Читать книгу Sour: My Story: A troubled girl from a broken home. The Brixton gang she nearly died for. The baby she fought to live for. - Tracey Miller - Страница 12

“Why did you go telling everyone my mum was crazy? I’m gonna fuck you up for what you done, girl!”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I thought Natasha was my friend.

“You make me sick.”

I barged forward and pinned her to her desk in the religious studies classroom, lifting the kitchen knife high in my hot, sweaty palm so everybody in St Martins could see it.

“Sour, stop!”

The others tugged at my uniform and begged me to stop, but I wasn’t listening. What goes on at home was one thing. Broadcasting it here, around school, the only place I could escape, was another. I didn’t care about the consequences or the rules no more. I was angry. And I wanted to hurt that bitch.

Fast forward half an hour and Mrs Edwards, the humourless headteacher with the Margaret Thatcher helmet hair, was telling me what was going to happen. What she was really doing, though she didn’t know it then, was giving me the first big break of my criminal career.

“You are being expelled, Salwa. I’m referring you to Dick Shepherd’s. From now on, you will be attending school there.”

I was destined for Dick Shepherd’s, the rejects’ school all the rest of us knew as Dick Shits.

Phillip Lawrence had just left his post as headmaster of Dick Shits when I arrived. Three years later, he’d be dipped in the chest by some 15-year-old yout as he tried to break up a fight in another playground just eight miles away. Black boys killing their white teachers! That soon woke up the world.

But let me let you into a secret: lawlessness reigned supreme long before then. What happened to that man was a tragedy, no two ways about it. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

First off, if I wanted to be respected at Dick Shits I knew I was going to have to step up a gear to thrive and survive. St Martin’s was junior league. This was the Premiership.

My uniform was angelic, my pleats were proper fresh, but I was determined to be demonic.

I wore my new knife in a belt under my blazer. It was made of rabbit skin and had a rabbit’s foot dangling from the belt. I’d bought it from a gypsy boy, and wore it with the kind of pride the other girls wore their Claire’s Accessories.

I wasn’t at Dick Shits to learn. I was there to make money. It was time to become top dog.

I soon found that if you’re loud enough and strong enough, there’s always someone quieter and weaker who wants to follow you. Over time, I recruited several associates willing to take my lead. They were the Two-Tails to my Sonic. Some of them, as a joke, even started calling me “Mum”.

“Y’alright, Mum?” they’d shout at me in the corridor.

“Yes datter, yes son,” I’d reply, with a grin. “How are you?”

“Me alright still, y’naw?”

If any of my sons or daughters got into a little scuffle, I’d know about it.

It helped that a lot of the Somalian kids were tiny. Three foot nothing, some of them. It was easy to pick them up by their ankles and shake them.

Sometimes, a brave friend would try to step in.

“Put him down, what’s wrong wit you? He said he ain’t got no money.”

Lo and behold, the coins would fall from upside-down pockets. I’d leave the two-tails to pick up the change.

The kids soon learned at lunchtime to step aside and let me through. There were plenty boys doing the same. But a girl? That caught their attention.

If a girl got a bit rude to a blood, someone I considered an ally, she’d get slapped about. Spin and turn and kick. Just like the video games. I had no interest in female friends. I liked being one of the boys.

Now, you might think a place like Dick Shits would have a problem with truancy. Perhaps. But the really bad kids, the ones who caught my attention, were the ones who weren’t even meant to be there at all. Dick Shits wasn’t somewhere to learn, it was somewhere to meet, somewhere to talk business.

Doing the register was hilarious, man. You could have a room full of children with only 15 of their names on the list. A teacher could walk into a classroom dotted with grinning, unfamiliar faces.

What were they going to do? Tell them to go home?

Those who did try to eject them soon learned life was easier just letting them stay where they were.

Some had been expelled elsewhere, and didn’t have much else to do. Others just didn’t want to attend their own schools. Ours was like a youth club. A youth club where we were in control.

Yeah, Man Dem came to Dick Shits because it was loose and relaxed.

Better to be here with the rest of your bloods in a lesson, rather than out in the street alone.

Killer P – he used to crack me up, man. Don’t know which school he had ever belonged to. He was an MC. A real talent. He didn’t shank no one or nuttin like that. They called him Killer because of his killer lyrics. He had that Shaggy, Sean Paul ragamuffin style going on.

He liked the class of this poor little Asian lady the best. She taught Social Science. Used to put on documentaries and films and shit, so it was her own fault really. Victim of her own success, innit. Her class was meant to have been around 30. Instead, 40 would turn up. She was slim and frail and her voice barely carried beyond the first cramped row of tables.

