Daz 4 Zoe Read online

  Anyway she’s on about this bill and she must’ve spotted that I wasn’t paying attention and she stops droning and goes, ‘Why did the Dennison government introduce this bill, Zoe Askew?’

  ‘What bill, Miss?’ I asked. Well, she took me by surprise.

  ‘The bill I’ve been talking about for the last half hour while you’ve been gazing out the window.’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss.’

  You could tell she didn’t like it. She grew very still. Her cheeks went white and twitched a couple of times as she looked at me. I felt quite nervous. I thought she might flip and fling herself at me, screaming.

  She didn’t. Instead she started speaking, softly and very distinctly, moving her mouth in an exaggerated way like I was just learning to lip-read or something. ‘The Franchise (Income Qualification) Bill was introduced to correct an anomaly whereby those sections of the population which contributed least to society were able to exercise undue influence upon it through misuse of the vote.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you think you can remember that?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled like a shark. ‘Because when you go home this afternoon you will write it out forty-five times, word for word in your neatest hand – that’s one time for each minute you’ve wasted in my class today.’

  Some of the kids tittered and she froze them with her gorgon special. That’s a look she gives which damn near turns you to stone. She thought they were laughing at me but they weren’t. I knew why they were laughing. They were thinking, we’ve all wasted the forty-five minutes, Miss – that’s what your classes are – a waste of time, but of course nobody would say it. I was the only one dumb enough to talk back to old Moncrieff.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, is that it? Is that what you call trouble – a few stupid lines to write out?

  Well, no it isn’t. We haven’t got to the trouble yet. That’s coming up next, as they say on telly.

  DAZ

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  Dred gud, Subbys bad

  i rite this all down my maffs book.

  Mister James sez, you spose to be doing maffs.

  Wot’s a maff, i sez, so he frow me owt, nor I can’t go back no more.

  Subbys call it Chippy grad you ayshon.

  ZOE

  I did it. I wrote it out forty-five times in my neatest hand and it took all evening. It was a drag all right, but when Moncrieff tells you to do something it’s best to do it.

  I did it, and then I sat looking at it for a long time in the light from my desktop lamp. I’d filled thirteen sheets of paper. Thirteen, and I knew exactly what she’d do when I handed them to her because I’d seen her do it to other kids. She wouldn’t read them. She’d riffle through to make sure I hadn’t slipped in any blanks. If all the sheets were filled and the whole thing looked neat she’d tear it in half and dump it in her wastepaper basket. Three hours to produce, three seconds to dispose of. Part of the punishment, right? If she found sloppy work or blanks she’d have me do the whole thing again.

  Anyway, I sat looking at it, and then I pulled the last sheet towards me and scrawled ‘Brainwashing’ across the bottom. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that term. Brainwashing. I am, because Grandma uses it all the time. She says half of what’s on TV and in the papers is brainwashing, and she reckons a lot of what they teach us in school is brainwashing too. When I asked her what brainwashing is, she told me it’s repeating lies over and over till people come to believe them. She says Dad’s the most brainwashed person she ever met. I looked at what Moncrieff had made me write and I thought, this is brainwashing. What the Dennison government did was take the vote away from the Chippies, and what I’ve just written out forty-five times is the excuse they gave for doing it. Repeating lies over and over till –.

  Well, it hadn’t worked with Grandma, and it wasn’t going to work with me, and that’s why I wrote ‘Brainwashing’ across the last sheet. I’d like to claim I did it for old Moncrieff, but I didn’t. Like I said, she never reads kids’ lines, so I knew she’d never see it. It was a gesture, I guess. Just a gesture. Trouble is, Moncrieff chose that Tuesday morning to break the habit of a lifetime.

  DAZ

  Wen you fink abowt some 1 all the time and you cant see them its bad. Wen you got noffing els 2 do its worse. I got noffing els 2 do now.

  1 day i’m sitting in the flat finking as usual and i remember somfing this guy Clint shown me longtime back. Glint you basted you ded 2 years now and serve you rite. This Clint hes in Dred wiv our Del rite? Hes in Dred but i dont know why thay want him. Hes got a big mouf, Clint. Aster let peeple know wot hes doing all the time. Aster be a nero.

