Free The Worst of Me by Kate Le Vann Page A

church’s line oncontraception and the spread of AIDS. The oppression of women. Homophobic attacks.’
    I tried to make this sound all blah blah blah, as if everyone agreed about these things, but I knew I was on shaky ground. Not because Dee and her sister were religious – as far as I knew they weren’t. They didn’t drink, but they’d always joined in Christmas stuff at primary school and their mum dressed like my mum, but better. The problem was that I was using borrowed arguments and if my friends had followed up on anything I would have been lost, and have had to admit it. The clever thing would have been to admit right from the start that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t look at Sam. Including homophobia on my bluffed list was a cheap shot that I knew wouldn’t come off well.
    Dee spoke carefully. ‘Honestly? I would say that there is not much there that is, by itself, racist, as we understand racist. But Nash has been getting a lot more political recently.’
    ‘Maybe it’s got something to do with him arguing about this at school all the time,’ Afiqah said. They shared a smile.
    ‘So in a way, quite honestly, I think Nashriq is looking to be offended,’ Dee said. ‘But, in a way . . .’
    ‘
You’re
offended?’ I said.
    ‘Some of it is not good. But like I said, it’s mainlyabout . . .’ She breathed out and began again slowly, trying to unravel a tangle of thoughts. ‘The context is that we are living in a country where there is a lot of mistrust and false assumptions, especially about Muslims, and your . . .
friends
are posting links to news stories about human rights abuses in Islamic countries. But you could start listing abuse of human rights all over the world and you would never stop. And yes, there would be Islamic countries on that list, but as far as your friends are concerned that’s it, stop there, forget about atrocities in non-Muslim countries. The sites they’re linking to are often dodgy, and the stories are written in a way that’s designed to make people look uncivilised and barbaric. And it’s just like, “There, look what they’re like!” But a
lot
of it.’
    ‘You’re making it sound like BNP literature,’ I said.
    ‘Look, there’s our bus,’ Dee said. ‘Why don’t you go home, read it – just search the school website, discussions, and think about it. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, and you know them better than me. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing, maybe if you talk to Jonah he’d be surprised there was this reaction.’
    After they’d gone, Sam and I sat quietly. Sam stirred the dry foam at the bottom of his paper cup.
    ‘That’ll be our bus now,’ he said.
    ‘Sam.’
    ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously a sixth-form thing. Or a Malton-Bond thing. Or a dick-measuring thing.’
    ‘Maybe it’s not him,’ I said. ‘When I’ve heard them talking, it’s really Steve who’s into this, the others are just giving Steve the excuse to listen to the sound of his own voice.’
    ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said again, but we both stared out of the bus window on the way back, and when we reached my stop I felt almost too exhausted to walk home.
    ‘I’m
sure
that’s homework,’ Paul said, in his annoying ‘joke’ voice, when I was clicking on the school site to find the discussion. I really didn’t have time to joke about how much time I wasted on the internet.
    ‘How about you look at the writing at the top of the window,’ I said flatly, not looking up. ‘
Oh yes
, Samuel Bond School, my school, that would in fact make it homework, wouldn’t it? And it’s Saturday, and
if
I have homework I don’t actually have to do it today, but it turns out I am doing. So I’m trying to work out what your problem with this is . . .’ I narrowed one eye, as if really considering it.
    ‘Terrific, you’re in that kind of mood,’ Paul said. ‘I can’t joke with you, I can’t talk to you, I can only