No Place for Nathan: A True Short Story

And it was a great job, no doubt about it; something I could really get my teeth into. Together with Jim, I looked after kids from all kinds of backgrounds, sent to the Unit for all sorts of reasons. They could be the bullied or the bully, the distressed and dispossessed, the lazy, the hyperactive, the angry, the apathetic or, in what seemed to be this case, the complete misfit. One thing united them and informed everything I did: they were kids who had troubles and couldn’t cope with school. We currently had 40 of them on our list, too – and usually around 10 in the Unit at any given time.

Needless to say, no two days were ever the same, and each one – day and child – brought a different set of problems. And though, right now, little Nathan seemed completely sweet and biddable, you didn’t join our numbers for nothing. So, initially, my job would be to observe and assess him, slotting him into the routine and watching him carefully, to see if there were any obvious triggers or situations that would make him flare up and kick off.

This, in the first couple of days, proved difficult. True to his word, Nathan had obviously taken a shine to me and wanted to be constantly at my side, using any excuse to leave his table and come to sit by me instead.

Sometimes it would just be to come and smile at me or touch my arm, at which point I’d just acknowledge him and steer him gently back to his group. But at other times, he’d want to linger and I’d have to become firm with him, and it was during these exchanges that I’d get a glimpse of a darker side, as he clearly didn’t respond well to being spoken to sternly. It would be then, having been told in no uncertain terms that he must do as he was told and stay put at his desk like everyone else, that he would stamp his foot and glare and, having returned to his chair, treat me to a look of pure hatred – his lips tight against his teeth, like a dog about to growl, and his eyes narrowing, changing his face completely.

He’d snap out of it almost as soon as he adopted it, but as we reached the end of his first week it was beginning to become clear that this was a strange and clearly complex little lad.

He had other, quite arresting behaviours, too. He seemed to have a compulsion to touch and stroke certain women. I couldn’t exactly categorise it – there was no particular type or trigger that I could see, but he was very particular about which women he was drawn to. He also seemed to like disrupting other children if they were playing or working quietly. To do this, he’d usually cry out that someone had just called him a name, then proceed to hit out at or kick the unfortunate victim, who almost always, I quickly established, had not said a word.

He was also without fear; he had no anxiety about tackling his bigger, stronger classmates. He’d take on anyone, regardless of their size. He’d provoke the boys, too – never a good idea, if you’re in a behaviour unit – by stroking them as he passed, fluttering his eyelashes and pouting his lips, and saying things like ‘You think I’m sexy, don’t ya?’ and ‘Ooh, I know you want me!’

Needless to say, this went down badly. The other lads I had in with me at the time, particularly James and Dillon, would swear at him and threaten to batter him, which of course caused disruption, and I began to realise why he was a difficult boy to have in class. Nathan himself, at this point, would become seriously distressed, and it would be a good 30 minutes – with him mostly sobbing hysterically – before I could quieten him down and get the group back on track again.

That was the most interesting thing, I decided – this abrupt change in mood. I’d catch him out, give him detention, perhaps, and get the evil eye from him, but within a moment, he was usually back to being angelic, particularly if there was no one else around. It just didn’t appear to sink in with him that he may have annoyed me or upset me. It would be an interesting process, I decided, getting to understand what made him tick and, if I could manage to do so, to help him gain insight and control over his behaviours.

Interesting, and perhaps something of a multi-faceted challenge, as I was to realise that Friday afternoon. It was a couple of minutes before the final afternoon bell went – home time for the kids and finishing-up time for the staff, before a much-looked-forward-to break over the weekend. I’d had Jim with me for most of the afternoon and we’d been working on conflict resolution with the group; a drama-based lesson where they would act out various scenarios that could lead to an argument, and we’d look at solutions that wouldn’t end in a fight or an exclusion.

The going-home routine was the same every day, just as it tends to be in schools everywhere. And today it was Jim who was directing operations.

‘Right,’ he said, as the bell sounded. ‘Stop what you’re doing, tidy your area and put your things away quietly, then get your coats and line up by the door.’

Pens began going into pencil cases and chairs started scraping back – so far, just an ordinary end to the day – but then we both became aware of Nathan, who’d moved only in as much as he’d sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Do you have a problem with that, Nathan?’ asked Jim.

I saw the strange look come across Nathan’s face even before he spoke. ‘Yeah, I do, you ugly motherfucker,’ he said, grinning nastily.

I was used to his kamikaze approach to dealing with bigger, tougher boys but was genuinely aghast to hear him speaking like this to Jim.

The other kids started to giggle and nudge each other as they prepared to leave, and Jim took the sensible step of dismissing them. ‘Okay, you lot, you can go now,’ he told them. ‘Have a nice weekend, and we will see you on Monday.’

I added my own farewell, herding them out, aware of their disappointed faces at being asked to leave just as the entertainment was about to begin. If that had been Nathan’s plan – to grab some attention – it had backfired.

I shut the door then, turned back and, after exchanging a glance and some raised eyebrows with Jim, asked Nathan gently if something was troubling him.

He didn’t look at me. Instead he put his hands in front of his face, as if to create a barrier between us. He then turned his face towards Jim. ‘It’s you I’m talking to!’ he shouted. ‘You God-damned cocksucker!’

