by Femi Fadugba
‘How are you lot feeling about the mock exams coming up?’ It wasn’t Nadia’s smoothest icebreaker, but less bait than bringing up the weather, which had been my plan. ‘I’ve been studying the last two weeks, but still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface.’
That could mean anything with her. She was capable of pulling a string of all-nighters before a big test, then, another week, she’d barely be interested in school. Submit? Or rebel? Those were the two islands Nadia Black swam between each day. Her mum, who liked reminding Nadia she’d had her too young, was determined to make sure her daughter’s life was the photo negative of her own. And so, on the one hand, Nadia loathed the overachiever box her mum tried to squeeze her into and, on the other, she couldn’t bring herself to be the slacktivist selfie queen that Penny Hill expected either. Only two weeks of studying for the second-biggest exams of the year was definitely on the slack end for her, and I couldn’t help wondering if she might be joining us wasters on rebel island for good.
‘I’m not too worried about the mocks, you know,’ I answered. Truthfully, I couldn’t even tell her where the surface was, let alone scratch it. ‘I’m sure I’ll do decent, still.’
‘What you on about, Esso? You know you’re failing all of them tests.’
Rob wasted no time co-signing Kato’s comment with a laugh.
‘Piss off, Kato.’ My right hand was gripping my tray, the other rubbing my sore hip under the table.
Nadia, unfazed by our back and forth, shook her head and said to me, ‘So, how did you do on the practice tests last month? I always took you as one of those quietly neeky ones: pretend like you’re not studying, then come out of nowhere and kill it.’
‘I mean, I was in the top half of the class for art. Didn’t do too bad in creative writing, either – teacher reckons I could do English for A level if I worked at it.’
‘Nice one. And the other subjects?’ Nadia pressed, grinning.
‘Don’t watch that, rude-gyal,’ I responded, hoping my overconfident jab would stop her from reaching in for more details.
‘You lot are a bunch of tossers, you know that?’ she replied.
‘Fair enough,’ Kato responded, genuinely agreeing with her while the rest of us laughed. ‘Speaking of creative writing … me, Esso and Rob are actually going to youth club in Camberwell tonight to write our homework stories. You’re welcome to chill as well.’
‘Well, which one is it?’ Nadia asked. ‘Are you working or chilling?’
‘Depends on when you arrive,’ I interrupted. ‘There’s gonna be some “refreshments” served at the start.’ I hugged my fingers round the word for effect. ‘But, after that, we’ll actually do like two hours of proper writing.’
Kato piped up the way only he could. ‘And just so there’s no confusion, Nadia – by refreshments, we mean crystal meth. The theme for tonight’s revision session is meth and metaphors.’
‘That’s messed up,’ Nadia said.
‘Maybe crack and character development works better for you?’ he responded.
It was clear from how she was folding her lips that Nadia was holding back laughter. She whispered to me, ‘Please tell me you guys are actually talking about weed, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Rob stole a spliff from his old man. I don’t smoke, but these man swear one puff is enough to turn you into ghetto Shakespeare.’
‘In which case,’ Nadia said, ‘shouldn’t the theme be pot and plots?’
‘Well played, Nadia,’ I acknowledged. ‘Very well played.’
She smiled, then slid a dollop of mashed potatoes past her lips. Her smarts multiplied everything she already had going on. I looked away so she wouldn’t catch me staring.
‘Ganja and stanzas?’ was Kato’s next offering. We tilted our heads, wondering if we could accept it, but Kato shot again before we could settle the decision. ‘Fine – ketamine and kennings.’
‘What the blood clot is a kennings?’ Rob looked disgusted – no, disrespected. Ironically it was the same face I’d put on at lunch the day before when Rob had told us that, based on a photo online, Nines wasn’t actually a rapper, but a superagent sent forward in time by East African special forces.
‘Nah, kennings is definitely an English-lit word!’ Kato insisted.
We all shook our heads.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Kato fired back. ‘Remember in Game of Thrones how everyone called Khaleesi “Mother of Dragons”? Well, “Mother of Dragons” is a kenning. It’s an old-school-English ting, where you basically take a word and replace it with some other joined-up words to make it sound sicker. Take D’s little brother, Bloodshed, for example – if my man was born in medieval times, his kenning name would have been “Slayer of Stepdads” or something. Get me?’
