Raz Beri E-Book

Matt Stephens

• Herausgeber: Firefly Press Ltd
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 174

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Billy has Cerebral Palsy and he's had enough of his classmates treating him differently. But then Mia arrives and announces a school visit from her uncle: a famous footballer. Maybe being a star footballer in front of his classmates will help Billy prove to his class that he can be just like them. But when even the famous footballer turns out to be just as bad as the school bullies, Billy begins to realise that perhaps he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone but himself.

Leseprobe

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With thanks to Inclusive Minds (the CIC supporting and championing inclusion and diversity in children’s books) for introducing us to Kay Channon through their network of Authenticity Advocates.

Contents

Title Page1. Boring and Interesting, Horrible and Amazing2. Happy Birthday, Billy3. Fever Pitch4. Experience5. The Squoken Word6. Bad Stuff7. On Telly, YEAH!8. You Only Get One Shot9. My Mate Rio10. Superman11. Hiding Behind a Girly12. My First Match13. Raspberryball14. Ugly Men15. My First High-Five16. My Second Match17. The Raz Beri FoundationCopyright

1. Boring and Interesting, Horrible and Amazing

School today was … interesting. Well, some of it was AMAZING; some of it was HORRIBLE; some of it was very, very INTERESTING. And of course, most of it was seriously BORING. It is still school, after all.

Let’s start with the BORING, get it out of the way: the Tudors and the Stuarts; stylistic conventions of non-fiction; acids, bases and alkalis; converting metric and imperial measurements; teacher after teacher going on and on and on … interested? Then you’re reading the wrong book. Is there the tiniest chance that I’m going to need any of that stuff in my adult life? Really?

I certainly don’t need it in my teenage life and yes, I am, amazingly, several days into my teenhood: Billy Turpin, thirteen last week. A nation rejoiced. Well, a tiny corner of Willesden Junction, north-west London did anyway. I’ll tell you about the living hell that was my party later. 2

For now, let’s tackle the AMAZING. Registration this morning: dull, standard, not amazing at all. Mr Balotelli, our group tutor: tall, dull, standard, not amazing at all, but nice. I like Mr Balotelli. He doesn’t mock, like Mr Moore and Ms Do Nascimento; he doesn’t bore, like Mr Lawrenson, Miss Savage, Mrs Claridge and the rest; he doesn’t shout, like Misters Marsh and Bowles. I’ll come back to all of them…

Mr Balotelli said, ‘Listen up everybody, you will not believe what is going to happen in two weeks’ time…’

Some of the kids, like me, looked up and gave him our full attention. I’m generally good in class, always quiet, and definitely not cool. The ‘cool’ kids, led by (The Evil) Rio, yawned and chatted and sniggered and stared at the ceiling. Rio looks and dresses like a model. He ran his hand through his shiny black hair and looked at his mobile. Mr Balotelli is scared of Rio and doesn’t tell him off for it. If I looked at my mobile in class, it would be confiscated.

‘Well, if you’re not interested…’ said Mr Balotelli. ‘I can easily find some other work for you to do when the captain of the England football team comes into school.’

OMG. Even Rio and his followers were listening now. 3

‘What?’ said Rio. ‘Shut up! You don’t mean Danny Cash?’

Mr Balotelli nodded his balding head and smiled his sad smile.

Danny  Cash:  my  absolute  hero.  Incredible, amazing, awesome. I had twenty-three pictures of him on my bedroom wall. And I wanted more. The great Danny Cash: captain of England and captain of Earl’s Court FC. My team. My passion. My bedroom is painted in the ECFC colours: yellow and blue, like Brazil. My duvet is yellow and my pillowcases are blue. I’ve got pictures of the whole squad on my wall, but Danny Cash was the starby a mile. Still is. He’s strong and stocky with a cuboid head (wow, I used a word that I learned in school – maybe it’s not all completely useless) and has more talent in his left foot than the whole Manchester United squad put together.

‘Danny Cash?’ said Rio. ‘TheDanny Cash is coming here?’

‘That’s right, Rio,’ said Mr Balotelli. ‘TheDanny Cash is coming to our school. And not just Danny Cash, Gary Reed and Nicky Dulgence are coming too. They’ll be running a training session in double PE on Wednesday the tenth.’

Gary Reed and Nicky Dulgence are Danny 4Cash’s Earl’s Court and England teammates. They’re awesome too. Just not quiteso awesome. I’ve got twelve pictures of Nicky Dulgence on my wall and nine of Gary Reed.

Mr Balotelli grinned while the class just went nuts. Kids were jumping out of their seats, whooping, grabbing each other, saying things like ‘wicked’ and ‘sick’ and ‘omigod’.

