by Alex Wheatle
“Thanks,” I said.
Pablo circled me twice. He looked confused.
“What do you think, Pablo?” Colleen asked.
Pablo didn’t answer. He lapped around me and scoped me as if I’d grown another head. The laces on both of his shoes were undone. The tail of his shirt covered his backside and he had blue crayon stains on his cuffs.
“Well?” I said. “What ratings do I get?”
Pablo laughed, placed his hand over his mouth, and laughed again. He took his hand away from his face and asked, “Are white girls allowed to have plaits?”
“Of course they are,” smiled Colleen.
Sharyna laughed but I couldn’t help wondering what older black girls would think of my braids.
* * *
A long session of playing Connect Four with Pablo later, Colleen served up a strange dinner of grilled chicken, rice, yams, cabbage, green bananas, and carrots. It definitely didn’t look like the casserole that I had cooked for my dad. Napkins were neatly laid on the table. This is all new. I picked mine up and pushed it inside the collar of my Rihanna T-shirt. Pablo grinned but Sharyna kept a square face. Tony and Colleen swapped glances. I had on my plate chicken, cabbage, and carrots, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the green bananas. They didn’t look green to me.
“You boil bananas?” I asked.
“They’re not like yellow bananas,” explained Tony. “It’s not a fruit. It’s a vegetable.”
“They look the same to me,” I said. “I usually have them sliced in custard. I used to make it for my dad. He loved it. But this looks . . . now don’t get offended . . . all wrong.”
“Try it,” said Colleen.
I studied it again. Steam came out of it. I’m not gonna put my taste buds through mad agonies.
“Sorry,” I said. “Don’t wanna offend but it’s not for me.”
Pablo giggled. Sharyna glanced at him and she caught the chuckle bug.
“Nomi, you must eat your vegetables,” Pablo said in a squeaky tone.
All eyes on me. I stood up, collected a serving fork, and skewered one. I dropped it onto my plate and cut off a small piece. I picked it up with my fork and brought it up to eye level. I put it inside my gob and chewed. I thought about it and munched again. I looked to the left and then to the right. “It’s kinda hard,” I said. “Don’t taste nothing like a real banana. More like a funny-tasting potato.”
Pablo burst out laughing, spraying his side of the table with carrot and bits of chicken.
“Do you want to try the yam?” suggested Tony after he cleaned up Pablo’s side of the table. “That’s a bit like a potato too.”
“It’s a bit gray-looking,” I remarked.
“Give it a go,” Colleen urged me on.
Forking a flat piece of yam, I dropped it on my plate and cut off a small piece. I put it inside my mouth and tasted it. “It’s hard,” I said. “Like a hard spud.”
Pablo and Sharyna burst out laughing again.
Ten minutes later, I finished my dinner. My plate was clean. Colleen busted out her biggest smile yet.
I helped Tony with the washing up as Colleen played a board game with Sharyna and Pablo in the lounge.
“So, what did you do today?” asked Tony.
Standard foster-parent speak. He’s making an effort so I’ll allow it. But I’ll be on prick-fiddler guard if he wants to buy me anything.
“Nothing much,” I replied.
“Did you go out?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you go?”
“Shopping.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yeah.”
“What else did you do?” Tony asked.
Isn’t it obvious? What do I have to do? Swing my head and lash him with my new braids?
I shrugged.
“We had lunch at that new Chinese buffet place on High Street!” shouted Colleen from the front room.
“Great!” Tony smiled. “What did you choose to eat, Naomi?”
“Chinese.”
“Did you try any of their herbal teas?”
“No,” I answered. “I don’t drink flowers.”
“We both had spring rolls and special fried rice,” added Colleen from the hallway.
This convo is too boring.
“I’m gonna fly upstairs and watch one of my DVDs,” I said. I turned to Colleen. “You promise you’re gonna finish my hair in the morning?”
“Of course.”
“Louise is gonna be proper shocked,” I grinned, then breezed past Colleen and climbed the stairs.
