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They left Saviour standing there in the middle of the empty playground, like a kind of scarecrow clown, with his orange Crocs and his purple hands and his leafy hair sticking straight up in the air.
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Miss Swann had already started the Year 4 register. She looked up over her reading glasses. ‘Emmy, Jonah, you made it! Awesome!’ She was smiling, and the classroom smelt of her rosewater.
As he slid into his seat, Harold grinned at him with his loony grin. ‘Yo, fam,’ he whispered. They fist-bumped, and then Jonah looked back at Miss Swann. She was wearing a stripy summer dress with shoulder straps, and when she leant forward you could see her strangely long thin bosoms hanging down. Not bosoms. That’s what Lucy called them, but no one else did. Most people said ‘boobs’, but it didn’t feel right, calling Miss Swann’s that. Maybe ‘mammary glands’. Her long, thin mammary glands. Lucy would think that was funny. He smiled, picturing her laughing. Hers were nicer: fat and round, with puffy brown nipples.
In Assembly they rehearsed ‘Star Man’, which they’d be singing at the end of the Talent Show on Thursday evening. After the singing Mr Mann did certificates, and Jonah got one for his Broken House project, which he’d been working on all term as part of the Local History theme. All the Local History projects were on display in the hall, and at the end of Assembly Jonah hung back to gaze up at his.
The house next door to us was built in 1862, by a rich Timber Merchent called Mr Samuels. It was a detatched Villa, in a Full-blooded Gothic Style, enlivened by vigorus Foliated Carvings.
He’d copied that last bit out from the London Survey website. He and Lucy had crept into the house to take the photos, showing the ruin it was now. One of the photos was amazing, looking up from the inside of the house, through the broken roof, to the sky. He imagined showing the certificate to Lucy when he got home from school, and telling her he would share it with her, because of the brilliant photo she’d taken – and Lucy sticking the certificate on the fridge.
‘OK, Jonah, that’s enough drooling over your own genius!’ Mr Mann’s hand came down onto his back, and propelled him out into the sunshine.
The playground was a swirl of children, flying about and screeching. The clouds had all gone, leaving a mysterious blue emptiness. All the colours are there, he remembered. It’s just that blue light waves are shorter and smaller, so they scatter more when they hit the molecules. The endlessness of the emptiness made his stomach drop, as if he was falling. Then he saw Harold, over by the fence, looking through into the Infants’ playground.
‘Is your mum better?’ asked Harold as Jonah drew up beside him.
‘Yes.’ In the Infants, Raff and Tameron and their three chorus girls were rehearsing the Camber Sands rap for the Talent Show.
‘Can I come to tea, then?’
‘Maybe.’ Jonah remembered the first time Harold had come to tea, when they were in Reception. Harold hadn’t been himself, to begin with. He hadn’t wanted to play anything, or eat or drink anything, but had just stood with his hands in his pockets, mute. Jonah had been at his wits’ end, but then Lucy had asked Harold what his favourite animal was. ‘A peregrine falcon.’ He’d whispered it so quietly they had only just heard.
‘A peregrine falcon!’ Lucy had gasped. ‘How fast can it fly?’
‘Two hundred and forty-two miles per hour,’ Harold had told her. ‘Which is the same as three hundred and eighty-nine kilometres.’ After tea, on the way back to his flat, Harold had held Lucy’s hand all the way.
‘Your brother’s a boss dancer.’
Jonah leaned his forehead against the wire fence and watched. A crowd had gathered around Raff and Tameron and were joining in at the chorus. ‘Ooh, Smelly Shelly! Uh, Smelly Shelly!’
‘Who is Smelly Shelly anyway?’ asked Harold.
‘It’s a shell. They found it on the beach, when they went on the school trip.’
‘A shell!’
‘Yep.’
‘Did they make up all those words themselves? I bet your mum helped them.’
‘A bit.’ Her face came into his head, and he wondered if she was back in the house yet. ‘Saviour helped more. He thought of lots of the rhymes.’
