Free Feather Boy by Nicky Singer Page B

me.”
    “And this one,” Wesley waves a red flame, “says ‘No Irish. No Blacks’.” He grins.
    Did I mention that Wesley’s black? Or rather, he’s the colour of coffee with milk in, on account of his mum being black and his dad white. Miss Raynham is always trying to get Wesley to talk about What it Means to be Black in Today’s Society. And Wesley is always telling Miss Raynham that He Hasn’t the Faintest Idea.
    “That’s the good news,” continues Wesley.
    “The good news?” inquires Miss Raynham.
    “Yeah. In Dulcie’s day you see, they didn’t like renting to Irish people or blacks. So they stuck the ‘No Irish, No Blacks’ notice in the window of their houses. To save embarrassment.”
    “Right.”
    “But now,” says Wesley triumphantly, “it’s different. There’s progress. People rent to the Irish, don’t they?”
    “But not to black people, is that what you’re saying, Wesley?”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea, Miss Raynham.”
    “How does any of this help the Prince?” says Niker.
    “Knowledge,” says Wesley, tapping his nose, “is a very wonderful t’ing, Jonathan.”
    “Thank you very much, Wesley. I think we’ll move on now. Jonathan, how about you taking up the baton?”
    Niker collects what looks like two blank sheets of paper and makes his way to the front. He begins to talk, and as he talks he walks, pacing slowly in front of the desk, pausing occasionally for dramatic effect.
    “My Elder is called Mavis. I do not know how old she is because she does not know how old she is. As well as forgetting her birth date she seems to have forgotten almost every other thing that has ever happened to her. If you ask her about her past, she says ‘I’m going to Abingdon’. If you ask her about the future, she asks you when tea is. In fact, I think, ‘When’s tea?’ was the first sensible thing Mavis said tome. But after she’d said it six times in a row, it suddenly didn’t seem quite so sensible any more. In fact, it seemed mad. And…”
    “Is there a point to this, Jonathan?”
    “The point, Miss Raynham, is get on with your life while you can. That’s what I’d tell the Prince. Stop mucking about and get on with it. Before it’s too late.”
    “Oh,” says Miss Raynham, impressed despite herself. “Well – let’s see the pictures then.”
    Niker hold up the first piece of paper. It’s a pencil portrait of Mavis as a chicken. But it’s not a grotesque caricature, it’s a detailed, accurate and quite fond picture of Mavis. It shows her with her head on one side and a bewildered but charming chicken look in her eyes. On the second sheet of paper, he has drawn Mavis as an angel. In this picture she is much younger, in her twenties. The chicken wings are soft, downy, fledgling angel wings and her look is one of serenity and hope. Once again it is piercingly accurate.
    “I wish I could draw like that,” says Kate, voicing the class’s thought.
    Miss Raynham, who’s never seen Mavis so doesn’t know how accurate the representation is, nevertheless appreciates the quality of the drawing.
    “Jonathan,” she says sadly, “you’re a wasted talent.”
    “Thank you,” says Niker.
    Then it happens. Miss Raynham turns to me.
    “Robert,” she says, “if you’d do us the honour.”
    Niker resumes his seat. I don’t move from mine.
    “If you’d like to find the artwork…”
    But that’s the problem. Or one of them. While the other have been busy cutting and sticking I have been talking to people a lot madder than Mavis. I’ve been talking to a man who may or may not be married to a woman who may or may not remember some dreadful thing that happened to a boy who may or may not be her son. And instead of having a nice piece of paper with a drawing on, I have a cut on the inside of my cheek from eating gravel from a grave and the distinct taste of strawberry jam in my mouth when I think about star-shaped holes in windows.
    “Robert…” prompts Miss