(From the same series as “Isaac vs the Swimming Pool.”  I’ll probably be alternating between the two where updates are concerned.)

(Oh yeah, and my internet’s fixed now.  Hooray!)

April, 2002

Swordpoint Books was on one of the little roads leading off the High Street, and it was like nowhere else on Earth.  It seemed to be a series of narrow paths leading through a maze of shelves, all shiny steel and well over six-foot high, so if you were at one end of the shop and your friends were at another, you’d have to rely on the sound of each other’s voices to find each other.  Add in the unexpected steps and slopes placed at random intervals along the aisles, and the place was a blatant safety hazard in about a dozen different ways.

Not that Mariam cared.  Mr Bridger could have released a man-eating tiger into the Romance section, and Mariam would just have barricaded herself into Sci Fi/Fantasy and carried on reading.  And that was just as well, because she could definitely picture Mr Bridger doing that.

Mariam had had five months to get used to the acoustics of Swordpoint Books, so she could tell that Mr Bridger was three aisles away.  Far enough not to panic, but too close to risk picking up an interesting book from the shelf and flicking through it.  You weren’t really in trouble until he got to your aisle, because all you could see over the bookshelves was the top of people’s heads, and that was if you were lucky (and tall).  That meant that you couldn’t see him coming, either, but that was OK because Mr Bridger was one of the noisiest men Mariam had ever met.  No matter where he was in the store, you could hear him move around- the grumpy stamp of his feet, the heavy, snarling breathing, the occasional smack of his lips as he looked at something and thought.  He was like a minotaur moving through his own stainless-steel labyrinth.

Two aisles away, Mariam heard him pounce on Gavin.  “Just what do you think you’re playing at?”

Gavin’s voice was gentle, hesitant, and at least fifteen decibels quieter.  “Look, if you’re talking about the displays, I just thought…”

“Where’s my paper, Gavin?  The one that was on the front desk??”

“Um…”

“It’s a simple enough question, Gavin.  Where’s.  My.  Paper?”

There was a lot of staff turnover at Swordpoint Books.  People would apply, start work, realise that they weren’t being paid enough to put up with Mr Bridger, and quit.  Usually within two weeks, although the record was half an hour.  Only Mariam and Gavin stayed.  Mariam because there were six kids in her house, and she was pretty sure the only thing stopping both her parents from working themselves into an early grave was the fact that the oldest three earned enough to buy most of their own school supplies.  Gavin because he was just plain stuck.  She was pretty sure he didn’t even get paid.

“Dad, listen…  It was two days old, it had been in the exact same place since yesterday…”

“I didn’t ask you how old it was, Gavin.  I asked where it was.”

“Last week you got mad at me for not keeping the front desk tidy…”

“I didn’t ask you what happened last week!” Mr Bridger screamed.  Mariam could practically hear the spit spraying out all over poor Gavin’s face.  “I asked you what happened to my fucking paper!”

It was an odd thing about Mr Bridger- no matter how angry and out of-control he seemed, he always managed to save the swearwords for when he really wanted to scare you.  Anyway, Mariam couldn’t stop herself.  “I threw it out,” she called, as calm as possible while still being loud enough for Mr Bridger to hear her.

It seemed to have worked.  There was a short pause, and then the stamping footsteps started up again, coming closer and closer until Mr Bridger appeared at the end of Mariam’s aisle.  He was a man who seemed to be all reds and yellows- red cheeks, yellow teeth, red strawberry nose, yellow whites in his eyes, red bags under his eyes, yellowing shirt that Mariam suspected he’d been wearing for the last three days.  “Who the fuck told you to throw it out?”

Mariam took a deep breath.  “Like Gavin said, it was just last week you told us to keep the desk tidy…”

“You threw out my paper.”  Mr Bridger was bearing down on her now, his cheese-and-cigarettes breath wafting in her face.  “My property.”

Mariam looked up at him, not daring to move a muscle.  “Yes.”

“That’s what you do in your house, then?  Help ourselves to other people’s things?”

“We throw out newspapers when they’re two days old, yes.”  Mr Bridger was always speculating about what they did in her house.  Among her people.

Mr Bridger stared at her, still treating her to wafts of his breath, but he didn’t do anything.  And what can you do? thought Mariam, Sack me?  Not a chance.  You wouldn’t be able to scream at me anymore if you did.  Of course, if she was Gavin, he’d have already made a dark remark about discussing the matter very carefully after closing time, but she wasn’t Gavin, and that was why it was better for her to take the blame.

“Well, we’re not in your house now,” he said eventually, “I’m paying you to be here.  You owe me respect.”

Mariam said nothing.

“You agree with me, then?” he said, a little louder, “You owe me respect?”

“Yes,” said Mariam.

