Artichoke Hearts (2 page)

What is it about me they can detect, even through the armour of this uniform? I’ve never been able to get a comb through my hair, more frizz than curls – that probably doesn’t
help. Girls are supposed to have silken locks, aren’t they? All
I
want to do is work on the farm, feed the pigs, climb trees or just stand on the open moorland catching the force of
the weather and never wear this stupid skirt, never ever again. Instead, I’m trapped neatly in my row of wooden desks, with the golden-locked Jacky sticking the tip of her freshly sharpened
pencil deep into my right thigh,

Pat comes over and asks how I’m getting on. I nod. I tell her I understand this passage . . . it draws me in. I try to explain the tense thing but somehow it
doesn’t come out right.

‘I’m glad you like that one because it’s one of mine. It’s a memoir of “the happiest days of my life” . . . Ha ha!’

I nod. I want to tell her that I know exactly how she felt, but as usual the words won’t come.

‘The tense thing is a really complex idea,’ she agrees, nudging me for a response.

I just stand in front of her nodding and looking stupid. I can feel everyone’s eyes fixing on me, but luckily so can she, so she stands up and taps on the desk, shifting the spotlight.

‘Pick out one line from the passage you’ve been reading, something that really grabs you, just a line or a phrase . . . something you would like to have written yourself. It’s
an exercise I call “Stealing Lines”.’

I know without even looking again the exact words I’ll choose.

‘Now, swap them round, so you each read someone else’s favourite line,’ orders Pat. ‘Come on then, who’s going to kick off?’

‘I am Rajvathan Rathour, ruler of the Ancient Palaces of Patiala,’
booms Ben Gbemi.

Jidé grins as he hears his own favourite line blasted around the room.

‘What did you like about that line?’ Pat Print asks.

‘The character’s like a superhero?’ Ben shouts. He always shouts, no matter how small the room.

‘Anything to add, Jidé?’

‘He’s a noble character, mythical . . . from an ancient land,’ shrugs Jidé, knowing he’s got exactly the right answer, but pretending he doesn’t care that
much. Jidé tries too hard to hide the fact that he is the brainiest boy in our class . . . probably in the whole of Year Seven. It’s because his mum’s Head of History that
he’s so keen not to look like a creep, so if he’s here you know it’s because he really wants to be. Probably, he persuaded Ben to tag along with him, just like Millie persuaded
me. He catches me watching him and I feel the blood start to snake its way up my neck so that the whole world can track the hot path of my embarrassment up my throat and over my face, and all
because I think, just maybe, Jidé Jackson might have smiled at me. I can’t even be sure of that though, because I now have my head stuck deep into Pat Print’s writing, in a
pathetic attempt at covering up my blush.

‘Exactly, and what was Ben’s favourite line?’ Pat Print asks Jidé.

I can’t even remember what we were talking about now.

‘I didn’t have one,’ interrupts Ben.

‘OK, next time,’ says Pat Print, not even glancing up at Ben.

‘Now, Millie. Let’s hear what you’ve got.’

‘. . .
the tie
. . .
to knot tight the hard lump of swallowed words swelling my throat,
’ Millie reads.

I keep my eyes trained on Pat Print’s beaten-up old satchel. Was that her school bag? I wonder.

‘I think it’s about someone who finds it hard to speak or say how they’re feeling,’ Millie answers.

‘That was me, at school. Now, you can’t shut me up!’ Pat Print smiles. It’s weird because the way she smiles at me makes me feel as if she already knows who I am.

‘What about Millie’s chosen line, Mira?’

Somehow it’s not so bad reading out Millie’s line . . . I suppose it’s because I’m not responsible for what it’s saying.

‘At the Tate, the modern sun shines through a long winter,’
I read.

‘What do you think?’ Pat looks to me for an answer. Millie jumps in, like she always does, to save me the embarrassment.

‘I like the “modern sun”, because the sun is so old, but in a way it’s always new. Every day there’s a sunset and a sunrise . . . Every day you wake up, it’s
new. I saw that exhibition at the Tate Modern.’