* * *
A film and a half later, I skipped downstairs to get myself some juice. I passed the lounge and found Tony sitting down on the floor on a cushion. Behind him Colleen was parked in an armchair massaging his shoulders. Again, I never saw Mum doing that for Rafi or Dad. I guess they were raging at each other too much to have time for that.
“Everything okay?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Sharyna and Pablo are in my room watching something.”
Tony and Colleen traded glances. I left them to it.
When I had sunk a long glass of Coke, Sharyna and Pablo sat open-mouthed on either side of me, propped up by pillows. I had the lights out and the curtains drawn. They watched onscreen a crusty-built bruv with one eye, a stained white vest, and raggedy jeans make a grisly mess of a tied-up teenage girl’s baby toe with a power drill. The blond chick screamed and screamed again before she zonked out. Serve her right. She shouldn’t have had sex with her boyfriend in the backseat of his secondhand Honda. Pablo covered his face. Sharyna’s fingers dug into her cheeks—her eyes went all brown-yolky fried eggs.
Someone squeezed the door handle.
My head snapped toward the door. Tony’s eyes shot cannonballs at me before he marched over to the TV and switched it off. He then glared at Pablo and Sharyna. “Bed!”
A big grin erupted on Pablo’s face. “Good night, Nomi.” He got up and cutey-toed to his room.
Sharyna took awhile to move. She climbed out of the bed and stared at the floor.
“I’ll talk to you in a minute, young lady.”
“Yes, Dad,” Sharyna replied.
Tony’s gaze fired back to me. He looked like he hadn’t had his pumpkin juice for the longest time.
“They were bored so they slapped on my door wondering what I was up to,” I said. “They wanted to watch what I was watching. They haven’t got a DVD player in their rooms. It’s not like you haven’t got the Gs to give ’em DVD players.”
Ejecting the DVD, Tony held it in his left hand as he disconnected the DVD player from the TV. He waved it in the air like he just didn’t care. “This,” he said, “is inappropriate. You obviously can’t be trusted. Kids of six and eleven should not be watching this kind of thing.”
DVD in hand, Tony stepped out of my room.
“Where are you going with my DVD?” I asked. I jumped out of my bed and chased Tony into the hallway.
“To somewhere you can’t find it,” he replied.
“But it’s mine. Hasn’t got your frucking name on it!”
“You’re too young to watch something like this.”
“It’s still mine! Who are you to take away my tings? Did you buy it? No! So give it back! Liberties!”
“This is my house and you’ll live by my rules.”
“I didn’t ask to come here, prickhead! Bomb your fricking rules! Gimme my DVD back.”
“Keep on insulting me, young lady, and you’ll never have it back.”
“You call this insulting? Keep your toes still cos I haven’t even launched my cuss attack yet.”
Pablo’s bedroom door opened—I could see half of his head and his grinning teeth.
“You can have your DVD returned to you when you apologize for showing it to the younger children.”
“So you’re not giving it back?” I challenged.
“You could be here for a day or ten years,” Tony sai
d. “You have to learn boundaries, Naomi. Learn what is acceptable and what isn’t.”
I turned my back on Tony and stomped along the hallway. I turned into Tony and Colleen’s bedroom. They had DVD box sets on a shelf opposite their bed. I swiped 24, the Hobbit trilogy, and a load of others. I dropped a couple on the floor as I hotfooted out. Tony was still in the hallway. Colleen trotted up the stairs.
“She was showing a horror film to the kids,” Tony snitched.
Colleen gave me a why did I decide to be a foster carer look while Tony shook his head. “She has to learn boundaries,” he repeated. “Even if she’s here for just one night.”
I brushed by them and entered my bedroom. “You’ve got something of mine and I’ve got something of yours. And you’re not getting squiddly jack back till I get what’s mine.”
I slammed the door behind me. The doorframe vibrated and I crashed onto my bed. I found my meerkat and hugged it well tight.
* * *
Some minutes later, someone tickled my door.
“It’s me, Colleen . . . can we talk?”
“No.”
“We do have rules, Naomi.”
“So?”
“And they must be kept. We can’t allow Sharyna and Pablo to watch horror films. They’re not as . . . grown up as you. They have had different experiences from you. Can’t you understand that? We don’t want them to have nightmares.”