For a moment, she was worried he was going to make her repeat the words back to him, just to be sure, but instead he backed off and disappeared into the aisles beyond.  Mariam waited until his footsteps were a safe distance away, then went to find Gavin.

He was backed up against a row of reference books, hunched over in an attempt to make himself look smaller.  Gavin was only an inch or two shorter than his father, but at times like this, he seemed about half his size.  “You didn’t need to do that,” he murmured.

“It was that or listen to him screech at you for the next hour,” said Mariam, keeping her voice quiet enough to stay within this aisle, where Mr Bridger couldn’t catch it.

Gavin breathed in, set his mouth in a straight line, and looked away from Mariam.  He knew she was right.

Mariam and Gavin went to different schools, on different sides of town.  If it hadn’t been for Swordpoint Books, they’d never have met, so there was at least one good reason to put up with Mr Bridger.  Mariam didn’t have much patience for the boys at her school- most of them thought that drawing cartoon willies on their desks was the last word in humour- but you could have an actual conversation with Gavin.  Usually either about books or how much they hated Mr Bridger, but they were conversations, and Mariam felt better for having them.  Gavin was her friend.  And friends didn’t let friends get bollocked by their dads just for throwing away old newspapers.

They heard the door to the break room creak open, then shut. They relaxed a little.  Mr Bridger had gone off to sulk and smoke a whole packet of Silk Cut.

“He just left it out so he could pick a fight over it,” said Mariam.

“Of course,” said Gavin, “Even he doesn’t take three days to read the Sun.”

“Maybe he was just really attached to Thursday’s Page Three girl.”

Gavin made a face.

Mariam stood against the bookcase next to him.  Their eyes met, and they both let out an exaggerated, exasperated sigh.  “The working life,” said Gavin.

Mariam shrugged.  “My mum says that your first job should be as crappy as possible.  That way, for the rest of your life, you appreciate the jobs that aren’t.”

“If I even get to have another job,” grumbled Gavin, “Knowing Dad, I’ll still be working here in ten years’ time.”  He sighed.  “He’s already told me I needn’t think he’s paying for university for me.”

“So you’ll get a loan.  That’s what most people do.”  She was about to suggest that Gavin get in touch with his mother and ask her to help out with his fees, but stopped herself just in time.  The former Mrs Bridger had run off with a guy from her job eight years ago, and if she hadn’t bothered to take Gavin with her (at least for long enough to drop him off with a family member who screamed less), then it was probably too much to expect her to fork out a few thousand pounds for him now.

Gavin laughed.  “Nothing’s ever impossible for you, is it, Mariam?”

She patted him on the shoulder.  “Won’t be impossible for you, either.  You’ll see.”

They heard the front door open, and Gavin moved off towards the front desk in case the customer needed help.  But before he disappeared around the corner, he looked over his shoulder and gave Mariam a grin that made her feel warm all over.

(To Be Continued)

(WARNING- DEEPLY UNPLEASANT SUBJECT MATTER.  CAUTION ADVISED.)

August 1999

Just as they were about to start the second half, Isaac looked up at the stands and spotted Mr Forrest.  He hadn’t seen him before, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there- the Ravens Hall pitch was on a big, open field, and the spectators’ stands were right in front of the sun.  Half the time, when you looked in that direction, all you saw was a silhouette in front of a big, yellow burst of light that made your eyeballs ache.

Mr Forrest.  Isaac hadn’t seen him in three years.  He’d been the PE teacher at Ivy Brook Primary, but then he’d left just before Isaac had gone into Year Five.  Isaac wanted to get his attention, maybe get in a little wave before the kick-off, but something made him hold back.  He had a weird, guilty feeling, like he knew Mr Forrest wouldn’t be pleased to see him.

Then the coach blew the whistle, and Isaac had other things to focus on.  The score going into the second half was one-all, so both teams were ready to risk life and limb just to get to the ball.  Isaac managed to get hold of it, at the price of getting his shins hacked to bits by the Mountfitchet boys’ boots, and passed it along to Ben Larson, who got it halfway up the field and passed it to Tommy MacLeod.

Tommy did alright at first, weaving around the Mountfitchet defenders like a pinball.  Tommy was a little bit shorter than most of the boys in the Ravens, but that just made him harder to catch.  If he’d just made it another yard or two, he could have passed it back to Isaac and everything would have been fine.  Instead, one of the Mountfitchet boys moved to tackle him, and Tommy shrank back.

For a moment, Isaac wondered if that was really what he’d seen.  Maybe the Mountfitchet boy had been a bit rough with his tackle, and Tommy had just stumbled backwards?  Maybe the Mountfitchet boy had even fouled him?  But when the coach bellowed across the field, “MacLeod, what are you doing?!?”  Isaac knew what had happened.  Tommy had seen the Mountfitchet boy coming towards him, he’d panicked and jumped back, and that mistake had cost them the ball.  Isaac saw the look of disgust on the coach’s face, and thought about Mr Forrest again.