‘Wonderful, wasn’t it?’ Pat agrees, and then catches sight of a bored-looking Ben sprawled over his desk doodling graffiti.

‘I can see I’ll have to find something more interesting for you, Ben. We don’t want to bore you senseless. What are you into?’

‘Skateboarding!’ he booms.

Pat Print is amused. ‘Not one of my specialist subjects but I’ll do some research.’

Then she springs this on us.

‘Now you can do something for ME! Your ongoing project is to write a diary. We’ll call it “The May Day Diary” – I like that.’ Pat Print grins, pleased with herself
for coming up with the title.

‘Only it’s still April,’ Ben grunts.

‘No need to be pedantic, Ben. It’s called “artistic licence” . . . a tool of the trade . . . comes in handy, I can tell you.’

Ben and Jidé shoot each other a sideways glance as if to say, ‘What have we got ourselves into?’

‘Writing is about writing. You can’t learn to write if you don’t write. If you never keep a diary in your life again, at least you’ll have captured a month of your lives
to look back on.’

‘Why would we want to look back?’ mumbles Jidé under his breath.

‘One day, you won’t need to ask that question.’

‘One day when?’

‘What’s the point of doing it for just one month?’ moans Ben, tagging on behind Jidé.

‘A lot can happen in a month, Ben.’ Pat sighs, as if she’s remembering something important.

‘Not for me. All my days are the same,’ grumbles Ben.

Pat completely ignores him, picks up her bag and starts to pack her things away. That’s it! Ben’s been dismissed.

‘Mira, would you help me gather up these papers?’

Actually there’s hardly anything to clear up, but teachers always do that when they want a private word with you.

Everyone leaves. They know the score.

‘I thought what you said about the present tense was fascinating. That passage you read . . . first time round I wrote the whole thing as a memory . . . I got to the end and it just
didn’t work. It took me ages to find out what was wrong, but it wouldn’t come alive until I rewrote it in the present tense.’

‘I find it easier to paint than write,’ I tell her.

‘Mira, we can’t all be talkers. Think of writing this diary as painting a portrait in words. Make a start in the present tense, if it’s easier for you, but you can be sure that
before long the past will creep its way in there somewhere. Even at your age, there’s plenty of past. Right then! See you next week.’ She waves me off without looking up.

As she walks out of school, she leaves a trail of dry mud behind her.

It’s a weird thing, a diary, isn’t it? I mean who do you talk to? Yourself? I suppose . . . but that just doesn’t feel right. The only way I can think of to
do this diary thing is to imagine that I’m talking to someone else. But what kind of someone could I let in to the mixed-up mind-maze that is me, Mira Levenson? I’ll have to imagine
that I’m writing to a friend, a best friend like Millie. The strange thing is though that I used to be able to tell her anything, but recently – I don’t really know why – I’ve
started to keep some things to myself . . . secrets. Perhaps the thing is not to think too much about anything, but just start writing and see where it takes me.

OK, here goes. Facts are the easiest . . . start with the facts. I’m twelve years old today. Twelve years and four hours old. I was born at seven o’clock in the morning. So, to be
exact, twelve years, four hours and twenty-two minutes old. My twelve-year-old self is neither tall nor small, neither skinny nor ‘plumpy’, as Krish calls Laila. My twelve-year-old self
has long, dead-straight black hair, and dark brown eyes that my dad says sometimes turn black with emotion. My skin’s brown, but not dark enough to hide my blushes. Looking in the mirror,
which I do quite a lot recently, I would say I don’t love myself (my teeth have come down a bit wonky), but I don’t really mind how I look. My nana calls me a ‘beauty’, but
she would, wouldn’t she?

Like I said, facts are easiest, but none of this really says very much, does it? Maybe words just aren’t my thing. Give me a paintbrush any day. My school reports always say stuff like
‘Mira now needs to work on building her confidence and contributing to class discussions’. Now that
is
something I really hate to do. The main thing about me is whenever I go to
say anything in class I blush up bright red so that before I’ve even opened my mouth, everyone knows how embarrassed I am, and after that I just clam up and lose the will to live. The mad
thing is I actually can’t stop thinking. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things like . . . how I’m going to get through a lunch hour if Millie’s not around . .
. and, well, I suppose I can say it here, can’t I? Since Pat Print’s writing class I have mostly been waking up thinking about Jidé Jackson’s smile.

