Acid Song Read online

  She was not crying. She would not cry.

  ‘Sophie, bio right?’

  ‘Ah, yeah, think so.’

  Tessa stopped and looked again.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘What? Yeah, sure. Just … you know, sick of it all.’

  ‘Sure.’ Tessa asked no more. She understood. Who didn’t?

  They made their way up the stairs. Sophie’s legs were heavy; she felt out of sync, as if imposed on the scene by an amateur hand, three frames out of time. She stumbled on, determined to make up the ground, to swallow back the dancing that had hold of her stomach. Sick.

  ‘You think we can get him to play games today?’ Tessa asked.

  ‘If you ask nicely.’ Her voice was her friend. It would not betray her with so much as a quiver.

  ‘Me? You’re the one he’s always looking at.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say always.’ Sophie laughed.

  He was Mr Krane, their biology teacher. Luke Krane, an odd one. All teachers were odd, that was a given: adults who’d never left school. Mr Krane’s odd though was different. He could make them laugh when he felt like it. Tessa was right. He did look at her, sometimes. And she didn’t mind. That sort of odd. Early thirties she guessed, not quite as old as her dad.

  They were the last ones to class, five minutes late because Tessa diverted to the toilets to consult the mirror. Sophie was relieved to see her eyes hadn’t reddened. Maybe with an X-ray the damage would be visible.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ Tessa breezed. ‘Toilet.’

  It was good to be a girl too, sometimes. Tessa chose seats beneath the teacher’s nose and looked up, flicking her hair back with long fingers. She’d dyed it blonde, in preparation for summer, and it made her look like a slapper. Sophie didn’t tell her this.

  ‘Sophie wanted to know if we were playing games today,’ Tessa said.

  ‘And what’s in it for me?’ Mr Krane asked. Oblivious.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tessa replied. ‘I’m not Sophie.’

  People laughed. He shrugged it off, like the nothing it was. The class fixated on the possibility of a game.

  ‘Yeah, let’s do one of those games, Mister.’

  ‘You promised us.’

  ‘When did I promise you?’

  ‘Before the last test.’

  ‘That was last term, Brendan. You don’t even remember last Wednesday.’

  ‘My long-term memory’s good, Mister. It doesn’t affect your longterm memory.’

  ‘Being stupid affects everything.’

  ‘You’d know.’

  ‘Well actually I wouldn’t. That’s the compensation for being stupid, you see. You’re always the last to realise.’

  Each class depended upon the teacher’s mood. A sick sort of roulette, five long years trapped at the table. Today they’d get their game.

  ‘Okay, chairs and desks to the side. We need some space for this.’

  Twenty-four pairs of arms and legs built messy nests at the edge of the room.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘Reproduction. We’re going to learn about reproduction.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do we get to choose who with?’

  Lionel was front row: large, wide and firmly planted. His face dimpled when he smiled, and when he scowled. People were afraid of him. Sophie’s friend Jade, who had fallen for him briefly some time last summer, swore that he was a lot cleverer than he appeared. Sophie preferred the alternative: that Jade was far stupider. For Lionel was a stupid boy, a bully who set the tone because nobody knew how to stop him.

  ‘No, we’re leaving it to fate,’ Mr Krane told him.

  ‘Is this still part of the ecology unit?’ asked Sean. Lionel hit him from behind.

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Or what?’

  The teacher ignored the exchange. If you didn’t ignore Lionel, then the lesson was about Lionel. Every time. They wouldn’t expel him. That would be giving up. And it was very important to never give up. The almost-sports-stars they dredged up for assemblies told them so, every second Wednesday.

  ‘Get a die each. There are twelve green, twelve white. It doesn’t matter which you get.’

  They took their dice, continued their conversations, milled about. Mr Krane was in no hurry.

  ‘Here’s what’s happening. Hold your die in your left hand.’

  ‘It’s dice. The word’s dice.’

  ‘That’s plural.’

  ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘And with your die in your left hand, you cross your arms like this, hands to the opposite shoulders.’

  ‘Why? Why are we doing this?’

