The Returners by Gemma Malley Read Free Book Online Page B

feel angry. It’s my head: it hurts. It’s making me bad-tempered.
    The teacher is staring at me. ‘Yes, Hodge. It did. It very nearly worked.’
    I nod curtly. She’s looking at me strangely; she’s not used to me contributing. Nor am I. I don’t even know why I said that. I look back at my book. My head is giving me some serious pain. Dehydration maybe. I put my hand to my forehead; I think I can feel it throbbing. I grit my teeth.
    ‘But luckily it didn’t,’ she continues. ‘Luckily we defeated them.’
    My head is killing me. I am suddenly full of rage. The teacher is stupid. Ignorant. I dislike her. I despise her.
    ‘OK then,’ the teacher is saying. I hear her, but it is like an out-of-body experience. My pain is all I can comprehend. ‘Well, that’s a start anyway. We’re going to be studying this period of history for the next few weeks, and by the end I’ll expect you to know every battle, every strategic alliance and the ramifications of these alliances. We’ll be looking at the rise of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, the involvement of Russia, of Poland . . .’
    I feel like someone’s got a red-hot poker and is sticking it right between my eyes. I put my head on my desk.
    ‘Hodge? Hodge, are you all right?’ I should look up, tell her I’m OK, but I don’t feel OK. I don’t feel at all OK. I want to thrash out.
    I focus, force myself to box the emotion safely away. Then I slowly, painfully lift my head off my hands. Open my eyes. The lights are so bright. I can see Claire looking at me, worried, curious. I hold her eye for a few seconds. I look away first.
    ‘I need some water,’ I tell the teacher.
    She looks at me suspiciously, then nods. I can feel my face is hot, red. A trickle of sweat is making its way down the back of my neck. When I stand up, I realise my shirt is sticking to my back. I pull on my blazer to hide it. I look down at the ground; I need to get out of the classroom as quickly as I can. I run to the boys’ toilets, splash my face. Then I walk back down the corridor, pausing at the vending machine to buy myself a can of Coke. I press it to my cheek first, cooling myself. I open it, drink it in one. The effervescence, the sugar-hit, the cold, all at once, make an intoxicating cocktail. I feel better immediately. Not completely normal, but the headache is receding. I can think again. The sweating has stopped.
    I lean back against the vending machine, trying to make sense of everything, trying to work out what just happened.
    I breathe in and out slowly. My mind feels like it has exploded and is now gradually coming back together, bit by bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Calmer. The pain has gone. I’m not angry now. I don’t know why I was angry. I can’t remember. Nothing seems to makes sense. The pieces swim together. I don’t know if they are in the right place – it doesn’t seem important.
    Things don’t make sense, but that doesn’t really surprise me. Life doesn’t make any sense. If it did, Mum wouldn’t be dead, there wouldn’t be people starving in Africa.
    None of it’s rational. None of it strikes you as something well thought out, organised, put together. It’s all just a mess. All just a mass of confusion.
    The trick is to accept it, to watch and learn, like the man in the film. Don’t give anything away, just in case. Keep your cards close to your chest.
    I decide I’ve had enough school for today. I slope off down the corridor and out into the fresh air.

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    CHAPTER SIX
    I start towards the river then change my mind and head into town. It’s always a bit of a gamble choosing where to go when you bunk off. There are fewer people by the river but it’s easier to blend in on the high street; I’m less likely to get accosted by someone asking why I’m not at school. The uniform doesn’t help. If someone stops me, I usually say I’m researching an Ordnance Survey map for geography. I don’t think I’ve ever convinced anyone but they don’t know how