YOU HAVE AN ACCENT
‘You know what this place really is, don’t you?’ said the voice.
Extolziby sat bolt upright, eyes wide as he looked around the room. It was dark outside and heavy purple velvet drapes had been drawn across the four arched windows. After breakfast he had come back to his room exhausted, stomach bursting, and lain down on the bed. It was so comfy that he must have dozed off.
This time he had dreamed. He’d been at home, upstairs in his tiny bedroom. Three police vans had pulled up, sirens blaring, blue lights splashing across the front garden and wall. The neighbours had come out to watch another Gruff being taken away. The only difference was that this time they were looking for him.
Most of the time when the police came to the door, there were one or two and they were in a small police Panda car. The family were used to it. Just as other people took in packages from the postman, the Gruffs were ushered away.
In his dream it was different. There were a dozen of them, wearing big helmets with black visors that covered their faces. Before Big Maw Gruff could even open the door they had used a steel battering ram to bash it in. Lying in his bed, he could hear them calling out.
‘Extolziby! Extolziby Gruff! This is ra polis! We’ve come to take you away. There’s no point hiding, ya wee jessie.’
That was when he woke up and heard a girl with an American accent say, ‘You know what this place really is, don’t you?’
He scanned the room and for a second he almost wished that this was the dream and his nightmare was real. At least that way he would get to see his family. Or maybe if he had gone to jail he might have seen his mum. He wasn’t proud of a lot of things his family did but they were still his family. He wasn’t back home, though. He was in this strange college, in an empty room, except it wasn’t empty.
Suddenly he remembered the scar. Maybe the voice made sense after all. Perhaps he was hearing things. He imagined that a bang on the head, especially one as bad as he’d had, could make you see and hear all sorts of things.
‘Over here,’ said the voice.
It sounded like it was coming from one of the windows.
‘No, here,’ it said. This time it sounded closer to his bed.
A dent appeared at the bottom of the mattress. It was the same shape he’d imagined someone sitting down would make except no one was there.
‘Ah can hear you,’ said Extolziby, ‘but Ah cannae see you.’
‘Oh, sorry. Forgot. Hang on. Now don’t, like, freak out when you see me, okay?’
There was definitely a person, a girl by the sound of it, sitting at the end of his bed.
‘Why would Ah dae that?’
‘People just do, okay.’
‘I’m freaking out the now,’ said Extolziby. ‘I’m talking to an invisible girl. You are a girl, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. What kinda question is that?’
‘Well, how do I ken what you are? You could be an invisible pink hippopotamus,’ said Extolziby, exasperation creeping into his voice.
‘Well, I’m a girl.’
‘Okay,’ said Extolziby, a bit grumpy now.
‘By the way, I love your accent,’ said the girl.
It was precisely at the moment that something happened to Extolziby. He wasn’t sure what it was and he wasn’t sure why but he felt himself blush and his heart gave a little skip. But, like most boys, he tried to ignore it. He cleared his throat and puffed out his chest. ‘Ah dinnae have an accent,’ he said.
It was true, he tried to tell himself. He spoke like everyone else he knew. Accents were different. People on the telly had accents. Posh accents. Cockney accents, like Frank’s. Extolziby just talked like all the people around him.
There was silence. The dent in the bed was still there.
‘Are you still there?’
The girl didn’t answer. After a few more seconds had passed in silence, Extolziby poked a toe at the bottom of the bed.
‘Hey!’ said the girl. The dent disappeared, the mattress rising very slowly until it was back to the shape it had been before. ‘What did you kick me for?’
‘You were ignoring me,’ he said, confused. He hadn’t kicked her, just given her a nudge.
‘So if someone doesn’t answer your question you think that gives you the right to kick them.’
That flutter he’d felt must have been indigestion from his big breakfast. She was more of a nag than his teacher. ‘I thought you were going to show me what you look like,’ he said.
‘I was.’
‘So why don’t you?’
She didn’t answer this time either. He was starting to get annoyed. He had a headache and he was tired. He was really starting to feel like whoever, or whatever, was in the room, they were making fun of him. For all he knew he could have been picked up and put on the set of some reality show where they followed people with hidden cameras all day.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Why won’t you let me see you? You ugly or something?’
There was silence. A second later two teardrops appeared in thin air and splashed onto the floor.