Lifesaving for Beginners

That’s what George Pullman called me last Wednesday when Miss Williams said I didn’t have to do the history homework on account of missing the first bit of the history lesson on account of being at Miss Appleby’s class. Damo arranged the fight in the yard. He dragged me over to George and started shouting, ‘FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!’ until there was a crowd around us, waiting for it to start. Damo always wants something to happen.
    Mrs Appleby asks a lot of questions about Mam. She calls her Mum. Mam would have hated that. I say everything is fine. Faith tells me to say everything is fine. ‘The last thing we need is the bloody social breathing down our necks.’
    I don’t know what the social is. I say, ‘Why don’t we need the social breathing down our necks?’
    She says, ‘Because if they think I’m doing a rubbish job, they won’t let me mind you, will they?’
    So I tell Mrs Appleby that everything is ‘fine’ when she asks how we’re managing.
    Everything is fine, mostly. Everything is the same, really. Except that I don’t go to the Funky Banana after school anymore. And I don’t know what dinner I’m going to have when I get home. And it’s nice having a surprise for your dinner. Like pizza. Faith loves pizza. And chips. And potato waffles. She puts a fried egg on the top to make them healthy.
    And there are never any apples in the bowl anymore. Mam says that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Maybe a potato waffle a day keeps the doctor away too because I haven’t been sick for ages.
    Mr Pilkington says, ‘I’ve called your sister. She should be—’
    I say, ‘No. No. Please, sir. I won’t do it again, I—’ Faith will kill me if she finds out I was in a fight. She won’t let me go to lifesaving class. I know she won’t. And we’re doing CPR. Only on dolls, but still.
    Mr Pilkington puts up his hand, like he’s stopping traffic. ‘It’s too late, McIntyre. I’ve already called her. I had no choice.’
    Adults always say they have no choice. I feel the stinging behind my eyes and my nose. I blink and blink. Sometimes that helps.
    The thing is, me and Damo never fight. Yeah, Damo gets into scraps. He doesn’t ignore people, like his mam tells him to. He fights them instead. Even if they’re in year eight. He doesn’t care. I mean, he’s big for his age but he’s not that big. I think that’s pretty brave. Faith says it’s just stupid.
    The fight happens in the classroom. Miss Williams goes to the staffroom to get our spelling tests. The last thing she says before she leaves is, ‘Stay in your chairs.’
    As soon as she’s gone, Damo gets out of his chair.
    He writes ‘I LUV SPURS’ on the whiteboard, even though Miss Williams will know it was him because he’s the only Tottenham Hotspur fan in the class.
    Then he puts his hands in his pockets and wanders down to my desk, near the back of the class.
    I say, ‘Miss Williams will be back in a minute.’
    Damo says, ‘Look at this.’ He takes something out of his pocket and puts it on my English copybook, on the table.
    I say, ‘Is that the scab?’
    Damo nods. ‘I’m keeping it to show Sully.’ Sully is in Afghanistan. He’s at the war there, because that’s where Osama Bin Laden was from. He’s dead now but Sully is still there. I think there are other people he has to kill before he can come home.
    Damo says, ‘Do you want to touch it?’
    I say, ‘OK.’ It feels hard and rough and it’s the colour of dried-up blood. Damo got it when he skateboarded down the hill at the end of our road with his eyes blindfolded. He asked me to dare him to do it and I wouldn’t but he did it anyway.
    Damo says, ‘Do you want to come over after school? I found a magazine in Sully’s wardrobe. It’s got pictures of girls with no clothes on.’
    I shake my head. ‘I can’t. Faith says I have to go straight home today. She wants me to tidy my room.’ That’s not actually true. Faith never says anything about my room. But she didn’t go to college today. And Rob is in London. And she hasn’t played her violin in ages.
    Damo says, ‘You don’t have to go home if you don’t want to. She’s not your sister anymore.’
    ‘She is so my sister.’
    ‘No she’s not. You said she was adopted. That means she’s not your sister so you don’t have to do what she tells you.’ Damo puts his scab back into his pocket, careful not to break it. ‘You’re lucky,’ he says. ‘You don’t have a mum to nag you, and