Flour Babies

by Anne Fine

  Unless, today, he chose to stage one of her favourite entertainments: the Bloodied Tongue. Last time she supervised Simon Martin, he had gone to some trouble and effort to suck enough ink out of his pen cartridge to stain his tongue bright red. He’d let this gory-looking monstrosity hang out of his mouth for the whole of the rest of the detention, quite putting her off her sandwich but amusing her mightily. Miss Arnott secretly hoped she might be treated to the Bloodied Tongue again today.

  Though what she liked most of all was his Rip Van Winkle.

  She found that tremendously soothing. Simon would sprawl over the desk, give a few gargantuan yawns, and then appear to fall into a sleep so deep no one could wake him for a hundred years. From time to time (whenever he feared that she’d forgotten him), he’d snore: a gentle faraway ripple that swelled ever richer and deeper, until each lungful of air that he released was reverberant enough to set the window frames rattling. Just as she began to fear for the structure of the building, he’d let out a giant snort and pretend that he’d woken himself. He’d stare around blankly, smacking his lips like an old man. And then he’d settle back down on the desk, and replay the whole performance from start to finish.

  Yes. Rip Van Winkle was her favourite. The act she didn’t like was Gibbering Idiot. She’d seen it too often and was bored with it. He’d sit at his desk, making grotesque faces. Every now and again he’d erupt into fits of maniacal laughter or frantic bursts of muttering.Sometimes he drooled. She hoped it wasn’t going to be the Gibbering Idiot. But, just in case, Miss Arnott reached in her bag, to check that she still had her aspirins.

  And her hand froze. Before her eyes – was she dreaming? was this really happening? – young Simon Martin crossed the room, ignoring Hooper totally. He drew out the chair behind the desk furthest away from the three other malefactors she was watching, pulled his flour baby, a pad of paper and a pen from his book bag, and, without making any fuss, propped the flour baby up on the desk top, patted her head affectionately once or twice, then settled straight down to work.

  Miss Arnott blinked.

  ‘Simon?’ she whispered. ‘Simon, are you all right?’

  He looked up.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  It sounded almost like a mild rebuke, as if she’d interrupted him in an important train of thought.

  ‘I was just wondering if you were all right.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘Yes. I’m all right. Why?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No reason.’

  And for the life of her, she couldn’t think of any. Except that it wasn’t normal. Well, it was normal, of course. But that was exactly what was wrong. With Simon Martin, acting normal wasn’t normal.

  Maybe the lad was sick – feverish, perhaps. Or maybe he was in shock. It’s possible he’d just heard his mother had been knocked down by a lorry, or electrocuted changing a plug, or drowned in a canal, or –

  Miss Arnott tried to pull herself together and dismiss the lurid flow of her imagination. Surely a pupil should be able to sit down quietly and get on with a bit of written work without one of his teachers presuming he needed an ambulance, or his mother was already inside one!

  She tried to go back to her marking. But it was impossible. She couldn’t concentrate at all. She kept having to raise her eyes from the books, and check on Simon Martin. What was he writing so industriously? He seemed to be covering whole sheets of paper. She’d taught him English for two whole years, and in all that time she never once saw him cover half a page in less than a double period. Who or what could have inspired the boy to scribble away so busily today?

  Miss Arnott had to know. Slipping from the desk, she crept round the room on her rubber soles, till she was directly behind him. She leaned forward a little, so she could see over his shoulder. And with two years of decoding the work of Russ Mould in her professional armoury, Miss Arnott no longer had any problem at all deciphering Simon’s crabbed writing and his unique spelling forms.

  DAY 4

  Till I was forced to lug this stupid flour baby round with me everywhere I go, I never thought about my dad having to look after me. When I asked Mum, she said he wasn’t too bad at it really. He never dropped me on my head, or left me floating face down in the bath while he went off for a towel, or anything like that.

  It’s just he didn’t stay.

