Читать книгу The Styx - Patricia Holland - Страница 33

I loved that bus ride to school. It was heaven. Hot. Stinking with boy sweat. Very bumpy because it was old—the bus I mean—and did I say hot? So stinkin’ hot. But to me it was my rescue boat out, and people talked to me. Well they did eventually, after a few bus rides of gawking and talking about me.

“Mum says she’s retarded.”

“Mum said it’s a waste of time sending her to school. One step away from a vegetable, Mum said.”

“Spastic,” they all said.

After they got all that out of their systems, the kids started looking at my eyes instead of my chair.

“Hi, Soph, what’s going down today?” Gus was the coolest, hottest boy at the school. “You goin’ to lead the march for sports day? I’ll push your chair if you like?”

I mean how cool is that. He was probably the first kid, ever, to treat me normally. And I love it when he bends down to look me in the face. He never stinks, and he has very white teeth. It was his mother who made the vegetable comment—and they have an ultra-size Bible open on its own stand right inside their front door. Go figure.

At the start, Mrs Stephens, the teacher, always had a po-face about me being at the school. She always treated me well though, and precisely followed the Education Department’s guidelines. She’s a good person really. Just a bit stilted. And she should wear her hair out more often.

As a teacher, she often morphed into Mr Stephens’s role, head­mastering things.

“Sophie’s computer has arrived. When we get it set up, she’s the only one who can touch it though. We’ll need to make sure we keep the others right away, to keep it safe,” she said.

Nooooooooooooooo. I don’t want to be different, I thought. They’ll all hate me, and all the parents will go on about it being a complete waste of money and special treatment for spastic boongs and not fair that their kids aren’t treated equally.

Mean-wellers often divine wells of meanness.