Free Artichoke Hearts by Sita Brahmachari Page A

in a box.’
    ‘Which was it? A crusader or a marauder?’ Pat Print asks, looking amused.
    ‘What’s the difference?’ asks Ben.
    ‘Good question.’ Pat laughs. ‘Sorry, Millie, I interrupted your flow.’
    ‘Well, my ancestor’s job was to keep Robert the Something’s heart locked up in a box. That’s why I’m called “Lockhart”.’
    ‘Why would he have to keep the heart locked up?’ butts in Jidé, forgetting again his own rule that he’s not supposed to be this interested.
    Millie sighs, fed up with being interrupted.
    ‘Fascinating, Millie.’ Pat smiles. ‘It’s a great name, “Lockhart” – beautifully iconic. The heart is the subject of so many wonderful stories. I bet if I
asked you, you could all write a different story about love. Now you’ve given me an idea.’
    Ben and Jidé groan at the same time . . . back to their double act again.
    ‘Write down as many words as come to mind when I say the word “heart”. Just make a list. I’m giving you fifteen seconds so don’t think about it too hard, just
scribble down whatever springs to mind . . . starting NOW! The word is “heart”.’
    artichoke
    blood
    love
    layers
    break
    Pig
    blood
    black pudding
    brave
    stop beating
    That’s all I write in fifteen seconds.
    ‘Now STOP! Exchange papers and have a read of each other’s,’ orders Pat.
    I was going to swap with Millie, like I always do, but before I can, Jidé Jackson has swapped papers with me. In fact, he’s sitting shoulder to shoulder with me, and just that
closeness makes me turn my most impressive crimson colour. At least I can keep head down while I read his list.
    love
    hate
    murder
    blood
    machete
    lost
    scar
    mother
    father
    sister
    cloth
    empty
    river
    ‘Now see what words you have in common and choose one word from the list that you would like to ask your partner about,’ Pat instructs us.
    I look sideways at Jidé and for a second I do what I can never usually do . . . look him in the eye. Jidé makes a tiny movement with his head that tells me not to ask him anything
about his words, so we talk about black pudding and pig’s blood and how my Nana Kath’s friend tricked me into eating it by telling me it was a vegetable.
    ‘And you believed her!’ Jidé laughs.
    Then he asks me about the artichoke, so I tell him about Nana Josie’s artichoke-heart charm and what she told me about it, and all the time I’m talking I’m thinking of what his story might be behind those words.
    ‘Let’s have a couple of examples then,’ calls out Pat Print as Jidé and I go back to avoiding eye contact with each other and her. For a moment I forgot we were even in
class. Now that I’ve actually looked into them, I realize that Jidé’s eyes have a hazel light in them.
    It takes me a while to get my head back into the room, and by the time I do Millie’s reading out the word ‘transplant’, from Ben’s list, because what he didn’t tell
us earlier is that he was one of the youngest babies in Britain ever to have a heart transplant. It’s hard to believe that Ben Gbemi could have ever been small and weak.
    ‘I’ve got the newspaper clippings. I can bring them in to show you, if you want,’ Ben booms.
    I can’t help thinking of Big Ben’s tiny baby heart.
    ‘You see,’ smiles Pat Print. ‘You were only just born and you’d already hit the news.’
    Then Ben reads out Millie’s word: loyalty.
    ‘We talked about Millie’s ancestor, guarding the heart,’ Ben says. ‘He must have really cared about the person whose heart he was protecting, to stay loyal to them for
all that time, even though they were dead.’
    Ben’s dad left home a few years ago. I bet that’s what he’s thinking about, but he’s not the type to say anything.
    Pat nods. ‘The heart is probably the most powerful symbol in life and literature. My guess is that Millie’s ancestor could have either been protecting the heart, because it was such
a precious symbol, or preventing it from