  I’ve asked why he left before. Mum and Gran always say it didn’t have anything to do with me, it wasn’t my fault, and it was bound to have happened anyway. But last night I asked Mum how he left, and what wasen she tried to fob me off as usual, I wouldn’t let her.

  Simon broke off. He wasn’t sure how to describe the next bit. Mum had rolled up her eyes, the way she always did when she was getting fed up with a conversation.

  ‘How many times do I have to say it, Simon? I don’t know why he left.’

  ‘But I’m not asking why. I’m asking how.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Yes. How? How did he go? What did he say? What did you say? Was there a giant great row? Was Gran there?’

  He leaned across the table.

  ‘I’m not asking you to tell me what was inside his brain. I’m asking something different.’

  She was close to defeat. He knew it, and pressed his advantage home.

  ‘I have a right to know.’

  She reached over the table and patted his hand.

  ‘I know, I know.’

  But she said nothing more. So Simon pushed on.

  ‘You’ve finished with him, right? And he’s definitely finished with us. He’s disappeared, never sent any money, and never even written. I bet, after all this time, even a private detective couldn’t find him.’

  He pulled his fingers out from under her hand.

  ‘But I’m not quite finished with him. See? There’s things I think about. Things I want to know. And this is one of them.’

  He stared down at his battered knuckles, close to tears.

  ‘Please, Mum. Tell me about the day he left.’

  And so she told him – told him everything – right down to what his father had for breakfast that morning, and what he was wearing, and even the rude things he said about the people in the next flat when their dog started barking at the postman as usual. She told him all the things his father did that morning, and what they had for lunch. She even remembered the joke he made to Sue when she came round, about needing her regular Saturday afternoon fix of cuddling the baby.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You.’

  She spread her hands, like someone trying to convince a policeman of her innocence.

  ‘Honestly, Simon,’ she said. ‘Nothing was different. There wasn’t anything about the day to make it special. So far as anyone could make out afterwards, your dad wasn’t in a mood, or feeling jealous or left out, or anything. In fact, when he disappeared, everyone thought that something terrible must have happened – a road accident or something. It was only afterwards we worked out that some time in the afternoon he must have packed the large blue bag and lowered it out of one of the back windows on a rope. When he strolled out of the gate, he wasn’t carrying a thing. He had his hands in his pockets and he was whistling. We thought he was going to buy beer, or a bar of chocolate or something. But he must have walked round to the back of the building, picked up his bag, and gone to the bus station – timing it perfectly for the last coach to London.’

  She gave a rueful smile.

  ‘As soon as she heard that, of course, your Gran went wild.’

  And now Simon couldn’t help smiling as well. He could imagine it. Gran down the phone on the day her son-in-law did a major bunk.

  ‘Volcanic!’

  His mother took the opportunity to rise from the table. Clearly she was hoping the conversation was over.

  Simon called her attention back, just for a moment.

  ‘What was he whistling?’

  She turned and stared.

  He asked again.

 
‘What was he whistling? When he strolled out of the gate with his hands in his pockets, what tune was he whistling?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh, Simon! How should I remember that?’

  He didn’t push his luck saying so, but for the life of him he couldn’t see why it was any more strange than remembering whether a man had cornflakes or bran mix the day he walked out of the gate and down the street and out of your life for ever. Surely the tune he was whistling was far more important. It might, after all, be a clue to what he was thinking. And what would someone only a very few years older than Simon himself have in his mind as he walked out to begin his life all over again, somewhere different? What would he be whistling? ‘Faraway Roamer?’ ‘Long and Lonesome Road?’ ‘Goin’ to the City and Ain’t Never Comin’ Back?’

  And now, in the stuffy detention room, the tunes he’d thought of came back, one by one, and idled through his mind as his pen tracked over the paper, steadily setting down in his flour baby diary everything his mother had told him the night before. When little snatches of song broke through his clenched teeth in a soft whistling, Miss Arnott didn’t bother to hush him. He wasn’t trying to disturb the others, after all. He didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it. And while he was so absorbed, she could keep making her quiet circuits of the room, and coming up behind to peep over his shoulder and read the last few sentences he’d written.

