Half an hour later: Stress City. I was in a classroom. I knew no one. No one knew me.
I looked around. The place was crawling with revolting, shouting, stupid brats. There were thirty-two of them. They looked exactly like all the kids in all the other schools I’d been to. Kids who didn’t become my friends. Kids who became DANGEROUS, LIFELONG ENEMIES instead. They were older than they had been at my six other schools, just as I was older. Each time they were older and bigger. Each time it was worse.
The noise of squalling, gossiping children was deafening. The room smelt of disinfectant. The strip-lights above us flickered on and off. The paint on the walls was grey and bits of it were starting to peel.
There was no one in the room who knew about my problem. This was going to be horrible. I could feel it in my bones. It was going to be hideous beyond words.
The teacher squinted with a scowl at the card I’d discreetly slipped onto her desk.
I listened as some of the children exchanged names, while others sat quietly—like me.
The fat boy next to me introduced himself as John. The boy in front of us turned around and told me I should call the guy Poison Cloud like everyone else did.
‘Shut up,’ my neighbour said. ‘My name’s John.’
I ignored him and looked at my hands.
Uh oh! Here was an extra problem. I could see right through my left hand. One of my fingers was completely transparent. The other three had gone sort of watery and my palm was fuzzy. Only my thumb was still completely solid. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about!
I laid my hand flat on the desk and read the words that someone had scratched on the wood: Carrie luvs Sam 4eva.
I was worried, but I didn’t panic. This was the fourth or fifth time something like this had happened in the past three months. It was just another depressing thing to add to the long, long list of things which made my life difficult. When parts of your body are see-through, it’s got to be a sign of something or other. But what? I was sure it would be something really, really bad. Because that’s my life: an endless list of bad things. Bad, weird things.
Only the day before, I had picked up my mother’s hand-mirror and looked in it only to discover that my face was barely there. I was practically headless. At first, I thought it might be some sort of dream or something, so I pinched myself. I was definitely awake.
There I was, staring into the mirror, but my face wasn’t staring out of it. Perhaps I was finally going completely mad. That was the only explanation I could think of.
Fortunately, my head came back an hour later, just as my fingers always did—or had done so far.
I heard a low and scratchy voice from the front of the room.
‘Which one is Simon Poopoo?’ the teacher rasped, peering at both sides of my dad’s business card. According to the sign on the door, her name was Mrs Stoep. That must have been a spelling mistake. Her name clearly should have been Mrs Stupid.
‘Poopoo?’ someone at the front parroted. The kid next to him laughed. Then another one joined in.
I could hear the news going around the class in stage whispers. ‘Some kid’s name is Poopoo.’
Soon everyone in the class was laughing, including the teacher. I guess I should have joined in too, but I didn’t feel like it.
Eventually the teacher noticed I wasn’t laughing, and aimed her thick bifocals at me.
‘Are you Simon Poopoo?’
I blinked at her. ‘Yes it is,’ I blurted out.
‘Is this card from your dad?’
‘I am, I guess. That’s what it says, doesn’t it?’
She glared at me. The wrinkle-lines in her forehead expanded in that irritated way that happens when people talk to me. ‘Apparently you are very shy. Is that right?’
‘I don’t know exactly what he means.’
‘It indicates that you will say some strange things. What does he mean by that?’
‘Yes. And Chinese.’
Her forehead turned into an angry grid. ‘Do you understand English?’
‘No, no, no. Not at all. Really!’
Her eyes narrowed viciously. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’
‘Yes, Miss.’
She drew in her breath, straightened her body and slapped a ruler against the edge of the desk, making a violent crack. The class was instantly dead silent.
‘I will not stand for insolent behaviour. Go and wait outside the principal’s office.’
I got up and walked out the door. Since it was my first day, I didn’t know where the principal’s office was. I sat in the playground instead.