by Alex Wheatle
I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t feel hungry anymore. I tossed my chicken sandwich and fries into a bin.
“What d’you do that for?” moaned Nats. “I would’ve ate that.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“You should’ve listened to me and then none of this drama would’ve happened,” Kim went on. “You should’ve stayed at our unit so me and Nats could look out for ya. As Nats said, she can plait your hair.”
“I hear that,” I said. “Thanks.”
“I can go wherever you are and bless up your hair,” put in Nats. “Don’t have to be at the unit.”
“All this moving about with foster families,” Kim said, “where the fruck has it got ya? You’re at nowhere o’clock!”
“I . . . I dunno,” I mumbled. “Colleen cares about me. So does Tony. I’m not gonna lie about that one.”
Kim moved out of my way. I rolled down the street in silence as Kim huffed and puffed beside me. Five minutes later, we turned into the school grounds. Nats checked the time on her mobile phone. “We’re twenty minutes late,” she said.
“So?” Kim said. “We’ve got to deal with Naoms’s granddad issue. Richard can wait and fiddle with himself. And you know I always have a smoke after I eat something.”
“It’s not a big issue,” I protested. “He didn’t say anything off-point to me. He was raging at Tony.”
“That’s not the point!” said Kim. “The granddad doesn’t like white kids. That’s the skidmark in your pink knickers. You can’t allow that.”
I found myself nodding in agreement.
“Listen to me this time, Naoms,” Kim said. “If you crooked your ear to me in the first place you wouldn’t have ended up in that perv’s yard where that prick fiddler, Mr. Holman, was standing outside while you’re having a shower. You should’ve stayed here, like I said.”
“But . . . but,” I stuttered.
“No buts,” Kim said. “When you see Louise, tell her you wanna stay in our unit, with us. No flib-flobbing about. Tell her straight and don’t fall for the but we’ll have to investigate and have meetings. Bomb the meetings and the inquiries, Naoms.”
“I’ll miss Sharyna and Pablo,” I said.
“They can visit you,” Kim replied. “It won’t be an issue. Colleen can bring ’em down to our unit and they know how to bounce on a bus, don’t they? I’ll dye Sharyna’s hair or something if she wants and tell her what garms will suit her. Might bring her up to Ashburton on one of my shopping missions and jack her a pair of sneakers. What size does she take?”
“Er . . . three, I think.”
“Not a problem,” said Kim. “Nats or you can be my lookout and before you can say name-brand I’ll be sitting pretty on a bus with a sweet pair of sneakers and a glam pair of socks. By the time I finish my project with Sharyna, she’s gonna look well sexy—”
“She’s not a teenager yet,” cut in Nats.
I can’t believe the way this convo’s going.
“And what will Pablo do while we’re shopping?” I asked.
“I’ll find him a game or something,” said Kim. “Or we can give him a DVD. We’ll just drop his ass on a couch with something to watch and he’ll be cool.”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“You’re not scared of Louise, are ya?” Kim shook her head. “How can you be scared of a first-class, high-nose bitch like her? Every now and again you should always give ’em a cuss attack. It keeps ’em on their toes. It makes ’em scared of ya, and when they’re scared of ya, they do what you tell ’em to do. Trust me on that one. I’ve got a degree in it.”
“Louise tries her best for me,” I said. “I don’t agree with everything she does but—”
“You sound like one of them now,” said Kim. “You’ve fallen for all their fake compassion.”
“No I haven’t,” I argued.
“Yes you have, Naoms!” yelled Kim. “They work for us. Remember that. They’re s’posed to do what we tell ’em to do. Let her work for her Gs. They’re on about fifty grand a year.”
“Fifty grand a year?” said Nats.
“What’s a matter with you two?” said Kim. “Don’t you know that? Has someone been renting out your brain space? A lot of ’em dress down and drive cheapo rides to try and hide the big Gs they earn. They’ve got those double-door fridges in their mega kitchens and pay one of them refugee slaves to wash their clothes and do their ironing.”
