As time went by, our suspicions were only confirmed

As time went by, our suspicions were only confirmed. She wasn’t exceptionally clever, but she was up to the same standards as everyone else in most lessons, excelling only at English. She seemed to know every poem, every story ever written, every quote ever said, and she talked poets and authors like most girls talk designer labels and male film stars. It was unnatural, but she became the girl everyone wanted to sit beside in English. She was ignored or taunted in every other lesson, and at Break and Lunch, but in English, she was everyone’s new best friend, and she just accepted it, like she was used to it. I sat with her a couple of times, during a course of lessons we had on war poetry, and she didn’t even use the little book of poems we were given-I’ll swear she knew them all by heart!

Our English teacher was another one of those you just don’t quite dare mess with, particularly if, like me, you’re actually fairly good at English and want to do well, so when she told us we had to do a project in pairs, everyone started planning right away. It wasn’t until the end of the lesson she explained it fully.

“It’s a project on war poetry, you need to talk about your three favourites in great detail, explain why they’re your favourites, what they’re about, background about the authors. You’ll be working in pairs-with the people you’re sat next to.”

Noooo! She couldn’t do that to me, I had a reputation to think of! I could have cried then and there, but that too would have ruined my reputation, so I just glared mutinously at her.

“Nobody better come to me with ‘partner problems’. If you don’t like the one you’re with, you shouldn’t have sat next to them.” She was looking straight at me as she said that, I’ll swear it. I wondered if I could get Emelda to do it, and just add my name. Was there any way I could get away with that?

We had weeks to get it done, but from what she said, she was expecting a novel on war poetry! I had football training every Tuesday, rugby on a Wednesday, and I went to my dad’s every Thursday. Our only options, if we wanted to do this at school, were Monday and Friday. There was no way I was hanging out with Freaky Jones at the weekend, and I made that perfectly clear that afternoon.

“It’s Kid’s Club on a Monday, they do their homework after school in the computer rooms, so that’s tonight out the window.” Emelda reminded me.

“I’m busy this Friday, though! Going cinema with my mates!” I complained.

“Well, you can either cancel, or we’ll have to do it tonight, at one of our houses. Or fall behind in our schedule of one night a week and leave it until the last minute.”

“I can’t cancel.” I stated.

“I won’t fall behind. Your place or mine?” She asked, matter-of-factly.

“I can’t go back to mine...” I struggled to think of an excuse. “Parents...”

“You don’t want people to see.” She finished for me, and I grinned sheepishly, almost apologetically.

“Y’know.” I told her, and she nodded.

“Only too well. Follow me.” And she led the way to her house. We walked in silence, and it was the longest five minutes or so of my life, as I looked over my shoulder every few seconds, terrified that someone would see us, and my reputation would be ruined forever. Her house, when we finally arrived, was quite big, with a fairly neat front garden-the kind with insanely bright, mismatched flowerbeds. She let us in, and a wave of noise broke over me. I would have noticed more, but, as I stepped into the hall, I noticed a huge spider sitting on the wall. Seriously, it was the biggest I’ve ever seen that wasn’t behind a sheet of glass at a zoo.

“You all right?” She asked, noticing the look on my face. Following my gaze, she let out a merry little laugh. “I see you’ve met Sid.”

“You, uh, name your spiders?” I asked, trying not to sound scared. I remember thinking that maybe, like horses, spiders can smell your fear. I was sure that, had I got any closer to ‘Sid’, I’d have seen a malicious little grin on his face.

“Yeah, why not. Everything should have a name, shouldn’t it?”

“Um, sure. Even spiders. Why not?”

“What’s the matter with that?” It wasn’t a challenge, she genuinely wanted to know.

“Nothing.” I didn’t take my eyes off of ‘Sid’.

“Are you afraid of spiders, Kyle?” She asked, again, not judging, just asking.

“Spiders, I can handle. That’s a monster.”

“What?” She laughed, but not at me.

“Have you seen the size of it?” I was getting annoyed-she was a girl! She should be on a chair screaming by now!

“He’s tiny.” She said. “Big, as spiders go, I guess, but what harm could he do you?”

None, I knew, it was just a house spider, but I didn’t like to admit it, so I just shrugged.

“You should hold him.” She commented, and I laughed.

“No, I’m good. I should keep as far away from your ‘Sid’ as possible.” I warned, and she nodded.

“Point taken. I’ll say ‘hi’ quickly-you don’t have to come.” She let me know, but I followed her through into the living room regardless-anything to avoid being left alone with Sid.

“Hi everyone, this is Kyle.” She introduced me, and the seemingly thousands of people in the fair-sized room babbled a variety of ‘hellos’. I just nodded.

“Kyle, these are siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbours, grandparents and friends of all aforementioned parties.” I nodded again, and she laughed.

“Do you want a drink?” She asked me, and I shook my head.

“Food?” I shook my head again.

“Spider?” I saw in time that she was teasing, and laughed.

“I told you, spiders I don’t mind. That’s not a spider.”

