The Accidental by Ali Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

even now. All the people who got the email, all the people who read the paper, Magnus knows more than them all. Anton knows. Jake Strothers knows. Nobody will know Magnus is anything to do with them. They are known as bad. He is known as good. They met at the side gate as if by chance they were just walking along at the same pace going home from school. Anton was looking at the ground as he walked. He said nobody was to know, nobody was to say. They all agreed, they nodded without saying anything, no one would know. But Magnus knows. He is all swollen up with knowing.
    He did it.
    They did it.
    Then she did it.
    She killed herself
    Magnus shakes his head hard inside the duvet. He says the words to himself again. She. Killed. Herself. Nothing. Words are pointless. They mean nothing. They don’t do anything. He pulls the duvet off his head. He is still in this room. They are on holiday in Norfolk. Is it dark yet? Doesn’t matter. Catherine Masson. He says her name to himself. Catherine Masson Catherine Masson Catherine Masson. Doesn’t matter doesn’t matter doesn’t matter. She was happy, generous, well loved. Her friends loved her. He puts his head inside the duvet again. She was bright. She was polite. She went to the Lapidary Society. At the Lapidary Society they polish stones to make things, like jewellery or cufflinks. She would have kept the things she made on her dressing table in her bedroom. There she is, at a computer, in her bedroom. It is a girl’s neat bedroom. It has posters of singers, pictures of tv personalities, cut-out pictures of horses, baby animals, tigers, polar bears. It is the moment she opens an email saying it is from Michael Jackson. She clicks on it. She stares at the screen. Ah. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. He passed her one time in the corridor. He is not even sure it was actually her. She was just a girl. She was in a bunch of loud laughing girls. They were terrifying. They were going to French. They were eating crisps, jostling each other through the classroom door. They were shouting about how stupid the French word for tyres was.
Les pneus
. Was it her? If that girl was her then they passed within about half a metre of each other but they didn’t know. She didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know it either, who he was. She is lucky. She is dead. She can’t feel anything. He can’t feel anything either. But he isn’t dead. After, the rumour went round the school. A girl from Deans had killed herself in the bathroom in her house. Her mother or her brother had found her. He heard the rumour in Maths. Charlie wants to add an extension with a floor area of 18 metres squared to the back of his house. He wants to use the minimum possible number of bricks, so he wants to know the smallest perimeter he can use. Write down an expression for the area in terms of x, y. Calculus is the mathematics of taking limits, especially with reference to rates of change. There was nearly a war over who discovered it first, whether it was Leibniz or Newton. Leibniz invented the = sign. Maths = finding the simple in the complex, the finite in the infinite. He sits on the carpet, holds his feet. It was a Tuesday. The whisper said she hung herself. Sarah walks with her brother Steven from home to school every day. One day they time themselves. When Steven gets to school he says: it takes me 6 mins 8 seconds. When Sarah gets to school she says: it takes me 6 to 7 minutes. Whose answer is more likely to be true? Hologram Boy, who was going to University, squeaked inside his head that hanged was more correct than hung. Correction. There is no University. University is not more likely to be true. University is laughable. Calculus is laughable. Everything is a joke. Even the days of the week are laughable. It was a Tuesday when he heard it. If, that other first Tuesday, he just hadn’t been in the common room after school. If he hadn’t known so much. If he had just not. If they hadn’t. Then they