I was nearly making the right noises myself too, but no one wanted to hug or high-five me. They never do these days.

Rio said, above the commotion, ‘Mr Balotelli, sir, how come? How comes we got England players coming into our class?’

Mia, the new girl, was smiling quietly. Mr Balotelli walked over to her, put his hand on her wheelchair and said to the class, ‘You might want to reflect for a moment on Mia’s surname.’

I’d already been reflecting on Mia’s lovely dark brown eyes, which was something of a new experience for me.

Mia smiled and simultaneously hissed, ‘Don’t touch my wheelchair, sir.’

Mr B went red and quickly removed his hand. No one else noticed. They were thinking about the new girl’s name. 5

‘What is it?’ said (Horrible) Hisham, Rio’s mate. ‘Cash. Mia Cash, like Danny Cash … noooooo.’

‘Yeeeeees,’ said Mia.

She’s so gutsy. So not like me. She’s new but she speaks up in front of the class, answers teachers back, stands up to anyone. Even Rio. You know, if she could stand.

Mia said, ‘My Uncle Danny would do anything for me.’

She grinned some more while the class went crazy, all over again. Kids were whirling in each other’s arms. Another of Rio’s disciples, (Lame Brain) Liam, grabbed Mia’s wheelchair from behind and spun her around in a circle. Mia’s face turned scary as she reached behind her and grabbed Liam’s kneecap. You could see the tips of her fingers digging in behind the bone. Liam’s eyes opened wide.

‘You let go of my chair NOW,’ said Mia, ‘or you never play football again.’

‘Sorry Mia, sorry Mia,’ said Liam. Rio laughed so everyone followed suit. Including me, damn it.

Rio makes my life a misery; I can’t believe we used to be friends at primary school. Just a year or so ago. Before he learned to be ‘cool’. Before he learned that hanging around with me was the opposite of cool. 6Everyone followed his lead – they always do – and here I am, Billy-No-Mates.

‘That’s OK, Liam,’ said Mia. ‘As long as you understand that if I want you to move my wheelchair, I’ll ask you.’

Liam nodded and then nodded some more.

‘Do you have anything else, Liam, that you’d rather wasn’t grabbed hold of and twisted through 360 degrees?’ Mia had pulled her wheelchair around so she could glare at him.

Liam stared stupidly. Grinning, Rio said, ‘Bruv, this is where you say, “yes Mia”.’

Liam nodded again. He seems to be pretty good at that.

‘I’m glad we understand each other,’ said Mia, letting go. Wow, coolage.

She really is something.

‘OK, settle down everybody please,’ said Mr Balotelli. ‘I need you to line up for assembly now and start thinking about how we can prepare for our famous guests. We’ll discuss it in geography this afternoon.’

Mr Balotelli takes us for geography as well as being our group tutor. Normally it’s about meanders, scree slopes and population density. Talking football would be one major improvement. 7

So that was the AMAZING. Shall we do INTERESTING or HORRIBLE next? Ah stuff it, let’s get HORRIBLE out of the way…

The line at the door was buzzing. I couldn’t join it because there were chairs in the way and no one had remembered to move them for me. Oh yeah, didn’t I mention? I use a wheelchair too. I’ve got cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy, or CP, is caused by brain damage as a tiny child or unusual development in the womb. Millions of people have it. It causes problems with muscles and co-ordination. With me, I find it really hard to use my legs. Also, when I talk, it comes out sounding funny. Kind of laboured and squeaky, like I’m an idiot or something. I’m not. Like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I do. The thoughts I have are as good as anyone’s. Better even. It’s just when I express them, I sound like a cartoon character so I hate speaking up.

I was left behind. Again. The class all headed off to the science block. Mr Balotelli saw my problem and cleared the way.

‘Hurry up now, Billy. You’ll be late.’

‘Yes, sir.’

All through the morning, no one talked about anything but football and the famous players we had 8visiting. At break time, everyone was playing football. Even some of the teachers. There were games springing up left, right and centre and I was desperate to be part of one. I hung around the edge of the biggest. Obviously, it was the one Rio and his mates were playing. Obviously, that was a stupid idea.

The ball ricocheted off (Sweaty) Scott’s knee and bounced towards me. I caught it and everyone cheered. That was such a good feeling. It made me bold; it made me stupid. It made me say, ‘I know, maybe I could be in goal.’

‘What?’ said Rio. ‘What did you say, mong?’

‘Mong’ means Mongol. A horrible term for someone with Down’s Syndrome. I don’t even have Down’s Syndrome. I wanted to tell them but I didn’t. It’s a genetic condition and when they say it, they’re just showing their ignorance.

I felt my confidence draining fast but I managed to repeat myself, ‘Maybe I could be in goal.’

