Teachers keep asking to see my report sheet and I keep saying I’ve lost it, but if they just opened their eyes and looked around them they would see those report sheet paper cranes all over the school. No big mystery.
The office door opens and Mr Khan appears; young, nervous, adjusting his hipster glasses to see me more clearly.
‘Ryan!’ he says, as if greeting a long lost friend. ‘Come in! Take a seat.’
I flop down on an office chair, scuff the toe of my trainer against the scratchy nylon carpet tiles.
‘Good week?’ he asks.
It’s a trick question, of course, so I don’t bother with an answer. He knows exactly what kind of a week I’ve had; my teachers keep him informed of my every move, and let’s face it, this week has been an especially eventful one.
On his desk is a fat file with my name on the cover, and sure enough, he opens it and frowns.
‘So … some problems, it would seem, Mr Kelly,’ he says. ‘A catalogue of disaster, in fact. Sent out of Miss Robson’s French class for failing to hand in yet another homework – that’s four in a row, Ryan. It’s the same story with English, maths and science. You’re a bright boy, but your grades have been awful this year. Your teachers think you’ve given up.’
‘My dog Rocket eats homework,’ I shrug. ‘Shreds it and chews it to a pulp. Sometimes he actually swallows it whole, especially if it’s maths, but that gives him indigestion. Understandable, I suppose. It’s a problem …’
‘Ryan, this is no joke,’ Mr Khan says. ‘I’ve been speaking to your parents, and they are very concerned!’
That’s a low blow. My parents are worried sick about me, I know, but they don’t understand. They want to help, but how can they? Nobody can. I don’t want to talk about stuff; I don’t want to be counselled. I just want to find a way to forget it all, and in the process I’ve acquired a bad boy reputation and a bunch of thuggish mates.
I ended up being friends with Buzz and Chris, the two kids from the back of the class who’d cheered when I chucked up on my form teacher’s trainers on the very first day of term. Buzz and Chris are borderline delinquents, but they make me laugh, provide me with endless distraction and a free pass to hang out with the school lowlifes. If I’m playing footy with Buzz and Chris, I forget about my anger for a while, forget about the past. I switch off my mind and pour my energy into the game, or allow myself to get roped into their dodgy pranks and schemes. That often lands me in trouble, but so what? It’s not like we’re doing anything really bad. Not most of the time.
My parents, however, are not impressed.
School work dropped off my radar two years ago. I couldn’t care less what marks I get because none of it matters at all. You can work your socks off at school and it still doesn’t stop bad things from happening. I know that for a fact. So why bother?
Eden is just about the opposite of me; she haunts the library these days, gets top marks in every test, but I think she knows as well as I do that she’ll never find the answers she needs in the pages of a text book.
‘Then there was that incident in PE on Tuesday,’ Mr Khan is saying. ‘Although why Mr Benedict thought it was wise to give you a javelin I will never know …’
‘Mr Benedict is an idiot,’ I say.
‘This is serious,’ Mr Khan growls. ‘You threw a school javelin over the hedge and into the garden of an old age pensioner. It landed right in the middle of her fish pond, I’ve been told. We’re lucky Miss Smith isn’t suing the school!’
‘It was a windy day.’ I shrug. ‘I wasn’t even aiming for her garden. I’ve got nothing against goldfish!’
‘How about old ladies?’ Mr Khan challenges. ‘Do you have anything against them? You could have given her a seizure!’
‘I didn’t, though,’ I say. ‘C’mon, she was safely inside the house … I don’t think she even noticed. It was an honest mistake – Mr Benedict didn’t have to make such a big deal of it!’
‘Can you blame him?’
I maintain a stony silence, because I do blame Mr Benedict, actually. He has never forgiven me for chucking up on his trainers back in Year Seven. He gets a kick from seeing me land in trouble.
The truth is, Mr Benedict had been winding me up for throwing like a wuss and Buzz and Chris were watching and goading me on. I’d wanted to show I could do it. I was angry and trying to prove a point, and I sort of overshot the mark. By quite a lot. But it had been an accident, obviously – I hadn’t meant to freak out an old lady by hurling a giant spear past her living-room window. Truly.
I’d offered to go round and apologize, but the head told me he’d expel me if I set foot anywhere near Miss Smith’s place. Maybe they really do think I’m a teenage psychopath; who knows?
‘It was a great throw,’ I reflect. ‘I think I might have a talent for the javelin. Mr Benedict really should have put me in the school athletics team, but funnily enough he hasn’t. I don’t think he likes me much.’
Mr Khan closes his folder and leans back, exasperated. We both know that the javelin incident has caused a tidal wave of trouble for the school. Javelins have now been banned, and the head teacher has dipped into school funds to pay for the building of a six-foot fence between Miss Smith’s garden and the school playing fields. As for me, I’ve somehow acquired lunchtime detentions every day until the start of the summer holidays.
I don’t even care.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?’ Mr Khan asks, making one last attempt at sympathy. ‘You know you can tell me anything. What’s going on in that mind of yours, Ryan?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ I mutter, but actually, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t. Nobody would.
