The Green Indian Problem E-Book

Jade Leaf Willetts

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 261

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Set in the valleys of South Wales at the tail end of Thatcher's Britain, The Green Indian Problem is the story of Green, a seven year-old with intelligence beyond his years – an ordinary boy with an extraordinary problem: everyone thinks he's a girl. Green sets out to try and solve the mystery of his identity, but other issues keep cropping up – God, Father Christmas, cancer – and one day his best friend goes missing, leaving a rift in the community and even more unanswered questions. Dealing with deep themes of friendship, identity, child abuse and grief, The Green Indian Problem is, at heart, an all-too-real story of a young boy trying to find out why he's not like the other boys in his class. Longlisted for the Bridport Prize (in the Peggy Chapman-Andrews category)

Leseprobe

The Green Indian Problem

JADE LEAF WILLETTS

renard press

Renard Press Ltd

124 City Road

London EC1V 2NX

United Kingdom

[email protected]

020 8050 2928

www.renardpress.com

The Green Indian Problem first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2022

Text © Jade Leaf Willetts, 2022

Cover design by Will Dady

Jade Leaf Willetts asserts his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, or is used fictitiously.

Renard Press is proud to be a climate positive publisher, removing more carbon from the air than we emit and planting a small forest. For more information see renardpress.com/eco.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, used to train artificial intelligence systems or models, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the publisher.

EU Authorised Representative: Easy Access System Europe – Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected].

Contents

The Green Indian Problem

1989

1990

Thanks

About the Author

the green indian problem

For Scarlett

1989

Trees

Mrs R told us to make a family tree. She said a family tree is a type of drawing that is also like a map of our families. My family tree was hard to do, because some of my family are living with the wrong people. I drew a lot of trees. I put myself, my mum and my sister in the first tree. Then I put my dad in the second one. I put everybody else in the other trees.

Because I am in the top group and the teacher thinks I’m clever, she lets me write stories when I have finished my work. I don’t think I’m that clever, because I don’t understand how spaceships work, and I am still trying to do my Rubik’s cube. My dad can do it really quickly, but I can only get one side the same colour. Orange. If I am not working on a story, Mrs R sometimes tells me to go and sit with Michael and help him with his work. She says that Michael needs extra help. I know this is true because Michael does not understand that 2 x 2 is 4 or 3 + 4 is 7. Michael has also been writing his name wrong. He has been writing ‘Micel’. Then the other day I showed him how to write it. He copied his name out loads of times and now he can do it right.

Michael is my best friend. He lives in the next street to me, and he is allowed to stay out on his bike when I am in bed. I can only stay out late if it’s not a school night and if my mum is in the right kind of mood to let me. That’s just sometimes.

Michael lives with his mum and dad, his brother, his sister and his dogs. He only drew one tree. There were too many people in it because he drew his whole family – even his aunties and uncles were dangling off the branches. He put the dogs at the bottom of it, too. It looked like the dogs had scared everyone, so they climbed away. When I had finished my trees, I helped him to spell out the names in his family. I know how to spell all the names in mine.

I live with my mum, my little sister Verity and a horrible man called Den. Den is short for Dennis. I didn’t put Den in our tree because he does not really belong there. He is so horrible he should have his own tree with no other people in it. I wish he was stuck in a tree and could never climb down. There should be special trees for people like Den.

My dad is called Graham, but everyone calls him Gray or Grayo. My mum is called Linda, and people just call her Linda. I wrote down all my dad’s names on the branches of his tree. I put his new family in the tree with him too. My dad lives with a woman called Tina and my two brothers, Aaron and Kai. When Mrs R was teaching us about families, she said that some people can have half brothers and sisters. She said half brothers and sisters only share a mum or a dad, not both. I think it means only having one parent that is the same as each other. It was a bit confusing. Michael kept saying, ‘I dunno what she’s on about.’ If Mrs R is right, that would mean my brothers and sister are halves, but I think that is just stupid, because you can’t have half a sister. Sisters are not like fractions.

I wish my dad would live with us, but my mum said sometimes mums and dads can’t stay with each other because they do not like to live together in the same house. I think they should check if they like to be around each other before they get married. I think that would save people from getting sad. I am sad because my dad does not live with us, but I am also sad because I am stuck.

