David Lloyd
Helen Rutter
“OK class, turn over your papers the test will begin now.”
The room is silent. The air feels thick like I can’t quite breathe it in. Maths is the worst. The sound of papers rustling as everyone turns their tests and start scratching their answers down. The noise of the pens and pencils seems to get louder and louder. As I look around, Mr Barging’s eyes meet mine. I quickly look down and turn over the paper, trying to pretend that I’m just like everyone else. Like I have the first clue of what to write and like my heart is not pounding in my chest.
It feels like Mr Barging has been building up to SATS week all year, his face getting redder and his voice higher and higher as this week got closer. The school feels different. The shushing in the corridors is more intense and the silence feels loud. Even the nice teachers look different. Strained sad smiles as though they feel sorry for us and for themselves.
I sneak a look around the room. Everyone else looks normal. Writing away as if it’s just another day. Raz is counting things up on his fingers and Tamika is furiously rubbing away a wrong answer but they don’t look worried.
When we did a mock maths paper a few weeks ago I thought my heart was going to explode. I’m sure someone had turned the heating up, the sweat was dripping down my chest. I ended up writing nothing at all and was just happy to still be alive at the end of the hour. I can feel the same thing happening now. My breaths getting shallower and faster, my mind racing, panicking, trying to think of a way out.
Since the mock, every time I even look at numbers I get the same feeling of panic and today is no different. Mum says I’m being daft and that these tests don’t even matter. She says, “Charley, you can only ever do your best, so just do that.” Then she ruffled my hair and went out to work – Again. She is always working or busy so there is never time to explain that it’s not that I don’t want to do my best or try, it’s that I can’t. I can’t even see the questions. I can’t breathe, let alone figure out some equation.
Mum works in three different jobs and it feels like the only time she is really home is to get changed from one uniform into another. I think it’s like she is in a play and our house is like the backstage bit where she has to do a quick change and then rush out as her next character. When she gets in after her shift, or has time off, she promises to sit and eat and watch telly together but she just falls asleep on the sofa. Still, it’s nicer to have her asleep next to me on the sofa than nothing I guess. I turn the telly down and cover her in a blanket and get my sketch book out.
Mr Barging paces around the room. His footsteps sound like a heartbeat. My chest gets tighter, my fingers go tingly and my face gets hot. I try to breathe out as though I’m blowing up a balloon, like Mrs Harvey the headteacher told me to do once. It feels like it might be working but on the third blow Mr Barging’s shrill voice breaks my concentration.
“Charley, stop making that noise, you are putting everyone off. It’s not your birthday and I don’t see any candles that need blowing out thank you very much.”
There are a few giggles as everyone carries on with their test. The panic hits me hard. I hate him. I was just trying to be OK and now I can’t breathe and my chest hurts. I look at the page and the numbers start swimming around. They blur and merge into each other. Nothing makes any sense. I squeeze my eyelids tight and open them, hoping that everything has found it’s place and is fixed on the page. When I look again, it is even more blurred and the numbers are swimming faster. I put my pen on the paper trying to catch them, letting it glide around, chasing after the numbers. The feel of the pen on the paper calming me slightly. I start to enjoy the smooth motion of the pen rolling over the page I zoom into the exact point where the ink hits the paper. I can breathe again.
“CHARLEY!” Mr Barging is standing over my desk and looking at my pen on the test paper.
“S- Sorry sir.” I manage to mumble. “I need…” I want to tell him that I can’t do it. That I need help. That me staying here won’t work.
“I will tell you what you need Charley.” He is hissing into my ear now. So quietly I can barely hear it but the sound and feel of his breath makes me shudder. “You need to do your test like every other child in the class.”
I can feel the prickle of tears in my eyes and the rising fear in my body. It just feels… I don’t know. Like everything is closing in. Coming right at me. I don’t know what to do. I need to get out of here. I go to take a drink from my bottle and before it gets to my mouth I think about what I can do.
There are certain things that guarantee getting kicked out of class. Like when Esther swore or Orion and Archie got into a fight. What can I do to get out of this room? I don’t want to swear at him, even though I hate him. I wouldn’t want to explain that to Mrs Harvey. I can’t start a fight. What else is there? I take a drink and it feels like it won’t go down. Like there is no space for it. I feel Mr Barging glaring down at me and that’s when it happens, without even thinking it just happens. I spit the water out from my mouth and cover my test paper. Then I throw my water bottle onto the floor. As it hits the ground and I see the water pouring onto the floor I immediately regret it. What am I doing? It’s only a test. Maybe I just need to try harder. Be better. Just be like everyone else.
On the other side I rest my head on the door and try to get some control of my thoughts. What have I done? Tears spring from my eyes. I head to Mrs Harvey’s office. Maybe she will understand. Maybe she will blow into an imaginary balloon with me and tell me it’s OK. When I get there she’s on the phone. She gestures for me to sit down outside the office and puts some paper and pens on the little table next to me. When she sees my face she smiles a sad smile and then brings some tissues and puts them on the little table next to the pens.
The blank paper looks so white. So perfect. I stare at its clean, calm surface and feel my heart start to slow down. I can almost see the fibres and grains of the pages and I imagine where they came from. Which trees came down to make this pure white sheet that seems to be here just for me.
