Heading Inland by Nicola Barker Page B

Like this.’ Joy hit Wesley in the face. ‘See?’
    Wesley nodded. He touched his cheek where it stung.
    ‘Good.’ Joy smiled. She was happy again.
    Wesley’s mother was angry about the jacket. He brought it home and it was ripped and muddy. She held it up and inspected it.
    ‘What happened, Wesley?’
    Wesley didn’t want to get Joy into trouble. He said nothing.
    ‘Did someone at school do this to your jacket?’
    He nodded.
    ‘Who?’
    He shrugged.
    It was half past ten and Wesley’s mother was walking past Wesley’s bedroom. He’d been in bed for almost an hour and he should have been asleep by now. She stood outside his door and listened. It sounded as though Wesley was clapping his hands. Clap! Clap! Clap!
    She pushed his door ajar and peered inside. Wesley was sitting up in bed and he was slapping his own face. Slapping his cheek. Slap, slap, slap! His eyes were blank as she approached but his cheeks were wet with tears. She caught hold of his hand. She kissed it. ‘Lie down,’ she whispered, and later, once he was sleeping, ‘I love you.’
    The week before the end of term, Wesley’s mother had been called to the school to speak to Wesley’s teacher. Wesley had attacked one of the other children with a broken tree branch. The boy was called Simon and could walk on his hands. Wesley had attacked him while he was performing this trick and had knocked him over and then hit him in the face with the broken branch. He had grazed his hands and his face was scratched.
    Wesley’s mother was embarrassed and confused and concerned and she didn’t quite know what to do. Eventually she said, ‘I thought Wesley and Simon were friends . . .’
    The teacher nodded. ‘They were a while ago but lately Wesley has become rather withdrawn.’
    Wesley’s mother scratched her forehead. ‘You know, a few weeks back I bought Wesley a new basketball jacket and then he came home from school a couple of days later and it was muddy and ripped and torn. Do you think it’s possible that Simon might have been bullying him?’
    The teacher sighed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
    ‘But it’s possible?’
    The teacher shrugged. ‘Possible, but unlikely. About Wesley’s father . . .’
    ‘He’s away at sea most of the time.’
    ‘Maybe Wesley misses him . . . ?’
    ‘It’s not that.’ Wesley’s mother’s face seemed to glisten under the classroom’s fluorescent light. ‘It’s not his father he’s missing.’ She paused. ‘It’s his brother.’
    The teacher put her head to one side but said nothing.
    ‘His brother died four years ago when Wesley was five. He got shut in an old discarded refrigerator and suffocated. Wesley was out playing with him when it happened.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘But he’s all right now. He’s a perfectly normal little boy and he knows that I’m always here for him and that I love him . . .’
    ‘It’s only five days,’ Wesley told Joy, ‘until the school holidays, and then we can play together all the time.’
    Joy was very full of herself lately, but it seemed like the more success she had with her high-handed techniques and her bullying, the less content she felt about things.
    ‘Wesley,’ she said, picking at the blister on her ankle until white plasma squirted out of it and slid into her sock. ‘You are my special friend, aren’t you? You will look after me, won’t you?’
    ‘I will, I will,’ Wesley said, passionately, his eyes filling.
    His mother had picked him up in the car because it was the last day of school and he had some books and some drawings to take home with him.
    ‘So, Wesley,’ his mum said, ‘what shall we do in the holidays? Shall we go to the cinema? Shall we go to Whipsnade Zoo?’ She stopped off at their local Wimpy Bar on the way home and bought him a burger and a milkshake.
    They were almost home and then Wesley became tense and distracted.
    ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we must go back.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘School.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Joy. I