Free A Thousand Cuts by Simon Lelic Page B

walked the long way around her desk, past Charlie and past Rob and past Harry and she did not look at any of them. She listened to Walter’s cackle and she heard Rob and Charlie snigger and she hoped that none of them could see her shaking.

The boys are idiots. They’re all of them idiots. And like I know you’re not supposed to say this, you’re not supposed to speak disapproving of the dead and that but Donovan, Donovan Stanley, he was the biggest idiot of them all.
    He wasn’t the tallest. He wasn’t the strongest. He was the quickest, though. His mouth, I mean, his tongue. He was the quickest. He was the meanest too. He’d say things you couldn’t believe and then he’d be saying something else and you’d be there wondering whether you had even heard him right, whether that first thing he’d said had even been said at all. Do you know what I mean?
    He was quite good looking. Normally I don’t like black hair but I liked it on him. It looked good with his eyes. They were blue, like my little brother’s, although my little brother’s, they’re changing now, they’re going brown. Samantha reckons I fancied him but I never did. I was going out with Scott, Scott Davis, at the time so I wouldn’t of told anyone even if I had of done. Which I didn’t. And anyway, he wasn’t interested in girls. He wasn’t gay, God, but he wasn’t interested in girls as, you know, girlfriends. He’d shag them, I know people who’ve shagged him, and maybe he’d shag them once or twice but that was as far as it went. I never shagged him. I hope you don’t think I would of because I wouldn’t of no way.
    He was fifteen, same as me. Imagine getting shot at fifteen. Imagine, like, dying. And that girl, Sarah, wasn’t she eleven? I didn’t know her. I didn’t know the black kid either. I only knew Donovan and not that well. He was the oldest of the three of them but he was young enough though, wasn’t he? He acted like he was eighteen or something, said he drove his cousin’s car, hung out with his cousin in the pub but I don’t know if he really did. Imagine dying before you’re old enough to learn to drive. Imagine dying before they’ll serve you in a pub.
    Some kids, though, they’ll be glad he’s dead. I shouldn’t say that either, should I, but it’s true. Donovan and the others, they picked on the younger kids mostly, just whoever happened to get in their way. Although one time they beat up this sixth-former. Jason his name was, Jason Bailey. Jason and that, they’re playing football and Donovan fouls him, hacks his legs away or something, and Jason calls Donovan a cheat, an effing cheat. Donovan, he was a cheat, he was always fouling someone or mouthing off at them or whatever but you don’t go calling him a cheat, no one ever called him that. They used crash helmets, I heard. Donovan and his mates. You know, motorcycle helmets.
    He’d never done anything to a teacher though, not before Bumfluff - Mr Szajkowski - not that I’d heard.
    Jesus, that sounds weird. What do I call him now? He’s not a teacher any more, is he? He’s not even Bumfluff any more. God, that’s so weird. It’s weird just thinking about it. The whole thing I mean. It feels like some film, like you know when you watch a film and you’re half asleep and messed-up things start happening and you don’t know if it’s in the film or in your head or what. It feels like that. Except I know it’s not in my head and it’s not in a film and it actually really happened.
    Donovan started on Bumfluff right from day one. I’m gonna call him Bumfluff, I think. Is that okay, if I call him Bumfluff?
    So it was the first history class of term, double history, and we know Miss Evans has left so we know we’re getting a new teacher. So Bumfluff walks in and everyone goes quiet because you never know the first time, do you, you never know what a teacher’s gonna be like. So Bumfluff walks in and everyone’s quiet and Bumfluff smiles and says,