LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

didn’t I say something in the clothes shop? Suddenly, the new rule about Sports Day PE kit is that everyone has to wear white socks. It fell to Trudy to take me to the shop in Coningsby. It’s the kind of place where you ask for something and then the shop assistant turns to one of the ten thousand little drawers behind her and hands over the right thing.

      Except this is not the right thing. I look up sceptically as the socks are passed across the counter. They’re certainly white but . . . something is wrong. I’ve seen white socks before. They tended to rise no higher than the beginning of your shin and feature a couple of stripes at the top, like the ones John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors might wear. These are different: they are long and they are patterned. And not just a pattern that is somehow drawn on – no, they are made of pattern. If you hold one up to the light, there is as much hole as sock. These are . . . these are girls’ socks. The shop assistant tells Trudy the price and there’s a moment I’ve witnessed before when Trudy registers this as roughly three times the money she was expecting to pay. She rummages in her huge red purse with a polite smile and panicking fingers.

      So it seems rude to moan to Tru about this. Instead, I wait until Mum and Tru have had the usual battle – the one where Mum tries to give Tru money for what she’s spent on me and Tru refuses to accept – and then with Trudy safely in Derek’s car, being taken back to the Golf Club, I whine at Mum for about half an hour. She tries several tacks but eventually says, ‘Oh for crying out loud, Robert, it doesn’t matter whether they’re girls’ socks or boys’ socks! Socks are socks!’

      I’ve never heard such an outrageous lie in all my born days. I can see from her irritation that she regrets not getting the socks herself. Yes, she knows perfectly well that Auntie Trudy has fucked up. Fucked up big-time. Who on earth is she trying to kid? She might as well send me onto that playing field in a bloody tutu.

      My plan is to run so fast that no one will notice the socks because my legs will be a blur of light. But this is not much of a plan. The whole school is already changed for Sports Day and I do some experimental running around the playground, trying to casually glance down at my legs in the hope that they have basically disappeared. But no, the socks remain, bulging like Day-Glo bagels now that I’ve rolled them down to my ankles. And anyway, it’s already too late. It’s not the parents lining the track on the playing field that will be the problem; it’s the other kids in the playground right now.

      Especially the boys. The ones who love football. There they are, every Games lesson, lining up with their hands on their hips, listening to the Games teacher while frowning very seriously at the ground and spitting. They’re practising for the future when they’ll adopt the same pose when surveying the meat counter in a supermarket. Spitting is no longer required, but hands remain on hips and the new action is to walk backwards into a passing woman.

      Matthew Tellis in particular is being a dick. I don’t like Tellis anyway – he cheats at marbles. ‘Look at Robert! Good socks, Robert! Ha-ha Haha-ha! My name’s Robert and I’m a girl!’ Some other boys are starting to circle. This is bad.

      ‘Shurrup, Tellis, y’wassock,’ says Roger, ‘it’s not his fault, it’s his auntie!’ Some of the others mutter ‘auntie’ and quietly scoff. But as ever, I’m emboldened by the intervention of a male with a leading part. Tellis doesn’t enjoy being chastised by Roger, and while he’s still recovering I go in for the kill. ‘Maybe they’d look better if my legs were covered in shit, Matthew.’

      Roger explodes with laughter, as do the other boys. I’ve just referred to an incident which Matthew Tellis will never live down. A couple of weeks ago, he put his hand up and asked to go the toilet. Our teacher, Mrs Benson, must have been having a bad morning because her impatient response was, ‘If you’re not back by the time I’ve counted to twenty, you’re in big trouble.’

      This turned out to be an unwise threat. Because Matthew, being an obedient boy, started his own countdown. He ran to the loo, pulled his pants down, pushed out half a turd, and then, knowing that he was running out of time, pulled his pants back up and returned to the classroom. The stink was enough to make James Ryan, who was sitting next to Matthew, throw up in a cloakroom. Mrs Benson, however, was not one to admit a mistake on this scale. It was time for PE.

      Have you ever seen a nine-year-old boy who’s just shat himself doing star jumps in a white PE kit?

      I have.

      Poor, blameless Matthew had been getting away with it until now. It’s fragile, and you wouldn’t want to found a major religion on it, but there is a level of honour among schoolboys. There are some places we know we just shouldn’t go.

      Unless, that is, one of us is cornered and has just been called a girl. Then all bets are off.

      Tellis is doing his best to laugh off the shit comment, but he’s still looking at my socks and trying to think of something to come back with. Oh no you don’t.

      ‘I’ll not take clothes advice from Mr Shittylegs!’ I almost shout. I’m annoyed with myself because I think ‘fashion advice’ would have been better than ‘clothes advice’, but it won’t matter. The business end of the insult is obviously ‘Mr Shittylegs’ and that will do nicely. Tellis begins to stalk towards me and the look in his eyes isn’t so much one of anger as of fear. He knows that, as humiliating nicknames go, ‘Mr Shittylegs’ has the potential to – well, stick. I mean, it has legs. I mean, it could run and run. Oh dear. Sorry, everyone. And especially sorry, Matthew Tellis.

      Roger is still laughing as he steps in front of me and blocks Matthew’s advance. The others are hooting and falling around, yelling ‘Mr Shittylegs’. Michael Key starts jogging on the spot, lifting his knees as high as he can and blowing a short, loud raspberry every time his feet hit the ground. ‘Pwpbpbpb . . . Pwpbpbpb . . .’ This is getting out of control – someone else thinks it’s time for a song: ‘Oh, they call me Mr Shittylegs. They call me Mr Shittylegs. Yes, they call me Mr Shittylegs. Coz my legs are covered in shiiiiiiiiit!’

      Rather magnificently, Tellis just says ‘Yeah, yeah . . .’ and drifts away with a kind of resigned ennui, as if Magnum has just tolerated a group of kids taking the piss out of his moustache. He’ll be back.

      I’m exhilarated. But now there’s a new problem. Lisa Proctor has been watching. Lisa used to sit next to me in class in our first year at this school, and although I made an outward show of discomfort, theatrically pushing her pencil case back to her if it strayed a millimetre onto my half of the desk, for example (you can’t be too careful about ‘girl fleas’), the truth was that I liked Lisa. In fact, when I thought no one was looking, Lisa and I got on really well.

      She approaches and speaks to me in worryingly measured tones. ‘That wasn’t very nice, Robert. That wasn’t very nice at all. I didn’t think you were like the others, but you are, aren’t you?’

      I don’t have anything to say.

      ‘You’re just like the others.’ The boys standing around do some obligatory snorting and eye-rolling. Lisa walks off with her friend Cathy.

      I want to tell her that this was self-defence, that Tellis started it. And that, no, I’m not ‘just like the others’. Because the one thing I hate hearing more than ‘You’re not like the others’ is ‘You’re just like the others’. Confusingly, the others don’t seem to think that they’re the others either.

      Guys, hands up who are ‘the others’? None of us are the others. Except for when we are. But that – please understand – that’s only because of the others. We’re the nice ones, you see. The problem is those others.

      Anyway, I think to myself, it’s all very well for Lisa. What would happen if she had to wear boys’ socks? Nothing. At worst, she might get called a ‘tom-boy’. Big deal. Compared to being a girl that’s a promotion.

      One of the more alarming novelties of junior school was the presence of male teachers. This included the Headmaster, Mr Morgan, a bald, strong-looking man with stern glasses. In the first assembly, he welcomed us new arrivals with an avuncular smile but then quickly stiffened up when

Скачать книгу