How To Be a Boy Read online

  Instinctively, I catch the bottle and chuck it back.

  “Fuck off, Jack,” I say. I’m not trying to be aggressive, I’m just standing my ground.

  But Jack’s getting carried away.

  “You’re telling me to fuck off?” he says, stepping towards me. “You going to make me?”

  I can hardly believe what’s happening. This is surreal. Jack Porter wants a fight. But why? What’s his problem? This is just some changing-room bullshit, something about nothing, but he’s acting like I’ve called his mum a slag.

  My mind is whirling at a million miles an hour. I’ve never had a fight in my life, but I know how things go. Hit first and hit hardest, and usually that’s game over. I look at Jack, wild eyes fixed on me, and in that instant I suss out my chances if it kicks off between us. He’s quite broad, but he’s smaller than me. I could probably take him. But then what? I don’t want to be known as a hard man. That’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Still, at this moment, that’s just about the best scenario I can hope for.

  Nobody’s interested in Dale Jarrett any more. All eyes are on Jack and me. I suddenly realize that I don’t actually know a lot of these lads too well. We’re all just one term into our time at Ingleby, here from middle schools all over town. The pecking order isn’t set in stone yet. At my last place I was OK, somewhere near the top. But by opening my trap at the wrong time today, I might just have saddled myself with a new life down at the bottom. And for what? Dale Jarrett?

  Time seems to stand still. I’m almost nose-to-nose with Jack Porter now, but it’s all bravado. I don’t want a fight. And as I look into Jack’s eyes, I can see deep down that he doesn’t either. This is just a stupid bit of handbags that’s got out of hand. And someone needs to defuse the situation.

  I don’t really know where the inspiration comes from. It’s just a bolt from the blue. But it feels like exactly the right thing to do. Without warning, I reach out and grab Jack by the shoulders. Then I plant a big kiss slap-bang in the middle of his forehead. There’s a split second of stunned silence, and then the entire place explodes. Jack’s laughing, I’m laughing and the whole stand-off is history. As the laughter dies away, Jack nods in my direction and I nod back. Honours even.

  Jack turns round and I slump down onto the bench. My palms are wet with sweat and my heart is racing. Relief is coursing through me, but I’m not letting it show. I’m just hooking my tie round my neck, playing it cool, so everyone can see that the whole thing was no big deal. It must be quite a convincing act because, before too long, people start heading off, across to the other side of the changing room. At first I can’t think why. But then it dawns on me. Dale Jarrett. I’d completely forgotten.

  Dale’s nearly made it to the shower area, wrapped up in the beach towel, when Bradley Pritchard and Dev Joshi catch up with him. There’s some pushing and shoving, a bit of shouting, and then Bradley’s skipping away, waving the towel like a flag as Dale desperately scrabbles around, trying to cover himself up. The roar of laughter that goes up this time is almost deafening.

  My stomach lurches. I can’t look. Whatever’s going on, I just don’t want to know. After everything that’s happened, we’re back to square one. I spoke up for Dale, but it made no difference at all. And now what? Do I make another stand, or do I shut my mouth, put my tie on and go for lunch? Questions, questions, questions. And in truth, it all comes down to one thing. How much does this mean to me?

  It doesn’t take too long to make my mind up. A couple of seconds, maybe less. You don’t get medals for bravery round here. I finish knotting my tie. I gather up my bits and pieces. I heave my bag onto my shoulder. And then I head for the door.

  FITTING

  THE SKIN

  Steve Tasane

  JORDAN. Biggest boy in the class. Biggest boy in Year Seven. And meanest violinist. Meanest violinist and sickest MC. True. Mama tells me I have to stop growing ’cos she can’t keep buying me new clothes, but I need my threads to be big and baggy, d’ya get me? Gorgeous Jordan, Mouth Almighty, can’t spit rhymes with skinny jeans round me.

  My boy Pee Wee, he’s the titchiest kid in class but the toughest beatboxer in the whole school. Together, we whip them all. You ever hear violin and beatbox mashed up tight? We gonna rewrite history, our beats ain’t no mystery, genius brothers not stupidly sisterly. We killin’ the whole damn school, yeah? Let’s hear it for Gorgeous Jordan and little man Pee Wee.

