My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay (8 page)

Nasif extended his hand, smiling painfully at the driver.

"America?" Nasif managed to say.

The driver nodded his head, patted Nasif on the shoulder twice, gently moving him aside as he closed the door and made his way to the cab.

Cars raced past Nasif on the major road as he walked along the roadside. His shoulders hunched. His oversized trainers clobbered upon the ground, wet from the driven rain. His long, plain black t-shirt stuck to his disheveled body like cling-film. His baggy tracksuit bottoms became heavier with each step. He was having to hold them up as he walked. He stopped and looked upwards.

The rain spat in his face and dripped down his chin. The raindrops glistened white on his cheeks and on the tip of his nose and slowly turned into blue sparkles. They caught the swirling light of a police traffic vehicle parked behind him.

Nasif Farah's age was assessed by the Home Office as being fourteen. Like many of the overseas' students, he was given the birth-date of the first of the first. January 1st. It stood out like a sore thumb every single time it appeared on a referral form or register. Nasif Farah was in foster care. A strict, hardworking Muslim Pakistani family. He was continuously bullied by his Afghani peers who were the more streetwise and Pashto-speaking kids from Kabul. He was simply a slave and servant to their daily needs, whether it was inside or outside of their UK education.

Michael and Nasif looked at one another in the classroom as he held up his artwork.

"Picture," Nasif smiled.

"Good picture," Michael replied, returning the smile and holding up his thumb, to which Nasif beamed more, held up his own thumb and giggled.

Rabee, his fellow Afghani student, slapped Nasif round the head and laughed.

Nasif giggled again.

"Nasif do picture," mocked Rabee.

"Yes, picture. Picture good. Good picture," Nasif said, choosing a brown pencil from the tray, holding it like a knife.

As much as Michael and the staff tried to put a stop to Nasif's peers barking orders at him, they could not watch their every move outside. It was simply a cultural thing. It was tribal and it saddened Michael and his colleagues just to look at the weak Nasif Farah.

Nasif giggled again and looked at Michael. "Good picture. Good picture," he said with a smile.

Michael sat on a table next to his colleague Paul in his classroom. Despite mathematics not being his strong point, he had supported the lesson; however, it had become more of a 'if you think it's the right answer, put it down' type of support. That type of response meant Michael had no idea if it was the correct answer or not. A reassuring pat on the back and a "Keep going, you're doing well" statement often accompanied Michael's maths support technique.

In front of Michael and Paul sat a row of six laptops on four classroom tables. Sitting at the computers were the three Afghan students: Rabee, Abdul Rah-Maan and Nasif Farah. Also there was the Iranian boy, Shaheen, the Somali boy, Guled Omar-Ali and the Angolan, Sinatra Umbundo.

Sinatra had been there for a few weeks and so had the harsh scowl on his face. Michael and Paul watched each of them curiously as the kids tapped away and engaged themselves in their free time. Each had headphones on that allowed just the faintest tinny sound to escape into the otherwise quiet classroom.

Shaheen was watching YouTube. It was an Iranian woman belly dancing.

Next was Nasif Farah, who looked blankly at the Google homepage, glancing every so often at his fellow Afghani, Abdul Rah-Maan, who was also on YouTube, as was the third Afghani, Rabee, who was sitting next to Abdul.

Michael frowned and looked at Paul, gesturing him to look at Nasif.

"Does Nasif want to just stare at Google?"

"Maybe he's plugged himself into it and we don't know. Perhaps he's controlling it that way," chuckled Paul, as Michael shuffled off the table and squatted beside Nasif.

He lowered his headphones and turned to Michael. "Michael Jackson?" questioned Nasif.

"Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson!" shouted out Rabee, with a smirk, staring straight ahead at his screen, depicting some scantily clad Indian dancer on a hilltop. Rabee reclined on his seat.

Paul gently pushed the back of Rabee's chair with his foot, putting him upright.  Rabee turned his head to give Paul a large grin and then returned to his viewing.

Michael entered the YouTube URL into the browser and typed "Michael Jackson Thriller" into the YouTube search box. He clicked on the first link which enabled Nasif to watch the full Thriller video on full screen.

"That's thirteen minutes out the way."

He glanced over to Sinatra Umbundo who was viewing some poor quality video of the Peckham Grime rapper known as Giggs. Giggs sometimes went by the name Hollowman. His real name was Nathan and he was an ex-offender, imprisoned for gun charges in 2003 and affiliated with various Peckham gangs. For some reason, his very distinctive, cheaply-produced music videos were extremely popular amongst the various students Michael encountered daily. More often than not, however, the majority of the students discreetly disclosed to him that they didn't like Giggs' music at all, nor rap in general, but just wanted to fit in with everybody.

