‘I can’t be allergic to it. I’ve been sitting here for years.’
‘That’s true . . . but you’ve never slept on it before. Maybe your skin will settle down again when you get used to your new school. I’ll get some cream for you later. Are you worrying about starting secondary? Do you want me to walk in with you, just on the first day?
‘Yes, OK, a bit, no! Which question do you want me to answer?’
‘Sorry!’ Mum laughs. ‘I would like to walk you in though . . .’
As if that would help! I might as well take along a loudspeaker announcing to everyone how nervous I am: ‘Baby of the family arrives at school, walked in by her mummy!’
‘I’ll be fine, Mum!’ I say, shrugging off the duvet and going through to Mira’s room to get dressed.
I inspect the rings under my eyes in the mirror, then put on the school uniform laid out ready on the chair. Mira was right. I should at least have got a blazer of my own. I’m lost somewhere inside this one. I pull the skirt up where it’s sliding over my hips. Nothing fits except the tie.
‘Mum, I’ve decided I do want to have my own uniform.’
Mum gives my oversized blazer and me a sideways glance, but carries on cooking.
Five, four, three, two . . . right on cue, the smoke alarm goes off. I grab a tea towel and waft.
I used to think the alarm going off all the time was funny when Krish and Mira were around, but now when the shrieking noise starts I’m the only one here left to waft the smoke away and it makes my head ache.
‘You know, Laila, it’s not very helpful to wait until the first day of school to finally agree to having a new uniform!’
‘I thought you wanted me to have one that fits.’
Mum attempts to unstick the pancake from the bottom of the pan with a spatula.
‘OK, we’ll go at the weekend.’ She sighs.
I sit at the table and eat my way through the extra-crispy pancake.
Mum places a mug of tea in front of me.
‘Milk, no sugar, there you go! I won’t have time to make pancakes every day, but as I’m starting late this morning, you’re in luck. I’m going to have to get more organized from now on though! Maybe I’ll leave cereal out at night so you can help yourself . . .’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ I take a sip of tea. I think I’m getting to like the taste.
After breakfast Mum insists on taking a photo of me in the front room.
‘A new uniform would have been better, but the first day of secondary school is the first day of secondary school – history in the making!’
‘I think it’s happened to quite a lot of people before. Do you have to, Mum?’ I groan.
She’s holding up her iPhone and clicking away.
I force a smile.
If Mira had been here I would have asked her to do my hair in a French plait, and Krish would probably be trying to pick me up or make my tie more fat or skinny. They would be standing either side of me like cheerleaders, building me up.
‘The first-day photo’s a tradition!’ Mum says. ‘There you go . . . posted to Facebook.’
‘Were you posting stuff when Mira and Krish started secondary?’ I ask.
‘No . . . but!’
She shows me the photo. Even after all that sleep I still look tired, and the blazer makes me look like I’m wearing a black box.
‘Like it?’ she asks.
‘What difference does it make?’
‘Oh, don’t be grumpy, Laila.’
I groan at her status update.
My last baby off to secondary school!
Great. I’m right next to Krish’s video post of the snake in our kitchen. It’s got tons of likes and comments. I read over a few of them again.
Where ARE you? The Tropics?
Is that seriously in your house?
My ma says you have entered the cycle of change! Janu X
Quiet night in with a Cobra!
Sorry, can’t make it over for dinner tomorrow! Have to file my nails!
You call the RSPCA? What did they say?
BTEC in Reptiles? Is that sssssssssssserious!
Just an ordinary Saturday night in the Levenson household!
Remembering the madness of that day cheers me up.
‘What’s so funny?’ Mum asks.
‘Nothing! Just those comments about the snake!’
Mum shudders. ‘Don’t remind me! I’ll say goodbye before we open the door.’
She opens her arms and I let her hug me properly until her phone pings us apart.
‘Some messages for you!’ She hands me her phone.
Mira: Good luck, sis! xxx
Nana Kath: You’ve put her in a boy’s blazer!
Krish: Skinny crew then!
Hannah: How did it happen so fast? Share your pain!
Nana Kath: And why does she look so exhausted? What time did she go to bed?
Priya: Rock that look!
Anjali: Pretty girl!
Dad: Our beautiful baby Laila at secondary . . . Noooooooooooooooo!
I pull the tie even tighter to try to stop myself from welling up. What is the matter with me? It’s up to Mira and Mum to do the crying . . . not me. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
I step out of the door and walk down the steps.
‘Be careful how you cross the road, Laila; people don’t always stop at that crossing,’ Mum says as I shoo her back into the house. She laughs and closes the door.
Jeff the postman is standing by the tree reading the snake poster.
‘No one claimed it yet then?’ he asks.
‘Don’t think so,’ I say, trying to get past him before he starts up one of his ‘chats’.
‘Is that you off to secondary, Laila? It feels like five minutes since you were born! I remember . . .’
Oh, not again! I must have heard this the-day-you-were-born story a hundred times before.
‘. . . I came to the door to deliver a parcel, and your mum answered with her own little parcel wrapped-up in her arms! You can’t have been more than a few hours old.’
