‘A shell!’
‘Yep.’
‘Did they make up all those words themselves? I bet your mum helped them.’
‘A bit.’ Her face came into his head, and he wondered if she was back in the house yet. ‘Saviour helped more. He thought of lots of the rhymes.’
‘Emerald’s dad?’
‘Yep.’ Jonah leaned more heavily onto the fence, feeling the wire digging into his forehead.
‘I think they’ll win. Do you?’
‘I dunno.’ Jonah pictured Raff’s face, glowing with triumph; Lucy’s face, in the audience, crying probably. Crying and clapping. He smiled.
‘Why are you smiling? Do you want them to win?’
Jonah slid his eyes towards Harold, who was inspecting him, his eyes tiny because of his thick glasses, his cheek resting on the wire. ‘Is there even going to be a winner?’ he asked. ‘I thought it was more – just a show.’
‘Well, if there is a winner, it should be them.’ Harold looked back at Raff, who had started breakdancing. He shook his head. ‘You might be Gifted and Talented, fam, but your brother’s boss at everything. He’ll win all the Sports Day races.’
Jonah shrugged. He rocked back onto his feet, and felt the grooves the wire had left with his fingertips. ‘You know the universe?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think it really goes on forever?’
Harold shook his head. ‘No, there’s other universes. Millions of them.’
‘And then what?’
‘I dunno. Can I come round to tea tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘If your mum’s better, why can’t I?’
‘I’ll ask, OK.’
In the afternoon it was RE. The classroom had got really hot. Miss Swann’s boobs swung in her dress as she set out the painting stuff. Her hair, which was grey, even though she was quite young, had gone all frizzy.
‘So we’re all going to do a painting of something we’ve learned about Hinduism.’ There were drops of sweat glistening on her top lip. ‘Put on your overalls, please. Isiah. What are you going to paint?’
‘The burning bodies!’ said Isiah, with relish, and everyone started talking. They’d been doing Hinduism all term: the Diwali festival, some of the gods, the idea of karma and reincarnation, the Om symbol. It was Pearl who had told them about the dead bodies, burning beside the River Ganges. She’d seen them on a trip to India with her family.
‘The burning bodies. Cool. Anyone else? What about the Diwali festival?’ Miss Swann was setting out the paints and the water pots. She sounded tired.
‘Their melting faces!’ shouted Isiah. ‘And their skulls, cracking open!’ All the laughing and shrieking made it feel even hotter.
‘You can’t even see their faces,’ said Pearl. ‘They’re all wrapped up in cloth.’
‘Like mummies!’ shouted Will Rooney, and Jonah thought of Lucy. Are you back yet?
‘How do they burn them?’ Tyreese was asking. ‘With petrol?’ Tyreese was Raff’s friend Tameron’s elder brother. Jonah looked at his overall. He didn’t want to put it on. It was too hot.
‘No, with wood,’ said Pearl. ‘But some families can’t afford enough wood to burn the whole of the body, and they throw the leftovers into the river. So they put all these snapping turtles in the river, to eat up the leftovers.’
The class erupted. Jonah stayed silent, deciding what to paint. Maybe a picture showing the karma idea: lots of boomerangs, turning round and coming back, whacking into the throwers. But no, it was more complicated than that. Beside him, Harold was already painting, but Will and Isiah were still screaming about the man-eating turtles. Trying to work out how to do the karma boomerangs, he watched Miss Swann wipe her top lip with the back of her hand. It was actually too complicated. He would paint Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head, instead. He slipped on his overall and picked up his paintbrush. Ganesha had an elephant’s head because when his father came home from a long trip he didn’t recognise him and cut his real head off thinking he was his wife’s new boyfriend. He thought of Roland and smiled, because of course Roland would recognise him. He remembered the scene at the end of The Railway Children, the clearing of the steam on the station platform, Bobbie crying, ‘Daddy!’ Such a happy ending. He closed his eyes, imagining Roland’s silhouette in the steam: tall, with high, square shoulders, and a little head with sticky-out ears.
When they had finished, Miss Swann pegged the pictures up to dry on the washing line that ran along the wall behind her desk. Jonah’s Ganesha had turned out quite good. He had one little wise smiley eye. Roxy, the girl who had only started at the school a few weeks ago, had done Ganesha too, but hers was just a pink blob with a trunk. There were lots of burning bodies, black shapes amid orange flames.
‘I love the way you’ve done the fire, Daniella,’ said Miss Swann. Daniella had done lots of curly waves, in red, orange and yellow. ‘And, you know, the body, to a soul, is like a set of worn-out clothes. Burning the body is setting the soul free.’
Emerald had done an Om sign, and Jonah gazed at it, trying to remember what Om meant. Something interesting. Lucy would know, because they chanted it in yoga lessons. He looked at the clock. Ten minutes until home time. Will you come and meet us? She didn’t usually, but maybe she would today.
‘This is awesome!’ Miss Swann was holding up Shahana’s painting. Shahana was the only Hindu in the class. She’d done a burning body, but hovering in the air above it was a baby, or maybe an angel. ‘Shahana, is this showing reincarnation?’
Shahana shrugged.
‘Who can remember what reincarnation means?’ Miss Swann pegged Shahana’s picture up.
‘It’s when you get reborn,’ said Pearl. ‘Your soul escapes through your skull, and it stays in the sky for a while, and then goes into another body.’
‘And if you’re bad, you come back as an animal,’ said Tyreese.
‘That’s it!’ Isiah shrieked. ‘I gonna be bad! Then come back as a leopard, and munch up my enemies!’
Everyone laughed and shot their hands up, wanting to say which animals they’d like to be reborn as. Emerald wanted to be a rabbit, and Tyreese wanted to be a python. Pearl wanted to be a unicorn. ‘Peregrine falcon,’ Harold whispered to Jonah. Jonah smiled. He was still trying to remember what Om meant, and put his hand up to ask.
‘Do Hindus believe in ghosts?’ asked Daniella.
‘Ghosts. Yes, I think they do!’ Miss Swann glanced at Shahana. ‘You’re a ghost before you get reborn. Just for a few days. Isn’t that right, Shahana? And the cremation of the body, and all the other rituals, help the ghost to leave, and get on with its next life.’
‘So is a ghost the same as a soul?’ asked Clem. Jonah’s shoulder was starting to ache, so he switched arms. Everyone was just shouting out, when it should be his turn.
‘I don’t think it’s the same, no,’ said Miss Swann. ‘I think a ghost is a trapped soul. But anyway, guys …’
‘I saw my auntie’s ghost once,’ said Shahana.
‘Oh.’ Miss Swann wiped her top lip again, and tucked her hair behind her ears.