Chapter One: Ayisha - July 2010 – Ashfield Comprehensive
Her hand sliding smoothly down the gun-grey stair rail, Ayisha was cursing her choice of footwear when the thunder of surging feet drowned their staccato clipping.
“Slow down, Nathan!” she raised her voice, naming the first face that span into view.
Referred to in the staff room as ‘But Nathan,’ this boy came equipped with an unusually comprehensive range of excuses. “There’s no need to cause a stampede. And before you ask: No, I don’t care if it is the last day of term.”
Neck twisting self-righteously, he didn’t disappoint. “But Miss, there’s a fight -”
Why now? was her first reaction. Now, when the day was winding down nicely, and
all she had left to do was set her Out of Office Assistant? Glancing through the picture window, she identified the back of a male colleague cutting diagonally across the quad, hand taxi-hailing, heading for a boxing-ring formation: Jim Stevens. Moments behind, moral support was all that would be required. Reassured, she said, “Slow down! Whatever’s happening outside doesn’t concern you!”
"Why are you always pickin’ on me, Miss?”
"I don’t know.” She countered aggression with sarcasm, a tactic she had developed
for the classroom but found spilling over into her personal conversations. “Maybe it’s because you make yourself an easy target.”
“But that’s, like, discrimination -”
Side-stepping Nathan’s protests, Ayisha tightened her mouth - “I’m sure you’ll get
over it” - and elbowed her way down, reaching the half-way landing between the second and first floors. Another glance outside: Jim had been absorbed within the outer ring. Through the bottleneck outside the boys’ toilets (where she instinctively held her breath), Ayisha used the side door, which was already hooked open, and briskly crossed the quad, shouting, “Alright! Break it up.” She delved into her over-sized shoulder bag for her mobile, as much for the feeling of security it gave her as anything else.
The fading of the chanting (Fight! Fight! Fight!) and the slow disintegration of the
ring gave the impression that Jim was already busy refereeing proceedings. But the witnesses who staggered backwards, the eerie hush, a single high-pitched scream, suggested the need for a different drill. Fighting her instinct for flight, chest tightening, Ayisha wove through a maze of kids who no longer seemed sure why their hands were clutching carrier bags containing ingredients for flour bombs and bottles of coke spiked with vodka. “Ok. Stand aside.” Confronted by the harrowed face of a girl, she paused. “What happened? Are you hurt?” One question at a time, she cautioned herself, heart thumping so wildly it shook her slender frame.
The girl shrank into the maternal embrace of a friend. “Not me, Miss.” She
followed the girl’s unswerving gaze, expecting to see Jim towering over the heads of teenagers.
A slump – barely a shadow - in the periphery of her vision: between the grey-
trousered legs of boys, she saw her colleague sprawling on the tarmac. His face a perfect illustration of surprise, he was struggling to breathe. He reached one hand out to a boy - the only one to run forwards - who came to a halt as if colliding with an invisible barrier.
“Shit!” she said audibly. Bag avalanched from shoulder and, rather than catch it in the hook of her elbow, Ayisha allowed it to fall. As it collapsed by her feet, she had already dialled 999. “Come on, Come on!”