This weird little nervous laugh comes out of my mouth. ‘Well, I’ve got to go!’ I say as I squeeze around Jeff’s trolley.
There are a few people I know a bit from my year group in primary walking the same way in as me. We don’t exactly say hello, but they don’t seem to mind when I walk along with them. Everyone looks smaller in their uniforms, especially compared to the older years. Some of them look like giants. I listen to the Year Sevens chatting together, asking about each other’s summers, wondering what the tutors will be like, worrying about getting lost, feeling stupid in their uniforms . . . I could chip in, but I feel so on the outside. It’s not their fault. I suppose I’ve never really made much of an effort to make friends with anyone except Kez.
Everyone gets pushed and jostled and there are so many students taking up the pavement that I feel a bit panicky. I look down the path to the Unfriendship Bench. I tell myself that if I don’t walk past it, then maybe everything will go back to how it’s always been with me and Kez. I follow the pavement to the second entrance into the park. No one else is walking this way except a really old lady with an ancient dog that can hardly walk itself. I can’t tell which of them is waiting for the other. She smiles at me and I smile back. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this lonely.
I’m at the school gates now, looking down the path towards the bench. It doesn’t feel any better looking at it from this side. I wait for a minute or so longer to see if Kez is coming.
‘Waiting for a friend?’ the lady at the gate asks.
I nod.
She taps her watch. ‘Dearie! You have two minutes to get into school.’
I nod.
‘You’d better go on in now. You don’t want to be late on your first day!’
In primary I think some teachers used to think that I helped Kez. That she depended on me instead of the other way around – the way it actually is.
I check down the list
of names in my tutor group. Kez is definitely not on it. After what they said in our transition meeting, I still don’t understand why we’re not together. Unless . . . I just can’t get the idea out of my head that Kez has somehow made this happen.
You could ask for two people you especially wanted to be with, but the only person I really cared about being with was Kez, so I didn’t write down any other names. The only other person I know is a boy called Carlos. He only came to our primary in Year Six and he didn’t speak much English then. It’s incredible how good he is now though. I think he’s Spanish, but I’m not sure. I don’t know him that well.
Our tutor’s called Mrs Latif. She tells us that she teaches Philosophy and Ethics and a subject called Citizenship, which I’ve heard Krish talking about. It was his best subject and he was really gutted they didn’t do it as an exam. Mrs Latif is explaining why she chose ‘Seven Dials’ as our tutor-group name: ‘Always so many different pathways to explore from the same starting point, or roundabout to be precise! Anyone know where Seven Dials is?’
I’ve been thinking that at secondary I should speak up more than I used to in primary, especially when I know the answer.
‘Well, it’s in Covent Garden,’ Mrs Latif answers as no one puts their hand up.
Mrs Latif is tall and has a long, slim face with high cheekbones, dark eyes with thick lashes, perfectly sculpted eyebrows and a tiny diamond nose stud. Her lips are painted plum colour and her silvery headscarf is decorated at the side with diamond jewels. She wears a plain black dress and heavy silver jewellery. Her nails are painted the same plum colour as her lips. I love her shoes . . . they’re like brogues but silver. It doesn’t seem fair really. If students have to wear a uniform, why don’t teachers?
Mrs Latif says she’s just started teaching here, and at her old school she taught Religious Education.
‘So you will be my philosophy ambassadors here!’ she says.
Above the whiteboard she has a sign mounted on bright blue card:
This school welcomes believers of all religions and none
I read it over a few times. I think it’s a good thing she’s written it up there on the wall so everyone knows, because when I watch the news lots of the things in the world where people fight with each other seem to have something to do with what religion they do or don’t belong to; what they believe or don’t.
Mrs Latif takes her black marker pen and makes columns on the board under the headings:
Name
Hobbies
Connected Lands
Languages
Beliefs
Religion
Favourite Subjects
I didn’t think tutor time would be about stuff like this. Mrs Latif goes around the class taking the electronic register. She does it as fast as she can.
‘Now. I thought we could start by getting to know a few things about each other! In a minute I’d like you to walk around the class with your notebooks, asking each other questions. I’ve put a few suggested headings up here to get you started –’ she taps the board – ‘but you can add whatever categories you like. We’re just making a start at getting to know each other. Try to fill in as much as possible for as many people as possible in the time that we’ve got. In the next few weeks everyone will have met everyone else. Any questions?’
A girl sitting behind me puts her hand up.
‘Is belief the same as religion?’ she asks.
‘This is exactly the sort of question I was hoping for . . . what’s your name?’
‘Pari.’
‘Hi, Pari.’ Mrs Latif thinks carefully before she answers. ‘No, actually – I don’t think they’re the same. They’re connected though. It’s complicated, but that’s the kind of thing we can debate in tutor time. You can also keep an eye out for any news that can feed into our discussions.’
‘Excuse me? What does Connected Lands mean?’ Carlos asks.
‘Make a guess!’
‘I’m from Spain, but my family live all over the world . . .’
‘Where?’ Mrs Latif asks
‘Well, my uncle’s from Cuba. I have relatives in Mexico, France and Spain, America and Canada.’
