Claire Weeks.’
I stared at her.
‘Claire Weeks,’ she said again, but she wouldn’t look at me.
‘Here, Miss,’ I eventually replied. But in my head I was yelling, I’m not Claire Weeks, I’m Cherokee Brown, you pathetic coward.
NOTEBOOK EXTRACT
Agatha Dashwood says that ‘if one is to become a proper writer one must write at every available opportunity’. So I’ve decided to take her advice and do some writing on the train on the way up to Spitalfields. Well, hopefully I’m on the way up to Spitalfields. I’ve never been there before so I’m not exactly sure which station it’s nearest to, so I’m heading east and hoping for the best!! And at least I’m not in school. I couldn’t stay there a minute longer after what happened in registration.
It’s so weird to think that I used to love going to school, that I used to be one of those geeky kids who always got their homework done on time and actually enjoyed learning new stuff. I’ll never forget the day I discovered there were minus numbers – I was so excited there was something that came before zero! And the English lesson when I read Anne Frank’s diary for the first time and realised that books aren’t just there to entertain you, they can actually change your whole way of thinking about the world.
Now when the teachers are telling us stuff all I hear is a drone. Kind of like when a radio hasn’t been tuned in properly and you only catch the odd word here and there. The only people I hear loud and clear these days are Tricia and her idiot friends. I hate being scared of them (I’m not going to put this bit in my book – no one likes a heroine who’s a big old wuss), but it’s just that there are loads of them and only one of me. And I’m so short and skinny too. I’m not short and skinny in my daydreams though. In my daydreams I’m a ninja with all the moves. And when Tricia leans forwards and says something like, ‘How does it feel knowing you’re gonna be a virgin your whole life cos no one wants to sleep with a cripple?’ I do a backflip off my chair, land on top of her desk and kick her so hard in the face her head comes flying off.
Don’t think I’ll put that bit in my book either – I’ll sound like a psycho!
Oh no, some freak has just got on the train and sat down opposite me and started talking out loud. I hope he isn’t a terrorist bomber. He isn’t carrying a rucksack, just a tatty old carrier bag. How big are bombs? Can they fit inside a carrier bag? I saw a programme on Channel 4 once about terrorists in the Middle East and one of them blew up a bus with a suicide bomb clipped to his belt.
This person isn’t wearing a belt. I just checked and he saw me looking and now it looks as if I was perving at him. Oh, God – how embarrassing. I’m just going to write in this notebook from now on and not look in his direction at all. Well, maybe I’ll take a few sneaky glances, just to make sure he isn’t trying to set off his bomb.
I suppose I ought to write a description of him, just in case he does turn out to be a terrorist and I need to give evidence. I saw an episode of Crimewatch once where this policeman said that in ninety-nine per cent of crimes, witnesses can’t even remember the colour of a criminal’s hair. Well, I guess the one per cent who do remember must be writers. Agatha Dashwood says that writers have specially heightened observational skills. They have to, to make their stories ‘truly come alive’.
NOTES FOR POLICE INVESTIGATION
The potential suspect has greasy, dark brown hair. I’m not sure if it’s the grease making it so dark, so it could be a lighter shade of brown when he washes it. He looks pretty old. About thirty, I’d say. And he has a big belly, about the size of one of those green watermelons that are red on the inside, with loads of pips that you end up having to spit out all over your plate. The rest of him isn’t fat though, so it kind of looks like he’s pregnant. But obviously he isn’t pregnant cos he’s definitely a man. Unless he’s like one of those women on Jerry Springer who are ‘tragically trapped in the wrong body’. I don’t think he is though – he has too much