  ‘Because you don’t need your hands to reproduce.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s so we don’t touch people’s tits.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Without Lionel, and Gavin, and possibly Andrew, this would be a good class. Without Ollie, school might be okay. Sophie forced herself to think of something else, but already a film had spread across her eyes. She wiped it away before anyone noticed, and swallowed down the misery.

  ‘Okay, now I want you all to close your eyes.’ Perfect. The world went dark, and Sophie’s mind followed into blankness. ‘And then very gently, within this space … eyes closed, Lionel.’

  ‘It’s Sean, Mister. He’s been looking at me funny, ever since you mentioned reproduction.’

  ‘Fuck up.’

  ‘Thanks, Sean, eyes closed eh? Now, we are going to very quietly move about the space. If you bump into somebody, just gently move away, without opening your eyes, and keep going.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I’ll explain when everybody’s doing it.’

  Sophie felt a hand slide across her arse. She opened her eyes, but the groper had moved on.

  ‘And eyes open. Face the nearest person. Good. That’s your reproductive partner for this round. Introduce yourself.’

  Laughing. Stupid comments. Boys faced boys, girls faced girls, Randall the exception. He faced Sophie shyly. He was shorter than her, and had made a good head start to obesity. He blushed, too hot in the jersey she had never seen him take off. The groper?

  ‘Now roll your dice. Whoever gets the lowest number must come to the front and change their die for one of their partner’s colour.’

  ‘What say we’ve got the same colour?’

  ‘Then nothing changes.’

  Dice were rolled. Comments were passed, dice changed. Sophie watched Mr Krane write ‘Random Selection’ on the board. She tried to remember the words. He could not be relied upon to make his points clearly. He had no staying power. He wasn’t the sort you could depend upon, when it came to the exam. Sophie made up her own notes at home.

  ‘And if any pair throws two sixes, let me know. Eyes closed; mingle again.’

  Three rounds later the first double six was called. Mr Krane stepped forward, took the pair’s dice and replaced them with red ones.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A mutation has occurred.’

  ‘Mutants!’ Lionel jeered.

  ‘We’re all mutants, Lionel.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘No, possibly less so than the rest of us. Quick show of hands. Who’s still got green? How about white?’ Three quarters of the class now had green dice. ‘Okay, remember that. Now, people with red dice: whatever you roll, add a two to the number.’

  ‘Random Drift’ and ‘Mutation’ were added to the list on the board. Sophie said each to herself three times. The game was good. It was helping her to forget.

  ‘Eyes closed, let’s go.’

  It came from nowhere. That can’t have been true, it must have been bubbling over, perhaps all year, but from nowhere is how it seemed to appear.

  ‘Fuck off!’ Loud, angry. Every eye opened in time to observe the half second between intent and action. Sean eyeballed Lionel. He was only half Lionel’s size, but his eyes burned dark and there was spit at the corner of his mouth. Lion
el raised his eyebrows in invitation, his head pivoting back on his neck, jeering. For half a second.

  The first blow, a close-fisted punch, caught Lionel on the chin. The second, a furious, optimistic swing, was blocked by the larger boy. Knees and elbows flew. A ball of desperate rage, repelled by a wall of solid violence. Sean screamed, flailed, erupted. Lionel, far more practised and efficient, chose his moments. A sickening blow took the wind out of Sean’s stomach, a needless addition broke the smaller boy’s nose.

  Sean was snorting blood as they pulled him off, its vivid red splattered across a face of snot and tears. Small, careful, studious Sean: turned, just like that. Turned and suffering. Lionel towered over him, hands held out as if in complete innocence. His shirt was ruffled, but floating above it his smile was serene and his eyes shone, an animal too, not beaten but high. Wanting more.

  Mr Krane stood between them, fighting to catch his breath. He paused as if he was looking for something. A mood perhaps.

  ‘Sean, come with me. Lionel, Mr Chalmer’s office.’

  ‘But I didn’t fucking do anything.’

  Lionel stepped forward, closing the gap between himself and his teacher, accentuating the difference in size. Mr Krane stared back impassively.