Mrs R said if we get stuck we should try to work things out. She told us to do it on paper like we do in maths if we can’t work out a sum. Then she gave us a spare workbook each, just for working things out. She said writing things down helps to work out problems. That is why I am writing this out. It’s because I am stuck with things. When you are stuck, it is called a problem, or a puzzle, and it can sometimes be called a mystery. My problem is a mystery because something has happened to me that I don’t understand, and I can’t work out why it has happened. The teachers say if we try but still can’t work out the answer to something we should ask somebody, but I don’t know who will know the right answer. I want to work out the mystery by myself, but I think I will have to ask some questions to get some clues. That is what I am going to do. I am writing this down in my workbook, so it is going to be my clue book too. I’m going to take it home so I can keep working on the problem. I think it might take a long time to get the right answer, because it is a very mysterious mystery.

Indians

When my dad asked me why I told the other kids in my class that I come from an Indian tribe, I didn’t answer. I knew exactly why I said it, but I didn’t tell him the truth, because even though I am seven and a half and he is 29, I know he doesn’t understand because he keeps telling me a different thing is true. Instead of explaining, I decided to just be quiet. It was because I didn’t know how to explain and also because I was afraid of crying in front of him.

‘You’re not a boy,’ he said. ‘You’re not a bloody Indian, either.’

His voice wasn’t shouting, but his face was.

I didn’t say anything.

‘You’re my little girl,’ he said.

In my brain I could hear screaming. It was saying, ‘NO I’M NOT! NO I’M NOT! NO I’M NOT!’

I ignored the inside shouting and just let my dad say it.I didn’t cry until he walked me home. I got sadder and sadder when I was watching him walk away down the street. Then he disappeared around the corner, and I cried, because I knew he couldn’t see me. I was sad that he was angry about the lie because I always want to please him because he’s my dad. I cried because I know I am a disappointment. Disappointed is when you wish something was different or better. It is very hard to spell. I also cried because I want to be happy and I don’t want to wear the skirt to school. The skirt is the reason I lied. The skirt is my nemesis. We learnt the word nemesis in class. It’s easy to understand, because all you have to do is think about superheroes. Lex Luthor is Superman’s nemesis, and Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s nemesis (even though really he’s his dad).

The skirt is the thing I hate most in the whole world. I hate it more than Marmite and fish fingers. I even hate it more than Barbie dolls and The Sound of Music. The Sound of Music is a film, and it’s the most boring one I have ever seen. I would rather not have a telly than watch it. I would rather look at the wall. The skirt means the other kids in my class think I’m a girl. I am not a girl, though. I keep telling them that I’m not a girl, but I don’t think they understand, because they just look at me with goldfish-style faces. The teachers don’t understand, either. They think I’m a girl too. It’s because my mum and dad told them I am, and teachers never think that parents lie or get things wrong. When I tell the teachers I am a boy they give me a row, and say ‘Don’t be silly’ and ‘Behave’ and ‘Stop telling lies’. When I tell the other kids in my class, they just listen or stare. Sometimes they ask me lots of questions too.

‘You can’t be a boy because you’ve got long hair,’ Gareth said.

I told him that lots of boys have long hair.

‘Like who?’ he said.

‘Like pirates, wrestlers, Indians and Ozzy Osbourne,’ I said.

‘Who’s Ozzy Osbourne?’

I told him that Ozzy Osbourne is a singer, and he has long hair, but he didn’t know who I was talking about. I know Ozzy Osbourne because of my dad. I don’t think Gareth’s dad listens to Ozzy Osbourne, so I tried to think of someone he would know.

‘Gazza used to have long hair,’ I said.

Then Louise said, ‘Well, why do you wear a skirt if you’re a boy?’

That was when I made up the Indian lie. I told everyone I come from an Indian tribe. I am sticking to the Indian tribe story, even though it is a risk, and my dad might find out again and tell me off. I have to stick to the Indian story because it explains why I have long hair and why I am not allowed to wear trousers, and I can’t tell the truth because I am seven and a half and I don’t even know what the truth is – that is why I am trying to work it out, because it is a mystery. I don’t even know why they make me do it. All I know is I am a boy, but everyone keeps telling me I’m not.

I don’t think my mum cares that much about girl things. She doesn’t keep on about it as much as some people, anyway. She does make me have some girl things, but she lets me have the most normal things and gives me a break from the skirt on the weekends. I love my mum and I want to please her, but I do less to please her than the others. I think it is because I am with my mum most of the time, and I find it hard to keep up pretending that everything is OK when I am at home. You can’t pretend at home, it’s too hard.

