My Name Is Mina (skellig)

by David Almond

  And the silver cord that linked Mina-on-the-pyramid to Mina-on-the-bed suddenly tightened and away she went again, back into the west where it was still true night.

  She traveled back over Europe, even more swiftly than she’d come. She paused, high high up, above the clouds that lay like scattered thin veils between herself and the earth. The cities of Europe were like distant star-clusters, like galaxies.

  And she streaked down towards Rome. She saw the streetlights, the headlights of a few cars moving through the streets, and with a gasp of delight she saw the floodlit Colosseum and St. Peter’s Square and the Trevi Fountain, places she knew only from books until now. Then the cord tugged her harder, faster, and she flew again. The land below was just a blur.

  Just one more place! she thought. Durham!

  And she saw the cathedral and the castle, the river snaking around them, and to the east the dawn kept rising, rising, as if it was pursuing her. And she sighed and said, “OK! Back home to bed!” And suddenly she was above the park, and the silver cord vibrated and shimmered as it drew her home.

  She woke as the early light shone through the window and birds chorused outside.

  “Peru,” she murmured. “Alice Springs. Vladivostok. I’ll go to all those places, too.”

  EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

  Go to sleep.

  Sleep while you fly.

  Fly while you sleep.

  The Story of Corinthian Ave.

  The days are passing quickly. Maybe it will soon be properly spring at last. The family have bought the house. The mum and dad come with stepladders and buckets and mops and brushes. They clean and scrub for hours at a time. Each day I climb high in the tree. Each day the blackbirds squawk, Get back, girl! Squawk! You’re danger! Squawk!

  Now I’m sitting at the table by my window in my room. And it’s time to tell the tale of the Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit.

  When Mum said she wanted to take me out of school and educate me herself, a man and a woman from the council came to the house. I don’t remember their names. Ms. Palaver and Mr. Trench, perhaps. They sat together on the sofa and drank tea and nibbled biscuits and tried to look caring and oh-so-concerned. Ms. Palaver (who, I noticed, kept well clear of the fig rolls) watched me out of the corner of her eye. I sat very prim and very proper on a piano stool. They said that legally, Mum was of course well within her rights to make this decision. Did we understand the implications, though? Educating me at home would be quite a drain on Mum’s energy and time. We would not have the facilities of school. I would not have the benefit of company of children of my own age. Mum said we realized those things. We were quite prepared for them. She said we were quite happy about them. And our plan for home education might not last forever.

  “Though it might,” I said quickly.

  Ms. Palaver looked at me in surprise. I looked back at her. She was wearing a black suit with a white blouse and silver earrings. Mr. Trench was also in black and white. I was about to ask them if they were off to a funeral but I thought perhaps not. So instead, somewhat to my own surprise, I said,

  “Ms. Palaver.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  Mum gave me a look.

  “I’m not certain I understand,” said Ms. Palaver.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  I sat up straight again. I looked past Ms. Palaver into the street.

  Mum started talking about how Mina had an adventurous mind. She said she’d be able to commit lots of time to Mina. She talked about Mina’s dad and about Mina being an only child and about how she had no objections to St. Bede’s itself, but …

  “And as for facilities,” I said, “we have a very nice tree in the front garden in which I have many thoughts. And the kitchen is a fine laboratory and art room. And who could devise a better classroom than the world itself?”

  Mum smiled.

  “As you see,” she said, “Mina is a girl with her own opinions and attitudes.”

  Ms. Palaver peered at me closely. I could see her thinking that Mina was an impertinent girl with her own pompous crackpot notions.

  “To be quite frank,” I said, looking straight back at her, “We feel that schools are cages.”

  “Indeed?” said Ms. Palaver.

  “Yes,” I continued. “We feel that schools inhibit the natural intelligence, curiosity and creativity of children.”

  Mr. Trench rolled his eyes.

  Mum smiled and shook her head.

  Ms. Palaver said again, “Indeed?”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  “Before you make your final decision, Mrs. McKee,” said Mr. Trench, “you might find it worthwhile to have Mina spend a day at Corinthian Avenue.”

  “Corinthian Avenue?” said Mum.

  “It’s where we send children who don’t …”

  “Or who won’t …,” said Ms. Palaver.

  Mr. Trench brought out a leaflet from the inside pocket of his black jacket. He held it out to Mum.

  “Can’t do any harm,” he said.

  EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

  Read the Poems of William Blake.

  (Especially if you are Ms. Palaver.)

  The thought of Corinthian Avenue makes me edgy, so I pick up my book and my pen and head downstairs. This is something that needs to be written in the tree! Mum’s on the phone in the living room. I get an apple from the fruit bowl and bite into it. I put some trainers on. It looks chilly outside so I put a jacket and scarf on. She’s still on the phone.

  “I’m going outside!” I call.

  She doesn’t answer.

  “I’m going out, Mum!” I call again.

  I listen. I shrug and head for the door.

  Then she’s there, coming out of the living room.

  I point to the book and pen.

  “Going into the tree,” I say.

  “OK.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Who was what?”

  “On the phone.”

  “Oh, on the phone? Colin.”

  “Colin?”

