Unexpected Twist Read online

  Shona took a sip of the coffee; she didn’t know whether she liked it or not. She nodded.

  “What it is, yeah,” he said, “is there’s Gazz, he’s picking up this stuff from LQ, and he’ll, like, give you the bag, and all you got to do is nip round the corner in that side road, Glenarm Close, and another mate of mine, he’ll be standing next to a white Bimmer. You give it to him, and that’s it. And at the end of it you get your phone.”

  It seemed to make sense. Kind of. So all she had to do was take a bag from someone she had never met and give it to someone else she had never met.

  The boy was on to it. “You know Gazz. He’s the one who was with me in the D8.”

  She nodded. She hoped outside she looked cool and OK with it, while inside it was beginning to make her jumpy.

  “You don’t know Al, but you’ll see the white Bimmer and he’ll be right next to it. In Glenarm … and I’ll sort your phone.”

  “When?” Shona asked.

  “That’s what I mean,” the boy said, looking at his watch again, “now, you hear what I’m saying?” He gestured to her to get up and get moving but before she left, he took the phone back off her.

  “Have I got time to say hello to my nan? She’s just over there, on the odds-and-ends stall.”

  The boy looked from Shona to outside, in the direction of Nan’s stall, and back. “Yeah. No. Look, no. I’m, like, really pressed, OK. Let’s do this thing now. Just go into LQ and go to the ladies’ section. Oh yeah, once he’s given it to you, keep moving, yeah? Like, everyone’s pressed, eh? Pressure!” And he said “pressure” as if it was two words: “presh” and “ure” with a big hit on the “ure” bit. He was almost pushing her out the door as he hopped from one foot to the other.

  Shona kept her head down. Brand new trainers, she thought, looking down at his feet.

  She headed across the road and down the street in the opposite direction from Nan’s stall. She’d drop by to see her in a minute.

  In LQ, it was the usual crush, with people holding up trackie bottoms against each other, boys staring at football boots like they were jewels, old guys in sports outfits hoping it made them look young, skinny women in tight, stretched, pink-and-purple running gear, babies crying, overweight security guys strolling between the puffer jackets. She walked over to the ladies’ department and waited, looking at the video of someone beautiful running, and there, suddenly, was Gazz. Just like the boy had said – Funny, a thought went through her mind: how come I know Gazz’s name but not the boy’s name? – and in that instant, he handed her a bag.

  Keep moving – she remembered what the boy said and she slipped out the shop. If everyone is under so much pressure (presh – URE!) then, yeah, I can do people a favour … and I get my phone … and if I’m any good at it, maybe I can do a bit of fetch and carry, and get paid for it … maybe… and by now she was in Glenarm Close, and sure enough, there was a white Bimmer and a boy was standing next to it, and she handed him the bag.

  “Yeah, cool,” he said, and he slipped away almost before she had looked at him.

  She turned round, feeling slightly odd. It had all happened so quick and so easy and then she remembered that she hadn’t made a deal with him for when he’d give her back the phone, all connected up. Hey, that felt wrong… What if he wasn’t going to, and it was all some kind of trick? But for what?

  She picked her way through the crowd in the market up to Nan’s stall. Nan was dealing with a customer, so didn’t say hi at first.

  When it was clear, she said, without looking at Shona, “Been busy, have you?”

  “Yes,” Shona said.

  “Zeynep tells me you’re meeting up with boys now.”

  “Oh, yes, but no, it’s not like that, Nan. No, it’s this boy from my school who’s sorting me out a phone.”

  “I know,” said Nan.

  A punter came and bought a pack of batteries. Nan dealt with it.

  “Look, love,” said Nan, “you be careful.”

  “I know,” said Shona, feeling ratty that Nan was wagging her finger at her, thinking that it was about dating-stuff again.

  “I mean, we all have to take risks,” Nan said, “just to get by, but…” Her voice faded into the jostle and cries of the market.

  “How you feeling, Nan?”

  “Oh, don’t mind me. We all have to go sometime.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You’ll be all right.”

  Nan smiled the smile of someone who had settled in and was ready for whatever would happen.

  She whistled “Que Sera, Sera. Whatever will be, will be…”

  That was Nan’s favourite whistle: she’d say something big that had happened. She’d shrug. And then whistle “Que Sera, Sera”. Like whenever she mentioned Lorraine. “Oh yes,” she’d say, “took herself off to New York. We’re not good enough for her. Still, there you go…” And that would be the signal to do the whistle. It was Nan’s way of saying “The End” of the chat.

  “I’ve got to get back now,” Shona said. “I promised I’d get in some stuff for Dad.” She gave Nan a kiss.

  “How is it you know Tino?” asked Nan quietly.

  Oh, so it wasn’t the end of the chat. Shona realized she had said something important enough for Nan to want it to go on.

  “Who’s Tino?” said Shona.

  “The boy you were with, in Zeynep’s.”

  Shona was just about to mention the D8 but then— “How do you know his name’s Tino?” she asked.

