Strangled Silence (8 page)

Thated school. Every teenager thinks they
hate school, but for the most part this isn't true.
They dislike the early mornings, the rigid routine,
having to sit still in regimented classrooms, struggling
through tough or boring classes, enduring the
overbearing discipline and any number of other
things. But for most kids it is also a place that gives
structure to their lives; while they treat it with open
contempt, it is a place where they can meet up, play
sports, flaunt the latest street-gear (as far as uniforms
allow), pick up new slang, gossip and flirt and check
each other out. It is a place where a boy can learn
how to fight and eventually how not to fight, and
where a girl can begin learning how to wrap boys
around her little finger. It is an arena for proving
themselves to their peers and it gives them tolerant
authorities to rebel against so that they can define
their individuality without fear of extended imprisonment
or physical injury.

It can also, on occasion, provide some
education.

But Tariq
despised
school. As Martin Mir had
been moved from one post to another, so his
children had moved schools to follow him. It had
been OK for Amina; she was pretty, outgoing and
vivacious and life was easy for girls like that. Tariq
had been moody long before he became a teenager
and he was slow to make friends. Apart from
English, he spoke German and some Arabic, but he
could rarely find anyone he considered worth
speaking to. He had a few friends at this school, but
mostly they were fellow victims and he didn't
actually like them very much. Darren, his best mate,
was in the year above him and they only saw each
other at break times.

Even though he always left home on time,
Tariq tried to get to school as late as he could.
The less time Noble and his mates had to hassle
him the better. He was just in time to get to
Geography, the first class of the day, walking in
through the double front doors of the building, past
the office and the labs and the canteen and on
down the glass-walled corridor towards the classroom
in the next block.

Students milled around in the corridor, some
trying to look as if they had somewhere to go,
others looking like they didn't care where they
went, as long as it wasn't lessons.

The usual sick feeling weighed in the pit of his
stomach. His face was tense, his teeth clenched
together. Alan Noble and his mates didn't bully
Tariq. Bullying was what happened to kids – it was
an insufficient word for the torment Tariq suffered
on a daily basis. He would never have believed the
power of humiliation; he had always been an outsider
in school, but this place seemed to thrive on
the misery of anyone who didn't fit in. He understood
there had to be bullies in every school, but
why did everyone else have to laugh?

He reached the classroom just as they were
going in.

'Well timed, Tarmac!' Noble called out, much
to the amusement of his sidekicks. 'Whass wrong,
you forget where Geography was?'

That got another few chortles and one of the
others repeated the line as a sign of appreciation.
Tariq ignored them and joined the back of the
group as they trailed into class. 'Tarmac'. Noble had
called him that once because of his spots. When
they laughed, he'd warned Tariq that the name
would stick. 'Stick – like Tarmac. Geddit?' That had
them in stitches . . . And so the nickname
had
stuck.
Tariq flinched at the memory; it wasn't like Noble
didn't have spots of his own. They hadn't noticed
Tariq's eyeliner, but it was only a matter of time.
He'd done it deliberately. The more they slagged
him off, the more he was determined they could all
go to hell.

There was some pushing as they pressed
through the door and Noble took the chance to dig
his knee into Tariq's thigh. Tariq suppressed a
grimace but Noble heard him grunt in pain and
that was enough. He looked up towards the board
but Ms Maijani, the Geography teacher, had seen
nothing.

The students were surprised to see a man
standing beside the teacher. He was wearing an
olive drab army uniform. Tariq noted that although
there were medal ribbons on his chest, the man
wore no insignia to show his unit or regiment. He
was like a picture from a recruitment poster; his
face was lean and tanned, his brown hair was cut
tight to his skull and he looked impressively fit.

'Now then, take your seats please,' Ms Maijani
said in her heavy South African accent. 'Quietly!'

Once they were all seated, she gestured to the
man beside her. There was a reluctance in her
manner, as if she was less than pleased to be introducing
him, but her voice had that fake enthusiasm
that any good teacher could summon at a moment's
notice:

'This,' she said brightly, 'is Lieutenant Scott. He
will be taking you for Geography today. Our school
has been
lucky
enough' – she laced the word with
sickly-sweet emphasis – 'to have been chosen to
test-run a new project, in conjunction with the
Military in Schools Scheme. You will remember it
was one of the changes brought in by the
Drawbridge Act. I'll leave it to the lieutenant to fill
you in.'

She graciously stepped aside and sat down in
her swivel chair with a face like frostbite. It was
clear she was not happy about surrendering her
territory to some jumped-up squaddie.

Scott took the floor with a smile that immediately
won him the approval of half the girls in the
class. Melissa Denning whispered that he could fill
her in any time. Her friends had to cover their
mouths to contain their laughter.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' Scott began, clasping
his hands. 'As you know the army was originally
asked to get involved in schools to help with issues
of discipline, but we always felt that we needed a
more integrated role in education. After all, I can't
just get you all to hit the floor and give me twenty
press-ups, can I?'

He beamed at his own joke. Tariq swore under
his breath and looked out of the window for something
more interesting to catch his attention.

'No, we wanted to get more involved on a
developmental level,' Scott went on. 'In fact, we
were getting concerned about the poor state of
education our new recruits were demonstrating
when they joined up. And the program I'm going
to tell you about is a result of years spent designing
a way to correct this problem.

'We have come up with a computer game that
was originally intended to instruct in battlefield
strategy, but we have since found to be extremely
beneficial in education . . . in fact, in any area of
teaching. We call this game program
MindFeed
. We
think of it as . . . ammunition for the brain.'

