Pigeon English (15 page)

Dean: ‘We need innocent prints to compare to the killer’s, so we can rule them out of the investigation.’

Me: ‘Roger that, Captain. I’m on it like stink.’

I put all the sellotapes with the fingerprints on in my special hiding place with my alligator tooth. I folded them up in paper so they don’t get any dirt or hairs on them. My room is now my headquarters. Nobody’s allowed in without the password and I haven’t even told anybody what the password is (it’s pigeon, after my pigeon. Nobody else can find out if you only think it).

It isn’t really a fingerprint’s job to identify you. That’s just an accident because everybody’s pattern is different. A fingerprint is really just for feeling with. They’re so you can tell the different textures and surfaces. Mr Tomlin told us.

Mr Tomlin: ‘The fingerprint is made up of tiny ridges in the skin. When you brush your fingertips over a surface, it causes vibrations, and these friction ridges amplify the vibrations, making the signals to your sensory nerves stronger and allowing the brain to analyse the texture better.’

Me: ‘So you can feel the close-up of things.’

Mr Tomlin: ‘That’s right.’

I couldn’t burn my fingers so I decided just to freeze them instead. It was the next best way to make them go numb. I just wanted to see what Auntie Sonia’s fingers feel like. I wanted to see if it was true about the close-up things. I got some snow from the bottom of the freezer and scraped a big pile into the bowl.

Me: ‘Can you get frostbite from the freezer snow?’

Lydia: ‘Advise yourself. Of course you can’t.’

Me: ‘But if I touched it for a really long time. Like for one whole hour. Then I might. I don’t want them to die, I just want to freeze them for a little while. Don’t let me freeze them too long, OK? Tell me when it’s been half an hour, that should do it.’

It took donkey hours for my fingers to go numb. It even gave me pains. The cold was so cold it was burning. I kept wanting to take my fingers out but I had to leave them in for it to work. Lydia was watching Hollyoaks. The boy was kissing the other boy again. I just used the sick feeling it gave me for a distraction. I pretended I couldn’t see my fingers. I pretended they didn’t even belong to me.

Me: ‘Are you counting?’

Lydia: ‘Don’t disturb! I’m watching this!’

When my fingers finally went numb it was like they just fell off. I couldn’t even feel them anymore. Asweh, it felt very crazy. I got a melon and touched it. It even worked! I couldn’t even feel the pattern on the outside. It was like my fingers weren’t even made of skin anymore, it was like they were made of nothing. I swear by God, It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

I tried the cushion on the sofa. I couldn’t even feel the pattern. It’s only lines but I couldn’t even feel them. I was pressing proper hard but nothing happened. It was like I wasn’t even there but just a spirit. I felt the feathers on Lydia’s parrot costume. They didn’t feel soft enough, they were too far away. I felt Lydia’s face. I couldn’t hardly feel it. I tried her nose and her lips and her cheek and her ear. I tried everything. It all felt far away, like she was just a dream.

Me: ‘It feels crazy! You should try it.’

Lydia: ‘Ho! Get off! It’s cold!’

I tried to pick up a groundnut but it was too complicated. I kept missing. It was very funny. You can see your finger on the groundnut but you can’t make it pick up. You just keep dropping it. It’s proper vexing. It makes you feel very stupid. I only stopped when I forgot how long it had been. Lydia stopped counting donkey hours ago.

Me: ‘The experiment was a complete success!’

Lydia: ‘You’re a complete retard!’

It was even hutious at first, you think the numbness will last forever. I felt sorry for Auntie Sonia then. I could still remember what the things felt like, I could use my memory to trick my fingers. But what happens if you tried to feel something brand new that you don’t already know? I pretended like I was Auntie Sonia and I was in a new country where everything was brand new. I couldn’t remember how anything feels because I haven’t been there before. It was very hutious.

Me: ‘What if it’s night-time and all the light goes out and there’s a fire, how will she find her way outside?’

Lydia: ‘I don’t know. It won’t even happen.’

Me: ‘What if it does happen? She’ll get burned up like human toast.’

It even made me feel sick, I didn’t want to think about it. When the numbness starts to run out it makes your fingers go all prickly. Asweh, it was a mighty relief. It meant they’d go back to normal. If I had to be numb forever it would just be too vexing. I’d have to pick everything up with my mouth instead like a dog. Everybody would call me Dogboy. I don’t even want to think about it for if I make it come true.

Lydia’s only vexed because she’s not good enough to be a detective. She only wants to make hair when she grows up. All girls just want to make hair.

