Miscellaneous

Matty never really fitted in. Apart from fitting in his closet when his Mum came to ask him to clean his room; Matty didn’t mould to the kids at school. He was too rigid to fit into all the tiny gaps the other boys seemed to fill. One gap for Saturday football matches, a nook for PS4 games that his mum said were inappropriate and another bump for the fact that Matty doesn’t mind not playing Call of Duty anyway because war is not a game.

There are way more crannies Matty doesn’t fit in, but those are the ones that others notice. This kid, Giles, at school says that Matty doesn’t play violent games because he is ‘Matty the Putty’. Giles laughs and screeches across the secondary school field:

‘Matty the Putty. SOFT! Get it?’

Matty thinks that Giles makes fun of his name because his name is stupid. Who calls a child Giles. Only old men are called Giles. His mum pointed out that those old men were 12-year-old boys once. But that’s not the point.

One English lesson, Mrs Blanch marks papers at her desk whilst the class reads pages 23-27 of War Horse. Everyone pretends that they didn’t watch the film over the weekend so that it ‘didn’t matter’ if they passed notes instead of reading. Except for Matty. Matty did the homework reading. All of it. He even read on; so reading these pages is just a refresher, really.

A stringy-haired girl behind him kicks his chair.

‘Oi, Matty,’ she whispers.

Matty tries to ignore her. He is pretty sure it is Aimee that went to his primary school last year, but he didn’t take much note of who was seated behind him. Aimee kicks the chair harder. Matty glances up at Mrs Blanch before turning around.

‘Stop that,’ Matty hisses as quietly as he can.

‘Don’t be such a goody-two-shoes, Matty, just pass this note to Jess.’ Aimee slides a paper note across the table like those men in films do with ‘dirty money’. Matty had heard that phrase from the hallways whilst his Mum was watching a film.

‘No,’ Matty said, defiantly.

‘Why?’ Aimee mocked, ‘Scared you’ll get in trouble?’ She fake rubs her eyes boo hoo hoo…

Matty weighs up his options: continue arguing and definitely get told off, or pass the note and maybe (but probably not) get told off.

‘Fine. Which one is Jess?’

‘You’re joking, right?’

Matty shakes his head.

‘The girl right in front of you.’

Matty grabs the note, taps the chair in front with his scuffed black toes and Jess turns around. He slides the note across the table just as Aimee had done and Jess takes it, smiling.

Mrs Blanch gazes around the room and they all snap back to their books. Any mutters abruptly stop.

Matty does recognise Jess, but in a weird ‘I know your face’ kind of way. He supposes that she has always been in his class but he never learnt her name. He doesn’t really know anyone’s names - apart from the ones who came from the same primary school.

At the end of class, just as Matty puts his English book into his backpack, Jess stops him.

‘Hey, Matty,’ Jess says, her pink Kanken strap catches on her blazer collar and Matty has to fight with himself to not reach out and untuck the fabric from the strap, to just straighten it out.

‘Matty?’ she repeats. Jess’ pale brown french plaits look fluffy with wear, tiny strands of waves escaping from the braid. One flops over her shoulder as she leans forward, covering the offending strap.

‘Yeah?’ Matty blurts.

‘I was wondering if you wanted to sit with us at lunch?’ Jess smiles.

‘Us?’

‘Yeah, me, Josh and Aimee.’

‘Uh,’ Matty zips up his bag and carefully pulls it onto his shoulders then places his collar over the straps and flattens them out. ‘I don’t think Aimee likes me very much.’

‘I dunno, she trusted you with my note,’ Aimee shrugs.

‘Are you two going to go to lunch?’ Mrs Blanch calls from her desk.

‘Yes, Miss,’ they both call.

‘You coming?’ Jess asks, rounding the table and heading for the door.

Matty lingers on the spot for a moment before following her. Mrs Blanch smiles after them.

‘Jess,’ Matty calls.

Jess grins, ‘is that a yes?’

‘I guess so.’ Matty levels next to Jess, each footstep matching hers almost exactly.

The hallway is noisy and slightly smelly. Older kids line the wall with untucked shirts and top buttons undone way above Matty’s head. Jess navigates through them with ease as Matty stumbles to keep up with her. Each step he takes falls further out of time with Jess’s. Matty frowns.

‘What’s that face for, shorty?’ A tall boy asks, laughing at him.

‘What face?’ Matty asks, his eyes surveying every out of line hair and crease in the almost-but-not-quite-white shirt.

‘Ha!’ The boy barks, ‘he didn’t even know he was frowning at me!’

‘Look, just,’ Jess starts.

‘Ohh, you have a girlfriend. Got her around to stick up for you?’ The boys' gangly arms flop about the place and Matty wants to just stick them down to keep them still.

‘She’s not my…’

‘Nah she’s way to good looking for you,’ the boy giggles.

‘Dude, they’re like 11, you can’t say that,’ another boy, a bigger boy, a rugby player boy interjects.

