MORNING SERIAL

PIGEON’S talking now. His body moves with the words he says, pecking at the words like a bird feeding. Pigeon’s talking a long time. He speaks in a long ribbon, pushing words into the cracks of the plan, waving his arms to push them in. In his one hand he’s got one of His cigarettes, which he’s kept like the money and the tickets and the receipts, and in his other there’s an orange lolly now too, and now a chocolate one, and he’s pointing at me, and I’m waving at Gwyn as if I’m on a boat going out to sea.

Gwyn and Pigeon seem miles away from me. I’m all on my own, three metres away is like a different country, like China, or the United States of America or Spain.

Pigeon comes over to me, shoves the chocolate one into my hand with a look that means “C’mon!” and walks back to chat to Gwyn. I begin to unwrap, lick once, twice, heart beating.

Then I begin it, the ‘riaction alergick’ we’ve been practising by Pigeon strangling me over and over against the rough stones of the school wall. I’m grabbing my own neck and wriggling on the ground like a worm out of the soil, pretending I can’t breathe, going red in the face like Pigeon taught me.

I’ve never seen Gwyn’s legs before: thick and short, wrapped in blue trousers and covered with a grubby plastic apron that has pictures of toy cars all over. The legs, and the dirty trainers at the bottom of it all, are running towards me. Through my bunched-up eyes, I can see Pigeon slipping into the van behind Gwyn’s legs and behind all the other kids’ faces looking at me as if I’m on the television. Behind all this Pigeon just slides round the corner into the van like one of Efa’s silk scarves when it runs through your fingers.

Now I’m getting my face back to normal, clearing my throat like a car starting, and beginning to nod to Gwyn that it’s all right. He sits me up. His arm’s round my shoulder, a killer’s arm, heavy. Gwyn smells of dirty clothes, cigarettes, and sweat. “I’m ok. I’m ok. I’m ok.” I’m saying it, over and over. But Gwyn doesn’t believe me.