Next to Sinatra was Guled, who watched a gang video. He slyly glanced round and clicked onto the Miniclip games website, pausing a motorcycle dirt bike game and returning to the mobile-phone-filmed gang music video.

Michael sat himself back on the table.

"It's weird, isn't it? Afghani, Angolan, Iranian and Somali in one class, individually watching their own personally selected YouTube videos," he observed.

"What have we got here then? Giggs." Paul adopted a street style accent. "Giggs. It's about Giggs init?" he then chuckled to himself. "What else? Michael Jackson. Of course! Belly dancers," he glanced over Abdul's shoulder to see him looking at a Mr Bean video.

Abdul turned round to Michael and Paul, smiled and lowered his headphones. "It is Mr Bean. In Afghanistan he is known as Baba Gee. He is funny."

Abdul replaced his headphones and returned to his Baba Gee viewing.

"Baba Gee. Ha! What about him, look? Thinks we can't see him looking at gang vids," said Paul, gesturing with a nod towards the sly and suspiciously-behaving Guled.

"I saw it a minute ago. He keeps switching between that dodgy motorbike game and the Ferrier video," replied Michael.

"Clearly a gang kid."

"I know!" said Michael. "Patricia always asks about gangs when she interviews. They always tell her they're not in one, despite their weird haircuts and coloured scarfs."

"Maybe they're Morris Dancers," Paul mocked. "Which one of 'em is tagged?"

"The one with the tag on," Michael smiled.

Paul laughed and looked to see Michael discreetly pointing his forefinger down at Sinatra Umbundo's feet, tucked under his chair. A glimpse of an electronic tag fitted to one ankle was clearly visible.

Michael eyed the clock on the wall. Two o'clock. "Well, that day went quick."

Paul looked up and then to the window to see the dark skies and heavy rain beyond. He slid himself off the table and gently placed a hand upon Rabee's shoulder.

Rabee removed his headphones. "Finished?"

"Finished," Paul mocked his accent.

Rabee slid his chair out, stood and patted Abdul on the head.

Abdul looked up at him and then at the clock, twisting further to Michael, who raised his thumb.

"Can we go, teacher?" he asked, politely.

Michael nodded.

Abdul removed his headphones and gently touched Nasif on the arm.

"Nasif! Nasif! Go! Hurry yes!" called out Rabee, impatiently. He made his way to the door, turning with every step, smiling at Michael, cheekily. He opened the door and waited for Nasif to get up from his chair with Abdul and exited the class.

Nasif and Abdul shook Paul's and Michael's hands as they left.

"Cheerio," said Paul, taking hold of the door and keeping it open as Guled and Sinatra passed them.

Guled pulled up his hood, slyly glancing at Michael as he left the room.

"See you, guys," Michael called out.

Paul released the door to a close and exhaled. He seated himself on a desk.

"He's trouble that one, eh?" he said.

It was only a few minutes later when the various members of staff were each sitting on the chairs in the staffroom.

Michael sipped a Twining's fruit tea: raspberry and cranberry flavour.

Paul sat next to him, with his back against a radiator, eyeballing Michael's drink and gripping his own cup of tea.

"D'you really like that?" Paul asked.

Michael tilted his head. "Not really."

"All right, Patsy, who you got for us now?"

Patricia sighed as she opened a bulky green card file. "Well, nobody new really, just some extra information, or rather just information as we weren't sent any when he arrived. Right. Lee Mace." Patricia looked around at her fellow staff members.

Michael whistled a cuckoo sound and rolled his eyes.

"Exactly," Paul agreed, understanding Michael's whistling response.

"As you know when Lee started with us we didn't have a file. All we knew was that he came from a school in Bexley. Now, as you can see, we have a file." She patted the large bulky mass of paperwork, accompanied with a cynical smile and a raise of her eyebrows. The file was four inches thick. "An out-of-borough child who was excluded for persistent disruptive behaviour, verbally abusive to staff, assaulted one male member of staff with a chair, but refuses to accept he did so. He's a regular cannabis user and a diagnosed schizophrenic. Lee continuously raps in class, ignores instruction and when told to do something by teaching staff, he immediately becomes aggressive, very threatening and starts swearing and usually walks out."

"Then we let him walk," replied Helen, who stood up and exited due to a telephone ringing in another room off the corridor.

