Sophie's Throughway (3 page)

My opponent was called
‘
The Voice
'

S P T G E O D were my letters. Despot, I could play despot. How wildly appropriate.

My word appeared on the virtual board with a musical tring.

After one glass of wine and an hour of the History channel my body was giving up the will to function and the soft downs of my huge empty bed were beckoning. I got up and went to fetch a glass of water and noticed that Brendon was still playing online.

“Brendon, it's past 11, you should go to bed now it's school tomorrow.” I stood at his side, repeatedly yawning.

“I'm not going - it's French and I hate French. The
only good thing about it is my teachers fit and has an awesome pair of… you know, she has a very pleasant personality Mother!” he finished with a wicked grin.

I heard the cackle of pubescent boys through the Skype channel at the thought of Miss Frenchy's upper assets.

“You're going,” I insisted. “Besides, I'm coming in for your weekly review with Mrs. Armitage in the morning.”

“Oh God, another wasted hour of my life.”

“Bed.” I left the room and made my way upstairs, desperate for sleep.

I slipped into the sheets and shivered. The huge, super-king sized bed was so cold with just me inside. I reached down to the floor and retrieved my hairdryer where it had been tossed after drying my lesbian haircut earlier. I turned it on underneath the sheets to warm them up until I got the temperature to a point where I knew I could maintain it with my own body heat and went to switch off my bedside lamp.

My mobile phone pinged. I sighed, hoping I wasn't going to have to enter into some lengthy texting session with someone. It was a notification from my word game to say someone had played.

The Voice had left me a chat message. They hadn't played a word yet, just left some text. I opened the little green chat bubble and read:

 

Chapter 5

I was rudely awoken by Bob Marley and his three little birds pulsating through the house at 8.11 am. I never realised that Bob had the vocal ability to make a house shudder.

“Shit!” Realising how late I was, I unwrapped myself from my warm cocoon and scurried downstairs.

“Turn that down!” I shouted to Brendon who looked like he hadn't even moved from the Starship Enterprise where I'd left him last night. “Did you go to bed?”

“Nah, got caught up in a battle, I'll go in a bit bro.”

“ERRR, we've got to be at school in 45 minutes so NO. How
stupid.
Get ready now!” I stormed out to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. Bryony arrived downstairs, make up expertly donned, hair in a messy concoction of gorgeous (which I knew would have taken ages to perfect) and her skirt rolled up to the perfect length.

“Oh My God are you not dressed yet?” She rolled her eyes.

“Tired. Overslept. Get yourself some cereal and get some for your brother
please
and there's a fruit salad in the fridge for lunch, I've got to get ready.” I grabbed my tea.

“NOW BRENDON!” I shouted as I rushed past his room.

On route to school Brendon took his lack of sleep out on Bryony. “Why have you got all that SHIT on your face? ‘
Ooh, My names Bryony and I have to follow what everybody else does because I can't think for myself
,” he mocked in a schoolgirl accent.

“Shut up and leave her alone,” I snapped.

Bryony stuck her middle finger up at him from the back seat.

“Less of that!” I glared at her through the rear view mirror.

“Do you wanna do that again?” he threatened, twisting to look at Bryony in the back seat.

She had the sense to remain silent and I pulled up, letting her out of the car quickly near the lower school reception so she could walk with her friends. “Bye darling, see you later,” I smiled. She slammed the door and scowled at her brother through the passenger side window as she walked past, pulling at her waistband to get her skirt just so.

“MARDY BITCH!” Brendon yelled through the window he had quickly zipped open, as we drove by her to the upper school. I gave him a stern look as I shut it from my control panel. I decided not to start an argument right then as we were just about to have his weekly review with the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator(SENCO) on his behaviour and he was already on the edge of being more vile than usual.

I parked up in the school car park and made my way to the reception of Hillfields School to the lady on the desk as Brendon skipped through school via a shortcut.

