4
Wanting to Disappear
“Morning, Dennis, or should I say Denise!” said John, laughing cruelly.
“I told you not to mention it,” said Dad sternly, as he coated his white toast with an inch thick layer of butter. When Mum was around she’d have made him have margarine.
And brown bread.
Dennis slumped down at the kitchen table in silence, not even looking at his brother. He poured himself some Rice Krispies.
“Seen any nice dresses recently?” taunted John. He laughed again.
“I told you to leave it alone!” said Dad, even louder than before.
“Magazines like that are for girls! And woofters!”
“SHUT UP!” said Dad.
Dennis suddenly didn’t feel hungry any more, and picked up his bag and walked out of the door. He slammed it behind him. He could still hear Dad, saying, “What did I say, John? It’s over, OK? It’s in the bin.”
Dennis walked unwillingly to school. He didn’t want to be at home or at school. He was afraid his brother would tell somebody and he’d be laughed at. He just wanted to disappear. When he was much younger he used to believe that if he closed his eyes, no one else could see him.
Right now he wished it was true.
The first lesson of the day was history. Dennis liked history–they were studying the Tudor dynasty, and he loved looking at the pictures of the kings and queens in all their finery. Especially Elizabeth I, who really knew how to “power dress,” an expression he had read in Vogue next to a shoot of a model in a beautifully cut business suit. But Dennis always found chemistry–the next lesson–mind-numbingly boring. He spent most of the lesson staring at the periodic table, trying to fathom what it was.
When break-time came, Dennis played football as usual in the playground with his friends. He was having fun until he saw John with a group of his mates, the bad boys with short hair who the careers’ advisors would probably advise to become nightclub bouncers or criminals. They ambled through the middle of the makeshift pitch.
John nodded at his brother, but said nothing.
Dennis let out a sigh of relief.
He was pretty sure his brother couldn’t have told anyone that he’d bought a women’s fashion magazine. After all, Darvesh was playing football with him as he always did. They played with an old tennis ball that Darvesh’s dog Odd-Bod had chewed. It was a school rule that footballs weren’t allowed in the playground in case a window got broken. Darvesh set Dennis up to score with a daring cross.
Then Dennis headed the ball and it flew too high up past what was meant to be the goal…… and through the window of the headmaster’s office.
John and his friends stared, mouths open. The playground fell silent.
You could have heard a pin drop, in the unlikely event that someone had dropped a pin at that exact moment.
“Oops,” said Darvesh.
“Yes, oops,” said Dennis.
“Oops” was really an understatement. The headmaster, Mr Hawtrey, hated children. Actually, he hated everybody, probably even himself. He wore an immaculate three-piece grey suit, with a charcoal-coloured tie and dark-framed glasses. His hair was meticulously combed and parted, and he had a thin, black moustache. It was if he actively wanted to look sinister. And he had a face that someone who has spent their whole life grimacing ends up with.
A permanently grimacing one.
“He might not be in his office,” ventured Darvesh hopefully.
“Maybe,” said Dennis, gulping.
At that moment the headmaster’s face peered out of the window. “SCHOOL!” he bellowed. The playground fell silent. “Who kicked this ball?” He held the tennis ball between his fingers with the same sense of disgust that dog owners do when they are forced to pick up their dog’s doo-doo.
Dennis was too scared to say anything.
“I asked a question. WHO KICKED IT?”
Dennis gulped. “I didn’t kick it, Sir,” he offered tentatively. “But I did header it.”
“Detention today, boy. Four o’clock.”
“Thank you, Sir,” said Dennis, not sure what else to say.
“Because of your behaviour all ball games in the playground are banned for today,” added Mr Hawtrey before disappearing back into his study. A sigh of angry disappointment echoed around the playground. Dennis hated it when teachers did that, when they made everyone suffer to make you unpopular with your classmates. It was a cheap trick.
“Don’t worry, Dennis,” said Darvesh. “Everyone knows Mr Hawtrey’s a total…”
“Yeah, I know.”
They sat on their bags by the wall of the science block and opened their lunch boxes, devouring the sandwiches that were meant for lunch.
Dennis hadn’t told Darvesh about buying Vogue–but he wanted to find out what his friend thought about it–in a roundabout way.
Darvesh was Sikh. As he was in the same year as Dennis and only twelve he didn’t wear a turban yet. He wore a patka, a bobble-hat-type thing that kept his hair out of his face. That’s because Sikh men aren’t supposed to cut their hair. There were lots of different types of kids at the school, but Darvesh was the only one who wore a patka.
“Do you feel different Darvesh?” asked Dennis.
“Well, just, you know, you’re the only boy in school who has to wear one of those things on your head.”
“Oh, that, yeah. Well, with my family of course I don’t. And when mum took me to India at Christmas to visit Grandma I didn’t at all. All the Sikh boys were wearing them.”
“But at school?”
“At first I did, yes. I felt a bit embarrassed ’cos I knew I looked different to everyone.”
“Yeah.”
“And then I suppose as people got to know me they realised I wasn’t really that different. I just wear this funny thing on my head!” He laughed.
Dennis laughed too.
“Yeah, you’re just my mate, Darvesh. I don’t really think about the thing on your head at all. In fact, I’d quite like one.”
“No, you wouldn’t. It itches like hell! But you know, it would be boring if we were all the same wouldn’t it?”
“It certainly would.” Dennis smiled.