The Angel of Nitshill Road

by Anne Fine

  Mr Fairway sat down weakly at his desk. He didn’t know what to say. And next morning, when he strolled in the room and found everybody else (except for Marigold) polishing their desks as well, he was quite lost for words.

  Celeste wasn’t, though.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ She beamed at him delightedly. ‘We thought you were never coming! Some of us had quite given up hope.’ Then, while he was still reeling from the smell of a dozen different polish sprays, she warned him confidentially: ‘Today I’m going to try and coax you into letting me off arithmetic. You see, I go all of a tremble with sums. I always have. I always will. And this morning I feel weak as a leaf. So mayn’t I just loll about at my desk till I feel a little bit stronger?’

  ‘Now listen here, Celeste –’ began Mr Fairway.

  Everyone waited.

  But there wasn’t any more. Once again, he was speechless.

  Tracey nudged Penny, who was unwrapping a sweet beneath the desk.

  ‘She must be a real angel,’ Tracey explained. ‘A normal person couldn’t get away with it. They’d get sent to Mrs Brown.’

  Celeste was never sent to Mrs Brown.

  She must have been a real angel.

  4

  ‘Stuck again.’

  Whatever they did in heaven, it wasn’t arithmetic. Celeste was awful at maths. Truly awful. She was even worse than Marigold, which was saying something. She was the worst in the class.

  By far.

  Mr Fairway did his best with her.

  ‘Try it again,’ he would coax. ‘One more time. I’m sure you’ve nearly got it. You’re coming along nicely.’

  She’d raise her angelic face to him, her sky-blue eyes as round as saucers.

  ‘You can say to me all the pretty things you want,’ she would tell him. ‘But I still won’t be able to do arithmetic. Who would have thought a few horrid squiggles on a page could make a poor body so unhappy? And there’s no hope. Granny says baby girls come either with brains or with yellow hair – never with both.’

  ‘That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard!’ Mr Fairway cried in a passion.

  ‘There!’ Celeste wailed. ‘Now you’re in a pet with me! Now I shall cry.’

  She never did, though. Sometimes she got cross.

  ‘No wonder I can’t do it,’ she’d scowl at him. ‘This classroom is sheer pandemonium. No one could think.’

  ‘Tracey and Yusef are managing,’ Mr Fairway would point out tartly.

  Celeste would sulk.

  ‘And it’s so dark in here I can barely see the book!’

  Mr Fairway flicked on the light switch.

  ‘And this pencil must be Mark’s. It’s chewed down to a splinter.’

  ‘Celeste!’ Mr Fairway said sternly. ‘Stop all this complaining. Just try and get on with it, please. I have to go round and help other people.’

  She glowered at him from under her blazing hair.

  ‘Very well. Go round and round the class like an old Beano! I’ll simply sit here and rust.’

  Relieved, Mr Fairway moved away. He went up and down between the desks, helping people, till he reached Marigold who was turning over a new page.

  ‘Well done!’ he said. ‘On page 27 already! At this rate you’ll soon be on to the green book!’

  Marigold said something. She spoke so softly he couldn’t hear a word. He bent his head closer and told her:

  ‘Say that again.’

  He didn’t expect that she would. But Marigold moved her head very near to his, and whispered in his ear:

  ‘Which page is she on?’

  He didn’t need to be told which she Marigold wanted to know about. He simply knew. Normally, he wouldn’t answer a question like that (except, of course, to say ‘You mind your own business’, or ‘Don’t worry about anyone else. Just get on with your own work’). But Marigold had been the slowest in the class for ages and ages and ages.

  He couldn’t help it. He just whispered back, ‘She’s halfway down page 17. And don’t tell anybody, but she’s stuck again.’

  Marigold said nothing. But she gripped her pencil and lowered her head determinedly to her work book.

  Mr Fairway gave her a little look, then moved forward to the next desk.

  Fancy that! he was thinking. Who’d have believed a little thing like Celeste coming to school here would make such a change in our Marigold? Fancy that!

