Chapter 8 - Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)
Something happened over Christmas and New Year and Layla didn't reappear after the holidays. We were only in school for three days, until the weekend came around again. But still she hadn't shown up by the Friday.
And neither had Ed.
I texted her a few times but got no replies. We had been in touch before the holidays, but over New Year I had gone on holiday with my family. We spent a week in the warmth of the Canary Islands.
She didn't appear the next week, either. Ed was back in school on that Monday, so I asked him about Layla.
"She's in a really bad way," he said. "Don't know if she told you, but her Granddad died on New Year's Day. Don't know when she's coming back to school. I faked sickness for a few days last week, so as I could see her."
He looked miserable and walked around the school for the rest of that week as lonely as a condemned man, his head always down to the floor, as he shuffled around the yard and the corridors, his school bag slung across his shoulder, his only companion.
"You should go and speak to Ed," I said to Adam when I saw him a lunch time.
"He'll be alright."
"Yeah, he looks it."
"He does kinda bring a lot of this stuff on to himself, though," he said.
"What d'you mean?"
"Well look at him?"
"What?" I knew what he meant but wanted him to say what he was thinking. What everybody else was thinking, I suppose.
"Well, on own clothes day before Christmas did you see how he was dressed?"
"Layla was dressed in a similar way, and she looked okay."
"D'you reckon?"
"Thought she looked absolutely stunning. I bought her that top!"
"You're just saying that because she's your new bezzy mate," said Adam.
"No, I'm not. She's lovely."
"Yeah, but he wore black nail varnish and had makeup on, though."
"He had a bit of black eyeliner on"
"Bit gay isn't it, though?"
"He isn't gay."
"Yeah, but it looked gay, though."
"Just have a word with him, please. Speak to him. For me."
I had started seeing Adam during the Christmas holidays. He'd bought me a bottle of perfume and a Christmas card before school broke up for the holidays. It was really cute - especially the embarrassment it caused him as he tried to sneak them to me on the last day of term during our final English lesson. As he slowly took them from his bag, and slipped them along the desk to me, with the warning I wasn't to open it until I got home, Mr Mason was stood behind him and whispered over his shoulder, "I'm glad to see my wife's matchmaking is working out so well."
He went so red you could almost make out his glowing embarrassment, even in the darkness of the classroom.
We watched 10 Things I Hate About You. A final lesson of the year treat. Mr Mason also handed out boxes of Mini Heroes chocolates and the school year ended a couple of hours later.
Then, later that night, we had our first date.
Our first kiss was outside the chip shop close to Adam's house. I remember standing in close to him and watching his awkward manoeuvres, as he advanced to embrace me. I remember looking at the Chinese writing decorating the sign above the chip shop, as we kissed, he with his eyes closed. The brush strokes and curves of the Chinese characters, like its ultimate meaning, as incomprehensible to me as the new found feelings emerging from within the pit of my stomach.
Was it love?
Or something like that feeling?
Fight or flight?
Adam was a fighter. He held me tight. I became a fighter. I held him tight.
I grew in confidence. I took the lead in our kissing. Is that something love brings? Self-confidence...
Yet I also felt more vulnerable, more exposed than I'd ever felt before. Perhaps that something else which love also brings: the feeling that an attachment to another will inevitably lead to a loss.
Bliss mixed with anxiety. That heavy lightness which Romeo speaks of in Shakespeare's play.
***
Later that day, after Adam had spoken to Ed, I asked him how he was?
"Okay. He seems Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
"He looks totally depressed! What did he say to you?"
"That everything was sound. He's just missing Layla a bit. That's all."
"And you didn't ask him about anything else that might be bothering him."
"Well, he did ask me if I could have a word with Waugh again. Said he given him a bit of stick in Resistant Materials. About the black nail varnish and makeup he wore...What did I tell you?"
"What else did he say?"
"That's it. Just asked if I could get him to lay off for a bit. He also asked me why I had told Waugh that he'd grassed on him in Year 9."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him it was Ferret. I told you all about it, remember?"
