928 Miles from Home

by Kim Slater

  I rub my aching jaw. I know it’s probably not over, that he’ll come after me again. I feel a bit shaky at the thought of it but I’m still burning inside, too. They’ve all ditched me because of what’s happened with Sergei and it’s just stupid. I’m sick and tired of having to accept their warped rules.

  As soon as I walk through the gates, my shoulders relax a little and the dryness in my mouth has got a bit easier.

  They say the author J. M. Barrie got the inspiration to write Peter Pan here at the Arboretum, and I can see why that might be true, because today it looks a bit like a Neverland.

  The Victorian flower garden is bursting with vibrant colour, and the Chinese bell tower stands regal and proud in the pale gold sunlight. It feels like I’m in a parallel universe and all the mixed-up stuff that’s happening at home and at school suddenly seems far, far away.

  I stand still for a moment and listen to the birds that invisibly sing in the leafy trees clumped all around me. I wouldn’t mind being able to fly like Peter Pan, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than never growing up. I can’t wait to finish school and get a job; preferably well away from here. At the same time, I can’t imagine ever being able to escape the estate.

  People are born here, live here and then they die here. That’s just the way things are. All the exciting things I ever hear about seem to happen to other people who have never set foot in a crummy place like this.

  Later, when I turn the corner into St Matthias Road, I can see right away that Dad’s van isn’t there, thank goodness. I haven’t had chance to tell Sergei to keep his mouth shut about what happened with Linford today. I just hope he’s not stupid enough to blurt it out before I speak to him.

  I keep everything crossed that Sergei and his mum are out, too. I really need some time to think things through.

  I feel like I’m in a bubble, separate from everyone around me. All alone, even when there are people around.

  As I turn the key in the flat door and push it open, my ears fill with the strains of music floating down the hallway. It sounds like the same kind of dull music that Mr Fox plays while we file into our Monday morning assemblies.

  I kick off my shoes, dump my rucksack by the door and creep down the hall, looking into the rooms. It looks like Dad and Angie are out, but Sergei is holed up in my bedroom.

  When I get closer, the notes are so loud and clear I spy through a crack in the door to make sure Sergei hasn’t moved an actual piano into my bedroom. It wouldn’t surprise me; he’s filled it with all sorts of weird stuff already.

  But he isn’t playing the piano; he’s sitting on the bed, staring into space like a zombie. His face is blank, eyes glazed over and his lips pressed together in a spongy line, like someone just blurred his features with a soft cloth.

  I stand still for a moment and listen. The piano notes dance high and bright, then ping low and fast like vibrating raindrops. My heart seems to swell and then squeeze in tight on itself. I can’t make my mind up whether I feel like laughing or crying.

  I feel the music slowly building like a storm until finally it erupts into a twisting melody that swirls around the booming bass notes as if there is an entire orchestra stuffed into my tiny bedroom.

  I close my eyes and let the music flow through me. Before I know it, my mind is drifting to a time last summer when Dad came home early unexpectedly for the weekend. We got up early Saturday morning, jumped in the van and drove for nearly three hours so we could have fish and chips for our lunch, sat on a wall in Whitby harbour.

  There’s a flurry of melancholy notes and another memory floats by. The day Mrs Brewster’s Labrador, Frank, got knocked over in the street by a motorbike. While someone went to fetch Mrs Brewster, I sat down beside Frank in the road and cushioned his soft, velvety head in my lap until his rasping, furry chest finally lay still.

  I blink hard a few times.

  I don’t know why I’m suddenly thinking about this stuff; it’s crazy. Sergei’s music is seeping into my head like a wisp of black magic, turning my sensible thoughts to mush.

  The bedroom door whips open.

  ‘Calum, why are you standing out here? Come in and listen.’

  ‘I don’t need an invite to come into my own bedroom, thanks,’ I shout over the music.

  I push by him and flop down on to my bed. I pick up one of my DVDs and pretend to read the blurb on the back, but the words don’t make much sense.