  5

  ‘Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat!’

  And it wasn’t the only change, either. From the moment Celeste first appeared in the gateway, all sorts of things started to happen. You take the day that Barry Hunter circled Penny with his usual cry of ‘Moving mountain!’ and fetched up on the tarmac like a winded ten-ton starfish.

  Somehow it seemed as if Celeste had stretched her foot out just as he was passing, and tripped him up.

  He rolled over, blood on his hands and knees. Celeste didn’t wait for him to get cross with her. She complained first.

  ‘My granny says you must have been born in a bucket!’ she told him. ‘You have no manners and you have no brains. Now stop calling Penny fat!’

  Barry Hunter thought he’d got her there.

  ‘I didn’t say “fat”. You did.’

  Celeste gave him one of her scornful looks.

  ‘Moving mountain means fat,’ she told him. ‘Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! But what you don’t seem to realise is that if Penny stopped stuffing her face with crisps and sweeties all day long, she wouldn’t stay the shape she is now. But you!’ She pointed to him as if he were a slug on the ground. ‘You’re a bully! And it’s harder to change that. If you’re not careful, no one will ever really like you!’

  Now he was scrambling to his feet, boiling with rage.

  ‘You’ll be sorry!’ he snarled. ‘You wait!’

  But Celeste had already turned away. The only thing he could have done was throw himself on her for a real fight. But she was dressed, as usual, in pure and perfect white. And she was smaller than he was. And her back was turned.

  And everyone except Marigold was watching . . .

  ‘I’ll get you next break!’ he yelled at her. ‘You wait and see!’

  ‘When donkeys fly!’ Celeste cat-called back, and strode off with Penny. Penny was crying hard. She couldn’t help it. No one had ever called her fat before. Not yelled it out like that, for everyone to hear. Oh, she knew they sometimes whispered the horrible word behind her back, out of her hearing. Even her friends did that, since it was true.

  But for Celeste to shout it out like that, all over the playground!

  The tears rolled down Penny’s cheeks. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! She heard it ringing in her ears like a bell. Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! So she couldn’t understand why she had let Celeste slip a comforting arm around her shoulders. And why the grippy feeling deep inside had loosened up a bit. Was it because Penny knew that, next break, Barry Hunter wouldn’t be bothering to run round the playground being spiteful to her? Was that it? Because she knew that, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d probably be safe.

  Barry would be after Celeste.

  He tried his old trick – the one he usually played on Mark: blocking the lavatories. Barry had never played it on a girl before, but everyone knew what was going on the moment they saw him and his gang lined up across the entrance to the Girls.

  There was Sean, Wayne, Barry himself and Stephen, who was sent round the back to block the tiny window: the whole gang.

  When other girls tried to go in, the boys let them pass. Even Marigold went in without any trouble except for the usual sniffing and cries of ‘What’s that awful smell?’ But when Celeste tried to walk past, the boys moved in quickly to push her back.

  Celeste tried walking in with Lisa and Penny. All three of them were pushed back.

  Lisa tried going in alone. This time, Barry Hunter and his gang didn’t stop her. At the top of the steps, Lisa turned and looked back doubtfully.

  ‘You might as well go in,’ Celeste called out
cheerfully. ‘It’s only sensible.’

  So Lisa went in.

  When she came out, Celeste tried again, and she was pushed back, hard.

  Then Penny tried. Again, the gang stood aside to let Penny pass. Penny, too, looked back towards Celeste, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Celeste called out. ‘Before the bell rings and it’s too late for you.’

  So Penny went in as well.

  When she came out again, Celeste tried one last time. Sean and Wayne pushed her back, while Barry Hunter stood with his arms folded, smirking.

  Shrugging, Celeste strolled away.

  Barry Hunter and his gang stayed where they were, ready to block the lavatories against Celeste, right through the break. They kept an eye on her each time she ambled past, arm in arm with Lisa and Penny. She came just close enough each time to keep them on their guard. But she didn’t seem bothered. And she certainly wasn’t desperate. In fact, she seemed to be the most unruffled person in the playground, because everyone else was rushing from one knot of friends to the next, chattering excitedly.

