Chapter 13 - Mathematics
Mum pulled back the bedroom curtains and demanded I get out of bed. She was in one of her breezy, happy moods and seemed to dance across the bedroom floor to the window.
I was already awake, had been for some time, but my intention of getting out of bed receded with every passing minute.
She called again from outside on the landing. I knew she wouldn't stop until I was up.
The fog had lifted from the night before and the sun blazed through a cloudless sky. As I looked down from my bedroom window, out across the garden towards the allotments which backed onto our house, the morning held out the promise of one of those cold, crisp days, almost as if to remind us that winter doesn't last forever.
But I still wasn't ready to begin the day. Just as much later, I wasn't ready to end the day.
The day after Valentine's Day.
Yet love felt like such a scarce commodity.
Across the house, it was the usual, mad morning rush: everyone trying to find all the stuff they needed to get through the day.
I ate a rushed breakfast, got dressed in about three different rooms, all the while my sister, as usual, took an age in the bathroom. I was banging on the door for her to get a move on. Mum was also shouting to her, complaining that not only was she going to be late, but that she was making everybody else late.
8.24 am.
As we all left the house together, Mum asked if I needed a lift to the bus stop, but I said I'd walk. Besides, my little sister's school and mum's office was in the opposite direction. With the morning traffic, one or both of them would be late if they took me. Besides, I felt I could do with the walk.
I looked at my watch: 8.28 am. I was running late, as usual; carrying my guitar and school bag, dragging my tired legs as quickly as they would move to the bus stop. As I reached the top of the main road, I saw the last kid from our school hop onto the school bus and watched as it took off on its fifteen-minute journey to The Brook.
It didn't matter now. I would be late. Once I'd missed the bus, I knew I would be late for registration. And I would miss the assembly, too; miss playing with the band for the Year 7 kids.
I turned and ran back home. I opened the door and put my guitar back in the house. I wouldn't be needing it.
For a second, as I began to close the front door, I stopped and thought: should I swerve it? Should I stay at home. Sit off for the whole day. On my own. Nobody would know. Mum and Dad were at work all day, my little sister in school, my older brother away at university. I could go back to bed. I could switch on the TV and watch all of those terrible tacky daytime programmes. Probably drift off to sleep. I needed it.
I could pretend to be Mum and phone the school telling them I was sick.
But I didn't. I was too scared. Too much of a good girl. Too much of a scaredy cat.
And so I walked to school that day. I didn't see the need to quicken my walk at any point on my journey. What's the point? I thought. Late is late is late. You can be later, but it's still late. Right?
The other band members wouldn't see it like that, and would no doubt have a go at me. The music teacher would also be annoyed. Another bunch of people I would have to try and swerve for the rest of the day.
The schoolyard was empty when I arrived at The Brook. As I entered the main building to get my 'late' mark, there was a line of kids already queuing to do the same at reception.
I was determined to avoid Adam. I'd had enough of him and his grovelling excuses. I would avoid Layla, too. I knew we would make up some point in the future, probably over the holidays.
But not today.
Today was all about survival.
We were breaking up for half-term in a few hours, and I decided I would just drift until the end of the school day. I didn't want anything to do with anybody else. I would actively withdraw myself from everyone and everything around me. I wished for only one thing that day: to hear the ring of the final school bell.
I knew it was going be a long, cruel day.
9.05 am. Fifteen minutes' late.
After getting my mark at reception, I headed off to my first class.
Maths.
As usual, we had another test. Another test to prepare us for the ultimate test: a GCSE. We sat it in silence, as preparation. Adam and Layla were in different Maths classes to me, so it would be one down, four to go. Four more lessons in which to avoid them.
Under the desk, I took out my phone, switched it on, only to find the battery was about to die on me. It had just enough battery time to inform me that I had nine unread messages.
Before I began the task in front of me, I asked Mr Hayes, our teacher, if I could charge up my phone in the socket by his desk.
"I'm expecting an important text from my mum later," I said. "Once it's charged, I won't touch it. Honest. Just need it charged for break time, sir," I said.
He refused.
"And I don't want to see that out during this lesson," he said, as I sat back in my place.
During the lesson, I took out the phone and glanced down and saw most of the texts were from Adam, but there were also a few from Layla. I deleted all of Adam's, without reading them, except for one he sent late the night before.
I opened it: Sorry! So sorry. Something really bads happened. fone me. It had been sent at 11.19pm.
On Valentine's Day.
Then the battery died and my phone shut down.
"Put that thing down and put it away!" Mr Hayes said. "I warned you, Samantha. Now, if I have to tell you again, I will confiscate it."
I hated Maths. Some people say that your brain is either wired to favour the right or the left side. That one side excels at artistic, creative, intuitive stuff, while the other side is used for more logical stuff. Like maths. My brain's definitely wired right-sided. Maths gives me a headache. Especially when you're stuck in a stuffy classroom and have to work your way through a load of pretend problems...
