Free Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves

everyone laugh. He felt like he was seeing it from behind a cracked window. Anna finally got some control and Raj began to read in a quiet, slurred voice, massacring the old words as the class sniggered quietly and Anna watched with pursed lips and folded arms.
    As Toby sat there, watching them, a memory jolted him. A sucker-punch to the head.
    Thrashing about in dark water, freezing cold, unable to see, fighting to reach the surface.
    The memory flashed and faded. But it left Toby short of breath. He looked around, jolted, but Paulette was still stumbling over the verse and the class was laughing at her.
    Then another memory came crashing in.
    Screaming under the water – the air from his lungs bubbling away from him. Screaming and screaming, but unable to pull himself up to the surface.
    ‘Shit!’ The word burst out of him involuntarily. It stopped the rest of the class dead and suddenly all eyes were on him. Someone started laughing. But Toby could still feel the burning in his lungs.
    ‘Toby?’ Anna came forward, surprised and annoyed by the outburst. Toby looked up. He could feel the horror of the memory tapping at the back of his neck.
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Nothing, Miss.’
    ‘Well, I’m sure it was something for you to interrupt the lesson like that.’
    Toby just stared at his desk. He didn’t normally get into trouble and he could tell that the class was thrilled to watch this. Much better than Shakespeare.
    ‘Toby?’
    ‘No thanks.’
    ‘I insist.’
    ‘Look, can we, can we just get on with the sodding play?’
    A few gasps, then a lad called out, ‘Hey, Toby’s finally grown some balls!’ and the class roared in approval.
    ‘Right. That’s enough!’ Anna snapped. ‘Toby Mayhew, detention after school. Raj and Paulette get on with it – and if I hear a word from anyone else then there will be big trouble. Do you all understand?’
    The class murmured and grumbled, but no one really gave a shit. Paulette carried on reading, and soon everything was back to normal. Anna glanced at Toby, she caught his eye and her expression softened – what’s happened? she asked silently. He looked down and didn’t look back up for the rest of the lesson.
    *
    He continued to avoid her gaze during detention at the end of the day. Anna watched him from her desk, looking up between doses of a celebrity gossip magazine, but the boy remained sullen and withdrawn. Eventually, she’d had enough and got up, standing over Toby, waiting for him to give in and look up at her. But still he didn’t move.
    ‘So, what happened, Toby?’
    He just shrugged.
    ‘It’s not like you.’
    Again, nothing.
    ‘I rang your father. He seemed, well, not that surprised.’
    ‘Yeah, well …’
    But he shut himself off before he could say any more. Anna leaned against the neighbouring desk and waited, exploiting the silence. Just as she thought she’d failed, Toby finally looked up at her.
    ‘Is everything okay at home?’ she asked, grabbing the moment.
    ‘How do you mean?’ He seemed genuinely confused by the question.
    ‘Well, sometimes, when you’re having trouble at school, it’s actually because things aren’t … going so well … at home …’
    She raised her eyebrows to make her point, but Toby stared at her blankly.
    ‘I saw you were limping, when you came into class.’
    ‘It was my fault.’ A pause and then he muttered, ‘apparently.’ It was said under his breath, but it was a shared whisper.
    ‘What was?’ Anna asked, leaning forward.
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘But you don’t think so?’
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘If it wasn’t your fault, then whose fault was it?’
    He just shrugged, eyes down again. Anna’s hands gripped the desk a little more tightly.
    ‘If it wasn’t your fault, Toby, then was it … your father’s?’
    Another shrug.
    ‘Toby, is your father—?’
    ‘I don’t know!’ he blurted out. It wasn’t a shout and it wasn’t aggressive. ‘I don’t know anything! It