Page 10 of I Can’t Even Think Straight
Detention—After School—Mr. Ndour’s Classroom
Our deputy head teacher, Ms. Sarpong,
has a Progress Pride flag badge
pinned to her staff lanyard.
Our head of year, Mr. Ndour, does not.
“You’re not being punished because of the police,”
says Mr. Ndour, at the front of the classroom.
“There’ll be no action taken by the police.
This is entirely separate to that.”
“How is it, though?” asks Kojo.
“Yeah? How is it, sir?” asks Abdi.
“The feds are the reason we’re here.”
“Sir has already made it clear,” says Ms. Sarpong,
“that this detention is because you snuck
out of school at lunchtime without permission.
You’re not here because of who caught you.
You are here as a direct result of your actions:
the choice you made to ignore school rules.”
“But how is it the job of the feds
to enforce school rules?” asks Sam.
“You know as well as I do,” says Mr. Ndour,
“there are other young people in this local area,
who don’t attend school,
and who regularly have run-ins with the police.
Those officers keep an eye out for our students
to stop you getting caught up in all that.”
Nathan mumbles under his breath:
“You say ‘all that’ like you’re not talking about
our friends, family, and neighbors.”
“What was that, Mr. Anderson?”
Ms. Sarpong asks Nathan.
She sounds like the bad guy in The Matrix .
“Forget it, miss,” Nathan mumbles again.
“I hope you know I’m here to listen.
This could’ve been just Mr. Ndour
supervising a silent detention, as usual,
but I chose to free up my time
and be here to hear your points of view.”
“You really wanna know
my point of view, miss?”
We all turn to face Nathan.
“Yes. I want to hear from everyone,
but if you want to get us started,
please go ahead.”
Nathan lists the times
he’s been stopped by the police,
with The Boys and on his own,
and then he shares this:
“And this one time when
I took my little brother to the park.”
Nathan looks at me. “He’s mixed race,
and he’s my half brother—
we have different mums—
the police stopped us.
They said gangs were recruiting
boys as young as him
and they needed to verify
our relationship.
Not only were they insinuating
that I was a gang recruiter,
they were also insinuating
that my brother wasn’t my brother.
When I called his white mum
to come chat to them,
the feds were so different with her;
they were apologizing
for the inconvenience,
but they were apologizing to her,
not me or my brother.”
Kwesi, Kojo, Abdi, and Sam speak
about similar experiences
of police stops and racial profiling,
but Matt and I say nothing.
There’s one minute left of detention
when Ms. Sarpong calls this sharing to a close.
“I know you may have more to say,
but I don’t want to keep you
for longer than your detention time.
I can’t respond to each
incident you’ve mentioned
but what I’ll say is this:
your feelings about these
incidents are valid.
It’s not fair that you’ve been
made to feel this way.
My door is open
if you want to discuss
any of this further
and, as your head of year,
so is Mr. Ndour’s.
He and I will go away
and think about
what we can do
to better support you
because, hearing your stories,
I’m sure there are many more
students at this school
who feel the way you do
but haven’t had
the opportunity to tell us.”
Ms. Sarpong points up in the air,
like a cartoon lightbulb has come on:
“This would be completely voluntary—
it’s not another detention by any means—
but perhaps we could meet again,
one lunchtime next week,
to carry on this conversation?”
The Boys let her question linger,
before Nathan says, “Sure, miss.”
The other four shrug and say,
“Yeah.” “Okay.” “I guess so.” “Which day?”
Matt and I say nothing.
“Mr. Ndour and I will check our calendars,
and we’ll get word to you
through your form tutors.”
“Great,” says Mr. Ndour, who knows
Ms. Sarpong is creating extra work for him.
“You can go now, boys.”
“Matthew and Malachi,” says Ms. Sarpong,
“if you could stay behind for a moment.”
The Boys pile out of the classroom door
and into the corridor.
They don’t look back or say goodbye.
Ms. Sarpong adjusts her lanyard
and straightens the Progress Pride flag badge.
She addresses us in a hushed tone,
as if bringing us into her confidence:
“Matthew. Malachi.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised.
This isn’t like you.
I didn’t have you pegged as
school absconders.”
She pauses, but Matt and I say nothing.
“I know we had a lot
of big personalities in the room today,
and only a limited amount of time,
but I noticed
neither of you said anything.”
She pauses, again, but we still say nothing.
“Well, as I said,
my and Mr. Ndour’s doors are open
if either of you want to talk
about anything.”