“Hello Ms. Rhodes. For Mrs. Armitage?” She knew that's exactly who I was here to see because I came at the same time every week. Plus those additional days when Brendon had one of his episodes and would neither leave the school premises or attend a lesson and I was called in to assist in his removal or calm him down by phone.

“That's right.” I filled in my visitors pass for the umpteenth time and made my way up to the BASE unit. The BASE was a retreat area for kids with special educational needs or behavioural issues that needed time out or had scheduled sections of their day there. Brendon had right of access as and when and would go there when he felt like it because Brendon made his own rules.

I walked in to BASE to see him, coat still on and slumped at a desk with his head down in his folded arms. Janice Armitage was sitting next to him ready with her pen and papers and going through some notes.

“He didn't go to bed last night.” I said, just so she was aware that he was likely to be hideous today.

“Are you OK?” she smiled and put her head to one side as she looked up at me.

“Getting there.” I pulled a chair out from the opposite desk and sat down.

“Right, well I've got the weekly report on Brendon.” The report was to identify areas of both good and unacceptable behaviour. Hillfields School adopted a comments
policy that rewarded ‘
normal
' behaviour which I had often voiced was rather ridiculous. For one, what is normal behaviour? For Brendon, his behaviour
was
normal. Between us we had formulated a reward system whereby if Brendon managed to make it through the week with very few, negative written comments or no detentions then he would have extra computer time or Janice would give him chocolate treats. The reward had to be tangible to him to be worth attaining. A firm slap on the back and a “Good on ya, kiddo!” would have meant nothing.

Mrs. Armitage pulled out the sheets of reports. The fact that there were
sheets
made me realise it wasn't going to be good.

“Unfortunately there's been a few incidents this week, some of which we've talked about on the phone, so if we can just go through some of those… Mr. Locks will be joining us in a few minutes to talk about some of them.” Mr. Locks was the deputy head. He was a big jolly guy who reminded me a little of Stephen Fry. She put on her glasses and began to read:

‘Ms. Limson - Brendon was constantly shouting out silly words during the lesson when they should have been revising for their additional maths GCSE exam.'

“So was Liam, so was Joe. Did they get a written comment? Err, no,” said Brendon's voice from under his arms as he remained head down.

“This is about you Brendon,” Mrs. Armitage replied.

“If you re-read the sentence I think you'll find the word “
They
” in it. Should give you a clue.”

He had a point but it was trivial and we both ignored it.

“You know I got an A in my mock exam for maths so what's the problem?” he pushed.

“Your behaviour,” I replied, nodding at Janice to continue. Brendon's intelligence was never in question. He was exceptionally clever and Mrs. Armitage believed he was bordering on genius with a photographic memory. He had insisted that all the SEN teachers take an online IQ test which proved to be a mistake as his came out twenty points higher, and that (he'd said) was even when he was rushing and not concentrating. Since then, he would never deal with substitute teachers as they weren't proper teachers in his mind and had the inability to deal with him properly. If left in a class with a sub teacher he would find their weak point, push their boundaries and have them quitting for a job in retail within minutes. Their lack of skills in managing a child like Brendon, only fed his internal, scripted belief that they were not up to the job and he would only ever entertain senior level staff.

We skipped through the other numerous, mildly rude and defiant comments. Whilst these would be considered unacceptable by usual standards they weren't that bad for a child with Aspergers or PDA and it was only the
really
awful incidents that had to be punishable. Like the one Janice read out next:

IT department: ‘Brendon broke into the Impero computer system for the 7th time this year. He somehow managed to close down the whole system so it could only
be controlled by him and then set to printing several copies of the World Of Warcraft book from different printers around school. When asked why he had thought it was OK to do something like this he replied, “My friends can't afford the book.” Isolation issued.'

“Well, they can't!” He raised his head for the first time. “That's called being
nice
to my friends. You
said
I had to be nicer.”

“But not by manipulating the whole school system and bringing it to a standstill,” Janice retorted.

