A Seven-Letter Word

by Kim Slater

  I feel a tiny prick of disappointment that he isn’t as shocked as I was by his secret. Maybe he doesn’t believe me, or thinks I’m copying him, from when he first said his stepmum had left her family.

  My Dad won’t discuss it, I reply.

  Why?

  Dunno, he just doesn’t like to. He got rid of all her stuff.

  Everything??

  Yep, everything. Well, he said he did. But I just found out he lied.

  What do you mean?

  I want to get off the subject of Mum’s stuff and find out once and for all if my crazy theory is correct: is Alex’s stepmum actually MY mum? If the answer is no, then at least I can forget all about it and concentrate on just being mates.

  I take a big breath before I begin to type. When we first started talking, you said your stepmum walked out on her family.

  That’s true, Alex says. First, tell me what you mean about your dad lying about getting rid of your mum’s stuff. It’s obviously bothering you.

  Alex is hanging on like a terrier. I’m going to have to tell him.

  While Dad was working, I went into his room and looked around. He had lots of photographs of Mum and loads of other stuff, too.

  Other stuff, like what?

  How far do I go? Do I tell Alex about the newspaper cutting with the telephone number on it?

  Finlay?

  My fingers hover over the keys.

  What else did you find?

  Nothing, I type. Just clothes and stuff he said he’d taken to the council tip.

  Alex stays silent.

  I feel bad because good mates don’t keep stuff from each other. Once we’ve met up in real life, it’ll be different. I’ll be able to tell him everything then. Right now, though, I can’t wait any longer.

  This sounds nuts, I type. But what’s your stepmum’s name and where did she live before she met your dad?

  It seems ages before I get Alex’s reply. The only reason I know he’s still online is that his ID icon is still green.

  Just as I begin to lose hope, he sends me my answer.

  Her name is Nicole and I don’t know where she lived before.

  I feel my heart sink down inside me like a wet, cold stone.

  Then the message box flashes again.

  But that’s not her real name. Dad told me she’d created a new identity because she did something REALLY bad.

  I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I read Alex’s message again.

  Have you got a pic? I manage to type.

  But before I can press the send button, another message from Alex pings through.

  Gotta go. Speak tomoz. And he’s gone.

  After pacing around the house until nearly midnight, I somehow managed to drop off into a troubled sleep. I dipped in and out of strange places in my head. Places where I had to climb a steep, slippery incline and a giant wave of water swept over the house as I looked out of my bedroom window.

  At some point I wake up to hear Neville scratching and scrabbling around in his hamster house, rebuilding his nest with bedding fluff. I wish I could curl up into a tiny ball and roll right in there with him, somewhere dark and safe where nothing bad can happen.

  I can just about see his cage in the glow of the street lights.

  ‘It’s Mum, Nev, I know it,’ I whisper over to him.

  Neville’s twitchy snout appears and he shoots me a look.

  ‘OK, I don’t know for d-definite, but it might be her. It really might be.’

  Neville isn’t impressed. He gives a snuffle and disappears back into his fluffy bed.

  We break up from school this Friday and the championships are in the middle of half-term. Mrs Adams has arranged for me and Maryam to practise at the youth club while school is closed.

  But the championships don’t seem so important right now. All I can think about is the conversation I had with Alex. I was so stupid. I should just have told him that I think ‘Nicole’ could be my mum. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, in the end.

  If I’m wrong then I can wave goodbye to having any mates at all. Alex will think I’m such a loser. I mean, who wouldn’t?

  But if I’m right . . .

  My brain whirls at the thought of it.

  Even though the odds are tiny, I can’t let it go. I need solid proof, and that can only be gained by meeting up with Alex in person.

  It’s only then that I’ll know for sure.

  TRIPLE-WORD-SCORE SQUARES ARE FOUND ON ALL FOUR SIDES OF THE BOARD AND ARE OF EQUAL DISTANCE FROM EACH CORNER.

  Tuesday

  Next day I have a good morning, mainly because Oliver is in different lessons to me. When the lunch bell sounds, I go to the library to get in a quick training session with Maryam, even though my heart isn’t really in it at all.

