Rachel Ward - Numbers: Book 1

NUM8ERS

RACHEL WARD

FOR

OZZY, ALI, AND PETER

There are places where kids like me go. Sad kids, bad kids, bored kids, and lonely kids, kids that are different. Any day of the week, if you know where to look, youll find us: behind the shops, in back lanes, under bridges by canals and rivers, round garages, in sheds, on vacant lots. There are thousands of us. If you choose to find us, that is most people dont. If they do see us, they look away, pretend were not there. Its easier that way. Dont believe all that crap about giving everyone a chance when they see us, theyre glad were not in school with their kids, disrupting their lessons, making their lives a misery. The teachers, too. Do you think theyre disappointed when we dont turn up for registration? Give me a break. Theyre laughing they dont want kids like us in their classrooms, and we dont want to be there.

Most hang about in small groups, twos or threes, whiling away the hours. Me, I like to be on my own. I like to find the places where nobody is where I dont have to look at anyone, where I dont have to see their numbers.

Thats why I was pissed off when I got to my favorite haunt down by the canal and found someone had got there before me. If it had just been a stranger, some old dosser or junkie, Id have gone somewhere else, easy, but, just my luck, it was one of the other kids from Mr. McNultys special class: the restless, gangly, mouthy one they call Spider.

He laughed when he saw me, came right up to me and wagged a finger in my face. Naughty, naughty! What you doing here, girl?

I shrugged, looked down at the ground.

He carried on for me. Couldnt face another day of the Nutter? Dont blame you, Jem hes a psycho. Shouldnt be allowed out, that one, should he?

Hes big, Spider, tall. One of those people who stand too close to you, doesnt know when to back off. Suppose thats why he gets into fights at school. Hes in your face all the time, you can smell him. Even if you twist and turn away, hes still there doesnt read the signs at all, never takes the hint. My view of him was blocked by the edge of my hood, but as he loomed up to me and I moved my head instinctively away from him, our eyes met for a moment and it was there. His number. 12152010. That was the other reason why he made me feel uncomfortable. Poor sod he doesnt stand a chance, does he, with a number like that?

Everyones got one, but I think Im the only one that sees them. Well, I dont exactly see them, like something hanging in the air; they kind of appear in my head. I feel them, somewhere behind my eyes. But theyre real. I dont care if you dont believe me suit yourself, I know theyre real. And I know what they mean. The light went on the day my mum went.

Id always seen the numbers, for as long as I could remember. I thought everyone did. Walking down the street, if my eyes met someone elses, there it would be, their number. I used to tell my mum peoples numbers as she pushed me along in my buggy. I thought shed be pleased. Shed think I was clever. Yeah, right.

We were making our way rapidly along the High Street, on the way to the Department of Social Security to pick up her weekly money. Thursday was normally a good day. Soon, very soon, she would be able to buy that stuff from the boarded-up house down our street, and she would be happy for a few hours. Every taut muscle in her body would relax, shed talk to me, even read to me sometimes. I called out peoples numbers cheerily as we hurtled along. Nothing, two, one, four, two, nothing, one, nine! Nothing, seven, nothing, two, two, nothing, four, six!

Suddenly, Mum jerked the stroller to a halt and swung it round to face her. She crouched down and held both sides of the frame with her hands, making a cage with her body, clutching so tightly I could see the cords in her arms standing out, the bruises and pinpricks more vivid than ever. She looked me straight in the eye, the fury clear on her face. Listen, Jem. The words came spitting out of her face. I dont know what youre going on about, but I want you to stop. Its doing my head in. I dont need it today. OK? I dont need it, so justbloodyshutup. Syllables stinging like angry wasps, her venom fizzing all around me. And all the time, as we sat there eye-to-eye, her number was there, stamped on the inside of my skull: 10102001.

Four years later, I watched a man in a scruffy suit write it down on a piece of paper: Date of Death: 10.10.2001. Id found her in the morning. Id got up, like normal, put my school things on, helped myself to some cereal. No milk, because it stank when I got it out of the fridge. I left the carton on the side, put the kettle on, and ate my Coco Pops while it boiled. Then I made Mum a black coffee and carried it carefully into her room. She was still in bed, kind of leaning over. Her eyes were open, and there was stuff, sick, down her front and on the covers. I put the coffee down on the floor, next to the needle.

Mum? I said, even though I knew she wouldnt reply. There was no one there. She was gone. And her number was gone, too. I could remember it, but I couldnt see it anymore when I looked into her dull, empty eyes.

I stood there for a few minutes, a few hours I dont know then I went downstairs and told the lady in the flat below us. She came up to look. Made me wait outside the flat, like I hadnt already seen it, silly cow. She was only gone about thirty seconds, and then she rushed out past me and was sick in the hallway. When shed finished, she wiped her mouth on her hankie, took me back to her flat, and rang for an ambulance. Then all these people came: people in uniform police, ambulance men; people in suits like that man with the clipboard and paper; and a lady, who spoke to me like I was stupid and took me away from there, just like that, the only place Id ever known.

In her car, on the way to God knows where, I kept going over and over it in my mind. Not numbers this time, words. Three words. Date of Death. Date of Death. If only Id known that was what it was, I could have told her, stopped her, I dont know. Would it have made a difference? If shed known that we only had six years together? Would it? Hell she would still have been a junkie. There was nothing on this earth that could have stopped her. She was hooked.

I didnt like being there under the bridge with Spider. I know it was outside, but I felt closed in, trapped there with him. He filled the space with his gangly arms and legs, constantly moving twitching, almost and that smell. I ducked past him and out onto the towpath.

Where you going? he shouted behind me, his voice booming off the concrete walls.

Just walking, I mumbled.

Right, he said, catching up with me. Walk and talk, he said, walk and talk. Drawing level, too close to my shoulder, brushing against me. I carried on, head down, hood up, a blinkered patch of gravel and trash moving under my sneakers. He loped along beside me. We must have looked so stupid, me being small for fifteen and him like a black giraffe on speed. He tried to chat a bit, and I just ignored him. Hoped hed give up and go away. No chance. Guess youd have to tell him to piss off to get rid of him, and even then he probably wouldnt.

So youre new around here, yeah? I shrugged. Got kicked out your old school? Been a bad girl, have ya?

Kicked out of school, kicked out of my last home, and the one before that and the one before that. People just dont seem to get me. Dont understand that I need my space. Always telling me what to do. They think rules and routine and clean hands and minding your ps and qs will make everything all right. They havent got a clue.