Читать книгу Zero Per Cent - Mark Swallow - Страница 10

“Detention in your first week, Jack,” said Dad, back from Hong Kong.

“Yup.”

“What did you get it for?”

I explained. He said he did sometimes take a Martini but was never likely to fly in a Lear jet.

“You seem to be making your mark, eh, Jack?”

“Oh Martin, please! Stay out of his education if you’re going to be like that. Imagine what it was like for me dealing with the tutor – and a phone call from the Head.”

“At least you aren’t having to sew him up again, Polly.”

They both ruffled different sides of my head, which was quite big enough for them not to have to mingle fingers. What a good moment, I thought, to put Grandad’s clicker to use. This was the only material object he had handed down after a career on the trains and Dad had passed it straight on to me. I saw a chance to use this device, with which Grandad had counted many thousands of rail travellers during his ticket-collecting days, to provide my banker of a Dad with some statistics, some hard evidence (to back up my permanent grin) of what a good time I was having.

Kids I didn’t even know greeted me at the end of Rockenden Road. I notched up seven clicks on my way into school. Others competed for my attention in the corridors and on the stairs. Everywhere it was “Safe, Jack, safe.”

“Sweet as a nut, Jumbo.”

“You’re a chief!”

“Jack’s lush an’ all!”

Click, click, click.

But how safe did I feel, how sweet was my nut, how lush my chiefiness? The day would show me. The day would show Dad. Statistics.

By break I was up to 157. What with corridor greetings, friendly cussings and happy exchanges during afternoon Maths when a cover teacher tried to control us with her skirt still tucked into her pants, I was pushing 500 clicks by the end of the day. Click, click, click. Safe, Jumbo Jack, safe mate, lush and wicked.

Dad was with us for supper as I explained the study.

“He’s enjoying himself, isn’t he, Martin?”

“Four hundred and ninety two clicks today, Dad.”

“Don’t spread yourself too thinly.” But I could tell he was pretty pleased. “Establish yourself soundly, remember?” he added. “Build up your defences.”

“Listen to the warlord,” Mum laughed.

“Dad’s a chief, Mum.”

“He’s listening to me all right, Polly…” said Dad.

But when I went back in to tell them I’d also found 42 text messages on my mobile, they were getting at each other again.

I now needed a woman. Rather than pick a peer I chose Miss Price, our young French teacher. With a word to one or two key players, I ensured that our first few lessons went well. Even Michael shut up for me.

“Jack Curling,” she said after a fortnight of progress in our mixed ability set, “you are a good man to go into the jungle with.”

“And you are a superb teacher, miss,” I groundlessly confided. “It is such a romantic tongue, la langue Français.”

I fell in love with her, ignored all other subjects and called her “maman” twice by mistake. And, Mum, I’m afraid her perfume was the first I ever noticed.

Meanwhile I decided to investigate other areas of the school, now that I had conquered the playground. Past the chilly pong and wild noises of the toilets I went, past the bins where gulls fought pigeons for the canteen’s old buns, and up past the crazy, clanging music rooms. I was wondering whether there might be opportunities for further self-establishment – in the school library.

It turned out to be a large room full of stiffs and girls clustered at tables or pecking at high walls of shelves with dog-eared signs on: ‘Kwikreads!’, ‘Lotsa Laughs!!’ and ‘Horror!!!’ The main window looked out over the playground and up Jumbo Jack’s Runway beyond. I pressed my nose against the glass. I swung my bag up to the sky. I fucking loved this school.

A throat cleared. I turned to see a small dark-haired man behind the desk.

“In the bag drop, please,” he said from out of a small head with a nose tipped like Concorde.

“Sorry, sir.”

He followed me and my bag to the drop to inform me that he was not a ‘sir’.

“I’m not paid as much as a sir so I don’t see why I should be sirred. I am Mr Schuman, the Librarian.” He stuck out his hand. “And you are?”

Watching your snout, Mister.

“Jack Curling.” We shook. (Don’t touch teachers but Support Staff’s all right.)

“I thought so.”

“You know me?”

A plane went overhead.

“I happened to be looking out of the window that day. A remarkable shot. I’ve been wanting to outlaw aeroplanes for years.”

“Really?”

“Approximately every three minutes I yearn for a ban on the beastly birds.”

“Well, I was lucky.”

“I imagine you suffered.”

“What?”

“They went for you, I suppose.”

“Yes, but only after I had made my point, Mr Schuman.”

He looked at me and smiled.

“Welcome to the library anyway. Do you, by any extraordinary chance, like reading?”

“Not much.”

“Something?”

“Adventure?” I hazarded.

He looked disappointed but showed me to the relevant shelf. Much more to my interest was the number of teachers who entered the library, nodded at Schuman and then disappeared into a side room. This struck me as intriguing. I sidled over and Schuman followed.

“They’ve put me in charge of reprographics as well.”

“What’s that?”

He threw open the door to reveal a teacher about to kick the side of a large photocopier.

“Of course they don’t pay me any extra. I don’t complain because I haven’t a clue how it works – any more than he has!”

I wasn’t sure yet how I would make use of the library but I liked what I’d seen already. The buzzer sounded. Another jumbo wheeled off left as I headed to the next lesson.