So I get off the bus and I walk home and there’s my mum waiting for me in the hall.
‘We need a word with you, Chris. In here, please.’
My dad was in the living room with his face set like cement. Wikes had got in touch after all, the sneaky little get.
‘Not this again,’ I said.
‘This again,’ said my dad. He whipped out a piece of paper, as if my crimes were too numerous to remember. Maybe they were – for him. ‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?’ he said in a tired voice, as if he could hardly be bothered. In fact, of course, he loves it. Exercising power over things that are none of his business is one of his hobbies.
‘Getting sent out of lessons. Science.’
‘He picks on me.’
‘I wonder why?’ He glanced at the paper again. ‘Rudeness.’
‘I’m never rude!’ I was offended. I have my principles. ‘I always misbehave with the maximum of good manners. It’s a rule of mine.’
‘You’re being rude now,’ said my dad.
‘That’s not being rude – that’s being clever. Different thing entirely.’
‘Chris, stop it,’ said Mum, as my dad bulged with rage, like a mating bullfrog – something that I was going to have to point out to him if this went on much longer.
‘Not doing the work is rudeness enough when the teachers are going to the trouble.’
‘Of being paid,’ I pointed out. I mean, no one’s paying me, are they? But I’d said the wrong thing again. I could see it.
‘Chris, stop answering back and listen,’ begged my mum. But Dad was beginning to wind me up. I can be reasonable, why can’t he? I sighed and gestured for him to carry on.
There was a pause while they both glared at me.
That was a danger sign, them both glaring. I should have picked up on that. Dad paced a couple of times across the floor while Mum watched him anxiously.
‘Homework, not done,’ he said, when he had regained control. ‘Homework not done for four years!’ You could see him turning red as he spoke.
‘Is it four years now? Wow,’ I heard myself saying. I hadn’t realized. I was impressed. ‘Is that a school record?’
‘It’s not funny,’ bawled my dad. ‘You know what’s next, don’t you? Exclusion. Is that what you want – to be an excluded boy?’
I sighed again. Quite loudly, I admit. I mean, who’s being rude here, him or me? I leave you to judge for yourself. ‘I’ve already told you my views on this one,’ I said.
Dad turned purple. I know, I know! I could see it coming. It’s my mouth – I can’t help it. It just says things. But, be fair, he was asking for it.
‘Chris …’ warned my mum.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said loftily. ‘But I haven’t heard anything here today to make me consider changing my position.’
Dad charged. Suddenly he had me by the neck up against the wall, breathing baked beans into my face.
‘We’ve had you tested – there’s nothing wrong. We’ve grounded you, we’ve stopped your money – that doesn’t work. We’ve had private tutors – that doesn’t work. The only thing left is to hit you. And, Chris, I don’t want to hit you.’
He dropped me and turned away. There was a long, embarrassed silence.
I brushed myself down. ‘If you do that again,’ I said, ‘I’m going to do it back.’ My voice was shaking.
‘This is a nice middle-class family,’ hissed Mum, glaring at Dad. ‘We talk things over. We don’t hit one another.’
‘I can feel my working-class roots rising to the surface,’ muttered my dad.
I’d had enough. ‘You can shout all you like – I’m not doing it. It’s stupid. You try it. See how you like it.’
‘I have tried it,’ said my dad. ‘I tried it for fourteen years. So did your mother. So has everyone else. Now it’s your turn.’
Mum stepped in – the business end, you know?
‘Chris. Something has to change. Even the nice teachers, the ones who like you, are fed up. They want to exclude you and send you to the Pupil Referral Unit. It’s not a joke. It’s happening.’
‘A son of mine, expelled,’ groaned my dad.
‘But we’ve done a deal,’ said Mum.
And a mighty crap deal it turned out to be.
I had to stay in every night and do a piece of homework.
‘Just one piece,’ said my mum encouragingly. ‘It’s not much.’
‘No, not much,’ I said. ‘So long as you don’t count the fact that I’ve actually spent the whole day at school doing exactly the same thing. The whole day. And the day before that. And the day before that. And the day before that … And the day …’
‘Except when you’re not there,’ said my dad, and I didn’t reply to that, because, if I had, I’d have pointed out I wouldn’t be there rather more in future, after this.
In order to make sure I stayed in and did said piece of homework, I was going to be locked in my room. Yes, you heard correctly. Locked in my room, like some sort of terror suspect.
For not doing my homework.
‘And one thing you can count on, fella,’ said Dad. ‘You won’t be coming out of there until that piece of work is done.’
‘That’s, like, prison,’ I said. ‘I haven’t robbed anyone. I haven’t mugged anyone. You’re being ridiculous. What’s the point?’
‘The point is the future, Chris,’ he snapped.
‘The future’s tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I don’t want the future tomorrow. I want it NOW.’
