Mira in the Present Tense (19 page)

“I most certainly do want,” Pat Print smiles.

I flick through, trying to find something I want to read. I don't feel like reading about Nana or the hospice, so I pick out yesterday in the classroom. Just the thought of it makes me feel stronger.

“Stop it! Just stop! I don't know what you get out of being so vile to me, but you'll have to find someone else to pick on.”

I can feel Jidé's eyes on me. When I finish reading, I look up at him and smile. He should know it's because of him that I summoned the courage to face up to Demi, Bo, and Orla.

“School can be a brutal place,” agrees Pat. “I remember from my own school days; I hated it so much I was always playing truant, but you only need one or two true friends to change everything. I was thinking, as you've all been brave enough to read out your own work, I should probably read you something of mine. Mira's already had a sneak preview of this one. I can tell you, it's certainly no better than your writing.”

“What's it about?” asks Ben.

Pat Print thinks for a moment. “I suppose it's about loyalty…Now, where are my specs?” She rummages in her satchel for her glasses, which hover halfway down her nose. She leafs through her book with great care, as if she's looking for a particular moment. Then she peers at me from under her glasses, smiles, and begins to read.

There should be a moment when you decide enough is enough, and you can seriously have enough of being smacked on the back of the legs with a wide metal ruler because you can't remember what twelve times eight is. Can you remember? Too long. Thwack. That's how long you got. But there was no single defining moment. It was just one ordinary drizzly day of quiet torture that made me walk through my school gates mid-morning. It was the ordinariness of it all…the once-too-often wound that made me lift the latch and walk free, out onto the open moorland. That day I made a promise to myself never again to go back to school. I don't remember how many hours I walked before I came to the creek. That's when I saw it…a picnic basket washed up on the riverbank. My first thoughts were of bulrushes and Sunday school, but when I opened the hamper lid, there, lying curled up in a mole-like ball, was the small brown form of my first dog. I called him Moses for obvious reasons.

The bell rings and Pat Print closes her book straight away, as if she can't wait to stop reading. I think she's still shy! She rummages in her satchel and pulls out three copies of her book, handing them around.

“I've called every dog I've ever had by that name…just a whim.”

“Would you sign it?” I ask her.

She nods. I can tell she's pleased.

“Can I take one for Millie too?”

In mine she writes:
To Mira. Schooldays are not the best days of everyone's life! Love, Pat Print
.
In Millie's she writes:
To Millie, a loyal friend, with love, Pat Print.

As soon as she writes that I feel a pang of guilt. Millie Lockhart has always been my most loyal friend. Why can't I just be honest with her about Jidé? It's not like there's much to tell anyway. Tonight, I think.

If she asks me about Jidé, I'll tell her about the texts.

Pat Print peers over her glasses at Jidé and Ben. They are hovering in an awkward place between not wanting to miss out or look too keen. Eventually, Ben thrusts his book in front of Pat without saying anything at all. She smiles to herself.

In Ben's she writes:
To Ben, for whom the bell tolls, with love, Pat Print.

“What's that supposed to mean?” asks Ben.

“It's just another great book you should read.”

Ben groans.

Last, it's Jidé's turn. Pat's pen pauses for a moment over the page before she decides what to write…
To Jidé, a brave and fearsome warrior, with a heart of gold, with love, Pat Print
.

No matter how hard he tries to look like he doesn't care what she's written, Jidé has a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, a smile that I can't help but wear too until it's wiped off my face by the sight of my dad of all people, coming out of Miss Poplar's office. He thinks I haven't seen him as he makes a swift exit out of the side door. A deep well of sadness starts to swirl in the pit of my belly, but I still it with this thought…if Nana has died while I've been at school today, he would be taking me home right now.

“Pat, have you got a minute?” Miss Poplar calls to Pat Print down the corridor. She is not her usual cheery self.

I watch them for a moment. Pat Print looks serious, glancing nervously back to the classroom we've just been in. She nods her head at whatever Miss Poplar's talking about but when Pat Print starts to talk Miss Poplar keeps interrupting her. Even from this distance you can tell by the way their hands dance around that the conversation is getting quite heated.

I pass Miss Poplar in the corridor before break, and she just smiles at me and walks straight past. I want to ask her why my dad was in her office, but as she hasn't said anything, I think maybe I'm not supposed to know.

At break, I sit on the wall on my own. Nobody bothers me until Jidé walks over to join me.

“Want to hang with Ben and me?”

I nod and we walk over to the bench where Ben's dealing out three piles of
Simpsons
Top Trumps. I can't believe he's still playing this, but Jidé and Ben laugh as they exchange “Huggability” scores. In primary school they used to play car Top Trumps so I suppose they have moved on, a bit. Any kind of Top Trumps is, as far as I can see, a completely pointless waste of time, but I am grateful, all the same, to Jidé for asking me over because nothing makes you more likely to be picked on than being on your own.

After school I drop by Millie's and give her Pat Print's book.

“So what happened today?”

“Nothing much.”

“What did you talk about with Pat?”

“We read out our writing…Ben did something about skateboarding, I wrote about yesterday in class, and Jidé talked about his birthparents in Rwanda.”

“Has he called you yet?”

“No, not yet…How are your teeth?” I ask.

“They ache badly,” sighs Millie, covering her mouth and opening Pat Print's book.

“
To Millie, a loyal friend, with love, Pat Print
,” she reads, smiling up at me.

“It's true,” I smile back at her. “You are.”

“You too,” she says, closing the book.

So much for being honest with Millie.

Millie is still off sick.

At break, Jidé comes over to sit next to me on the wall. I feel stupidly proud to be so close to him, as if he's some kind of badge of honor.

“Where's Ben?” I ask.

“Not here. No Millie?”

I shake my head.

“You'd better not sit here,” I warn him, pointing to Bo and Demi who are nodding in our direction.

“Why not?”

“They'll probably have a go at both of us now,” I say, trying hard not to look in their direction.

“Let them!” Jidé flashes his film-star smile at them. “How's your nana?” he asks me.

“Dying.”

He just nods and we sit there in a silence stuffed full of things we would like to say to each other.

“I didn't know about your parents, about what happened in Rwanda,” I finally pluck up the courage to say.

“It's not the sort of thing you shout about anyway. I was too young to remember…Grace and Jai are my mum and dad now.”

“What are they like?”

“Just like anyone else's parents, except worse, because, well, you know Grace, she's always telling me what to do,” shrugs Jidé.

Another silence. This time Jidé breaks it.

“What do you think of Pat Print?”

“She reminds me a bit of Nana Josie,” I tell him.

“I wish she was our teacher,” sighs Jidé.

“Why?”

“Pat Print's deep…She looks into you and really sees what's there.”

“I know what you mean.”

The bell rings. Demi and Bo are still eyeballing us as if they can't believe that Jidé Jackson is actually taking the time to talk to
me
. Jidé jumps off the wall, and before I can do anything about it, he has grabbed my hand to help me down. Bo and Demi just can't help sniggering, but Jidé gives them the finger and refuses to let go of my hand. Instead, he starts swinging our arms backward and forward in a huge “I don't care who sees” arc through the air. I suppose this means that me and Jidé are not a secret anymore.

“Jidé, let go,” I laugh.

“But I don't want to,” he laughs back.