My Brother's Shadow (6 page)

Shadid stood by my drawings, staring. I knew what was coming. I knew they were rubbish. I knew Shadid would be telling everyone about the stupid pictures I'd drawn.

“Harry,” he began. I waited for the stinging words. “These are brilliant, aren't they?”

I nearly choked. I could feel my face burning, my heart beating.

Harry was next to him now. “You know, Shadid,” he replied, “they really are.”

Shadid looked up at me. In his eyes there was no laughter, cruel and cold, no shades of an insult, nothing but friendship. “You're like a proper artist, Kaia.”

I looked down at my own pictures. I looked
at the boy's. He was still scribbling. I looked at Shadid's.

“They mean so much, Kaia. That's what makes them special,” Harry said. “I can see that they mean so much to you.”

I was smiling now, though my heart still beat at my chest and my face must have been a bright red.

“That's what makes great art, Kaia,” Harry went on. “When it means something, when you know that it means something important and deep to the artist.”

Then Shadid did something that I don't think anyone had done for a very long time. He touched me. I didn't touch him, like picking up my mum and getting her to bed. It wasn't an accident, fingertips brushing against my hand as a pen is passed. It wasn't just a bustled queue, lining up for lunch, or a push, or kick, or tug of my hair from Poppy or her friends.

He reached up and clapped his hand to my shoulder.

“I'll have to tell everyone about our secret artist,” he said.

I want to tell Mum all about the art, my art. I want to tell her how fun it was. I want to tell her and I want her to be proud.

But I can't. We don't talk. So I write it here, in my room. I write it and it seems even more real, but somehow even more unbelievable too.

Today is Thursday. Thursday is Special Achievement Day. Special Achievement Day is when one child from every class gets called out in assembly and their teacher tells everyone why they've been special. I haven't been Special Achiever since before, before I found my brother. Sorry, that should be
I hadn't
.

I sat with my class, lined up on benches. We
sit in register order. I'm last, at the very end of the bench.

All the other classes go before us, because we're the oldest. Then the head teacher said, “I think we have a
very
special achiever from Year Six. Mr. Wills?”

And then Mr. Wills started speaking: “I'm giving the award this week to someone very special, someone who's been making a lot of effort to make new friends recently, and now, to try new things. Yesterday this person impressed Harry so much”—Harry smiled at this—“that he rushed into my classroom at the end of the day telling me that this
artist
”—and he said that word really long and loud—“must be Special Achiever today, and I agree. All this pupil needs to do is concentrate a little more, focus, be a bit more involved, and I'm sure she'll be Special Achiever again soon.” Then Mr. Wills looked at the class and said, “Our Special Achiever this week is …”

“KAIA!” my whole class screamed together. I
could hear Shadid screaming loudest and I knew he must have told everyone, like he said.

I walked to the front as they clapped. Not everyone clapped. I could see Poppy and some of her friends, arms crossed in the back row. Dev made a stupid face like he was clapping as a joke. But the boy's eyes were bright, secret-smile bright, and Luzie was beaming and Shadid was kneeling up on his bench.

I felt sick. I don't know why. But I felt sick. And as the head teacher handed me my certificate and shook my hand, I felt even sicker and I shook all over.

So I turned and ran out of assembly, straight into the toilets, and was sick.

I'm trying to concentrate
.

It's been days since I handed in my bike-training letter and Mr. Wills has told us nothing. Lots of the others keep asking who gets to do it. I haven't asked.

I'm trying to concentrate on what we're learning. I'm trying to be involved again. So to show I've been concentrating:

A pangram is a sentence which contains all the letters of the alphabet. A perfect pangram wouldn't repeat any of the letters either, but that's almost impossible. There's a famous one, the one Mr. Wills told us about first. Here it is:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
.

It's nice. Mr. Wills says we're not to use the word
nice
. He says there's always a better word. But he's wrong. Sometimes
nice
is the best word. Sometimes it's exactly the right word. Sometimes the thing you want to describe is nice; it's not more or less than that. It's nice. That pangram is nice. It's not funny, or clever, or interesting. But it is nice.

Mr. Wills wanted us to make one of our own. It's much more difficult than you imagine.

We've been learning about algebra too.

Algebra is a kind of maths where unknown numbers are represented by letters. They're called variables. Like when you have to work out the area of a rectangle,
a = l
×
w
, where
a
= the area,
l
= length and
w
= width. The width and the length can change, they're the variables, and then you get a different area, a different outcome.

Is it hurting your brain? It hurts mine.

Here's my other way of explaining it:
B = x + y + z
.

B
= the boy;
x
,
y
and
z
are all the things that
have happened to him, all the things that have made him who he is; a boy without words, a boy without a home, a wild boy.

Here's my attempt to sum up everything we've been learning.

Kaia White lives in a hazy, jagged dream because of
x, p
and
q.

Where
x
is what Moses did,
p
is how my mum has changed and
q
is everyone else.

We found out the all-important news. We found
out today. We found out who gets to cycle.

Nothing else really matters from the day. We did maths, sequences, not too hard. We did literacy, writing reports; we had to write fictional reports on a pretend
really cool
new trainer—I don't care about trainers, especially not
really cool
imaginary ones. But I'm trying. I'm still trying. We did some science—upthrust is a force that makes objects lighter in water. I'm still concentrating.

