Catherine Bruton - I Predict a Riot

But there was an old sofa there, and I’d dragged some other stuff in too: a couple of pots which I’d planted pansies and daisies in, a camping table with only three legs and some faded bunting left over from the Olympics. Tokes looked around him and grinned like I’d just brought him into some kind of palace or something. ‘Cool!’ he said.

‘You like it?’ I asked shyly.

He looked at me and smiled his big smile – all white teeth and twinkly eyes. A proper hero’s smile. ‘I love it!’

‘You’ll be able to stay out of trouble here,’ I said. ‘And they’ll never find us.’

He looked up, alarmed, and his voice was sharp, like I’d pressed on a place that hurt. ‘Who won’t find us?’

‘Um . . . Shiv and his gang – the Starfish,’ I stammered. ‘That’s all I meant. I . . .’

‘Oh.’ Tokes seemed to relax. ‘Them.’ And the way he said it, I wondered who he thought I was talking about. ‘I reckon they always track you down in the end,’ he said, flopping down on the sofa and looking upwards towards the platform. ‘How’d you find this place anyway?’

‘I have a lot of spare time,’ I said with a shrug. ‘And I need somewhere no one else knows about.’

‘Because of your mum and dad?’

I could feel the weird clicky feeling in my throat that I get when I have to think about what happened, but luckily there was no time to answer because I could hear the sound of a train overhead. ‘Duck!’ I yelled, grabbing an old umbrella from behind the sofa. ‘It sounds like a through train.’

‘What?’ said Tokes as I slid on the sofa next to him and pulled the umbrella over both our heads.

‘You’ll see!’

I was pressed up so tight against Tokes I could smell a faint tang of sweat and toothpaste. As the train went thundering through the station above us, suddenly all the pigeons up in the arches started flying about and making a load of noise, and splats of poo fell all around us.

‘The trains make the pigeons poop,’ I yelled.

‘Like poo rain!’ he shouted over the clamour of the train and we both laughed.

‘Does that happen often?’ asked Tokes, grinning from ear to ear once the train had passed.

‘About every ten minutes,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘This is one weird place to hang out, film girl!’

I shoved the umbrella down the back of the sofa.

‘So you want to tell me about your mum?’ he asked.

I wasn’t expecting that.

‘I mean, it must be kind of weird having a mum who’s in the government or whatever,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of cool though.’

‘It’s not cool at all.’

‘Why? I mean, she gets to make the law. She can change stuff – make things better. That’s good, right?’

I bit my lip and tried to explain. ‘I think she cares more about “society” than her own family.’

Tokes didn’t say anything, but I could feel his eyes watching me.

‘And she only pretends to care about that stuff anyway. All that really matters to her is her career.’ I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this, and my voice came out a bit funny as I spoke. ‘That’s why they split up. My mum and dad.’

‘Because of her job?’

‘Because she puts her career ahead of everything else,’ I said. I remember hearing Dad say that, saying he’d had enough of coming in second place to Downing Street. That was the day he walked out. My funny, brilliant, kind dad who left because of her.

‘So it was your dad who left?’ Tokes said.

‘Last year.’

‘And you figure that’s your mum’s fault?’

I nodded.

Tokes glanced up. He had the questioning look in his eyes again. ‘You ever talk to her about it?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘No point.’

Tokes nodded, then after a second he said, ‘You should put it in your film then – maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, although I couldn’t imagine what my mum would do if I said stuff about her in my film and then it won the competition and got shown on TV – which was part of the prize.

‘You miss your dad?’ Tokes asked.

‘Lots.’ I looked up. ‘He’s funny. And he doesn’t nag. He gets me. She doesn’t.’

‘You see him much?’

‘No. He’s in New York now. He sends me stuff all the time and we Skype sometimes.’ I pushed to the back of my mind the thought that we hadn’t spoken for over two weeks. ‘I’m going to go over there soon, he says. We don’t have a date yet, but . . .’

‘But it’s not the same?’

I nodded. Nothing was the same since my dad left.

Tokes’s forehead wrinkled. ‘That’s something we got in common then.’

‘What? Your dad is abroad too?’

‘Sort of.’ He didn’t look up when he said that, just changed the subject. ‘So we gonna make this film or what?’

I tugged my camera out of my pocket, nervous suddenly. ‘I should probably interview you,’ I muttered.

‘Me?’

‘It’s just you’re sort of the main character now,’ I murmured shyly. ‘You know, like the hero. Because of what happened in the park.’

‘Don’t be dumb,’ he laughed, then his face was serious suddenly. ‘I’m the opposite of a hero – trust me.’

‘The way I see it, you’re the hero, Shiv is the villain and Little Pea is the funny man,’ I said. ‘It all kind of fits.’

‘And what does that make you?’ he asked, squinting at me in the sunlight.

I shrugged. ‘The geeky weirdo, I suppose.’

‘She usually turns out to be the star in the end,’ he said with a smile. ‘Doesn’t she?’

‘Not in my case.’

Tokes gave me another of his funny looks then he shook his head and scuffed his feet against the rubbly ground, sending up clouds of dust. ‘And you’re really gonna let Pea be in the film?’

‘He’s good to watch,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but why does he want to be in it?’ said Tokes. ‘A kid like that doesn’t do anything unless there’s something in it for him.’

‘Maybe he just likes performing.’

‘Maybe,’ said Tokes, unconvinced. He glanced up at the pigeons in the netting. ‘Anyway, we’ve got no choice now, because if we don’t let him be in it he’ll try to mess it up for us.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah. And if he is in it he’ll probably try to sabotage it anyway! So either way he’s bad news.’

I glanced at Tokes again when he said ‘sabotage’. I liked the way he used words.

‘I know kids like him,’ he said. ‘Magnets for trouble. Can’t help it. They ruin all the good stuff that happens to them.’

‘Maybe he wants a fresh start,’ I said.

‘Maybe,’ said Tokes, but his eyes were clouded with doubt.

‘Well, maybe he just wants to be friends. It doesn’t seem like he has any. Except Shiv and the Starfish Gang.’

‘And they’re not the kind of friends a kid like that needs,’ said Tokes. ‘Believe me, I know.’

I wanted to ask him how he knew, but he had the faraway look in his eyes again.

‘So can I interview you?’ I said instead.

His eyes came back to me and he gave me a look, then said, ‘OK. Fine. I’ll try to be heroic!’

So I pressed a button and the camera beeped into record mode. It looked good: the skinny kid with the sunshine face, sitting on the ripped-up old sofa, with the graffiti and the corrugated iron and the pansies in pots behind him. There was a shaft of dusty sunlight spilling down from the platform above, drawing lines of light through his fuzzy Afro hair.

I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

‘So, um, tell me about yourself,’ I said, putting on a voice like one of those chat-show hosts. ‘Er, what are your hobbies?’

‘I like football,’ he said, uncomfortable suddenly now that the gaze of the lens was turned on him. So I turned the camera down to focus on his feet. His wrecked Vans fitted in with the broken rubble and rubbish scattered all around the den. In the scorching heat the bits of broken glass glowed and looked like they were ready to combust. I moved round in an arc then brought the camera back to focus on his face again.