No Place for Nathan Read online

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  HarperElement

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  First published by HarperElement 2014

  FIRST EDITION

  © Casey Watson 2014

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  Ebook Edition © December 2014 ISBN: 9780007543106

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  No Place for Nathan

  Afterword

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  Exclusive sneak peek: Betrayed by Rosie Lewis

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  No Place for Nathan

  ‘Aha!’ a strange little voice said from behind me. ‘Mish Mannypenny, I preshume?’

  I was sitting at the desk in the corner of my classroom at the time, so I spun around in my swivel chair (a recent and welcome addition) to see a young boy I didn’t recognise standing in the doorway. He looked to be about 11, with bushy black hair. The sort of hair that always looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in some time, even if it had. Judging by the rest of him, however, I decided it probably hadn’t. Way-too-short trousers (so often a give-away) and a shirt that, though clearly once white, was an unpleasant shade of ‘old washing-up water’ beigey-yellow.

  I stood up and extended a hand, happy to play along with his air of formality. ‘Well, hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Mrs Watson. Who are you?’

  ‘The name’s Bond,’ he replied, giving my hand a gentle shake. ‘Jamesh Bond.’

  Ah, I thought, Sean Connery – that explains the strange attempt at a Scottish accent. ‘Okay, James,’ I replied, ‘it’s very nice to meet you, but do you have a school name that I could use?’

  He seemed to consider this for a minute, inspecting the hand I’d just shaken. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I’m called Nathan as well and I’m 11 but I have a birthday soon and then I will be 12.’ He smiled proudly at me. ‘Are you my new teacher, Miss?’

  ‘Indeed I am,’ I confirmed, ushering my new recruit in properly. The deputy head, Donald, had already told me he’d be sending a boy called Nathan down after lunch, and by the looks of this little lad, I had the correct one. I also noted that his Scottish accent had now disappeared, to be replaced by a slightly high-pitched, excitable chatter. ‘That’s a lovely name, Nathan,’ I told him, having sat him down. ‘And, as I say,’ I added, pulling out the chair opposite to make it better to chat to him, ‘I am going to be looking after you for a bit, though not in the same way as a regular class teacher. I’m going to be looking after you because you have been getting into quite a bit of trouble lately, haven’t you? That’s why you’re here.’

  I’d been running the Unit for just over a year now, so I already knew a fair few of the more ‘memorable’ kids, but with Nathan only being 11, and it only being late September – just a few weeks into the autumn term – he was a boy I hadn’t come across before. All I knew so far was that he’d already managed to get a bit of a name for himself as a troublemaker. A boy who kept getting into fights, even though he didn’t look the type, he had also variously been described as ‘a bit odd’, as having learning difficulties and, most damningly, as a child who threw the most outrageous tantrums and was in danger of permanent exclusion.

  And all this in a matter of less than a month, I thought grimly. His reputation must have preceded him and then some.

  He lowered his gaze to the floor in recognition of his misdemeanours. ‘But I’m going to try to help you be a good boy now,’ I added. ‘That’s the plan. Are you going to try your best for me?’

  ‘OK, Miss,’ he said, brightening, ‘I’ll be good for you, I promise. I think you’re gonna like me, too, because I like you.’

  Running the Unit, as it was called, in our local comprehensive school, was something of a dream job for me. I’d been in youth work for some time and was very experienced, but applying to manage it – ‘it’ being the place where kids were contained when they couldn’t be in mainstream school, for whatever reason – had been something of a long shot for me. I had no education background or formal teaching qualifications, so no one was more surprised than me when I got the call after the interview to tell me the job was mine if I wanted it. They even told me I could work towards whatever qualifications they or I thought might be useful ‘on the job’.

  And the Unit soon became an integral part of the fabric of the school. Indeed, within just two terms, the head had realised that it was becoming a victim of its own success, the numbers slowly and surely increasing to a point where it would soon risk getting out of control. And perhaps that was inevitable; once the teachers realised I was happy for them to hand me their most disruptive children, they were understandably eager to refer them to the Unit rather than try to find a way to manage them in their classes. Which was not a criticism; I’d have been inclined to do the same myself, not least for the benefit of the other pupils.

  I was also, I soon became aware, my own worst enemy. And after realising that I was the kind of gal who just couldn’t say no, the head of the school, Mike Moore, informed me that he was hiring another behavioural manager, Jim Dawson. This, he said, was so that one of us could be permanently in situ in the Unit, while the other was free to wander the corridors and sit in on classes where a teacher had reported major disruptions. It also meant I had additional time to do more home visits with parents or guardians; something that was proving really constructive.

  Jim and I had soon become an efficient team. We would alternate who did this, and also work with the teachers, to show them different methods of handling disruptive behaviour, so we could at least partly stem the incoming tide. I got along great with Jim. In his fifties, he was diminutive like me, but also stocky, with a friendly face and a no-nonsense attitude. Having him around made my job so much easier.