  I keep my head down and look as though I’m watching and listening, but when we finish, I can’t remember a single thing I’m supposed to have learned.

  I can’t stop thinking about meeting up with Alex. Even though I want to stay friends with him, getting the information about Mum feels more important.

  ‘Your mind is somewhere else,’ Maryam observes.

  I shrug, then suddenly remember something I wanted to ask her.

  ‘What d-did Mr Homer m-mean, yester-yesterday, when h-he said –’ I take a deep breath and push the words out fast – ‘you’d-acted-inappropriately-before?’

  Maryam shakes her head. ‘It is stuff I would rather forget about.’

  I remember there was some kind of incident with sixth-form students last year, but I can’t remember the details. I don’t push her, it’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about it.

  As soon as we’ve finished, Maryam rushes off to see her Science tutor.

  I step outside the library door and Oliver barges past with Darren and Mitchell. ‘Watch out, lads, F-Finlay’ll floor you if you so much as look at his stinky girlfriend.’

  ‘L-leave her a-al-al—’

  ‘Alone, you mean, you total jerk?’ Oliver whips round. ‘I don’t know why you’re sticking up for her, you’re just her lab-rat, F-F-Finlay.’

  My mouth might as well be sealed up completely but Oliver takes one look at my face and lets out a short burst of laughter.

  ‘You don’t think she’s helping you with Scrabble training cos she actually likes you, do you?’

  ‘Aww, he’s all upset now, look!’ Darren grins. ‘Did you think Headscarf fancied you or summat?’

  ‘Do you know what her latest science project’s about?’ Oliver demands.

  ‘You’re her experiment,’ Mitchell yells, and punches the air.

  ‘Wh-wh-what?’ I choke.

  ‘She was in the Science department this morning, talking to Mr Pritchard about her project on st-st-stuttering.’ Oliver grins at the others. ‘Turns out her p-project p-piece is studying some daft prat that can’t string two w-w-words together. Oh, s-sorry, F-F-Finlay, I forgot you were here for a second.’

  Before Oliver walks away, he presses hard on the top of my head with the flat of his hand. Not a slap, it doesn’t hurt, it just feels like he’s trying to press me into the ground and out of his way.

  ‘G-get off m-me!’

  ‘St-steady on, F-Finlay, d-don’t have a f-fart at-attack!’ Oliver pushes me aside and they walk away, laughing together.

  Fifteen minutes before the afternoon bell, I find Maryam sitting on a bench in the school’s nature garden, reading a book. She glances up when I sit down but then goes back to her reading.

  ‘You have chewing gum in your hair,’ she says, without looking up.

  I pat around my head and feel a flat, chewed-up lump on top. I try to pull it out but it’s soft and just pulls into a long string.

  ‘You’ll have to let it dry and then cut it out,’ Maryam says.

  ‘Th-that idiot, Ol-Oliver,’ I curse, recalling how he pressed his hand on my head. ‘He s-said s-something. Ab-about you.’

  Maryam glances round, her expression growing dark.
r />   ‘He s-said you’re doing a pr-pr-project.’

  ‘Why would you believe anything Oliver says?’ Maryam sighs.

  ‘A pr-project ab-about m-me.’

  Maryam gulps and closes her book.

  ‘I’m not doing a project about you specifically, Finlay.’

  ‘Th-that’s why y-you’re hel-helping me.’ My face burns, I feel like I might burst into tears.

  ‘That’s not true.’

  It was better when I had no friends at all. I think about Neville, all alone in his cage. He has no hamster friends who can disappoint him; he’s lucky that there’s nobody that can hurt him or betray his trust.

  I stand up to leave.

  ‘Finlay,’ Maryam says quickly. ‘Don’t go, let’s talk about this.’

  ‘Ab-about wh-what? Th-that I’m an exp—’ I take a breath. ‘Ex-periment?’

  ‘You are not an experiment, Finlay,’ Maryam says quietly. ‘I want to help you.’

  ‘F-for your pr-project?’

  ‘No. Not for my project.’

  So there is a project.

  ‘Finlay, please. I should have told you before now that I want to be a speech therapist. I want to be the best speech therapist in the whole world. That has nothing to do with our friendship,’ Maryam says. ‘I swear.’

