My Name Is Mina (12 page)

I thought I had done very well in such a short time. They didn’t even read it right through. Mrs. Scullery held it up like it was a poisonous thing. She did the “bloody” scene. She got to the bit where she said I was an utter bloody disgrace. Then she leaned right down so that her face was nearly right in mine. For a moment I wanted to stroke it. I wanted to give her a cuddle, I really did. She looked O so stressed out. I wanted to say, “O, Mrs. Scullery. Never mind. It’s just some writing, that’s all. It’s not going to harm you. And look, some of it’s lovely. Don’t get yourself worked up, love. Calm down. I’m sure Samantha has done some lovely level 5ish work.”

But I couldn’t get any words out. I just stared back into her eyes.

“You,” she whispered hard into my face. “You, madam.”

“Me?” I whispered back.

“Are as hard as iron.”

And she led me to THE HEAD TEACHER and gave the writing to him. He looked at it like it was another ghost come back to haunt him. He held
it up and twisted his face like it was a very very dangerous stinking poisonous thing.

“What,” he said, “is this?”

“Writing,” I said.

“Writing what?”

“Writing, sir.”

“And what kind of writing do you think it is?”

He glared. He fumed. He gritted his teeth. Did he really want to know?

“It’s nonsense, sir,” I said.

“EXACTLY, MADAM. IT. IS. NONSENSE! IT. IS. A PAGE. OF ABSOLUTE. AND TOTAL. UTTER. IDIOTIC. NONSENSE!”

I could see he wanted to swear, just like Mrs. Scullery had. I wanted to tell him it was OK to tell me I was an utter bloody disgrace, if he wanted to.
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I wanted to tell him he could use even worse words if it would help him feel better. I wouldn’t mind at all. But I thought it was probably best not to say that.

“I know that, sir,” I simply said.

“Oh, you know that, do you? So who do you think you are? And what right do you have to … ”

“I don’t know, sir. Sometimes I wonder, Who am I? What am I doing … ”

Mrs. Scullery groaned. She gripped the edge of THE HEAD TEACHER’s desk.

“Are you taking the mick, young lady?” said THE HEAD TEACHER.

“No, sir.”

Mrs. Scullery groaned again.

“Doreen!” yelled THE HEAD TEACHER.

Doreen came in from the room next door.

Doreen was THE HEAD TEACHER’s secretary.

“Yes, Headmaster?” said Doreen.

“I need this young lady’s telephone number, please, Doreen.”

I started to say that I knew it but he stopped me with a glare.

Doreen went out and came back again with the number.

“Thank you, Doreen,” said THE HEAD TEACHER. “That will be all for now.”

He lifted the telephone. He dialed the number.
He spoke to Mrs. McKee about her daughter. He said he would like to see her, now, if at all possible.

“No,” he said. “She has not had an accident, Mrs. McKee, but I should like to see you in person if I may.”

He put the phone down.

“She is on her way,” he said.

“She won’t be long,” I started. “We just live—”

“We KNOW where you live!” said THE HEAD TEACHER. “We need no further contributions from you, thank you very much! Mrs. Scullery, would you like a glass of water? You look a little … ”

“Oh yes, please, Headmaster. Thank you, Headmaster,” said Mrs. Scullery.

“And do take a seat, Mrs. Scullery. Doreen! A glass of water for Mrs. Scullery, please.”

Doreen brought the water in. They sat. I stood. We waited in silence. I stared at a painting on the wall. It showed a delicious-looking bowl of fruit. I imagined that on bad days (like today, perhaps) THE HEAD TEACHER gazed at this fruit and dreamed of what he could have been instead
of A HEAD TEACHER. A banana, for instance. Or a plum. Or a bunch of grapes. I tried to imagine THE HEAD TEACHER as a bunch of grapes. He might be much happier that way.

Minutes passed. Mrs. McKee arrived and was brought into the room by Doreen.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. McKee,” said THE HEAD TEACHER.

“That’s all right,” said Mrs. McKee. She looked at her daughter. “But what on earth … ”

“Madam,” said THE HEAD TEACHER. “We have called you in on a matter of great importance.” He held up the page of writing. “May I ask you to read … this?”

The lovely Mrs. McKee took it from his hand. She read it through. She breathed out the sounds of the nicest words. She sighed. She smiled. She shook her head. She held the page like it was something rather precious.

“This,” said THE HEAD TEACHER, “is possibly the most important piece of writing that this young lady will be asked to do all year. It may well be the most important piece of writing that she
will do during her time as a student at this school. And she presents us with this!”

Mrs. McKee sighed.

“Oh, Mina,” she said. “What are we going to do with you?”

“Don’t know, Mum,” I said.

And she cuddled me, right there in THE HEAD TEACHER’s office while THE HEAD TEACHER and Mrs. Scullery watched. And THE HEAD TEACHER said,

“Mrs. McKee …”

But she raised her hand to stop him.

“You don’t need to say anything more, Head Teacher,” she said.

“So you understand the gravity of the situation?” said THE HEAD TEACHER.

“Indeed I do,” said Mrs. McKee. “So I think I’ll take my daughter home now. And I don’t think she’ll be back for some time. Goodbye.”