‘The summer holidays will be here soon,’ the counsellor says with a sigh. ‘Your parents are not happy. Your teachers are not happy. We need to turn things round, get you back on track. The head has suggested we might bring in an anger management therapist next term …’
I get up so abruptly that my chair skids across the carpet tiles and crashes into the desk, which just about gives Mr Khan a heart attack.
‘No anger management,’ I say, briskly. ‘No therapist. No thank you. No, no, no!’
Mr Khan frowns. ‘I don’t think things are getting any better, Ryan,’ he says. ‘If you’re not able to work on this, I think we’ll need to call in some more support. OK. So do you have your report card? I have to sign it.’
‘It’s in the Swiss cheese plant,’ I snap, slamming the door behind me.
6
Eden
The bad stuff began in Year Six. My dad left; he said that things just weren’t working out with Mum, that he loved us both, but he didn’t want to live with us. I couldn’t fathom it – does it really take eleven years to work out that you don’t want your family any more? I cried myself to sleep every night for a month. It would have been longer, but it was like all the tears were used up after that, leaving me empty, hollow, numb.
Dad moved to London and my world crumbled, but at least I had the Heart Club. They understood. They knew not to ask too many questions, not to push me too hard. They just accepted that things were tough, and they loved me just the same as always. When I was with them, the sad stuff peeled away and I could be myself again; the real me.
And when I was alone with Andie, I could open up, talk about it and know she wasn’t judging me. I told her when the divorce came through, about how Mum cried when she showed me the piece of paper that said ‘decree absolute’, about how she drank a whole bottle of wine and then threw the half-empty glass at the wall, wh
ere it shattered into pieces and left a dark stain on the wallpaper. Andie just hugged me, held me close and let me cry, and then she wiped my tears and held my hand for the longest time, the two of us lost in our own worlds, silent but connected.
Dad got a new girlfriend, Mum got a new job and life went on.
I learnt to square my shoulders and hide the hurt inside. I didn’t know that that was just the start of it.
I am sitting on the squashy chair outside Mr Khan’s office when Ryan Kelly comes thundering out, almost taking the door off its hinges. Ryan is not my friend these days; he made that pretty clear on our first ever day at Moreton Park, cutting me dead in the school corridor as if he’d never even seen me before. That hurt, but I am used to his indifference now.
He looks at me, lip curling with faint disgust, then legs it off along the corridor, brushing against the Swiss cheese plant as he goes.
A perfectly folded origami paper crane, made from slightly grubby yellow paper, falls to the floor at my feet. I pick it up and look at it, remembering Andie’s origami craze and how she taught us all to make the little paper birds. There’s a heavy ache in my chest, as if I’ve swallowed a stone. I balance the paper crane on a branch and fix my face to neutral.
At Moreton Park Academy, everyone sees Mr Khan for a well-being check-up once a year. It is part of the school’s ethos to support students both academically and emotionally, and I suppose it keeps Mr Khan in a job. Some of us have more frequent appointments, of course. I get to see the counsellor once a term; as far as I can tell, Ryan Kelly, the angriest boy in the school, sees him every week.
I wouldn’t say it’s helping, but hey, what do I know?
‘Eden?’ Mr Khan says, peering round the door. ‘You can come in now!’
I slouch inside and sit down, studying my shoes. They’re black Converse, scuffed, with fraying laces. Small spatters of mud fleck the canvas, making them look slightly sad and down at heel.
‘So,’ Mr Khan says brightly. ‘No problems from a behaviour point of view and your grades are good. Your teachers say you are still very withdrawn, however. How are you feeling?’
‘Fabulous,’ I quip. Mr Khan scribbles the word in his file, failing to spot the sarcasm.
‘No feelings of depression? Lethargy? Lack of enthusiasm for life?’ he checks.
‘No, I’m literally fizzing with enthusiasm,’ I mutter. ‘On top of the world.’
‘How’s the social life?’
‘A non-stop whirl of all-night parties,’ I say, and the penny finally drops; Mr Khan frowns and shakes his head.
‘Eden, come on,’ he says. ‘You’re a clever girl. You work very hard in lessons, but there is more to life than work. I wonder if you understand how important it is to have fun with friends, let loose a little?’
I raise an eyebrow, chew my fingernails.
‘How have you been?’ Mr Khan asks. ‘How are you feeling? Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?’
Mr Khan is a kind man, I know that. He still has the fluffy pink enthusiasm of whatever training course he did wrapped round him like an invisible superhero’s cloak. He is on a mission to transform the students of Moreton Park Academy into happy, well-balanced, peace-loving teenagers. Somebody really should tell him that it will never happen, but I am not planning to be that person.
‘Eden?’ he prompts. ‘Is there anything you want to say?’
‘Not really, no.’
Mr Khan’s shoulder’s slump, as if I have failed to deliver an especially important piece of homework. Too bad. Mr Khan has no idea at all. I can’t open up to him, not ever. There is a wound inside me that will never properly heal, and if I pick the scab away just for him, the poison inside might come flooding out. It might never stop.
Keeping my mouth shut is the only way I know of keeping myself strong. It’s self-defence.
