Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

early because the woodwork teacher was sick, and we were supposed to have had an extra hour in that class at the end of the day. I was relieved.
    As usual, I hurried to my locker before anybody else, got out my backpack, and then was the first to leave the school building. I headed straight for the bicycle racks and unlocked my bike. To my horror, I noticed that I’d forgotten my English textbook. I needed to take it home with me since we had a test the following day. Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was go back inside.
    When I reached the break room where our lockers were located, Steffe and Biffen were both there. They were talking to some girls from another class. Everybody turned to look at me. I avoided their eyes and went over to my locker, fumbling with the keys. To my dismay, I dropped the key ring, which clanged as it hit the floor. In a flash, Steffe dashed over and grabbed it. He waved the keys in the air. Clinking and clanking. ‘Come and get it, if you can.’ He grinned wickedly, and the thick wad of snuff that he’d shoved under his lip made black streaks in the spaces between his teeth.
    Scattered laughter from the others, along with remarks about the ‘little guy’, and ‘that wimp’. My cheeks were flushed and my ears burned. Normally they paid no attention to me, didn’t even give me a thought . And that’s what I preferred. My mouth was dry and I couldn’t manage to utter a single word. Just waited. The keys swung back and forth, right in front of my face, but just out of reach. I raised my hand, tried to grab them. Steffe, who was two heads taller than me, took a few steps back. He began circling around me. ‘Come on, come on.’ The others drew closer, forming a tight circle. I needed those keys. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a teacher in the corridor. But he merely rushed past.
    Steffe held the keys above my head. The clinking sound echoed in the room as he swung them back and forth. My body felt as heavy as lead as I clumsily made several more fruitless attempts to grab the key ring. The girls giggled. ‘Did you see his ears? They look like stupid wingnuts.’
    Swoosh. The key ring sailed past and disappeared behind me to land in a wastepaper basket. ‘Go get it, you worm. You worthless little vermin.’ I ran over and found the key ring lying in the middle of a soggy mess of banana peels, wads of snuff and old chewing gum. I reached down to pull it out.
    At that moment Biffen and Steffe were on top of me, pressing my head down. The edge of the metal container cut into my throat as they forced my head into the rubbish, and the smell of rotting food filled my nostrils. I tried to turn my head but I couldn’t budge even an inch. I was locked into position as if held in a vice. I panicked. It was impossible to breathe. ‘What a bloody retard you are.’
    I heard the girls’ voices behind me. ‘Stop it, let him go. Take your sodding keys and run home to Mamma. Just don’t pee your pants.’ One last shove before they released their grip. ‘You fucking weirdo.’
    My legs were shaking as I cycled home. I refused to cry. I was never going back there. I’d kill myself first. A big lorry rumbled past on the wide road. For a few seconds I considered pulling in front of it, right in the middle of the street. Anything to avoid going back to school. To escape all that shit. And my worthless life.
    When I parked my bike round the back and opened the door, I immediately heard the sobbing. I went into the living room, and there she sat. In a corner, with her legs pulled up, weeping.
    ‘What’s wrong, Mamma?’ I asked. ‘Did something bad happen?’
    I knew perfectly well what her answer would be. Nothing ever happened. She just cried all the time. She was always finding new things to cry about, new problems. A fuse might blow, she might drop a glass on the floor, or the car could refuse to start. It might be because a bill was more than she’d expected, or because she’d burnt the dinner, or because she had lost her keys. There were endless annoyances every day. And they all represented a catastrophe. Nothing was allowed to go wrong.
    I’d lived with her sobs all my life. I felt like a container filled with her tears. I was aware of them sloshing around inside me from the moment I got out of bed in the morning. I had no idea what I was going to do when they overflowed one day.
    ‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘I’m just sad.’
    A lump formed in my stomach; the black curtain