My mum always looks sad, but not as sad as some other people, like the poor Africans on the telly. When she smiles she looks very nice. Sometimes I think my mum is sad because of me. I know that she was sad when Mrs R told her about the Indian lie, and I know she was sad when she realised I was sad about the skirt, but sometimes I have seen her get quite happy. She is happy when her sister, my auntie Carol, comes to visit from London. They go crazy when they see each other. They do the same laugh, and anybody who is with them can’t help laughing because it is very funny to hear two women doing a crazy hyena laugh at the exact same time.

Green

Green is my favourite colour. When I had to choose a workbook, I chose green. There weren’t many colours, so it was easy. You could pick either green or red. I like green because it is the colour of grass. There’s lots of grass where I live, because there are a lot of mountains. I also like green because I am Green. That is what I want my name to be, even though it isn’t really. I wish everybody would call me it, but they won’t, especially the grown-ups. My friends call me Green because friends don’t care about real names. I like to be called Green for lots of reasons. It feels comfy when people say it, and it feels like it’s the name I was supposed to have. It matches up with me. Green is what my real name means, but I don’t like to be called my real name because it is a name for girls, and it makes me sad and embarrassed. Embarrassed is when you’re sad and want to hide about something. Mrs R taught us that. I am embarrassed when people call me these words:

Her

She

Girl

My real name: jade waters.

My friends didn’t always call me Green. When I was smaller, I had to be called my real name all the time. I started getting called Green when we played the game Boy, Girl, Fruit, Colour in the yard. Louise put my real name in the girl list, and I crossed it out and changed it. I put it in the colour list instead. I did it because jade is a type of green, so it wasn’t even a lie. My mum said different types of the same colour are called shades. So I am a shade of green.

After the game everyone called me Green, and it made me feel better, and now I am sticking to it, and when I grow up, I will change my name to Green for ever. I’m going to keep my surname, though. I’m going to be Green Waters, because that is who I really am. I have written green inside this workbook. I have written my address, too, in case I lose it – then maybe someone will post it back to me. They might even read it and have ideas about my mystery. They might even work it out and tell me the answer.

Sherlock Holmes

Today we are going to see my nan and grandad. We have to go on three buses, and it takes a long time to get there. My mum is going home after visiting, but I am staying for two nights. I’m quite lucky because I’ve got two nans. Nan A and Nan B. Nan A is my mum’s mum, and Nan B is my dad’s mum. Nan A has got brown, curly hair and Grandad has got silver hair that goes straight back. My grandad wears glasses for reading – so does Nan, but she doesn’t read many books, only the Bible, so she doesn’t wear hers much.

My grandad is one of my favourite people. I don’t like to put people in order, because I feel sad if I put some people far down on the list, but secretly my grandad is my second favourite person. My mum and dad both come first, because I love them exactly the same amount.

To get to my nan and grandad’s house, you have to walk over a bridge that goes over a little river. Their house is up three sets of stairs. Their type of house is called a flat. I don’t know why they call it that, because it is not flat. It is actually very tall, and from the outside it looks a bit like a skyscraper, but it doesn’t have as many windows. I’ve seen skyscrapers on telly, but not in real life.

They live in number 12. Their flat is really big, and there are four bedrooms. My grandad keeps all his videos and books in one of the rooms. He likes to watch the telly a lot, and he tapes all the things he likes. He puts little stickers on the tapes with numbers, and he writes about them in notebooks that my nan gets him from Hyper Value when she goes into town. He has to do it so he knows where all his films are.

Grandad does not care whether I wear a skirt or a dress or trousers. He says it is ‘not important’. Nan thinks it is, though. Sometimes my nan thinks I am being naughty, and she tells my mum to make me do more girl things. I think it is because she is old, not because she is nasty. I still like to stay with her a lot, though.

Inside Nan and Grandad’s flat most things are brown and orange. The chairs are brown, and the carpet is brown with an orange pattern. Nothing ever feels bad at their flat, even when Grandad plays his opera music or watches the boring news. I think it feels nice and fuzzy inside because the people who live there are properly happy.

I know what mysteries are because of my grandad. I always watch films with him, and some of the films we watch are mysteries. Lots of films have mysteries in them, like in James Bond and Indiana Jones films. At the end of a mystery somebody finds out what has been going on – that has to happen, because it would be boring if you didn’t find out something at the end.

