12

‘Joseph Palmer?’ came the yell the following morning. ‘Get your backside down here, or my hand’ll be itching.’

He did not answer. He was perched, fully dressed, on the end of his bed and wanted to spend as little time with the woman as possible. He gave it another ninety seconds: long enough to not seem like he was doing as he was told, but not too long to have to endure another telling off.

There was little to look forward to. Another freezing day at the zoo: humping waste about, sorting rotten food from the edible, and, of course, the prospect of more anger from Adonis, sat on his throne. Plus now there was Syd to factor in. Little Miss Know-it-all.

No wonder he descended the stairs slowly.

‘About time,’ Mrs F said, when he finally appeared. ‘I’ve more to do than summon you repeatedly from your pit, so remember this, please. Breakfast is six forty-five. Not six fifty-five or six fifty. And I’ll not be serving you either, so you’ll do well to remember that. If you want to eat, then you’ll be down here, prompt. You hear?’

He gave the shallowest of nods.

‘Right, well. It’s Monday. So you know what that means.’

‘The zoo again?’ he huffed.

‘Not till this afternoon. You’ve got school first.’

‘School?’

‘That’s the one. You might have heard of it, though from what your gran told me, you haven’t stepped inside one for a while.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t believe everything she tells you. Anyway, I didn’t think school would be open. All them kids at the station were off to the countryside.’

‘Most of them. But evacuation’s not compulsory.’

‘Still, no point me going to school.’ He felt his heart race anxiously at the prospect of lessons.

But Mrs F was having none of it. ‘There’s every point, my lad. Now, you’ll need your gas mask box, and I’ve cobbled you something resembling a uniform. Some old stuff from one of the neighbours. There’s an apple, some bread and a bit of cheese on top of your mask in the hall. And from tomorrow, I’ll expect you to get it all sorted yourself.’

She let the last of her words fall away, as if embarrassed that she’d done this much already, and wiped her hands rigorously down the front of her dress.

‘I’d rather not go, though,’ he said, not wanting to make it sound as big a deal as it actually was. ‘I’d be more use at the zoo with you.’

He felt her quizzical gaze upon him, knew it was suspicious, the notion of him wanting to spend more time in her company.

‘And you will be. After lessons.’

‘Gran wasn’t bothered about me going in the end.’

‘Well I’m not your gran, and I don’t believe that’s true anyway. So get yourself sorted and wait by the gate. Someone’s going to walk you there. I’ve to be at work.’

This was his moment. His big one. Too often already, the woman had had her way. So he couldn’t let her win on this, surely. His mind raced to the last time he’d been at school. The laughter, the pointing fingers and humiliation. He couldn’t do it. Not again. So he sat on the kitchen chair, wrestled a hunk of stale bread from the loaf, and shoved it all into his mouth until his cheeks bulged. He knew this would rile her. Bread, stale or otherwise, was scarce. This way, he didn’t have to explain why he wouldn’t go.

But Mrs F was onto him. ‘Don’t you worry, my lad. You don’t need to speak. You just need to listen. You ARE going to school. You ARE going to listen. And you ARE going to learn. And you can start with learning how to tie your shoelaces. You’ve got ten minutes.’

Ten minutes later, he was standing at the gate, box dangling from his neck, shorts and shirt fitting him so badly it looked like he’d shrunk in the wash. He did not like it. It made him appear weak and puny: a target.

He turned the waistband of the shorts over several times, so they finished above the knees instead of below them. But as he did so, the material at the bottom flared outwards, so when he stood with his legs together it gave the impression that he was wearing a skirt, his scrawny legs apologising all the way to his feet, hiding inside a huge pair of strangers’ shoes.

‘You can do this,’ he whispered to himself, more in hope than belief, but when his school escort arrived, he revised this thought dramatically.

‘Well, don’t you look quite the picture,’ said Syd, sporting a smile that said something else entirely.

YouARE joking me, he winced to himself, though he didn’t say it. He was practising his gruff exterior, ready for the rest of the day. ‘Isn’t it time you were evacuated?’ he asked, brain half wondering why this hadn’t already happened.

‘It may well happen yet. But till then, lucky me gets to be your babysitter.’

‘Bring him to the zoo straight from school, Syd, won’t you?’ said Mrs F, marching through the front door and gate without pausing, leaving the two of them on their own.