Following the paper back to where it came from transports me away from here. Away from Mr Barging and the test. Away from the hot school and the smell of dinners. I look again at the paper and picture a machine in a factory churning sheet after sheet of bright white paper. The noise and rhythm of the wheels. The rollers spitting out each sheet of paper, with no idea where they will end up. Workers in uniforms like mum’s, pressing buttons and stacking pages. Sending them all off on their own paper journeys. How many blank sheets of paper are there in the world?
Then I travel back in time even further and follow the truck that delivered the huge tree trunks, before they turned into paper. A man in a hat eating a pasty and whistling as he drives. Then back even further, where the tree is still standing tall, it’s roots in the ground. Surrounded by hundreds of trees just like it.
I take a pen and start to draw the branches of the trees onto the paper that they became. Then I picture the creatures that live amongst them. Parrots, so many parrots. I breathe a full breath of forest air into my lungs. It feels like the first breath I have ever taken. Like I am coming back to life. I colour the vivid green feathers and leaves and with every stroke of the pen it feels like I am being taken further into the page. Into the forest.
As I sit in the branches, looking out at the preening of beautiful feathers and the flap of wings I smile. I feel safer here than I have ever felt in the real world. I understand this world, I’m in control of it. I need to explore and see what else I can find.
I climb down the branches and as my foot stretches downwards there is a splitting sound and the wood snaps in my hand sending me flying through the air towards the ground. I’m waiting for the impact and when it doesn’t come I open my eyes and look around. Falling through the clouds I can see bolts of lightning striking in the distance. Even though I am falling I don’t feel afraid. I let myself go and enjoy the feeling of the air all around me, cushioning my fall. I feel like I am flying.
The flying almost turns into sleeping as I feel like I may stay here forever, in this in between place of a never-ending fall. I jolt awake I know that I need to explore further. I can’t just stay here. It’s all up to me, I control what happens next.
I start to slow and the air gets cooler, the lightning has stopped and the sky has turned blue. I look down. A figure is waving at me, guiding me in. I wave back smiling, knowing that they are kind.
As I get closer I see the red of their jumper and the black of their hair. They look a lot like me and as they gesture to a mound of soft snow for my landing I crane my head around to get a closer look. It IS me. Or a version of me. The same clothes and face but something is different. They seem bigger somehow. Happier maybe.
Then we close our eyes and hold on tightly to each other’s hands and imagine places and people that make us smile and make us gasp. We visit a dance party with flashing lights and people moving and dancing to the beat. We join in, landing on the dancefloor and the other Charley dances and smiles and shows me how. I’m awkward, not knowing how to move to the beat. Charley guides my arms and spins me through the air until I don’t care who sees or how I look. I’m here and I love it. When we can’t dance anymore, and are laughing so hard that tears stream down our faces, we fly.
We visit a land filled with chickens the size of people. We join a flock and follow them to a racecourse where we jump on the back of the friendliest looking bird at the starting line and then GO! The race is on, the chicken is fast. We see the birds around us, feathers flapping and beaks forward. Our bird is slow and the race is lost but we don’t care. We stroke their feathers and tell them everything will be OK.
When my tummy rumbles we find ourselves in a world of cheese. Rivers of cheese spread and leaves of parmesan. When we have filled our faces with cheddar, we soar high into space and gently land on Mars.
Looking back towards the earth through the expanse of space I sigh and say to myself.
I think about it. Nothing will be different. The SATS test will still be there. Mr Barging will still hate me and I will still be sitting outside the headteachers office. Charley reads my mind.
I think about it. About how different I feel now, how far away I am from the panic and fear of the classroom. Maybe I’m right.
I look up and Mrs Harvey is staring at the pages in front of me. They are covered in doodles and colours. Disco lights, parrots, trees and cheese.
She looks at me in a strange way, as though she can tell that I have been into space and back.
I nod and she goes and gets a test paper.
As I sit and draw pictures next to all of the questions that I can’t answer I can feel my heart speeding up and my chest getting a little bit tight. When it does I close my eyes and I’m immediately in the tree tops. After a while I only need to close my eyes for a moment to feel a bit calmer and like I can carry on. As I slowly work my way through the test I eventually get to a question that makes a teenie bit of sense and so I give it a go. I write the answer down and I smile and feel a tiny bit bigger. Even if it is wrong I don’t really care, it just feels good to have tried.
Then her eyes close and I turn down the telly, cover her in the blanket and pick up my sketchbook. When I open it up a bright green feather falls from the pages and lands on my lap. I pick it up and hold it up to the light as though it can’t be real and may disappear at any moment. The green shimmers and shines like it is full of magic. I smile as I place it back between the pages. Wondering what world I will draw this time.
THE END
The wonderful children who came up with the ideas in this story would like you to know that you are not alone. If you or anyone you know have been struggling with any of the issues raised in this story here are some links that offer support:
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/problems-at-school/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/mental-health-conditions/anxiety/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/family/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/self-esteem-and-believing-in-yourself/
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/exam-stress/
Luton Literature’s Storytelling Project was made possible thanks to our funders, Arts Council England and Luton Rising through Bedfordshire and Luton Communities Fund.