  And it was a great job, no doubt about it; something I could really get my teeth into. Together with Jim, I looked after kids from all kinds of backgrounds, sent to the Unit for all sorts of reasons. They could be the bullied or the bully, the distressed and dispossessed, the lazy, the hyperactive, the angry, the apathetic or, in what seemed to be this case, the complete misfit. One thing united them and informed everything I did: they were kids who had troubles and couldn’t cope with school. We currently had 40 of them on our list, too – and usually around 10 in the Unit at any given time.

  Needless to say, no two days were ever the same, and each one – day and child – brought a different set of problems. And though, right now, little Nathan seemed completely s
weet and biddable, you didn’t join our numbers for nothing. So, initially, my job would be to observe and assess him, slotting him into the routine and watching him carefully, to see if there were any obvious triggers or situations that would make him flare up and kick off.

  This, in the first couple of days, proved difficult. True to his word, Nathan had obviously taken a shine to me and wanted to be constantly at my side, using any excuse to leave his table and come to sit by me instead.

  Sometimes it would just be to come and smile at me or touch my arm, at which point I’d just acknowledge him and steer him gently back to his group. But at other times, he’d want to linger and I’d have to become firm with him, and it was during these exchanges that I’d get a glimpse of a darker side, as he clearly didn’t respond well to being spoken to sternly. It would be then, having been told in no uncertain terms that he must do as he was told and stay put at his desk like everyone else, that he would stamp his foot and glare and, having returned to his chair, treat me to a look of pure hatred – his lips tight against his teeth, like a dog about to growl, and his eyes narrowing, changing his face completely.

  He’d snap out of it almost as soon as he adopted it, but as we reached the end of his first week it was beginning to become clear that this was a strange and clearly complex little lad.

  He had other, quite arresting behaviours, too. He seemed to have a compulsion to touch and stroke certain women. I couldn’t exactly categorise it – there was no particular type or trigger that I could see, but he was very particular about which women he was drawn to. He also seemed to like disrupting other children if they were playing or working quietly. To do this, he’d usually cry out that someone had just called him a name, then proceed to hit out at or kick the unfortunate victim, who almost always, I quickly established, had not said a word.

  He was also without fear; he had no anxiety about tackling his bigger, stronger classmates. He’d take on anyone, regardless of their size. He’d provoke the boys, too – never a good idea, if you’re in a behaviour unit – by stroking them as he passed, fluttering his eyelashes and pouting his lips, and saying things like ‘You think I’m sexy, don’t ya?’ and ‘Ooh, I know you want me!’

  Needless to say, this went down badly. The other lads I had in with me at the time, particularly James and Dillon, would swear at him and threaten to batter him, which of course caused disruption, and I began to realise why he was a difficult boy to have in class. Nathan himself, at this point, would become seriously distressed, and it would be a good 30 minutes – with him mostly sobbing hysterically – before I could quieten him down and get the group back on track again.

  That was the most interesting thing, I decided – this abrupt change in mood. I’d catch him out, give him detention, perhaps, and get the evil eye from him, but within a moment, he was usually back to being angelic, particularly if there was no one else around. It just didn’t appear to sink in with him that he may have annoyed me or upset me. It would be an interesting process, I decided, getting to understand what made him tick and, if I could manage to do so, to help him gain insight and control over his behaviours.

  Interesting, and perhaps something of a multi-faceted challenge, as I was to realise that Friday afternoon. It was a couple of minutes before the final afternoon bell went – home time for the kids and finishing-up time for the staff, before a much-looked-forward-to break over the weekend. I’d had Jim with me for most of the afternoon and we’d been working on conflict resolution with the group; a drama-based lesson where they would act out various scenarios that could lead to an argument, and we’d look at solutions that wouldn’t end in a fight or an exclusion.

  The going-home routine was the same every day, just as it tends to be in schools everywhere. And today it was Jim who was directing operations.

  ‘Right,’ he said, as the bell sounded. ‘Stop what you’re doing, tidy your area and put your things away quietly, then get your coats and line up by the door.’

  Pens began going into pencil cases and chairs started scraping back – so far, just an ordinary end to the day – but then we both became aware of Nathan, who’d moved only in as much as he’d sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Do you have a problem with that, Nathan?’ asked Jim.

  I saw the strange look come across Nathan’s face even before he spoke. ‘Yeah, I do, you ugly motherfucker,’ he said, grinning nastily.

  I was used to his kamikaze approach to dealing with bigger, tougher boys but was genuinely aghast to hear him speaking like this to Jim.

  The other kids started to giggle and nudge each other as they prepared to leave, and Jim took the sensible step of dismissing them. ‘Okay, you lot, you can go now,’ he told them. ‘Have a nice weekend, and we will see you on Monday.’

  I added my own farewell, herding them out, aware of their disappointed faces at being asked to leave just as the entertainment was about to begin. If that had been Nathan’s plan – to grab some attention – it had backfired.

