928 Miles from Home

by Kim Slater

  ‘Calum, you have to enter.’ He grins. ‘You are so good at this stuff.’

  ‘How would you know?’ I scoff, setting off walking again. I mainly write plays in my head, so unless he’s a mind reader . . .

  ‘You seem to know a lot about films,’ he says. ‘That is what I mean. So, I think you could write a good script, yes? My buildings, they tell their own story, like a set design. And you tell the story through your words.’

  I like the way it sounds. If only it were that simple.

  By the time we get to the bottom of the hill, I’ve already decided not to bother going to the meeting. I don’t want to sit with a load of toffs from Mapperley Top. I feel crap enough as it is, having been Nobby No Mates all day at school.

  ‘Come on,’ Sergei calls, turning into the estate as I carry on walking.

  I stop and look past him, at the soft, friendly terracotta glow of the Expressions building. A woman is opening the wrought-iron gates, propping each one open. She turns and smiles at us before going back inside.

  ‘The meeting is starting very soon,’ he presses me.

  There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. No hordes of intelligent arty types who probably write dozens of screenplays a week.

  ‘I am going to the meeting.’ Sergei sighs. ‘Will you also come, Calum?’

  I am really interested in writing. I suppose there’s a slight chance it might be interesting, even if I decide not to enter.

  I turn around and we walk up to the community centre together.

  Inside, the place is buzzing.

  There are free drinks in the foyer with the dreaded arty types standing together in a group, flailing their arms everywhere while they talk. I can see Hugo Fox at the centre of them, holding court and boasting about what plays he’s been in. Yawn.

  I notice there are also lots of people there like me. People whose eyes dart around the room nervously before looking at the floor or at their phones.

  My throat feels suddenly tight and I need some air. I’m about to turn around and walk out when someone grasps my arm.

  ‘Calum, I’m so pleased to see you here. Hello, Sergei.’

  ‘Hello, Freya.’ He beams.

  ‘I haven’t decided if I’m entering the competition yet,’ I say quickly. ‘He dragged me in.’

  ‘That’s absolutely fine.’ She lets go of my arm and smiles at Sergei. ‘This meeting is for information only. There’s no obligation to enter.’

  ‘That is what I told him, Freya.’ Sergei nods. ‘It will give Calum information about the competition and be interesting for him.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Freya smiles. ‘Well done, Sergei!’

  Sergei is such a creep. Talking about me to Freya as if I’m a little kid.

  ‘Yeah, well, like I said,’ I mumble. ‘I’ve not made my mind up yet.’

  ‘OK, well I’ll catch up with you afterwards, see what you think,’ Freya says, spotting someone else she knows and drifting away from us.

  Getting the hard sell about the competition from Freya isn’t my idea of fun. I’ll be making a quick exit after the meeting.

  ‘I will get us some juice and a biscuit,’ Sergei says, and walks over to the refreshment table.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ someone whispers in my ear.

  I spin round to come face to face with Amelia. Her face is so close to mine I can see her long lashes and a sort of dancing light in her enormous brown eyes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I step back, wishing I hadn’t got my crumpled school uniform on.

  Amelia is wearing white denim shorts and a white T-shirt, paired with her usual Converse trainers that she somehow makes look stylish, rather than low-key. I glance at her slim brown legs and smooth arms, before looking away.

  ‘Pleased to see you here, too.’ She grins. Against her pink glossy lips, her teeth seem even whiter today. ‘I often come up here. They have some good events on.’

  ‘Are you entering the screenwriting competition?’ I ask, willing my cheeks to cool down a bit.

  ‘Me? Oh no, that’s not my sort of thing. I come to all sorts of stuff here though, just to get off the boat, you know? For something to do.’

  Sergei appears with two white plastic cups of orange squash and two chocolate bourbons clutched in one grubby hand.

  ‘Who’s this, then? Your friend?’ Amelia is as forthright as ever.

  ‘His name’s Sergei,’ I grunt, taking a cup from him. ‘This is Amelia. She lives on a narrowboat moored on the canal.’