  ‘You were listening to the music just now.’ He raises his voice above the notes.

  ‘Waiting until it finished, more like.’ I kick off my shoes without sitting up. One of them hits the small portable speaker his phone sits on and the track jumps.

  ‘How is your jaw?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ I’m trying to ignore the aching. ‘So don’t go blabbing to Dad about what happened this afternoon.’

  ‘Should I turn it off, the music?’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  He reaches over and turns the volume down.

  ‘Do you like Chopin?’ He pronounces it Show-pan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frédéric Chopin,’ he says again. ‘The composer. He was born in Warsaw. This piece is called Nocturne Number 19 in E minor.’

  I sigh, and study the cover of the DVD.

  ‘This piece of music, it is one of his twenty-one Nocturne compositions.’

  ‘Fascinating.’ I scowl at him. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about nothing.’

  My insults seem to slide off him like oil.

  ‘Chopin very quickly gets inside here, Calum.’ He taps his heart space. ‘I can see in your face that he got you, too.’

  I’ve lost one of my best friends today because of him and his mum turning up where they’re not wanted, and now he’s sitting there grinning at me like an imbecile.

  ‘Why don’t you just sod off back to where you came from?’

  I feel a twist inside when I realize I sound just like Linford. I half slide, half fall off my bed and kick the speaker over in the process. The music jumps, then stops completely.

  ‘Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?’ He takes a step towards me. ‘You should learn some manners.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I glance at his clenched hands. ‘And who’s going to teach me some? You?’

  I square up to him but the mild-mannered Sergei I see at school isn’t here. Instead I feel an undercurrent of something else coming off him and the back of my neck prickles.

  ‘Maybe I will,’ he says quietly. His eyes glitter, dark and dangerous. ‘Maybe I will wait for the right moment.’

  Perhaps he’s just sick of tiptoeing around me, like I got fed up with Linford. I push past him.

  ‘Yeah, right. When you’re big enough,’ I say when I’m at a safe distance.

  I slam the door and stand for a moment in the hallway, breathing heavily.

  I feel ousted from my own bedroom. How did it get to this?

  Sergei seems quiet and non-confrontational at school, but here in the flat I sense a different vibe. Who knows what he is really like? What if he’s leading me to believe he is harmless when really he is someone else altogether?

  Sergei stays in my room all evening with the door shut.

  I sit watching TV on my own in the sitting room, but I can’t relax the same, knowing he’s in there. I feel annoyed that he’s taken over my space.

  At the same time there’s a thickness in my throat I can’t swallow down. I get to thinking about Amelia and her family, coming to live in a new place but made to feel like impostors. I shouldn’t have said some of the things I did to Sergei. I can’t really concentrate on the TV so I turn it off.

  Dad and Angie still aren’t back. I’m just about to flick off the lamps and go to bed when I hear shouting and whistling out on the road.

  I stand still and listen and a little shiver runs down both my arms. I can’t shake the uneasy feeling that now Linford will be out to get me. Dad’s not here and if there’s anyone out there wanting to cause troub
le, they could put a brick through the window or even try and bash the door in.

  I debate for a few moments whether to go over to the window. It could just be rowdies coming home from the pub, but it’s still a bit early – they don’t usually turn out until about eleven thirty.

  Someone shouts and then there’s a piercing whistle. Whoever it is seems to have stopped right outside the flat.

  I walk slowly to the loosely pulled-together curtains and peer out, down on to the road. A group of about eight lads in baseball caps and hoodies are standing right outside our flat, gathered by the front gate. In the dusk, I can’t make out individual faces under all the hoods and hats, but they look just like the troublemakers from the top end of the estate, the ones who were in the car that stopped outside the chippy. I’ve seen them roaming around like a pack of dogs before.

  They look up at our window and I realize too late that with the lamps on behind me, I’m lit up like a fairy on a Christmas tree. Suddenly the group roars and points up, whistling and making unpleasant hand gestures. I’m trying to work out why they’re suddenly doing that to me when I feel something touch my shoulder. I jump back to find Sergei at the side of me, staring down at the road.

