Abomination (2 page)

I talked ’em round, but only because I didn’t have Simon’s number. Dad said to look it up in the book, but I pretended I didn’t know his surname. I do of course – it’s Pritchard – but he wasn’t to know that. In the end him and Mum decided that because Scratchley’s a small place it would probably be OK. I was really chuffed – like they’d finally noticed I’m not a little kid any more. I felt like dancing round the room, thumping the air and going
Yes
!, but I didn’t. I acted dead cool.

Lying in bed that night I started thinking about Martha. Don’t ask me why. I’d helped chase her home Wednesday and Thursday, but I hadn’t joined in today and neither had Simon. We’d been too busy making our arrangements. Others had gone after her though. I don’t think she ever gets to just walk home like everybody else. I feel sorry for her in a way but she makes me angry too. I know that sounds strange, but it’s a fact. It irritates me the way she puts up with everything. I mean, if she told someone – Mr Wheelwright or one of the other teachers – they’d
do
something, wouldn’t they? They’d put a stop to it, or try to. At the very least there’d be an Assembly about bullying. And in class, she pretends not to notice the space round her chair, or that nobody speaks to her. She doesn’t ask to borrow anything or try to start a conversation. She sits with her eyes down, concentrating on her work, and if Wheelwright asks her a question she ignores the sniggers and answers quietly, and it’s usually the right answer. It’s as if nothing can push her over the edge. She’s like some helpless little animal. Never cries.

Anyway I lay a long time thinking about her and had a restless night, so that when I met Simon in the shopping centre it felt more like ten at night than ten in the morning. I wondered what he’d say if I told him I was being bugged by Raggedy-Ann. Not that I would. When you’ve only one friend, you want to keep him.

5. Martha

Scott lent me his ruler today. I’d used mine at home and forgotten to put it back in my bag. I didn’t ask him. He saw me rummaging and said, ‘Lost something?’ ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘My ruler.’ I expected him to snigger and say tough or something like that, but he didn’t. He just pushed his ruler towards me. I looked up to see if he meant to snatch it away when I went to pick it up, but he was writing. I underlined my heading and slid the ruler back across the table. ‘Thanks.’ ‘’S’OK.’ He didn’t look up. Tracy Stamper snorted. ‘I’d burn that now if I were you. It’s contaminated.’ Scott ignored her.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking,
So what? Why’s she banging on about someone lending her their ruler?
Well, I know it’s no big deal to you. Kids borrow one another’s stuff all the time, but not me. Nobody ever lent me anything till today, or borrowed anything of mine. So although it only happened that one time, and though Scott didn’t speak or even look at me again, it mattered. It made my day. I didn’t even mind when they chased me home. In fact I was glad, because Scott wasn’t with them. If you’ve never been ignored it’ll just sound daft to you.

What I’d like most of all is somebody to talk to. About my life. About how things are at home. See – I
know
why the kids hate me. I know I seem weird to them, but it’s not me. It’s not. Inside I’m just like them. I like pop music and TV and clothes but I can’t have them. They’re forbidden. I’d like to have a party, invite everybody on my table, but I can’t even bring a friend home. I mean, there are kids at church. Righteous kids. They see one another, play together, but not me. I can’t bring anybody to the house in case they find out about Abomination. I can go to
their
homes – I used to – but I never invited them back so they stopped bothering with me and you can’t blame them, but if there was just one person who understood, one person who
knew
, I think I could stand it.

So. It’s seven o’clock, my parents are out and I’m lying on my bed constructing a fantasy. I do this a lot. It’s my way of escaping for a while. This particular fantasy is different from most because it’s based on fact – the fact that Scott lent me his ruler. In my fantasy, I go up to him at break and thank him, and we get talking and it turns out he fancies me. Wants to take me out. We go to a live Blur concert. My parents think I’m at Bible class. From then on we’re inseparable, Scott and me. One day he finds Gordon Linfoot giving me an Indian burn behind the bike sheds and beats him up. Another time it’s a maths exam and he’s completely stuck and I slip him all the answers on a bit of paper. We come joint top, and to celebrate we take a train to London, staying in a posh hotel and buying all the latest fashions on Oxford Street. Mother and Father know nothing about it – they’re in comas after a car crash.