When my nan went to work in the pub in the night-time, I stayed in with Grandad. Grandad doesn’t go to work any more, because he got fed up of being in the army. Now he just watches telly. We watched a film about Sherlock Holmes (it was a mystery). My nan always tells Grandad not to let me watch films for old people, but my grandad doesn’t care about things like how old people are, or whether they are boys or girls. He doesn’t care about stupid things because he is extra clever. He lets me watch his films, and he lets me stay up until my nan comes home, even if it’s past midnight.

Sherlock Holmes is a very clever man who finds out about unusual things. He does detecting to find out clues so he can work out the answers to mysteries. I wish I could ask Sherlock Holmes to work out what is wrong with me, but I can’t, because he is a fictional character. My grandad said that means he is not real – he is somebody who is made up. If Sherlock Holmes was real, I would write him a letter and ask him to help me solve my mystery. If the Ghostbusters were real, I would write to them and ask them, too. I bet Egon would be able to work it out. The Ghostbusters might be able to help, because they are scientists, and scientists are good at finding out about strange things that have happened. Scientists are like special detectives that keep all their clues in a lab and use science to get answers. I think I would like to be a scientist when I grow up, but I also want to be a footballer. I don’t know if you can be both at the same time. I will try to find out.

Earth

In school, we are doing a project about countries. We had to learn about the different types of places where people live. The main places people live are in a city or in the countryside, because there aren’t many other places left. Then we had to draw pictures of where we live. Michael likes drawing more than writing. I like both. I drew Earth, and then I drew my house and put arrows to show which part of the Earth I live on. Mrs R said it was a good drawing, but she wanted me to draw exactly where I live. She gets on my nerves sometimes, because she didn’t say that before I started my work. Sometimes teachers are quite stupid. I put the Earth drawing in my tray and started again. I drew a bird’s-eye picture of my house, my street and my village. A bird’s-eye picture is a view from the sky. I put everything on there – the park, the river, the field and the black bog. I labelled it, too. Then we had to make a list of everything that is good and bad about living in Wales. This is my list:

Good Things About Living In Wales:

There are lots of mountains, fields and trees. It means there are good places to play and climb.There is a lot of green.It is quite quiet.You can get to the seaside quickly.Ian Rush.Dean Saunders.Welsh cakes.Castles.Most countries have stripes or squares on their flags, but we’ve got a big red dragon on ours.

I always hear people saying there’s ‘fuck all’ in Wales, but I think it’s full of brilliant things. Everything I love is here.

Bad Things About Living In Wales:

It rains nearly every day, and sometimes when it starts to rain, it feels like it will never stop. When it rains all the time, it’s a bit easier to believe that story from the Bible – the one about Noah building an ark. I don’t think Noah was Welsh, but it must have rained like it does in Wales wherever he lived.In school, you have to say and sing things twice, especially in assembly. You have to say things once in English and once in Welsh. It takes ages to do anything.You have to dress up in stupid clothes on St David’s Day.Sometimes, on the telly, they put cartoons on in Welsh instead of English. It is quite rubbish, because cartoons don’t sound right with all the strange Welsh sounds and words. Nobody plays baseball. I like the look of baseball when I see it in films. It looks like a fun game, and I think I would be good at it. I wish we played it here.

Hate

My mum said I am not allowed to say I hate anyone because hate is a bad word, but I do hate someone. I hate Dennis. He is so horrible, and he makes everything feel black. Sometimes I am having a nice day, and he just starts being nasty for no reason. He is horrible to me and my mum, but when people come to the house (like his mum and dad) he acts normal and nice. I wish I didn’t have to live with him. I wish my mum and dad still lived together, because they are both lovely. I miss my dad, even though I see him on Saturdays. My dad is not nasty like Dennis. You can tell by looking at his eyes that he is nice. I think my mum should have stayed with him, because she ended up with somebody worse.

She didn’t go out with Dennis straight away when my dad left. She used to have a different boyfriend when we lived in a flat. I can’t remember much about him because I only saw him a few times, but the last time I saw him, he was trying to cut my mum’s head off with a big knife. She was stuck against the wall like a painting. She told me to go back into my bedroom, but I didn’t listen. Then the man who lived in the next flat burst in and rescued her. He threw the bad man out. The rescuer had long ginger hair, big muscles and a motorbike. I liked him, but I did not like the man with the knife, and I do not like Dennis.

When I asked my mum why she didn’t like to live with my dad, she said I am not allowed to know until I am older. Then she said that they just didn’t get on. Sometimes, if I think about it, it makes me cry. It also makes me confused, because I love my brothers, and I even like Tina. I just hate Dennis.

