Goodbye Teddy

by Stockholm, JD

  I pack all my things myself for the trip. I pinched my dad’s sleeping bag out of the attic again. The one I used when I ran away. I walk to school with Rachel in the morning when it is the trip day. She thinks the trip is great. She doesn’t go on sailing trips with school, but they go to other places. She wishes she could go with us. She says she will miss me while I am away. I tell her I won’t be a long time. It is just a week.

  I miss Rachel too. I wish she was a boy and then she would go to my school and she could do all the same things as me. Maybe then she would like Lewis and Chris and we could all be friends.

  The sailing place isn’t far away from school. It is near where my mum and dad lived a long time ago. When I didn’t live with them and had to go to the play place. It is over the high bridge that goes over the river. We are staying in a building which is on the edge of the river. We have rooms there and bunk beds. We have to share the rooms. The bunk beds have our names on them when we get there. I get the top bunk in my room. I like bunk beds. I haven’t had one before. My friend, Faye, has them in her room. I want to sleep high up.

  There is a boy called Karl. He has the bunk under me. We have to share the room. Me and Karl aren’t friends. He isn’t mean. I just don’t talk to him. He isn’t in my form and he isn’t in all my classes. I used to sit next to him in geography when I was in the first year of senior school, but now I only sit with him in cooking class because he sits at my table. But I don’t talk to him.

  We get there in the afternoon. We are not going sailing by ourselves on the first day. We do get to go on the big boat all together so they can show us all the sailing places we are allowed and where we aren’t allowed too when we are in our boat. After we have done that, we go to the building to make dinner. We have to help cook and then we have to wash up. There is a list and we have to take turns. After dinner we go into the shed at the back. There are tables in there and lots of fish tanks and buckets with lots of things inside that we can look at.

  The man that lives at the place shows us a fish thing. He takes it out of a bucket. It looks like a puffy pom-pom. It is funny. I have never seen one before. It has a hole in the middle. He says that is its mouth. He asks one of the boys to put his finger in. It doesn’t have any teeth so it doesn’t bite. The boy does and then the man says, “You know it uses its mouth as its bottom too?” We all laugh at him because he put his finger in the fishes bottom. He pulls his finger out very fast.

  After we have learnt about some of the fish, we are allowed to mess around outside. We have to stay together, though, and we aren’t allowed to go off the land. The teachers sit outside and drink coffee and watch us. When it gets dark, the teachers light the fire outside and we can have some hot chocolate and supper. We have to go to bed at ten because we have to be up early in the morning for the tide. I am glad I get to go on the trip. I am very happy.

  I have to share the bathroom with Karl. We have to get ready for bed. I use the bathroom to get changed. I don’t want him to see me get changed. He might know about what my dad does. He gets changed in the bedroom. But I am faster than him. He is a slow coach. I am fast because my mum and dad get mad if I take too long. When I come out, Karl isn’t finished getting changed. He has no top on. His back is all sore. He has lots of cuts and bruises and marks on it. “What happened to your back?” I ask him.

  “Nothing” he says, and then he puts his top on very fast and runs into the bathroom. I get my things out ready for bed. When we are done, the teacher comes around and checks on us and tells us to go to bed. I don’t say anything to Karl about his back when he comes out of the bathroom. I don’t know what to say. But I think about it. Maybe he is like me and he is bad too. Maybe his dad does mean things.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” he says to me.

  I promise I won’t. I climb onto my bunk bed at the top and lie on my front. Then I can hang my head over and look at him. “Did someone hit you?” I ask him.

  He rolls on his side so I can’t see his face. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t move. I stare at him. He starts to cry, but then he rolls back over and nods his head. He pulls his sleeping bag up so he can hide his face. I don’t like it when people cry. I don’t know what to do about it. I wish I could make it better so he doesn’t cry. I don’t like when people feel sad. It makes me feel sad and makes me want to cry too.

