My Name Is Mina by David Almond Read Free Book Online Page B

ANSWER THIS, ANSWER THAT!
SOMETIMES CHILDREN MUST BE
LEFT ALONE TO BE STILL AND SILENT ,
AND TO DO
     
     

     

     
    EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
     
Write an empty page. This is quite easy. Now look closely at the emptiness. This is quite easy, too, and quite delightful .
     
     

 

Mooched about. Had chocolate milk and two biscuits.

     
    I know that some people do not like fig rolls – Sophie Smith, for instance. She was a girl at school that I sat next to for a while. She was almost as small as me. She had curly blond hair and blue eyes and she walked with a limp. I offered her a fig roll one breaktime.
    “No thank you,” she said. “I find them rather sickly.”
    “Sickly?” I said. “Rather sickly?”
    I couldn’t believe it.
    “You must be joking!” I said.
    “No,” answered Sophie. “I prefer Jammy Dodgers.”
    I had to admit I’d never tasted a Jammy Dodger.
    “What?” she said. “Never tasted a Jammy Dodger? Where on earth have you been all your life?”
    Next day she brought some Jammy Dodgers into school. She gave me one at break.
    “Well?” she said.
    “Delicious!” I said, so she gave me another.
    We were friends for a while, I suppose. We used to walk around the yard at breaktimes. One day I took a deep breath and said,
    “I know it’s nothing to do with me, but why do you limp?”
    “I had a disease when I was little,” she said. “It left a problem with my leg.”
    “That’s a shame.”
    “Does it worry you?” she said.
    “No,” I answered. “Of course it doesn’t.”
    We walked on.
    “I’ll have an operation to sort it out when I’m a bit older,” she said.
    “That’s good.”
    “It’ll mean some pain, but I think it’ll be worth it.”
    Then she looked at me and said,
    “Can I ask you something?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “Why are you so …?”
    She stopped.
    “So what?” I said.
    She shrugged.
    “So strange, I suppose,” she said.
    “Am I?”
    “Kind of. A bit kind of complicated.”
    I looked at the kids in the yard, running round together, hanging out together.
    “I don’t mean to be,” I said. I laughed. “Maybe I should have an operation to fix it.”
    She laughed as well.
    “Maybe you should. But what kind of operation would fix strangeness?” she said.
    “I have no idea,” I said.
    “A destrangification operation!” she said.
    We laughed together at the word.
    “Does it worry you?” I said.
    “No,” she said.
    She reached into her pocket and brought out a package wrapped in silver foil.
    “Have a Jammy Dodger,” she said.
    I grinned.
    “Delicious!”
    Sophie Smith. I wonder where she is now. In the same school? Has she moved away? Does she like fig rolls at last? Has she had her operation? Probably I’ll never find out. I did think I saw her passing by the end of the street one day, while I was sitting in my tree, but I wasn’t certain. I almost called out to her, but I didn’t. Would I like to see her again? Yes, I suppose I would.
    I would only ever whisper it, but I do sometimes think I will have to go back to school one day, and make some new friends. Sometimes I would quite like to go back. And I should also whisper that all of the teachers weren’t Mrs. Scullerys. Some were nice, and interesting, and creative. Like Mr. Henderson, who told us about the tunnels under Heston Park. And like some other teachers I had in the past. And there were nice kids like Sophie. Sometimes I find myself thinking that a school could be (could be!) a wonderful place. Sometimes I even find myself thinking that there already are schools that are wonderful places. But that makes no real difference. Schools are stillCAGES and PLACES TO BE AVOIDED!
    FIG ROLLS! WOW! I like to nibble the top of the biscuit off first, then chew away the lovely figgy stuff (it’s lovely slooched around inside the mouth with chocolate milk), then eat the bottom bit.
    Went up to the loo. Listened to the lovely tinkling sound of my pee splashing down into the water.