  “Colin Pope. Remember? You met him when we went to the theater the other week. In the interval.”

  “Oh, him.”

  She folds her arms and tilts her head and looks at me.

  “Yes. Him.”

  I think back. Colin Pope, a skinny tall man with a pint of beer in his hand.

  “He was nice, wasn’t he? Remember?”

  I shrug. I don’t remember if he was nice. I hardly remember him at all. Why should I? And anyway, what’s nice? He shook my hand and said he’d heard a lot about me. I don’t think I said anything to him. I read the program while they prattled and drank and nibbled peanuts. The play was Grimm Tales. I do remember I thought about talking about whether wolves really were as savage as they’re made out to be in the fairy tales. But I didn’t, and they prattled on.

  “Remember him?” Mum says again.

  “Not sure if I do,” I say.

  She grins.

  “I’ll be off to the tree,” I say.

  “Go on, then.”

  I head for the door. I hesitate there.

  “What did he want?” I say.

  “Just to say hello.”

  “Took a long time to say hello.”

  I go out and close the door.

  Huh! Colin Pope!

  I’m in the tree. The leaves are thickening fast. I check the eggs. Still there, still three of them, still beautiful.

  Squawk squawk, go the blackbirds.

  “OK,” I whisper back.

  I sit on my branch, surrounded by thickening leaves. Soon I’ll be quite hidden away up here. I turn my mind back towards the past.

  They sent a red taxi to take me to Corinthian Avenue – maybe to make sure I went at all. Mum came with me that morning. The taxi driver was wearing a yellow football strip with PELÉ written across the back.

  He kept looking at me in the driver’s mirror as we set off.

  “Do you take many to Corinthian Avenue?” I asked
him.

  “Sure do. Got a contract. I’ve took quite a crew to Corinthian Avenue in my time, I can tell you.”

  He drove on, past the park, through the slow-moving traffic towards the city center.

  “And I could tell a tale or two,” he said.

  “Tell one,” I said.

  “No chance.”

  He shook his head. He took a hand off the steering wheel and tapped his nose.

  “Confidentiality,” he said.

  He wound the window down and leaned an elbow on the frame.

  “More’n my job’s worth,” he said.

  The traffic thickened, edged through the streets past the offices and shops. We drove slowly onto the bridge. The arch arced beautifully above us. The river sparkled beautifully below.

  I caught him watching me again.

  “So what’s your story?” he said. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Tell me to shut up and stop prying if you like. But some kids like to get it off their chest with a bloke like me. And whatever you say’ll stay within these cab walls.”

  I looked at Mum. She looked at me.

  “I think we’ll just keep it to ourselves, thank you very much,” said Mum.

  “It’s OK, Mum,” I said. “I’m sure Mr. Pelé will keep it secret.”

  “It’s Karl,” said Karl.

  “OK,” I said. “It was violence, Karl.”

  “Get away,” said Karl.

  “It’s true. I attacked a teacher.”

  “Aye?”

  “Aye. With a pen.”

  “A pen?”

  “Aye. It made a great weapon. I stabbed her in the heart. I’m really vicious once I start. I don’t look like it, but I’m a bloody savage!”

  I snarled into the mirror. I bared my teeth. Karl raised his eyebrows. He shook his head. He whistled softly.

  “Goes to show.”

  “Goes to show what?”

  “That you never can tell.”

  “That’s what I think as well. You never can tell.”

  He drove on slowly in silence.

  “She asked for it,” I said.

  “Aye?”

  “Aye. She went on and on. Yak yak yak.”

  “Yak yak yak?” said Karl.

  “Yes. Yak yak yakkity yakkity yak yak yak.”

  “I had a teacher like that,” said Karl.

  “Was she called Mrs. Scullery?”

  “Nah. It was a bloke. Blotter, we called him. Can’t remember his real name.”

  “But he went yak yak yak?”

  “Aye. He had more of a snarl in it, though. So it was like more vicious. Yek yek yekkity yek! That kind of thing.”

  “Did you attack him?”

  “Naah. He was a great big bloke, and I was just a titch. He had a hell of a temper, and all. So I just shut me lugs and let him get on with it. Yek yek yek yekkity yek.”

  “Pity. Anyway I’d had enough of Mrs. Scullery and her yak yak yak, so I done her.”

  “With the pen.”

  “Aye. I done her good, with the pen.”

  “Murder?”

  “Not quite. She’ll survive.”

  I looked down at the water that flowed beneath us toward the sea. I said,

  “Are you as good as Pelé, Karl?”

  He grinned.

  “Aye,” he said. “In fact, I’m even better.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You should have seen the goal I scored in the park last week. Breathtaking.”

  We grinned at each other in the mirror.

  “So why are you driving taxis?” I said.

  “Cos I love it. Who’d want to travel the world and make a million quid and be adored by all them fans? No, it’s journeys to Corinthian Avenue for me! And look, here we are, safe and sound.”

  He stopped the car and opened the door to let me out.

  He pretended to flinch as I stepped out. He put his hands up as if to protect himself.

  I laughed and he grinned.

  “Keep them pens under control today,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “See ya, Miss. Savage.”

  “Bye-bye, Mr. Pelé.”