His memory was a bit fuzzy, but Isaac was pretty sure he’d embarrassed himself in front of Mr Forrest somehow.  Not right before Mr Forrest had left, but at the end of Year Two or Year Three, so that every time Isaac had seen him for the next few years, he’d got that hot, squirmy feeling in his stomach and wanted to hide.

There had been… some kind of game?  Had it been in a PE lesson, or at an after-school club?  Isaac couldn’t remember exactly.  All he knew was that he’d been too much of a wimp to join in, and that Mr Forrest had given him exactly the same look of disgust that the coach was giving Tommy right now.

Isaac didn’t know whether to feel sorry for Tommy or to kick him in the shin.  On the one hand, he knew what it was like to be the person who screwed things up for everyone else, but on the other, he’d worked very hard to stop being that person.  He’d managed to stop being scared of stupid things (spiders, the dark… even escalators, for a while), and to join in and make friends.  For the last few years, he’d barely thought of how he used to be when he was younger.  He’d been too busy living his life.

A cheer went up from the stand.  In barely ten seconds. Mountfitchet had managed to get the ball all the way up to the pitch and into the Ravens’ goal.  Isaac cringed.  He had a feeling that Tommy was never going to live this down.

 

June 1994

Isaac had had a lot of fun finding and eating bits of popcorn people had dropped on the floor, until his mum caught him doing it and got him to stop.

“I can’t believe it,” she snapped, “I thought you were old enough to know not to eat things that have been on the ground.”

Isaac fidgeted.  Mum was right, he’d known it was a stupid idea even as he’d done it… but popcorn tasted really, really good, and he didn’t have any of his own.

Mum and Dad were at one of the metal tables on the upper half of the playground, the ones that were covered in little puddles of beer.  Further down, there were face-painting stalls, a bring and buy, and a bouncy castle, but Isaac had been to all three, and now he was bored.  And now he didn’t even have popcorn to console him.

“If I can’t trust you on your own, you’ll have to spend the rest of the evening sat with me.”  One look at the table told you what a dire threat this was.  The chairs were the metal kind that drained all the heat out of your legs and made you die of frostbite even though it was June, and the table itself was covered in beery grime, so you wouldn’t even be able to lean on it without making your elbows stink for the rest of the night.  “Is that going to have to happen?”

Isaac looked down at the ground, which was covered in popcorn that he wouldn’t get to taste.  “No.  Sorry, Mum.”

“Right!”  Mum gave a nod of satisfaction, and turned back to the table.  Isaac trudged off, doing his best to look trustworthy in case she turned round to check on him.

He wandered towards the dancefloor (really a big patch of tarmac with disco lights flashing all around it), wondering if he should wait for a song he liked and join in.  There was a little stall nearby selling drinks and snacks, but Isaac had mostly run out of money, and besides, they were only selling those weird fruit drinks in the square containers, the ones that always seemed to go down wrong and make you cough and get a sore throat.

He looked around and spotted the fortune teller’s tent.  He probably didn’t have enough money for that either.  Besides, he didn’t think he really wanted to see the future.  He didn’t like the thought of seeing himself and his friends as old people.

“Hello, Isaac,” said a voice, right in his ear.  Isaac jumped, and Mr Forrest laughed.  He was always doing stuff like that, joking around, like the time he’d told Isaac’s class that they’d be doing parachute jumps in PE, but it turned out what he meant was holding up that big red bit of cloth they kept at the back of the hall and jumping under it.  “Keeping busy?”

Isaac smiled up at him.  “Yeah.”

Mr Forrest scratched his nose.  “So I suppose you won’t have time to come out to the swimming pool with me?”

Now, that was interesting.  The swimming pool was in a little building just on the other side of the vegetable garden, and Isaac had never been inside.  “I thought you had to be in Year Six to go in the swimming pool?”

Mr Forrest slapped him on the back.  “Not tonight.  You’ll be with me, so it’s allowed.  Unless you’re too busy…”

“No!” said Isaac quickly, “I’ll come!”  He liked swimming, and he loved the thought of being the only kid in Year Two who knew what the swimming pool looked like.  He could imagine it right now- the other kids wouldn’t believe him at first, but then when they all got to Year Six and were allowed in the swimming pool, they’d look around and realise that Isaac had described it perfectly.  He’d get four years’ worth of respect, all at once.

Mr Forrest grinned.  “You sure?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright, then!”  Mr Forrest slapped him on the back again.  “Come on, I’ll get you some icecream on the way.”

(To Be Continued)