Jim calmly placed a hand on each hip. ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t speak to me like that, young man,’ he said mildly.

Nathan glared at him. ‘I just did!’

‘Or,’ Jim continued, ‘I might have to ring your dad.’

‘Ha!’ Nathan threw back. ‘You wouldn’t dare! My dad is seven foot six and the last teacher that rang him got thrown out of a window and beaten up, you stupid prick!’

I was obviously not meant to take part in this conversation so I simply stood by and watched, bemused. As, I suspected, was Jim. It wasn’t as if Nathan had been disciplined for anything. This outburst seemed to have come entirely out of the blue. The question was, Why? Where had it come from?

‘Why are you mad with me, Nath?’ he asked quietly.

‘That’s not my fucking name, arsehole,’ came the response.

‘Sorry,’ Jim answered, ‘I should have said “Nathan”, shouldn’t I?’

Nathan shook his head then. ‘I said that’s not my fucking name!’

‘Oh,’ said Jim, as if enjoying a normal conversation, ‘so what should I call you, then?’

Nathan uncrossed his angry arms and pushed himself back away from the desk. ‘Call me what the fuck you like,’ he said. ‘I’m off home now anyway. And what you can do is stick this up your arse!’

With that, he stood up, stuck his middle finger up to Jim’s face, kicked his chair over and walked casually out of the classroom.

We stared at each other, stunned, as the sound of Nathan’s footsteps faded, both of us wondering if what had just happened had really taken place. It wasn’t that the exchange itself was anything shocking – we’d both heard much more colourful language – it was just the completely random, unprovoked nature of it that flummoxed us, so much so that for a few minutes we could manage nothing more grown-up than a five-minute fit of the giggles. ‘Well,’ observed Jim, when we finally pulled ourselves together, ‘nice to know I’ve made a good impression, anyway!’

Though I wrote up the notes I’d made on Nathan over the weekend, I returned to work on Monday morning still at a loss to understand my new charge, who seemed to have no clear triggers, or continuity, to his various behaviours. Often it was clear – the attention-seeking bully with the minuscule self-esteem, or the child who lacked empathy due to never having formed solid bonds. But in Nathan’s case it seemed such a rag-bag of different issues that it was difficult to know where to start.

But wherever I did start, it seemed I’d be starting early. I arrived at my usual time – a good 45 minutes before the children were due to be there – to find him waiting in the corridor outside my classroom. Having the children in school early wasn’t unusual – one of the new initiatives Jim and I had put in place being a breakfast club – but Nathan obviously wasn’t interested in eating food.

He looked his same dishevelled self and seemed very pleased to see me. I smiled at him. ‘Morning, sweetie,’ I said. ‘You’re early.’

‘Morning, Miss,’ he said brightly. ‘You look beautiful today. And I love that,’ he added, pointing to the jade-coloured glittery scarf I had threaded beneath the lapels of my black jacket.

‘Thank you, Nathan,’ I said, unlocking and opening the classroom door. ‘That’s very nice of you. And now you’re going to have to find something to amuse yourself with as I have to get some work organised for you all for today.’

‘Could I make something?’ he asked. ‘You know, from the art box?’

I told him he could. ‘But only on condition that you tidy everything away nicely before the others get here, okay?’

I thought of bringing up his inexplicable outburst at Jim the previous Friday, but decided against it, something telling me that now wasn’t the moment. To start the week the way the previous one had ended, with a flare-up and acrimony, didn’t seem the best way to proceed.

Instead I left him to it and went to my desk to start preparing the day’s activities, but after around 10 or 15 minutes I became distracted by Nathan, who’d previously been rummaging around and cutting things up in silence, beginning to chatter to himself.

At first I thought he was just providing himself with a running commentary, but the rhythm sounded funny, and I pricked up my ears. Yes, I was hearing right, he was engaged in a conversation – a two-way conversation he was having with himself. And using markedly different voices, as well: one high-pitched, the other lower. I wasn’t sure what he’d been making, but he was bent over his desk and appeared to be putting something on and off his head.

I got up from my chair and walked over to him so I could get a closer look, but he was side-on to me and obviously so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t seem to notice my approach. It was now even clearer that his dialogue was between a male and a female, who seemed to be involved in some sort of argument. And as I stood and watched – he still seemed oblivious to my proximity – I realised that every time the female character was speaking, he was putting whatever he’d made on his head. The penny dropped shortly afterwards – he’d made himself a wig. It was a band of white card to which he’d attached several long strips of yellow sugar paper, and which he was now balancing on his head as a crude hairpiece.

‘Are you okay, Nathan?’ I asked, wondering what the discussion was about.

He turned to me and smiled, holding the wig so it didn’t slip off. ‘Yes, Miss,’ he said. ‘Everything is fine, thank you.’

‘What’s that on your head?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it’s just my hair, Miss. I think I have to be Jenny today and she has long blonde hair.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Was that Jenny you were just talking to?’

He giggled girlishly. ‘No, Miss. I told you. I am Jenny, can’t you tell?’

‘Ah –’ I began.