Free Wild Song by Janis Mackay Page B

The staff member told him again to be quiet. He was counting to five. Voices flew back and forth, and the voices grew louder.
    The staff member reached five. He got more and more anxious-looking. His eyes flickered around the room, like he was expecting someone with more authority than he had to save the day. No one came. His face flushed red. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, first under his breath, then louder. ‘That is enough!’ Nobody took any notice.
    ‘I can’t s-s-stand mess,’ the boy stammered. ‘I mean, it does s-serious stuff to me. Mess.’
    Jaakko, who seemed to be the gang leader, pulled at his soup bowl and clattered his spoon on the table. ‘Ooops! Sorreeeee,’ he said, looking around the whole canteen and grinning. There were eight or nine dining tables and itlooked like they all had their own dramas going on, but our table was centre stage. The prima donnas of the dinner time. The serious nutcases! The ones everybody was looking at. The noise of the canteen racketed in my brain like screeching gulls.
    There was a lull in the noise. That’s when Jaakko sighed. ‘Jesus, it’s too bad,’ he said. Everyone around the table looked at him expectantly. He waited, like an actor milking the pause. ‘Big shame Hannu’s leaving so soon.’
    ‘Leave it out, Jaakko,’ the staff member snapped.
    ‘What?’ That was the first word I spoke. A knot tightened in my gut. ‘What did you say?’ Of course I knew –Hannu had been telling me for ages – but I had never truly believed it.
    A silence fell over the whole table. Spoons dribbled brown chicken soup. The staff member beckoned to a colleague across the room, and two burly men came over. The next few seconds happened like a slow-motion action scene in a movie.
    ‘Hannu is leaving,’ the staff member said stiffly, getting to his feet. ‘He’s getting married next month, then they’re going north to live.’ He nodded to the man who had come to stand by his side. He looked back at me. ‘He told you. He said you knew, Niilo.’
    I felt the smooth table edge in my hands. I gripped it tight – then pushed it. Bowls, spoons, bread, glasses of water, napkins, salt cellars, even the small vase of flowers in the middle of the table rolled slowly downwards. It waslike a keeling boat. Soup spilled onto boys’ laps. They screamed. The table leg reared in front of my face.
    The three men had a hold of me in a second. One pinned my arms back and others lifted me into the air, as if I was a doll. With my feet off the ground I watched the table crash to the ground and everyone fall down, or stagger to their feet – all in slow motion. A napkin floated in the air. The boy who hated mess howled as the table slammed down on his legs. Another boy punched the boy next to him and the whole dining room erupted like a bar-room brawl. I watched the scene of chaos as I was carried out. It was as if I was watching a film. None of it was real. I was outside of it, looking in and watching, and none of it was real.
    Just before they carried me out of the canteen I saw him: Scarface. He was leaning against the wall, sucking juice out of an orange, the only one not fighting. He looked at me, and winked.
    Later I sat gazing out of the window in the nurse’s room. I could see the branches of an oak tree, and on a branch a squirrel was feasting on an acorn. That squirrel was free to go where it liked. Sunlight spilled through the branches of the tree, lighting up its red bushy tail. If I could just concentrate on the squirrel, everything would be all right …
    Behind me, people came in and out. The door creaked open and shut. A spoon tinkled in a coffee cup. Murmured voices spoke about what to do. Hannu burst into the room. Still I didn’t turn around.
    ‘I am sorry,’ Hannu said. He was right behind me. Still I sat and stared at the squirrel. ‘I did tell you, Niilo, several times,’ he went on. ‘I got the feeling you weren’t listening. But I never made it a secret.