He grinned again. A number of the boys
exchanged glances. This was the kind of education
they were looking for.

'Over the next few months,' Scott continued,
'you will be given the opportunity to take different
classes through the playing of games on
MindFeed
:
Maths, History, Science . . . but today we're going
to start with Geography.

'The point of all this is to improve your
receptiveness to these subjects by making them
fun
.
We all learn better when we're enjoying what we
are doing, and boys in particular tend to thrive in a
competitive environment.
MindFeed
will also
improve your hand–eye coordination and will contribute
to your computer skills.

'Now, with Ms Maijani's permission, I'd like to
take you all down to the computer room, where
we'll set each of you up with a player identity.'

Ms Maijani's permission was grudgingly given
and there was a rush for the door as the boys raced
to get to the computer room to nab the best PCs.
Tariq was more interested than he wanted to admit,
but as he went to follow the mob out of the room
a hand pulled him back.

'Tariq,' his teacher said. 'I'd wipe off that eyeliner
before you join the class, if I were you. I don't
think they approve of that kind of face paint in the
army. What would your dad say?'

'He'd say you're right; the army's got too many
poofs already,' Tariq replied. 'But then he is a
marine.'

Ms Maijani burst out laughing and he made his
escape before she could pull him up for his homophobic
language.

Amina was exhausted by the time she got home, so
she was in no mood for one of Tariq's explosions
of adolescent enthusiasm.

'But you should see it, it's brilliant!' he told her
excitedly. 'It's like taking your classes on a
PlayStation! We played this Geography game where
they picked countries at random from the syllabus,
right? And you could choose to bomb places or
drop aid parcels. But to make the drops in the right
place, you had to learn about the country, so you
could recognize the drop-zones. It was cool! I
learned more in one class than I normally do in a
month!'

'I'm delighted for you,' Amina sighed, as she
looked around the living room for the TV remote
control.

She noticed the remains of the eyeliner on his
lids and made a mental note to keep her make-up
under lock and key from now on. She had barely
got in the door when Tariq had cornered her and
had launched into his spiel. This was what she
got for asking about his day. Switching on the
TV, she flopped into an armchair, focusing her
entire attention on a music programme, hoping
her brother would get the hint.

He didn't.

'But they said this game was only one part of
it,' Tariq went on. 'There's a driving game for
Geography too, and a speedboat one. Tomorrow
we're going to be doing Biology using a shoot-'em-up
game. You have to name the parts you're hitting
on the bad guys – y'know, like all the organs and
stuff—'

'That's gross!' Amina protested, turning the
volume up.

'That's what some of the other girls said, but
they still want to try it,' he said, nodding. 'Then
there's a counter-terrorism . . . er, spy-type game
for some of the foreign languages and—'

'OK, I get it, it's the best thing since sliced
bread!' Amina snapped. 'Now quieten down or get
lost, I'm trying to watch telly!'

He sat on the arm of the couch, visibly pentup,
and tried to watch the dishevelled guitar band
wrangle music from their instruments. Music
wound out of the entertainment system's waist-high
speakers, fading from the indie band as the
screen changed image into cello strings stirring as if
deep beneath ocean waves. A jagged power chord
tore across the melodic sound, shattering the soft
intro as the latest hit from Absent Conscience, 'I
Love Hurting You With Honesty', grated into the
living room. Amina tutted and went to change
the channel.

'Oi!' Tariq cried. 'I like this one!'

'It's rubbish!' she retorted.

'How would you know? You don't even listen
to their music! You switch off as soon as they
come on!'

Amina tossed the remote to him and strode out
of the room. Behind her, in their harsh mixture of
death metal and hip-hop, the self-proclaimed 'junk
poets' snarled their opening lyrics:

'
You've hated me since the day I was born/Tried to
drown my dreams, tried to send me to war/But you love
me now 'cos you need my power/So I tighten my grip
with each passing hour . .
.'

She grabbed her phone, dialling Dani's number
as she headed upstairs to her room. Dani had her
phone switched off. Amina scrolled down through
her friends' numbers, but then gave up, deciding she
didn't want to talk to anyone after all. She put on
her stereo and started reading instead.

Amina had grown out of her angry music
phase and as the Absent Conscience bass beat
pounded through the floor of her bedroom, interfering
with her own tunes, she hoped Tariq would
soon follow her example. She was surprised at his
excitement over the army's 'learning game'. Tariq
had rebelled against their father's hopes to raise
another marine, expressing a complete lack of
interest in all things military – but then, growing up
on military bases took much of the idealism out of
soldiering. Now her brother seemed determined to
seek out every antisocial habit that would annoy his
parents at home and make him an outsider in
school.

Whatever, she thought. He'll mellow out
eventually. We all do.

The news was filled with reports and debates on the
War for Freedom. What had begun as a concerted
campaign to wipe out Muslim extremists across
the world had become a never-ending series of
reactions to any revolutionary movement that
didn't like Western foreigners meddling in their
country's affairs. And those movements were growing
steadily in number.

Sinnostan featured regularly on the news
reports. A barren, mountainous country, its deeply
carved valleys and ridged hillsides were thought to
offer hiding places to camps training terrorists, who
then swarmed to Western Europe and the United
States to do their worst. Its poverty-stricken people
– the Sinnostanis, as they were known to the soldiers
cursed with patrolling their godforsaken country –
barely scratched a living from the unforgiving landscape.
They were thought to be ripe for the mixture
of religious extremism and fanatical nationalism
that made the most dangerous revolutionaries.