Free The Roar by Clayton Emma

hit Mr Grey full in the face. Everything froze for a moment as if someone had pressed pause during a movie, the Fit Mix, Mr Grey, Mika’s heart, the nurse, teacher, classmates, everything, and there was a dreadful silence as everyone watched the Fit Mix begin to run down Mr Grey’s face and on to his collar.
    ‘You ungrateful little—’ the nurse screeched at Mika, her pale eyes venomous. ‘How dare you!’ She stomped towards the front of the classroom, as if she’d had enough of it all, her shoes rapping like gunfire on the hard floor.
    Mr Grey calmly took a handkerchief out of his pocket and began to mop his face. Mika felt his guts melt with fear. Ruben sniggered behind him.
    ‘You!’ Mr Grey roared, pointing at Ruben. ‘Stand up! How dare you laugh! That’s a fifty credit fine! Let’s see how funny you find that !’
    Then he turned his cold eyes on Mika, the pink slime still glistening on his grey lashes and brows. ‘Come with me,’ he hissed, and dragged Mika out of the classroom by the collar of his T-shirt.

6
    DON’T BELIEVE THEM
    A fter yelling at Mika for fifteen minutes, Mr Grey left him sitting on a chair in his office with instructions to ‘think about what he had just done.’ He left, Mika assumed, to go to the staff hygiene room and wash the Fit Mix off his eyebrows.
    Mika had never been in Mr Grey’s office before and he looked around miserably at the bare desk and three hard chairs – the sort that dig into your back when you sit on them. The walls were painted grey and the window looked out at the Fab Food Factory and an electricity pylon. Facing Mr Grey’s desk was a bank of screens showing views from the security cameras – the dark playground underneath the school; dismal, deserted hallways; dripping urinals and classrooms of pupils doing their morning work. He stood up and searched for a view of his classroom. Finding it, he watched his classmates. The Telly Head nurse was handing out bags, walking through the rows of desks with a tightsmile on her face and nodding abruptly as everyone said, ‘Thank you’. He watched them snatch the bags hungrily and rummage, taking things out and putting them on their desks as if it was Christmas and they were opening Santa sacks. A baseball cap, a mug and lots of smaller things he couldn’t see well enough to identify. The colourful balloons bobbed on the walls. They were enjoying themselves. He turned away and sat down again on the hard chair in front of Mr Grey’s desk and put his head in his hands and tried to think about ‘what he had just done’. He was as eager to know the reason for his behaviour as Mr Grey, but he had absolutely no idea. He felt confused, lonely and afraid.
    I should apologize, Mika thought. Say that I’m really sorry and make up some excuse for what I’ve done. Make it all better so I can go back to class and be ‘normal’.
    But he didn’t feel normal, so how could he act normal? How could he take a goody bag from a Telly Head and laugh and smile like everyone else? And the mayhem in his head had been getting worse since he left the classroom, not better. While Mr Grey was yelling at him, at the back of his mind was a whisper: ‘They’re trying to poison you, they’re telling you lies. It’s all lies. Don’t believe them.’
    Ellie’s voice, he wondered. He’d thought he’d heard her speak to him many times since she’d disappeared. Someone was talking to him . . .
    He rocked on the seat holding his head and the Telly Heads swarmed around him like umbra ghosts, knives raised, ready to chop him up and serve him as canapés.
    I want Helen, Mika thought desperately. She’ll make me feel better.
    The office door hummed, startling him. He watched it slide open and Mr Grey and Mrs Fowler walked in. Mrs Fowler had taken the streamers off her cardigan. She looked anxious and hovered uncomfortably to the side of Mr Grey’s desk. Mika sensed she felt uneasy about the way he was being treated, but he also