I understood. But he jacked my property.
“Tell him to give back my DVD!” I shouted.
“You’ll get it back when we both feel you’ve learned your lesson,” said Colleen.
They aren’t giving an inch. By now the Holmans woulda made me a snack, brewed me a sweet coffee, and given me funds to buy a brand-new DVD. All with a toothpaste-commercial smile.
“And he’ll get his stuff back when he learns his lesson,” I spat.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” said Colleen.
“Not talking to him,” I replied.
“I really don’t want to argue with you, Naomi,” Tony said, coming up after Colleen. “But rules are rules.”
“Good night,” said Colleen.
“Good night,” repeated Tony.
“Good night, Nomi,” Pablo called from the hallway.
Too cute.
I sat on my bed with my knees tight against my chest. I rocked to and fro, my eyes closed. I must’ve been doing that for half an hour till I got bored.
“Tony, you’re a dickhead,” I whispered. “A stupid frucking super-duper dickhead.”
I closed my eyes.
I was in charge when I looked after my dad. I could go to bed what time I liked. Watch what I loved. Do what I wanted. Now social workers and strangers are telling me what to do.
chapter five
A New Collection
I didn’t roll out of bed till Pablo, Sharyna, and Tony had all left the house. When I heard Tony’s truck drive away, I pulled the curtains open. The morning sun forced me to scrunch up my eyes. I looked out into the back garden and heard this annoying bird tweet-a-tweeting nearby. There was a mini-size goal toward the back of the garden beside the shed. An orange ball sat in the corner of the net. A neatly shaved rectangle of grass was surrounded on three sides by flowers and plants. The steps from the back door led to a small pond shaped like the number eight. Very neat. Louise said Prickhead’s a landscape gardener or something. At least he’s top-rated at his nine-to-five. I couldn’t even remember what was at the back of my old flat—never landed a toe out there.
I checked out the DVDs that I had jacked from Tony’s bedroom that were scattered on the floor. I picked them all up, sat down on my bed, and went through them. The Shawshank Redemption, The Magnificent Seven, The Sting, Some Like It Hot, Saturday Night Fever, Sarafina!, Babylon, Burning an Illusion. Monkey on ropes, hasn’t he got anything from this side of the millennium?
I decided to look for Colleen. Carrying the DVDs, I went out into the hallway. I skipped downstairs and heard the sound of a washing machine. The noise came from the basement.
I opened the creaking door and went down a short flight of steps. I could sniff dried mud, grass, oil, and washing powder. The air felt damp. I remembered something from my past. It chilled my blood cells. You don’t have to go in there again, Naomi. It was Dad’s voice. I can see it’s traumatizing you. If you want, I can fill a bowl with warm water for you and you can have your wash in your bedroom. You can always have your wash in there if you like.
I shook my head and the memory bubble burst.
One side of the basement floor had a world of machine and gardening tools stacked in it. I spotted a broken wheelbarrow in a corner.
Colleen was busy separating the colors from the whites when she noticed me. She was wearing her red, gold, and green headscarf. Pink monster-faced slippers snoogled her feet.
“Oh, you scared me,” Colleen chuckled. “Do you want your breakfast now?”
“I’ll make it,” I replied.
Colleen glanced at the DVDs in my hands. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, better than the night before.”
“What would you like for your breakfast?”
“I’d like bacon and scrambled eggs.”
“Gimme a couple of secs and I’ll put—”
“I can make it myself,” I cut her flow.
“I’m sure you can.”
“I always cooked breakfast for Dad,” I said. “That’s if there was any breakfast to fry.” I turned to climb upstairs. “I almost forgot.” I handed over the DVDs. “Here, you can have ’em back. There’s nothing there that’ll tickle my like cells. It’s all ancient . . . Sorry for last night.”
“Thank you, Naomi. The reason why—”
Before Colleen could finish her sentence, I had turned around and made my way up the stairs. I didn’t wanna offend but I wasn’t up for a lecture at that time of the morning. And I was well peckish.
