My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay

by Ben Trebilcook

  "I don't know, Abdul. Calm down."

  "I am calm. You be calm. I am calm! I go home now," he said, following Sinatra out of the room and into the corridor.

  "I wouldn't trust that fucking snake, Abdul man. Seriously yeah, he's a snake," Sinatra said, bopping alongside Abdul as they made through the set of double doors and down some concrete stairs.

  "What you mean by snake? Why he snake? What is this?"

  "A snake, man. You can't trust him," explained Sinatra.

  "No trust Michael?"

  "No."

  "Michael no trust because he snake?" Abdul asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Shit man fuck. Michael snake. Fucking snake man," Abdul muttered in his thick accent as he rounded the corner of the short set of concrete steps

  "I will not be made to look a fool, Patricia. At the end of the day, I'm the one who will end up looking stupid and getting my knuckles rapped for this mistake that you and Norman decided to cook up," spouted Josephine Golding, the Head Teacher, spinning round on her chair in the small office at the end of the corridor.

  "But, I-" stuttered Patricia. She felt ashamed, like a naughty schoolgirl. She was sitting on a softer, much lower chair than Josephine, which made her feel even more insecure and a lesser important human being.

  "We'll stick to the original story. He was a threat. Staff and pupils felt uncomfortable and what Michael heard was wrong," Josephine said, pointing her forefinger at Patricia, whose eyes had started to well up fast and wasn't handling the telling off well at all.

  "What... what will happen to Michael?" she asked, quivering, with her left leg and knee jittering.

  Josephine noticed this and Patricia placed her hand upon her knee to settle herself, but this just caused her hands to shake instead.

  "I'll be moving him next week. He can go downstairs to the basement floor and deal with the nutters there. Bit of luck he'll give up and hand in his notice in a couple of weeks," she said in her monotonous voice, just as the telephone sounded out. She sighed and took the call.

  "I have a call from a journalist saying they're from the Daily Express. They're asking for the Head Teacher who sanctioned Special Branch to quiz a pupil who said the word 'Taliban' in class. What shall I say to her?" came the concerned secretarial voice on the other end of the line.

  "You bloody tell them no comment and hang up the bloody phone!" shouted Josephine, slamming the receiver down hard and panting. Her eyes were wide and expressed extreme anger.

  "What was that?" Patricia calmly asked, like she was asking "Mummy, is everything all right?"

  Josephine turned slowly to Patricia, looking wild and untamed. "I will not be brought down by your fucking mistake, do you hear me?" hissed Josephine through gritted teeth to Patricia, who started to cry, nodding her head.

  "Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

  "He did this. He did all of this. Michael has connections. He brought the press to our door." Josephine's mind raced. She breathed heavily.

  "But he wouldn't have known about any of this," Patricia trembled.

  "Quiet!" ordered Josephine.

  "I want everything to come through me. Is that understood?" Edward said into his phone whilst he sat inside his car on the driveway of his home. "The Head Teacher who gave this the go-ahead. She'll be checked out too, am I right? I want reports of all the monitoring activity. What her husband does for a living. Is he in debt. Where her kids go to university and all the pubs they go to. I want pictures and video. Is that understood?" his voice was highly authoritative. A man concerned, yet in control.

  "You poor boy," said Catherine Riverdale.

  She looked at Michael as she and Paul sat with him around her classroom table, clutching another cup of tea.

  "This place has gone to pot," Paul sighed, as Helen entered the room. Her face said it all. Her eyes were glassy as she just stood there, looking at Michael, who got to his feet and the two embraced one another.

  Helen hugged him tight, like a work mother. She adored him. She once expressed to another colleague a few years back that Michael would be the ideal son in-law for her. Helen held his arms and stepped back to look at him.

  "I've just found out. I'm sorry. This would never have occurred if-"

  "I know. You don't have to say," interrupted Michael.

  She leaned close to hug him again, disguising that she was in fact whispering into his ear. "Work-related stress. Get signed off for two weeks."

  The two of them locked eyes.

  He nodded his head, understanding what she had told him, taking it in. "Thank you."