Amazing what it can lead to, borrowing someone’s ruler.

6. Scott

It was good in town. Simon got there about a minute after me, and we checked out this games shop and a few other places in the Centre before he showed me the town. There’s not a lot in Scratchley. All the good shops are in the Centre. The best bit apart from that is the park. A river runs through town and the park’s on both banks, with a footbridge connecting the two halves. It’s got a bike track, a place for skateboards and a café with tables inside and outside where they do burgers and Coke and stuff. Kids go there Saturdays. We saw Tracy Stamper and another girl from school. Tracy said to me, ‘If you’re waiting for Raggedy-Ann, you’re wasting your time. She never comes here.’ What a spack. I suppose she said it because I lent Martha my ruler. ‘I’m not waiting for anybody,’ I told her, ‘and if I was it wouldn’t be you.’

The other cool place is the library, because on the top floor there’s a room where they sometimes shoot
Nickelodeon
. There’s a sign on the steps –
GROWN-UP-FREE ZONE
– and the room’s all done out with like posters and mobiles and giant fluffy toys. I was buzzing, but there was nobody around. Simon’s had free pencils and puzzles and lots of other stuff from there, and once they videoed him and he saw himself on telly. ‘We’ll check it out next week,’ he said.

When we got hungry, we went back to the park and ate. It was warm and sunny so we sat outside. Tracy and her friend had gone. We ordered Cheesy Bigburgers with fries and drank Cokes while we waited, and it was not what you’d call fast food. You could have eaten at McDonald’s and been halfway to Australia by the time it came, but it was good.

‘Have you been told about the Expedition?’ asked Simon between bites. I shook my head.

‘Oh, it’s great. Year Eight goes every summer, after half-term. Three days. Place called Hanglands. Canoeing, caving, abseiling, you name it. It’s seventy pounds. See Killer Kilroy about it.’ Mr Kilroy was PE and boys’ games.

‘Does everybody go?’

‘Not everybody. Some parents don’t want their kid abseiling and stuff. They think it’s dangerous. And some can’t afford it.’

‘So what do the kids do for three days – those who stay behind I mean?’

Simon shrugged. ‘They help kids in other years, or Chocky finds ’em jobs to do.’ Chocky’s the Head, Mr Cadbury. Simon grinned. ‘I bet I know someone who won’t be going.’

‘Who?’ I knew, but I wanted to prove she wasn’t on my mind.

‘I’ll give you a clue. She’s on your table.’

‘Martha?’

‘Correct. Have a House Point.’

She
was
on my mind though. Had been all morning.
What does Martha do Saturdays? Does she have fun? Does she know what fun is? And why the heck do I care
? I didn’t
want
to think about the sad spack, for Pete’s sake. In fact it was doing my head in, but I couldn’t help it. I kept seeing that pasty face, the hair that looked like it had been styled with a knife and fork, those big, awful eyes.

Hey: maybe she’s a witch. Maybe she cast a spell on me by touching my ruler.

7. Martha

What do you do, Sundays? Sleep late, eat a big breakfast, go for a run in the car? Most people seem to, ending up at garden centres, Sunday markets, tourist spots. A few pop into church first, but not many. Nice day anyway – something to look forward to all week.

Let me tell you about
my
Sunday. My Sabbath. The Sabbath of the Righteous.

It kicks off at six, summer and winter. Rain or shine.

My alarm goes off. I get up, wash my hands and face in cold water, put on the brown dress Mother sewed for me, make my bed and tidy my room. If it is winter, I do all of this in the dark. At six forty-five, I go downstairs. There’s no electric light, no heat, no breakfast. Just a candle burning at Father’s end of the table, where he sits with the big Bible. At the other end, in darkness if it is winter, sits Mother.
Good morning, Martha
, says Father.
Good morning, Father
, I reply.
Good morning, Martha
, says Mother.
Good morning, Mother
, say I, and sit down. The floor is of quarry tiles, and I take care not to make a screeching sound with the legs of my chair. The Bible is open at the page Father wants. After leading the two of us in a short prayer, he reads a story from the Old Testament. It might be the story of Esau and Jacob, or Gideon, or Samson, or Jonah, or some other story. I know them all. When he’s finished he says,
The word of God
, and closes the Bible. By this time it’s about seven fifteen. We can hear Abomination making noises in the cellar because there’s been no food, but nobody mentions this.