  Aniway its him wot gets our Del topped. Him and his big mouf. They done a job togevver see, only the nite before, this Clint he gets drunk and blabs and some 1 over ears him – lornorder mebbe, or a Subby. No 1 knows, but thay waiting and thay get our Del and Clint gets away, nor Del dont split on him neever. But after thay top him this Clint vanishes and no 1 ever sees him again. Evry 1 knows Dred fixt him but no 1 torking abowt it. Any 1 tork Dred biznis gotta be crazy, rite?

  Aniway this 1 time – i’m 11 i fink, Clint shown me how Dred get into Silverdale. That’s the sort of guy he was – hed show somfing like that to a littel kid. We’re way up in the norf part of the city seeing wot we can find, and he luck norf and smile and sez, Silverdale that way. i can go in ther anitime.

  o no you cant i sez. i know he got no seeit. No veeza. you cant get in Silverdale any more’n i can, i sez.

  o yes i can, he sez. Dred way, see?

  Wots that, i sez. Dred way?

  He shown me. Thers like this big lid rite? In the road. Big iron lid, and Clint he lift it up and thers a hoal wiv a ladder going down and he sez, see that? Thers a tunnel down there wot goes rite inter Silverdale. i dont beleeve him. if it goes inter Silverdale i sez, how come evry 1 dont go? How come guys cut the fence and the dazlers catch em and they get shot?

  he larfs. its not just 1 tunnel he sez. its lots of tunnels. You gotta know the way see, or you mite get lost. Wander in the dark til you die. Aniway he sez, any 1 else go in there, Dred top em.

  i remember this wot Clint shown me all those years back and i fink well im going frou, Dred or no Dred. When you gotta see some 1, you gotta see em.

  i start 2 make a plan.

  ZOE

  Tuesday morning, breaktime. I take my thirteen sheets along to the staffroom and knock. Moncrieff answers the door herself. She has this bright, enquiring look on her mug but when she sees who it is her features sort of shift around till she’s looking at me like I’m a dog turd.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lines, Miss.’ I hold out the wad.

  ‘Hmm.’ She takes them. I stand looking bored while she riffles through. I’m not going to flinch when she rips them up. I won’t even blink. I’ll keep this blank expression so she’ll know I don’t give a toss.

  ‘What’s this?’

  I focus my eyes. ‘Huh?’

  ‘This.’ She’s waving the thirteenth sheet in my face. ‘Brainwashing. What d’you mean by it, eh?’

  My heart gives a painful lurch and I swallow hard. For the first time in living memory she actually looks at a set of lines and it has to be mine. Act cool, Zoe kid – it’s your only chance. I frown at the paper like I’m seeing it for the first time and I say, ‘I dunno, Miss. I guess that must’ve been there before I wrote the lines.’

  She sneers.‘Do you expect me to believe that, Askew?’ Askew. It’s been Zoe ever since I’ve been at this school and now it’s Askew. This gets me mad. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. Like I said before, I’m not the sort of kid who gets in trouble at school. I don’t get mad at teachers, I get scared. I guess it must be all this other stuff that’s been building up witho
ut my realising it. Anyway, whatever it is I’m blazing mad and I hear myself say, ‘I don’t give a monkey’s what you think, Moncrieff.’

  It wasn’t me. That’s all I can say. It just wasn’t me. I won’t go into all the stuff that went down after I said what I said, but it ended with Moncrieff writing a note to my parents and me taking it home. I say ended, but of course it didn’t end there.

  DAZ

  i make this plan rite, and strait off i hit a snag. 2 snags.

  1. wot if she dont live in Silverdale.

  2. even if she does i dunno witch part.

  well i can get in Silverdale. i cant get in aniwear else. So. i go inter Silverdale and luck 4 her dont i? if she dont live ther 2 bad.

  witch part thogh? i dunno. fousands ov howses in Silverdale. cud be any ov them. and if i find it, wot do i do eh – nock on the door? O yeah i can just seeit. Hello mister Subby i come for your littel girl.

