Jack Mutant - Which Way Is Down (1)

‘What form are you in again Jack?’

‘7G, I’m in 7G mum.’

Jack coughed, coughed it away. His form number seemed loaded with doom, 7G; the seven being the harshest of numbers, rather like an elbow, held out just to catch you between the ribs, and then the g, the opening letter of a whole host of nasty words; gristle, gross, gruesome, grim, grime, gangrene…...gang.

He crouched down to tie the laces of his new shoes, adult shoes, his first pair, so shiny his own face appeared in them, he winced, ashamed of the contours of his own head. The shoes seemed far too long, long enough to be a hazard, surely they would trip people up as he walked along the corridors. There is no escape from a corridor, he thought and there was no doubt that his new school was a labyrinth of them, long, white and enclosed; the very idea of it stirred him up. In nature there are so few corridors, perhaps the soft dark run of a rabbit warren, the tiny vessels of xylem and phloem, essential to the health of a tree. And white features little except in the cold flakes of snow and the lifeless sky of a still, humdrum day. He imagined the wood at his grandad’s where there was so much texture and the freedom to turn in any direction; to run from things, to hide and be unseen or just lie and feel the inner murmurs of its being. The rich shades of green and brown so restorative to his eyes, the sounds of nature, layered and sincere.

‘Ah, Mr Graham, that’s it, I remember now, tall guy with glasses. You speak up when you’re spoken to won’t you, lift up your head, make yourself heard now Jack, move your lips and throw your voice!’ She made a hand gesture like she was throwing a handful of something. ‘This is your chance, your chance to shine, to cancel out the boy you were at primary school, join in, contribute, just….have a go. Don’t stand back and recoil, please!’

Jack recalled Mr Graham from his induction day as a man who never made eye contact and whose facial expression was one of permanent excruciating pain. Perhaps he was in acute physical pain; migraine, hemorrhoids, sciatica, ingrown toenails, gallstones, there seemed to be so many reasons for adults to be in pain, he’d heard them all. Maybe Mr Graham was being forced to be a teacher, against his will, by some dark external power.

‘I’ll try,’ said Jack, thinking how his shoes were shiny enough without him attempting to exude charismatic glare and as for standing back and recoiling well that was his default setting, particularly in a situation like school, where he felt so like an animal in a trap.

The journey to school was almost two miles, there was an option to catch a bus but he much preferred to walk; the bus would be loaded with hostile teenagers primed to puncture any quiet little mounds who happened to cross their path. He left early and walked slowly, counting the paving slabs until he reached the main road where the pavement was in an annoying state of disorder, all patched up with different shades of tarmac.

A boy from the grammar school passed him on the pavement, smart and slick-haired in a blue suit with his cricket bat slung over his shoulder like a quiver of arrows. The pip-pip of a car horn startled him, it was his mother in her little red car. Jack was embarrassed, he smiled but couldn’t wave, his arms hung like dead weights and a burn of shame swept across his cheeks. It seemed odd seeing her driving off to work, he watched the silhouette of the back of her head until the car turned out of sight. At primary school she’d always walked him halfway then they’d part company until she picked him up at quarter past three. The innards are her day had always been a mystery to him; she went somewhere each day, a beige mac and brown handbag formed a glue bonding her domestic life to her professional one. He could almost have convinced himself that his mother ceased to be when he wasn’t with her but now he was seeing her out and about, ‘in the wild’. I’m in the wild too, he thought. That little bit of freedom he’d experienced at his grandad’s house during the holidays had helped him somewhat to prepare for it, for the feeling of freefall but that had been a very different sort of wilderness, softer, more forgiving.

On the opposite side of the road three classmates from his previous school were walking swiftly along all dressed up in their blue suits and ties for the grammar school, one of them said loudly, ‘Look there’s Jack Massey’. He glanced up, priming himself for a greeting, a lift of the hand, perhaps a nod but they were already in another conversation, enjoying some in-joke and smirking under huge black rucksacks; what did they contain? Jake felt inferior already with his half-empty bag and plain grey sweatshirt.

There were two or three different ways to complete the journey, various cut-throughs, an alternative route through a new estate. Jack liked the idea of varying the journey, he felt it gave him more freedom, to hide from people if that became necessary. He passed by a newsagent and saw it to be heaving with grey uniforms all clambering for junk food, he had no money, only his school canteen scan card. Even if he’d had some cash he wouldn’t have set foot in there, the kids had wild hair and hard faces, in fact the scene reminded him of The Lord of The Rings. We’re the awks, he thought and a sadness came over him, the grammar school are the elves and we’re the awks, ugly and desperate. He hoped to be wrong.