Nasty Things Dennis Does:

Stares at you for ages (for no reason) with his evil, dead shark eyes.Shouts.Won’t let me stay up past 8 o’clock when he is home.Throws things/breaks things.Scares my mum.Tells my mum not to let me do normal things like play football and play with figures.

Row

Sometimes I row with my mum, and it makes me very sad. I never row with my dad, but I think that is just because I don’t see him as much as my mum, and I am always excited when I see him, so I am always good. This time we rowed because I wanted Nike trainers, and I wasn’t allowed to have them. Instead, I had to have Nicks. I hate Nicks trainers because they are like reject Nikes that somebody spelt wrong. I wasn’t even allowed to have black ones – I had to have stupid white ones. They say Nicks on the sides in tiny pink writing. I think asking for Nikes was naughty, but I’m not sure. My mum kept saying, ‘I can’t afford them, so stop asking me. I won’t tell you again.’ She did tell me again, though – she told me all the way down the street.

I didn’t mean to row with my mum about trainers, but I never get the trainers I like. I know it is ungrateful because some people haven’t got any shoes, but I just really wanted them. Dennis has got loads of nice trainers. The ones I like the most are called Adidas. They are black with red and green stripes. I always try them on when he leaves them on the stairs.

He doesn’t deserve to have them. He doesn’t even care about looking after his trainers. He deserves the ugliest Nicks in the shop.

Another bad thing is some kids make fun of you for wearing Nicks. Not Michael, though – he never makes fun of anyone, and that is why he is my best friend. Michael doesn’t care much about trainers. He doesn’t even wear shoes sometimes, and he is allowed to wear anything he likes. He is so lucky because he is allowed to play anywhere he likes, too. My mum would go mad if I went too far. My mum is still mad at me, so I am wearing the stupid Nicks.

Fall

A bad thing happened. I was climbing on the wall that goes around the field behind my street, and I fell off it and landed in a stingy nettle bush. It killed. I was even crying. I had to go home because it hurt so much. I tried rubbing dock leaves on all the stings, but it didn’t work. I had millions of bumps all over me. The stings even got me through my clothes. It hurt a lot.

Even though it hurt, it wasn’t my worst fall ever. I’ve had two bad falls that I can remember the pain of. One was when I was up my nan’s, and I fell and hit my face on the curb, and the other one was when my dad took me to the park with my friend Emma. She was on the swing, and I tried to run under it before she could swing back down. I couldn’t, and she kicked me in the mouth. She had roller skates on, too. It hurts a lot if you get kicked in the face by a roller skate joined to a girl on a swing. After I stopped crying, my dad told me about gravity and motion and forces and lots of other things, which is called physics. Physics is science. It is extra hard to understand. It’s OK, though, because I am only seven and a half. It means I have got lots of time to learn. I wish he had explained it before I tried to do it. I don’t know why he let me do it if he knew about gravity. I think it was because he was making a fag, so he wasn’t taking much notice. Gravity is important because it stops us floating up into the sky, but it also hurts if you try to beat it. It’s like picking a fight with someone who is much bigger than you.

When I got out of the stingy bush, I ran home to find my mum. You always want to go home and find your mum when you get hurt, even if she gets on your nerves. It’s a silly rule, but it’s true.

When my mum was putting cream on the stings, I said, ‘I’m sorry for moaning about the girly trainers.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘Forget about it now.’ Then she made us strawberry Angel Delight and put it into tiny glass bowls. It’s my favourite. She let me have two bowls, one after the other, and I think it meant she was sorry we rowed too.

Conkers

I stayed at my dad’s house on the weekend for two nights because I didn’t see him last week. On Friday he picked me up after school, and we went swimming. It wasn’t just me and my dad – my brothers were there too. It was brilliant. I love swimming. I didn’t say anything to my dad about my swimming costume because he doesn’t like it when I say things about boys clothes, so I just wore it and jumped in the pool quickly. Hardly anybody noticed it wasn’t the right type of costume; my body was fully underwater most of the time, so you couldn’t see anyway.

My dad taught me to swim ages ago. I’m a good swimmer now. I can do four widths without stopping. My dad is a brilliant swimmer. He can even swim underwater. He can’t swim as fast as Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan), though. Tarzan is the best swimmer ever. Johnny Weissmuller was a swimmer in the Olympics before he decided to be Tarzan. He even won gold medals for swimming. Grandad told me, and he knows everything.