  ‘Well that’s clearly not correct is it?’

  ‘You saw.’

  ‘Yes Lionel, I saw.’ Mr Krane’s face was blank, as if this was all too stupid, too predictable, to waste his life on.

  ‘So a little fucking white guy’s never in the wrong?’ Lionel challenged.

  ‘You want to accuse me of racism, Lionel, feel free to lay a complaint.’

  ‘With who? The white principal?’

  Now at last there was a reaction from the teacher. Nothing much, just the smallest hint of a smile.

  ‘Yes, Lionel. Your life is the end product of a vast racist conspiracy. That is why you hit people. You are a victim. Please accept my sympathy. Now get to the deputy principal’s office.’

  Lionel thought about hitting him. Sophie saw the careful calculation in his eyes. The numbers fell and he reluctantly turned, ambling towards the door.

  ‘And don’t go anywhere else on the way!’

  Lionel raised a single finger in staunch salute. Mr Krane looked down at Sean’s beaten face.

  ‘And don’t you expect any sympathy either. What the hell were you thinking?’

  It was, Sophie realised, the stupidest of questions. You only had to take one look at the boy’s eyes, dull and empty, watch the rapid rising and falling of his chest, or see the flaring of his crusted nostrils, to know he hadn’t been thinking anything. Surely a biology teacher didn’t need to be told that. There had been rage and now, in a slow tide of realisation, there was shame. The victim stood gingerly in a drunkard’s daze, hunched over as if his stomach was contracting, pulling him forward. A thick line of blood stretched down from his nose, its slow motion descent breaking into three neat drops which splashed onto the carpet.

  ‘GET CLOSER,’ AMANDA instructed. ‘We need the anger.’

  In her mother’s album the activists always looked so relaxed, certain the world would tumble at nothing more than a gentle nudge and the strum of a guitar. Maybe it was the way the sun was always shining in the photographs, or her mother’s face, simultaneously eighteen and fifty at the centre of every frame, but it had all seemed so harmless.

  Today’s protesters were dressed for battle, coats pulled high against the cold of the southerly which had swept in as forecast to announce the onset of afternoon. The faces in the crowd were pulled small and grim, eyes too tight for optimism, bit actors playing their small but necessary roles in the war that never ends. No longer the adventurers setting out to conquer new lands; now the defenders left at home to guard the castle, to forever fight off the gathering hordes.

  ‘One, two, three, four.’ The chant emerged tinny from the megaphone and was treated with disdain by the ripping air. ‘We don’t need no racist bores! Two four six eight, ignorance must lead to hate.’

  There was a decent gathering; not large, but passionate. The number of students on their way from cafeteria to library who paused to watch, and puzzle over the more obscure placards (‘IQ for who?’ ‘You can’t measure shade’) made it hard to get an accurate fix on numbers. Fifty or so made up the hard core, Amanda estimated. They had been out here all morning, and were promising to do the same every day until the object of their rage, William Harding, Professor of Psychology, did the decent thing and resigned. His public pronouncements to date suggested that it would be a cold day in hell before such a thing happened, and right now the southerly was doing its best to oblige. Amanda was filming in the hope that she might later trap Richard into commenting. He had remained resolutely silent on the issue, which seemed to Amanda to be oddly out of character, and therefore a puzzle worth probing.

  ‘How much footage do you want?’ Greg asked her.

  ‘Can you pull back and up and get a focus on his office window?’

  ‘Which one’s his office?’

  ‘Just a window that looks as if it might be his will do.’

  ‘Hold on a sec.’

  Greg planted his feet wider and practised the move a couple of times before he was happy.

  ‘Okay, think I got it. Any faces you particularly want to …’

  He was interrupted by the sudden movement of the crowd. It was like watching a flock of birds in flight: impossible to say exactly where the lead came from. Suddenly, the mass was moving as one, swarming towards a door.

