One In A Billion (19 page)

'I don't know', Lisa said. 'My parents want me to be a doctor.'

Jack laughed.

'What's so funny, dick-wad? It's better than being an accountant.'

'You won't earn as much money', Jack said.

'And don't you need good grades anyway', Cal said, another handful of daises heading her way.

'I don't want to be a doctor anyway you retard. I'm going to college to train to be a vet, so fuck you.'

'That's a noble profession', Toby said, between blowing smoke rings into the air. 'Which Cambridge college are you going to, to follow that distant dream?'

'Fuck the lot of you', Lisa said. 'I've already got in to Turnpike.'

Lisa dug around in her bag for the envelope that carried the report of her grades, and when she found it, she showed it to everyone with pride.

'Let me see that', Jack said, snatching it away from her. 'You sure this isn't Alice's?'

He passed it to Toby, and Toby sat up lazily on his elbows to look.

'Six A*s, two As and a B. What the fuck Lisa, how did you do this?' Alice said.

'Thanks Al', Lisa said.

'I didn't mean it like that', Alice said. 'These are amazing grades.'

'You're not the only one who works hard', Lisa said, snatching the grade sheet back.

'Damn', Cal said. 'You're full of surprises. 'Lisa and Alice are going to save the world.'

'I wouldn't count on it. Lisa blew me away. I got a fucking B in English.' Alice said.

Toby took her grade sheet from her and studied it. 'Don't worry about it', he said. 'Grades don't mean shit. I know you can write.'

'I wish Mr Rutter knew that', Alice said.

'Mr Rutter can go fuck himself', Toby said.

'What's the plan then?' Cal said.

'Skin up', Toby said. 'The rest will work itself out.'

'Nah I'm done', Cal said. 'I might go and get something to eat. They'll be plenty of time for that later.'

'Do you ever stop eating?' Clare said.

'Only when I'm fucking', Cal said, and mimicked the action.

'Yeah you wish', Clare said, looking at him as though what he was doing was the most pathetic thing she'd ever seen.

Cal got up. 'Come on Kate Winslet, let's go and steal some burgers from the canteen', he said and helped Clare to her feet.

'Anyone else in?' Clare said.

'Yeah I could do with eating', Jack said. 'Lees?'

'Yeah I'll come down with you. Fuck it', Lisa said.

'Mind how you go with that big head of yours', Cal said, and Lisa stuck her middle finger up at him.

Cal laughed it off. 'Toby?' he said.

Toby waved dismissively. 'I've got everything I need here', he said.

'Don't get too caned', Jack said. 'We've got that presentation to do in English this afternoon remember.'

'I might be skipping that', Toby said, rubbing his belly and smiling. 'I don't feel very well.'

'Fucking joker', Jack said, and kicked lazily at his feet.

'Alice?' Cal said.

'I'll catch you up', Alice said, covering her eyes from the sun.

The outer group was already up, they deferred a goodbye to Toby and Alice, who had somehow become king and queen of the playground, and skipped quickly after the generals.

Things had changed a lot in two years. Toby had been suspended for a week for standing up to the bullies on the bus, when one day he felt like enough was enough. It wasn't Jack or Cal he clocked, he went directly for the ring leader, Martin, a kid in the year above who had a pencil thin moustache he refused to shave off, a right hand full of thick imitation gold rings, and a squashed nose where an older brother had broken it accidentally with the back swing of a tennis racket. Toby had endured a full year of systematic abuse, and enough was enough. He hadn't exactly planned to do it, but when the moment arrived, he knew he could do nothing else. He walked to the back of the bus while it was still moving, and while everyone was still chanting, he squared up to Martin and hit him so hard in the face, his once broken nose exploded again, all over the girl sat next to him. For a moment Toby was the new king. The leader was down, the bus was in shock, and Toby had won. When that moment was over, half a second later, Toby was at the bottom of a pile of bodies, all intent on causing him harm. He got kicked in the ribs, rabbit punched in the back of the head, and jumped on full weight by Martin, who pressed his knees cowardly into his back, while Toby was already on the floor, and unable to get up. Cal hit him hard across the side of the face, and Jack made sure he didn't escape without a few carefully aimed blows. Finally, the bus was stopped, and the bus driver had to wade through to the back of the bus to break it up. Martin spat at his bloodied face when he was pulled away, and even though a few of the other kids jeered at the sorry mess they saw in front of them, they knew that something had changed. They knew that Toby had balls. For the rest of the journey he sat in the folded down seat next to the driver, while the driver kept one eye on him, and another on the group at the back of the bus, who had since grown quiet. When Toby finally got to his stop, they shouted out of the window at him and threw anything they were happy to get rid of. An apple exploded against the side of his head, and a pencil case, stolen from one of the less important kids, spread its intestines out across the dirt, gutted by the impact.

'You're fucking dead, gypsy', Martin shouted.

Richard and Katy looked at him. They didn't know whether to help or not, but Toby didn't give them the choice. He gathered himself together, and went off in the direction of the tree-house, looking to lose himself in the only way he knew how.

Had Alice been there that day instead of in her music class, she has no idea what she would have done. She likes to think she would have followed Toby to the back of that bus, and joined in the ruck, but she has no idea whether things would have turned out that way or not.

After they shared their kiss, they became secret boyfriend and girlfriend. Distant at school, inseparable out of it. Nobody knew about their clandestine love affair, because Alice felt it would destroy her reputation at school, before she was able to fully capitalise on it. Alice had a plan. She was working her way little by little into the upper inner circle, and when she was there, and sure she was able to influence the rest, she planned to come clean about who it was she was dating. She'd turned down several boys, including Jack, with the excuse that they weren't her type, and the other girls were beginning to think she was either frigid, or something even worse - a lesbian.