  ‘Get away from the window,’ I hiss, pulling him away from the glass.

  I pull the curtains back together and peer down at the road through a tiny gap at the side. As the group shuffle off slowly, still laughing and staring up, they move briefly, one by one, into light as they walk under a street lamp.

  The last youth stands there a moment and glares up. I can see his top lip curling and his eyes shining with a cold fury. For a brief moment, the street light illuminates his whole face.

  I step back from the gap, my heart pumping hard. It’s Linford.

  I snap awake and glance over at the red illuminated numbers on the windowsill.

  It’s 3.15 a.m. Sergei is snoring softly and the room is cast in a dull orange glow from the street lights.

  I lie there staring at the ceiling for ages waiting for sleep to return, but every minute that passes I seem to be more awake than ever, and then my legs start to get fidgety.

  I climb out of bed as quietly as I can and tiptoe past Sergei’s curled-up form under the blankets of his camp bed. The last thing I want to do is wake him and then start arguing all over again.

  I carefully open and close the bedroom door and pad silently into the sitting room. I look out of the window and stand for a moment to take in the quiet street. Everyone is in bed and there’s no Linford glaring up at me from the front gate any more.

  He might be the hard man at school but he’s always stayed away from the yobs who live on the estate. Mainly because his older brother got in with the wrong crowd a few years ago and ended up having his kneecaps rearranged with a baseball bat when he tried to back out of selling drugs on the streets.

  I wonder if his stepdad has given him a rough time about getting excluded. Linford is a blamer, and if he’s getting hassle, I bet I can guess who he’s blaming right now.

  I turn on the small lamp and then flick through masses of TV channels, but there’s nothing on that interests me. Even the music programmes are rubbish.

  And then I remember.

  I creep along the hallway to the front door to get my rucksack. Dad’s bedroom door is closed, so he and Angie must’ve managed to come home without waking me.

  A few minutes later I’m lying under a blanket on the settee, watching the DVD Freya gave me. I can tell her tomorrow that I watched it, like she asked. With any luck it’ll send me back to sleep.

  Nearly two hours later the credits start rolling on the screen and I’m still wide awake. Kes might just be the best film I’ve ever seen.

  There are no special effects, no car chases and no fighting action. It’s hard to grasp why I like it so much.

  I stick the DVD back in its case and into my rucksack and turn off the lamp, creeping back into my bedroom.

  Sergei is still fast asleep in the exact same position as he was two hours ago. I climb back in bed and pull the covers up to my chin.

  When I close my eyes, bits of Kes replay in my mind.

  I can see Billy Casper flying his kestrel in the field.

  I hear the frustration in his broad Yorkshire accent.

  I feel his pain.

  I wonder if Freya has any more films like that.

  When I wake up, Sergei is gently shaking me. He’s already fully dressed in his school uniform.

  ‘Calum, you are oversleeping,’ he hisses in my ear.

  I shake him off and sit up.

  ‘What time is it?’ I scowl, trying to see past him to the clock.

  ‘It is eight thirty-two. I have already tried to wake you two times.’

  I jump out of bed and grab yesterday’s school shirt off the floor.

  ‘I will wait for you,’ he says, sitting on his camp bed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, trying to shake the creases out of my shirt. ‘I’ll walk in on my own.’

  He doesn’t move.

  ‘OK then,’ I tut. ‘Give us five minutes.’

  Sergei smiles and nods. ‘I overslept too – there is no time to eat breakfast. I wondered . . .’

  ‘What?’ I frown.

  ‘There is a meeting at the community centre later today. I saw it on the noticeboard,’ he says. ‘About the screenwriting competition. I thought perhaps you would like to go.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘I saw the flyer.’ He nods down to the slightly crumpled sheet that I dropped on to the floor before going to sleep last night. ‘I thought you may be thinking of entering.’

  ‘Yeah? Well I haven’t made my mind up yet,’ I say, irritated.