‘You’ve got it! But, like I said, you don’t have to stick to my categories; they’re just to get you started. Come on then! See how many people you can meet and how much of the globe we can span in the next few minutes.’
The room gradually fills with noise.
The first person I meet is someone called Stella. She says she doesn’t see why we should be talking about ‘personal stuff’ on our first day at school, and when I talk to her the only question she will answer is her name: Stella Hetherington.
‘What’s it got to do with her or anyone else what I believe in?’ Stella asks.
I don’t think Stella realizes that Mrs Latif is standing right behind us.
‘The thing about secondary school, Stella, is that it can open the door to a whole other world you never knew anything about, if you’re willing to step through.’
‘Like we need any more doors open? I know where I’m from!’ Stella mumbles under her breath.
Mrs Latif ignores her.
I tell Stella my name and move on because her lips are sealed and it’s just getting embarrassing.
The next person I talk to is the girl called Pari who asked the question about belief. She shows me what she’s written in her book under the categories.
Name: Pari Pashaei
Languages: English and Arabic
Hobbies: Athletics and Reading
Connected Lands: Iraq/UK
Beliefs: Fairness, Justice, Human Rights
Religion: Islam
Favourite Subjects: History
She peers at my book. ‘Your religion bit looks a bit complicated!’ She laughs, reading over my shoulder.
‘It is kind of hard for me to fill in.’ I shrug. ‘Maybe I haven’t done it right.’
Name: Laila Levenson
Languages: English
Hobbies: ??? Dance?
Connected Lands: India, Poland, UK, America
Religion: Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism All/None?
Favourite Subjects: ?? Not sure
‘Do you believe in one of these religions then?’ Pari asks.
I look at the sign above the whiteboard.
‘I’d say none.’
‘But you know about them, right?’
‘Not really. Well, a bit . . . I mean some people in my family do.’
I wish I could sound a bit more convincing.
Pari looks at me like what I’ve just told her hasn’t made anything any clearer. She points to my name, I think to move the conversation on.
‘Your name sounds a bit like my mum’s . . . she’s Leyla.’
Mrs Latif holds her hand in the air and counts down her fingers from eleven to one. Everyone’s staring at her by the time she’s done. She does actually have eleven fingers!
She holds her left hand in the air for us to all have a proper look.
‘Introducing my baby finger!’ she says, wiggling her little finger – and the baby offshoot wiggles too. ‘Anyone else got an extra digit on their fingers or toes?’
No one puts their hand up.
‘Well, there isn’t another teacher in this school who’ll do that countdown from eleven to one, so you’ve got one more count to be quiet . . . but don’t test that extra digit! It’s fiercer than it looks!’ Mrs Latif jokes and everyone bursts out laughing – but she quickly does the countdown again and starts to look really mock-fierce as she gets to her sixth finger.
‘Now let’s just have a quick go round of what we’ve found out about each other in that short time.’
She writes the title: ‘Seven Dials Harvest – Day One’ on the board.
‘How many languages have we got listed? Mr Keegan, our Head of Languages, will be interested in this. Only give me a new one if it hasn’t been said before!’ Mrs Latif starts going around the class and adding to the
lists. People are from all different religions too:
Quaker, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Catholicism, Jehovah’s Witness, Hinduism . . . I can’t believe how long each category goes on for – especially ‘Connected Lands’ and ‘Languages’.
When we’ve pooled it all together, there are fifty-two different countries this class is connected to.
‘How many countries are there in the world then?’ a girl I just talked to asks.
I look down at my list. Her name’s Milena, and her family’s from Bulgaria.
‘Debatable. One hundred and ninety-five or six?’
Milena whistles.
‘But of course borders between countries do shift over time,’ Mrs Latif answers, ‘and not often peacefully.’
When she says this she puckers her lips like she’s thinking of saying something else, and then she makes a popping sound with them as if to bring herself back to what she’s doing.
Mrs Latif circles a language on the board called ‘Lingala’. ‘Who does this belong to?’ She scans the class.
A girl I haven’t met yet puts her hand up really shyly.
‘Ah, Carmel!’ Mrs Latif smiles encouragingly at the girl as she tells us that her parents are from Cameroon.
‘Millions of people speak it,’ she says, looking down at her desk.
I think she’s a bit embarrassed. I know how she feels. I hate it when teachers spring questions on you that you weren’t planning to answer.
‘It sounds like a song . . . Lin-ga-La!’ Mrs Latif almost sings the word and makes Carmel smile. And even though she does still look embarrassed, she seems kind of happy too.
Stella puts her hand up.
‘I speak Italian and my grandpa on my mum’s side speaks Cornish – does that count too?’ she asks.
Mrs Latif adds ‘Cornish’ to the list of languages. ‘I’d love to hear some Cornish. Do you speak it?’
Stella shakes her head.
‘Could you ask your grandad to teach you some and then we can all learn a bit? And yes, Stella, it counts. It all counts.’ Mrs Latif looks at her watch. ‘Now hand your notes in and tomorrow I’ll write up the lists in more detail. This is just the beginning of our map of Seven Dials . . . It’s been useful to have this double lesson so we could make a good start, but it’s still just a sketch at the moment and we’ll be filling in more detail every day.’
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