Hater

    'So what did he do?'

    Lizzie clears her throat again and composes herself.

    'First thing this morning,' she begins, 'the whole school was in the hall for assembly. The kids were crammed into the middle of the hall and Mrs Shields was parading up and down doing her usual routine at the front.'

    'I can't stand that woman,' I interrupt. Mrs Shields is the headteacher. By all accounts she's strict and old- fashioned and she speaks to the parents in exactly the same way as she speaks to the kids.

    'I know you don't like her,' Liz sighs, 'you tell me every time I mention her name. Anyway, she was just finishing off one of her bloody awful bible stories. I was sat at the back next to Denise Jones and…'

    She stops speaking and I stop eating. I look up from my dinner and put down my knife and fork.

    'And…?'

    'Jack's in Year Six,' she continues. 'The children sit on the floor in age order with the youngest at the front so Jack's class was at the back of the hall near where we were. Mrs Shields had just asked them to bow their heads for the final prayer before lessons…'

    She stops again.

    'So what happened?' I press.

    'I was sat there at the back and Jack stood up right in front of me. Most of the children were in front of him and they all had their heads down so there wasn't much of a reaction at first. Then he just started to run towards Mrs Shields. He was kicking and tripping over the kids and some of them got hurt and started to shout and squeal. By the time everyone had looked up Jack had made it over to the side of the hall. He shoved Eileen Callis off her chair and she ended up flat on her face on the floor. All this happened in seconds. We were all just sat there, too surprised to do anything. Jack grabbed hold of Eileen's empty chair, lifted it up over his head and ran at Mrs Shields. She moved towards him to try and stop him but he was running at her, swinging the chair round over his head and just missing the kids sitting down at the front. He missed her a couple of times but then he hit her right across her face, just under her eye. Jack's almost as tall as Mrs Shields. He kept swinging the chair at her and before anyone knew what was happening she was lying flat on the floor with him standing over her, smashing the chair down on her back again and again.'

    'Didn't anyone stop him?' I ask.

    'Don Collingwood and Judith Lamb got to him first,' she answers, nodding. 'Don grabbed him and Judith tried to wrestle the chair off him. Bloody hell, Danny, it was like he was possessed or something. It was horrible. Mrs Shields was screaming and that was making some of the kids scream. She was curled up in a ball on the floor next to the piano with her hands over her head. Her hair was all over the place and her glasses were smashed. She had blood running down her face and…'

    'But why?' I interrupt. 'What was the matter with him?'

    She shrugs.

    'Nothing as far as I know. I saw him before school started and he seemed fine. He was having a laugh with his mates. I've never known him do anything like this. There are plenty of kids at that school who wouldn't have surprised me if they'd done it, but not Jack…'

    'Doesn't make any sense,' I mumble, my mouth full of food.

    'You're telling me.'

    'So what did they do with him?'

    She shakes her head.

    'The place went crazy. Don dragged Jack off into one of the offices and locked him in. He trashed the place. He was screaming and shouting and… and God, it was horrible. The poor kid, you could hear him right the way through the school. He sounded terrified.'

    'What about the Head? What about Mrs Shields?'

    'They took her to hospital and had her checked over. I think she was okay, just a few cuts and bruises, that's all.'

    I turn my attention back to my food for a second but it's impossible not to keep thinking about what Liz has told me.

    'What made him do it?' I ask, knowing full well that she won't be able to answer.

    'No idea,' she sighs, getting up to make another drink. 'Makes you wonder if it's connected to what we saw over the weekend.'

    'Can't be,' I snap instinctively. 'This was a kid at a school, how could it be connected?'

    'I don't know. Anyway, they closed the school not long after it happened and it's probably going to be closed again tomorrow. We tried to keep the kids distracted but you know what it's like, Dan, it's a small school. It's a close school. Everyone knows everybody else. They had to call the police in to deal with him in the end. Christ, I felt so sorry for Sally. You should have seen her. She looked like she was the one who'd done wrong. And when they took Jack away…'

    'When who took him away?'

    'They took him off in an ambulance in the end. He wouldn't speak to Sally, wouldn't even look at her. He was screaming for help. Poor kid had lost it completely. He didn't have a clue what he was doing. Wouldn't let anyone near him. It was like he was scared of the rest of us.'

11

    It's past ten o'clock before we know it. The children are finally settled and asleep and the flat is silent. The television has been off all evening but now the living room is too quiet so I switch it on just so that we have some background noise. Liz is subdued and preoccupied and we've hardly talked. It's getting late. It won't be long before we go to bed. Before we know it I'll be up again and back into the grind. Sometimes I feel like I'm running at a different speed to the rest of the world. I feel like I'm always having to go flat out just to keep up.

    I go to the kitchen and make us both a drink. I take Lizzie's through to her.

    'Drink.'

    She looks up and smiles and takes the cup from me.

    'You okay?' I ask.

    'Of course I am. Why do you keep asking me if I'm okay?'

    'Just want to be sure you're all right. You've had a shitty day.'

    'I have but I'm okay,' she says, her voice a little edgy and tense.

    'Fine,' I grumble, overreacting, 'sorry I asked.'

    'Oh come on, don't be like that…'

    'Be like what? I only asked if you were okay, that's all.'

    I sit down next to her. She stretches out her arm behind me and begins to gently rub my back.

    'Sorry.'

    'Doesn't matter.'

    Same old rubbish on TV. I pick up the remote and work my way through the channels. The comedies aren't funny tonight and the dramas are too dramatic. Nothing seems to suit the mood. I head for the news. I want to find out more about what's been going on. Apart from hearing the odd snippet of information at work today this is the first chance I've had all day to catch up. What we see is more of what we saw yesterday - more trouble and more violence. What we don't get is any explanation. Each individual report seems to follow a pretty standard format - one or more incidents take place in a particular area and they report how people react to the fall-out. This is insane. I keep hearing phrases like 'copycat violence' and 'revenge attacks' being banded around. Are people really as stupid as Harry tried to suggest yesterday? Would anyone really want to start trouble just because they've seen others doing it?

    'Look at that,' Lizzie says as we stare at the headlines together, 'they're even giving them a name now. How's that going to help?'

    She's right. I heard the word used a few minutes earlier but didn't think anything of it. The minority who are causing the trouble have been branded 'Haters'. It came from a tabloid newspaper headline that was published this morning and it's quickly stuck. It seems appropriate because there's still no mention of these people fighting for any cause or reason. Hate seems to be just about the only thing driving them.