Like, "Dylan has been put in charge of organising the Year 11 Leavers Prom. To hire the disco costs..." blah, blah, blah. "He expects a hundred forty students to attend..." blah, blah, blah. On and on, it went. But Jim wasn't real. And my mind that day was distracted by other problems. Not pretend problems, but problems contained in the texts I'd received. Texts that I couldn't access because I stupidly let the battery run down the day before. And because I was so pissed off, I switched the phone off without charging it. Shut out the world.
Something really bads happpened. Fone me.
The tone of the text nagged at me throughout the hour of Maths. Was he in trouble? Or was it just another ploy to try and get back with me. But why had he texted so late? Something about it worried me. Not something I could explain or rationalise. Something in my gut didn't feel right about it.
I stood up from my chair, Mr Hayes's eyes watching me as I walked over to Tammy White's desk. I pulled a pencil out of my pencil case.
"Got a sharpener, I can borrow?" I asked.
She smiled and gave me the sharpener.
"Thanks. Was Adam at registration, by the way?" I asked.
"No. Not seen him this morning. Believe they were all over the brook last night. Probably hungover."
"Ahh. Didn't you go?" I asked.
"Nah. Couldn't. Was babysitting."
"Same here."
"Do I have to remind you, that this is a test, Samantha?" Mr Hayes said, as I lingered at Tammy's desk.
After sharpening the pencil in the bin at the front of the room, I went back to my desk via Tammy's and gave her back the sharpener.
I looked at another problem. Show your working out, it commanded. I looked up from the paper and wondered who else was over the brook last night. Who else had Adam been with? Then I told myself I was being stupid. It was all over between us. That we were never ever getting back together. Never.
Then I thought about Layla and Ed. Ed's text last night. They were going over the brook, too. They had booze. Everybody was there apart from me.
Ring bell! Ring! I shouted inside my head. I needed to be out of this class. Needed to speak with Layla. If she'd been over the brook, she would know what Adam was up to.
***
Our English class was half-empty.
Mr Mason waited nearly ten minutes, right up until 10.15 am but we were still without nearly half the class. No Ed. No Adam. No Layla. No Aaron. No Jade Ainsworth. Lots of others missing too.
Mr Mason looked like he couldn't be bothered, either. I was hoping for a kind of sit off lesson.
"We seem to have a great deal of people missing today," Mr Mason said. "Half-term has come early for some, I see." He then turned to me. "Good idea of mine to dispense with the old groupings, aye, Sami?" he said. "Otherwise, you'd be on your own today."
I smiled. Sort of.
I then told sir that I was expecting an important text from my mum at break and that my phone needed charging. I said that I wouldn't touch it (honest!) during the lesson. After muttering about how we shouldn't really need phones in school anyway - and that if a real emergency occurred, he was sure the school office would pass on a message to me - he agreed and made me place it at the front of the class, close to his desk, to charge.
He then started giving out GCSE English Language Revision text books.
It would be a quiet lesson, he said. He would be getting on with his marking and we would - quietly - work our way through the revision section on Reading Media and Non-Fiction Texts.
I sat next to Tammy White.
"Must have been some party over the brook last night," Tammy said. "Looks like half our class was there."
The lesson dragged. I tried not to talk about Adam to Tammy. Tried to show that I wasn't bothered about him. We talked about other stuff. Music, TV and what we were going to be up to over the holidays. Tammy talked about her boyfriend. Older than the boys in this class. Wiser, more clued up, more mature. Not a kid, not like the boys in this school, she said. He was eighteen and at sixth form college and would be starting Uni in the summer.
I let her talk. I needed to get to the end of the lesson.
11.05 am. I was relieved when the bell rang, signalling the end of the lesson. As we were dismissed from class, I ran to the front and grabbed my phone.
Out on the corridor, I looked at Adam's text again.
I then scrolled to the three unread messages sent by Layla. The first said: Sorry! We need to speak. I've phoned your mobile twice xxx. That was sent at 6.32pm the day before. The other texts were sent a bit later at 7.56pm and 7.58pm. First: C'mon baby...Don't fear the reaper! C U l8tr xxx. Then: Where are U? We're goin over the brook. Txt uz if ya not. See ya l8tr. We really need to talk & sort this shit out. Love Layla xxx
As I headed towards the lockers, I had my head down, trying to avoid the other members of the school band. More hassle I could do without. No doubt they were bad-mouthing and bitching about me now somewhere within the school. Bet they couldn't wait to find me and have a go at me.
I thought about going to the school nurse. Try and get sent home. I felt a sickness in my stomach.
Then Adam texted. This time he asked if I'd seen Layla. Sorry what happened. Hope shes ok and got home.
I texted him back. Why wot happened?
I texted Layla: Are you OK?
I texted Ed. Have U heard from Layla?
As I was walking across the school yard, I got a text from Ed. She not in? I'm gonna phone her house.
Ed texted back three minutes later. She told her mum she stayed at yours last night. Did U C her?
I texted Adam. Wot the fuck went on last nite?
11.16 am.
I stood alone on the schoolyard. I was thinking over all the texts I'd received, and what they'd meant. Something was missing. Something didn't make sense.
Show your working out.
Where was everybody? Had something happened over the brook last night?
Ed texted: Was a fite over the brook last night. I ran. So did Layla. Hope shes ok. Lost her in the fog. Went straight home.