  He winked at us and drove away.

  And there it was, a redbrick house surrounded by Tarmac and a steel fence, and tubs with blue hydrangeas in them.

  I pause. I need to mess about before I go on. I’ll play with words for a while. I’ll do a single sentence and a single word. Good games to play while I gather my memories of that day.

  Sometimes when I’m at my table or in my tree and I want to write I start a sentence to see if I can write a whole page before I need a full stop which at first can seem rather difficult but which is really quite easy, because a single sentence could go on forever just like numbers could go on forever, which is difficult for little children to understand because they believe that a number like 100 is so huge that there can be nothing higher until someone says there’s 101 and 102 and 103 and they say O yes and so they begin to understand that numbers have no true end and can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until the end of time, if there is an end of time which I think is maybe impossible because if numbers go on forever maybe time does too, but as I get closer to the foot of the page I know that this sentence must stop very soon which now makes me wonder if I am like God when I am writing and makes me wonder whether God could put an end to time if he decided he has had enough of it and whether one day he will speak the single simple cataclysmic word STOP and everything will simply stop.

  A SINGLE WORD

  THIS MORNING THE SKY

  HAS ONLY

  A SINGLE BIRD IN IT.

  THIS MORNING MY PAGE

  HAS ONLY

  A SINGLE WORD ON IT.

  SKYLARK

  EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

  Write a sentence which fills a whole page.

  EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

  Write a single word at the center of a page.

  OK. The Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit.

  We … No. Not we. Not I. Third person, Mina. She. They.

  And so one day our heroine, Mina, who thought she was so clever and strong, arrived at Corinthian Avenue. As Karl’s taxi drove away, Mina walked hand in hand with her mum towards the glass doorway.

  As they stepped inside, a woman came to them.

  “I’m Mrs. Milligan,” she said. “And you must be Mina!”

  “Yes, I suppose I must,” said Mina.

  “She is,” said Mina’s mum, “and I am Mrs. McKee.”

  Mrs. Milligan smiled kindly, and led them into a small and brightly lit office. She filled in a form and asked Mina’s mum to sign. She opened a file from St. Bede’s. Mina sighed and scowled.

  “Relax, Mina,” said Mrs. Milligan. “We’re not here to judge you. We’re here to help.”

  She closed the notes and smiled.

  “Didn’t really fit in, did you, dear?” she said.

  “Hardly.”

  “One system can’t fit us all, can it? We know that here, Mina.”

  “Do you?”

  Mina wanted this woman to be like Palaver or Trench. She wanted her to be like Scullery or like THE HEAD TEACHER. But she was like none of them.

  “We know you’re only here for a visit,” said Mrs. Milligan. “But perhaps you’ll like us enough to stay a little longer.”

  “Or perhaps not,” responded the girl.

  Mrs. Milligan smiled sweetly. Mina’s mum flashed her eyes at Mina. Mina looked away. She was trying to be careless and free, but she was confused, and she was trembling inside. and she felt weirdly quiet, weirdly shy. She wanted to run away.

  Mrs. Milligan showed them where the toilets were and where the lunchroom was. Everywhere was neat and clean. There was a cooling smell of lavender. There were lots of books on lots of shelves. There were kids’ paintings on the walls. There were stories and poems hanging beside them.

 
; Soon other kids began to arrive in taxis and minibuses. There were adults in T-shirts and jeans with their names on tags that hung around their necks.

  Mrs. Milligan took them to Room B12, a room with woodblock flooring, a window with white net curtains on it, tables and red plastic chairs in a ring. One of the walls had a mural painted on it – a huge rain forest with monkeys and snakes and butterflies and frogs. The names of the artists were painted along the bottom edge: Daniela, Eric, Patrick, Steepy …

  “We do a lot of art here,” said Mrs. Milligan. “Malcolm’s an expert at it. He’ll be here soon.”

  Mina shrugged.

  “I hear you’re something of an expert, too,” said Mrs. Milligan.

  “Expert!” grunted Mina.

  She rolled her eyes at her mum, who whispered,

  “Mina!”

  Then Malcolm arrived. He wore blue jeans, a red shirt, a silver bracelet on his wrist.

  “I’m Malcolm,” he said.

  Mina said nothing. Mina’s mum nudged her:

  “He’s Malcolm. You’re …”

  “And you must be Mina,” continued Malcolm.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  Mina lowered her eyes. She shuffled her feet.

  She felt her lips curling downward like on a cartoon face.

  “I’m so sorry,” said her mum. “She’s not usually so …”

  “That’s all right!” said Malcolm. “First day, new place, bit shy. She’ll be fine once she gets to know us. Ah, Harry! Come and meet Mina.”

  Harry was a short boy in a blue anorak, with lank hair and perplexed eyes. He came towards them. He nodded shyly at Mina. He held a book out to Malcolm.

  “I b-brung it,” he said.

  “It? Ah, Buddha! Thank you!”

  He took the book and fanned it open for Mina.

  “One of the first great graphic novels,” he said. “As good as they say, Harry?”

  “A-aye, Malcolm,” stammered Harry. “Aye!”

  Mina turned away, as if she disapproved.