“Ok, I’ll find you a spider.” She moved as if to head toward the back door, but I caught her arm.

“That’s really okay. Come on, let’s get some work done for today.” It was weird, being in her house. Seeing her in her natural habitat, as it were, she just seemed to fit. It was easier to accept her, and understand her, seeing where she came from. She was all right, really, I decided. In my head, of course. There was too much at stake for me ever to say that aloud.

We got quite a lot done, given that we were interrupted a few times, by cats, dogs, children and a confused looking old man who seemed to think he was in a prisoner of war camp. She didn’t know half of the people and animals who came in, they were neighbours pets, or friends of her siblings. Eventually, I had to ask.

“Where are your parents?”

“Work. My Dad’s a painter/decorator, and my Mum’s a poet-she’s giving a load of lectures and stuff at the moment, and I think she’s in London today.”

“How many of these people actually live here?”

“Why?”

“Just making conversation.” I said, and she looked at me sideways, as if she didn’t quite believe me. I didn’t know why I was asking; because I wanted to know, I suppose.

“My Granddad, my Nan, Mum, Dad, me and my brothers and sisters.”

“What are their names?”

“What, so you can tell Charlotte?” Even now, she wasn’t confronting me. There was never any challenge in her tone, just interest.

“Why can’t she know?”

“Why should she know?”

I didn’t know why. It wasn’t her business, but why all the secrecy?

“I just don’t want to tell, that’s really all. It’s giving away too much of my private life to people I’ll never see again.”

“So why does it matter if they know?” I asked, and she smiled at me.

“Oh, you’re good. I suppose it doesn’t, I just don’t think anything about anyone else, even something as small as a name, is mine to give away.”

“So I’ll ask them.”

“You do that.” She smiled, satisfied that she’d made her point.

By the end of the day, I’d found out the names of two sisters and one cousin. The girls were called Rosalie and Kierra, and the cousin, who was a boy, was called Zeric. Oh, and we got about three pages typed, between all the talking.

“Why have your family all got such strange names?” I asked, with all my usual tact.

“Because we’re strange.” She answered, proudly, and I nodded in agreement before I could stop myself.

“Is that a bad thing?” She asked, and I shrugged, not wanting to antagonise her-partly through the fear of Sid, and knowing that she wouldn’t hesitate to pick him up. It was a bad thing, in our society. It was all right to be different, but only if you were the kind of different that was accepted, and she definitely wasn’t.

“I know,” She grinned, looking at me sideways. “I know you can only be different enough to still be normal. I’m too different.”

I didn’t say anything-it seemed rude to agree, but I couldn’t argue. She smiled knowingly. “That’s okay-you go on thinking like that. Why shouldn’t you?”

“Thinking like what?” I bristled at her tone. It wasn’t patronising, as such, but that’s the closest word I can think of to describe it. She sounded like she was humouring me, the way she’d spoken to the old man who’d burst in declaring an escape attempt from his PoW camp.

“Like everyone. You’re the same as them.”

“I’m not-I’m only me.”

“You’re the ‘you’ that society has created, and that society accepts. You think you’re the ringleader, you think they copy you, but if you changed too radically, they’d find a new poor sap to idolise.” She stated this so matter-of-factly that I realised she must have been thinking it for years. She must have come across the same situation we were in now, the only difference being that the part of the ‘poor sap’ was played by somebody different, depending on where she ended up.

“I’m a poor sap, am I? I’m the ‘me’ that I want to be, I don’t care what anyone else thinks!”

“How can you be so blind?” She shook her head. “They accept you because you try to be accepted, they make you think you’re in charge, and you fall for it!”

“Blind!” I don’t know how to argue with that. “I am in charge-if I changed, they’d change to copy me! They accept me because...I don’t know, because they like me...” I faltered.

“And they like you because you fit in, and you fit in because you try.” She finished for me.

“I don’t! They try to fit in with me!”

“You all try to fit in with how you’re supposed to be, according to society, and each other. You care too much what people think to be yourself-the person you really are.”

“I am the person I really am! I don’t care what they think!”

“Lies! If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be so fake all the time. You act up to fit in, most people do it, until, eventually, there’s nothing of their original personality left!”

“I’m not fake! I’ve got to go, before it hits tomorrow.”

That was kind of awkward, and I made to go, because I didn’t know how to say goodbye to her, without being cruel, but, equally importantly, without letting on that I’d actually had a good time.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry, I won’t talk to you. I know how important image is to you.” She said, and I shot her an indignant look, but I couldn’t argue. She was right.

“Yeah, thanks.” I said, and headed quickly down the stairs, keeping as far from ‘Sid’ as I could.

“Do you want a lift?” She asked, before I headed out.

“No, thanks, I...”

“Better not.” She finished for me, and I nodded.

“Yeah, something like that.”

As I walked home, I found myself hearing her words again. I didn’t care what people thought, I didn’t try to fit in, it just happened. And I was totally, one hundred percent, myself.

Wasn’t I?