  Michael entered an empty classroom elsewhere within the school. He dialed his father's mobile phone number.

  "It's disgraceful, Michael. This woman, this head, should be reported. She can't go around sanctioning things like this. The bad thing is, Mikey, is that the boy, the Afghan lad, he'll have a link to terrorism whenever he's asked his name by police and they do a check on him."

  "You're joking? No way! That's awful," Michael exclaimed.

  "Yeah. His name will flag up and the officer who checks him will have to call his superior and then they'll inform him or her on what's what. Bad eh?" stated his father.

  "Really bad. Listen, I've got to go now. I'll call you later on," Michael said, hanging up the call.

  Sinatra and Abdul walked upon the pavement, outside the school.

  Sinatra offered a bag of Haribo jelly snake sweets to Abdul, forming some kind of bond with him in doing so.

  Abdul delved his hand into the bag and pulled a green and yellow snake, holding it up to his face.

  "A snake! Mike the snake. Look, sir. Look," he said, suddenly widening his eyes and biting the head off the jelly snake. He chewed it ferociously, showing his yellowing teeth to Sinatra as he did so.

  Sinatra laughed, but it was put on. However, the fake chuckle was soon masked by Sinatra's attention being pulled elsewhere, beyond the chain-link fencing to the school car park.

  "Look. It's his car, man. It's the snake's car," he said, as he pointed at Michael's Golf that was parked in the car park, shadowed by a tree and an out-building of some kind.

  "It is the car of the snake? Really?" said Abdul, still continuing to chew on the jelly candy.

  "Yeah, man. Come wiv me, yeah. Abdul, come on, man." Sinatra led Abdul through a break in the fencing and into the car park. Sinatra looked around as they made their way to Michael's vehicle.

  They were instantly blocked from any security camera view because, unfortunately for Michael, he hadn't managed to get his usual parking space today as for some reason the car park was quite full.

  "What you do to the car?" Abdul asked, smiling.

  "I don't know. I wanna do somefin, yeah?"

  "You want to break car?" asked Abdul, as he rounded the car and crouched down beside the right side rear wheel.

  "Where you goin', Abdul, man?" Sinatra whispered, shuffling low, holding his jeans with one hand as he stooped round to where Abdul was.

  He was kneeling beside the tyre and had unscrewed the tiny black cap to the valve. He skimmed the palm of his hand across the rough ground and located a small stone. More like a piece of gravel really. He put it inside the cap, then found another and did the very same thing.

  "What you doin', Abdul?" asked Sinatra as Abdul replaced the cap, pushing the stone into the valve and releasing air from the tyre as he screwed it back.

  "We will see him drive and psshh! Over the hills? The hills, in the road?" struggled Abdul, excitedly.

  "Hills? What hills, what the fuck are you talking about?"

  "The hills that make the car slow and then the car drive and then the car hits the hill and goes slow."

  "Oh, speed humps. Yeah, so what?"

  "Yes, speed... hump? Yes. He drive. The snake. He drive his car over the hills, the humps, and each time hump, pssh, air goes from wheel, yes? You understand?" explained Abdul, trying his hardest to tell Sinatra that whenever Michael drove his car over a speed hump,
more air would squish out from within the tyre. He was adamant about the fact and was acting as if he had tried and tested that action before. Perhaps he was a rogue back in Afghanistan. Maybe it was what all the kids did back there.

  Michael had thrown buds at windows. He had even played Knock Down Ginger by ringing on a doorbell and running away. Children from the dawn of time had played a prank of some sort on an adult.

  Was Abdul the same? Could he just be playing?

  Those particular boys, despite their curled, smiling mouths, whisked up by a frenzied adrenaline rush, did, however, feel angry. They were angry with Michael. That was the difference. That was what set the action apart from the prank category. The action was meant to cause angst, distress, unnecessary chaos and possible harm.

  "So he could have a flat tyre?"

  "Flat tyre, yes. Yes, flat tyre, pssh," Abdul panted. He straightened, but lowered his head, concerned he could be seen over the car roof or through the window. Not that there was anybody around.

