Nobody Real

There’s a little inky black cat on the low wall outside number nineteen. It looks at me with a tilted head, trying to work out if I’m a threat. A boy with bear arms, carrying a backpack.

I step forward, reaching out to stroke it, but it jumps down and scampers away behind two grey bins.

“Screw you then, kitty.”

The cat pokes its head out and stares. I stare back.

“Didn’t really want to stroke you anyway, fleabag. Might eat you later.”

Carry on walking. Can’t wait to start smashing now. Seventeen. Fifteen. Thirteen. Check my bag. The chipped sky-blue of my trusty helmet. If I properly go for it this morning, might even take the afternoon off. Go to the river or something. Eleven. Nine. Yeah. That’s a plan. Stop.

Look at the house.

And feel a wrecking ball hit my chest.

The clock ticks.

Ten minutes in

and my page is still empty.

All around me, a gym full of people, sitting in rows, heads bobbing like a gridded flock of feeding birds, speed-scrawling answers to questions we’ve spent months preparing for.

Every few breaths, a head will pop up, like it heard something. The distant call of that great idea. That one quote that could turn forty UCAS points into forty-eight.

This is it.

Final exam. Sixth form’s last supper.

Scan the room. Mouth everyone’s name.

Most of us have been at this school since we were eleven. Some of us even went to the same primary school. How many memories do we share?

Izzy Maynard. Tolu Clarke. How different are mine to yours? Eli Hanson. Hardeep Khan. How does it work? So many versions of everything that happens. Everything that happened.

I remember play fights; you remember getting punched. You remember lunchtimes packed with hide-and-seek; I remember hiding in the craft cupboard and people forgetting about me.

We all remember laughing when Simon Harris tripped and threw pink custard over dicky Mr Page.

When you think about it, it’s thirteen years. More than two-thirds of our lives so far sharing the same space and, after today, most of us probably won’t see each other again.

We’ll say we will, but we won’t.

Maybe accidentally in town, one random summer Saturday.

Or five years from now, on a train platform at New Street, heading in different directions.

Or maybe in middle age, at some badly soundtracked class reunion when we’re all swollen or wrinkled or both and crying into our gin and tonics about how we chose the wrong path. Isn’t that just a little bit weird? Has anyone else in here even thought about it?

Sean is four across and two in front. I watch him scribble, then pause, scribble then pause. Scratching his head. Questioning himself, whether he’s following the right thought.

Cara is two across and three in front. Even from behind, the calm in her slender shoulders is clear.

Prepared. Sure. Tattooing her future on to paper. Ready for the rest of her life. When she’s finished, she’ll look back, checking in with me. That things are going to plan.

I look down at my page.

Still empty. Still waiting.

I know what I’m supposed to do. And I know what I want to do.

Last chance.

My pen tip scratches the blank paper. Like a claw.

And then I feel you.

For the first time in years. Watching me. Knowing my thoughts.

I look up.

Across the room.

And there you are.

Outside.

The tinted glass facade of reception.

Me, reflected, sitting on the low brick wall, backlit by a fuzzy white afternoon sun.

A life-size, full-page panel. Top left, one thought box.

I did it.

My pen is still in my hand. I actually did it. Can’t be undone now.

No more school.

No more lessons.

No more sawdust-dry assemblies.

No more cafeteria parade.

Nearly seven years spent shuffling around this place, nodding at teachers, passing notes, hanging back in cross-country, swapping homework. Come September, somebody else will sit where I sat. Use my locker. Answer the questions I would’ve answered … And a new crop of wide-eyed Year Sevens will step on to the secondary conveyer belt, just as we step off. Into our futures.

My skin is tingling, my whole body buzzing like a light bulb.