  Nan stopped still. It was like she had been caught in a photo. “Tino,” she said as if that explained something, “you know, the one Zeynep said you were with…”

  “Right, yeah,” Shona said.

  Nan helped a few more customers, Shona watched Nan’s fingers tickling the coins in her bowl as she handed out change.

  “I’m off now, Nan,” and went to give Nan a hug, but Nan turned herself sideways to avoid being hugged head on.

  “Sorry,” Shona said, not wanting to give Nan even the slightest twinge, let alone pain of any kind.

  “You take care, angel,” Nan said, kissing her cheek. Shona strolled off towards the flat – really it was just that room, where Dad would be sitting on the beat-up sofa. She had the feeling there was something sad about the way they had said goodbye … about the way Nan had said “we all have to go sometime”.

  Huh! That’s no way to talk, she thought to herself as she was nearly bowled over the rush of people coming out of the train station.

  A rolled-up bit of paper with a blob of old chewing gum inside it hit the side of Shona’s head. She ignored it.

  Miss Cavani walked in and the room slipped into quiet. As she breathed in to begin the lesson, Rasheda put her hand up. It seemed urgent.

  “I’ve read ahead, Miss, and it’s racist. I don’t think we should be reading this stuff. You know, all that British Values, and stuff that we’re doing in PCHE, and we all said how we’ve all got to be tolerant, and we’re reading this.”

  As she said “this”, she threw down a copy of the whole book that she had got from the library.

  “Anyone else read ahead?” Miss Cavani looked round the room.

  It seemed not.

  “Right,” she went on. “What I’m going to propose is that we read on and then talk about it. Otherwise it’s just me and Rasheda having a discussion about something that no one else has looked at.”

  “No, but what I’m saying, Miss, is I don’t think we should.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it makes people believe bad stuff.”

  “Is that what happened to you? Did you read it and then suddenly start to believe bad stuff?”

  “No, but I’m…” Rasheda stopped.

  Miss Cavani waited.

  “Well, let’s read it and talk about it in a minute,” Miss Cavani said, smoothing down the hair on both sides of her head.

  Now everyone’s attention was wound up. Who was going to be racist about who? Was Oliver going to b
e racist about another boy? Was there some kind of trick where in fact it turned out that Oliver was mixed race and these other kids were teasing him, or what?

  Miss Cavani, said, “So, where were we? Ah, yes. Remember, the strange boy who met Oliver and took him to the pub? This boy’s name was Jack Dawkins, also known as the Artful Dodger, whom you may have heard of before…”

  CLASS X10 READING COMPREHENSION

  The boy threw open the door of a back room, and drew Oliver in after him.

  The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. There was a deal table before the fire: upon which were a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. In a frying pan, which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying pan and the clothes horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging. Several rough beds made of old sacks were huddled side by side on the floor. Seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men. These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to the Jew; and then turned round and grinned at Oliver. So did the Jew himself, toasting fork in hand.

  “This is him, Fagin,” said Jack Dawkins, “my friend, Oliver Twist.”

  The Jew grinned and, making a low bow to Oliver, took him by the hand, and said he hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. Upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came round him, and shook both his hands very hard – especially the one in which he held his little bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the trouble of emptying them, himself, when he went to bed. These civilities would probably be extended much farther, but for a liberal exercise of the Jew’s toasting fork on the heads and shoulders of the affectionate youths who offered them.

  “We are very glad to see you, Oliver, very,” said the Jew. “Dodger, take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah, you’re a-staring at the pocket handkerchiefs, eh, my dear! There are a good many of ’em, ain’t there? We’ve just looked ’em out, ready for the wash; that’s all, Oliver; that’s all. Ha! ha! ha!”

  The latter part of this speech was hailed by a boisterous shout from all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman. In the midst of which they went to supper.

  Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another gentleman wanted the glass. Oliver did as he was desired. Immediately afterwards he felt himself gently lifted onto one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep.

  “The thing is,” Rasheda said, “you can’t say these things. It’s like hate crime.”

  “It is so not a hate crime,” Rory dived in. “Hate crime is like if I say to you…” he stopped.

  “Say to me what?” said Rasheda looking at him straight between the eyes.

  Shona took it in and could see why he had stopped.

  Harry helped: “Hate crime is where you try to get people to attack other people because, say, they’re disabled.”

  They all knew Harry might know what he was talking about, because his sister was disabled.

  Désol’é said, “My mum says that my granddad was in Washington when Martin Luther King did that ‘I have a dream’ speech.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Crayton, who didn’t believe anything Désol’é said.

  She chipped back at him: “Your granddad lives in a skip.”

  Shona laughed at Désol’é’s line and then stopped herself.

  Miss Cavani clapped her hands.

  Sunil put his hand up.

  “Yes?” said Miss Cavani, knowing that it was a risk to allow Sunil to speak in a discussion about something as sensitive as this.

