Free What I Did by Christopher Wakling Page B

it was. I didn’t see it. All I saw was the playground, very close, very miniature, but no worm-casts, just sandy concrete. Next my neck felt nasty and then I realized what was going on and tried to wriggle out of it but I couldn’t. The zip was done up. Of my coat. They were pulling me across the playground by my hood.
    Obi-Wan Kenobi has a hood but nobody would drag him anywhere by it because he would defeat them if they did. If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Feel the Force, Billy.
    Unfortunately I didn’t have time to use my Force because Miss Hart used hers first. She saw me being dragged across the playground by my hood and she retaliated at the predators. — Stop that! she said, and they did. Her weapon of choice is taking away your gold stars.
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    Butterfly’s weapon would definitely be her folder, probably. Get back, get back, or I’ll jeans-folder you. She is filling it up with words now. If it was a rifle this would be called loading it with ammo. I want a catapult. — What about a dogapult, Son? Dad said when I told him, which was annoying and not funny because dogapults don’t really exist. One day I’ll be allowed a catapult but not yet because they are like sticks and the God they had before Jesus. He didn’t exist either but he did make some laws and the main one was that you had to poke out other people’s eyes if they poked yours out first. Careful there! If you wave that stick in my face I’ll take one of your eyes out with my catapult.
    â€” No, I normally don’t retaliate, I tell Butterfly again.
    She looks up from her jeans and tries another smile but it’s a weak one and suddenly I think she might either be confused or upset which is bad because it means she’s even less likely to go home.
    â€” It means poking somebody else’s eye out, I explain. — But don’t worry because I won’t do it unless I have to. How long are you staying?
    â€” Does that happen often, Billy? Do you try to fight back?
    â€” Sometimes retaliation is the only option, I say.
    â€” Really. Did you retaliate today?
    â€” No. I promise I didn’t. It’s half-term. Will you go away now, please?
    She closes her folder like Mr. Kneele closes the Bible when he finishes reading bits of it to us at school. Slowly. It’s a great book, the Bible, full of tremendous stories. Bedpost of Western civilization, Son. Just don’t take it as gospel. That’s a joke. I still don’t understand it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked Butterfly to go away.
    â€” Sorry, I add, looking at the dead TV. — But I’d like to be on my own now please.
    She straightens my trousers because I’ve sort of pulled them up half facing the wrong way, which is nice of her. Then she tells me some stuff about how sensible it would be if she arranged for somebody to check my bruises to make sure they weren’t still painful tomorrow or the next day and I do some nodding in time with her butterfly which flaps a bit as she stands up, because yes, it looks like my nodding is helping the butterfly to drag her away. Some eagles can lift up whole lambs but this butterfly isn’t really doing the lifting at all. Its an octopus allusion. Still, off you go butterfly. Take your woman. Open the kitchen door. Get Mum. Bye bye.
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    Mum comes back into the front room straightaway and turns the television on again. Hooray. There’s the little cheetah cub, still at it, dipping its bloody head in and out. Mum immediately fast-forwards the DVD to the gray wolves and goes right back to the kitchen again, shutting the door to say more things to Butterfly and leaving me to watch the whole of the pack hunting the caribou from the start of the chase to the exhaustion bit at the end in the deep snow, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!
    Actually the end bit is sad. Red snow.
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    Another sad thing happened in Tesco with Mum