Just as she’s got the class under control, having settled in the nerds trying to learn, and soothed the disruptive ones who couldn’t care less, this black boy bursts through the door, singing a cappella.

Gyal dem ah wine anna move mek di man dem take notice,

Gyal look so hot, when she move but she already know diss.

They were his own lyrics. That boy had talent. We jumped up and cheered Killer P as he started MC-ing from the front of the classroom.

“Alright!”

Bloods who knew the lyrics started singing with him, drowning out Miss Deng who looked like she was about to cry. Classmates started to whine on the tables, like they were dutty dancehall girls. I sat back in my seat, enjoying the spectacle.

Gyal shake up your batty let mi see, gyal come over an whine pun mi,

Gyal dem ah call me Killer wid da P, mi just waant pure love and harmony …

The door slammed shut. Miss Deng had gone.

“Miss, come back!” shouted Killer P. “I just spitting out a ragga song.”

For some of the teachers, that woulda been a good day.

There was a maths teacher with dreadlocks. Probably fancied himself as a bit of a Rasta, knew his music, the kind of guy who tolerated no shit, one of the few who tried to keep things in order. We liked him. Poor man. He’d tire himself out chasing bloods down whole corridors. Even he gave up eventually.

As for the unpopular teachers, well, they used to get slapped down. Simple as.

Come November, there would always be fireworks getting let off in the classrooms. When it was snowing, dirty snowballs went off everywhere.

We had a sports field. It needed a sit-down lawnmower, and that lawnmower needed petrol. More than once, I looked out the window and saw youts who’d raided the gardener’s shed, pouring tins of fuel from the top of the hill towards the classrooms, and setting the rivers alight, until the grass was streaked with lines of fire.

Oh my days, that would lead to proper chaos. We were always pleased to see the fire crews appear because it meant we could hit the road.

One time I even saw a moped ridden through the corridors. Yeah, it all used to happen. Every class at Dick Shits was like a scene from Gremlins.

Kept things colourful, that’s for sure. No two days were the same. Assemblies on Friday were always a highlight. One minute you’re sitting there thinking everything’s cool; the next some idiot has gassed both entrances and the emergency exit, and suddenly everyone is stumbling around, choking, with their eyes streaming.

You might ask how they could they get away with it. But you’re not understanding. We had control of the school. Why do you think it’s knocked down now?

Police officers floated through the corridors. Their presence made little difference to me. I knew there was nothing to fear from them. I’d learned that early, from a shoplifting spree with Yusuf.

We went out licking stuff from Alders, the department store in Croydon, tiefing garmz and slipping chops – necklaces, bracelets, that kind of shit – down our sleeves.

Yusuf got us caught. The police station had beige walls and lino flooring the colour of cream soda. We didn’t feel intimidated or scared. We hung around, got a nice cup of tea, grabbed a sandwich – which was more than was waiting for us at home. The officers were really nice. They showed us the custody suite. It was like another fun day out at The Bill.

They gave us a caution that day. I still remember the nice, white police officer who said he hoped it would be the last time he saw us. “Good luck with your life,” he said, as he showed us out.

And that was it. As we left, I remember smiling. If that’s all the police do to you, I thought, I’ll stop worrying.

Stop and search was a problem for plenty, but not for me. There were always bare complaints from the boys. But girls? Who’d stop and search a girl? More fool the Feds.

“Have you got it today?” they’d ask. Sometimes, I’d answer them, sometimes not. They never asked to see it. The secret was to let them imagine – they’d always imagine the worst.

When you know you’re carrying the power to take someone’s life you don’t need to exert yourself.

I never flashed it. Didn’t need to. I wasn’t crazy in the head, y’know. Let everyone else assume, that was my motto. Only the fools will try to test you.

I knew well the effect of a flash of chrome. When my mum picked one up, I’d seen the way people would run. You got a whole sense of respect carrying a weapon, and I liked it.

Carrying a blade was like having an “access all areas” pass for the V Festival. I jumped the queues, and got the best seats in assembly. All the backstage benefits came flooding in. The two-tails stole to impress me. Others wanted to have me on their side. Resting by my hip underneath my grey school jumper was the knife, and when the situation presented itself I had every intention of using it. Otherwise, what would be the point?

I soon got fast-tracked to top dog status without even trying.

Sometimes an angry parent would give you grief, but I had no fear of adults. I had no fear of anything.

“Just do it,” I thought, watching the latest hard-faced mother stride across the playground, frothing at the mouth over her bullied child, demanding to know “where is the little bitch?”