  ‘Hello, Sergei!’ Amelia holds out her hand. ‘I remember now, Calum told us all about you when he visited, how pleased he is you’re staying with him.’

  I glare at her but she won’t look at me.

  ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Amelia.’ Sergei hastily hands me the biscuits and wipes his fingers on the side of his school trousers before reaching for Amelia’s hand.

  She snatches it back before he can grasp it. ‘The trick that never gets old!’ she squeals.

  I scowl.

  Sergei roars with laughter. ‘Aha, you got me that time, Amelia. Good one!’

  I look at him, surprised. He seems to be suddenly picking up some English phrases.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ Amelia grins and shakes his hand properly this time. ‘I’m a sucker for it, aren’t I, Calum?’

  I shuffle my feet and take a sip of my juice.

  ‘I like people who are fun,’ Sergei beams. ‘And living on a narrowboat, that sounds a lot of fun. My home city, Warsaw, sits on the Vistula River. It is the longest and largest river in the whole of Poland and we see a lot of boats on there.’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘And near my home, there was a big boatyard, too. I really like all types of boats.’

  Sergei is such a bragger. I can tell Amelia is impressed by the way she’s nodding and widening her eyes as if what he’s saying is really interesting. He’s so annoying.

  Someone claps their hands over the other side of the foyer. It’s the woman I saw opening the gates.

  ‘Hi, everyone, thanks for coming. Can you take your seats in the hall now please, we’re about to start.’

  Everyone begins to filter through into the big space in the middle of the centre.

  ‘I will get you a juice to take through, Amelia,’ Sergei says and disappears.

  ‘Your friend is such a gentleman.’ Amelia’s eyes dance around my glum face and she presses her lips together as if she’s trying to stop herself from laughing out loud. ‘Maybe you could learn something from him, instead of calling him names behind his back.’

  ‘I haven’t said anything I wouldn’t say to his face.’ I wish I could take back what I said about Sergei and his mum on the narrowboat, but I’m not grovelling to Amelia when she’s in this mood.

  ‘Well you should be ashamed then. Is it really too much to ask, to welcome new people and offer a bit of support? Some friend you are to him.’

  ‘I never said he was my friend,’ I growl, watching as the foyer empties around us.

  ‘No? Why are you with him then?’ She nudges my arm, goading me.

  ‘I can’t get rid of him.’ I clench my back teeth together.

  Sergei springs back in front of Amelia, holding up her juice like an eager puppy.

  ‘Thanks, Sergei,’ she says with a smile. ‘Calum was just saying how you two are such good friends now.’

  ‘We have some work still to do, I think.’ Sergei glances doubtfully at me. ‘But one day, we will arrive there.’

  I turn round and start walking into the hall. My head is starting to pound and I feel hot.

  I can hear Amelia laughing behind me.

  The meeting was good. Informal, but with lots of information and tips on screenwriting.

  Secretly I’m glad Sergei persuaded me to go. I can feel the pleasant buzz of new ideas inside my head. They’re flitting back and forth, mixed in now with a bit of confidence and hope. I wonder how long it will last before I’m telling myself I can’t do it again.


  When we leave the centre, it is still early.

  ‘Fancy a walk down to the canal?’ Amelia says. ‘Sergei could come and see My Fair Lady.’

  ‘I would very much like to see your thin boat, Amelia,’ Sergei says as if he’s properly honoured.

  ‘You mean narrowboat.’ I roll my eyes at him.

  ‘No, I like that, Sergei,’ Amelia says, grinning. ‘You’re redesigning the English language and doing a great job of it.’

  They both laugh and I can’t help joining in because ‘thin boat’ does sound quite funny.

  We walk for a while in companionable silence and soon we reach the canal side and there she is, My Fair Lady, in all her brightly painted splendour.

  Nobody is home, so Amelia unlocks the cabin doors with her long key and we step inside.

  ‘You have a beautiful home, Amelia.’ Sergei smiles and his eyes look distant. ‘It is warm and has cosiness in the air.’