  "Let's bounce, man. Let's go," Sinatra said, tugging Abdul's shirt.

  "Yes, let's see the snake on the hill humps. Joking, yes?"

  "Jokes, man, jokes."

  Michael sat with a child. A thirteen-year-old girl called Majestic.

  She was white, with a huge amount of wild hair that twisted out, round and upon her head, this way and that, with a fringe that had been hair-sprayed to her forehead. She had a necklace that dangled down her turquoise hooded top, a top that had 'Go Deep Go Hard' printed on it in neon pink. The necklace glistened her name, 'Majestic'. She toyed with a Blackberry phone that pinged every few seconds as they sat at a desk in a classroom.

  Michael sighed and looked up at a clock. It was half past two in the afternoon and it was a rarity that Majestic was there at all, let alone at that time.

  Some pupils were taught in an afternoon as they couldn't cope with mornings, however even then they didn't take part in much either.

  "Sir, yeah? I'm not gonna do any bloody stupid work, so you can make an aeroplane out of it or somethin' cos I'm not doing it," Majestic sighed.

  "Is that what you wanted to say, Majestic?" Michael said, frowning at her.

  "No, but I saw you had some work looking shit in front of yooz, so thought I'd say something," she said in her squeaky tone.

  "You did write an interesting story the other day, Majestic. Did you not want to type the rest of that up?"

  "No. Anyway, Miss sent that fucking story to my dad and he grounded me cos of what I wrote in it. It was my story. If I wanted my dad to read it then I woulda given him a copy of it. Sending it to my dad. Oh my days, I can't believe it!" she said, giggling strangely, covering her mouth.

  "Well, the story was really graphic, Majestic, so I think that's probably why Miss told your dad about it," Michael explained.

  "No, she didn't! She didn't tell him about it, she just fucking sent it and said, like, 'this is Majestic's story which made us feel concerned' or some shit like that. I mean, it's English, it's what the lesson is all about, making up fucking stories."

  "Choose different language please. Try not to swear so much."

  "Well, she fucking makes me swear. Sorry but she does. Interfering bitch," Majestic said, giggling and covering her mouth as she did so once more. She was very conscious about her lower teeth as they weren't straight at all and one in particular was chipped. She was an attractive little girl, but far too young to have experienced the type of things she had seen. "Anyway, I dunno what was so crazy about it. Miss got a yellow highlight pen and marked some of the words and shit. I think she's the crazy one. Maybe she's a lesbian. Do you think she could be, sir? Here, look, I got my story, look," Majestic said, tapping a few keys on a laptop in front of her.

  "No, it's OK, Majestic, I've read it." Michael really didn't want to hear any of it, but it was too late.

  "Look yeah. Dis is the highlighted shit in my story that Miss was so worried about. 'I went to a shubz and met bare buff boys from Turnham. They all had fizzies and showed me dem. A few minutes later they took me inside the house and put their cocks in my mouth and one jizzed on my head which really pissed me off cos it took me like free hours to get my hair ready and shit. One boy slapped me in the face and pulled my jeggings down-'"

  "Majestic, I don't want to hear anymore," interrupted Michael.

  Majestic continued, despite Michael's effort to interrupt. "'I was being abused but I secretly liked it as well. Den one boy found my bandanna and figured out I was from Deptford gang and slapped me again, so I ran out. They could see my pussy though but I didn't care cos I just wanted to get back on tha bus and get fucking out of there. I fucking hate Turnham.'"

  "Majestic. That's enough, please. I said I've read it."

  "Oh my God, it's just a fucking story. I didn't fink you should be worried about it," she giggled.

  "It just sounds a little bit too real, Majestic."

  "Don't people say 'write what you know about' or shit like that?" Majestic replied, tilting her head. She was serious and somewhat confused.

  "So what were you going to say?"

  "Oh yeah. Do you believe in ghosts? I do. In my room, the candle flickers and it's den dat I know I have to sing, so I sing my ghost song to make da ghosts let me sleep. I fink I first found out about da ghosts when I was in primary school and it was den dat I first went a bit off the rails and started getting into trouble," she explained, trying her best, in her matter of fact way, to explain the reasons behind her odd behaviour.