  ‘Th-that’s why you off-ered to h-help me with Sc-Scr—’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Maryam’s voice rises up an octave. ‘And I didn’t actually offer to help you with Scrabble training, Mrs Adams asked me to.’

  THE BONUS SQUARES ARE IDENTIFIABLE BY THEIR DIFFERENT COLOURS.

  I stomp off towards the Technology Block, where my next lesson is.

  Me: I am the subject of Maryam’s science project. Maryam grabs my arm from behind. I feel it twist and I yell and yank it away from her.

  We both lose our balance and suddenly, we’re in a twisted heap on the ground.

  We look at each other. Maryam’s mouth twitches but I look away.

  I won’t laugh, I won’t even smile. I can’t.

  ‘Finlay, please, just stop for a moment and I will explain everything.’ Maryam hauls herself up and reaches out to me.

  I ignore her hand but I get up and sit on the bench. I haven’t got anywhere else to go until afternoon lessons start. My body feels heavy, like I’m carrying a backpack full of rusty old weights.

  ‘Earlier, you asked me about Mr Homer’s comment,’ Maryam says. ‘About some trouble I had at school, last year.’

  I frown. What does that have to do with anything?

  ‘Well, I’d just started at the school and I sort of wrecked a classroom when some kids called me names.’

  Maryam wrecked a classroom? That just didn’t seem possible.

  Maybe I just don’t know Maryam at all.

  ‘I turned over a few tables and chairs and threw a whiteboard eraser that, unfortunately for me, smashed a small window.’ She grins at my expression. ‘I am a wild child, eh, Finlay?’

  I don’t laugh. I don’t say anything.

  ‘Of course, I regret it now. I was silly, I reacted to the idiots that were calling me names, instead of walking away and reporting them. After that, Mrs Adams offered to mentor me. She saved me from exclusion.’

  The image of Maryam kicking off in the classroom is shocking, but not as shocking as the idea of kind, thoughtful Maryam being a mask for scientific, cruel Maryam, who just wants to study me to get top marks for her science project.

  ‘As you are aware, I used to play in the Pakistani Scrabble youth team and with Mrs Adams being Scrabble-mad, she asked me to help out at the after-school club. When you came along, she asked me to help with your training.’

  Maryam obviously likes Scrabble, so surely she would be Mrs Adams’s first choice.

  ‘W-why don’t y-you enter y-yourself?’

  ‘I like the game but I’ve always disliked playing competitively.’ She shrugs.

  I don’t say anything. Thanks to Oliver, it’s pretty obvious why she agreed to help with my training.

  Maryam turns and places her hand gently on my shoulder.

  ‘Finlay, I did not know about your stammer until after I had agreed to coach you.’

  I remembered how Maryam had looked at me strangely when we played our first game. It feels like she’s telling the truth.

  I relax my shoulders a little but remind myself that she’s still doing a project about me, an experiment, according to Oliver.

  ‘My science project isn’t about you, Finlay,’ Maryam says. ‘It is not even just about stammering, although it does cover it.’

  I try and keep my face normal but I can feel it crumpling.

  ‘Finlay, you are speaking better, more fluidly, yes?’

  I don’t answer her. I don’t want to let her worm her way out of it all.

  ‘It was my goal to become a speech therapist long before I met you and it is still the case now,’ she says. ‘My project might be able to help you with techniques that may improve your verbal control but you are not my research subject.’

  Now she’s talking like a scientist.

  ‘Y-you sh-should’ve told me.’ I press my chin into my chest.

  ‘Yes, I should,’ Maryam admits. ‘I am sorry, Finlay. I never meant to deceive you, only to help you.’

  Now I feel like I’m the one who has done something wrong. I don’t know why I’d instantly believed Oliver over Maryam.

  ‘People do not always have to have a hidden reason for wanting to get to know you, Finlay. You are an intelligent, interesting person,’ Maryam says. ‘Have you ever considered that sometimes people just like you for who you are?’

  The answer is no. I’ve never considered that at all.

  Now I know that Maryam has hit back at bullies before, the incident with Oliver in the library makes even less sense.