‘I’m fine,’ I say into the silence. ‘Really.’
Mr Khan sighs and scribbles a few notes in his folder.
‘School closes for the summer next week,’ he tells me, as if I’m not already counting down the days. ‘Have you any plans?’
I plan to sleep in until eleven each day, read books about American teenagers living the sort of life I can only dream of, watch rubbish TV, eat a Snickers bar for breakfast and cheese on toast for lunch. When the sun is shining, I might venture out into the shared back garden and sit in the corner where we once had the trampoline, just to say I got some sun.
‘Plans? Not really,’ I say.
‘Well, I have a task for you,’ Mr Khan says. ‘Let’s call it a summer homework assignment. I want you to write me a list of five simple things you could do to build up your social life, both during and after the holiday. Just five. Can you do that, Eden?’
I go back to studying my shoes. Sometimes, Mr Khan seems to think I am about five years old.
I wish I was.
I’m sitting alone in the school canteen, picking little bits of sweetcorn out of my salad, when Chloe, Flick and Ima sit down next to me. They’re nice girls, friendly girls – the kind of girl I used to be.
‘Hey,’ says Chloe. ‘Looking forward to the holidays, Eden?’
I look up briefly though a curtain of fringe. ‘Sure,’ I say, dredging up a smile.
‘Are you going to Lara’s party?’ Flick asks. ‘Next Friday. It sounds amazing! Her brother’s band are going to play and her parents are going out for the evening, so it will be like a proper grown-up party …’
‘It’ll be my first teen party ever,’ Ima says, excitement fizzing behind her soft brown eyes. ‘My parents are really strict, but we live quite close by so I’m allowed as long as I’m home by half ten. It’s a bit of a sad curfew, but who cares? I’ll take it! Come with us if you like, Eden. It’ll be fun!’
I take a mouthful of quiche and chew slowly. Ima and the others are kind, but the truth is that Lara hasn’t invited me to her party, even though I knew her well in primary school. She probably just assumed I wouldn’t want to come, and I can’t blame her for that. She assumed right.
‘I’m busy that night,’ I tell them. ‘But yeah … it sounds good.’
Chatting with classmates about the holidays; would Mr Khan class that as building up my social life? Not when I am pretending to be busy on the night of a party, I suppose.
‘Well,’ Flick says, shrugging. ‘If you do change your mind, let us know, OK?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Thanks. It’s not that I don’t want to come, just that I’m busy.’
We eat in awkward silence for a few minutes, and I feel a little bit bad about lying to them, pushing away their attempts at friendship. They’re OK. They speak to me when lots of people don’t bother, sit next to me occasionally at lunch or in the library. Sometimes, I partner Ima or Flick in PE. Maybe the four of us could be friends, if I was in the market for friendship, but I’m not.
Like I said, it’s safer being alone. It hurts less.
Chloe looks at her mobile and pushes her plate away.
‘Time to go,’ she says. ‘There’s a meeting in the drama studio. Miss Gibson’s running a youth drama group over the summer and we thought we might give it a try. Fancy coming along to find out more?’
‘I can’t,’ I say carelessly, as if my lunchtimes are one long, hectic social whirl. ‘Stuff to do in the library. Thanks, though. Have fun!’
Chloe, Flick and Ima gather up their bags and skitter away, waving over their shoulders.
7
Ryan
In Year Six, I’d have laughed at the idea that I might e
ver need counselling, that I’d one day be labelled as some kind of teenage troublemaker and not even care. I’d have hated the way some kids look at me wide-eyed and wary, as if I might randomly stab them with a biro or set fire to my backpack during assembly.
I’d have hated the way I’ve settled for friends like Buzz and Chris – boys who plan a career of trouble – who nick chocolate bars for fun and yell and swear in the street and kick empty Coke cans along the pavement just to scare old ladies and little kids. I am light entertainment, compared to them, but still I need Buzz and Chris. They are a distraction from the crackle of anger that fizzes just under my skin these days. They make me laugh at their clumsy, awkward antics, and I find myself drawn in, masterminding elaborate pranks, letting off steam in ill-advised blow-ups and scraps. Trouble and me are on first name terms, these days.
Sometimes I don’t recognize the person I’ve become.
I had different plans for secondary school, once upon a time. I’d imagined I would have the best of all worlds; four cool girl mates and some boy mates too – the sporty, funny, easy-going kind rather than the ones I’ve ended up with. For ages the boys at primary school had teased me for hanging out with Andie, Eden, Tasha and Hasmita, but in the end they’d gone quiet with the jokes and wind-ups. They’d seemed almost envious, sometimes.
I’d been the kid who knew how to talk to girls, at a time when most of the other boys I knew were still telling fart jokes and scrapping in the playground to try to get the attention of the girls they liked. It didn’t work, obviously, and slowly one or two were asking how come I got on so well with the Heart Club girls, how I knew what to talk about. I’d told them that there was no mystery, that you just talked about normal stuff and listened a bit and tried not to act like a total loser, but I’m not sure they believed me. Either way, I quite liked having their respect for a change.
Broken Heart Club Page 3