‘Mehbeh uh cuh beh in goo,’ squeaked Rio and his mates all fell about laughing.

Was Stephen Hawking stupid? He hardly spoke ‘normally’. In Mrs Robson’s class, all those years ago, Rio used to look after me, play with me, beat up the kids that tried to tease me. Until he decided it was social death, hanging out with a ‘spaz’. 9

‘Spaz’. That one really hurts. It’s an abbreviation for ‘spastic’; a word no one uses anymore. No one decent, anyway. It was supposed to be a medical word, but now it means contempt, it means hate. It means I’m less than human.

‘Do one, spaz-bag. You’re taking up space.’

‘Mehbeh uh cuh beh in goooo,’ said Hisham and the laughter started up again. I felt the tears welling. My arms work fairly well – a bit shaky but fairly well. I threw the ball back, turned myself around and started wheeling away as quickly as I could. Away from the laughter.

Why are they like this?

I get this stuff all the time. It kills me. Having cerebral palsy isn’t horrible; it’s just me, and lots of other people. Being treated like that, like a half-human. That’s HORRIBLE.

Most of the girls in my class think I’m ‘cute’ which isn’t quite so bad, I guess. They go, ‘ahh, bless’ on the rare occasions that I open my mouth. At least they’re not being vile to me like some of the boys are but, to tell the truth, I could do without them looking down on me. I mean, I know I’m in a wheelchair and all but you know, metaphorically. Blimey, another word I learnt at school. First ‘cuboid’, now ‘metaphorically’. What’s going on? 10

The thing with the girls is that I’m not really human to them either. To the boys I’m a ‘mong’ or a ‘flid’ or a ‘spaz’ – all cruel words. We’ve done ‘spaz’ and ‘mong’ already. ‘Flid’? I had to ask my nan the first time someone called me that. It comes from Thalidomide; a drug that caused awful physical problems in new babies back in the last century. It’s nothing to do with my condition. It’s just another way of telling people they’re less than.

To the girls I’m someone to fuss and cuddle when they’re bored, or to push from lesson to lesson when they want to show how caring they are. More of a plaything really. All I want is to be treated normally. With respect and like a human being. Is that too much to ask? When Danny Cash comes, will it just confirm their prejudice or will it give me the chance to show them the real Billy Turpin?

Mia’s only just joined this school but she sees how the other kids treat me. She doesn’t follow them. Mia doesn’t patronise me; she doesn’t call me names. She doesn’t do any of that stuff. Mia thinks for herself and doesn’t care what other people think. Yeah, I never thought I would say this about a girl but Mia is seriously INTERESTING.

2. Happy Birthday, Billy

Nicky Dulgence played a trademark, fifty-metre ball to me and the crowd gasped as I controlled it perfectly on my thigh, spun and took off down the wing. Old Trafford was packed with over seventy-five thousand rabid Manchester United fans. They do not like losing but they could only look on in awe as I sliced through their mega-expensive defence. Cutting inside one, then another, then another red-shirted superstar, I seemed to have the ball velcroed to my boot. Danny Cash screamed for me to cross but instead, I turned my back on the last defender, flicked the ball over both of our heads and left him on his backside as I deftly ran past him and volleyed the ball into the bottom corner from twenty metres out. Even the partisan home fans could only rise in acclaim at my genius.

Pursued by my teammates, I sprinted around the back of the goal, waving my yellow shirt in the air. I know it’s an automatic booking but after a career-changing piece of skill like that, it was worth it. 12There was only a minute left; there was no coming back for United.

Using my shirt as a flag, I raised my arm and turned a slow circle to acknowledge the crowd. I became conscious of the stare of a solitary canine eye, boring a hole into my Xbox world, leaving it in tatters.

I put my arm down. I put the controller down. Old Trafford quickly turned back into a little bedroom in a little flat in a little corner of Willesden Junction.

‘What are you looking at?’ I said to Nettle, my dog.

Billy Turpin, superstar, morphed back into Billy T. ‘Billy the Flid. Smell on Wheels.’

Nettle is not much bigger than a guinea pig and she’s more black hair than anything else. She’s got three legs and one eye. Nettle looks like something a proper dog might cough up and yet, somehow, goodness knows how, she’s totally cool. She stood on her hind legs and pawed at my knees with her one front leg.

‘C’mon,’ I said, patting my thigh and Nettle jumped up onto my lap. She didn’t smell so good, bless her. I tried not to think about what she might have been rolling in.