  O rite i’ll get her 4 you. wot you do wiv her by the way?

  O we run of togevver. liv in the city. you never see her again.

  O well thats alrite then.

  O.K. so i dont go 2 her howse. Shes yung rite? still at school, fousands ov howses. Not fowsands ov schools. So. i luck 4 schools not schools 4 tiny littel Subbys neever. schools 4 big kids. cant be many ov them in Silverdale. 2, if that many. maybe just 1. So i’m not just a pretty face am i?

  our mam says that.

  nex fing – time. see – i fink ov evryfing. No use getting ther and all the kids inside. so 2 chances

  1. get ther first – watch kids go in.

  2. end ov day – watch them leev. thats better cos not 2 long til dark.

  i’m riting this plan down. Mister James be prowd ov me.

  so here it is. i go frou the tunnel get in Silverdale near sundown. Pertend i got graft there. Find big kids school. hang abowt. if i see her grate. if not tuff.

  only 1 more fing – wen? Tonite? no. not enuff time. Gotta take it easy see. fink wot doodies 2 wear. wot 2 take wiv me. stuff like that. You rush inter fings. end up ded. Speshly in tunnels.

  ZOE

  ‘What’s come over her, Amanda, that’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘God only knows, Gerald. I’m sure I don’t.’

  This is my parents talking, right? Amanda and Gerald. They’re talking about me. I’m there, but they’re talking as if I’m not. It’s teatime. I’ve just delivered Moncrieff’s note and they’ve taken turns reading it. I’m the only one who doesn’t know what she’s put. Dad’s in the easy chair and Mum’s perched on the arm and I stand on the rug in front of them with my hands behind my back, looking at the floor and shifting my weight from one foot to the other. It’s embarrassing.

  ‘First she contradicts me to give us the benefit of her opinion on Chippies, then she mopes and sulks for weeks on end till we’re frantic with worry, and now this.’ He waves the note at me. ‘What’s going on Zoe, eh? What’s happening to you? D’you want to drive your mother and me crazy or what?’

  ‘May I read the note?’ I hold out my hand but he shakes his head and says, ‘Never mind the note. You know what prompted Miss Moncrieff to write it so you must have a fair idea what it says. Why did you scrawl “brainwashing” across the lines she gave you?’

  ‘Why did you have to write them in the first place?’ This from Mum. ‘What were you doing wrong, Zoe?’

  I shrugged. ‘She gave me lines for looking out the window.’ I considered telling about the misty sunlight and the spider webs and all but it would’ ve been a waste of breath. I said, ‘What she made me write is a lie.’

  Dad’s eyebrows went up. ‘Oh, really? What was it exactly?’

  I told him and he said ‘Who told you it was a lie? Who’s been talking to you, Zoe – your grandma?’ He’s got a thing about Grandma. Thinks she’s a bad influence. Once when he was real mad he called her a communist and that caused a fight between Mum and him.

  I shook my head. ‘Nobody talked to me, Dad. I thought it out. They took the vote away from the Chippies and they knew it was wrong so they made up an excuse and I had to write it out forty-five times and that’s brainwashing.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ He leaned forward in the chair. ‘Now listen here, young woman: I’ve had it just about up to here with your recent behaviour, and so has your mother. I don’t know what triggered it off, but whatever it was it stops – right here, right now.’ He stood up, thrusting the note in his pocket. ‘Tomorrow morning before your first class, you’ll apologise to Miss Moncrieff for having defaced the work she set you, and in the meantime you’ll write out those forty-five lines again, for me. And I don’t want to find any smart footnotes either. Is that clear?’

  It was, and I did it, and it took till nine thirty. I spent from then till about ten-thirty at my window, gazing south. It was raining. Finally I got into bed and lay thinking about how it’d be, apologizing to old Mon-crieff.

  Maybe I’ll kill myself instead.