  ‘It’s him!’ The air was filled with boos and hisses. For a comical moment the protesters were deprived of the confrontation they longed for by the fact that they were now blocking the doorway through which the professor sought to emerge. It took a complicated series of Chinese whispers and clumsy backing up before the drama could resume.

  Amanda and Greg followed their instincts and skirted around the side, anticipating this would be the hounded academic’s escape route. Within a moment he was stopped in front of them, caught between the impassive lens and the baying crowd. For a representative of Lucifer, Professor Harding was disappointing. He wore a sensible, unsurprising brown jacket over a blue-buttoned shirt. What was left of his sandy hair was unkempt and easily tempted into dance by the wind. He was the sort of man it was easy to imagine standing in a park somewhere, smiling as he watched his children playing on the swings. He hesitated, as if too polite to simply push past the camera, and after running his hand through his kinetic hair, sighed and turned to face his accusers. Perhaps he was hoping they would give him an opportunity to speak.

  ‘Racist!’ cried one.

  ‘Bastard!’ another, before chants of SHAME, SHAME, SHAME drowned out the individual contributions.

  ‘Just let him through,’ Amanda shouted in Greg’s ear. Greg took a step back, but a short wide woman alert to the opportunity was too fast for them. She bounded up the single step marking the beginning of the quad’s amphitheatre and stood in the space vacated by the cameraman, effectively putting the shrinking professor on the stand.

  Sensing a new twist in their interactive drama, the protesters quietened, compressing from the back like a crowd at a rock concert. There was fear now, in Professor Harding’s eyes. Amanda felt something similar rising in her throat. She scanned about for sign of a security guard, a policeman, or even a grown-up. Someone who could stop this ending badly. There was only her and Greg.

  The spokesperson raised her hand and the last of the murmuring flattened out. Even still she had to shout to be heard above the wind.

  ‘Professor Harding, are you prepared to publicly apologise for and retract your statements made in the Journal of Psychology?’

  Amanda watched the faces in the crowd, their necks craning as they peered at this vision of evil.

  ‘Ah, well, I was just on the way to the library actually, I haven’t come prepared for a, ah, for this…’

  His voice was small and he looked to the ground as he spoke: whether a f
unction of circumstance or habit she couldn’t say.

  ‘We can’t hear you!’ someone shouted.

  Another added ‘racist!’ and laughter spread through the crowd.

  At this the professor raised his head again. Amanda caught a glimpse of tears in his eyes.

  ‘I am categorically not a racist.’ The hounded man raised his voice now, his reedy version of shouting betraying his emotion. ‘I have explained as carefully as I can that all I …’

  But they didn’t want to know. What good could knowledge possibly do, when they had such tightly drawn feeling to call upon?

  ‘APOLOGISE, APOLOGISE, APOLOGISE.’

  The professor, realising his mistake in attempting to engage, tried to continue on his way towards the library. This involved making his way around his inquisitor, who in turn attempted to block him by moving into his path. But the man was looking down, drawing the blinds on this ugly world, and the collision gave the woman the excuse she needed to stagger backwards, as if the contact had been deliberate.

  It was an older man with years in the business who provided the next spark. He grabbed at the professor’s collar, as if to pull him off, although it was clear no such restraint was necessary. In fact, so little resistance did he offer that he and his assailant were both thrown off balance, stumbling backwards over the low step and sprawling at the feet of the mob.

  And then the kicking started.

  To be fair to the crowd, some people even tried to pull back the worst offenders, but nevertheless the result was vicious. Blows to the back, the head, wherever a boot could be landed. The poor man crumpled, frail and defenceless. Amanda had no choice.

  ‘Get off him! Get back, you fucking animals! Get back!’

  She pushed her way forward, arms out, shoving at anything solid, screaming so hard she felt the tearing of her voice.

  They stopped suddenly, perhaps as shocked by their actions as Amanda was. She felt a knot forming in her too-dry throat, and her chest rising and falling as she gasped for air. Greg was standing beside her, his glare as furious as her own, the extra height making him all the more threatening. There was a moment then of absolute quiet; even the wind made a space for the descending shame. Amanda crouched and helped the poor man to his feet.