Too Much Trouble (8 page)

These few words made me well up, a stray tear running down my cheek.

‘But he was laughing at Prince, Dadda.' My voice cracked as I tried to defend myself.

‘There is never an excuse for fighting, Emmanuel.' Tears were rolling down my face now. ‘I don't care what that boy said or did. There is never a reason to fight. Never. Do you understand me, Emmanuel?'

‘He made Prince cry and I couldn't. . .'

‘Never, Emmanuel.' My father said this so firmly, my mouth clamped shut on what I was going to say and I tasted the salty tears in my mouth. ‘Later, you will tell me exactly what happened and what you could have done differently, but now you will collect water on your own. You will collect the water on your
own every day until you have shown Prince a good example. He looks up to you, Emmanuel. If he sees you fighting, he will fight. You must show him the right way to behave.'

We did talk later and I collected lots of water. But I still wasn't sure. Is fighting never right?

***

When I woke up, Terri had taken the book back. She was sitting on the bed, reading, and light was streaming through the window. I stretched and she looked up from her book.

‘So, you're Emmanuel, right?' She placed her thumb in the book to keep her place as she said this.

‘Yep,' I replied, ‘and you're Terri.' I felt embarrassed. I'd only just met this girl and I'd fallen asleep in the same room as her. She probably thought I was really weird. I brushed down my creased and blood-stained clothes as she asked me another question.

‘What do you think of the book, Emmanuel?'

This seemed like a funny question and I thought about lying, but decided not to. ‘I didn't get far, it was a bit hard for me.'

‘Do you like books?' she asked. She put the book down on the bed next to her, quickly checking what page she was on while I thought about my answer.

‘Some. Do you?' I replied.

Her face lit up. ‘Yeah. I love books. This one's OK,' she said, holding up the book she'd been reading, ‘but mostly I like mysteries. Have you read any Agatha Christie books?' I could honestly say that I had never heard of Agatha Christie. In fact, I'd never even heard the name Agatha before.

I opened my mouth to answer but at that moment there was a shout from downstairs that sounded like Jamal.

‘Come on, you lot, get a move on. We've gotta go in ten minutes.'

Terri jumped up. ‘Mr Green must be here.' She looked at me still sitting there. She gave me a questioning look as if to ask ‘What are you doing?' but instead said, ‘Come on!' Maybe she was scared of Mr Green.

We all met downstairs in the living room. Mr Green was waiting for us, and Jamal was herding everyone through the door. Mr Green told us that it was time to go, and all the others seemed to understand. They gathered their scant belongings, which were similar
to mine and Prince's, a few clothes and a few personal items bundled into old bags.

We left the house in pairs or threes, each group waiting for a minute till the other had gone. I left with Prince, who was grinning. Maybe it felt like a game to him. We all met on the corner. Mr Green told us to walk in pairs like we'd done on school trips. That's called a walking bus, I think.

Prince was still smiling as we set off. ‘Where are we going, Em?' he asked.

I had no idea. Jamal was walking in front of us, next to Ibby, so I leaned forward to ask him. ‘Where are we going?'

Jamal turned round with a grin. ‘We're going to work.' Jamal's grin was infectious. Me and Prince turned to each other, grinning. We both remembered what Mr Green had promised to teach us. He seemed like a magician. Making that wallet disappear and reappear.

Jamal craned to look over the heads of the few children in front of him; checking that Mr Green was engrossed in a phone conversation.

He then dropped back beside me. ‘Mr Green picks somewhere for us to work,' he said. ‘Could be in town, a train station, anywhere really.
We go to work for the day and then later on Mr Green will take us to a new empty house. We'll stay at that house for a week, maybe two, then Mr Green finds us another one.'

It didn't seem like much of an explanation. I had lots of questions to ask, but as Jamal finished, Mr Green called out, ‘Jamal, get over here.'

Jamal went jogging off to the front of the line straight away.

I've asked myself many times why Mr Green was allowed to walk fourteen children around a city in broad daylight. But what would you do if you saw fourteen children walking in a line behind an adult? Think school trip? I'm sure you'd never guess the truth. Mr Green wasn't stupid.

Prince walked on and started chatting to Ibby. I stared straight ahead, lost in thought until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked around to dark eyes.

‘So, Agatha Christie?'

I smiled a broad smile at Terri, but she just looked at me, waiting for me to answer.

‘I've never heard of that person,' I told her, and Terri's mouth dropped open.

‘You've never heard of Agatha Christie?' She looked a bit stunned but also like she was joking.
‘She's the best!'

I shook my head to confirm that I definitely hadn't heard of her.

‘So what are these ‘some books' that you do like?' she asked.

I had to think hard. I really wasn't a big reader. My class teacher in Year Six had read us
Prince Caspian
and
The Horse and his Boy
from the Chronicles of Narnia.

‘Do you like the Narnia books?' I asked.

Terri's face lit up again - her big brown eyes got even bigger. ‘Which is your favourite?' she said.

But before I could answer Jamal had rejoined us. When I looked round, Terri seemed to have disappeared.

‘Right,' Jamal began, ‘Prince, you're with me today. Emmanuel, Kieran's gonna look after you. Kieran's OK,' he said loudly, almost shouting, ‘as long as he doesn't try to pinch any purses!'