And we walked out of the office and along the corridor and past the classroom and out of the main door and across the schoolyard and out through the gates into the world.

We walked slowly homeward through the sunlight. We stopped in the park on the way home. We ate ice cream and we sighed at its deliciousness. We sat on a bench by a bush with lovely bright red roses growing on it. We watched people dressed in white playing bowls on the beautiful green lawn. The brown bowls clicked and clunked as they struck each other. The people in white chatted and laughed. Somebody somewhere sang a lovely song. Close by, a little boy rolled down a hill, giggled, got up, ran to his mum and kissed her, then ran up the hill again and rolled down again. It was lovely and warm in the sunshine. The sky was heavenly blue. Bees buzzed. Butterflies flitted by. A dog chased a ball. A flight of honking geese flew over us. The tops of the trees were swaying in the gentle breeze.

“This is very diggibunish,” said Mum.

“It is,” I said. “And very pringersticks, as well.”

When we got home, Mum pinned up GLIBBERTYSNARK in the kitchen. We looked at it together. It was indeed one of the most important pieces of writing I had done all year. I was now
a Homeschooled Girl, which made me Very Very Very Very Very Very Pleased. Very.

Mum put her arm around me, and we smiled, and we were filled with claminosity.

I am in the tree and the birds have had their eggs! Three of them. They are bluey-green with brownish spots and they are absolutely beautiful! I knew something was up. The birds were silent. The air was still. I climbed higher in the tree, to where I could look down into the nest, and there they were, three of them, lying so prettily in the pretty nest. Bluey-green with brownish spots and they are beautiful. Bluey-green and speckled brown and beautiful. I almost cheered, but I stopped myself. I wanted to hold the birds in my hands and praise them, but of course why should they take notice of me? Why should they care what I might think? But I say it now anyway, deep inside myself: “WELL DONE BLACKBIRDS! YOU ARE EXTRAORDINARY! YOU HAVE CREATED THE MOST AMAZING THINGS IN THE WORLD! YOU HAVE CREATED NEW UNIVERSES!”

Maybe they did hear me somehow, and they certainly saw me, because they squawked their warning calls, so I slithered to my lower branch, where they are used to seeing me and where I can safely be ignored. I sigh with joy.
The chicks are on their way.

And then I see the family outside Mr. Myers’s house. The poor boy is as fed up as ever. He’s kicking the ground again like he wants to do it harm. Poor lad. Looks like he’d be a perfect candidate for the pills they wanted to give me, or for the Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit. Cheer up, I want to yell! You’ve got a mum and dad beside you! You’ve got a brother or a sister on the way!

The mum and dad are smiling. She holds her belly and I see with that it is egg-shaped. I have to stop myself from jumping out of the tree and running along the street to her and telling her that she is extraordinary.

“YES!” I yell inside myself. “IT’S TIME FOR THINGS TO BE BORN AROUND HERE! BUY THE HOUSE, AND A BABY AND A CLUTCH OF CHICKS WILL BE BORN IN FALCONER ROAD THIS SPRING!”

Maybe she hears me somehow. She turns her head but I’m sure she can’t see me because of the foliage around me. O she looks very nice. They all
look very nice. They have a key. They open the door, they go inside. I imagine them moving through the dust. I imagine their skin mingling with the skin of Mr. Myers, their breath mingling with his breath, their lives mingling with his life, with his death. I lean back against the tree. I close my eyes. I think about the woman with the egg-shaped belly. And I wonder – if Dad hadn’t died, might Mum have had an egg-shaped belly, too?

Then I draw: birds and leaves and trees, and I am lost in this, too. Then a goldfinch appears, flickering through the upper branches. Then another, its partner. And I think of last autumn. There were days when a small flock flew through here. They will again when their time comes. I told my mum about them and she then told me that a flock of goldfinches is known as a charm. A charm of goldfinches! How beautiful is that?

I look at today’s goldfinch. There it is: black, gold, red, brown, white flickering quickly among the green leaves. There it goes, flying freely away into the blue. Does the goldfinch know how gorgeous it is? Does any bird? Does it know how beautiful its song is? If it did know, then maybe it would try to stop being so gorgeous. It would try not to charm. Once upon a time, goldfinches were the favorites of bird trappers. If the goldfinches knew this, they would have bathed in mud until they were mucky brown. They would have squawked or screeched or they would have stayed silent instead of singing out loud. They would have hidden themselves away in dark and isolated places. They
wouldn’t have flickered and flashed through people’s gardens. They wouldn’t have sung their beautiful songs. But goldfinches don’t know anything about wickedness or stupidity And so they flew and sang, and they were trapped in nets, and put into cages, and sold for cash, and they were hung from ceilings or put on sideboards or bookshelves or on windowsills and they sang. And their songs must have been filled with yearning and pain. And their songs lifted over the stupid boring conversations of their stupid boring prison guards. Imagine them! Imagine the stupid boring people who trap birds, who put them into cages! How boring they must be! How stupid they must be! We don’t put the goldfinches into cages now. But there are still lots of bird trappers in the world – people who trap the spirit, people who cage the soul. What’s a gang of bird trappers called?