Helen Oyeyemi - The Icarus Girl

One o’clock!

Jess almost growled with her discontent, wishing that TillyTilly had come to school with her so that the playground would be bearable. But she would probably see her after school. She brightened at this thought, and unwrapped her sandwich, then groaned. It was tuna and sweet corn. Inside the sandwich bag was a typed note from her mother: We’ve run out of mushrooms .

Bad day. Bad, bad day.

Later, in the playground, Jess was sitting on one of the green benches that formed a row until they reached the far wall. The teacher on duty stood across the playground, eyeing her. She didn’t want the teacher to come over and ask her if she was all right, so she bent her head and carried on reading. She’d abandoned The Lord of the Rings for now and was concentrating on Little Women instead. Now that it was daytime, she was surprised that she had thought the story different. It was exactly the same. Even now, her fingers were itching for a pencil to “correct” with, to draw over the offending lines so you couldn’t even make out the shapes of the letters. She smoothed her ponytail, twisting some of the hair around her finger, and turned the page. Year Five boys began running in circles around her bench, throwing handfuls of leaves at her, but soon went away when they realised that she wasn’t taking any notice of them.

When she next looked up, the teacher was trying to stop a fight that had developed in a corner of the playground between two Year Six boys. It looked as if they were fighting over who got to kick a penalty. From the corner of her eye, she could see Colleen McLain and Andrea and Sonia Carney coming towards her. They were all smiling, nudging each other, arms linked. They were a group . Jess began to feel dread dripping slowly like water in her stomach. She shifted and cleared her throat, telling herself not to worry, not to be surprised.

What can they do to you anyway? They’ll only say stu f.

She should have expected this, should have known that no matter what she knew about Colleen McLain, it didn’t make Colleen the sort of person who wouldn’t pick on other people. True, Colleen’s mum pushed her daughter’s knickers into her face and made her cry, but Colleen was also clever and a leader and she didn’t like Jessamy. This confused Jess so much that she sighed deeply. She had a headache.

The group stopped in front of her. “Oh, is it a new girl?” they asked each other, expressions of mock wonderment on their faces, thoughtful fingers placed beside mouths. Colleen, clearly enjoying herself, even stroked her chin.

“I think it is,” one of them said.

Jess refused to look up from her book and couldn’t tell whether it was Andrea or Sonia. Although they looked nothing alike, they both had a high, nasal quality to their voices, as if they couldn’t breathe properly.

“It looks like Jessamy,” said Colleen.

“It can’t be!” said one of the others. “Jessamy never comes to the playground. She’s always off having a fit in the nurse’s room.”

“Yeah,” said Andrea/Sonia. “And she’s got no mates, either, so why would she come to the playground?”

Jess gritted her teeth.

“But she looks just like Jessamy,” Colleen said loudly, leaning closer to Jess. Jess thought that she could smell the saliva on her hair. Oh, the disgusting, disgusting saliva and this group not liking her; it took all the nerve she had not to let herself fall backwards off the bench and carry on screaming long after she’d hit the ground.

Then Colleen McLain poked her in the forehead, which shouldn’t have happened.

Jess lashed out and hit Colleen square in the face so that she staggered back, holding her cheek and shouting. She couldn’t stop there; she ran at the other two, needing to scatter them so that they wouldn’t be a group anymore. Andrea Carney pushed her and she grabbed Andrea’s struggling arm and stuffed four fingers into her mouth and

BIT her, and bit and bit, and even chomped (tried to eat her up) , snarling, clawing at Andrea’s shocked face with her other hand until Colleen pulled her off by her ponytail, and the teacher on duty came running over, all jangling keys, blowing her whistle as if that was going to help, and Andrea was crying and nursing her hand, and Sonia was saying “Oh my God. . she’s mad,” and Colleen was trying to tell the teacher that Jessamy started it.

The teacher on duty stared at Jessamy. It was always the quiet ones that suddenly lost it. Jess sat back down on the bench, clutching her copy of Little Women , staring at Andrea, who was being taken to the nurse by Sonia. “I’m gonna kill you,” shouted Sonia, crying herself. Jess was watching them both crying and did not really know what to think. She felt bad about biting Andrea: after all, it wasn’t Andrea’s fault; Andrea had taken her to the school nurse’s office once. It was Colleen McLain who was the problem and the puzzle. It was her.

“You,” said the teacher on duty. Jess looked at her. The teacher was pointing at her. “You’re on the wall for the rest of lunchtime play! And I’m putting you in the Incident Book as well! There might be a letter home about this!”

Jess got up and went across the playground to sit on the low wall that all the playtime offenders had to sit on. They weren’t allowed to get up without permission until the bell went. Nam Hong was on the wall as well, and Samantha Robinson. She didn’t know why, she didn’t ask.

“What are you doing here?” Nam asked. He was chewing bubble gum. Maybe that was why he was on the wall in the first place; it was just like him to reoffend whilst being punished.

“Had a fight.” Jess wanted to keep the conversation as brief as possible. She twisted her hands together, avoiding eye contact with the other two.

Sam Robinson leaned over.

“I saw! Wow, that was madness!” she said admiringly. “Sonia Carney’s gonna kill you, though. Her big brother’s at secondary school, you know.”

Jess shrugged, wondering if TillyTilly would be able to fight Sonia Carney’s big brother. She also wondered, briefly, what TillyTilly would say about what had just happened. She thought it might be something like, “ Brilliant! They’re all out of order anyways .” She hoped it would be something like that.

Then Colleen McLain came over.

Again.

What now?

“Don’t you ever touch me again,” Colleen shouted, jabbing a finger at Jess.

Sam and Nam looked at each other, almost rubbing their hands with anticipation. Jess didn’t respond.

“Did you hear me? You stupid freak show! Everyone thinks you’re mad, you know! You do all these. . STUPID things and I bet you think they’re amazing but no one likes you because of them! You’re one of these people who’ll never be normal! You’ll probably end up in a mental hospital or something! You’re just lucky the teacher came before I belted you one!” Colleen’s face was red and although she stood some distance away from the wall, Jess could see that she was shaking with anger. Jess opened up the book to the page that she had last been reading. “Don’t you DARE ignore me!” Colleen raged. “You better apologise to me! APOLOGISE! Before I beat you up! My mum says it’s not your fault you’re mad, she says it’s the way you’ve been brought up. Your family is weird , didn’t you know?”

Nam gave a half laugh, half gasp. “Oh NO! Jess, are you going to have that? You should knock her out!”

Jess focused on the words and on making them not dance about on the page. She had to ignore Colleen, had to.

“You think you’re the cleverest girl in the school, don’t you?” Colleen shouted at the top of her voice, then reached over and knocked Little Women , Jess’s book, Jess’s mother’s book, out of her hand.