To Fill a Yellow House by Sussie Anie

Author:Sussie Anie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

26

Draw. Something about how the shopkeeper said it laid bare the power of that word. Keep drawing. He has hardly even started with his drawings. Jericho is right. It’s like he’s not really trying.

So here it is: a plan. A plan that must be written, before it fades. There are fifteen days until parents’ evening. As far as he knows, Mrs. Nibley hasn’t called the house again, although he has another letter from her, which he will flush later tonight, when Auntie Aha has finished in the bathroom. Going to homework club is not going to be enough to finish typing up all the work or to make him better at math. There is too much happening in the library for him to concentrate, and Gemma is always staring. One thing they never covered at school is how to focus, how to make and then follow a plan. They just expect everyone to know.

The cupboards in Da’s study are stuffed with expired plans. Long, detailed plans cover the backs of opened envelopes and loose pages from notebooks lined and unlined. Kwasi spreads the pages out on the carpet. Chunks of notes have been scribbled and crossed out. Having a plan will not be enough; most of Da’s plans are just wasted paper. But he has to try.

To try again, to go back to drawing as much as he used to—more—to try with everything in him, feels possible back at school, watching puddles reach across the playground from his spot by the window.

“Can I see?” Gemma asks later, in the hush of the library.

He pulls his pencil case nearer, as a barrier to his page.

“You’re not drawing me, are you?”

“Why would I?”

“Don’t know.” She looks back to her book.

He is sketching a storyboard, of what needs to happen next. Not his best drawing, but it tells the story. A story in which his drawings get so good, Ma and his aunties run out of words. A story in which they finally see. He folds and folds the page, puts it in the secret pocket in his blazer.

Carrying it makes him giddy; his heart pounds behind the page’s stiff shape. He contracts the muscles around his armpit, so they press against the paper.

The next day, it happens: for the first time since Halloween, he is assailed by Selim. Wade joins in, although Jericho is nowhere.

Their shouts fill the toilet. Elbows and fists pin him. They take his blazer, tie, and shoes.

“Your aunties have been slacking,” Wade says, in Mr. Haye’s Scottish lilt. “What kind of cleaners are they? This loo’s in an absolute state—look, there’s a great fat stinky turd on the floor.”

“Aye. A big black poo.” A foot nudges his back.

“Look how shiny it is.”

His tie, they pocket. They will return it later as a blindfold, after he has accumulated more demerits and chastisements for not wearing his uniform properly. They empty his blazer into a sink. Pens clatter and bounce off the rim and roll everywhere.

The blazer is thrown back and lands over his head.

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