  Just before the bell rang, some of the other girls came near Barry Hunter’s gang outside the lavatories. They giggled and pointed and stuffed their hands over their mouths. But Barry didn’t realise they were laughing at him until Mr Fairway called him sharply into line, and he heard the whispers for the very first time.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Celeste went into the Boys!’

  ‘She just walked straight in there!’

  ‘Into the Boys!’

  And Mr Fairway heard, too. He stared down at Celeste who was, as usual, gazing up at him with her imperturbable smile. Surely it couldn’t be true! Not even Celeste . . .!

  No! It must be one of those silly tales that runs round and round a school.

  He took another worried peep at her.

  No! Surely not even Celeste!

  6

  ‘Normal.’

  While Mr Fairway was fetching the register from the office, Barry Hunter took his bad temper out on Mark.

  ‘Shake!’ he said, stopping him getting to his desk, and shoving his hand out.

  Mark put his own hands safely behind his back and shook his head.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he muttered. ‘I wasn’t bothering you.’

  ‘That isn’t very nice,’ said Barry. ‘I only want to make friends properly.’

  He grinned in his lordly way at everyone who was sitting there, silently watching.

  ‘Go on,’ he told Mark again. ‘Shake hands.’

  Mark tried to back away between the desks. But Barry Hunter followed him.

  ‘Shake, and I’ll give you a sweetie,’ he wheedled, as if he were talking to a baby. When she heard the word ‘sweetie’, Penny’s hand slid automatically into her pocket. Then she remembered that as she was walking into Mr Hamid’s shop that morning, she’d suddenly heard Celeste’s pure clear voice ringing like an echo in her brain: ‘If Penny stopped stuffing her face with crisps and sweeties all day long, she wouldn’t stay he shape she is now.’ Something had made her just wave at Mr Hamid, then turn and walk out. So now she sat quietly clinking the coins that were still in her pocket, while she watched Mark going red in the face, and saying:

  ‘I don’t want a sweetie.’

  He turned away. But Barry Hunter was too quick for him. Catching Mark by the arm, he forced him round and squeezed his hand so tightly that Mark yelped.

  Then he gave Mark’s wrist a twist-burn.

  ‘See!’ he crowed. ‘I told you I’d give you a sweetie! A big barley sugar!’

  The tears rolled down behind Mark’s spectacles. He stumbled off blindly, just as Mr Fairway came back through the door.

  ‘Stop clattering about, Mark!’ said Mr Fairway. ‘Sit down.’

  All afternoon Barry Hunter made life difficult for poor old Mark. He tripped him up when he was called to Mr Fairway’s desk. While Mark was up there, Barry took Mark’s pencil-box and hid it behind the books in the corner. He dropped Mark’s woolly on the floor and trod a huge footprint on it. And when Mr Fairway went out to fetch some more paper, Barry stood on his chair and announced that Mark gave walking-funny lessons every Saturday morning down at Marigold’s smelly old church.

  Marigold just sat there pretending she wasn’t listening. But Mark took the chance of Mr Fairway being out of the room to crash about, trying to find his pencil-box.

  ‘Sit down!’ Mr Fairway said when he came back. ‘I’m sick of telling you, Mark! Stay at your desk!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘No buts. Just sit there, please, and stop disturbing everyone.’

  Celeste rose to her feet.

  ‘I think you ought to know –’ she began to explain.

  But Mr Fairway had had enough.

  ‘Sit down, Celeste,’ he said. ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.’

  Celeste sat down. All afternoon she never spoke a word. Mr Fairway smiled at her several times, trying to cajole her into answering questions he knew perfectly well she could get right. Each time she coldly turned her face away and gazed pointedly out of the window. Every few minutes she glanced at her watch, and drummed her fingers lightly on the desk top.

  Mr Fairway was as glad as the rest of them when the last bell rang.

