Mark Swallow - Zero Per Cent

Published by HarperCollins Children’s Books,

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Mark Swallow 2002

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

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Source ISBN: 9780007126491

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007393220

Version: 2016-01-05

for Sarah

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Zero Per Cent

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

THIS IS THE LAST GCSE EXAM FOR MOST OF YOU – FOR MANY, YOUR LAST EXAM EVER. SO LET’S MAKE IT A SMOOTH ONE, EH? AND LET’S GET THE HATS OFF, SHALL WE? BRAINS NEED CIRCULATING AIR…

Laila says she is going to be waiting for me afterwards. I like thinking of her waiting outside. For me.

So why did I try to put her off? Only made her more interested.

Why?

Because I know our school gates. This is where the hard ones wait, just beyond the civilisation of school – No Sir Land – beyond the dinksy policies on bullying, lunch queue rules and keep-left-in-the-corridors. They are the mothers who will welcome us today, many of them excluded from our year, excluded from our exams. They are so chuffed with their exchange of the acned playground tarmac for the hard lines of the pavement. And they will have brought their friends, kids of much more experience, almost certainly kids of some substance.

As a junior I used to creep past with my mates, thrilling at their palm-held electronics, their leisure wear and their trainers. Their occasional cars higgled and piggled against the kerb, bucking with the bassiest tunes. Their tangle of getaway bikes, small enough to ride through a copper’s legs. I admit to being impressed once but I’d sooner hop over the back fence these days.

At the end of this last GCSE I will leave this school, these peers. I’ll say goodbye to a few, see you later to even fewer, and nothing to most. I won’t bother to diss a peer – just disappear out the back and loop round past the garage to see if Laila really has come for me.

I SAID HATS OFF! AND THERE SHOULD BE NO MOBILES IN THE HALL.

The kids who have tried to keep their caps on are now being told to remove them before we can start. The only progress that’s been made in a generation’s fight against school uniform – and just when they let us off wearing them, we want caps after all.

RIGHT, ARE YOU ALL READY?

Now, are we all ready? The invigilator invites us to start, so let us begin.

The best place to start is on the stairs at home where we used to spend a lot of time sitting. Always the same formation, my little sister on the top one and Tommy on the second, with me down a couple and leaning against the wall. Our legs had habits too. Rosie bunched hers under her chin, Tommy’s were all over the place, never still, while mine pointed down the stairs with the right foot on top of the left trying to line itself up with the bottom of the hand rail. This is how we used to sit – for the clicking of the Christmas photograph, for the looking at ourselves in the mirror above the stairs and for the listening in on the grown-ups.

The photographs are still an easy present for Mum to give lucky friends and relations each year. We used to spend hours finessing our poses in the mirror but our ears were always on the kitchen where we might just be being talked about by Mum and Dad.

Five years ago I was the hot topic. I have been discussed a lot since but it was five years ago, when I was about to leave primary school, that I first picked up some interesting stuff.

My ‘educational destination’ was still undecided. Dad was finally losing what had been a long and cold war to send me to a private school rather than the local comprehensive. Still he refused to believe Mum would not change her mind at some point. She was furious he would not just roll over and accept her passionate belief in the importance of supporting state schools “with our own flesh and blood”. But even she was not as cross as Rosie and Tommy, who had nothing else to listen in on for weeks.

Dad worked very hard in a bank. He still does, in the City of London. Apparently that is the main reason we were able to afford this house, the biggest on Rockenden Road and just in either Hounslow or Isleworth depending on how you look at it. He travels all over the world so doesn’t mind being close to Heathrow. Mum has lived in the area all her life and works as a secretary at the health centre.

And how did I feel? I didn’t like the idea of leaving my mates, who were going to Chevy Oak Comprehensive. But I didn’t like the idea of disappointing Dad either when he had put me up or down or by for a school somewhere else. He kept on about the facilities and class sizes and the paintballing club they ran on Saturday afternoons. Mum seemed to have heard enough of it.

“This is where we live,” I heard from my stair. “It may not be particularly peaceful or lovely, Martin, but we are here in a neighbourhood – yes, neighbourhood – we know and in which we are known. And Jack, as one of our children, lives here too.”

“I am well aware—”

“The hell you are! This is not some computer package or bloody car we’re talking about here. It’s Jack’s education. You can get excited about your heated wing mirrors waggling for you at the push of a button, about your gleaming veneer and your plush velour, but Jack does not need extras. He needs the local school, solid, sane and free.”

“It’s got nothing to do with cars, Polly.”

“What are these posh schools of yours if not shiny cars with tinted windows which purr shut on the smog? You can go paintballing whenever you like but leave Jack here with us.”

“Very funny. A few months from now you’ll be sorry for this, Polly.”

“You want him schooled, Martin, and I want him educated. It’s as simple as that. Heir-conditioning with an aitch! That’s what you’re after.”