  I climb down off my bunk and get him a tissue. Then I go in my bag and get some crisps. My Nan gave me money to buy things. I ask Karl if he wants some. I don’t say anything about his crying and we don’t talk about it. We talk about school and things. He has a funny accent. He tells me about where he used to live with his dad. But now he has to live with his mum. That’s why his voice is funny. I like the way he talks.

  “Tomorrow can I be on the boat with you?” he asks. I nod about it. I don’t have anyone to be on the boat with. No one likes me because they are all the popular people. I am not. No one talks to me. I make them scared. I can’t wait until tomorrow. Me and Karl go to sleep.

  Fifty Eight

  In the morning, we all have to get up early and then some of us make the breakfast and some of us clean it all away. It is a huge breakfast. I don’t get breakfast at home. It is a breakfast like Graham gave me a long time ago with eggs and sausage and some bacon. I have toast and cereal and some orange juice. There is porridge too, but I don’t like that. We ate that at the play place and I don’t eat it anymore. They used to make it with lots of lumps in it and they didn’t use milk so it tasted like water and it was disgusting. The porridge here smells nice but I still don’t want any.

  Me and Karl sit together in the corner. We talk about lots of things. When breakfast is all gone and cleaned away, we have to go to the other building at the back. We have to wear special waterproof clothes and some boots to go in the sail boats. Me and Karl go to get ours. The shed stinks so bad. It smells like fishes and water. It is disgusting and makes me and Karl screw our faces up.

  We get a boat. They are lined up and we have to pick one. I pick number three before anyone else. Karl doesn’t care which boat we go on, they are all the same. We have a teacher with us. We get to have our physical education teacher on our boat. We have to wheel it down the jetty and get it into the water. It doesn’t have any sails on it. We have to get those and then drag it around the side and tie it to the pole with a special knot so it doesn’t float away. Out teacher shows us everything before we are allowed to sail the boat out and then we get to take it in turns holding the sails and making the boat turn and things. It is windy today and we laugh because one of the other boats turns upside down and they all land in the cold water.

  We have to stop for lunchtime and then we get to go out again in the boats until it is dinner time. We have lessons on all the different things in the boat and how to use them. We have to learn lots of different words so that the other people in the boat know what we mean. After dinner, when it is all cleaned up, we get the lesson in the other shed again and we all have to write in our diaries about today and what we learnt. Then we get to hang around for an hour or so before we have to go in to go to bed.

  I am very tired from the sailing and things, but me and Karl hang around together and go onto the beach. I like the beach. I used to play on it with Rachel a lot. I tell Karl about it and the games we played. Maybe he would like Rachel too. He tells me he isn’t allowed to go onto the beach. They live near it. They live next to the pleasure beach. He is very lucky. I like the pleasure beach. It has lots of rides. I went there with my Nan lots of times. But Karl shakes his head. He hasn’t ever been to it. He watches it out of the window, but his mum doesn’t let him go there. She can’t afford it.

  Karl has lots of brothers and sisters. He has four sisters and one brother. He lives with them and his mum. “She comes home in the middle of the night,” he says to me. “Then she is sick all over the floor and my sister has to clean it up. Then we put her to bed, but she is heavy.”

  His mum goes to the pub and she drinks
every night. She gets mad because when she comes home, the house is a mess. Then she hits them. She doesn’t like Karl. I don’t know why; he is nice. I don’t tell him that my mum and dad don’t like me too.

  “My mum got mad,” he says. “She came in from the pub and she peed all over the floor. I had to clean it up, but I didn’t get it all.” He lifts his sleeve up and shows me his arm. He has a bite mark on it. It is red and has lots of teeth marks in it. She must have bit him very hard. It has a yellow bruise around it too. It makes me feel sad about it for him. She shouldn’t bite him. Maybe he cries when she does it. I don’t like his mum. She shouldn’t do that to him.

  Peter comes over with Lee, so we don’t talk about Karl’s mum any more. He tells me to shush. Peter asks us if we have seen the jellyfish that is on the other side of the jetty? He tells us that it is huge. We say no and we go with Peter and Lee. There are lots of people there and it is very big. They poke sticks in it. It is dead. We poke sticks in it too.