  Pee Wee. Pee Wee not my birth name, right? Birth name of Unmesh O’Reilly on account of my Irish mum and my Bangladeshi dad, but Jordan tagged me Pee Wee way back in Year Three ’cos I was little even then. I’m four foot six and Jordan is five nine, so folk think Jordan older than me, but he is actually six months younger. Certainly he is a killer violinist. He catches crap for it, but he oughtta be big enough to handle that, and in any case no fool is gonna mess with him when I’m at his side. No fool from this school, for sure.

  But last week I hooked up with Gorgeous after his violin class (private lessons, would you believe?) and we ran into a crew from Bluethorn School. Let us be blunt. We hate Bluethorn, and Bluethorn hate us. That’s how it is. We battle them whenever we can. Everybody got to earn respect, and I work hard to earn enough respect. These Bluethorn boys but, they hadn’t never messed with Pee Wee O’Reilly and Gorgeous Jordan Prince, not yet. To be fair to these boys, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Deep, yeah?

  I stride out of Mr Aspinall’s house feeling well cool. I’d been licking proper hard-core classical. I earn extra tuition on account of being a prodigy, gifted and talented, blessed. Ma don’t pay no tax on it because I get a grant. Back in the day, in Year Three, every kid in class got given a violin from some big enough charity. Somehow, it’s only me kept sweating it, despite the stress from fools who think it’s not cool. Practice takes place well away from school, so most of our class don’t take liberties, but the stress is, I’m more likely to bump into Bluethorn fools. Their turf, see? And music lovers they ain’t. Pee Wee often sidekicks me and we head back through the side ways, practising our beats.

  Also, Ma been reading in the paper about a couple of times lately old ladies been getting their bags snatched round these streets, so I’m feeling much more safe with Pee Wee by my side.

  Anyways, on this day we striding straight into the path of a five-strong Bluethorn crew. I whisper to Pee Wee we should hook a sharp left, but my li’l buddy he say, No, let’s front these boys, face them down yeah? That’s Pee Wee. No stress for him ’cos he has no expensive musical equipment to safeguard, has he? Pee Wee says I should hand him the violin for protection, but what am I, an idiot? No, I am most certainly not.

  So I grip my violin case nice ’n’ tight as we come to face them.

  Soon as we eyeball these boys, Gorgeous is like, “Ooh, let’s run away!” which would’ve sealed our fate. He wanted to head straight down a dead-end – no better than saying, “Hey boys, come and get us.” You don’t run from dogs.

  We could’ve fronted it, walked right through, but Gorgeous hugs his violin case like a bunch of girly flowers. He stares open-mouthed from one boy to the next, almost tripping over his own fool feet.

  So one of them trips him. He goes flying on his big ass. One of the Bluethorn crew grabs the case straightaway. I can see he is just a foot soldier, nothing special, so I say, “You better hand that back,” and the fool says, “Or else what?” So I punch his head. One of the others tries getting me in a stranglehold, so I elbow his ribs. Everything kicks off, fists and boots, yeah? And Jordan’s legging it all the way down the street.

  I didn’t leg it. I was running to get help.

  Who he gonna call? That wrinkly old music teacher? No. He shooting home like a little yeller rabbit down a bunny hole.

  Meantime, those other boys decide they’ve swapped enough punches and kicks, so off they run. I chase them, but I can’t catch up ’cos my legs aren’t long enough, but I seen where they went. Into some house where one of them
must live, and there was a little side window, and that window was open. For someone like me, that’s as good as a door.

  Pee Wee, he’s always been like that. Even if he’s likely to get truly messed up by boys twice his size, he’ll fight anyways. Pee Wee fights everybody.

  Myself, I’m more of a thinker. And I thought I should head home and tell my ma. ’Cept then I thought, Oh no, Ma’ll blow up ’cos I lost the violin, and clip me good. Then I thought, I’d sooner get clipped by Ma than trashed by the Bluethorn crew. Then I thought I’d just sit on a bench a while, see what was happening.

  So I stroll back down the road and I find Gorgeous sittin’ there cryin’ like a little girl.

  “Hey boy,” I say. “You stop that now. I have a plan. A good and simple plan.”