His comment sent a prickle down my backbone and I had to shake a little to work it out my system. Every kid south of the Thames knew the story of how Bloodshed had earned his nickname: by stabbing his mum’s second husband in the stomach. The headline of the Evening Standard the day after had read, ‘Bloodshed on Brixton estate’ or something like that. Since he was only thirteen when it happened and because his stepdad kinda deserved it, Bloodshed bust his case. But two years on and the nickname had stuck … which D absolutely hated since, according to rumours, he was out with some chick when it all went down.
‘I don’t know about all dat,’ Rob said, still frowning. ‘Kennings is a proper stretch, fam. I think you’re just making this shit up.’
Nadia stretched her arms high in the sky and let out an exaggerated yawn, which, we were about to learn, was a warning shot.
‘Sizzurp and similes,’ she said. ‘Trees and themes. Xanax and syntax.’ She kept going. And going. And going. With each Uzi bullet, Kato pretended to shudder, shielding his chest and vital organs from the onslaught. Only when she got to ‘opioids and oxymorons’ did she stop to admire the pile of mangled bodies around her.
Don’t just sit there, Esso. Think of something, say something. The clapping that followed Nadia’s round gave me the time I needed to come up with my only contribution so far.
‘Acid and allegory?’
‘Dammit,’ Nadia said. ‘Been looking for one to go with acid.’
Riding high and feeling bulletproof, I locked eyes with her. ‘Well, you know what they say: the couple that alliterates together obliterates together.’
‘Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-aaat,’ Kato shouted, busting gunshots in the air. Rob refused to give him the satisfaction of laughing this time.
Nadia threw her head back. ‘Couple? Bit presumptuous, don’t you reckon? Maybe you should study by yourself tonight, E. You can call your session herbs and hubris since that second-hand weed smoke has clearly gone to your head.’
‘Cheeeeeeees-us is Lord!’ Kato screamed, his exaggerated accent borrowed from every African country a British passport couldn’t get you into. ‘We have a winna, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winna! Nadia, Nadia, plis, am beggin … please, come and collect your prize!’
Nadia snatched her imaginary trophy away from Kato. ‘I’m ever so grateful. And quite humbled as well.’ She’d put on her poshest voice, cupping her hand into a royal wave between sentences. ‘Firstly I’d like to thank the British education system as well as my neighbours back in Manchester – without them I wouldn’t have learnt any of these terribly clever quips and wouldn’t know anything about these wonderfully harmful drugs.’
By the end of her acceptance speech, we were gripping each other’s shoulders for support. Nadia almost tipped over on her chair, grabbing the table with one hand and rubbing her stomach with the other.
My laughs were more forced than everyone else’s, though. I was still reeling from the pain of her diss earlier on. I mean, ‘presumptuous’? But what about all those texts between us … all those times we’d stopped to chat in the hallway even though we had nothing to talk about … me having a vivid vision of her after that crash, then literally saving her life in the hallway?? Surely it a
ll meant something. The paranoid, spiteful side of me wondered if Kato’s superior banter had maybe earned him some ground over me during these last fifteen minutes of lunch. Or whether that accidental bum-grab in the corridor had been a bit too cheeky (pun mostly intended).
Meanwhile, Rob had had enough. It was time for him to moan about something again. ‘Not only is this the neekiest conversation I’ve ever been a part of, but it’s also fucking problematic.’
‘What?’ Nadia said. We all wore matching faces of confusion.
‘We gotta elevate the conversation, innit. For ourselves, for our people. You think Westminster kids are sitting round the table at lunch chatting about class A substances?’
Nadia wasted no time replying, ‘Firstly, the answer is yes. Those kids love a class A drug. Secondly –’ she opened her comment to the rest of the group this time – ‘did I hear him say our people? Aren’t you Russian or Polish or something?’
We all bust up laughing. Rob, meanwhile, was shaking his head like we were a bunch of toddlers, too juvenile to chew on his medicine.