“One of my social wankers went on holiday to Australia once,” said Nats. “She brought me back a boomerang.”
“That’s standard for them,” nodded Kim. “They’ve got movie screens in their front rooms and they eat at first-class restaurants. Have you ever seen a social wanker munching fries and chicken nuggets in a chicken hut?”
Nats and I thought about it and shook our heads.
“No!” Kim answered her own question. “Don’t think they’re doing you a favor when they take you out for something to eat—they get paid extra funds for all that game.”
“I’ve seen Louise take out her own money when she’s treated me,” I said.
“That looks all good, Naoms,” said Kim. “But it’s all fake. The next day, she’s giving her receipts to her boss and she’s getting paid back double. Trust me on that one, Naoms. As I said, your best option is to bounce back to us. Nats and I have your heel, your spine, and the back of your head. You know that.”
“Louise is coming to pick me up later,” I said. “Breaking news: she’s taking me out to get something to eat.”
Kim grinned. “Good! Don’t let her go cheapo on you and make sure you tell her the whole movie. Don’t delete anything out.”
chapter sixteen
Biggin Spires
When school finished, Kim, Nats, and I parked on our usual bench—Kim wanted to give me the get-down of my situation so I wouldn’t mouse out about the granddad issue. A car horn blasted and I spotted Louise’s ride reversing into a parking space. She waved to me and climbed out. I was about to stand up but Kim pulled me back down again. “Burn her,” Kim snapped. “Finish your fagarette first. Let her highty-tighty bones wait.”
“Naomi!” Louise called. “Naomi!”
Ignoring her, I sucked hard on my cancer stick. Kim and Nats laughed.
“I haven’t got all afternoon, Naomi,” moaned Louise. She crossed her arms.
I took one more pull before killing my smoke with my heel.
“Remember what I told you,” said Kim. “She works for your best interest, and your best interest is to bounce back to the unit. Don’t let her get away with any crappety-crap.”
“May . . . maybe,” Nats started, “they could slap an injunction or what they might call it so the granddad can’t wobble within a mile of Naoms. Then she could stay with the Goldings.”
“Not gonna work,” Kim raised her voice. “Don’t listen to Nats, Naoms. Stick to my program on this one.”
Nats gave Kim a Terminator-like look and I thought I’d better take strides before them two raged at each other again.
Opening the passenger-side door, Louise greeted me with an I’m having a good week smile. “So how was your day, Naomi? How have you been?”
I shrugged as I dropped into the passenger seat.
“So where would you like to eat?” she asked. She seemed desperate for me to feel her joy.
I secured my seat belt and shrugged again. “You never wanna go where I wanna go, so what’s the point of you asking me? You’re too much of a cheapo.”
“Try me,” smiled Louise.
“Okay.” I creased my forehead thinking about it. “Biggin Spires,” I said after a while. “Never stepped there before. Kim went there once. They’ve got a Wag-a-waga or something in the shopping mall there—some Chinese or Thai place.”
“It’s a bit of a drive,” Louise said. “I hope the traffic’s not too bad on the Crongton circular.”
“You better juice up your ride.”
Louise checked her gas needle. “Ok
ay,” she said. “Why not? Biggin Spires it is. And if we get stuck in a jam it’ll give us a chance to speak.”
She pulled away. I found my fave grime radio station and spanked up the volume. Bomb giving us a chance to speak. I’m not feeling that idea. I nodded in time to the drumbeat.
“How’s the dancing coming along?” Louise asked after a short while.
“I’m getting to do the same moves as the other girls,” I replied. “It’s complicated, not easy. Some of them other chicks are just toooo good—their legs are well flexible. But I’ve only had two lessons.”
“And you’ll get better,” Louise put in.
“I like Ms. Almi,” I said. “She’s a proper pro. There’s no jokes in her sessions and not much talking. Everyone pays attention cos they wanna be in the next show. When we finish, I can hardly walk up the stairs. My bones turn into thick smoothies.”
“Perhaps you should think about giving up smoking?”
