So I started writing a children’s book a few years ago – not sure when exactly, but certainly before the start of the smoking ban, as you’ll see if you read on – and I didn’t get very far with it. But I read it again this week and I liked its vibe, man. So, as I’m not blogging at the moment, I thought I might put it here and ask you, my faithful readers, to read it for me, and tell me a) where you think it should go next, or b) that I should just forget about it. But be gentle. I beseech thee...
Chapter One :: Making Trouble
I’m sitting on one of the cold iron benches in Peckham Rye station, waiting for a train which is late, and composing a letter of complaint in my head. I light a cigarette, thinking as I do it’ll almost certainly make the train come faster.
This kid sits next to me. He’s much smaller than me and I know I look at least a couple of years older, but still I reckon we’re probably the same age. He’s singing to himself. ‘Get off your horse… get up, get on… get mmm-mm, get mmm-mm ….’ He fidgets for a moment, slaps his palms on the bare knees through the holes in his jeans, then stands up and walks to the edge of the platform, his big shiny coat making big shiny coat noise. He then proceeds to walk backwards and forwards, in front of the yellow line, singing this ridiculous song, over and over. Then he sits back down and resumes his fidgeting and knee-slapping. He seems too young to be proper mental, as in sectionable, so I imagine he’s just been smoking or sniffing something.
He carries on singing. ‘Get what you want and take what you can… get on your horse, get laid, get high… get mmm-mm, get mmm-mm….’ Then he stops abruptly, turns to me and says, ‘Yo, gimme that cigarette.’
I hold the cigarette between my thumb and forefinger and look at it as if to say, ‘What? This cigarette? My cigarette?’
‘Give it, man. Hand it over.’
I hand him the cigarette. It seems the most sensible thing to do. It’s half-smoked anyway. He takes it, frowning, takes a drag, holds it close to his eyes to examine the filter. ‘Marlboro Light?! Jesus.’
And with that, he flicks my cigarette off towards the tracks, bouncing up sparks on the platform.
I shake my head and make some involuntary spluttering noise. He hears me and turns to face me, indignant. ‘You got a problem with that?’ he snaps. The whites of his eyes are very red. I decide he must definitely be stoned. Just another little stoner boy, making trouble in Peckham. I swear I attract them.
I nod my head slowly, aware and miserable that a situation seems to be springing up from nowhere. ‘Yeah, I suppose I have,’ I say.
He smiles. ‘Good for you, man, but you keep it to yourself yeah, cause I don’t have the time.’
‘What are you….’ Words, as the expression goes, fail me. ‘Why do you have to be so rude to me when you don’t even know me?’ I demand.
‘Shit, man, don’t start blubbin on me now.’
He is still smiling, laughing at me. Despite myself I am angry. I should let it drop but I can’t. ‘Who do you think you are?’ I cry.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he says, suddenly serious. He looks down the platform at the approaching train. ‘And stay in school,’ he adds, before he ships off up the platform singing, ‘Get on that bitch… get on, get up… get mmm-mm, get mmm-mm.’ Something on the cold iron bench catches my eye and without bothering to check if I’m being watched, I scoop up the stoner boy’s wallet and slip it into my inside coat pocket.
On the train I position myself a half carriage behind him, facing the back of his head. I’m trying to figure out what I make of him. He may be a little younger than me after all, maybe fifteen or sixteen, his hair cropped and his expression cocky and maybe just a little proper mental, even in profile. His feet are up on the seat opposite, his fingers slapping furiously on the narrow window sill and he’s still warbling away. I’m too far away to make anything out except for the occasional ‘mmm-mm’. The carriage is about a quarter full and he is drawing more than his share of disapproving glances.
I really don’t know what to do with his wallet. If he hadn’t been so rude, so strange and antagonistic, I would’ve shouted out, grabbed his attention and given it back immediately. Instinctively. But I was angry and my instincts were skewed.
Then a middle-aged inspector squeezes his fat belly through the narrow door at the end of the carriage and the only change in the stoner boy’s behaviour is that his fingers briefly stop slapping at the window sill, but only very briefly. When the slapping is resumed, it is, if anything, more belligerent than before.
After examining the tickets of three other passengers, the inspector reaches him. With no expression whatsoever, he says, ‘Would you mind taking your feet off the seat.’
‘What’s the magic word, Papa Legba?’ says the kid.
My face begins to burn.