My hands are a little too shaky for a standard computer keyboard, so I’ve got one designed for my needs. Each key is about three centimetres wide. It’s great and I use it loads, especially when I’m chatting 13to my online friends, and I’ve got plenty. I use all the latest social media but I also use Facebook so I can see what stuff my mum’s posting. Online, my voice is the same as anyone else’s. Online I can talk about my CP or not. You can be whoever you want online. I love it because I don’t have to worry about people laughing at me. I can just be me.

Sometimes Nettle barks at the screen and her solitary front paw jumps up and down on the keyboard. It’s brilliant; I’ve got the world’s only typing dog. She barked and spelled out:

dde dde

I said, ‘Clever girl, but you need a little help with your spelling.’

I rubbed her head. She’s the best dog.

You know I don’t like talking because I’ve got such a funny-sounding voice? Well, Nettle doesn’t care. I guess even my breathy squeak is better than her deranged yipping. I tell Nettle everything. Every last painful detail, in fact, especially the painful details. She never judges or mocks or interrupts. She listens, intently: head cocked; solitary eye fixed upon my mouth; desperately trying to get meaning from my words. Sometimes I really think that she understands. 14

I told her about what had happened yesterday, when Rio and Hisham were so nasty to me. It was one of those painful stories. But it wasn’t finished…

I had turned around from the football match and started my escape when Mia rolled her wheelchair in front of mine.

I looked down at the ground as Mia gave me the full power of her stare.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ she said.

It was the first time she had ever spoken to me.

‘Are you gonna let them get away with that?’

‘I can’t play football, can I?’ I said. ‘Who am I kidding?’

‘Of course you can, watch this.’

Toerag Tyreece was running down the wing with the ball. Mia swung her wheelchair into his path and sent him tumbling. She scooped up the ball saying, ‘I can’t use my feet so it can’t be handball, can it?’

Rio looked amazed and just nodded. Mia looked up and slung a perfect pass into Liam’s path. He couldn’t miss the goal and he didn’t.

‘That ain’t fair,’ said Tyreece.

‘What,’ said Mia. ‘Being made to look stupid by a raspberry?’ 15

I couldn’t believe it. ‘Raspberry’ is the latest insult. It’s Cockney Rhyming Slang. It’s from ‘raspberry ripple’ which rhymes with ‘cripple’. Lovely. Rio and his mates reckon it’s so funny. Often, they just blow a raspberry as I go by, then nearly wet themselves laughing. They wouldn’t dare do that with Mia. Anyway, she’s stolen their insult and claimed it for herself. How cool is that?

‘You can’t argue, Ty,’ said Rio. ‘Hey Mia, you wanna play?’

‘Nah,’ said Mia, leaving Rio looking snubbed. She turned to me. ‘You gonna be a spaz all your life?’

‘You can’t call me that,’ I said.

‘I can if that’s how you act,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve got CP like me but that’s not what I’m talking about.’

I said, ‘I can’t do what you did.’

‘What, you can’t wheel your wheelchair? You can’t throw a ball? I’ve just seen you do both those things before running away with tears in your eyes because the horrid boy said something horrid to you. Horridly. Bloody hell, Billy, stand up like a man, or sit down like one at least.’

‘You swear too much, Mia.’

‘No, Billy. You don’t swear enough.’

She was wrong but I couldn’t argue with her. At least she was talking to me. 16

I thought about what Mia had said and I tried swearing at Nettle now I was home. I looked her in the eye and said a really unpleasant word that would get me into so much trouble at school. Nettle just sneezed. I said it again; she sneezed again and banged her head on my armrest. It felt cruel, somehow.

My mum called from the kitchen, ‘Billy, your tea’s ready.’ And my heart sank.

My mum’s cooking is stuck in the early stages of development. She hasn’t found the happy medium yet between raw and carbonised. Oh, good grief, there’s another word I learned at school.

‘Coming, Mum.’

We live in the ground floor flat of a low-rise block, so it’s easy for me to get around. There are no stairs and I have easy access to outside because I can use the ramp. Sometimes it means pushing my wheelchair through some really gross stuff outside the flat but it’s worth it because it means I can walk Nettle by myself. As long as people haven’t parked their car up on the pavement and blocked my way. I love it; I’m just another dog walker then and other dog owners talk to me normally. Nettle likes our walks too. She likes eating the gross stuff, the dirty dog.

I pushed myself into the kitchen with the hairy little dog still on my lap. 17

‘That dog can walk by herself, you know,’ said Mum.

‘She’s disabled too, Mum.’

‘She’s got one more functioning leg than me, Billy, and three more than you. She’s got a mind like a rattrap and if your nan was still alive, bless her, she’d say, “that dog’s got the evil eye”. I’m not surprised you were swearing at her just then.’

I blushed. ‘No, I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t mean it. I think she’s really cute. I was just … trying something out.’

‘I don’t even want to know,’ said Mum.