Things changed the day Toby stood up to the bullies on the bus. They didn't change immediately, but with that fight, the cogs had already begun to turn. The next day, face still red and swollen, and bruises all over his back, the chants on the bus to school in the morning, although still there, were half-hearted, at best. Cal got on a stop after Toby, and as he walked past Toby's seat, he lashed out and struck him square across his cheek. It was a single solitary punch that came as a complete shock to Toby, causing his jaw to off-set in such a way in never repaired itself, but afterwards he learnt why. Cal's then girlfriend, Jenny, had been the recipient of a face full of Martin's blood, when Toby caused his nose to explode for the second time. She had been traumatised by the event, and held Toby fully responsible. That morning, Cal was acting out Jenny's revenge.

Alice, who was on the bus that morning, didn't see the punch from where she was sat, and didn't know about it until Toby was recounting the story years later. Cal, one of the group of listeners, was proud of his defence of Jenny, but inwardly embarrassed at his thoughtless treatment of Toby.

At school, Martin and Toby were called to the principals office individually. Toby waited patiently while Martin went in first, and when he was done, he watched the boy get hustled back to his classroom by his form tutor, Mr Hardwick.

'You're fucking dead', Martin said to him threateningly, before Mr Hardwick, hair still as long, and goatee still as prominent, hurried him along by the scruff of his neck.

The principal was a man called Peter Talbot, who looked so much like Mr Burns from the Simpsons, his secretary was nicknamed Smithers even though she wasn't a man, and didn't look anything like him. In the handful of dealings Toby had had with him so far, he knew him to be a hateful, spineless, coward of a man. This wasn't the first time Toby had been pulled up in front of him, having got in trouble for the graffiti work he'd left all over the school, which had been linked to him through his art work sketchbook the art teacher felt it his duty to hand in to the principal. That art teacher was now gone, replaced by someone much more open minded, who was one of the only teachers Toby admired in the school, and one of the only ones who in turn admired Toby. He was also, by luck or design, his form tutor, and the man who stood alongside him now.

'Fighting, smoking, graffiti, fighting again', Peter Talbot said.

'It wasn't my fault', Toby said.

'No, of course, it never is. Martin has a suspected broken nose, did you know that?'

'He had it coming to him', Toby said.

'Right, that's your attitude is it? He had it coming to him.'

'He was calling me names', Toby said.

'Names? You broke the boy's nose because he was calling you names? What the hell is wrong with you Green? You can't just go around beating people up because they call you names.'

'If anyone has been beaten', Mr Benfield said.

'I can see. Martin defending himself', Mr Talbot said.

'This is what you call defending yourself?' Mr Benfield continued. 'Show him your chest. Go on, lift up your shirt and show him your chest.'

Toby lifted up his shirt. His body was caked in bruises.

'It's not good enough Toby', Mr Talbot said, ignoring the red marks and yellow welts covering his skin. 'This isn't the first time either. Fighting in years 7 and 8, smoking in year 9, graffiti all over the school earlier this year, and now this, attacking a fellow student on a school bus home. You're lucky I don't call the police in.'

'It won't happen again', Toby said.

'You're damn right it won't happen again. Now, Mr Benfield here thinks you're a promising art student, whatever the hell that means, and he thinks I should give you another chance to prove yourself. I think you're a lost cause.'

Mr Benfield squeezed Toby's shoulder.

'You're suspended', Mr Talbot said. 'For a week. Active immediately.'

'Suspended?' Mr Benfield said. 'That's your way of dealing with this?'

'Careful Chris', Mr Talbot said. 'The boy's lucky I didn't expel him. Martin's father still wants to press charges.'

'I'll get someone to call your parents to come and pick you up. Until they do, you can wait in reception. And Toby', Mr Talbot said, looking at him over his half glasses, 'the next time anything like this happens, you will be expelled. Do you understand me?'

'Yes', Toby said.

'Yes what?'

'Yes, sir.'

Martin was neither suspended, nor disciplined in any way by any one of authority, but nor did he fulfil his promise of exacting revenge on Toby. Toby's father came to pick him up later that day, and in an otherwise silent ride home, told the despondent teenager that he loved him, and he didn't blame him for what had happened.

'It's not the same without you', Alice said to him, one evening laid flat out on the wood of the tree-house, looking up to the stars. 'It's boring.'

'School, or the bus ride', Toby said, sarcastically.

'You know what I mean', Alice said, tickling his ribs and folding herself into him.

He spent the suspension working on his art, getting stoned and throwing stones into the lake he used to fish in. When he got back to school he was welcomed as a kind of hero. The bad boy who had beat the system and was back to prove it. There were still chants on the bus, still led by Martin, but his supporters were slowly dwindling, and less than a month after he'd come back, they faded out entirely, never to return.

Summer came. A blistering heatwave, and long, endless days of doing nothing else but lying on the grass, smoking joints and making shapes out of clouds. Toby's graffiti spread out, and people found pieces hidden all over different parts of the city of Cambridge, and more in the villages that surrounded it. Those that knew his style knew it was him, but nobody else did. Lisa and Clare, the two closest friends of Alice, changed their attitude towards Toby. Their boyfriends did too. They began to respect him. He smoked, he knew where to score hash, he graffitied all over the place, and what's more, he had talent, and he knew how to use it. He'd shaved his head, didn't give a fuck about authority, was happy to risk everything for something he believed in, and most importantly, girls thought he was hot. It took just one person to say it, and another to agree, before a wave of public opinion was created. People were finally taking notice - girls suddenly wanted to be with him, and guys wanted to be him. He might have been poor, less well educated than the majority, but he was cool, and everyone was slowly beginning to realise it. With Jack and Cal finally on his side, Lisa and Clare too, he had the attention of everyone in the school. He'd turned public opinion around.