‘Why you?’ he said, sullenly.

‘Because Mrs F asked me.’

‘She asks me to do loads of things. Doesn’t mean I do any of them.’

‘Maybe you should try.’

Joseph didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Why do you even like her?’

‘Because she gave me a job. And support. And help. You know, for someone who acts like they don’t want me around, you don’t half ask a lot of questions.’

‘Doesn’t mean I like you,’ Joseph said. ‘And call what you’ve got “a job”? Scraping up dung eight hours a day?’

‘There are worse things out there, and besides, sometimes the rubbish jobs are the best. They stop you thinking.’

‘Aw, got stuff on your mind, have you?’

She looked at him with disdain. ‘The last time I checked, this war affected more people than just you.’

She started to walk, with Joseph slouching behind her.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘there are a few things you need to know about Carr Lane School.’

‘The only thing I need to know is why the bloomin’ place is even open. I thought all the kids had been packed off.’

‘Most of them were, but then because nothing happened and the bombs didn’t come like everyone thought they would, some parents wanted their kids back home.’

‘Even though the bombings would still probably start?’

‘Some families didn’t think they had a choice. One boy, Tim, he’s in our class, his dad runs a shop, but when he got enlisted, it was up to his mum and gran to keep it going. But then his gran died so he got brought home to help, even though he’s only nine. Or there’s Wendy, her dad got sent to fight but her mum can’t walk properly, so she had to come back to look after her. It’s awful really, she’s only eight!’

But Joseph wasn’t great at sympathy. ‘Right. So it’s basically all the misfit kids, shoved together in one room.’

Syd was aghast. ‘Speak for yourself, Joseph Palmer,’ she said. ‘We all have reasons for being here. All of us. Now, do you want me to prepare you for school, or not?’

He grunted something that was barely a word, but that was enough for Syd to continue: ‘Firstly, Mr Gryce, the headmaster. Watch him! If he warns you once, he won’t do it again. I promise you.’

Joseph shrugged, like it didn’t bother him a jot.

‘You need to be prepared, Joseph. He was an officer in the last war and acts like he still is. He runs the place like it’s an army barracks. Same things happen every day, every week, every month.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like his Friday tests. Last Friday of every month he comes into class and tests each of us on what we’ve learned. Sets us sums, makes us read out loud. He even invites parents in to watch, like it’s a parade ground. I swear he’s nearly made them cry in the past, never mind us!’

Joseph felt his anxiety grow rapidly. He didn’t like the sound of the man, and needed to try and work out how on earth to play him. Every school had a teacher like Gryce: in fact, some had more than one. And what worried Joseph was that every one of them had harassed or ridiculed him as soon as they saw what he was capable of – or should he say, incapable of. That was why he’d stayed away so long.

‘Are you even listening?’ Syd said. ‘I’m trying to do you a favour. Well, you need to listen to this, in fact, the only thing you need to remember is that every time you walk into school, look above the door of the assembly hall.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s where Clarence hangs.’ She lowered her voice, like someone was eavesdropping. ‘As a warning.’

‘What are you talking about? Who’s Clarence? A kid? Why would anyone hang a kid off the wall?’

Syd groaned, like it was the stupidest question ever.

‘Clarence, you fool, is Mr Gryce’s cane. Fifteen inches of birch. Believe me, Joseph Palmer, you do not want to feel Clarence on your backside. Not today. Not any day.’

‘Wouldn’t bother me,’ he sniffed, though his palms itched at the memory of something similar. ‘Anyway, you can’t cane what you can’t catch.’

‘Ha. Don’t you tell me that you were never caned at your old school.’

She was right. Joseph had known plenty of Clarences in his short school life. And other things too. Some teachers didn’t even bother with a cane, they preferred a belt. Belts without names. And they were only too prepared to risk their trousers falling down if it meant they could punish him for his idiocy. Even if it wasn’t his fault. Even if he really was trying.

The memories left him sweating and falling even further behind Syd.

‘Come on!’ she said. ‘Clarence doesn’t approve of latecomers. Anything else you want to know?’

There was, of course there was. But it had nothing to do with school. The only answer he wanted was to the question he’d asked her at the zoo. The one she’d refused to answer.

‘Yeah, I’ve got a question. Why did Mrs F want to shoot Adonis?’