  Me and Karl spend all week together at the sailing school. I like him very much. We don’t talk to the others. We don’t like them. They are mostly mean anyway so it doesn’t matter. They talk about stupid boring things like the television. Me and Karl don’t watch it when we are at home. He isn’t allowed to either. When it is nighttime and we are supposed to be asleep, we write lots of notes to each other and pass them down the side of the bunk bed. When the teachers come, we pretend to be asleep. Karl tells me lots about his mum. She is very bad.

  She goes out at night and gets drunk. Then she brings people home with her so she can have sex on the sofa. He doesn’t like when his mum does that. He doesn’t like to watch so he hides under the pillows. I don’t tell Karl about my mum and dad. But I don’t like it when they have sex too. I don’t like to see it. I don’t write it down. I don’t want him to think I am bad.

  He lives in a flat with his mum. It only has one bedroom and a living room. His mum sleeps in there on the sofa. Him and his brother have to share the big room with their sisters. He doesn’t like it. His sister is bossy and mean too. She cooks them all dinner and thinks she is the boss of them all, but she isn’t.

  She looks after his mum, though, when their mum is drunk. Sometimes, his mum can’t get to the toilet and the alcohol makes her have diarrhoea. “It gets all over her,” he says. “Then we have to clean her and it smells so bad. Sometimes she is sick too.” I screw my face up. I don’t like it when people are sick and things. It smells too bad. Then it makes me want to be sick too.

  He cries sometimes when he tells me about his mum. His mum hits him lots of times. She hits him with a stick. That is why his back is so sore. She hits all of them when she gets drunk and mad. She swears and she hates him. “Sometimes the boyfriends are mean too. They get drunk with her and then they think it is funny to hit us too.”

  He swears when he talks about his mum. He hates her. I hate her. She is so mean. I hope she dies and goes away. “She is a stupid bitch,” he says to me. “I hope she gets drunk, falls down and dies.” He tells me about his sister. It was the weekend before the sailing. She started her period. The big sister was trying to help, but then his mum came home and she got mad. She beat the sister and then she and her boyfriend made her lie on the floor and they shoved ones of those tampon things inside her. She screamed when they did it. It made her cry. Karl had to hide away. They didn’t want to see it.

  I don’t know what to say about it when he says it to me. But it doesn’t matter. He just says lots of things about her. He doesn’t know where his dad is. “He pissed off years ago with some slut,” he says to me. “I hate him too.”

  I don’t tell Karl about anything with my mum and dad. But I ask Karl if he smokes. He says no. I ask him if he wants to sneak outside with me while I smoke. He says okay. I sneak out when Karl is asleep and he doesn’t know. No one knows about it. But maybe Karl won’t tell on me.

  It is easy to get out because the teachers sleep at one end and we just have to go to the stairs and get out. When we are outside and I light my cigarette, we hide at the back. I ask him if he wants to try smoking. He says yes. I tell him he has to do it slow or he will cough too much and then we will make a noise and get caught.

  He knows what to do, though. His mum smokes and he watches her. He puts my cigarette in his mouth and then he sucks it in. I laugh and tell him to shush when he coughs really badly. He puts his hand over his mouth and tries to keep the cough inside, but it sounds like he farts in his mouth and we laugh about it.

  It’s easy to sneak back in too. We have to be careful in case anyone got up. But they didn’t and no one catches us. The other kids sneak out too to smoke. I don’t smoke with them. I don’t like them. They think they are special. I just like Karl. I am sad that the week is over and we have to go home again. I like Karl. But he isn’t allowed to hang out after school or on the weekends.

  We are still friends, though, when we are in school. We see each other lots of times and I sit with him in the classes that we have the same. He likes Lewis too. We all go to the ditch together to smoke. Karl likes to write stories. Sometimes, me and Karl sit in the form room together and write them down. Then we read them to each other when we are smoking. Lewis doesn’t like them. He thinks it’s for babies, so we don’t tell him about it. We just read them when he isn’t there.