  A stupid, foolish plan. Pee Wee, he want to see my head mashed for certain. I myself am thinking maybe violin and beatbox not the future of rap music after all. Even Pee Wee disses me, saying this instrument is a gay instrument. Maybe just let the violin go. But by this point Pee Wee is convinced this business is one of principle. “It’s about respect due,” he says. He make us trudge all the way back to the Bluethorn den and before I can think of an excuse not to, Pee Wee has me throwing bits of gravel at the front window, while he’s sneaking down the side path and squeezing through the little window.

  Them boys come charging out the door like murder. They chase me all the way down the street, but I outrun them. I’m not usually fast, on account of my big bones, but on this occasion I put in the extra effort.

  The only stress being that I run straight into the police. Well, community police, but still police. They grab a hold of me, going, “Well, well,” this, and, “What have we here?” that. Next thing I know, I’m in cuffs. What’d I do?

  Gorgeous attracts trouble all the time, just on account of being big, black and ugly. No fair, he is too much of a goody two shoes to do anything bad. Sit in the middle and say yes to everything is Jordan’s mantra. Stupid mantra that never works. Not for Gorgeous.

  So while he gets chained by the police for grannie-bothering, I’m tumbling head-first into some dirty boy toilet bowl. I push my hand out to save myself, and land with a clatter and a splash. Turns out not all the Bluethorn crew have chased after Gorgeous. Two of them are skulking round the house, the first of which barges into the loo and has to be despatched by a lethally wielded bog brush, but not before he’s given me a split lip.

  Blood dripping over their posh cream hall carpet, I leap to face up to the second boy. Time for my encore.

  “Hand over the violin, fool,” I snarl, and he does. I grab a purse that’s sittin’ on a table too, tax for messin’ with my day.

  Police take me to the station, which must be wrong because the crime committed is against me. They take my prints and my mugshot and swab spit from my mouth and cuss me like they listenin’ to the same gangsta rap tracks as me. Then I start to blub and they laugh and push me around.

  In the end they get as bored as me and bell my ma and suss out I’m only twelve and wasn’t giving bull about my stolen violin. They let me go, muttering out sorries. I hear them on their radios calling all patrols to be on the watch for bad boys carrying a violin case.

  I thought that might happen. Not Gorgeous getting nicked by the police, but that he’d go blabbin’ on about them boys who nicked his violin. Proves he had no faith in my ability to get it back.

  There’s me, striding down the street pleased as a piggy and swaggering like a proper little Beethoven. When a squad car pulls over and two police climb out, I’ve already started planning what I need to say.

  No need, is there? These police are let’s-get-down-with-the-youth, kindly pointing out how I should take care, young boy like me, as gangs round here going round stealing violins just like mine. They see my bloodied lip and ask if I’m all right, and do I need a lift home to be safe?

  “Thank you, officer, very kind. But I’ll be OK. I’m sure. Yes, I will take care now.”

  So next day we practisin’ our beats an’ tings, Pee Wee callin’ me fool fur running away and callin’ me girlfriend with my violin bow, but he spits out some wicked rhymes about damaging those Bluethorn fools, strangling them with violin strings. Sick stuff, and we fallin’ about laughin’. But them just words, don’t mean nothin’.

  Pee Wee once brought a blade into school – back in Year Six, little school – but he was just showing off, yeah? He doesn’t carry now. I know, ’cos the police have stopped and searched us three times this year. He’s smarter than that, and nobody we know is willing to mess with him anyway. Everybody know he’s mean.

  One time me, Pee Wee and Pee Wee’s li’l sister were hanging at the multiplex when some bigger girls started picking on his sis. I called them out. But their boyfriends turn up and I had to hide in the toilet.

  There were four of them, Year Eight boys, and they sniffed me out. I’d locked myself in a cubicle. They were kickin’ the door, chucking soggy toilet roll over the top and braggin’ they gonna shove my head down the bowl. Pee Wee barges in and stands there blocking the exit to the toilets, saying, “Any fool want to get out of here has to get through me, see?”

  From inside the cubicle I brag, “You bet you in trouble now – Pee Wee never going to let you go.”

  He stood blocking the door, cackling like a serial slasher. “Come on, who wants some fun?”

  During the following silence I unlock the cubicle door and stick my head out. I see Pee Wee pointing at their general – the biggest, ugliest of them – and he says, “You.”

