Page 13 of Role Model

Mum arranges for Txai and Niamh to be taken to their parents and Fizz is banished with a mere look.

I’m driven home in silence while Mum rides with Keren in the car in front.

She waits until we’re all inside and out of the cold.

Everyone in the room is dismissed, apart from Keren.

Mum waits until the bustle of people leaving falls silent and then she glares at me.

I shift, uncomfortable beneath her stony glare. “What?”

“Have you got absolutely no clue what you’ve done?” Mum speaks to me with a deceptively calm voice, which means that the volcano is just waiting to erupt.

“No.”

Keren shakes her head softly, as if I’m a terrible person. I feel a flush of annoyance. I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do, even though I’ve hated 107 every minute, and now they’re acting as though I’ve disappointed them.

“Because of the snow,” Mum says slowly, as if speaking to a four-year-old, “there was a bus crash in town. Lots of injuries. None dead, thank goodness.”

I wait, unsure of what this has to do with me unless Mum thinks that for some reason I was driving the bus. “That’s awful.”

“Yes, it is,” Mum says. “It will be the front page of every London paper. And what else do you think they’ll put on that front page?”

I hate when grownups do this. I’m too scared of being shouted at to think properly about what they’re asking me. My stomach hurts and blood pumps in my ears. “I don’t know.”

“I think they will probably run the pictures of you sledding down Primrose Hill, on a bin lid … having a wonderful time. While people are in hospital.”

I feel the colour drain out of my face. All of the rosy pink fun that I had with the others on our Snow Day turns to white as I understand what they’re saying.

There will be two pictures on the front of the paper.

One of a wrecked bus that slid on black ice.

Another of me screaming with laughter on a bin lid.

I’ve been in this strange world of photographers 108 and press for only a short time, but it’s been long enough for me to realise that this is really bad.

I look at Mum, wanting her to soften and tell me that it’s just a mistake but she’s staring at the space above my head with a look so dark, I’m afraid to speak.

“We could pre-empt the evening coverage with an apology?” Keren says.

I barely understand what that statement means. Something like making an “I’m sorry” video before the nightly news can rip me to shreds.

“I didn’t know about the bus crash!” I plead. “It happened as we were sledding. I’m sorry! I would never have done it if I’d known the photos would look bad. I didn’t even see that the photographers had followed us until the end. I’m sorry!”

A part of me wants to tell her that I can’t possibly know about sad things before they happen, but I know to keep that part quiet.

Mum finally looks at me.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Aeriel,” she says.

I stare in astonishment.

“But I’ve been trying so hard,” I hear myself say. “I–I’ve done every interview. I’ve answered every question they’ve asked me. I’ve talked so much about being autistic and you know I hate talking about being autistic–”

109 “We can do damage control,” Keren tells Mum, as if I haven’t said a word. “We can have her do a food bank drop-off or something.”

She and Mum start discussing the subject and I slowly back out of the room.

They don’t take any notice. I go to my room.

It’s small and still impersonal; I haven’t had the mental space to make it my own.

I asked Mum when we first moved in if I could paint it but she frowned and said that would be a waste of resources.

I sit on the bed. It’s a windowless room.

I find myself thinking of the baby birds in the tree at school. I wonder if they’re surviving. I know the design students made a bunch of little bird houses, but I hope they’ve learned to fly.

I watch the evening news by myself. The coverage on me is quite small, compared to what the papers print. They discuss the bus crash and everyone says they’re relieved that no one has died.

“Anyone catch the pictures of Aeriel Sharpe having some fun on Primrose Hill this morning?” the male anchor asks his colleague.

“I saw them,” she says, disapproval marked across her face. “Not such a good role model today, it seems. Hope she can reflect and do better.”

I switch it off at once. I’m left in the dark.

110 Sometimes that’s what life feels like.

Me, alone in a dark and windowless room with a million strangers and their opinions.

They’re starting to drown out the voice in my head, if I ever had one.

I can’t hear my own thoughts anymore. I can’t do anything without wondering if it’s right or if it will make someone angry.

The constant feedback from people I don’t know, but who know me, has started to seem like a swarm of wasps.

I’ve tried visualising the act of putting them all in a jar so they can buzz and sting together, but I still know the jar is there. I worry about it breaking open.

I wish I had a friend. It’s what I’ve wanted since moving here.

It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I used to be so friendly.

I would run up to people in nursery to show them the ladybug on my finger.

I would try not to take it to heart when they would withdraw.

It took me ages to realise that being left out wasn’t something everyone else felt every single day.

They would feel it once in a while, not all of the time.

My birthday would always clash with another child in my class, back in Scotland. I gave up and stopped sending out invites to mine because no one would ever come. Dad once comforted me, telling me that I was just a bit different and sometimes that made 111 other people feel a certain way.

I assumed I was a bad kid. Maybe I was annoying them, by constantly trying to be their friends.

I would learn things about them and ask them questions.

I would try to share my special interests with them.

I told one girl every fact that I had learned about elephants.

She interrupted me to tell me I was “weird” and that elephants were “boring”.

So, I stopped telling people things. I sat by myself a lot. I would go to the bathroom right before the end of a lesson so I didn’t have to walk out of the classroom with everybody else.

Maybe that’s why I cling to Sable, Jaya and Ana so much – even when they can be really mean. I’m tired of being alone.