  ‘Cosy,’ I tell him. ‘You just say it’s cosy.’

  ‘Ah yes, it is warm and cosy. As our little house in Warsaw used to be, before . . .’

  He leaves the sentence hanging and Amelia glances at me.

  ‘He didn’t want to leave,’ I tell Amelia, to save Sergei explaining. ‘But he had to. They had . . . well, problems – didn’t you, Sergei?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he says, staring at the wood-burner at the end of the galley. ‘Problems.’

  ‘Well, the good thing about problems is that they can be overcome,’ Amelia says lightly, pulling out a pack of chocolate biscuits from behind a small, gathered curtain. ‘We had problems too, in our old house. Even though there were lots of different nationalities in my class, I got bullied after school by the kids who lived next door to us.’

  ‘You got bullied?’ I repeat. I can’t imagine anyone bullying Amelia.

  ‘Yeah, they were three years older than me, didn’t like the way my skin was a different colour to theirs. Their dad had been in prison for football hooliganism and he thought it was funny when they openly abused other kids.’

  ‘What happened?’ Sergei asks.

  ‘Mum complained to the school and they both got excluded. But then horrible stuff got painted on the door, rubbish dumped in the garden, but nobody had ever seen anything because other neighbours were scared of the family. You get the picture – it wasn’t nice. I was so relieved when Mum said we were going to start a new life, on the water.’

  ‘You never told me any of that before,’ I say faintly.

  ‘You never asked,’ she replies.

  Later, when I get into bed, I lie awake for ages.

  My legs feel restless and fidgety as my head swirls with ideas of what I might write for the competition. I start to think about Amelia and what she told me about her problems, back where they used to live.

  ★

  EXT. SCHOOL GATES – DAY

  School bell is ringing. Children rushing towards gates, laughing and chatting among themselves.

  A TALL GIRL sticks close to the wall and keeps her head low. She is alone.

  A BOY and a GIRL approach her. They look around, check nobody is watching.

  GIRL

  (taunting)

  Ugh, look who it is. Our stinking neighbour.

  BOY

  Why do you live in this country? Your skin is made for the hot weather.

  TALL GIRL keeps walking out of the school gates and doesn’t look at her tormentors. The BOY pushes her hard against a hedge.

  BOY and GIRL laugh. GIRL pulls at TALL GIRL’s hair ribbons.

  GIRL

  You don’t deserve pretty things. You’re dark and ugly. You should put a bag on your head.

  BOY

  (aggressively)

  We hate you. We hate living next door to you and your family.

  GIRL

  You don’t belong here.

  TALL GIRL arrives home. She goes straight upstairs to her bedroom and closes the door. She sits and looks out of the window, at the trees waving slightly in the breeze.

  She wonders why the neighbours hate her.

  She dreams of a better place, near the water. A friendly place.

  END SCENE.

  The next morning I wake first, so I gently shake Sergei’s shoulder as I walk past.

  He comes into the kitchen while I’m eating a bowl of cereal.

  ‘I didn’t know what you fancied for breakfast but I poured you some orange juice,’ I say.

  ‘Cool,’ he says.

  I look at him.

  ‘What is wrong?’ he asks.

  ‘When did you start speaking like that?’

  ‘Like what? You mean like you?’ He grins. ‘I listen and learn, Calum.’

  When I finish eating I put the cereal away and the milk back in the fridge. There’s juice, eggs, cheese, yogurts, milk . . . and they’re all fresh. Since Angie took over the food shopping, I’ve never seen our fridge so full.

  While we walk to school I tell Sergei what I heard about Linford yesterday.

  ‘So he won’t be coming back to the school?’ Sergei gasps. His face brightens.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘He’ll have to find another school to take him. His stepdad will do his nut.’

  Sergei doesn’t reply at first; I can tell he’s thinking.

  ‘But Linford knew Mr Fox would exclude him if he acted in a violent way,’ he says simply. ‘Is this correct?’

  ‘Well, yeah. I suppose so but . . .’ I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. ‘Sometimes people get excluded when they haven’t even done anything wrong. Like me.’