Kato, still chuckling, added his two pence: ‘Also, didn’t you get dropped into this school by mistake? It’s always them man preaching loudest about tough choices who never had to make none.’
‘Thank you very much,’ I said to Kato, and then to Rob: ‘So don’t tell me to stay woke, when I ain’t slept in three days.’
Nadia placed her hands on her chest, like my words had just lifted the lid off her soul.
‘Hold on, boss,’ Kato cut in, placing his afro pick down on his tray. ‘Did you just steal a line from Wretch 32 and pretend like it was yours?’
‘Nah, definitely not,’ I responded. ‘I don’t even know what song you’re on about?’ My Adam’s apple started swelling; I loosened my collar, scratched the side of my neck.
‘Yeah, that bar was definitely from an old 32 freestyle,’ Rob confirmed. ‘You’re moving like a sideman right now, Esso.’
Nadia looked away. The lid was back on.
After a few more moments of awkward silence, Rob turned to Kato. ‘But on a serious note: kennings was definitely a stretch, fam.’
Kato carried on making the case for kennings. He prided himself on having the gift of the gab – the ability to ‘sell thongs to a nun’, as he’d put it once. Rob, on the other hand, was born with all his views preloaded and had no plans of ever changing them. That meant all their arguments ended the same way: behind the starting line. Thankfully, that afternoon, their bickering created an opening for me and Nadia to chat to each other.
‘Tonight was meant to be my evening off from studying, but I might actually come to your revision thing.’ Nadia twirled her fork, mixing the beans and mash into a stodgy bronze pile. Her vibe was a bit warmer than before.
‘Safe. It’ll be fun,’ I responded, genuinely meaning it. ‘And educational, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘By the way, why don’t we go Peckham Library instead?’
‘Yeah, why n–’ I stopped mid-sentence. I knew exactly why not. And, as insane as it was to be planning my evening around what I’d seen in the Upper World, if Nadia pressed again, I’d have to find a way of letting her know we were all staying as far away from that building as possible.
‘Also, that chicken shop is next to it, isn’t it?’ Nadia asked. ‘You know the one? What’s it even called again?’
‘You mean Morley’s?’
‘Nah, I would have remembered that.’
‘Oh.’ I had to pause and laugh. ‘You’re talking about Katie’s, innit? Of course. Everyone knows Katie’s.’
‘That’s the one! It’s mad. When my dad first got his job in London, he was living in a studio just up the road from the library, and I got the bus down from Manny one weekend to visit him, and the first place he took me to eat was Katie’s. That chicken is the first thing I ever ate in London.’
‘Wow, gotta give it to your old man. He really knows how to spoil a girl.’
‘Piss off, E.’ She pretended to throw a chunk of mashed potatoes at me with her fork, and her blazer flickered open, giving me a glimpse of the pink bra she had on under her school shirt.
‘We’ll figure out the venue later, but definitely make sure you don’t come too late to the revision ting tonight. I’ve actually got to head home just before eight. On a film-night riddim with my mum.’ I rushed the last few words out in a mumble. As embarrassed as I was about people knowing I’d spent every Friday night since I was six at home with my mum eating takeout, I wasn’t embarrassed enough to cancel or lie about it.
‘Well, mumma’s boy … I’m glad to see you’re so relaxed about everything.’ She put her utensils down, then turned her eyes away before moving to her next sentence. ‘I honestly thought you’d be bricking it about this thing with D.’
I sighed. ‘Honestly, Nadia, what worries me even more than D himself is everything that comes with him.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know how these roadman go on – it never ends. Even if I managed to bang up D – and that’s a big bloody “if” – the beef would carry on. Probably until someone got proper hurt. Or worse.’
Spark had told me all kinds of stories about what the T.A.S. boys got up to. But the shocked look on Nadia’s face told me she had absolutely no clue. I guess they all saw D so often at school, they made the mistake of assuming he was like the rest of us.
My thoughts drifted back to scenario number four: the one where I got worked, punched up, stabbed or worse. The only scenario that matched what I’d seen in the Upper World.
