1.
Pirates

2.
Clive sits on the mat
leafing through his
favourite book, the
one he hides behind
the atlas in the Book
Corner.

3.
He stares at the
picture: his
classmates giggletwitch-squeak,
whispering a mean
word Clive tries to
ignore, while the
teacher stands at
the front of the
room talking.

4.
He finds his
favourite picture of
the happy old-lady
pirate.

5.
The old-lady pirate's cutlass
hangs off a belt looped around
her fat middle. Her fatness is
light and bouncy, as if she were
made from blown-up balloons.

6.
She pegs big
orange
trousers onto a
washing line
strung between
tall crooked
buildings.

7.
She doesn't have to sit
on a mat in a stupid
classroom, Clive thinks.
Not that it is a mat,
there is no mat, it's the
same carpet across the
whole floor, not very
carpetty either, hard
and stringy and
smelling of socks.

8.
He bends closer to the book on his
lap, gazing at the old-lady pirate
who looks so thrilled to be alive she
might burst apart, white hair
whooshing off, her cutlass spinning
down to the ground for Clive to pick
up.

9.
The floor trembles. Clive
looks out the window as
another class troops past,
two-by-two, yapping and
shush-shushing on their way
to Fitness.

10.
It reminds him of playtimes
and lunchtimes - everyone
clustering together, swinging
off the climbing frame or
dashing from tree to tree
shouting tig-tug-tig while he
sits alone.

11.
Even the sparrows around the
rubbish bin cluster together, but
he sits alone. He doesn't know
why, or why it hurts so much in
a spot halfway down his front
between his neck and his bellybutton.

12.
"Eyes this way," the teacher says.
Lucy reaches across, pinching
Clive's arm hard. He blinks fast,
tracing a finger around the old-lady
pirate pegging orange trousers to
the washing line.

13.
The tall crooked buildings are
wrapped in mist, the way his father
wraps suitcases in cling film until
they become gigantic glassy
chrysalis'.

14.
Clive wonders what he'd find at the bottom of
the tall buildings...narrow footpaths, bony trees
poking up out of holes in the concrete,
branches filled with nests made from spider
webs.

15.
Cheeping birds swoop low
to the ground chasing lollywrappers, like the sparrows
at lunchtime fighting over
chip bags.

16.
He sees a gingery cat
creep toward the birds,
ears flat, eyes gleaming...
"Clive! Shut that book and
pay attention."
Lucy slyly turns to him,
mouthing Retard!

17.
One day, thinks Clive,
he'll stab out her eyes
with a cutlass.

18.
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