  And what was strangest of all the things Mum said was that my father wasn’t even cheesed off or in a mean mood that day. Somehow that makes it seem as if he wasn’t so much leaving us as moving on to whatever it was he wanted next. And I’ve realized something else. I’ve realized that, if I hadn’t been there, already born, my dad would by now be just one of those old boyfriends that Mum’s forgotten completely. If they hadn’t had me between them, she probably wouldn’t even get his name right by now, let alone remember what he looked like and what he ate for breakfast.

  I just wish I knew what he was whistl -

  The bell rang.

  Miss Arnott jumped back so, when they all swivelled in their seats to look at her hopefully, Simon wouldn’t realize she’d been reading his work.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. Off you go.’

  He wasn’t as quick as usual at stuffing his things in his bag, and making for the door. Miss Arnott took the chance to speak to him.

  ‘Simon –’

  He turned.

  She didn’t know quite how to put it without insulting him. In the end, she just said companionably:

  ‘You wrote an awful lot today.’

  He shrugged.

  She tried again.

  ‘Sometimes people just take time to get started with schoolwork. Late bloomers, we call them. They muck about for years, not really seeing the point of any of it. And then one day light dawns, and they actually begin to enjoy it.’

  She waited.

  Simon said nothing.

  She knew she might as well drop it. But out of sheer, burning curiosity, she couldn’t help trying one last time.

  ‘Do you think that might be what’s happened to you today?’

  Simon inspected his huge feet. He didn’t actually regret putting his energy into his work for the whole of the period she’d been watching him. But most of the early enthusiasm, and all of the guilt, had drained away now. He felt like an empty pen cartridge, used and spent. Just for a moment he did consider the idea of trying to stay a new person, a born-again Simon, religiously doing his homework and handing it in on time, spending his lunch hours in the library, discussing study projects in depth with his teachers. After all, the last forty minutes hadn’t been too bad. His hand was aching, yes. And there was a red patch on the side of his finger where he’d been gripping the pen (though that was nothing compared with the battering he took for granted in ten minutes’ football). No, what Simon didn’t like – stronger than that, what he hated - about the last forty minutes was that they’d gone. Gone for ever. Snap! Just like that! And he’d been concentrating so hard, he hadn’t even noticed them going. For forty minutes he’d been behaving like one of those ear’oles in all the other classes – the sort who might look up from the last page of the book they were reading, and be astonished that it had gone dark.

  No. Your whole life could go down the drain that way if you didn’t keep a look-out. You had to be very much on your guard.

  Miss Arnott was still gazing at him hopefully. And Simon had always been very fond of Miss Arnott. He didn’t want to be the one to crush her starry-eyed teacher’s dream.

  Shuffling his feet, he made a real effort to be diplomatic.

  ‘Possibly,’ he said. And then again, with a little more firmness: ‘Possibly.’

  And to keep her from harrying him further, he made for the door as quickly as possible.

  Outside in the corridor, Simon found himself pinned against the wall by what he at first took to be a miniature armoured car.

  Over the top of it, Sajid was grinning like a fool.

  ‘What’s this, then?’ Simon demanded.

  Sajid pulled back a few inches so Simon could free himself and take a better look.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? It’s a pram.’

  ‘So why’s it got eight wheels?’

  Sajid rolled his eyes.

  ‘Because it’s actually two prams lashed together with some fusewire Tullis nicked for me, that’s why.’

  ‘But what’s it for?’

  ‘Flour babies.’ Sajid’s eyes shone. ‘Look, Sime. How many flour babies do you reckon you could shove in this front pram without any falling out?’

  Simon tugged his flour baby out of his book bag, and sat her at one end, like a queen.