  He doesn’t miss a trick, poking his nose into my business at every opportunity.

  ‘I would go with you, just to find out a little more,’ he says. ‘If you would like to?’

  ‘I’ll see,’ I mutter, turning my back on him.

  I stuff my history textbook and the competition flyer into my bag and pull on my blazer.

  I didn’t know about the meeting. Maybe it would be a good idea to go. I wouldn’t be committing to anything; it would just be to find out a bit more about the competition. Freya would be pleased, too.

  In the kitchen I notice the fruit bowl has been cleared of all the crumpled till receipts and ballpoint pens and it’s now full of fresh fruit. I take a banana and an apple and stuff those in my bag, too.

  I turn to leave, then step back and take another two pieces of fruit.

  ‘Here.’ I shove the extra fruit towards Sergei in the hallway. ‘We can eat these as we walk.’

  ‘Thank you, Calum.’ His mouth drops open. ‘Thanks a thousand.’

  ‘A million,’ I tell him. ‘You say, Thanks a million.’

  ‘Thank you. Thanks a million for my breakfast.’

  ‘Chill out, mate. It’s only a bit of fruit.’ I grin and he smiles back.

  Jack and Harry are already in the history lesson when I get there. They’re sitting right at the end of a full row of people. The row in front is empty, so I sit there, directly in front of them.

  ‘Cheers for saving us a seat.’ I turn round but neither of them answers.

  At break, I follow them out of class. They stride ahead and don’t wait for me.

  ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’ I catch up and step in front so they have to stop walking and look at me.

  ‘If you don’t know, there’s not much point us telling you,’ Jack snaps back.

  ‘It’s Linford,’ Harry says. ‘He’s been permanently excluded this time.’

  ‘Yeah, you tosser,’ Jack adds.

  ‘How’s that my fault?’ There’s something nasty curdling in my throat. I wish I could spit whatever it is out at them.

  ‘You knew he’d do his nut when he found out you’d been lying about being friends with Sergei Zurakowski,’ Jack says, his eyes dark and narrowed. ‘Mr Fox was there to see it all when he lost his temper,
too. Some people might say it’s like Linford walked straight into a trap.’

  ‘I didn’t lie about Sergei moving in; I just didn’t know how to tell you all.’ My eyes bulge with the effort of trying to make them understand. ‘It all happened so quickly, it was a shock. Do you honestly think I’m happy about him being there?’

  ‘You still should’ve said something,’ Harry murmurs.

  ‘I saw Linford last night,’ I say quickly. ‘He was hanging around on our street with that rough lot off the estate. The ones in the car outside the chippy.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Jack shakes his head. ‘He wouldn’t have anything to do with those idiots. Not after his brother.’

  ‘It was definitely him,’ I say.

  Nobody answers.

  ‘Anyway, there’s no need for you two to get involved in my argument with Linford.’ I hear my words, strained and forced. ‘We’re still mates, right?’

  Jack looks at me like I just farted under his nose.

  ‘Come on, Hazza, let’s go,’ he says.

  They walk around me.

  ‘Soz, Cal.’ Harry shrugs as he passes.

  I watch as they saunter off together. They don’t look back.

  The rest of the classes flood out into the corridor. Usually people are careful to walk around us, careful not to annoy us.

  Today, I find myself pushed and pulled around like a feather in a storm.

  Today, I feel like I’m invisible.

  I’m walking down the hill towards the estate, debating whether to go straight home or go down to the canal, when someone shouts my name. I stop walking and turn around to see Sergei racing towards me.

  ‘I waited for you, Calum,’ he calls breathlessly. ‘We can go to the community centre together. The meeting, it starts in only ten minutes.’

  I’d forgotten about the meeting but I’m not really in the mood for going now anyway.

  ‘It will be fun,’ Sergei says, sensing my hesitation. ‘To hear about the competition that you are going to win.’

  ‘I don’t even know if I’m entering yet.’ I scowl. ‘I don’t need you going on at me about it.’ I have enough of that from Freya.