The inspector sighs heavily. The last thing he wants is some pointless confrontation with some lippy delinquent who is probably out of his mind on crack and carrying a blade or a gun. ‘Ticket, please,’ he says, his anger and potential fear beginning to show through.
‘It’s because I’m black innit?’
The ticket inspector is also black. He ignores this. ‘Please can I see your ticket, sir?’
‘Yeah, man, yeah, get it on. But you have to chill out though, yeah? You got this power thing goin on, and… seriously….’ As he speaks he leans forward slightly and reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. Realising something is not right, he brings his feet to the floor and starts rifling through the pockets of his enormous yellow puffer jacket. I begin to feel guilty. But I know I can’t do anything now without appearing even guiltier than I really am.
‘Do you have a valid ticket for this journey or not?’ says the inspector. He is almost smiling now.
For the first time, the kid doesn’t answer back. I can’t see his face but I can imagine he must look seriously concerned. He then says something that neither myself nor the ticket inspector catch. ‘What?’ snaps the inspector.
‘Someone’s taken my wallet, man.’
This time the inspector does smile. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday?’ he says, almost singing it, he’s so amused.
The kid leans back in his seat, lifts his feet back onto the seat opposite and sighs loudly.
The inspector can’t believe it. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ he bellows.
The kid looks up at him and considers for a moment. ‘Yeah, man, yeah. I think you were born yesterday. OK? I think you’re one day old. You happy now, Babyman?’
A couple of passengers chuckle at this, and the inspector, who has clearly had enough of the dialogue, tells the kid that he if he cannot produce a valid ticket, he is liable for a £20 fine.
‘Right,’ says the kid. ‘I lose my wallet, you want to fine me. If my mum had just died, you’d want to kill my old man, is that how it works? And then if I don’t pay the fine, you take me to jail, yeah? And then if I still don’t pay the fine, and the extra fine you fine me for not paying the first fine, what then? You going to help the pigs kick me to death in the cells? Is that how it is, Babyman?’
‘I can call the police now,’ says the inspector. ‘It’s the same to me. If that’s what you want, I’ve got no problem with that.’ He unhooks his two way radio from his waistband behind the fat ticket machine and penalty fare pad, and whatever other train law enforcement paraphernalia he’s got hanging off his gut, and he waits for the kid to back down and hand over the cash.
‘Call them, Babyman. Call whoever you want. You ain’t gonna make me give a shit, you know that.’
Just as the inspector begins to speak into the radio, I hear a voice shouting, ‘Hold it, hold it right there. I think we can resolve this situation without resorting to drastic measures, don’t you?’ The embarrassment I feel when I hear the words is compounded as I find myself walking towards the confrontation and realise that the words are actually coming out of my mouth.
The kid turns around in his chair and laughs in my face. ‘Well looky hear,’ he says, in a not very good American accent. ‘It’s the Marlboro Light man, come to save the day.’
I ignore him and address the inspector. ‘How about if I pay the ticket price? How does that sound?’
Before the inspector can tell me that it’s gone beyond that now, the kid butts in. ‘Listen, Bono, I ain’t no charity case. You keep your bloodclot nose out of my business, alright?’
My reaction surprises myself as much as it does him. ‘Look, shut your mouth, alright,’ I snap. ‘And you call me that again, I’ll knock you out.’ Then I turn back to the inspector before I get bogged down bickering with the boy. I do notice however, that he looks suitably shamefaced, maybe even scared, or maybe I’m wrong and he’s feeling something altogether different.
The inspector tells me that if I want to help this boy – and Jesus only knows why I would want to do a fool thing like that – then I’ll have to pay his ticket price and the fine. The kid makes a disapproving noise through his teeth and says, ‘Bullshit, man.’
‘Come on,’ I say, trying to appeal to the inspector’s better nature. ‘You’ve got your ticket machine there. Why not just let me buy the ticket? Maybe he really did lose his wallet.’
The inspector smiles. ‘Oh, right, sure. And how likely is that?’
I shrug. ‘You never know,’ I say.
Finally, as the fast train to Victoria is pulling in to the station, the inspector relents and pushes a few buttons on his machine. I pay the couple of quid ticket price and thank him. Before he waddles past, I say, ‘By the way, if Jesus ever actually existed, yes – I’m sure He’d know exactly why I wanted to help this boy today.’