I texted Adam again. Wot the fuck happened last nite?
I rang Layla's phone. It just kept ringing out, then to voicemail.
I tried to think properly. Adam was sorry for something, Ed had run. So had Layla. But there was no sign of Layla. Layla wasn't picking up her phone. What had happened?
11.19 am. The bell for the end of break would sound at any minute. Fifteen minutes almost up.
I walked to the edge of the schoolyard, looked out across the playing fields, out towards the brook.
Something had happened out there. I now felt it in my stomach. Felt the sickness rising to my throat.
Almost as if dragged by some, unknowable force, I walked out across the playing fields. I continued walking, onwards, towards the brook. Then I started running, running towards the perimeter fence.
I climbed through the hole in the fence and crossed the brook. I navigated my way through the trees towards the centre of the small wood. I saw where a fire had once blazed, now just a jumble of burnt skeletal branches. Saw the little hut where I'd once sat with Layla. I looked to the floor and saw beer cans and vodka bottles.
I took out my phone, checked the texts again. Why hadn't she got back to me? I asked myself.
It was then that I rang her number once more. It just kept ringing. I walked from the fire towards what I thought was a long burnt log on the forest floor. As I approached it, I pressed redial again. Layla's phone again.
I heard a ringing. It was her ring tone. Runaway by Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. It was coming from the log. The inert, burnt log on the forest floor. I looked closer at it again.
Only it wasn't a log. And, as I moved closer, I saw it was a figure, covered in brown, dead leaves. A figure, burnt, covered in all sorts of fallen forest foliage.
It didn't move.
I turned and ran.
Ran as fast as I could. Ran back to the edge of the small forest. Crossed back over the other side of the brook, through the hole in the fence and back onto the school grounds.
I vomited once back on the school playing fields.
The playing field was empty, lessons had begun again. Soon boys and girls dressed in sports clothing, full of youthful enthusiasm, would fill up this field. So full of life.
I ran back to the main school building.
My mind didn't turn to thoughts of being late. Not this time.
I was thinking of the body, or whatever it was, on the other side of the brook: burnt, discarded, covered in dead leaves. I was thinking of why Layla's phone was ringing from somewhere inside that thin, discarded thing. Had somebody stolen or found Layla's phone. Was it a tramp? A homeless person who, somehow, had got hold of Layla's phone. Maybe he found it as she ran from trouble last night. I remembered what Ed had said in his text: I ran. So did Layla. Hope shes ok.
If not Layla, then what was it? I kept asking myself. Until, I reached the schoolyard and stopped.
Where was Layla?
Was that Layla?
That thin discarded mess...
Was that really Layla?
I cried. I screamed.
I ran into the school building and found my way to the reception, where I had earlier stood waiting to be marked as late. There was a man with a trolly delivering some parcels, passing them over to the receptionist. I barged past him, nearly knocking over the boxes he was piling on the desk.
"Call the police! Call an ambulance!" I shouted.
"What's wrong?" the receptionist asked.
"There's a body. A body. Somebody's injured. Over the brook?"
"What have you been doing over-" she began to ask.
"Does it matter! Just phone a fucking ambulance! Somebody could be dead over there!"
I had lost it. I was never sure what it was. Until then. Composure? Self-possession? Restraint? Sanity? Whatever it was, I had lost it and for a time never thought it was coming back again.
"Right, calm yourself. Don't-" She was about to begin lecturing me over my language and behaviour, but I moved past her into the offices at the back of reception.
"Please help! Help! Somebody help!" I screamed. "There's somebody injured, maybe dead. You've got to help!"
Eventually, I was restrained. The school nurse came in to me.
I had gone mental. Completely mental.
It took some time for the nurse and our Art teacher Mrs Phillips - who I later found out had been called from the staff room - to calm me down.
I overheard Mrs Phillips saying to the Deputy Head that this sort of behaviour was out of character for me. That I had been fine in her lessons, that in all the time she had known me, she had never seen me like this before. She said that I should be listened to. That it must be serious.
And they listened. Once I found those things I'd lost: my composure, restraint, sanity. Once I'd re-connected to the left side of my brain. Once I began breathing steadily once again, once I took a seat and calmed myself.
I told them.
Told them both, calmly as I could, logically as I could, what I had seen over on the other side of the brook. Told them that last night there had been a Valentine's Day party over there. That I was supposed to have been there. That Layla had been there, but that she'd not made it home last night.
That we'd had a falling out. Something stupid.
That somebody had said there had been a fight over there last night.
That Layla had lied to her mum about where she was staying last night.
That I went over there at break time. That I knew something was wrong. Gut feeling. The feeling that sometimes you just know something's wrong.
That I had seen a body over there. Like a fallen tree.
A body, burnt and broken. Like a tree hit by lightning.
And I broke down again.
It was all too much.
I was losing it. Again. Losing control of the left side of the brain. Again.
I looked at the clock. It was 11.59 am.
11.59 am on a day I never wanted to begin. On a day which would never end.
______________
Thank you so much for reading this chapter. If you have enjoyed it, please remember to vote. Thanks! :-)
***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
Copyright 2014 - Sean McMahon
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