I’m a doodler and a daydreamer and a night dreamer. The last few weeks it’s been nightmares mostly, really bizarre stuff that freaks me out. Actually, I’ve
been feeling a bit strange lately – it’s hard to say exactly how, but it feels like I’m walking a tightrope. I’m not sure what it is I’m going to fall off, but it definitely
feels like I’m about to find out.

I am sitting in my Nana Josie’s flat with the rest of my family gathered for the usual birthday tea. I would rather not be here. Mum and Dad have given me a mobile phone,
a watch and a diary. The mobile is a sea-green pebble, and it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. The watch has a black leather strap, glass face, silver edging and a number for each hour.
It’s definitely my first grown-up watch and that somehow seems like a sign. I’m into signs, omens, superstitions . . . whatever you want to call them . . . mostly I call them
‘Notsurewho Notsurewhat’. This watch makes me think that something is about to happen to time. Today feels like the end of something, and the countdown to the beginning, of this, my red
leather diary with golden edging at the corners of each page.

‘Where are the dates?’ I ask Mum as I flick through the pages of the diary.

‘I thought you’d prefer to fill them in yourself. That way you can write as much or as little as you want and, knowing you, I expect you’ll want to add the odd artwork. When I
used to keep a diary, some days I had nothing much to write about and other days I’d write pages. It’s more of a journal really . . . for your writing class.’

So I start writing, just like I would for any other piece of homework, because Pat Print’s told us to, only now I’ve found something to keep all my secrets wrapped up in I
can’t stop, because no matter what’s happened to me before today, or what’s going to happen in the future, something is happening to me right now. Present tense.

Nana is inspecting my new mobile phone.

‘It’s
quite
pretty, I suppose, but I just don’t understand the point of having a mobile phone at your age . . . and I’m sure I read somewhere that the rays can
cause tumours. Uma, have you checked that out?’ Nana calls out to Mum, who’s in the next room. I don’t think Mum even hears. She’s too busy trying to get Laila to stay still
while she changes her cacky nappy.

‘I mean who are you going to call? You’re always with your mum and dad or me anyway.’

Jidé Jackson . . . he’s the person I would most like to call, but I’ll never have the guts to actually do it.

‘Well?’ nudges Nana.

‘You, Mum and Dad, Millie, Aunty Abi, Nana Kath and Grandad Bimal,’ I list.

‘That’s five numbers. I rest my case.’

Nana Josie is quite hard to argue against, even if you really disagree with her, which I do, about the phone, but of course I don’t say anything. She has her feet up, resting on my knees.
I smooth my hands over the skin of her cracked brown leather soles. On the sides of each foot, she has hard bony knobbly bits, bulging, where mine are smooth. Her feet are icy cold, like
she’s just stepped out of the North Sea, but it isn’t cold. In fact, it’s a sunny day, the cherry blossom trees are out in the garden, like they are every year on my birthday . .
. but Nana feels cold, because she’s so thin. She feels cold all the time these days.

Nana lies on her schlumfy old sofa, with her bright purple shawl wrapped round her shoulders, holding her present for me in her hands.

‘Come on, Mira, aren’t you going to open it?’

What I love about Nana is how she’s always so excited when she gives you a present. Even though she’s this ill, she’s still gone to the bother of wrapping it up in pale green
tissue paper and covering it with sparkly butterfly stickers. I always open her presents so carefully, because it’s like the wrapping is part of the gift, and you don’t want to do it
too quickly, or it would seem clumsy.

It’s a skirt, folded between sheets of tissue paper. It’s bright pink (why can’t people notice when you’ve moved on from pink, like, years ago?) and sea green, with
sequins and butterflies sewn all over it . . . and there’s something else . . . a tiny Indian purse, with a button for a clasp. It’s one of Nana’s; I’ve seen it before.