  Booyaka! Pee Wee steps aside, saying, “The rest of you: out!”

  That big boy ended up real sorry and left the toilets looking much uglier than when he come in. Pee Wee a nasty man. Everybody know it.

  Oh yeah, I remember that. What a laugh. Back in the day.

  Creepy sounds floating up from my violin like a proper hard-core orchestra. Classical gangsta. We practisin’ hard and due a break, so Pee Wee say, “Come on, let’s get a burger.” I’m broke, see, but Pee Wee say, “No sweat,” and brings out a purse.

  “What’s that then?”

  He give me that funny look he sometimes has, like I’m stupid. “From that Bluethorn yard, yeah?”

  “What you mean?”

  “Tax,” he says.

  Oh.

  Gorgeous is weak. What, those fools can rob us and pay no retribution? Plenty cash in that purse, not just for grub and smokes, but enough aside for a nice gold chain, proper bling. Spoils of battle – and we got to look buff enough for the slam battle comin’ up next week. After we stuff ourselves, Gorgeous listens good when I tell him he needs serious threads for that battle.

  “Wid what?”

  “Use your head, man.”

  I swear that blood’s got no brains. No brains at all, man.

  Two nights later the police have me back in the cells. This time they ain’t messin’.

  I’d had another music lesson with Mr Aspinall. I wasn’t meetin’ wid Pee Wee, so hurry straight home ’cos I did not want to cross with Bluethorn. Anyway, Ma makin’ my favourite, jerk chicken.

  I am just tuckin’ into puddin’ when the police come knockin’. Even though Ma fusses and yells at them, they still haul me away like a bad man. Ma comes along, also, looking well shamed.

  The situation serious. Mr Aspinall’s next-door neighbour, she an old lady. It turn out she been bashed up bad – just minutes after my lesson. She lyin’ in hospital, not lookin’ good.

  When Ma goes out the interview room, the police cuss me even worse than before, aged twelve or not, they say. Do I think I am a big man now?

  They tell my ma I am guilty, for sure.

  She look at me like I grown an extra head, and mumbles, “You growin’ up too fast, boy,” and she look at her feet. “Changin’, too.”

  Gorgeous can’t complain about no readies for gear for the battle. Gorgeous can’t complain his best boy doesn’t do right by him. Gorgeous going to groove right alongside
me, aiming his violin like an AK-47. Deadly enough. We going to sound tough, look buff and strut our stuff. Psycho rap, d’ya get me?

  So I’m sittin’ here, waiting with the threads I’ve bought him, dropping beats and thinking how invincible we be, but he ain’t showing. Time passes, and even by Jordan’s slack standards he a little late for the scene. I’m stressing, vexed at what might be holding him back.

  “It’s no use turning on the waterworks now,” the policeman snarl at me. “You thought yourself man enough to bash up an old lady – try being a man now.” He swipe at the tissue I’m usin’ to dry my cheeks, sendin’ it tumblin’ to the floor. It isn’t my fault I’m sobbin’; they’ve been diggin’ at me for hours, same ting over and over. They tell me that once that old lady wake and ID me proper, my game’ll be up. I might as well save myself the grief, they say, ’fess up now.

  More tears trickle down my cheek. Ma sneak me a fresh pack of Handy Andies.

  See, Gorgeous just makin’ me madder and madder. He know damn well how hard we got to work to win this battle. He just not takin’ the damn thing serious. He a lightweight, he a deadweight, he be dead-wood. Boy, that boy just dead. Don’t call me no blood, man. No blood be slack as you be, fat boy. Where are you, man? I waiting. D’ya hear me?

  Finally, the old lady wake up. The police, being keen to pin the evil deed on me, are waitin’ right by her bedside, for what they call a “positive identification”, having taken along my mugshot to show her.

  But no. Old lady say the boy that messed her up look nowhere near as ugly as me, and nowhere near as scary. So are the police convinced? Do they let me go? Say sorry and give me a bag of sweets? No. They say she must be an unreliable witness, bein’ old as she is. Same way I’m an unreliable suspect, on account of bein’ so ugly, I suppose. So they dig around for what they call “concrete evidence”.

  Finally, they ask me, “Do you wear a gold chain?” They can see I don’t. “Do you wear a gold chain?” Over and over, even though they can plainly see my neck is bare.