Mr. Locks came through the door and Brendon put his head back onto his folded arms. “Morning, morning,” he gushed, “so terribly sorry for my tardiness I've been dealing with another pressing matter.” He grabbed a chair and sat next to Mrs. Armitage.

We all spoke about the incidents of the week and how severe improvements needed to be made, particularly since this was GCSE year. Janice and Mr. Locks tried to explain to Brendon how his actions, particularly with the school computers, were wholly unacceptable and how he would be serving an isolation. Isolation's never worked well with Brendon. This particular punishment involved sitting in a room on your own all day long without any breaks or time outside. For people with Aspergers it bordered on torturous and served no purpose but to make them nastier and ten times more frustrated. Whilst I didn't agree with isolations, I had to accept it and support the teachers in front of Brendon to form a united front.

“I also have to inform you that Mr. Fothergill has decided that due to the nature and defiance regarding the computer incident, Brendon will now be moved straight onto governors report.” Mr. Locks looked seriously toward Brendon.

This was the last thing he needed. He sat with his head in his hands breathing rapidly and staring down at the table. I felt utterly drained bar the faint onset of palpitations and it was only 9.30 am.

“You will be getting a letter from Mr. Fothergill stating that he has now moved up from deputy headmasters report onto governors report and a meeting with the governors will be called.” Mr. Locks addressed me this time.

“Do I not get a say in this? How has he gone straight from deputy head to governors and missed out on headmaster report?” My words were coming out breathlessly.

“It's Mr. Fothergill's decision,” Mr. Locks shrugged and tightened his lips into a non smiling, smile, “We have to get this under control because it's GCSE year and it's very important to all year elevens.”

Governors report was like the last chance saloon. Three strikes and you're out. Brendon could get three strikes in half an hour. Mess that up and you're expelled. Forever. Education over.

 

Chapter 6

I finally made it to work an hour and a half after I should have been there but my boss, Colin, was cool. He really didn't look like a Colin. Colins were sensible and plaid and he was… well he was a bit edgy and soulful.

“Hey - nice of you to make it,” said Johnno, the sports writer for the collective city magazines.

I fished my iPad and iPhone from my bag before I chucked it down at the leg of my desk. “Yeah well, the thing is is Johnno, I can produce ten articles in the time it takes you to do one.”

I actually liked Johnno, (AKA John Smith) he was ten years my junior and I loved teasing him. He always tried to retaliate but failed. Sometimes age was a good thing. He was a great sports lover, writer and deep down, the sweetest of people. He always bought me a present from his holidays which I found endearing.

I walked up to his desk to see what he was working on and began to read it out loud to the office. “Chelsea striker, Frank Lampard reached a milestone wearing his number 8 jersey for the boys in blue when he scored his 200th goal against West Ham…”

I looked at him and faked a yawn. “That's so boring. How about spicing it up a bit? Maybe something like this: When Frank Lampard scored his 200th goal for Chelsea I was unable to peel my eyes from his bulging thigh muscles. As Torres ran over to hug him I only wished I could have been in between them like a sandwich filling. Walking from the pitch, Frank deftly removed his shirt to reveal the sweat glistening on his rippling abs and I was forced to grab the arms of my chair as my knickers were so wet, I feared sliding off the fine Natuzzi leather.”

“Oh my God!” he looked shocked, “Its about SPORT not shit for wannabe WAGS!”

“I'm all for it.” Monica piped up.

“Hear, Hear,” said the gaggle of girls in the entertainment section.

“Keep going.” Monica urged, leaning forward and sucking on her pen.

“See!” I waved my arms across the group of girls, “you're missing a whole section of readers out. I think we should swap for a week. I'll do sport and you can write about the upcoming interior trends. You need to be more creative Johnno and stop making people fall to sleep.” I winked at him as I sat down and checked my phone. I noticed an indication next to my word game. I opened it up and saw ‘The Voice' had played a word and left another message. I opened up the little green chat bubble.