Free When I Was Joe by Keren David

trying to do up my cuffs at the same time.
    â€˜Can you explain yesterday’s unauthorised absence? A domestic crisis I understand?’
    If he knows, why is he asking? ‘Yes, sir.’
    â€˜You don’t have to call me sir, Joe; you’re not in the cadet corps now.’
    Eh? I can’t be bothered with this. I have bigger worries than Mr Hunt understands, and I might not even be in his class by tomorrow. ‘Shall I go to assembly, sir, or would you like me to explain about how my mum was ill?’ I say, sounding as bored as I dare.
    â€˜Take a detention for turning up half-dressed and go to assembly,’ he says, and I get there just in time to line up with my class, sitting down hurriedly next to mousey little Claire who goes pink when I lean over and whisper, ‘I never knew you were Ellie’s sister.’
    â€˜Silence!’ shouts Mr Hunt, and we all sit catatonic while the head teacher lectures us about moral choices and how they are linked to school uniform. Making the right decisions becomes a habit, just like being smartly turned out – outward order, inner discipline – blah, blah, blah. It makes no sense to me at all.
    At break, Brian in the next desk says, ‘Wait a minute, Joe,’ and pulls some papers out of his bag. ‘It’s the homework you missed from yesterday. I thought I’d better keep it for you. You have to do this and this by Monday, and on this one,’ – he solemnly thumbs through a massive pile of Maths – ‘pages four, five and six by Wednesday.’
    Of course I could be anywhere by then. But it’s nice of him to have kept it for me. Not the sort of thing Arron would have thought of. In fact, Brian, now I come to thinkof it, seems like an all-round good guy. Someone I can probably trust.
    â€˜Thanks Bri, that’s excellent, really helpful.’ I stuff the papers in my bag. ‘Bri, can I ask your confidential advice about a few things?’
    Brian’s beaming. ‘Of course.’
    â€˜Well . . . you know Carl and his lot? When they’re trying to be threatening, what do you think they have in mind? Do I need to, you know, worry about them?’
    Brian has no idea what I mean. I can see it in his innocent small-town, thirteen-year-old eyes. ‘He’s a bit of a bully, but it’s probably mostly talk,’ he says. ‘He generally picks on people smaller than you.’
    That sounds OK. I need to be sure though. ‘So I don’t need to be, you know . . . prepared?’ He gapes. I spell it out. ‘Weapons, blades, Bri. No one here uses them, do they?’
    The penny drops. He shakes his head. ‘Wow . . . no, I don’t think so.’ He looks curious, and impressed. ‘Is that what you’re used to?’
    We’re not going there. I change the subject, skilful as a Ronaldo step-over. ‘You know how everyone goes down the shopping centre on a Saturday morning?’
    â€˜Yeah. . . Do you want to come with us?’ asks Brian, half nervous, half hopeful. ‘Well, yeah, but the thing is that my mum, it’s her birthday, see, and she wants me togo shopping with her, but I’m not sure how it’s going to look. . .’ I trail off. It strikes me that I’m a lot clearer about knives and fights than I am about shopping etiquette.
    â€˜
You
can probably get away with it,’ says Brian decisively, ‘although I’d never live it down. Of course it all depends on your mum. Is she cool?’
    The unsaid words ‘like you’ hang in the air, and suddenly I feel better about the whole shopping thing. Six months ago, when Mum was a lot cooler and I was not cool at all, this would not even have been an issue.
    â€˜She’s OK. And maybe I can send her off somewhere and hang out with you guys.’ I say, and Brian is obviously delighted. I can’t help comparing his eager friendliness to Arron. Arron, who never seemed to