Scrambled eggs and three strips of bacon later, Colleen joined me at the kitchen table. I glanced at her before adding more brown sauce to my plate. A tall glass of Coke sat beside me.
“Thanks again for returning the DVDs,” Colleen said. “And apologizing. I was going to say that the reason why we don’t allow Sharyna to have a DVD player in her room is because having a DVD player is another distraction for her. It’s hard enough to get her to switch her TV off at night.”
“You’ve got a DVD player in your room,” I reasoned. “It’s one of them Blu-ray ones an’ all. And Pablo hasn’t even got a TV.”
“Me and Tony don’t have to do any homework,” said Colleen. “And we aren’t learning to read. When we first fostered kids they had everything they wanted in their rooms. Games, TVs, the lot. But you learn with experience.”
“They slapped on my door,” I said. “I was just trying to show ’em that we’re mates. I didn’t want ’em to be scared of me . . . sometimes I get that.”
Colleen nodded once. “I understand,” she said.
“It’s good that we’re chiming on that one,” I said.
“It’s just that I don’t think they’ve seen anything like—” Colleen stuttered “—what you showed them yesterday evening. Sharyna had a bad night.”
“But Pablo loved it,” I defended myself. “His cheeks were having a chuckle party.”
“I don’t think he did like it, Naomi. Sometimes kids at his age pretend to like things.”
More social worker speak.
“Horror films never bothered me,” I said. “Been watching ’em since I was six. Mum used to go down to the Woodside market and get ’em for a pound fifty each. Later on, when Dad was out of it and I couldn’t go to school cos I had to look after him, I’d spend the afternoon watching ’em. Then at the unit, Kim knew this Korean bruv who sold DVDs. He wanted five pounds each but Kim would only give him three. She hustles good like that.”
“Not every kid’s like you, Naomi. Many will get nightmares.”
“I’m not a kid!”
&n
bsp; Shouldn’t have raised my voice. Louise is always going on about it.
I dropped my tone. “Did Sharyna have a proper nightmare?”
“No, but it took her a long time to get to sleep,” said Colleen. “I had to read something to her.”
“She should’ve said something. I would’ve turned it off.”
“She’s not going to say anything, Naomi. She wants you to think she’s cool.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Why wouldn’t Sharyna wanna be cool like moi?
I sank the last of my Coke. Colleen watched me lick my lips and place the glass down on the table. “What time is Louise coming to pick you up?” she asked.
“About twelve,” I replied. “She’s taking me out to lunch. Been asking her for months to take me out to that TGI place in Cranerley but she’s not busting out her purse on that one. Don’t tell her I said so but Louise is the Duchess of Cheapo. Kim’s social worker took her to TGIs and Nats’s social worker took her to a Harvester when she kissed fifteen. I ghetto it out with Louise on McD’s or Zubaretti’s Fish and Chips off Ashburton High Street.”
“Do you want me to finish your hair before you go?”
“Course . . . I mean, yes please! Don’t wanna go out looking like a reject from Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“Okay. Get your shower and I’ll be ready for you.”
I washed up the frying pan, plate, and glass, and dried them too. I stacked everything back in the cupboards as Colleen watched me. “Thank you, Naomi,” she said.
* * *
The local TV news was just finishing its lunchtime shift. Another gangland murking in Crongton. Some fifteen-year-old bruv nicknamed Joe Grine was found punctured in the Crongton stream near Gulley Wood. Monkey on a nail bed, Ashburton is toxic but wouldn’t like to live in Crongton with all that warring going on.
I grabbed the TV remote control and surfed the music channels. Too many commercials. The doorbell rang. Colleen went to answer it.
I heard Louise from the hallway. I thumbed the volume down and pricked up my ears so I could tune in to their convo. “Sorry I’m a bit late,” Louise said. “I had a bit of paperwork to catch up with. Everything all right? Any problems?”
I couldn’t help but bust a giggle. I covered my mouth.
“Er, yes,” Colleen admitted. “We had a bit of an issue about Naomi’s choice of DVDs. She invited Pablo and Sharyna to watch one with her.”