Dr Batch stared in astonishment. So did Mumpo.
‘Hallo-o,’ he said, breathing his stinky breath all over her.
Kestrel turned away, covering her face.
‘Do you like me?’ said Mumpo, leaning closer.
‘Get away from me,’ said Kestrel. ‘You stink.’
Dr Batch called sharply from the other end of the room.
‘Kestrel Hath! Go to your correct place at once!’
‘No,’ said Kestrel.
The whole class froze.
‘No?’ said Dr Batch. ‘Did you say no?’
‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.
‘Do you wish me to deduct five more points for disobedience?’
‘You can if you want,’ said Kestrel. ‘I don’t care.’
‘You don’t care?’ Dr Batch went a bright red. ‘Then I shall teach you to care. You’ll do as you’re told, or – ’
‘Or what?’ said Kestrel.
Dr Batch stared back, lost for words.
‘I’m already at the bottom of the class,’ said Kestrel. ‘What more can you do to me?’
For a moment longer, Dr Batch struggled with himself in silence, searching for the best way to respond. During this moment, in which the whole class held its breath, Mumpo shuffled closer still to Kestrel, and Kestrel twisted further away from him, screwing up her face in disgust. Dr Batch saw this, and the look of bewilderment on his face was replaced by a vindictive smile. He set off at a slow pace down the room.
‘Class,’ he said, his voice smoothly under control once more. ‘Class, turn and look at Kestrel Hath.’
All eyes turned.
‘Kestrel has found a new friend. As you see, Kestrel’s new friend is our very own Mumpo. Kestrel and Mumpo, side by side. What do you think of your new friend, Mumpo?’
Mumpo nodded and smiled. ‘I like Kess,’ he said.
‘He likes you, Kestrel,’ said Dr Batch. ‘Why don’t you sit closer? You could put your arm round him. You could hug him. He’s your new friend. Who knows, maybe in later years you’ll marry each other, and you can be Mrs Mumpo, and have lots of little Mumpo babies. Would you like that? Three or four little Mumpo babies to wash and wipe?’
The class tittered at that. Dr Batch was pleased. He felt he had regained the upper hand. Kestrel sat stiff as a rod and burned with shame and anger, and said nothing.
‘But perhaps I’m making a mistake. Perhaps Kestrel is making a mistake. Perhaps she simply sat down in the wrong seat, by mistake.’
He was close to Kestrel now, standing gazing at her in silence. Kestrel knew that he was offering her a deal: her obedience in exchange for her pride.
‘Perhaps Kestrel is going to get up, and go back to her correct place.’
Kestrel trembled, but she didn’t move. Dr Batch waited a moment longer, then hissed at her:
‘Well, well. Kestrel and Mumpo.What a sweet couple.’
All that morning, he kept up the attack. In the grammar lesson, he wrote up on the board:
NAME THE TENSES
Kestrel loves Mumpo
Kestrel is loved by Mumpo
Kestrel will love Mumpo
Kestrel has loved Mumpo
Kestrel shall have loved Mumpo
In the arithmetic lesson, he wrote on the board:
If Kestrel gives Mumpo 392 kisses and
98 hugs, and half the hugs are
accompanied by kisses, and one-eighth
of the kisses are slobbery, how many
slobbery kisses with hugs could
Kestrel give Mumpo?
And so it went on, and the class snickered away, as Dr Batch intended. Bowman looked back at Kestrel many times, but she just sat there, doing her work, not saying a word.
When time came for the lunch-break, he joined her as she walked quietly out of the room. To his annoyance, he found the dribbling Mumpo was coming with Kestrel, sticking close to her side.
‘Get lost, Mumpo,’ said Kestrel.
But Mumpo wouldn’t get lost. He simply trotted along beside Kestrel, his eyes never leaving her face. From time to time, unprompted, he would murmur, ‘I like Kess’, and then wipe his nose-dribble on to his shirt sleeve.
Kestrel was heading for the way out.
‘Where are you going, Kess?’
‘Out,’ said Kestrel. ‘I hate school.’
‘Yes, but Kess – ’ Bowman didn’t know what to say. Of course she hated school. Everyone hated school. But you had to go.
‘What about the family rating?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kestrel. And walking faster now, she began to cry. Mumpo saw this, and was devastated. He skipped around her, reaching out his grubby hands to paw her, and uttered small cries designed to give her comfort.
‘Don’t cry, Kess. I’ll be your friend, Kess. Don’t cry.’
Kestrel brushed him away angrily.
‘Get lost, Mumpo. You stink.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mumpo humbly.
‘Kess,’ said Bowman, ‘come back to school, sit in your proper place, and Batch will leave you alone.’
‘I’m never going back,’ said Kestrel.
‘But you must.’
‘I’m going to tell pa. He’ll understand.’
‘And I will,’ said Mumpo.
‘Go away, Mumpo!’ shouted Kestrel, right in his face. ‘Go away or I’ll bash you!’
She raised a threatening fist. Mumpo dropped whimpering to his knees.
‘Hurt me if you want. I don’t mind.’
Kestrel’s fist remained suspended in mid-air. She stared at Mumpo. Bowman too was watching Mumpo. Suddenly he was caught unawares by the feeling of what it was like to be Mumpo. A dull cold terror rolled over him, and a penetrating loneliness. He almost cried out loud, so intense was the hunger for kindness.
‘She doesn’t mean it,’ he said. ‘She won’t hit you.’
‘She can if she wants.’
His face gazed adoringly up at her, his eyes now as shiny as his upper lip.
‘Tell him you won’t hit him, Kess.’
‘I won’t hit you,’ said Kestrel, dropping her fist. ‘You’re too stinky to touch.’
She turned and walked fast down the street, Bowman at her side. Mumpo followed a few paces behind. So that he wouldn’t hear, Kestrel talked to Bowman in her head.
I can’t go on like this, I can’t.
What