Jack Mutant - Which Way is Down (part8)

 

‘You will have five minutes to read the paper carefully,’ said Miss Dickerson, ‘then you will have an hour to complete the paper. There will be silence throughout.’

 

A shortage of teachers and an epidemic of unruly behaviour meant that the headteacher of Sandpools had been drafted in to take a few classes. Jack had been dreading this exam; English was one of his least favourite subjects and despite efforts there seemed no effective way to revise for it. It was also Miss Dickerson’s subject, she taught the sixth formers, preparing them for A levels. Jack found her physical presence frightening and her calm, deep voice threatening, she didn’t raise it but he sensed a void behind it, a cave of carbon dioxide, ready to boom at a second’s notice.

 

‘Did you remember to put your knickers on Miss Dickers...on?’

 

‘Get out Cromwell, here’s your bag, go and sit outside my office. I’ll phone your mother when the exam’s finished,’ she said, turning swiftly, grabbing his bag and pushing it into his arms.

 

Cromwell, stared at the class for a few seconds, drinking in the atmosphere which was briefly lightened by his comment. Then he walked out with an expression of pride and resignation on his face. Jack was fascinated by his audacity, to say such a thing to the head teacher without a flicker of shame seemed alien. Miss Dickerson closed the classroom door.

 

‘Now, if everyone has a paper you can turn it over now. If not put up your hand. There are twenty questions on spelling and punctuation then a comprehension…..Read the paper carefully! You will have five minutes to read starting….now, no writing until I say.’

 

She pressed a button on her watch and everybody put their heads down. Everyone except Jack, he stared at Miss Dickerson then at the gulls outside on the school field, they always came after morning break, he counted them. How wonderful it must be to fly, he thought. He knew he was wasting precious time, eating it, he was eating up time and it made him feel full and safe but after a minute or so it began to churned him up inside. Chris turned to him and frowned so he opened the first page and let his eyes run left and right but he couldn’t take anything in.

 

Mrs Dickerson coughed, ‘You may now begin writing,’ she said.

 

Jack wrote his name and winced at the sight of it, somehow it made him feel as if he’d failed already. Nobody spoke but the classroom was far from silent; there was rustling paper, children sniffing, shuffling thick-soled shoes, chairs scraping, all of those sounds had a distracting echo around them which caused them to swell and merge into one continuous stream of noise. This exam has a soundtrack, thought Jack, another impediment to his concentration.

 

The questions didn’t go too badly, they were fairly easy, missing punctuation, he quickly found some of it and that settled his mind enough to find more. The spelling mistakes were a little more challenging but he spotted a few at least. It was the comprehension that he really struggled with, a lengthy piece of dialogue entitled, The Space Race, followed by ten convoluted questions about presidents and dates, countries and conflicts, astronauts and spacecrafts. It would have been quite interesting without the pressure of the questions and Mrs Dickerson walking up and down, breathing heavily. He read every word, twice, three times but they only penetrated the outer layers of his mind and it was the inner layers which put them together and processed their meaning.

 

‘Well that was pretty easy,’ said Tristan as they walked out after the exam.

 

‘I know a lot of that stuff already,’ said Chris casually, ‘I’ve got a book all about it at home.

 

Jack felt flimsy, hollow. ‘I don’t like comprehension...but I think that was easier than the one in the grammar school exam, remember that, it was all about the development of that computer place in America...Silicon Valley?’

 

‘I didn’t take the exam,’ said Chris shaking his head.

 

‘Me neither,’ added Tristan, ‘My parents don’t agree with grammar schools.’

 

‘No, neither do mine, my dad says egalitarianism should begin at school,’ Chris said, the long word rolling off his tongue as easily as if it had been the ‘e’ word of his alphabet book as a small child.

 

‘I don’t know what that means,’ said Jack.

 

‘Oh ask your mum. I have to run now, I’ve got my cello lesson.’ Chris ran off ahead on some mysterious and superior path would be forever buried from Jack’s view.

 

‘I was thinking Jack,’ said Tristan enthusiastically. ‘On Friday when we finish for half-term, you and Chris could come over to mine after school, we could hang out, my mum could make some falafels….and a mint dip and we could listen to music and stuff.’

 

Jack was unsure about committing to putting mint dip in his mouth and quickly thought of a getout clause. ‘Well my grandad’s coming down...but...I still might be able to come.’

 

He walked home feeling lonely, inferior and confused. Why doesn’t my mum think grammar schools are wrong, why did she put me through that awful entrance exam only for me to fail and then later find out that clever parents don’t agree with grammar schools anyway, why did she humiliate me twice over? She never makes falafels, what even are they? How can I ever invite those boys to my house when we have no musical instruments or herb dips and there are verbal reasoning and nonverbal reasoning test books still piled up in the magazine rack.

 

He arrived home to an empty house, he ate and drank, went upstairs to his bedroom and felt a little restless, like there was something squirming inside him, trying to escape. On his shelf there were no books on the Space Race, he had a picture book from the making of Lord of the Rings, a dictionary and the yearbook from his final year in primary school, he picked it up. It seemed like a lifetime ago, photos from school trips, school plays, he was always in the background or half cut off at the side of the frame. There was a voice inside his head that told him to count all the faces in the yearbook, he slammed it shut but the voice grew louder.

 

Two a a half years ago, just after his dad left, Jack had been through a phase of what his family doctor had called OCD. He’d been very quiet, not just at school, at home too, he’d been unable to express himself and developed a fear that worse things would happen if he didn’t do something but he was powerless to do much at all. That is except for keeping out of the way, he spent a lot of time inside his room, keeping it tidy, moving stuff around, it became a bit of an obsession.

 

He remembered this time with a knot in his stomach, it wasn't something he liked to think about too much. Now, all alone on his bed he had to resist the urge to pick up his Star Wars money box and turn it so that it was facing exactly forwards. Grasping his hands together he pulled them into his abdomen and shut his eyes tight. No not this again, he thought.

 

 

It had been a horrible period. During the evenings he would sit on his bed, listen to the sounds of the house; his mother shouting, crying on the phone, Chloe swearing and being rude. He would look around at the objects in the room, some of them seemed, in appearance, as jarring as the sounds in the house. In an attempt to smooth his environment he would arrange and re-arrange; the curtains would have to be level with the edge of the window, his teddies had to face a certain way, his toys must be lined up. Poor Jack became obsessed with having objects at certain angles, especially at bedtime, even if they were placed correctly he would disrupt them and then put them back in the same place again.

 

It wasn’t long before his mum noticed how long it was taking him to settle to sleep, how he was up and down from his bed and how tired he looked. She observed him over a period of days and spoke to him about what he was doing. It transpired that he believed if he didn’t arrange the contents of his bedroom in a certain way that either she or his dad would be in danger and might even die. There were tears, he felt ashamed and exhausted. It seemed that even his bedroom wasn't his friend and indeed now, years later could turn on him anytime.

 

 

Jack cringed as he remembered their visit to the doctor who diagnosed obsessive compulsive behaviour and wrote a prescription for some pills called Luvox. His mum read up on them and threw them in the bin. I wonder what those pills would have done, he thought as he stared out of the window, curious now at how exactly they would have worked.

 

He recalled how there followed a period where his mum was extremely loving and attentive, even Chloe was supportive, they spent time with Jack at bedtime and allowed him to move three objects before bed and no more. Sometimes they stayed with him until he went to sleep. His dad came back for regular visits. Everything calmed down but this particular demon never seemed too far away from Jack.