Read by Ray Newe
I look up at Polly, waiting for the nod. When Mrs Freeman is on the far side of the room near the hamsters and the class goldfish I will bring my hand down hard on the pencil I'm holding half-on, half-off the desk. My pencil. On my desk.
Jeremy and Ben, the other pupils at our desks this afternoon, are heads-down, drawing week-old tadpoles in their work books with their pencils. I don't think they've noticed.
'Don't look at them,' whispers Polly.
I look up at her red ringlets and freckled face, but not quite at her face, I can't look at her eyes or nose – these are blurred. Instead, I look at her mouth. She sort of smiles and doesn't look directly at me but beyond, behind and above me to the table where Mrs Freeman is helping Jenny and refuses to leave. She is too close.
'If you sit down…' I start. But she stands: the only person in the room standing apart from Mrs Freeman.
'Scaredy-cat.'
My mouth is dry. I look at the pencil: the small teeth marks around the lettering on the end with the rubber on it. I can still taste the woody, metallic taste where I rub the pencil between the gap in my teeth when thinking hard, and feel the small chips of red paint from crunching on it. I see the black smudges on the pink rubber end from error after error rubbed out.
Scaredy-cat. 'I'm not scared, it's just…' It's just what? It's just a pencil.
'Just what?'
'I… don't know.' I don't look at her but can feel her looking at me so I look at my shoes and try to think of something else. It's just not fair. I can't explain why, but it's just not fair. But, of course, I can't tell Polly Humphries that. Not Polly, who has never said a word to me in her life, and is now standing over me, talking to me.
I get a weird, tummy-flipping feeling as I look up from my shoes to the pencil and feel a drop of sweat drip down the side of my face.
'She's…' begins Polly.
I feel the air in my nostrils as I breathe deeply and my left hand shakes, flat on the table but for the pencil trapped beneath. I raise my right hand – it too is shaking. I wait, wait for it to be over, and yet… Polly Humphries is talking to– looking at me! I hold and wait.
'Ready?'
I nod slightly, focusing so hard on the pencil I can't see it. I hold my breath and hear nothing. It's just me, Polly Humphries and the pencil. I want to be sick.
'Ready?'
Again! I bite my lower lip and wait, heart beating. Time has slowed to nothing. I nod once more.
Think of something else. Think! But nothing comes. So for the first time I experience the sensation of thinking of the one thing you are trying not to think of because you are trying so hard not think of it. I think of Polly, though, not the pencil. I raise my eyes a little, but don't want Mrs Freeman to move. Come on Jenny, ask her something else! Here I am: my tummy doing flip after flip and I am looking at the pocket on the front of Polly's jumper with a picture of pink teddy-bears on it, willing this moment to last forever.
'Now!' she whispers. 'Now!'
Now? I pause and look at my hand. Now? I close my eyes hard, tighter than I've ever closed them and lift my right hand higher.
There is a crack and then silence. Everyone and everything is still.
I open my eyes, look up and round to see twenty faces staring back. On the floor is half my pencil and right behind me – she was always right behind me – is Mrs Freeman, her face hard and expectant. I look forward. Before me is Polly, sitting, the only face in the room focused totally on her work book. She knew. The tummy-flipping and breathing and beating and everything starts to overwhelm me and tears start to flow but not before I have Mrs Freeman's hand around my arm, hoiking me up and pulling me to the headmistress's office.
She knew. All along, Polly Humphries, who dared me that I would not break my pencil and called me a Scaredy-cat and told me she would watch for when Mrs Freeman was far enough away, all along she knew Mrs Freeman was right behind me! I should have felt anger, pain and frustration as I was pulled along the corridor. I was crying but all I could think of was those ringlets, her half-smile and the picture of the pink teddy-bears on the pocket of Polly's jumper.
--
2B by Michael Greenfield was read by Ray Newe at the Liars' League Boys & Girls event on Tuesday April 10 2007.
Mike Greenfield was brought up in London and has had a range of careers including motor-cycle couriering, working in restaurants and web design. He is currently a freelance photographer. 2B is his first published short story.
Ray Newe appeared recently at The National Theatre in The Enchantment, directed by Paul Miller. Other theatre work includes Breezeblock Park at the Liverpool Playhouse and devised and performed several shows with Stan's Café Theatre. Television credits include Murphys Law, Eyes Down and Brookside
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