  Fifty Nine

  On school days, Karl meets me at the corner shop in the morning before we start school. He gets there before me because he lives so far away he has to catch the early bus. We buy cigarettes there and then we go and meet Lewis, and sometimes Chris, at the ditch. Chris doesn’t come a lot, though, because he just likes to have Lewis to himself.

  We smoke our cigarettes and talk about girls and things like that. Lewis has a girlfriend. She is in another school near his house. He tells us all about it. Chris is going out with her sister. They go out and get drunk on the weekends and have sex and things like that. “We go to this house,” Chris says to me. “There is a girl there called Michelle. She is a friend of Rebecca’s.” Rebecca is his girlfriend. “Her mum is great; she lets us hang around and she lets us have parties in the caravan at the front. You two should come down one weekend. Michelle would like you. We could get some friends and all go to the Pleasure Beach.”

  I didn’t have a girlfriend before. I have had sex before with girls. But it was a long time ago at the play place. I was seven. Then I had sex with girls all the time. But I haven’t done it with them when we have been in senior school. Just with my dad or his friend. I don’t say it though. I tell Lewis it sounds like a good idea.

  Karl is quiet today. Maybe it is because we are going to go to the Pleasure Beach and he can’t go. When we talk, he just nods at the things, but he doesn’t smile and he doesn’t really say anything. He looks sad. When Lewis and Chris go away, I ask Karl what’s wrong, and he says nothing so we go to class.

  We have art first in the pottery room. I hate pottery. It’s boring and the things we make always fall to pieces. I don’t like how the pot feel in my hands too. It is hard and scratchy. We always make stupid pots too. I don’t know why. They are grey and ugly and have funny shapes. It is boring because we have to stick them in the kiln to go hard. I sit with Karl in art. We can sit and talk, though. So it isn’t that bad. I don’t like the chairs in the pottery classroom. They are tall and hard and sometimes it hurts to sit on them if I have been with my dad the night before. Then I get told off for fidgeting because sometimes it gets itchy and I don’t want to do anything so people see. It annoys me.

  “I have to give my mum £2,” he says to me suddenly. “There was some money on the window ledge and it has gone missing. My mum says I took it and I can’t go home if I don’t bring it back.” He doesn’t look at me, but his eyes look like he is going to cry. They are all wet and red on the edges. “I don’t have any money,” he says.

  “Someone stole it?”

  He shrugs his shoulders. “She was mad about it and she shouted and ran around the h
ouse and smashed everything up. She told me to get out and not to come back until I have it.”

  “We can ask Lewis,” I say to Karl. Lewis always has lots of money. He works for his mum at the weekends. He will lend it to Karl if I ask him. He is good like that. But Karl doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want Lewis to know about his mum. I promise we won’t tell Lewis. “I will pretend I want to borrow it,” I say to him.

  I ask Lewis at lunchtime. He says he would, but he doesn’t have the money with him. I can have it tomorrow if I want. He will bring it in for me. But Karl has to have it today or he can’t go home. If he does, his mum is going to hit him. She said so when she was shouting about it. She doesn’t want shitty thieves in her house. She didn’t raise them to be scroungers. That’s what Karl says and he puts her voice on when he says it. He sounds like a demented witch. “I can’t wait until I can leave home,” he says. “You and me can live together and then everyone else can piss off.” I think that’s a good idea. I can’t wait either. We have two more full years left of school after this one. It is forever.

  I say to Karl that maybe we could ask a teacher for the money. Maybe we can say he lost his lunch money and then when she lets us borrow it, he can use that. He thinks it’s a good idea and we go to the office. He makes himself look sad about it and he tells the secretary he forgot his lunch money.

  She smiles at him and says it’s okay. He doesn’t have to worry. She goes into the other room and then comes back with a book. She writes him a note about his lunch money and he has to sign it. Karl smiles. Maybe he can get to go home now. But the secretary doesn’t give Karl money. She gives him a lunch voucher. “Take that to the canteen,” she says. “You can have anything up to £2.”