  ‘Y-yesterday, you c-could’ve got Oliver d-done but you d-didn’t say anyth-thing at all.’

  ‘I know,’ she says quietly.

  ‘O-Oliver is an idiot,’ I say. ‘Nothing he s-says means anyth-thing.’

  Maryam looks down at her hands.

  ‘Yesterday it did mean something. To me.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘You see, it is not the first time this has happened, Finlay,’ Maryam says, turning her shining brown eyes in my direction. ‘There have been many instances of people hating me, but what Oliver did yesterday, or was going to do, it took me back to a very bad place.’

  I feel terrible. Maryam is such a lovely, gentle person. I can’t imagine anyone hating her . . . except Oliver. But he hates nearly everything so he doesn’t count.

  ‘B-but I bet you never d-did anything b-bad to anyone in y-your life,’ I say.

  Maryam smiles again and I feel foolish because deep down, I know exactly the reason why people that don’t even know her don’t like her.

  ‘They see this . . .’ She points to her shimmering black and silver headscarf. ‘And this is enough.’

  BONUS SQUARES THAT OFFER ADDITIONAL POINTS CAN ONLY BE USED ONCE.

  The bell for afternoon lessons sounds, but neither of us moves. I look down at the slats on the bench and rub my finger over some of the names etched into the wood; people who wanted to leave their mark, to say that they were once here.

  Maryam is covered in marks from being hurt by other people, but those marks aren’t visible. Today, I can feel the little pieces of her pain in the air, flapping around us like poisonous bats.

  ‘W-why wear your headscarf, th-then?’ I say. ‘If it m-marks you out as being di-different, m-maybe you sh-should leave it off.’

  Maryam’s mouth sets and a steely look comes into her eyes.

  ‘Never,’ she says. ‘They will not decide who, or what, I am.’

  ‘I thought y-you had to wear it,’ I say. ‘I m-mean like, your p-parents make you do it.’

  Maryam’s face softens again. ‘No, it is my decision. It’s a part of my faith, something I believe in,’ she says. ‘And some people wi
ll hate me for it.’

  She’s right about that.

  She sits up a bit straighter and her voice turns theatrical. ‘Here is an amazing fact: it is possible to wear a headscarf and be a confident, successful woman . . . Shock, horror!’

  I laugh. Maryam’s funny and I like that her eyes are dancing with mischief again.

  ‘I wanted to tell Mrs Adams about the things Oliver said,’ Maryam continues. ‘I know I should have spoken up.’

  She chews at a fingernail.

  ‘When I first came to live in the UK with my family, my new school seemed such a welcoming place.’

  She stares towards the playing field, her eyes glazing over.

  ‘On my first day, my mother allowed me to wear my late grandmother’s hijab. Nani had sewn on the pearls and sequins by hand for her first family outing to meet her future husband, my grandfather.’

  She gives a small, sad smile and touches her own headscarf as if it gives her some comfort.

  ‘My first day started well, but this one older boy, he took a big dislike to me before we even spoke.’

  ‘W-why?’

  ‘We found out afterwards that he had lost his uncle in the London terrorist bombings. It was very sad, a terrible tragedy. But he dealt with the sadness by becoming angry and aggressive towards people like me. He cornered me in the playground and began taunting me. When a big group of people gathered round I felt sure someone would help me, that someone would stop him. But nobody did.’

  I think about the feeling of growing dread that takes over when Oliver and his friends surround me.

  ‘He tore off my grandmother’s headscarf and spat on it. He ground it into the dirty concrete with the heel of his shoe.’ Maryam’s fingers twist into the ends of her headscarf until tiny sparkling beads shower into her lap. ‘He pushed me over and thumped me, kicked me.’

  I reach for her hand and gently pull it away from the fabric. Her eyes are wide and staring and I know she is still back there, reliving the horror.

  ‘It’s o-over, n-now,’ I say. ‘N-nobody will h-hurt you here.’

  ‘Won’t they, Finlay? I’m not so sure. You stopped Oliver yesterday, but you saw what he was going to do.’

  I try to think of something to say, but there is nothing.