David Almond - My Name Is Mina

And she handed some worksheets out. They contained a very boring story about a girl walking through a town and meeting lots of people along the way. Yawn, yawn. We had to change the present tense into the past. We got lots of sheets like that from Mrs. Scullery – sentences with gaps where we had to stick in the missing words, or sentences with the words all mixed up and we had to unmix them to get them to make sense. They were all dead easy and all dead stupid. Usually I’d just put up with it and get on with it, but that day I must have clicked my tongue or something.

“Yes, Mina?” said Mrs. Scullery. “You have something to say?”

Usually I’d just say, No, Miss, but on that day I said, “The thing is, Mrs. Scullery, that it really isn’t very plain at all. The past and the present and the future are much more mysterious than you say they are.”

“Oh, are they? Then please do enlighten us.”

That was so typical of her. SARCASM! I HATE SARCASM! Especially the kind that’s done by teachers.

If I had anything to do with the running of schools, I’d have a big notice put into every single classroom:

Anyway, I did enlighten her.

“Yes, Miss,” I said. “They are much much more mysterious. The past, for instance, was present to the people who lived in it. And the future will quickly become the present and will just as quickly become the past. And in our thoughts, the past and the present and the anticipation of the future exist together.” She stood with her arms folded, waiting for me to go on. So I went on. “Right from the beginning of time, people have attempted to understand time, and they have not managed yet.”

She sighed.

“Finished yet?” she said.

“No. So the mysteries of time cannot be reduced to a worksheet about tenses.”

She sighed more deeply. She stared out of the classroom window into the darkening afternoon. I could see she was thinking that it would have been better for her to be something like a traffic warden or a police constable. Or a sprout, maybe.

“And that’s to say nothing of our dreams,” I said.

“Now you are finished. So please shut up! We are not doing Philosophy, Miss. McKee. This is an English lesson. So do your work!”

I did my work. I seethed inside. What about the dead? I wanted to ask her. They’re supposed to be in the past but what if they’re around us still (even as flakes of dust, for instance, to say nothing of souls)? Are we present when we’re alive and past when we’re dead? And what about the notion that we will rise again? What does that say about the present and the past and the future being different things? The things that the Mrs. Scullerys of the world take for granted and that they think are so plain are not plain.

I scribbled my stupid worksheet. Scullery sat at the desk and dreamed about being a sprout. I grabbed a piece of clean paper and started composing my concrete poem.

That day was near the end of my school days. Not much longer to go till I was at home with Mum. Before that, though, there’d be SATS Day. O my God, SATS Day! That’s another of the tales I’ll have to write. Then there’d be the day at the Corinthian Avenue Pupil Referral Unit. Now that’s a day to write about.

EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

Write a poem that repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word and repeats a word until it almost loses its meaning.

(It can be useful to choose a word that you don’t like, or that scares or disturbs you.)

Even though I hate school, I sometimes think it’d be very interesting to work in one. Or even to run one. I’d make sure there were some really interesting lessons, though I wouldn’t call them “lessons.” That’s what my “Extraordinary Activities” are – much more exciting and productive than the worksheets put out by the Mrs. Scullerys of this world!

Here is another. I expect I will put in others as I go along.

Touch the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thumb, making a ring. Look through the ring into the sky [6] Do not look into the sun, of course. (Health & Safety Warning!) . See the great emptiness there. Contemplate this emptiness. Wait Don’t move. Perhaps there is a tiny dot in the emptiness, which is a skylark singing so high up that it’s almost out of sight. Perhaps not. Perhaps there really is just emptiness. Sooner or later a bird will appear for a second in your view and will fly away. Something appears in nothing, and then disappears. Keep looking. Sooner or later another bird will appear to take its place. Keep looking. It may be that several birds appear together. Keep looking. Keep looking. Allow the extraordinary sky into your mind. Consider the fact that your head is large enough to contain the sky. That is all, and it is hardly anything at all. No need to write anything down unless you would like to. Just remember. And wonder. And do the activity again when you have a moment. Do not worry about staring into space. It is an excellent thing to do.

Touch the tip of the index finger to the tip of the thumb, making a ring. Look through the ring into the sky [7] Do not look into the moon, of course. (Health & Sanity Warning!) . See the great abundance there. Contemplate this abundance: the stars and galaxies, the planets, the great great darkness, the stars so far away in time and space they look like scatterings of silver dust. Consider the unimaginable amount of space and time that is circled by the ring you have made. Consider that this unimaginable amount is just a tiny fragment of the universe, of eternity. Keep looking. Keep looking. Things will move across your vision: a flickering bat, a swooping owl; the high-up light of an airplane, the slow slow flashing of a satellite. Keep looking. Keep looking. Allow the abundant night into your mind. Consider the fact that your head is large enough to contain the night. That is all, and it is hardly anything at all. No need to write anything down unless you would like to. Just remember. And wonder. And do the activity again when you have a moment. Do not worry about staring into the dark. It is an excellent thing to do.

Night again. Spring is strange. The year’s supposed to be moving towards summer, but sometimes it seems to be turning right back to winter again. The sky was the color of steel all day. There was frost in the morning and it stayed all day under the trees and on the shady side of the garden wall.

I went out and climbed into the tree but the bark was icy and the breeze was bitter and even with two fleeces on I was freezing cold. The blackbirds didn’t seem to care. They went on flying in and out of the tree, singing and squawking. But what if this year the spring didn’t come at all? What if something dreadful had happened to the seasons for some awful reason?

I jumped down to the ground. Not a soul to be seen. I knelt on the grass and banged the ground with my fist and said,

“Come on, Persephone! Don’t give up, Persephone!”