‘Emerald’s dad?’
‘Yep.’ Jonah leaned more heavily onto the fence, feeling the wire digging into his forehead.
‘I think they’ll win. Do you?’
‘I dunno.’ Jonah pictured Raff’s face, glowing with triumph; Lucy’s face, in the audience, crying probably. Crying and clapping. He smiled.
‘Why are you smiling? Do you want them to win?’
Jonah slid his eyes towards Harold, who was inspecting him, his eyes tiny because of his thick glasses, his cheek resting on the wire. ‘Is there even going to be a winner?’ he asked. ‘I thought it was more – just a show.’
‘Well, if there is a winner, it should be them.’ Harold looked back at Raff, who had started breakdancing. He shook his head. ‘You might be Gifted and Talented, fam, but your brother’s boss at everything. He’ll win all the Sports Day races.’
Jonah shrugged. He rocked back onto his feet, and felt the grooves the wire had left with his fingertips. ‘You know the universe?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think it really goes on forever?’
Harold shook his head. ‘No, there’s other universes. Millions of them.’
‘And then what?’
‘I dunno. Can I come round to tea tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘If your mum’s better, why can’t I?’
‘I’ll ask, OK.’
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In the afternoon it was RE. The classroom had got really hot. Miss Swann’s boobs swung in her dress as she set out the painting stuff. Her hair, which was grey, even though she was quite young, had gone all frizzy.
‘So we’re all going to do a painting of something we’ve learned about Hinduism.’ There were drops of sweat glistening on her top lip. ‘Put on your overalls, please. Isiah. What are you going to paint?’
‘The burning bodies!’ said Isiah, with relish, and everyone started talking. They’d been doing Hinduism all term: the Diwali festival, some of the gods, the idea of karma and reincarnation, the Om symbol. It was Pearl who had told them about the dead bodies, burning beside the River Ganges. She’d seen them on a trip to India with her family.
‘The burning bodies. Cool. Anyone else? What about the Diwali festival?’ Miss Swann was setting out the paints and the water pots. She sounded tired.
‘Their melting faces!’ shouted Isiah. ‘And their skulls, cracking open!’ All the laughing and shrieking made it feel even hotter.
‘You can’t even see their faces,’ said Pearl. ‘They’re all wrapped up in cloth.’
‘Like mummies!’ shouted Will Rooney, and Jonah thought of Lucy. Are you back yet?
‘How do they burn them?’ Tyreese was asking. ‘With petrol?’ Tyreese was Raff’s friend Tameron’s elder brother. Jonah looked at his overall. He didn’t want to put it on. It was too hot.
‘No, with wood,’ said Pearl. ‘But some families can’t afford enough wood to burn the whole of the body, and they throw the leftovers into the river. So they put all these snapping turtles in the river, to eat up the leftovers.’
The class erupted. Jonah stayed silent, deciding what to paint. Maybe a picture showing the karma idea: lots of boomerangs, turning round and coming back, whacking into the throwers. But no, it was more complicated than that. Beside him, Harold was already painting, but Will and Isiah were still screaming about the man-eating turtles. Trying to work out how to do the karma boomerangs, he watched Miss Swann wipe her top lip with the back of her hand. It was actually too complicated. He would paint Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head, instead. He slipped on his overall and picked up his paintbrush. Ganesha had an elephant’s head because when his father came home from a long trip he didn’t recognise him and cut his real head off thinking he was his wife’s new boyfriend. He thought of Roland and smiled, because of course Roland would recognise him. He remembered the scene at the end of The Railway Children, the clearing of the steam on the station platform, Bobbie crying, ‘Daddy!’ Such a happy ending. He closed his eyes, imagining Roland’s silhouette in the steam: tall, with high, square shoulders, and a little head with sticky-out ears.