I gave Louise one of her really looks. “Seriously? You’re telling me to quit my smokes? What about you? There must be a cancer-berg in your chest. I’m surprised you don’t get an asthma attack when you step to your car every morning.”
“I see your point,” she chuckled. “But I’m a lost cause. If you want to carry on dancing you have to think of your health.”
“If I give up then you have to give up too,” I said.
Louise thought about it. “Okay. Mind you, I’ve tried meditation, patches, vaping, and all sorts.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Every time you think about buying another box of smokes, just give the money in your purse to me. That’ll work. If you get yourself good ratings, I might put the funds in a post office account for ya.”
Louise couldn’t block her giggles. “That won’t work.”
“Cheapo!”
* * *
Biggin Spires was a small town on top of a hill. I imagined Susan, the bike freak, riding up one of the steep inclines and doing a Rocky shadow-boxing thing when she got there. I wonder how Emily’s flexing. Must remember to ding her. Need funds for my phone. It had the same shops as Ashburton but not as many. It had a mega church with a long tower—peeps used their mobiles to take pics of the ancient graveyard. Maybe a celeb was buried there recently. All the streets seemed to have three words in them: Bishop Park Avenue, Friar Gorge Chase, and Abbot Lawn Way. The buses were blue and the sidewalks were wide with little skinny trees sticking out of ’em. High Street was five brooms cleaner than Ashburton’s. If I was a dog I’d look over my shoulder and think twice about shitting here.
I stared at a dress in a charity shop window.
“Everything okay?” Louise asked.
I shrugged. “S’pose so . . . just a bit peckish. I didn’t finish the takeaway chicken I had for lunch. I flung half of it away.”
“Why are you spending money on takeaway when the school provides a decent meal for you?”
“Didn’t pay anything for it,” I replied. “Kim bought it for me. She’s been treating me better than you have lately. And she hasn’t got as much funds as you.”
Louise raised her eyebrows. I could see the tiny veins above her eyelids. She’s getting old. “Oh, she treated you, did she? That’s very kind of her but you need to stick to school meals, Naomi.”
I gave Louise a hard-core glare. “Can you just quit lecturing me today, please?” I said. “I just wanna have a good dinner. I’m well peckish.”
Five minutes later, we found the Wagamama restaurant in the Spires shopping center. Louise made her way to a corner and we parked on a bench. Louise ordered a large Coke for me and a black coffee for herself before reading the menu. “What takes your fancy, Naomi?”
“Chicken curry and Singapore rice.”
Louise went for a chow mein dish.
The waiter returned with my drink but Kim’s words rattled in my brain. Should I make an issue outta what Tony’s dad spilled? I could do with less drama in my life, but Kim will cuss me out if I don’t leak anything.
“Are you okay?” Louise asked.
“I’m good,” I lied.
“Something happened at school today?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“For fruck’s sake, Louise! Take a day off.”
The meals were served ten minutes later and hardly a word dropped between us as we sampled our food.
“How did it go with Tony’s parents?” Louise asked after a while. “By all accounts, Tony’s mum’s a great cook. I know Pablo and Sharyna love seeing them.”
I dodged Louise’s gaze and sank a big glug of Coke.
“Naomi?”
I carried on eating and didn’t answer till I finished a mouthful of rice. “There was a mega argument,” I said.
“Between who?”
“Tony and the granddad.”
“About what?”
“I heard it from the back door. They didn’t know I was tuning in. Sharyna was washing up . . . I wanna go back to the unit.”
“Hold on for a minute, Naomi.” She placed her cutlery on her plate. “What was this argument about?”
“Me.” I stared into my chicken curry.
“You?” Louise looked proper confused. “Can you be more specific?”
“I wanna go back to the unit,” I repeated. “Isn’t that specific enough for ya?”
“But I thought you were enjoying your stay with the Goldings?”
“You’re not wrong on that one,” I said. “I was all good with that till the argument.”
“Can you please tell me what this row was about?”