  Sunil looked round and said, “There’s a crazy old guy in our flats who talks to himself, and sometimes when someone goes by he shouts, ‘Wolla wolla Jew boy’. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, though. He sings all sorts of stuff.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Rasheda shouted. “This book just stirs all that up, the way it keeps going on about ‘the Jew’ and how repulsive he is. Why are we doing this book anyway?”

  “Ah, well,” said Miss Cavani, “that’s a long story.”

  “You mean the book is,” said Sunil.

  Yes, he could be relied on for a gag, Miss Cavani thought. “Right, X10, the reason why we end up doing one book rather than another in school is because that’s what the government want us to do. But…” Miss Cavani held her hand up before a wave of comments reached her. “We can choose some other old English books that were written before 1900, but a good many people think that there is something very special about this one.”

  Rasheda wasn’t letting go. “But it’s racist, Miss, you know it is.”

  Impressive, Shona thought, the way she says things so in-your-face, but with all the right words to back it up.

  “What if you were a Jew?” Serena said, more to herself than to anyone in particular. “You’d feel awful reading this.”

  Harry coughed and started to speak. “I’m … well, not me … and not actually my Mum or Dad, but, like, further back, on my Dad’s side … er … I think it’s my great-grandfather, he was Jewish.”

  Is he saying that he is a Jew, or he is not a Jew? Shona asked herself.

  “Your parents should write a letter to say that they don’t think it’s right that we’re reading this stuff,” Rasheda said to Harry.

  A picture came into Miss Cavani’s mind of Rasheda in twenty years’ time, standing with one hand on her hip in a courtroom, saying, “And do you, do you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, seriously think that this … this … excuse for a book, full of volleys of antisemitic abuse, is suitable material for young school students?”

  “Why don’t we write to Charles Dickens?” said Sunil.

  It woke Miss Cavani from her daydream. Was this another one of Sunil’s jokes, or did he really think Charles Dickens was still alive?

  “Yeah,” said Crayton, “I’ll text him.”

  “One of the reasons we’re reading this book is to learn how people thought about this sort of thing a hundred and fifty years years ago,” Miss Cavani said.

  “Some people still think like that,” Rasheda said, not letting go.

  “That is so right,” Désol’é said.

  “Letters!” Miss Cavani suddenly cried. “You know, X10, there are times when I am proud to know you. Yes! We’ll all write to Charles Dickens. It doesn’t matter he’s not alive to read them; we can imagine it. Write in your letter what you really think about the way he’s written about Fagin.”

  “It’s a deal,” Rasheda said.

  Amazing girl, thought Miss Cavani.

  Chapter 10

  “Get some chips, then,” Dad said, rummaging deep in his pocket for some cash.

  They’d had chips the night before. And the night before that. Sometimes he stood at the cooker, poking a bit of bacon round the pan, but now he seemed like he didn’t have the energy to do that. This move had taken the last bit of stuffing out of him. Later, I’ll put the picture of Mum up somewhere near my bed, Shona thought, night terrors or not.

  “I don’t think Nan’s all right,” Shona said.

  “I know. How many times have you told me that?”

  “Hmm,” Shona grunted.

  “She does go on a bit, you know,” he said. “When I first met your mother, Nan was ‘half-dead’, she told me.”

  “No, no, I think she’s really not all righ
t,” Shona said, annoyed that he could turn it round like it was Nan making it up.

  “If you want to believe her, girl, you believe her.”

  Shona tutted loudly as her eyes went up into her head and she walked out, banging the door.

  As she waited in line at the chip shop, Tino and Gazz swung round the corner. Gazz saw her, nudged Tino, and they came up to her.

  “Been looking for you, to give you your phone. I’ve sorted it,” Tino said in a way that sounded too tired to be bothering.

  She reached forwards for it, but he pulled it back out of her reach.

  “But, like, there’s no point if you can’t pay for it.”

  Shona stopped reaching for it.

  Tino saw that and smiled.

  “But, hey, I can sort that too. Look, I’m not old enough to sign the contract on it, but there’s this guy, we call him Pops, and he can sort this too. All he needs is for you to come by… You know, for … er … security.”

  Was he talking total lies? Shona looked at him fully in the face.

  No, it seemed possible.

  By now the line had moved so Shona reached the counter: she ordered two bags of chips – and there was no money left.

  Tino leaned in. “Is that all you’re having?” he asked.

  Shona didn’t answer. She hated this. She hated it, hated it, hated it. That’s right, she didn’t have any more money, and that’s why she wasn’t buying the fishcake to go with it, which she would have loved to have bought if she could.

  “And?” said Tino as he put a tenner on the counter.

  Maria was waiting; the till was open.

  “Just say it. Sheesh, you’re so dumb,” Tino butted in.

  She couldn’t stop herself. She looked at the golden fishcakes on the rack and saw herself biting into it, through the crispy outer layer into the sweet flavours inside.

  “Fishcake!” she blurted.

  Tino handed Maria the cash, shrugged like Shona was just his irritating little sister who had tagged along.

  “Can I get the thing done now?” Shona asked.

  “Sure,” said Tino, “it’s not me holding things up.”