Page 4 of Role Model

Something strange has happened.

I can feel it as Ilya and I are driven back to the house.

He says nothing, as usual. He knows that the transition from school to home can be challenging, and that I need to be left alone to decompress.

I sometimes don’t know if it’s hard trying to let go of the school day or because I’m preparing for another five hours with my family.

However, when we enter the flat, it’s not just my family waiting for us. There are some of mum’s work drones as well. When I take in all of the faces in the room, they’re impossible for me to read, but I notice Mum is not actually there. Fizz is, which is unusual. She doesn’t live with us.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Don’t you want to take your bag off?” Dad asks 24 me gently.

“No,” I say, starting to panic because grownups only get like this when something bad has happened. “What is it?”

“We wondered if we could have a quick meeting with you,” Keren, Mum’s dull flunky, says.

“Just be straight with her,” Fizz interjects, glaring at the woman.

“Something went a little bit whoopsie in your assembly this morning, didn’t it?” Keren asks me, in a sickly-sweet voice.

I hate when adults do this. They start speaking to you like you’re a golden retriever. A baby-voice with gross, cutesy words. “I fainted.”

“Yes, you did. And it turns out, someone in the hall filmed it on their phone.”

I suddenly feel feverish. “What?”

“They uploaded it to a social media site. We, upon learning of it, reported the video but it’s popped up elsewhere.”

I look at all of the faces in the room. Dad looks anxious, because he has no understanding of social media. Fizz and Gideon look anxious because they have complete understanding of it. Keren has a gleam in her eye, one that makes me very nervous. 25

“I think we should film something short and sweet,” she says. “You thanking your school for their great care and telling anyone who is concerned not to worry about you.”

I want to tell everyone that the school was the reason I fainted. Their environments are too overstimulating; they pulled me up onto the stage when I didn’t want to be there. The words don’t come out. They jam themselves in my mouth like a dam refusing to burst.

“Something short,” I echo.

It is short. They sit me by the window and tell me to stay in my school uniform.

They scurry to move things. Dad leaves with Gideon, he has a chess tournament to get to.

I’m alone with Mum’s staff, and Fizz. She sits on the far side of the room, watching them arrange me, all while wearing an unreadable expression.

When they settle on their fourth vase of flowers, we begin. I look into the lens of the camera and say what Keren has told me to say.

“Hello. My name is Aeriel. Some of you may have seen a video of me at my school today. I was giving a speech about being autistic, and a role model for my school, when I had a fainting spell.”

Keren was strict with me. Telling me to say ‘fainting 26 spell’, not ‘I fainted’.

“I’m absolutely fine now,” I lie, smiling into the camera. “But thank you to everyone who has shown concern and sent their best wishes. I, and my family, really appreciate it.”

I pause. I don’t want to say the next part. One of Keren’s assistants has typed the whole speech out on a tablet and is holding it up, just next to the camera, so I can read from it.

But I don’t want to say their words.

“It’s important to carry on when these things happen. Which is what I have tried to do. Being autistic is my magic power.”

I want to say that it’s more complicated than that. But I just need to finish their speech and be done with it. I wouldn’t have written this myself, but no one ever seems interested in what I actually think. They all just talk to themselves anyway. No one listens.

“But I don’t let it define me.”

I hate that. I hate what they’ve written. It’s my brain. Being autistic takes up all of my brain, my muscles, my speech, my fingertips, my eyelashes, my toes and my spine. Of course it defines me. It’s not the only thing that defines me, but it’s definitely one of them.

I realise that I don’t like other people telling me 27 how to feel about being autistic. But I finish the speech.

“Thank you once again. From me and my family.”

They all wait in silence for a beat and then Keren says, “Cut!”

She lowers the camera and gives me an almost-pleasant smile.

“That wasn’t bad, Aeriel. We can certainly use that.”

“Okay,” I say quietly.

“Now let’s try to avoid any further dramatics at school, okay? I have enough work to do; I don’t need you adding to my to-do list.”

I feel the cold brush of shame as I nod my head.

“Well,” Keren bares her teeth at me. “Let’s hope that’s the end of it.”

Fizz and Ilya take me to the large Waterstones at Piccadilly and we sit in the café.

“Can’t stand that woman,” Fizz fizzes. Ilya gives her a look of reproach but there’s something in his eyes that hints at agreement.

I stare at the table. There’s a dent in it. I rub my finger over it. “I didn’t mean to make us all look stupid.”