The kid laughs and makes that snapping noise with his fingers as he says, ‘Whoa, he’s talkin about Jesus now, man. Bare dumb.’
And my face is on fire with the humiliation of it all. Why I said those pious pompous self-righteous things I shall never know. And I’m such a hypocrite because I don’t even think I want to help at all. I just want to stop feeling guilty.
The inspector shakes his head and walks away.
I look down at the kid and hand him his ticket. He makes a gesture like he is waving away a bad smell from under his nose. ‘Keep it, man, you deserve it.’ Then he snatches it from my hand. ‘And don’t expect me to thank you neither, Bono. I never asked for your help.’
‘I don’t expect anything,’ I say, and I get off the train and make my way through threadbare gangs of flexi-commuters and slackers, like Gandhi. But I am lying. I do expect something. I’ve been expecting something since the day I was born.
Chapter Two :: A Proper Little Hero
I’m only on this train in the first place because my sister left a weepy message on my mobile, and then there’s this mini-rumpus with this idiot boy dodging his fare, and then this geeky boy stands up out of nowhere and starts talking about ‘drastic measures’ and like, what would Jesus do? And all the while he’s bright red and sweating like a chicken McNugget. I’ve never seen anything like it, but there’s no doubt, the thing he does is really really sweet. He basically bales this other boy out, pays his fare for him and stops the conductor calling the police. And the other boy is such an ungrateful bugger, I would’ve slapped his face if he’d talked to me like that. But this geeky boy just takes it in his stride. He sticks up for himself a bit and tells the mouthy boy to shut up, but you can see he’s scared even as he says it.
I end up behind him as we shuffle up the platform. The mouthy one is practically running, pushing his way past people to get out of the station. He didn’t even thank the boy who helped him, which I think is really well out of order.
Then the sweetly weird one walks into the main part of the station – the whatsit, the concourse. And then he stands still and looks around. When he looks in my direction I keep on walking. He looks straight at me and I feel myself blushing, like he’s caught me spying on him, which I suppose he has. I look down at the ground and walk past.
But for some reason I can’t just leave it at that. When I reach the next circle of telephone cubicles – well, they’re hardly cubicles – those poles with four telephones attached to them, and over each telephone is a plastic hood a bit like those old women’s hair dryers in those old women’s hairdressers – when I reach the next one of those I stop and pick up the telephone. I pretend to dial in a number and casually turn round to see what this boy is doing.
But he’s gone.
I’m shocked by how disappointed I am.
Then I see him again, smoking a cigarette and looking in the window of WH Smith. Again he glances in my direction. This time I look away and automatically start talking into the telephone. ‘No, well hopefully yes,’ I say and the woman who lives inside the phone asks me to hang up and dial again.
The boy bends down to look at something in the window. Then he slowly leans forward until his head is resting on the glass. Two boys come up behind him. One of them kicks him in the back of the knees, but it’s obvious he’s just messing about. The boy stands up straight quickly and turns round. The three of them start talking together, laughing.
Then I notice that there’s an old woman hanging around the phones, looking at her watch and sighing impatiently. I feel guilty for not really using the phone, so I pull a sorry face and wander away, still spying, pulling out my mobile. I phone my sister, not really knowing why.
‘Polly Perkins.’
That’s how she answers the phone. Even her mobile. I really wish she wouldn’t. ‘I really wish you wouldn’t say that,’ I tell her.
‘Oh, hello. I thought you were coming over.’
Then I say: ‘I can’t. Something’s come up.’ Which is a surprise, as until that moment, as far as I knew I was still on my way to see her.
‘What’s come up?’ she wants to know.
I think for a moment and decide to tell her the truth, whatever that may turn out to be. We’re very close. I know she’ll understand. ‘I saw this boy on the train,’ I tell her. ‘He did a sweet thing so I’m going to follow him home, find out where he lives and write him an anonymous letter.’
‘What?!’
‘It’s the only way to find out more about him,’ I explain.
‘What’s wrong with saying hello?’
‘You know I’m shy,’ I tell her. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, he’s on the move.’
As I put the phone down, she is screaming, ‘You’re mad, Nell, you’re off your head! Be careful!’
I knew she’d understand.
It is only when I'm on a tube travelling north, sitting in the next carriage to the boy and his two friends, pretending to read my book, that I realise Polly is probably right: I am off my head.
Chapter Three….
I've no idea. Any thoughts?