We get ready for church. It’s a mile away and we walk. We’ve missed only once since I was born. It had snowed all night and there’d been a high wind. Some of the drifts were five feet deep. I was six years old. We set off, but had to turn back. Father had sent Mary away just a few days before. He said the blocked road was God punishing him for raising such a daughter. I remember thinking it might be God punishing him for turning her out of the house, but of course I didn’t say anything. Perhaps I didn’t think it – not at six. Maybe it occurred to me when I was a bit older. Anyway.

Meeting starts at eight fifteen and usually goes on till eleven. Yes, that’s right – two and three quarter hours solid of praying and listening. The building is cold and bare. The seats are hard wooden chairs and we mustn’t fidget. Even the youngest kids have to sit absolutely still and pay attention. You want to try it sometime, in midwinter when you’re hungry and your feet are wet because the snow came over your boots. Tell yourself God loves you. It won’t help.

The walk home warms us, and when we get in we’re permitted to return to the twentieth century. Father switches on the central heating and Mother microwaves a stew she made yesterday. I’m sent down the cellar to feed Abomination, which is horrible, but then comes the highlight of my day – I get to eat.

In the afternoon I do my homework while Father studies the Bible and Mothers sews. At five we walk to six o’clock Meeting. Those chairs again, this time for about an hour. Then the walk home (normal people whizzing past us in cars at the end of their day out), a mug of cocoa, then bed.

There’s this text in a frame on the dining-room wall.
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest
.

That’s what it says, so why is it that when Sunday night rolls round I’m more shattered than I’ve been all week?

8. Scott

I spotted Martha Sunday afternoon. It was just after five. We’d been to Borley Water Gardens, and as we drove up Wentworth Road there she was, walking down with two wrinklies. Her parents, probably. You should have seen them. The sun was shining and it was still warm, but the guy was wearing a thick black overcoat that came nearly to his ankles and a black, wide-brimmed hat, and the woman was in a shapeless brown thing they’d be ashamed to hang in a charity shop. She wore a beat-up old hat that looked like a rat had crawled on to her head and died. Martha was in brown too, walking between her folks with her head down. If my parents looked like that, I’d walk with my head down. I waved as we zoomed past, but I know she didn’t see me because I asked her, Monday morning.

Well, I felt sorry for her. Plus I wanted to know where she’d been off to at five o’clock Sunday afternoon. It was just before the nine o’clock buzzer. She was standing by herself as usual, near the staffroom window. I drifted over there, trying to make it look accidental. I’d nothing against her myself but I didn’t want it to look like I was seeking her company.

‘Hi.’

‘Oh . . . hello, Scott.’ She blushed. First time I’d seen her in colour.

‘Didn’t see me yesterday, did you?’

‘Yesterday? Where?’

‘Wentworth Road. Teatime. You were walking down. We drove past.’

‘Oh.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t see you.’

‘I waved.’

‘Did you? Thanks, but I’m afraid I didn’t notice.’

‘You don’t have to thank me; it was just a wave. Were those your folks?’

‘Yes. Mother and Father. We were on our way to church.’

‘Ah-ha. Which church is that, then?’

‘You won’t know it. It’s the Church of the Righteous on Hustler Street, but it doesn’t look like a church. No spire or anything.’

‘Right. What happens there – anything good?’

‘I . . . don’t know what you mean. It’s a church. You know what happens at church.’

‘No, I don’t. I’ve never been. I suppose it’s kind of like a school assembly, isn’t it?’

‘Well, it’s a bit more . . . serious than that. And longer.’

‘But you see friends there?’

She shrugged. ‘Sort of. They don’t bother with me much because I’m not allowed to invite anybody home.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because . . . my father says so.’

‘Do you always do what your father tells you?’

‘Well, yes – don’t
you
?’

‘Not always. Have you brothers, Martha? Or sisters?’

‘No, there’s only me.’ She frowned. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions, Scott?’