  I shut the door then, turned back and, after exchanging a glance and some raised eyebrows with Jim, asked Nathan gently if something was troubling him.

  He didn’t look at me. Instead he put his hands in front of his face, as if to create a barrier between us. He then turned his face towards Jim. ‘It’s you I’m talking to!’ he shouted. ‘You God-damned cocksucker!’

  Jim calmly placed a hand on each hip. ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t speak to me like that, young man,’ he said mildly.

  Nathan glared at him. ‘I just did!’

  ‘Or,’ Jim continued, ‘I might have to ring your dad.’

  ‘Ha!’ Nathan threw back. ‘You wouldn’t dare! My dad is seven foot six and the last teacher that rang him got thrown out of a window and beaten up, you stupid prick!’

  I was obviously not meant to take part in this conversation so I simply stood by and watched, bemused. As, I suspected, was Jim. It wasn’t as if Nathan had been disciplined for anything. This outburst seemed to have come entirely out of the blue. The question was, Why? Where had it come from?

  ‘Why are you mad with me, Nath?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘That’s not my fucking name, arsehole,’ came the response.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jim answered, ‘I should have said “Nathan”, shouldn’t I?’

  Nathan shook his head then. ‘I said that’s not my fucking name!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jim, as if enjoying a normal conversation, ‘so what should I call you, then?’

  Nathan uncrossed his angry arms and pushed himself back away from the desk. ‘Call me what the fuck you like,’ he said. ‘I’m off home now anyway. And what you can do is stick this up your arse!’

  With that, he stood up, stuck his middle finger up to Jim’s face, kicked his chair over and walked casually out of the classroom.

  We stared at each other, stunned, as the sound of Nathan’s footsteps faded, both of us wondering if what had just happened had really taken place. It wasn’t that the exchange itself was anything shocking – we’d both heard much more colourful language – it was just the completely random, unprovoked nature of it that flummoxed us, so much so that for a few minutes we could manage nothing more grown-up than a five-minute fit of the giggles. ‘Well,’ observed Jim, when we finally pulled ourselves together, ‘nice to know I’ve made a good impression, anyway!’

  Though I wrote up the notes I’d made on Nathan over the weekend, I returned to work on Monday morning still at a loss to understand my new charge, who seemed to have no clear triggers, or continuity, to his various behaviours. Often it was clear – the attention-seeking bully with the minuscule self-esteem, or the child who lacked empathy due to never having formed solid bonds. But in Nathan’s case it seemed such a rag-bag of different issues that it was difficult to know where to start.

  But wherever I did start, it seemed I’d be starting early. I arrived at my usual time – a good 45 minutes before the children were due to be there – to find him waiting in the corridor outside
my classroom. Having the children in school early wasn’t unusual – one of the new initiatives Jim and I had put in place being a breakfast club – but Nathan obviously wasn’t interested in eating food.

  He looked his same dishevelled self and seemed very pleased to see me. I smiled at him. ‘Morning, sweetie,’ I said. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘Morning, Miss,’ he said brightly. ‘You look beautiful today. And I love that,’ he added, pointing to the jade-coloured glittery scarf I had threaded beneath the lapels of my black jacket.

  ‘Thank you, Nathan,’ I said, unlocking and opening the classroom door. ‘That’s very nice of you. And now you’re going to have to find something to amuse yourself with as I have to get some work organised for you all for today.’

  ‘Could I make something?’ he asked. ‘You know, from the art box?’

  I told him he could. ‘But only on condition that you tidy everything away nicely before the others get here, okay?’

  I thought of bringing up his inexplicable outburst at Jim the previous Friday, but decided against it, something telling me that now wasn’t the moment. To start the week the way the previous one had ended, with a flare-up and acrimony, didn’t seem the best way to proceed.

  Instead I left him to it and went to my desk to start preparing the day’s activities, but after around 10 or 15 minutes I became distracted by Nathan, who’d previously been rummaging around and cutting things up in silence, beginning to chatter to himself.

  At first I thought he was just providing himself with a running commentary, but the rhythm sounded funny, and I pricked up my ears. Yes, I was hearing right, he was engaged in a conversation – a two-way conversation he was having with himself. And using markedly different voices, as well: one high-pitched, the other lower. I wasn’t sure what he’d been making, but he was bent over his desk and appeared to be putting something on and off his head.

  I got up from my chair and walked over to him so I could get a closer look, but he was side-on to me and obviously so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t seem to notice my approach. It was now even clearer that his dialogue was between a male and a female, who seemed to be involved in some sort of argument. And as I stood and watched – he still seemed oblivious to my proximity – I realised that every time the female character was speaking, he was putting whatever he’d made on his head. The penny dropped shortly afterwards – he’d made himself a wig. It was a band of white card to which he’d attached several long strips of yellow sugar paper, and which he was now balancing on his head as a crude hairpiece.