When they had finished, Miss Swann pegged the pictures up to dry on the washing line that ran along the wall behind her desk. Jonah’s Ganesha had turned out quite good. He had one little wise smiley eye. Roxy, the girl who had only started at the school a few weeks ago, had done Ganesha too, but hers was just a pink blob with a trunk. There were lots of burning bodies, black shapes amid orange flames.
‘I love the way you’ve done the fire, Daniella,’ said Miss Swann. Daniella had done lots of curly waves, in red, orange and yellow. ‘And, you know, the body, to a soul, is like a set of worn-out clothes. Burning the body is setting the soul free.’
Emerald had done an Om sign, and Jonah gazed at it, trying to remember what Om meant. Something interesting. Lucy would know, because they chanted it in yoga lessons. He looked at the clock. Ten minutes until home time. Will you come and meet us? She didn’t usually, but maybe she would today.
‘This is awesome!’ Miss Swann was holding up Shahana’s painting. Shahana was the only Hindu in the class. She’d done a burning body, but hovering in the air above it was a baby, or maybe an angel. ‘Shahana, is this showing reincarnation?’
Shahana shrugged.
‘Who can remember what reincarnation means?’ Miss Swann pegged Shahana’s picture up.
‘It’s when you get reborn,’ said Pearl. ‘Your soul escapes through your skull, and it stays in the sky for a while, and then goes into another body.’
‘And if you’re bad, you come back as an animal,’ said Tyreese.
‘That’s it!’ Isiah shrieked. ‘I gonna be bad! Then come back as a leopard, and munch up my enemies!’
Everyone laughed and shot their hands up, wanting to say which animals they’d like to be reborn as. Emerald wanted to be a rabbit, and Tyreese wanted to be a python. Pearl wanted to be a unicorn. ‘Peregrine falcon,’ Harold whispered to Jonah. Jonah smiled. He was still trying to remember what Om meant, and put his hand up to ask.
‘Do Hindus believe in ghosts?’ asked Daniella.
‘Ghosts. Yes, I think they do!’ Miss Swann glanced at Shahana. ‘You’re a ghost before you get reborn. Just for a few days. Isn’t that right, Shahana? And the cremation of the body, and all the other rituals, help the ghost to leave, and get on with its next life.’
‘So is a ghost the same as a soul?’ asked Clem. Jonah’s shoulder was starting to ache, so he switched arms. Everyone was just shouting out, when it should be his turn.
‘I don’t think it’s the same, no,’ said Miss Swann. ‘I think a ghost is a trapped soul. But anyway, guys …’
‘I saw my auntie’s ghost once,’ said Shahana.
‘Oh.’ Miss Swann wiped her top lip again, and tucked her hair behind her ears.
‘Do you know what she’s come back as?’ asked Pearl.
‘She’s still a ghost. She’s trapped.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she was murdered.’
There were a few gasps. Miss Swann glanced at her watch, then at the clock.
‘Did the ghost have a knife sticking in it, then?’
Shahana turned around in her seat. ‘Daniella, he didn’t even kill her with a knife, actually.’
‘Could you see through her, or did she look normal?’ asked Clem.
‘She looked normal. She was in the kitchen, and when I came in she got up and walked out.’
‘Did she touch you?’ asked Clem. ‘Was she freezing cold?’
‘Shahana’s got allergies!’ shrieked Daniella. ‘She got touched by a dead ghost!’
Everyone went mad. Miss Swann’s top lip was glistening again, and her hair was free of her ears. ‘Quiet! Time for one more question. Jonah?’
‘Oh.’ Jonah had had his hand up for so long it took a moment to remember. ‘Miss Swann, what does Om mean?’
‘That is random!’ shouted Isiah. Everyone laughed, and Daniella leant across to poke him. Then the bell rang.
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‘Is she here, have you seen her?’ Raff had come running out of his class.
‘Shut up, shut up!’ Jonah grabbed Raff’s arm and pulled him across the Infants’ playground.