Me: ‘My job’s better. Detectives catch the bad guy and you can drive as fast as you like.’

Miquita: ‘The detective don’t get a gun though. The bad guy does. And he don’t have to ask for what he wants, he just takes it. The detective’s just an employee with a target on his back. I don’t wanna work for no one, man.’

Miquita was ironing Lydia’s hair. Mamma go sound her when she finds out.

Me: ‘I bet it goes on fire.’

Lydia: ‘How! No it won’t.’

Me: ‘I bet it does.’

Lydia: ‘Don’t disturb!’

Me: ‘I can watch if I want.’

Lydia can’t stop me watching. I’m the man of the house.

Lydia: ‘Just don’t burn me, OK?’

Miquita: ‘Don’t worry, man. I’ve done it enough times.’

Chanelle: ‘Twice.’

Miquita: ‘So? I’m well skilful, innit. My auntie taught me, she learned it in the pen.’

Miquita’s auntie was a forger. It’s when they buy something with a ticket except it isn’t a real ticket, they actually drew it themself.

The whole thing takes donkey hours. When you iron the hair you only do a little bit at a time. You have to go proper slow so you don’t make a fire, first one side then the other. It’s very relaxing. I nearly fell asleep. We had to stop for a break. They pretended the apple juice was champagne.

I told you. Girls are very stupid.

It was very funny watching Lydia try to keep still. She was concentrating proper hard. She was even scared of the iron. When it came near her she closed her eyes up tight.

Lydia: ‘Watch my ears.’

Miquita: ‘Why, what are they doing?’

Lydia: ‘Don’t mess around.’

Lydia’s hair was actually going flat. It happened right before our eyes. It looked bo-styles. Lydia was very happy, you could tell. She kept looking at herself in the mirror. She was falling in love with herself. Asweh, it was very funny.

Me: ‘You want to kiss yourself. Go on, kiss yourself!’

Lydia: ‘Don’t disturb!’

Miquita: ‘Keep still, man, or I’ll burn you.’

She was holding the iron right next to Lydia’s ear. There was smoke coming from it. Then Miquita’s face went all hard. It came from nowhere. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

Miquita: ‘Are you with us?’

Lydia: ‘What are you talking about?’

Miquita: ‘You know what I’m talking about. You’re either with us or against us, innit.’

The iron was right over Lydia’s eye. It was nearly touching it. The smoke was going in her face. My belly went cold. Chanelle ate the last Oreo.

Chanelle: ‘Don’t, man, that ain’t necessary. She knows the score, innit.’

Miquita: ‘Shut up. Don’t make me bounce you. You didn’t see nothing. You don’t know nothing, right?’

Everything went proper slow. Miquita was making the iron go near then pulling it away like a crazy game. I could feel Lydia’s scared, it made me scared as well. I got ready like for an invader. I planned it in my head: get the knife from the block, chook the invader until they’re blind, then push them outside and into the lift. One of us call the police. Chook them sharp-sharp so you don’t have to feel it. It’s only self-defence. Lydia closed her eyes. I could even smell the burning before it happened. It felt like all the birds fell out of the sky, dead.

Lydia: ‘Please. I don’t know anything. I’m with you, I’m with you.’

Lydia opened her eyes. She checked herself in the mirror: there was one tiny patch on her cheek gone shiny and red. She felt it proper slow like it was a kiss. I love waiting for the holes to grow back, the new skin makes you stronger. That’s the best thing about cuts and burns.

Then Miquita’s face just dropped. All the stiffness fell off and she was normal again. It happened proper quick. I even thought it was just a dream gone wrong.

Miquita: ‘Keep looking to the front, yeah? It’s gonna look well sick, believe. Just keep still, I don’t wanna hurt you. You shouldn’t have moved.’

Lydia: ‘Sorry.’

I got my breath back. The world woke up again. When Lydia’s hair was finished it actually looked bo-styles. It was proper flat and everything. It was worth the wait.

Me: ‘Ho! It looks stupid! You look like a buffalo!’ (I had to hoot her even if I didn’t mean it. Telling a girl they look nice means you love them too much.)

Chanelle: ‘No it don’t, it looks wicked.’

Miquita: ‘I’m too good! I can’t help it!’

I got their fingerprints on a piece of sellotape. Chanelle gave me hers straight away but Miquita wouldn’t cooperate. Then I remembered what Dean told me:

Dean: ‘If they won’t give you their finger, just get them to have a drink. Then the fingerprint will be on the glass. It’s a piece of cake.’

