David Almond - My Name Is Mina

“Cos I love it. Who’d want to travel the world and make a million quid and be adored by all them fans? No, it’s journeys to Corinthian Avenue for me! And look, here we are, safe and sound.”

He stopped the car and opened the door to let me out.

He pretended to flinch as I stepped out. He put his hands up as if to protect himself.

I laughed and he grinned.

“Keep them pens under control today,” he said.

“I will.”

“See ya, Miss. Savage.”

“Bye-bye, Mr. Pelé.”

He winked at us and drove away.

And there it was, a redbrick house surrounded by Tarmac and a steel fence, and tubs with blue hydrangeas in them.

I pause. I need to mess about before I go on. I’ll play with words for a while. I’ll do a single sentence and a single word. Good games to play while I gather my memories of that day.

Sometimes when I’m at my table or in my tree and I want to write I start a sentence to see if I can write a whole page before I need a full stop which at first can seem rather difficult but which is really quite easy, because a single sentence could go on forever just like numbers could go on forever, which is difficult for little children to understand because they believe that a number like 100 is so huge that there can be nothing higher until someone says there’s 101 and 102 and 103 and they say O yes and so they begin to understand that numbers have no true end and can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until the end of time, if there is an end of time which I think is maybe impossible because if numbers go on forever maybe time does too, but as I get closer to the foot of the page I know that this sentence must stop very soon which now makes me wonder if I am like God when I am writing and makes me wonder whether God could put an end to time if he decided he has had enough of it and whether one day he will speak the single simple cataclysmic word STOP and everything will simply stop.

EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

Write a sentence which fills a whole page.

EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

Write a single word at the center of a page.

OK. The Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit.

We … No. Not we. Not I. Third person, Mina. She. They.

And so one day our heroine, Mina, who thought she was so clever and strong, arrived at Corinthian Avenue. As Karl’s taxi drove away, Mina walked hand in hand with her mum towards the glass doorway.

As they stepped inside, a woman came to them.

“I’m Mrs. Milligan,” she said. “And you must be Mina!”

“Yes, I suppose I must,” said Mina.

“She is,” said Mina’s mum, “and I am Mrs. McKee.”

Mrs. Milligan smiled kindly, and led them into a small and brightly lit office. She filled in a form and asked Mina’s mum to sign. She opened a file from St. Bede’s. Mina sighed and scowled.

“Relax, Mina,” said Mrs. Milligan. “We’re not here to judge you. We’re here to help.”

She closed the notes and smiled.

“Didn’t really fit in, did you, dear?” she said.

“Hardly.”

“One system can’t fit us all, can it? We know that here, Mina.”

“Do you?”

Mina wanted this woman to be like Palaver or Trench. She wanted her to be like Scullery or like THE HEAD TEACHER. But she was like none of them.

“We know you’re only here for a visit,” said Mrs. Milligan. “But perhaps you’ll like us enough to stay a little longer.”

“Or perhaps not,” responded the girl.

Mrs. Milligan smiled sweetly. Mina’s mum flashed her eyes at Mina. Mina looked away. She was trying to be careless and free, but she was confused, and she was trembling inside. and she felt weirdly quiet, weirdly shy. She wanted to run away.

Mrs. Milligan showed them where the toilets were and where the lunchroom was. Everywhere was neat and clean. There was a cooling smell of lavender. There were lots of books on lots of shelves. There were kids’ paintings on the walls. There were stories and poems hanging beside them.

Soon other kids began to arrive in taxis and minibuses. There were adults in T-shirts and jeans with their names on tags that hung around their necks.

Mrs. Milligan took them to Room B12, a room with woodblock flooring, a window with white net curtains on it, tables and red plastic chairs in a ring. One of the walls had a mural painted on it – a huge rain forest with monkeys and snakes and butterflies and frogs. The names of the artists were painted along the bottom edge: Daniela, Eric, Patrick, Steepy …

“We do a lot of art here,” said Mrs. Milligan. “Malcolm’s an expert at it. He’ll be here soon.”

Mina shrugged.

“I hear you’re something of an expert, too,” said Mrs. Milligan.

“Expert!” grunted Mina.

She rolled her eyes at her mum, who whispered,

“Mina!”

Then Malcolm arrived. He wore blue jeans, a red shirt, a silver bracelet on his wrist.

“I’m Malcolm,” he said.

Mina said nothing. Mina’s mum nudged her:

“He’s Malcolm. You’re …”

“And you must be Mina,” continued Malcolm.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

Mina lowered her eyes. She shuffled her feet.

She felt her lips curling downward like on a cartoon face.

“I’m so sorry,” said her mum. “She’s not usually so …”

“That’s all right!” said Malcolm. “First day, new place, bit shy. She’ll be fine once she gets to know us. Ah, Harry! Come and meet Mina.”

Harry was a short boy in a blue anorak, with lank hair and perplexed eyes. He came towards them. He nodded shyly at Mina. He held a book out to Malcolm.

“I b-brung it,” he said.

“It? Ah, Buddha! Thank you!”

He took the book and fanned it open for Mina.

“One of the first great graphic novels,” he said. “As good as they say, Harry?”

“A-aye, Malcolm,” stammered Harry. “Aye!”

Mina turned away, as if she disapproved.

“Personally, I prefer the complexity of words,” she said. She hated herself even as she was saying it. She had read the book in Malcolm’s hands, and she liked it a lot. But she couldn’t stop herself from blathering on and showing off and trying to show she was something special, and nothing like the people here.

“The complexity of sentences,” she said, “Paragraphs, pages …”

“Oh, Mina!” said her mum.

Malcolm closed the book.

“Maybe you can make recommendations to us, Mina,” he said. “Now, Mrs. McKee, why don’t you leave Mina with us, and …”

“Yes, I will,” said Mrs. McKee.

She gave Mina a hug. She told her to have a nice day. She told her she’d be back to pick her up that afternoon.

As she walked away, Mina wanted to weep like a four-year-old. She wanted to cry, “Take me away, Mummy! Take me away!” But she just stood there, like a stone, silent and bereft.

And other children started to arrive, and so the day began.

Among the others, there was Wilfred, who looked so angry, whose brow was furrowed, who clenched his fists, who looked nobody but Malcolm in the eye. His nails had almost been bitten to nothing and two of his front teeth were gone. He smelt of dog.