see Hugh, on the floor and picking things, while Neil shook his bag out. Suddenly the door slammed. Mr. Davies said: “What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”
There was laughter and scraping of chairs. Neil sat down, then got up again and took a handful of the back of Hugh’s sweater. Mr. Davies shouted: “NEIL LEWIS! Do you think what I say applies to everyone but you?” Neil sat down and grinned as if Mr. Davies had paid him a compliment.
Mr. Davies passed his hand over his eyes and walked toward his desk. He got halfway then lifted his foot. He said: “What the—” Then his face turned dark and he shouted: “This is the limit! The absolute limit! How did this pie get here?”
Neil said: “It flew, sir.”
Lee said: “Hugh threw it, sir.”
Mr. Davies shouted: “I will not tolerate this sort of behavior! I will NOT, do you hear me?”
He took off his shoe and went to the sink and got two paper towels. As he came back, he tripped over the bucket that was collecting the drips. He stood up and his glasses were steaming. “Someone get some paper towels and CLEAR UP THIS MESS!” He sat down at the desk, loosened his tie, and opened the attendance book. “Right,” he said. “Right! Scott! Robert! Stacey! Paul…”
Mr. Davies had got to “Rhian” when there was a squeal from the back of the room. We turned to see Neil hoisting Hugh over the back of his desk by his tie. Mr. Davies stood up. “NEIL LEWIS,” he roared. “LET HUGH GO!”
Neil let Hugh go so suddenly he fell off his seat. Mr. Davies sat down and wiped his head with his handkerchief. His hand shook. It moved toward the drawer of his desk. He seemed to consider something a moment, then went on with the attendance.
When he had finished, Mr. Davies said: “Page seventy in your English books! Exercise eleven!” There were groans and opening and shutting of desks and slapping of books on desks. Mr. Davies said: “Is it possible to do it quietly please?”
AT TWENTY PAST ten, Mr. Davies banged on the top of the desk, the drawer shot forward, and he took something out. He stood up and said: “I’m going out for five minutes. When I come back I’ll expect you to have finished the exercise.”
“
As soon as the door shut, a waterfall of noise broke over the room. Chairs screeched, cupboards banged, someone began to draw on the blackboard, someone else got onto a table. Gemma put down her pen and yawned. She rolled onto Rhian’s shoulder and giggled. Then she sat up and looked at me sleepily. To Rhian she said: “Neil Lewis is sex on a stick.” But she was looking at me.
Someone said to Gemma: “All right, babe?” and I felt a wave of heat pass over my body. Neil was standing behind Gemma. He said: “Hiya, spaz. How’s life in Freaksville?”
I looked down at my book. “You are God’s Instrument,” I said to myself. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
Gemma stretched back in her chair. She said: “Judith, your father is nuts. I saw him knocking on doors the other day.”
I said: “The world is going to end; we have to tell people.”
Gemma said: “You’re nuts too.” She turned to Neil. “Her father came to my house and asked my mum if she thought God would do anything about the trouble in the world!”
“He called on my house once and my dad told him to fuck off,” said Keri. “He had a hat on. He always wears that hat.” She laughed suddenly. “I bet it really smells!”
Neil said: “If he ever calls on my house, my dad will kick the shit out of him.”
I gripped my pen tightly. I said: “We have a commission. People have to be warned.”
“Oh God,” said Gemma. “She’s starting again.”
Then something happened very quickly. Neil pulled my head back and stuffed something into my mouth. The thing had edges. Neil pushed it so far I thought I was going to choke. He held on to my arms.
Gemma, Rhian, and Keri burst out laughing. I could feel the heat in my face. I wanted to shut my face up and lock it away but I couldn’t, and they went on laughing. Then someone ran in and said: “He’s coming!” Neil cuffed the back of my head and sauntered to his seat.
I pulled the thing out of my mouth. It was paper. The paper made a soggy lump on the desk. I scooped it into my drawer and bent my head over my book.
“Have you all been behaving yourselves?” said Mr. Davies. He opened the drawer of his desk and closed it again. His voice was stronger now. He said: “Let’s check these answers.”
But I couldn’t think about answers. Something was creeping down my arms and into my fingers, rising up my neck into my hair. My head felt hot and full again, like it did the day of the snow, and the room was vibrating slightly. Specks appeared in front of my eyes.
I wasn’t sure whether I was frightened or angry; if I was angry it had never happened before.
Tuesday
WHEN I GOT home that evening, I made a sandwich and watered my mustard seeds. I thought perhaps they needed more light, so I moved them to the other windowsill and prodded the soil a bit. Then I went upstairs and sat on the floor in front of the Land of Decoration.
I thought of making a model of Neil and sticking pins in him, but in the end I made a banana boat with lots of paddles and six little men with bones through their noses. I intended them to look happy, but they all looked quite fierce.
ON TUESDAY NEIL opened his mouth and rolled his eyes at me. He pushed his tongue in and out of his cheek and lapped. He flicked paper balls and they bounced off the top of my head.
I thought of hailstones and balls of fire rolling down streets. I thought about earthquakes and lightning. I thought about people screaming and buildings falling and rivers of molten lava. Then I heard someone saying: “Hello! Earth calling Judith!
“Well,” said Mr. Davies, when I looked up, “now that we’re all here…”
Neil’s lip curled and his eyes smiled.
At eleven o’clock, I went up to the desk for my work to be marked. I watched the army of black hairs move back and forth in Mr. Davies’s nose and smelled the sharp tobacco smell coming down it and waited for him. He handed my book back to me and said to the class: “Listen everyone, we have someone here who has already finished.” When I went back to my seat, Neil’s eyes followed me.
One by one everyone else came up to the desk with their books to be marked. At half past eleven Mr. Davies said: “You three at the back—the rest of the class is waiting for you.” Then Neil, Lee, and Gareth came shuffling to the front with their exercise books and slouched in a line.
Neil stood right behind our table. I could hear the rustle of his Puffa jacket and the silky sound of his warm- up pants and smell the sickly smell of his skin. Gemma was smiling, but I couldn’t see why. A minute later I heard a noise like a little trumpet and something landed on my hand. I looked down and saw a perfectly round plug of snot, pale green and circled with red. It must have fitted the inside of Neil’s nose exactly.
Gemma said: “What’s that?”
Keri said: “Gross!”
Rhian said: “Oh my God.”
My head began to get hot. I looked for something to get rid of it but I couldn’t find anything, so I wiped my hand against the underside of the chair, bent my head over my book, and began writing very fast but I couldn’t remember what.
Mr. Davies finished marking Gareth’s book and began to mark Lee’s. The line moved forward. Neil stayed where he was. I heard him shuttle a slug of snot to the back of his nose. Then I felt something in my hair.
“Oh my God,” Gemma said. “Judith, what’s in your