  Out in the corridor, Barry Hunter pushed his way over to Celeste. You could tell from the look on his face that he was going to pay her out for trying to tell on him.

  Calmly, Celeste waited till he was two feet away, then opened her mouth and screamed. Everyone stopped shoving towards the two cloakrooms and turned to stare. No one had ever heard anything like it. You’d think a police car had switched on its siren inside a biscuit tin. The noise was prodigious.

  Barry Hunter backed off, fast.

  As promptly as she’d turned the scream on, Celeste turned it off again.

  ‘You’ll catch it if Mrs Brown heard that,’ Barry Hunter jeered.

  ‘You’ll catch it, too,’ warned Celeste. ‘I’ll tell her all the things you did to Mark.’

  Just as she said his name, Mark stumbled out of the classroom, last as usual, and tripped over one of his own feet.

  Barry Hunter snorted with amusement.

  ‘I don’t know why you keep sticking up for him,’ he said scornfully to Celeste. ‘He’s weird.’

  Mark’s face went scarlet.

  ‘I’m not weird!’

  ‘Well, you’re not normal, are you?’ taunted Barry. He poked Mark in the chest, and peered closely at his face through the thick bottle glasses, as if he were looking at some insect through a microscope. ‘No. You couldn’t say you were normal.’

  Suddenly Celeste was there, between the two of them.

  ‘And you are, are you?’ she demanded.

  She turned to everyone in the corridor – not just the people from their own class, but everyone else who was shuffling into the cloakrooms.

  ‘Who wants to be normal, if normal’s like Barry Hunter? Barry Hunter’s a bully! He’s spiteful and horrid! He steals and hides things! He’s a slyboots and his only real pleasure comes from making the people round him unhappy! So who wants to be normal?’

  She gazed round.

  ‘Come on! Speak up! Say if you want to be normal!’

  The dead silence in the corridor spread to the cloakrooms on either side. Everyone was watching Barry Hunter and Celeste. But no one said a word.

  ‘Right!’ Celeste yelled, turning back to him. ‘Now you know, don’t you! No one in this whole school wants to be normal, if being normal means being like you!’

  Dumbstruck, the whole school watched as she slammed out.

  Barry Hunter shrugged.

  ‘She’s mad,’ he announced. ‘She’s completely off her rocker. I reckon she’s even more weird than Mark the Martian. She ought to be locked up.’

  One or two of them caught his eye, but nobody grinned or nodded. Nobody answered him. He was on his own. Too many of them were thinking privately ho
w nice it would be if Barry Hunter was locked out of school. Or stuck in hospital for months after being run over. Or even dead. Over the years he’d ruined so many lessons, spoiled so many games, made so many of them so unhappy. Hardly a child in the school could not remember lying in bed, dreading the day to come, thinking how wonderful school could be if people like Barry Hunter were kept in control, and they could get on with their work and enjoy their breaks – just have a normal day.

  A normal school day. Wouldn’t that be weird?

  7

  Round robin

  Next morning, Celeste came into school holding a big black book. Its cover was patterned with gold. Tucked down its spine was a gold pen that wrote in eight separate colours. You could choose which you wanted by twisting a tiny wheel on the end.

  Everyone crowded round excitedly.

  ‘What’s in the book, Celeste?’

  ‘These pages are all blank.’

  ‘Are you going to write in it?’

  All she would say was, ‘Wait and see.’

  They didn’t have to wait long. Only a few minutes later Barry Hunter came swooping round the corner, saw Marigold, and stopped to sniff.

  ‘What’s that foul smell? Is it you, Marigold?’

  Marigold turned away.

  He followed, sniffing ostentatiously. Then he swooped off again. When Marigold turned back, Celeste was behind her, holding the black book.

  ‘Now what exactly did he say to you?’

  Marigold smeared the tears across her cheek, and tried to pretend she hadn’t heard.

  ‘Come on,’ Celeste ordered. ‘Unbutton your beak! I have to write it down.’

  Marigold stared. She stared at Celeste, then at the black book in her hand. Her eyes widened in amazement.