  It was actually when an elderly uncle of hers died a few years back that Majestic started to go off the rails. Why her previous schools or social worker hadn't picked up her over-sexualised behaviour and language was beyond anyone's guess.

  Michael had figured that the elderly uncle must had been abusing Majestic.

  Even Majestic's father had said to Michael that, "Majestic started going mental when her uncle died. She weren't the same."

  A primary school teacher reported in her file that Majestic was far too sexualised for her age, at that time eight years old, asking female teachers, "When you touch your fanny, does it feel good?" The response from Majestic's mother was, "All little girls say things like that. What the fuck is wrong with you teachers? Don't you have kids of your own?"

  Michael decided he would contact the member of staff who dealt with the procedure for Child Protection.

  "Shit, it's well late, I'm gonna go. See you tomorrow, sir," Majestic said, getting up off her chair and speedily making for the door. She walked in her usual waddling manner and exited the room.

  Michael exhaled and shook his head.

  "Man, what a mess," he murmured to himself, as he scooped up some paperwork and closed down the laptop.

  It was a quarter to four and Michael inserted his car key into the ignition and started up the engine. He pulled on his seatbelt, shoved the vehicle into gear at the same time and gently rolled out of the school car park and onto the street. After a few turns here and there, Michael found himself on the very road that Abdul had mentioned. The one with the hill humps. Speed humps to everyone else.

  The car rolled up and over one and down with a thud. The heavy vehicle's bulk came down hard on its rear tyres and pressed its weight on them. It wasn't long until the car approached another hump as Michael ascended the steep road and, once again, the car slammed down. Twice more.

  Michael could have driven much, much slower, at a snail's pace, but that would have held up the cars following close behind him, and the bottom line really was that he just wanted to get home and out of the area.

  Slam! The car bounced down hard off the hump and indeed, as predicted by Abdul, the right hand rear tyre was becoming flatter with every concrete hump he passed over.

  As Michael reached the top of the road and turned onto Winn Common Road, he began to notice that something didn't seem right with the car. He frowned and turned down his stereo, catching sight of the silver gaffer tape on the passenger seat. He scrolled his windo
w down to listen as he drove slower. He passed through the width restriction in the road. Highly concerned, he didn't even notice Abdul and Sinatra standing on the grass at the top of the street as he drove pass them. He pulled his car over across the road into the layby area, switched off the ignition, unbuckled his belt, flicked the locks up and exited the car. He bent down to the right-hand rear tyre and saw that it was considerably flat. Frowning, he inspected the cap and unscrewed it. It practically came off as soon as his finger and thumb touched it, and when it did, the tiny gravel like stones dropped to the ground. Michael's eyes danced and diverted to the stones and then looked at the plastic cap to the valve.

  "Muthas. They let my tyre down. Chav fuckers," he muttered, sighing as he figured out what to do. He sighed again and pressed his fingers against the side of the tyre, seeing exactly how flat it was, wondering if he could continue and drive the vehicle all the way home, without any trouble. He decided against doing so as it would probably damage the wheel.

  "Dammit," he said, straightening to stand. He pulled his iPhone and saw the time was ten to four. He scrolled to his favourites to locate 'Bex'. He pressed her name and brought the phone to his ear, sighing. He rolled his tongue around inside his mouth, filling out his cheeks and gums, thinking as he looked at the deflated tyre and awaited Rebecca to pick up.

  The ringing went straight to her voicemail.

  "Hi, you've reached Rebecca Samson. If you'd like to leave your name, number and message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you." Beep.

  "Hey baby, it's me. Just calling to say I was on my way home from work but I've got a flat tyre. I found a few tiny stones in the valve cap. It's bound to be a pupil at work or something..."

  HOOT! A car horn sounded, passing Michael's car, which caused him to stop speaking.

  "Yo, hang up da phone. Do it, man," came a voice.

  Frowning, Michael's tone changed as he turned again and completed his message.