"What did he say?"
"Don't think he believed me."
"It was Ferret wasn't it?" I asked him.
"Don't you believe me?"
"Yeah, just-"
"Just?"
"Just, seems stupid. I don't know why Waugh and Beattie and the rest of them just don't leave it. I mean, it's been nearly two years."
"I know. Life's too short and all that."
"Are you going to have a word with Waugh?"
"Haven't spoke to him in weeks. Probably take no notice of me. Only speak now and then. Now I'm going with you, I don't go over the brook. Only really speak to him during footy."
He looked at me and saw that I wasn't happy with his answer.
"But I might have a word again," he said, "when I see him in PE."
"Do it. You don't have to become his best mate again. Just ask him to lay off Ed."
Don't ask me why, but I decided to report my concerns about Ed and Layla to a teacher - like the posters around the school told us. Mr Mason was the teacher I approached. I thought he'd listen, he was probably the best of a bad bunch, I decided. Plus he knew both of them.
I didn't see it as grassing, either. Grassing is completely different, I thought. This was my way of helping them. Or so I thought.
As the rest of the class left at the end of the English lesson, I asked him could I have a quick word.
"I've got to be over in the Exclusion Unit in a minute, so make it quick, Sami." He was rooting around through his cupboards, putting books inside his briefcase and generally doing his best to ignore me, I thought.
"It's about Layla," I began.
"Yeah, she's missed a fair bit of work this past week or so. Do you know when she's coming back?"
As I was about to explain that wasn't the reason I wanted to speak to him, another teacher appeared at the doorway.
"Mr Mason, would you lend us a hand please?" she said, half inside, half outside his classroom, her attention drawn back to something happening further down the corridor. "I've got a bit of an incident here, and I'd appreciate your help."
"Okay." Mr Mason replied and held up his hands to me, "Can we speak about this next lesson. That okay?"
I nodded and watched as the two teachers ran down the corridor. I followed them until I came to a crowd of kids near the end of the passageway. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
There was a fight.
Some people were getting crushed either side of the two fighters, some because other kids were rushing to see what was going on, others had stopped on the stairs to get a better view, preventing others from coming down the stairs. The spaces on the stairs and corridor got tighter and tighter. A crush was developing.
The noise of the mob around those fighting grew louder and louder.
Three or four teachers, including Mr Mason, waded through and moved kids out of the way. Once pushed back, the removed kids would try and push their way back to the core, where the fight continued on.
The fight was between Waugh and another lad from Year 11, a boy called Burnsy. Jake Burns. Burnsy was kicking the crap out of him at the bottom of the stairs.
As I moved closer to the crowd, I saw that Mr Mason had got between the two brawlers and was trying to pull Burnsy away from Waugh. I could see blood splattered over the grey tiled floor. One of the two fighters was injured. Pretty bad, by the look of things.
Mr Mason got close to Burnsy, held him, whispered something to him, and led him to the other side of the corridor. A couple of other teachers helped Waugh up from the floor and led him away, escorting him towards the Head's office or the nurses room close by, judging from the amount of blood streaming down his face.
I remember a strange feeling inside me, all the while I watched Waugh getting booted: I wished the teachers had turned around and left him on his own. On his own to take on Burnsey. Left him to get an even better kicking than he'd already received. A kicking he deserved.
During the next lesson, I decided to write Mr Mason a quick note. When I next got time, I would pass it to a teacher in the staff room and ask them to pass it on to him.
Later that night I got a text from Layla. She was coming back to school the next day. I binned the note.
I hoped the beating Waugh took, and the fact that Layla felt well enough to return to school, would make things around school much more bearable.
And for a while they were.
For a while.
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***This is a working draft of my new novel. I would really appreciate it if you could highlight any errors or any aspect of the story which you feel requires more work or altering in any way. Either leave a comment below or contact me personally via the messaging system or via email: seanmcmahon30@gmail.com ***
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Sean McMahon
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