“I told ya . . . it was about me.”
“Naomi! Stop it!”
I fed myself another gobful of curry and ran that down with a long slurp of Coke. Louise gave me an intense glare. If I don’t spill, something steamy’s gonna gas out of her ears. She’ll probably suck out half a box of smokes before she drops me home. I better give her a liccle relief.
“The granddad,” I said.
“Tony’s dad?”
“Of course it’s Tony’s dad,” I said. “What other granddad is there? Colleen doesn’t know her paps.”
Louise leaned back in her chair and thought about it. “Met him only once,” she said. “He seemed all right. Loved his garden—”
“He doesn’t like white kids,” I corked her flow.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you going deaf on me, Louise? Do I have to perform sign language on this one? Let me replay this in HD. He doesn’t like white kids. Comprendy? I’m not chatting grime so you should be able to understand me.”
Louise’s left cheek twitched as she sipped her cold coffee. “How . . . how do you know this, Naomi? Did he speak directly to you?”
“No! Aren’t you listening? He was raging at Tony. That’s when he came out with it. He said he didn’t want Tony fostering white kids and didn’t want white kids polluting his house. At the dinner table, he was looking at me like I had squeezed my jamrag juice into his cocoa or something.”
I had to use Kim’s line. It was too good not to.
Louise shook her head. “I’ll have to carry out an investigation.”
“I don’t want an investigation,” I raised my tones. “Just wanna go back to the unit. How many times do I have to say it?”
“You’ve just made a serious allegation, Naomi.”
What’s an allegation? It sounds like a boy alligator that has had his bits chopped off.
“I can’t ignore it,” Louise went on. “I’ll have to talk with Tony, his father, and anyone else who heard the conversation. If what you say is true then I can’t allow Tony and Colleen to bring you along to see him. You’ll have to stay somewhere when they take Sharyna and Pablo to visit. Maybe I’ll take you out somewhere.”
Monkey in a cage. I don’t love it when Louise drops into her social wanker zone. The furies had woken up and pricked their needles into my ribs. “You’re not listening, Louise! Do I have to spell it out for ya? I WANNA GO
BACK TO THE UNIT!”
A world of eyes switched my way but I didn’t care.
Louise dropped her tones. It was almost a whisper. “There’ll have to be an investigation, I’ll grant you that, but there really is no need for you to move—”
“You’re not freaking listening!” I yelled. “I don’t want any investigation. You can eat it and fart it out on the top of the Smeckenham Hills for all I care.”
Louise took out her phone and made a note in it. I tried to read it but she covered the screen with her hand. She looked up at me. The stress lines in her forehead had doubled. Delete that—they had tripled. “Naomi, can you at least give it a few days and think about—”
“No! I don’t have to think about it. I WANNA GO BACK TO THE UNIT!”
“Has Kim put you up to this?” Louise wanted to know. “I have to say, I don’t like the influence she has on you.”
“It’s nothing to do with Kim,” I lied.
Louise gave me a hard-core really look.
I lowered my voice. “I wanna go back to the unit.”
Louise closed her eyes and puffed out a few breaths. She really needs to quit smoking. She eventually opened her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good.” I picked up the menu and flipped it over to scope the dessert choices. “When I finish my curry and rice, can I have a chocolate sundae?”
Louise’s eyes weren’t at home. The joy she had when she picked me up had been murked with the granddad issue. When I grow up I might be a dancer or a foster carer but I’ll never be a social worker. I’m gonna flush that idea down the shit ride.
“Er, you what?” Louise stuttered. “Yes, of course you can have a chocolate sundae. If you promise not to shout again—”
“Then listen to me,” I cut in.
“But . . . but getting back to the point,” Louise said, “I’ll still need to speak to Tony to hear . . . to hear what he has to say.”
“Whatever,” I shrugged. “But I’m rolling back to the unit. Don’t put a world of red cones in my way.”
“Can’t you wait until I speak with Colleen and Tony? I’ll make sure that you never have to be in the presence of Tony’s father again.”