  I didn’t kill myself or I wouldn’t be writing this, would I? Oh, I thought about it. I thought about it for quite a while that night: how I’d leave a note for my parents, forgiving them for their unjust treatment of me. When I failed to appear at breakfast Mum would call, and when I still didn’t show up she’d come to my room and there I’d be, pale and cold and very still, but smiling so sweetly that all who beheld me would be struck at once with a sense of my total blamelessness. And then they’d find the note on the bedside unit and read it and boy, would they be sorry. How they’d weep. How they’d wish it could be yesterday again so they could have another chance with me. They’d call me that poor, misunderstood lamb and all like that, but it’d be too late, wouldn’t it? I’d be gone, and all the sorrow and repentance in the world wouldn’t bring me back.

  And that’s the snag, right? Because I wouldn’t get to see any of this. I wouldn’t even know about it. I mean, it’d be fine and dandy if I was going to be sitting somewhere out of sight, looking on. Watching the devastation my simple act had wrought but I wouldn’t be, would I? Dead is dead, and there’s no satisfaction in revenge if you’re not around to enjoy it.

  So I stayed alive and apologized to Moncrieff. Oh, how could you, I hear you cry. How did you stand it – the humiliation and all?

  Well, I’ll tell you in a single word. Galileo.

  Let me explain.

  Galileo was the guy who invented the telescope, and when he’d invented it he used it to look at the moon and the stars and the planets and all that, and he made a startling discovery. He discovered that the earth didn’t stand still like people thought in those days, with the sun and moon and stars going round and round for our especial benefit. No. He saw that it was the earth that moved, round and round the sun. This was a very revolutionary discovery, and Galileo wrote it down so others could share his knowledge.

  And that was his big mistake, because the guys in charge back then didn’t like his discovery. They wanted everybody to go on believing that the earth was in the middle with everything else going round it. So they sent for Galileo and they said it’s not true, what you’re saying. It’s all lies. And Galileo said no it’s not, it’s true, and if you don’t believe me take a peek through my telescope.

  They wouldn’t do it, though. They didn’t want to know. They said, we want you to say you were mistaken. We want you to tell everybody that. In fact, we command you to. But Galileo shook his head and said, I can’t tell ’em that. I’m not mistaken – you are.

  And this is where they really got mad. They said, you don’t understand. Either you tell everybody you were wrong, or we burn you alive.

  Well, now that they’d explained it more clearly Galileo told everybody he’d made a mistake. He said his idea of the universe was wrong, but it was just words, right? He knew all the time he was right, only he said the words they wanted to hear so they wouldn’t burn him.

  And that’s how I apologised to old Moncrieff. I said some words to her so they wouldn’t kick me out of school, but I knew all the tim
e me and Grandma were right about brainwashing.

  Hang in there, Galileo. Way to go, man!

  DAZ

  Fursday afternoon i smuggel my stuff owt the flat wile our mam up the helf. She’s down wiv the dulleye as usual and gon for her scrip.

  i got these coveralls you gotta wear in Veezaville. Blue wiv a big yeller disc so they know yor a Chippy, i got the cap 2. Blue baseball cap. i gotta flashlite and a big ball ov twine.

  Cost me all my peanuts but i gotta do it, rite? i wisht i gotta seeit anall but they cost moren i got plus not easy to contact the deela.

  i know wot you finking. You finking wots he want wiv twine encha? Well, i tell you. 1 time up the school Mister James tel this story abowt sum guy wayback after go frou this maze. Maze is lots of tunnels like i after go frou. This guy scairt he get lost in this maze, plus its got this monster in it – this miner tour. So wot he does is he has his ball ov twine witch he lets it owt as he goes frou so he can foller it back and if he can i can, see?

  Aniway i get all this stuff in a plastic sac and i go norf and luck arownd til i find the lid in the road. 2 many people so i pertend i’m jus passing til thay gon. Then i lift the lid and luck in the hoal. Black hoal. i feel funny lucking down plus it stinks. Troof is, now i’m here i dont feal 2 good abowt going down, i tel myself i dont afta but then i fink ov her and here i go.