Free The Chaos by Rachel Ward

desk.
    ‘I’ve got lots of dates and places and I want to see them, see where they are.’
    Everyone starts to gather round. 
    ‘What are they? The dates.’
    I’ve tried to think of a good lie, something they’d believe. ‘It’s birthdays, people’s birthdays. I’ve been collecting them.’
    ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ a kid with metal-rimmed glasses asks. I’m feeling defensive now, expecting everyone to start doing that thing, you know when you hold a finger up to the side of your head and loop it round. But they don’t. 
    ‘I’m just interested in them, that’s all.’ 
    They seem to accept it, and I twig I’m in a room where collecting things like facts and figures is okay. They probably all do it.
    ‘Have you got postcodes for them?’ the glasses kid asks. He’s got this nervous twitch on the side of his mouth, keeps going into a sort of half a smile.
    I shake my head and hand him my printout. 
    ‘You’ve only got street names, and place names. Ideally we need postcodes. I can get them from the online directory if you can give me house numbers and then it’s really easy to map it. I’d say we use different colours for the different dates instead of numbers. That way any patterns will show up.’ 
    The others are drifting away, but Glasses-boy seems signed up.
    ‘Is this where people live? Their home addresses?’
    ‘No,’ I say, ‘it’s where I … saw them.’
    ‘On the street? You interviewed them?’
    ‘Yeah … something like that.’
    ‘Mm, pity you didn’t ask the postcode …’ 
    He’s starting to get on my nerves a bit now. Okay, so I didn’t do it right, so I’m not a market researcher. But I keep a lid on it. I need him, don’t I? 
    ‘So, will you help me?’
    ‘I will, but I need better data.’
    I can feel my heart sinking at the thought of going out there again, watching people. I don’t know if I can do it any more.
    ‘I could see what I could do with this,’ he flaps the paper at me, ‘if I can take it home.’
    ‘Course,’ I say. ‘Thanks … er …’
    ‘Nelson.’
    ‘Nelson. Thanks. I’m Adam.’
    ‘That’s okay. I’ll be interested, too.’ I can’t help it, I look at him then, and my heart sinks. His number. 112027. He’ll be mapping his own death.
    I want to snatch the paper back from him, take it away. It’s too close to home, but instead I hear myself asking, ‘Where do you live?’
    ‘Churchill House.’
    I look at him again, and I’m falling, the floor’s disappeared and I’m tumbling down and down in the dark. There’s nothing to hold on to and I’m getting battered from all sides – bricks, ceilings, walls, all mixed up.
    ‘Adam?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Are you all right? You were … staring at me.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I do that sometimes. Can’t seem to help it.’
    His half-smile blinks on and off. Twitch, twitch, twitch. He puts his hand up to his face.
    ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he says, ‘unless you’re staying. It’s still calculus today.’
    ‘No, that’s okay. See you tomorrow.’ I swing my bag onto my back and go out of the classroom, but there’s part of me, a big part, that wishes I could stay. If I was bright enough, if I could stay and not feel stupid, it’d be good to besomewhere where it’s all right to be different. Just for an hour.
    Outside, everyone’s in groups and gangs. Twos and threes having a chat, bigger groups playing football, or basketball. Out here being different don’t cut it.
    I find a quieter corner, check no one’s looking and get my notebook out. I write Nelson’s details down. I want it to calm me down, but it don’t. I can feel the panic rising inside me – I can’t stop it. He’s a decent guy, the kind of kid that’s never done anyone any harm. Why should he die so young? It’s not fair. It’s not right. He’s got less than three months to live, that’s all. And maybe I have too.
    When I look at my book it’s like the deaths in there are