Then at the end of the day Mr. Wills said, “I've just got a few letters to hand out.” The class all started whispering at once. Like cows that lie
down, knowing it's going to rain, we knew what was coming. We just knew.

Mr. Wills walked between the tables, making his way to each person in turn, calling out their name.

“Shadid,” he said first of all, handing a beaming Shadid his letter. Everyone at his table craned to read it at once.

“Deon” next.

“Yes!” Deon squealed, then grinned across the room at Shadid. Everyone else's groans were ignored.

“Luzie.” That made me smile; in my book she deserved it.

When Mr. Wills was halfway round the class he looked up, peering from table to table. “Where's Angelica?” he asked with a huff.

“You sent her to ask the office something, sir.”

“Oh, yes, I did.”

Mr. Wills had nearly completed his circuit of
the classroom, a classroom mostly full of disappointed faces. Just our table left. I felt sick. Again. I could feel eyes, jealous eyes, creeping all over me.

“Last but not least,” the teacher said, “here you go.” Then he smiled at me and the boy. “You deserve it,” he said, and handed us a letter of our own.

“Oi, freak,” a voice called as we walked across the playground, leaving school.

I glanced backwards. Poppy was following. My feet stumbled as my brain decided whether to stop or not. The boy steadied me with an arm.

“That should be me cycling,” Poppy growled as her friends poured in behind her.

My feet continued forwards while my eyes continued to look behind. I felt her step round me, but I did not know what she planned.

“Hi, Poppy,” Luzie said, her voice high and jolly, like a warbling bird. She stood in front of me.

“Move,” Poppy spat, trying to step around my ex-friend.

“Hi, Poppy,” Angelica sang, running up beside Luzie.

“I said move.”

Luzie turned and smiled at me.

The boy's hand was on my arm. He pulled me towards the gate. As we jogged away I glanced back once more—Poppy glared at me past a wall of my friends.

I floated home. I didn't really float, but I felt like it, my feet meters above the ground. I was so excited to be picked, so excited that Luzie and the boy were doing it too. And, I guess, Shadid as well.

Then I got home. Then I got home.

Usually when I get home the flat is empty, empty and cold. I put my stuff away. I watch some TV. Mum stumbles in. We have some food. I go to bed. Mum drinks.

Today Mum was sitting in the living room, TV off, not a bottle in sight. I could hear her in there as soon as I got in. She was crying.

I hung up my bag quietly, took off my shoes and listened as she blew her nose and tried to end her tears. I didn't know whether to go in or not, to check if she was OK, to comfort her. Like I said, we don't really talk, me and Mum. She decided for me.

“Can you come in here, Kaia, please?” she called, her voice all high and squeaky.

I went in, wriggling my cold toes; the sun was out, but it didn't seem to be able to warm the world enough. Mum was clutching a piece of paper; it had been folded but was now flat. I could see several gold stickers across the top and I knew what it said:

For outstanding achievement in Art and making real effort to try new things and make new friends. Kaia White—Special Achiever

“Why didn't you show this to me, Kaia?” Fresh tears bloomed in my mum's eyes as she spoke.

I stared at her. I didn't say anything. I didn't say, “You haven't shown any interest in me for over a year. Why would I show you this?” I didn't say anything.

“Has it been that bad, love? Have I been that bad?” my mum asked.

I stared and still didn't speak. I didn't say, “The only times that haven't been bad are when I've been with a boy who can't even speak.” I didn't say anything.

“I'm so sorry, darling!” Then my mum started crying properly, full-blown wailing, her head in her hands.

I didn't say anything.

I walked over and sat down next to her. I took the certificate out of her hands. “This is a good thing, Mum,” I said.

She made a funny snorting sound like a pig
laughing and looked up. “I know,” she said. “I know, petal.”

You can sit with someone for a long time in silence, can't you? Just sitting and thinking your own thoughts but with someone, someone who's thinking their own thoughts too. Sometimes, sometimes you have the same thought. Me and Mum did. We had exactly the same thought.

“Come on.” My mum took me by the hand and led me into the kitchen. She opened up cupboards, one after the other. From each she pulled a bottle, some small, some large. Each one she opened and emptied, pouring the entire contents down the sink.

We were smiling when she started. We were laughing by the end.

Still he has not spoken. Not a peep, not a sound
, not a whisper. He makes lots of noises and gestures and expressions, but no speaking.

It's not starting to bother me. He couldn't bother me—he's my best, best friend. That sounds stupid, I know, but he is in all the important ways. I can tell him anything. I can rely on him to stick up for me. He's changed everything.

So it's not starting to bother me, but I do at times find myself longing for more, more response than a flash of gray or a gentle laugh, or a leaf plucked from a low-hanging branch and handed to me.

Today we sat, backs against a solid trunk on
our favorite bench. I had told him all about Mum, about our new start, about the special group she says she's going to tonight, a group to help people who drink too much. This is big stuff I'm telling the boy; big, important stuff.

He watches, listens, eyebrows moving, dark against his pale skin, eyes flashing at all the right moments. When I'm done he stares into the tree above, looking for the nest we spotted a few days before—a nest, we think, containing newborn chicks.

I don't know about birds. I know about trees, I know all about trees, but not birds. So when he nudges me and points up, I don't know what bird flies in with a worm wriggling in its beak, a mother feeding its babies.

We sit together and stare above.