Nadia must have sensed my mood, because she rested her hand on my forearm. The weight of each of her fingers sank in. After weeks of cryptic communication – She likes me; she likes me not – I’d been dying for answers. This felt like one, even if it was just the first whisper, and, the way my morning had started, I never would’ve guessed I’d make this much ground by lunch. Kato and Rob saw it too, then went back to pretending not to eavesdrop on our conversation.
‘Sorry to have to leave you. I’ve got a study session with Mrs Mwenza, and I’m already late.’ She got up. ‘But I’ll see you tonight, yeah? Please take care of yourself in the meantime.’
‘Cool. Thanks. Cool. Cool. Cool.’ Stop saying cool, I wanted to scream to myself.
As Nadia walked away, Kato kept his eyes locked on her swinging skirt and jiggling hips and joked, ‘Bro, I wouldn’t mind opening up a bottle of Worcester sauce and then lathering it on that –’
‘Piss off, Kato!’ I said, already regretting letting him see me so stung.
He laughed, and loud enough for the next table to hear. ‘It’s just jokes, man.’ He straightened his face. ‘You know my policy anyway: strictly lighties.’
I didn’t respond. I needed the conversation to die a quick, silent death. I hated when Kato made comments like that, especially in front of Rob. It was like he was sharing family secrets, lifting the bonnet off an engine we all knew was knackered but drove on with anyway. What got me even more vexed was that he was lying. Barely a day passed when Kato didn’t conjure up an excuse to drop Nadia’s name in conversation, though, as usual, he’d only gotten interested in her after I had. If there was one exception to his lighty rule, she was it. But I hadn’t openly declared my feelings for her either, so who was I to judge? I must be closer than him, though, I hoped. I must be. She wasn’t on it with anyone else at Penny Hill, and I couldn’t overlook how she’d placed her hand on mine when I mentioned the beef with D. Plus, the text she’d sent that morning had ‘xxxx’ at the end. Four of them, for God’s sake!
Rob looked nonplussed as he picked up his own tray and rose to his feet. ‘Bruv, I’m off as well. I’ve got to drop the kids off at the pool before class starts.’ Rob had no shame when it came to his bowels. He must have caught the glint of worry in my eyes, because before he left he added, ‘Sorry, mate – I promise I got you after school. But, right now, I’m managing a very delicate turtle head situation.’
I shook my head, Kato giggled, and we both watched Rob walk to the exit one careful stride at a time, following behind Nadia. I was glad she hadn’t heard Kato’s comment about lighties. For Kato’s sake more than hers – Liverpool’s entire defensive line couldn’t have saved him from her attack.
But the biggest reason I was glad she’d left the dining hall? I had just spotted D walking in.
CHAPTER 14
Rhia · 15 Years Later
Going into my next tutorial with Dr Esso, I was so angry, and so flustered by it, I could barely speak.
Tuesday training had been cancelled, Gibbsy deciding our thighs and the muddy pitches should be saved for the weekend match, which meant there wasn’t a single soul in the building, besides me and Dr Esso. Even the hallway fluorescents, which usually lent a scrap of light to the kit room, had been cut off – leaving just football clutter, a clouded window and a man keeping a million secrets.
I’d spent all night poring over his records after watching that video. That fucking video. The one Olivia and I had watched on the bus with our hands over our mouths. The one we’d risked our lives for. Each time I played the clip, I got enraged all over again. Why hadn’t Dr Esso told me earlier? Why had he strung me along, given everything he clearly knew? But at least now I understood why he was so obsessed with the ridiculous idea of going back in time. Who wouldn’t need to believe it, with all that blood on their hands?
Almost as concerning was what I hadn’t found in his files. He had no family albums, no social media profiles and no teacher registrations, which meant he’d lied his way into this tutoring job, like he’d lied about everything else. His records showed he also didn’t have much money. He’d bought some Cantor’s stock back in 2023, way before they got into 3D-printed chicken and cybernetics, and made millions. Then he did the maddest thing: he gave it all away. And I mean all of it. Mostly to schools in the area, including one called Penny Hill that had been topping the Ofsted charts since.