AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They are both smiling at her; both appear to be lingering a little.
‘Did you want to ask me something?’ she says.
‘There’s mine,’ Sean interrupts. ‘I wrote three.’
Perhaps seeing Samantha can’t talk, Aisha raises a hand and she and Jenny slope away.
But Sean has not moved. His anorak is still zipped up to the top as it has been all class.
‘I’ve got to go into Kingston now,’ he tells her. ‘Do you know the Games Workshop?’
‘Can’t say I do, Sean,’ she says, walking towards the classroom door and holding it open for him.
‘It’s behind the Bentall Centre and Marks & Spencer, next to the art shop. I need a new crystal fortress for my blood angels.’
‘Well, I hope you find one.’ Looking at him, she wonders if he’s lonely. She fights the urge to ask if he’d like a cup of coffee, some company just for half an hour – wouldn’t hurt her to give him that, would it? But she has to get back for the baby. Instead, she gives him a warm smile, walks with him down the length of the corridor to the outer door and waves him off. ‘See you next week! Hope you find your blood angels!’
‘I’ve got the blood angels,’ he replies. ‘It’s the fortress I’m going for.’
‘Of course. Well, I hope you find your fortress.’
He gives a shy grin, the merest hint of a raised hand, and turns to go.
She watches him a moment. The hems of his jeans trail on the floor. They are frayed and darker at the bottom where they have absorbed rainwater from the pavement. He is a fragile soul, she thinks, not quite tethered to the earth. She hopes that the world has some kindness to offer him as he goes along his way. With a pinch in her heart, she returns to her desk.
At the sight of the small pile of paper, her heart beats faster, harder than it should. Ridiculous. She is ridiculous. Last week, someone pulled a silly prank that this week they didn’t want to own up to. They will have been too embarrassed. It is ridiculous to let it bother her so much.
But still.
She picks up the pile, torn between the desire to count the poems and the urge to drop the whole lot in the bin unread; to read them all here, now, or to save them until she gets home to safety. She stands by her desk and looks at the top one – Sean’s.
The last man on earth was called Sean.
Into a brave new world he was born.
There are two more limericks on the sheet, which look like variations on Sean’s favourite theme. She exhales, lifts the page. The second one is Daphne’s. So that would mean Sean has left only one sheet. Or would it? He may have slid a second, anonymous one underneath while she was talking to Aisha and Jenny. God, this is horrible, thinking badly of Sean, poor man. She reads Daphne’s offering.
There was a young girl name of Sue
Who needed help tying her shoe.
She called a kind man
Who could dance the cancan
And whose high-kicks made her go woo-woo.
Despite herself, she smiles. Emboldened, she peels the corners of the sheets one by one, like banknotes. One, two, three …
There are eight.
‘Fuck,’ she whispers into the silent room. ‘Fuck.’
She should not have walked Sean to the outer door. She left the classroom open, the pile of homework on the desk, not to mention her bag, her phone. Idiot. Anyone could have slipped an extra sheet in; it would have taken seconds. Idiot, idiot, idiot. She checks the names. Most have been typed up; some sheets have one verse, some have a few attempts. The typed verses are printed on blank paper. The two handwritten ones, from Daphne and Tommy, are on lined paper pulled from a jotter.
One, typed on a blank sheet, is anonymous.
There was a young girl, easy led,