I’d watch them, stroking the rabbit skin under my blazer.

“Go on,” I would dare them, in my head. “Strike me. Slap me. Do something to make me use this.”

I was eager to test it out. Was it sharp enough? Would my reflexes be quick enough? I was always disappointed when they backed down. But I knew I’d have another chance soon.

I was walking home in a boisterous mood one afternoon. I had cash in my pocket, which some of the two-tails had likked from Brixton Market over the weekend.

It took only 10 minutes to walk home, but I jumped on the bus to be with the crowd. That was always good value. Sure enough, we stormed on, out of sight of the driver, pushing past the people trying to get off, and ejected some of the smaller kids from our preferred seats at the back.

The rugrats shared my boisterous mood. In those days, buses had light bulbs you could unscrew. And no CCTV. One of the crew scampered over the seats, untwisting the bulbs, and pelting them at cars from the window.

Cars started tooting. The bus pulled over at the next stop.

“Exit!”

We muscled past the big Nigerian women, carrying shopping, and the pony-tailed pramfaces clogging the way with buggies off of the bus, and bolted off in different directions.

I was still laughing to myself when I reached the estate to find someone standing outside my mum’s door. It was a young black guy I didn’t recognise, about my age. I stopped.

“Who you waiting for?”

He spun round. He seemed agitated.

“I want my money, innit.”

“What money?”

“The money owed to me by that little shit.”

He gestured inside. He must be talking about Yusuf.

“Are you crazy in your head? What are you talking about?”

“I want paying.”

“Seems you lost your mind. What’s going on in your head? Now get off my mum’s doorstep.”

“I told you have some respect, innit. I gave him an eighth. Said he’d pay up.”

“Step aside. I’m sorting this out.”

I left him outside, ranting and raving about his resin.

Yusuf was playing his Nintendo.

I went straight past him, into the kitchen, and picked up a very large piece of knifery.

Who the hell was this character, trying to take me for some little pussy?

“Get the fuck off this estate, right now. And take your shit-ass tush weed with you.”

I chucked the bag at him, which I’d picked up from the front room table, and threw at him a sorry-looking cube of resin. It was as shrivelled as this boy’s bravado.

“Mad bitch,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry? Say that one more time? You dickhead!”

He bolted down the stairwell, darting right around the building towards the Pen.

I pretended to make chase down a couple of flights, but to be honest I ain’t never been an athlete.

Besides, he was the fearful one, so he had an unfair advantage, innit.

“Don’t ever make me catch you,” I shouted after him, watching him dash across the courtyard.

Wow, I gotta get fit, I thought to myself, as I caught my breath by the bins.

When I went back up the stairs, Peggy had come out to see what the commotion was.

“Nuttin, Peggy,” I told her, holding the bread knife tight by my arm. “Some kids just ain’t got no manners.”

She smiled, unconvincingly, and stepped back inside. I heard the chain slide against the lock.

When I went back, I took the second control, put Street Fighter on pause and shouted at Yusuf what the hell he was doing.

“You don’t even bun green.”

He shrugged. “Was gonna try to sell it.”

Then I spotted the other bags, lined up along the coffee table, alongside an empty jar.

“Yusuf, what the hell is that?”

He brightened up, eyes twinkling.

“You think I could sell it? I worked it out. You can get at least 20 wraps out of a single jar.”

The wraps looked like heroin. The powder was dark beige, the colour of sand, wrapped in scraps of cling film, which had been twisted and sealed, by burning the top off.

“Number one – what you talking about? And number two – what is in those bags?”

He smiled, looking pleased with himself. Yusuf could be a charmer when he wanted.

“It’s Horlicks, innit?”

I took a deep breath. He was 12. Horlicks was an old man’s drink. More importantly, how did he even know that’s how they wrapped heroin?

“Yusuf, last time I looked, Roupell Park didn’t have a big problem with addiction to nutritional malted milk drinks.”

Lord have mercy.

He nodded.

“Exactly. Costs £2.49 for one of the big jars. Sell 20 wraps for around £20 a pop, and you’re in the money. Good business, innit.”

“And who the fuck is going to buy it?”

“Cats are desperate, ain’t they? It’s just a one-off.”

“Well, it’ll have to be, innit, unless they’re just wanting a good night’s sleep. Because ain’t no one going to ask again.”

I felt a stab of affection for my little brother at that moment. He wanted to become a mechanic. Just as well, ’cause I knew right there and then that he wouldn’t be making it as Tony Montana.

Selling fucking Horlicks.

I went to my room and put my music up loud. That night I fell asleep wondering if maybe, just maybe, it might just work.