  ‘But you were part of Linford’s gang, Calum.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong though, did I?’ I snap back. I’m beginning to regret walking in with him now. ‘I’ve never bullied anyone.’

  Sergei sighs heavily and shakes his head. I wait for him to come back with his lame arguments, but he doesn’t.

  We’re about halfway up Woodborough Road when an old Jack Russell ambles by. I recognize him as the dog of an old guy who walks him every morning along here. He lets the dog run ahead a little so I know he won’t be far away.

  ‘Watch this,’ Sergei says. He walks towards the dog and kicks his foot at the animal. His kick falls too short, and the dog, sniffing the pavement, doesn’t even realize he’s there. ‘I missed this time. Watch again.’

  ‘Oi!’ I rush up behind him and pull him back. ‘What’re you doing, you tosser? Don’t kick him!’

  Sergei shrugs me off and carries on walking up the hill.

  ‘What did you do that for? What’s that poor dog ever done to you?’ I shove him but he doesn’t look at me.

  He smiles. Smiles!

  ‘Don’t worry, Calum,’ he says. ‘You did not try to kick the dog, so nobody will blame you.’

  ‘That’s not the point. I’m not just going to stand by and watch while you hurt an innocent animal,’ I yell at him. ‘What kind of person do you think I am?’

  He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me, nods and then smiles again.

  And then I get it.

  I understand what he is trying to tell me.

  I walk across the courtyard to the Admin block. I don’t see Jack or Harry at the school gates or in assembly. If I’m honest, I don’t really care any more.

  Word has got around that Linford has been excluded and that there is trouble between the three of us because of it.

  Earlier, I sat through Mr Fox’s assembly on my own, listening to the whispers behind me, and later I noticed the nudges and sly grins when everyone moved to their first lesson. The other students suddenly seem way more confident, bumping into me on purpose and refusing to move out of the way when the crowd bulges at the exit doors.

  Finally I break through and take in a gulp of fresh air, jostled as everyone pushes past. I turn to my left and head for the Admin block, the opposite direction to everyone else, who are all heading for lessons. I knock at Freya’s office door and wait, relieved to be away from everyone’s prying
eyes for a little while.

  The door opens immediately and Freya’s scrubbed, beaming face appears. She is wearing purple-and-yellow floral leggings with a brilliant-white T-shirt.

  I feel dowdy next to her.

  ‘Calum, come in.’ She stands aside so I can enter. ‘Lucky for me, I get to see you three times this week!’

  I sit down in my usual seat. The room feels stuffy and warm.

  ‘Have you managed to write anything else in your journal?’ She sits opposite me and pours the water.

  ‘I did, but I left my notebook at home, miss,’ I lie. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No worries. But try and write a little in your journal each day over the holidays, get those thoughts down.’

  I nod. There is still a poster on her wall with the phrase ‘SAY NO TO BREXIT’ splashed across it.

  ‘Were you interested in the Brexit debate, Calum?’ Freya follows my eyes.

  ‘No. I don’t know anything about it, really,’ I say, and the thoughts I’d tried to push to the back of my mind – why I feel it’s OK for Amelia to choose to live here but not Sergei – loom large in my head again. ‘I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘There’s a lot of noise out there, isn’t there?’ Freya sighs. ‘Hard to know who to listen to at times.’

  ‘Yes, miss, that’s just it. What do you think about it? You know, immigration and stuff.’

  ‘Well, I’m all for it, but I suppose I would say that, right?’ She laughs but I don’t get it. ‘Being Irish?’ she adds.

  ‘Oh yes, I see . . .’ I nod.

  ‘Some people say we are all immigrants. That if you go back far enough, everyone has someone of a different nationality in their family tree. It’s a big world and I like to think it belongs to all of us. But of course, some people think differently.’

  I nod slowly. ‘Some people think they’re just coming to take our jobs and claim benefits.’

  ‘It’s true that some people say that,’ Freya replies. ‘But other people say our NHS would collapse if it wasn’t for the EU nationals who work in it.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I say, surprised.