Ibby burst into laughter and Kieran shouted from a few places forward. ‘Shut up! That lady was well strong.'

Ibby turned round, still smirking. ‘Kieran got beaten up by an old lady last week. It was well funny.'

Prince was giggling. I wasn't.

I think it was then that it sunk in, what we were going to be doing. I knew I'd stolen that wallet, but that had been once, to survive. This was something different. This was organised. I don't know why that made a difference but it did. We were going to be stealing from people and it was all planned.

Jamal fell back into conversation with Prince and Ibby, and before long they were all laughing. I looked back to find Terri. She was right at the back of the line, her head down. I walked the rest of the way deep in thought.

I was practised at being silent. I had spent many hours of lessons trying to be invisible. Silence was important to me.

There was a group of boys at my primary school who began to notice me. They even made up a game with me. They would try their hardest to make me break my silence. They were trying to get me noticed. It was horrible.

One lesson we were being taught about how other children in the world lived.

‘In some parts of the world,' the teacher was saying from the front, ‘children have to go to work at the age of five.'

One of the group of boys sat next to me at my table. As the teacher turned to click to the next slide on the board, he poked me. Not hard but right in the ribs.

I didn't react but looked up at the slide. It was a picture of a boy and girl with bare feet carrying a load of rocks on their backs.

He poked me again.

‘Why do you think these children have to work?' The teacher said and a few hands went up. The teacher picked a girl.

‘Because they're slaves, Miss?'

‘Some of them might be, Shelley. Good idea. Why else might they have to work?' The teacher then picked a boy across the other side of the classroom.

‘Because they're really poor, Miss.'

The boy next to me poked me again and I could hear his friends sniggering.

‘Is being poor funny to you, Ali?' The teacher addressed one of the boys from the group.

‘Sorry, miss,' Ali said.

The teacher continued, addressing the boy who had answered. ‘You're right, they're very poor, they can only just afford enough food to survive.' Another poke. ‘They don't get new clothes.' Poke. ‘Or computer games.' The teacher looked around at some of the
boys as another poke hit the same spot. ‘Or make-up.' She looked at some of the girls. Another poke. She turned round to show another picture. Poke, poke, poke.

I still didn't react.

The next picture was a group of children standing in front of a little building. The building looked like the first pig's house. You know, made of straw.

‘Some of these children,' the teacher continued, ‘have to look after their whole family.'

One boy shouted out, smiling, ‘What, no adults, Miss?'

Everyone laughed while I received another poke.

The teacher smiled along with the class, then said, ‘That might sound like fun for a while but imagine the responsibility of looking after your family, no mum and dad to look after you. Imagine you had to do that.'

One more poke and I exploded.

I screamed in rage, threw my chair backwards and leapt on the boy. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!' I shouted at him. I was so angry.

This was one of the times that my school did try to call home. They got no answer. The boy admitted that he had been poking me. I didn't get in too much
trouble. The teacher kept us in at lunchtime. We both had to say sorry.

I remember feeling angry and shaky for hours. I don't know why. They had tried poking me before.

Mr Green took us all to a really wide, long road. Both sides were lined with shops. It was as if I'd been shrunk to half my size, then put in a normal-sized high street, it was that big.

We took the bus to get there. Again, I guess the bus driver assumed we were on a school trip. We took up most of the top deck. Jamal and his friends spread across twice as many seats as they needed. Prince sat with me for some of the journey, then Jamal called him over.

It was a sunny day. A day for being outside.

When we got off the bus Kieran approached me. ‘So, have you done this before?' he said.

‘What?'

‘You know, stolen stuff, picked pockets, thieved things?'

‘Erm, not really. I've stolen a few things. But I've not done
this
,' I replied.

He didn't look worried at my lack of experience. He smiled at me, a wicked grin. ‘No problem, it gets easy. You can just watch me for a while if you like. Be a look-out and that.'

‘OK,' I said. Being a look-out did sound easy, but something was worrying me. ‘Is it dangerous?' I blurted out. ‘Could we get caught?' My uncle's face flashed before my eyes. Standing over me, holding out the last wedge of money he'd given us. ‘I don't want to get caught,' I finished.

Kieran looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, ‘It can be dangerous, if you act like an idiot. You see Ibby?' He nodded towards his friend. Ibby was in a revolving door of a posh-looking shop. A security guard was telling him to stop but he was still going round and round, laughing the whole time.

I smiled at Kieran and said, ‘Yeah.'

‘Well, Ibby sometimes acts like an idiot. A few months ago he tried to nick this guy's laptop. The guy was working on it at the time. The guy tripped him
and held him down. You know how he got away?'

I shook my head.

Kieran answered his question with two words. ‘Mr Green. Like I say, it can be dangerous, but you make money for Mr Green and he'll look after you.'

I looked over at Mr Green, who had been on the phone all this time. All the kids had scattered between the bus stop and the shop fronts. Mr Green still seemed pretty great, but I couldn't help but wonder what he did to the guy with the laptop. As I was looking at him, Mr Green hung up his phone and started gathering us all by the bus-stop. When we were together he looked around. I guess he was making sure that no passers-by were too close.