Ms Blit told me that people who can memorise the names of those around them build ‘positive social networks’ at three or four times the speed of people who can’t.
Did I mention earlier that I am brilliantly clever? Stuff like learning lists of names is a piece of cake.
I have an awesome memory. I can memorise numbers, dates, places, anything. This part of the program was going to be a cinch.
Ms Blit drove me to school and I sneaked into the classroom during break and borrowed the register. I photocopied it, and returned the original to Mrs Stoep’s desk. I sat in the toilet and memorised the names of every kid in my class. Easy. It took me less than five minutes to learn the lot, all thirty-two names. I’m such a genius I even learned their middle names.
When the bell rang I raced out of the toilets. Two boys from my class were walking down the corridor.
‘Hi, Malcolm Duley Wheeler. Hi, Geoff Soto Mbele,’ I said, perhaps a little earlier than I should have.
They glanced at me. ‘Yo, Poopoo,’ they grunted, in a not-unfriendly way.
Maybe it was going to work!
I raced down the corridor, naming everyone I recognised. ‘Hi, Deedee Seung Yee Chung. Hi, Edward Richard Lin. Hi, Melanie Claire Devereux Peet.’
When class began, Mrs Stoep was arranging the books on her desk.
‘If I were a teacher I wouldn’t need a register,’ I told Poison Cloud. ‘I already know everyone’s names in this class, John McCauley McCloud.’
Poison Cloud blinked at me in surprise. It was the first time I had voluntarily said anything to him. It was also the first time this term anyone had called him by his real name.
Mrs Stoep had overheard me. ‘Oh you do, do you, Master Poopoo?’ she said, looking up.
The way she called everyone except me by their first name riled me. My fists clenched. ‘I am,’ I said. ‘You may.’ ‘Are you saying you already know the names of all your classmates?’ She said it loudly so that everyone heard. ‘May I test you?’
Suddenly, I got that tense feeling that I used to think was shyness but I now knew was displacement. My brain froze. My neck muscles tightened.
This was bad. Now I could see two Mrs Stoeps going around pointing at individuals in the class. I was confused. I told myself to react to the second image, but the first image seemed more real and I kept responding to that. I saw her pointing at a boy.
‘That’s Edward Lin,’ I said.
‘Who shall we go for first, Master Poopoo?’ said Mrs Stoep. ‘Who is this young man?’ She pointed to Edward Lin.
‘Vanessa Matlock,’ I said to the Mrs Stoep I could see pointing at Vanessa Matlock.
The class laughed.
‘I don’t think so,’ sneered Mrs Stoep. I tried desperately to focus on the right Mrs Stoep; as usual, I had lost track of what was real.
Now I saw her pointing to the boy who sat next to Melanie Peet.
‘Brett Wilholm.’
The class laughed again. For them, she had just got round to pointing at Vanessa Matlock.
‘And who’s that?’
‘Martina Scernis.’
Everyone laughed. She was pointing to Brett.
‘And that?’
‘Josh Chin.’
Everyone roared. For them, she was pointing at Martina. Pushing back my chair, I walked quietly out of the room.
‘Who’s that?’ I heard Mrs Stoep call out behind me.
I knew that now she really was pointing at Josh Chin.
‘So you should be,’ I said to Ms Blit.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
‘It was awful. I got the names right, but since I was one step ahead of everyone, no one realised. This plan is a disaster. I am not going to continue. I want surgery. I want my amygdala removed. I mean, doctors can take out people’s hearts, and replace their livers and all that. I want an amygdala transplant.’
Ms Blit paused before replying. ‘Can we just try—’
‘No.’
‘—one more exercise, at least?’
‘No. This is supposed to make my life less stressful. It’s making it worse and worse. I am going to end up in— that place. You said it was important that we didn’t make it worse.’
She paused to get our conversation back in line. ‘You’re right. It is important that we don’t make it worse.’ ‘Since this treatment is doing me harm, I vote we abandon it and go for Plan B or something instead, okay?’ She let out a long, sad sigh. ‘Okay,’ she said quietly.
‘Good,’ I snapped. ‘By the way, what is Plan B?’
She smiled. I could see that it was only a small twitch from her zygomaticus muscles. Her lower oculi and her labii were not working at all. It was not even a brave smile, just the ghost of one.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Well, to be honest, you have neatly identified a problem there. There is no Plan B.’
‘Oh.’
I didn’t know what else to say, so I asked her to tell me more about Nowhen. Surprisingly, she did. Maybe she thought she’d scare me into trying harder at Plan A.
What I didn’t tell her was that Nowhen was sounding more and more appealing by the minute. A place where you completely disappeared sounded like a place I wanted to be. This world was just too painful.