“You didn’t,” they both say indignantly.

I don’t look up. I don’t want to hear myself speak anymore. I’m sick of always being in a bad mood. I’ve been in one since we moved to London. 28 It’s boring. I must be boring everyone around me, but I can’t seem to stop. No wonder my friends run away from me.

I want to run away from me. And it wasn’t always like that. I liked being me, I think. Once.

“Oh, my God!”

A voice, sounding overexcited and loud, breaks me out of my self-pity spell. Fizz, Ilya and I glance up to see a woman who is about Mum’s age. She has very frizzy hair and enormous glasses.

“You’re her! You’re Aeriel.”

She has a daughter with her, who looks to be a few years older than me and a few years younger than Fizz. She looks mortified by her mother’s outburst.

“Can we help you?” Ilya asks gruffly.

“We just saw you on the news!” the woman goes on, beaming at me as though she knows me.

“Yeah, I fainted at school,” I mumble, wondering why this grown adult feels so easy about being familiar with me.

“No, we saw your follow-up video,” she gushes. “I teach Year Six children. You are an inspiration; they need to be more like you! I’m going to play your speech for them tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Fizz says. “Thank you for stopping by the 29 enclosure, but the zoo is now closed.”

*

I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of the whole day. From standing up in front of everyone to fainting. To meeting Txai. To having to film an apology. To the woman in Waterstones.

I hear a small sound. There is always white noise in Downing Street. London is too important to ever be quiet. But it sounds like someone is moving right by my door.

I go to investigate. The corridor is quiet and the family rooms seem to be empty. I move to the door that leads to the rest of Downing Street, the parts that are mainly for working.

I find Gideon as the source of the noise. He’s in his pyjamas and at the top of the grand staircase.

“What are you doing?” I whisper. Almost everyone will have gone home, apart from the policeman at the front door and a couple of security guards. “It’s late.”

He exhales, relieved to see it’s only me. “I’m playing!”

“What?”

“Aeriel,” he says, and the mischief in his eyes makes him look just like Fizz. “We live in Downing Street! 30 That is too cool, we should be making the most of it!”

Maybe it’s because the day has been just awful, but I join him. We slide down the banisters. We act out a scene from Love Actually, which Fizz let us watch last Christmas even though Mum forbid it. We pose next to important looking men in oil paintings and mimic their pompous expressions.

“I do say,” Gideon says, in his best impression of a posh English accent. “Have they allowed Scots back into Downing Street, Lord Fancy-Pants?”

I smother a laugh and join his game. “Say it isn’t true, Lord Snobbington! They might actually liven the place up!”

“We can’t have that!”

We double over, trying not to laugh too loud.

We break into the large kitchen downstairs and attack the massive fridge.

It’s the size of a small aircraft. Inside, there are tons of dainty desserts all on trays as if ready for a function or a fancy meeting in the morning.

Gideon goes for some cheesecake and I take the chocolate mousse.

When those are finished, we move to the red velvet cake – both of us shushing the other.

Suddenly, there is a click and we’re flooded in light.

Fizz and Ilya are both standing in the kitchen 31 doorway.

The bodyguard is still dressed in his suit but my sister is wearing lilac silk pyjamas and a fuzzy dressing gown.

They both stare at us in astonishment. Gideon and I are both frozen, cake halfway to our mouths.

We must look like two racoons who have been caught in the dustbins.

“What’s going on here?” Ilya says slowly.

I feel the giddy need to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

I wordlessly hold out my fork, silently offering Ilya some cake.

He stares at me. Fizz muffles a laugh. Gideon and I hold our breath and wait.

Ilya knows he should report this to our parents.

But I hope he also knows how difficult this move has been.

Especially for two kids who like their routines.

After what feels like an eternity, Ilya’s eyes warm a little and he carefully takes the fork from my hand. He eats the small morsel of dessert and Gideon and I jump up and down to convey our delight, because shrieking would wake the whole house.

He opens a drawer and hands Fizz a fork of her own and the four of us tuck in to what’s left of the scarlet cake. I feel better. I catch Gideon’s gaze and we both break into silent laughter. When he almost chokes on a bite of cake, Ilya thumps him on the back.

32 “If a thief wants to steal a midnight feast, he can’t be stupid and die while eating it,” Ilya barks in his typically grumpy manner.

His words make my siblings and I convulse with laughter and I don’t care if we’re caught.