"It's pretty evident that we've seen all this from him already." continued Patricia. "He was living with his mother and is now living in care in Woolwich."

"He told me that he was living with his dad," Michael stated.

"I don't think so. Maybe he doesn't want people to know his mother can't handle him anymore and thus sent him into the care of the authorities."

Catherine Riverdale stroked her large, witch-like chin, nodding and weighing up something that had obviously circled in her mind for a considerable amount of time.

Michael caught sight of this. He never missed a trick and knew that whatever escaped Catherine's mouth was sure to hit a nerve.

"I quite like the boy and believe he has great potential," commented Catherine to the staff members, looking around at each of them individually, nodding like one of those plastic dogs again.

Michael's mind raced. What was the point of those nodding dogs anyway? Exactly. They were pointless. Rather like the yellow 'Child On Board' signs that had become a bizarre phenomenon of the past two decades or so. What was their main purpose? Were the three words a shorter replacement for 'Do Not Crash Into Me Please'? If so, then it should have been law for everyone in the world to have one because, surely, nobody in their right mind really and truly wanted to crash into someone on purpose. "Oh, a child is in that car, I'd best not crash into them," or "Ah, look dear, a yellow child on board notification, I think we should drive a little slower and with more caution." Shouldn't every single driver in the world do that anyway? After all, that was what you took your test for. Child on board. So what? What were they trying to say? Was a child more important than anyone else? That child could grow up to be a violent gang member... Michael's imagination continued to whirl.

Catherine's pointless nodding and comments were intended to frustrate and did exactly that. Just like those pointless nodding dogs. "I do. I think he has great potential," Catherine repeated.

"Great potential to be a schizophrenic murdering young man maybe," responded a judgmental Michael. It was like a game of 'How To Annoy The Other Person More' as Michael batted his words across like a tennis ball over the coffee table towards Catherine. 

"I disagree. He's been quite a gentleman and is a brilliant rapper." Whoosh. Catherine replied, slinging her peculiar response back over the table to Michael.

"The 'Gentleman Rapper'. Sorry, Simon Cowell, but I don't see it. It's a no from me, Simon." Before his words made their full impact, he continued, looking at Paul and Patricia. "Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, yes or no?"

Smash! Michael sent it hurling back at Catherine, perhaps immaturely, with the combined full force of cynical sarcasm and a total dislike for her.

Her lips quivered and mouth moved, her head tilted to one side. Speechless. A moment of silence was upon them.

Paul uncrossed his legs and sat up. "It's a no from me, Simon," he said, as he arched his back and slowly stood up. "I'm falling asleep here and I think it's time to go." He walked out of the room, raising his hand in farewell.

Patricia closed the file. "I know I'm not in the classrooms with him-"

"No, you're not in the classrooms, Patricia," snapped Catherine.

"But I did interview him and I have been on a review with him and his parents and many of his social workers, current and previous, so I think I am qualified to pass comment," Patricia answered.

"Personally and professionally, Patricia, I don't think you are qualified to pass any comment or judgment on these young people and I don't really believe you should be in on any of our meetings in future. I find it to be quite a hurdle actually."

"A hurdle?" Patricia was lost for words, and a little hurt. She stood quickly and walked out of the room, with her head lowered. 

Michael and Catherine were now alone in the staffroom.

"Maybe the police could use you to disperse crowds or late night parties. You certainly know how to clear a room, Catherine." Michael stood up, taking his empty mug to the sink.

"Sit down, Michael. I'd like a chat," Catherine instructed.

She didn't know how to separate adults from children and definitely had a St Trinianesque teaching manner about her. She was a very old-fashioned lady, with a peculiar world view. She stood as Michael neared the door. "Did you not hear me? I said, sit down," Catherine repeated assertively and bordering on the downright rude.

Michael turned and frowned. "Catherine, I'm not a child."

"I'm old enough to be your mother, Michael. If I was your mother, I'd have you punished and sent to your room without any dinner."

Michael raised one eyebrow as he looked at her with gritted teeth.

"I'm really not into that, Catherine. Thanks for the offer though."

She didn't get his humour at all and just nodded again as he formed a pleasant, but very fake, smile and turned away.

"Have a good evening. See you tomorrow," he said as he exited the room and walked down the corridor.

Catherine nodded her head, despite nobody being present. She formed a frown and marched up the corridor after Michael, but it was empty and quiet. She stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around.

In the car park, Michael approached his vehicle, slowing as he looked up to see Catherine standing by the driver's side.