Miquita thinks she’s so clever. Who’s laughing now! I didn’t need Lydia’s fingerprints. She’s not a suspect, she’s just my sister. She didn’t even cry when the burning came true.

Lydia was killing her Dance Club costume. She had the scissors and she was slicing and cutting like a crazy shark. Her eyes were all wet and she kept stopping to pray. It felt like a crazy dream. You couldn’t even move, you just had to keep watching for what would happen next. It was like the time Abena stuck the coat-hanger wire up her nose to make it go like an obruni nose (she thought that was how they got them that shape). Everybody knew it would never work, they were just waiting for something big to go wrong. It was like she’d lost her mind.

I kicked the door. I had to stop her before she got too crazy to come back from.

Lydia: ‘Happy now?’

Me: ‘What are you doing?’

Lydia: ‘What does it look like? You won’t believe it wasn’t blood. You think I’m a liar. Do you believe me now?’

Me: ‘Don’t you want to keep it? I thought you loved it.’

Lydia: ‘No I don’t, it’s stupid. I hate Dance Club anyway. It’s all stupid.’

I didn’t understand what was happening, I just helped her anyway. We took her parrot costume on the balcony. It was all in pieces like something dead. It was a long way to fall. When it hit the bottom it would all be over and you could start again. Both the two of us threw the pieces off. We watched them fall like big slow rain. Rain always washes the blood away in the end. There were some smaller kids down below. They let our raindrops fall on them and picked them up and made them back into feathers. They chased each other with them like crazy parrots and threw them like the lightest bombs.

Lydia: ‘Don’t tell anyone what I did, will you?’

Me: ‘Do you know who it came from?’

Lydia: ‘No, I swear to God. All I did was take the clothes to the launderette, that’s it. It was only a test.’

Me: ‘My coat wasn’t stolen. I threw it down the rubbish pipe.’

Lydia: ‘Why?’

Me: ‘I don’t have to tell you if you don’t have to tell me.’

Lydia: ‘Fine.’

Me: ‘Jordan threw a cat down the rubbish pipe once.’

Lydia: ‘No he didn’t, he’s just bluffing you. You’re so gullible.’

We kept watching until the smaller kids gave up and threw the feathers down. All the landed pieces looked like dead bodies just asleep. I said a sorry inside my head but it wasn’t sad anymore, it was strong. Strong to protect us from whatever came after, like an alligator tooth for all of us.

It’s better if you don’t see us coming, believe me. You have things you want to achieve, obligations to meet, all that human stuff. It’s those things you do while you’re pretending death isn’t waiting around the corner that determine what look he’ll have on his face when you bump into him. Carry on doing those things, knock yourselves out. Make your choices, answer your calls. Live the moments and the monuments will take care of themselves, carved from marble after you’ve gone or shaped in the clay of the still-living.

I got new trainers. They’re called Diadora. Have you heard about them? Asweh, they’re bo-styles. Mamma saw what I did to my Sports.

Mamma: ‘What happened to your canvas? They’re ruined.’

Me: ‘I wanted Adidas.’

Lydia: ‘It’s not even straight. The lines are all wobbly. It looks gay.’

Me: ‘Your face looks gay.’

Mamma: ‘Ho! Enough with the gay! Nobody is gay!’

We went to the cancer shop. They sell trainers there as well. The Diadoras were the best. They were the only ones that fit me. It was a dope-fine piece of luck. They’re white all over and the Diadora sign is blue. The Diadora sign looks like an arrow or something from space. You knew it would make you run superfast, you could tell straight away.

They don’t even feel like foes. There’s only a few small scratches on them. Their first owner took very good care of them. His feet just got too big. We tried to imagine what the first owner was like:

Lydia: ‘I bet he was ugly and he had smelly feet with scabs all over them.’

Me: ‘Don’t bring yourself! They don’t even smell. I bet he was the greatest at football and running.’

I pretended like he left some of his spirit inside the trainers and it will help me pass the ball straight and run for miles.

Lydia: ‘Don’t tell anybody where you bought them, they’ll just rough you.’

Me: ‘Just because they’re from the cancer shop it doesn’t mean they have cancer.’

Everybody says the things in the cancer shop have cancer. They’re just stupid. My new trainers make me go faster than ever before. When I’m wearing them it feels like I could run forever and not even have to stop. I even tried them on the corridor where the floor’s proper shiny and they made a mighty squeaky sound. It was too sweet.