‘Well, you can’t have it,’ he sneered, and he closed the door and turned the key, leaving me with – you guessed it. Wikes’s frog skin. You know? Last thing in the day you have to do frog skin. Then you go home and you get locked in your room to do more frog skin.
‘You just have to meet us halfway,’ yelled my mum up the stairs.
You see how far gone these people are? Someone must have changed the rules of maths since she went to school, because, what they taught me, halves means two equal parts, right? But what they mean is I spend one half of my life doing school work at school, then I come home and spend the other half of my life doing school work at home. Halfway? Don’t make me laugh.
You might have gathered that this evening was the end result of a long and dreadful power struggle between me and the forces of evil – a struggle that they were bound to lose in the end. I’d lost count of how many meetings me and Mum and Dad have had with various members of staff, experts, counsellors and so on.
At first they thought there must be something wrong. I had tests. Dyslexia, eyesight, IQ. I must be the most tested person in Leeds. Results – everything is just fine. Then, when they ran out of ‘issues’, they turned to that old standby, measures. Or, to call it by its proper name, punishments.
What they can’t get their heads round is – it’s not that I can’t do the work. It’s that I disagree with doing the work.
So I don’t do it.
It’s not like I’m unwilling to negotiate. I accept that school exists. It’s boring, but we have to go. I understand that. I go. I work – so long as they don’t take the piss. But when I get home, that’s my time. It’s called the work/life balance. Look it up. What I do at school, that’s their business. What I do at home – that’s mine. And I never go to detentions, either. They want to punish me, OK, they have that right – so long as they do it in their own time.
They hate it. It drives them mad. They just cannot understand that I’m acting out of principle. It has to be laziness or stupidity or plain old naughty Chris. The teachers go ape shit about it. My grades, they say. Yeah, right. THEIR grades, they mean. Did you know they get paid on how good their class grades are? They don’t get enough A to Cs – down goes their money. I’m hitting them where it hurts – right in the wallet.
Well, sod them. They want me to spend a hundred hours a week helping them crawl up the income pole? No thanks. It isn’t even necessary. Even if you are stupid enough to want to go to uni and run up massive debts, why not wait until you’re nineteen or twenty? You don’t even have to do all these stupid A levels, then. You can do a nice, easy one-year access course and get in almost for free just because you’re a grown-up. Why bust a gut doing it the hard way now, when you can do it the easy way just by waiting a few years?
No one, but no one, has given me a sensible answer yet to that one.
I had a look at the work and I knew in about two seconds there was no way I was going to do this stuff. It was so boring I felt faint just looking at it. Boredom is for old people. They like being bored. They have to like it – they lack the energy to enjoy themselves.
I texted Alex. He’s one of the lucky ones. He likes work.
I texted, ‘Mate! I need some homework.’
Outside my room, the boards creaked. My dad, the warder, on his rounds.
Gently, I got on to a game while I waited for a reply – Nothing House – you know that thing where you have to demolish everything by working out where the weak point is? It’s like school or family life in that way. I put it on quiet – I had headphones, but I needed to be on the alert.
I got through two streets and the town museum before Dad was at the door. I could hear the key going round.
‘Leave me alone! I’m doing it, aren’t I?’ I yelled.
‘Just checking …’ The door opening … him coming in. Hurriedly I flicked on the screen back to the frog skin.
‘Mum!’ I screeched. ‘Mum, he’s checking up on me! Why can’t I be left alone to do it my way?’
We both paused and waited for the response.
‘Show him what you’ve done, Chris. Just do it!’ she yelled up. Dad smirked and walked in, snorting like a pig walking into a rubbish tip.
‘Give me that.’ We had a brief tussle as he pulled the laptop out of my grip and checked my tabs.
‘Gaming. I thought so. Right. I’m disconnecting the wireless.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Can.’
‘But I need online resources …’
‘You were in the lesson. Just do it.’
Stuffed. I sat and racked my brains for ages, but it was no good. I was going to have to break my principles of four years.
I was going to have to do some homework.
It took hours. Hours and hours. Well, one hour at least – but that’s not the point. They had caused me to violate my principles.
Mum let me out. Dad was at the supermarket – she must have sent him away to stop him pestering me.
‘Chris, this is wonderful,’ she breathed, giving me the full positive-reinforcement job. ‘Marvellous! You see how easy it is for you once you get down to it? It could be a little longer perhaps …’
‘Taken me hours,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s wonderful. Here.’ She took out her purse and handed me a fiver. ‘And there’s more where that came from if you can just keep up this standard of work. OK?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, dripping with sarcasm. She pretended not to notice. I crammed the fiver in my pocket and ran out of the front door. I was a free man. They’d be playing footie down the rec. I was that happy I almost skipped. As I got close to the rec I broke into a run. I couldn’t help it. I thought … I love this, I just love this. I ran on to the grass and into the game.
I was still angry, though. I’d actually had to do some homework. It had made my brain go all floppy and horrible, working that late in the day.
One thing I was sure of. This. Is not. Ever. Happening. Again.