  ‘About ten,’ he said, after a moment’s reflection. ‘They’d be a bit squashed, but they wouldn’t fall out.’

  ‘Exactly!’ crowed Sajid. ‘Ten in this one at the front and nine in this one at the back. All nineteen flour babies fit in these two prams tied together.’

  ‘So?’

  Sajid was getting impatient.

  ‘Don’t be such a dim bulb, Sime! It’s a little travelling nursery. A crèche!’

  ‘Crush more like,’ Simon said.

  Sajid started pushing. Rigidly lashed together as they were, the prams were impossible to manoeuvre round the corner, and Sajid was reduced to doing a seven-point-turn under Simon’s strident but unsystematic instruction.

  ‘But that’s the whole point,’ he insisted, as the two of them finally took off at last down the straight. ‘The more flour babies I can cram in, the more money I make.’

  Simon was mystified.

  ‘Money?’

  Sajid turned to stare.

  ‘This isn’t going to be a charity crèche,’ he told Simon sternly. ‘If I’m taking responsibility, I’m taking money. That’s business.’

  Simon said disparagingly:

  ‘Come off it, Sajid. No one will sign on for this. No one.’

  ‘Oh yes, they will,’ Sajid informed him cheerily. ‘I’ve got ten names down already, and three more going home tonight to sift through their money bags and see if they can afford –’

  Whoooomph!

  He’d run into Dr Feltham, who was rounding the next turn in the corridor at such a speed he couldn’t stop in time. Simon expected the worst. A giant ticking off. Another detention. Fifty lines. But Dr Feltham, when he caught his wind, simply prowled round the strange eight-wheeled vehicle, eyeing its visible features and weighing up its attributes.

  ‘Extraordinary!’

  He spun round to address the little crowd of acolytes trailing behind him with their arms full of laboratory equipment.

  ‘Extraordinary! Most fortuitous! Here we were only this morning discussing articulation in vehicles, and here in the corridor is a perfect example of exactly what I was trying to explain. Note that, with a rigid rectangular structure of these proportions and –’

  Here, he broke off to peer briefly under the prams.

&nb
sp; ‘Eight wheels –’

  Distracted, he stopped again.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked, pointing. ‘Is this thirty-amp fuse wire? I certainly hope it didn’t come from any of Mr Higham’s workshops!’

  Then, without even waiting for an answer, he ushered his little group on, still lecturing them mightily about such mysteries as angles of approach, and separate speeds and velocities.

  Simon and Sajid lounged against the wall and watched them walk away. Sajid was relieved that Tullis’s theft of ten metres of fuse wire had not fully registered with Dr Feltham, and Simon was reassured that his decision not to become one of the ear’oles had been exactly the right one. Just for the moment, he felt safe again.

  They watched in silence for a few more seconds. Then Sajid nudged Simon as the last of Dr Feltham’s retinue disappeared round the bend in the corridor.

  ‘Sad lives…’ he said, shaking his head.

  Simon echoed,

  ‘Sad lives…’

  Forcibly they shook themselves out of the mournful mood into which what little they understood of the impromptu lesson on articulation had unaccountably thrown them.

  Together they pushed the pram off down the corridor to find somewhere with a steep slope, and cheer themselves up with a good laugh.

  6

  On Day 11, Robin Foster lost his temper and kicked his flour baby in the canal. It sank almost at once. Three days before, at the twice-weekly weigh-in, things had been going well enough. His flour baby hadn’t lost any weight from ill-treatment. Nor had it gained any from added damp. But on the way home from school on the eleventh day, something in Robin snapped, and the result was a few rising bubbles, and a line of curious faces peering into the filthy black water of the canal.

  ‘Death-blow!’

  ‘Seriously sunk, Foster!’

  ‘You and the baby…’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  But Robin seemed reluctant to explain.

  ‘I just couldn’t help it, see?’

  ‘No,’ Simon said, pulling his own flour baby’s bonnet straight. ‘I don’t see. I don’t see at all.’