‘Shut up yourself, dumbhead!’ Raff said, trying to kick his ankles.
‘You don’t have to talk so loud. Mrs Blakeston could have heard.’
‘So what?’
They were out of school, standing by the crossing. Saviour and Emerald had already crossed and were walking up the hill, hand in hand.
‘Let’s go with them,’ said Raff, tugging him. ‘I want to see Dylan.’
‘No, come on, let’s go home and see if she’s there.’
The dead fox was looking much deader now. Jonah wondered if its soul was already reborn, or whether it was a ghost, still, looking down at its smashed body. On Southway Street they passed Mabel and Greta, and their mother Alison, as they were going through their front gate.
‘Hello boys,’ said Alison. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Jonah. Alison didn’t like Lucy, and she didn’t think the boys should walk to and from school by themselves. Taking Raff’s arm again, Jonah slowed them both right down, to make sure Alison and the girls were inside their own house before they got to their front door.
The door had been painted maroon, but a long time ago, and the maroon was all peeling off, showing the white paint beneath it. Jonah banged the knocker. Then he banged it again. Raff couldn’t quite reach the knocker, but he shouted, ‘Mayo!’ a few times through the letter box, while Jonah kept knocking. Then they stopped. The sun beat down and Jonah felt sweat trickle from his armpits. The white patches in the maroon reminded him of the marks Violet’s paws had made in the dirt on the van, and he stared at them for a moment, imagining they were some kind of code which, if he could crack it, would tell him what to do. He turned and looked over at the squatters’ house. Their front door was open, and he could see all the way along the dark hallway, with its red and gold wallpaper, to the rectangle of light at the end.
‘What shall we do?’ said Raff.
Jonah gazed at the rectangle, which was the squatters’ open back door. Were the two open doors, that blaze of light, another sign, a kind of call? He imagined walking down the hallway and out into the garden. The squatters would be sitting, or lying down, probably smoking, one of those big, fat sharing smokes, which had made Lucy ill. He felt Raff nudging him, and cleared his throat. ‘Maybe we should ask Ilaria if we can wait with her,’ he said.
‘Nah, fam.’ Raff shook his head and crossed his arms, his nose wrinkled. ‘Remember those sausages.’
Jonah nodded. It was the only time they’d been in the squatters’ house – a long time ago, just after Angry Saturday. The three of them, Lucy clutching a bottle, had walked through the open door and down the hallway, with its crazy velvet wallpaper, and its smell of incense and mould. Ilaria had been in the kitchen, making the big, ghostly sausages she called nori wraps, which were vegan, she’d told them. She had given him and Raff one each, and they were slimy and floppy, with bits sticking out each end. Neither of them could bear to take a bite, and had carried them around, not knowing how to get rid of them. In the back garden there had been a bonfire, the squatters and their friends all squatting around it, holding their hands out to it, their faces lit orange in the growing darkness. Everyone was white, and drab and raggedy compared to Lucy, who was wearing her red jumpsuit and her red lipstick. The red jumpsuit had a gold zip up the front, and the zip had worked itself down, so that you could see where her bosoms touched each other. He’d reached up to try and push it back up again.
Then a man had offered Lucy a big smoke, and she’d taken a few puffs on it. The man had a single, very long dreadlock coming out of his chin, and Jonah and Raff hadn’t liked him, but Lucy had started chatting to him, all giggly and bright. The dreadlock man had stayed quiet, and after a while Lucy had stopped talking and gone inside. He and Raff had found her in the sitting room, lying on the floor with her eyes closed, moaning. They had both been really worried about her, and had taken it in turns to stroke her forehead. Ilaria had come in with a glass of water, and Lucy had managed to sit up and sip some. After a while she’d been well enough to stand up, and Jonah and Raff had taken her home.
‘Let’s go back to school,’ said Raff. ‘She might have gone in through the other gate, and still be waiting for us.’
‘OK.’ Jonah followed him back the way they’d come.