‘What?’ The first boy asks.

‘Like, she’s like 11.’

‘I’m 12 actually,’ Matty corrects. Jess elbows him to shut up.

‘Year 7 then,’ the rugby boy says, ‘proper pedo calling her good looking, mate. Leave them alone.’

‘Dude, what? Don’t call me that…’

Jess and Matty leave the boys to argue and slide away unnoticed.

Hearts racing, feet stepping perfectly in time again, they approach a picnic bench, bending under the weight of Aimee and (Matty supposes) Josh; who have already cracked open plastic lunchboxes. Jess sits down opposite them. Aimee and Josh both ‘hey, Matty’ as Jess starts to tell them they ‘won’t believe what just happened with the 6th formers…’

Matty pulls his bento box from his backpack and lays everything out.

‘Jess!’ The rugby boy from the corridor jogs towards their table, just as Aimee and Josh are ‘no-waying’.

‘What?’ Jess turns pink.

‘Look, what he said back there, he didn’t mean it. He didn’t know,’ the rugby boy says, swaying slightly as he speaks.

‘Yeah, so why don’t you buzz off.’

‘Jess, who’s this?’ Aimee asks.

‘It’s my stupid brother. We agreed we would pretend each other didn’t exist. He said I would be too embarassing.’ Jess air-quotes ‘embarrassing’ and makes a silly voice that makes rugby brother roll his eyes.

‘Jess, shut up, I saved your arse out there,’ rugby brother replies.

‘Hardly,’ Jess mocks.

‘Stop playing hard. Look, you okay, little man?’ he asks Matty.

‘Yeah. I’m fine.’

‘Yeah, he’s fine,’ Jess repeats, her arms crossed on top of her messy lunchbox exploding with unfolded tinfoil.

‘Right, okay. Cool,’ Rugby brother says, ‘Alright, I have rugby after school.’

Matty squeezes his hands in a tiny celebration that he guessed this boy played rugby.

‘Yeah?’ Jess says.

‘So, I’ll see you at home. Yeah, okay.’ Rugby brother raises his arm in something that looked like a wave and strolls back to the corridor-of-6th-formers.

‘Jess,’ Josh starts, ‘don’t you think that was a bit harsh?’

A piece of crustless ham sandwich falls from Josh’s mouth making Matty want to gag.

‘Nah, he says stuff like that to me all the time.’ Jess shrugs.

‘Sounds like he was trying to be nice,’ Aimee says, ‘My sister would never do that for me, even if we went to the same school.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’re not nice to others,’ Matty blurts. He had meant to keep that in his head.

‘What?’ Aimee replies. Jess and Josh seem to shrink behind their lunchboxes.

‘I didn’t mean it like that, I meant to keep that in my head,’ Matty says.

‘No, what did I do, Matty?’ Aimee is welling up.

‘I just meant,’ Matty begins.

‘I think he meant in English,’ Josh butts in.

‘What?’ Aimee takes a breath.

‘You called me a goody-two-shoes. And yesterday I heard you saying in science that you didn’t want to be my partner because I’m a freak. I’m not deaf.’

Aimee’s mouth falls slightly open.

‘I am so sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ Matty shrugs, ‘You don’t have to sit with me, I will go and sit in the library.’ Matty starts to gather up his things, delicately slotting each part of his bento box into just the right place.

‘Sit down,’ Jess commands, tugging on his arm.

‘Why?’ Matty asks.

‘I shouldn’t have said that, Matty. I’m sorry.’ Aimee hunches her shoulder and her eyes look pleading as if requesting forgiveness for something that’s a big deal. But maybe she knows it is a big deal to Matty.

‘It’s okay,’ Matty smiles. Not a real one, the sort that tickles at the corners of his mouth and pumps up his cheeks. His mum taught him to smile like that; they had practised it for years.

‘Didn’t you go to the same primary school?’ Jess asks. Josh goes back to his sandwich and the smell of tuna from Jess’s sandwich prickles at Matty’s nose and Matty thinks he will gag at the least, maybe even throw up.

‘Yeah,’ Aimee replies, ‘why?’

‘Then surely you know about his…’ Jess cuts herself off.

‘I have autism,’ Matty says.

‘Oh, well. We weren’t in the same class in primary school. I didn’t know.’

‘How did you know?’ Josh asks Jess. Another piece of bread hits the picnic table.

‘My sister does similar stuff. She has ASD,’ Jess shrugs, shoving a bite of sandwich into her mouth.

‘Autism Spectrum Disorder,’ Matty states in response to Aimee and Josh’s blank faces. ‘You can ask me about it. It isn’t a bad word.’

‘Is that why you follow all the rules?’ Aimee asks.

‘Yeah, and why I like the library. The canteen is too loud,’ Matty watches Josh’s hands scrunching (not folding) the sandwich wrapper before continuing. ‘So, when Jess asked me to sit with you at lunch, I was glad you guys sit out here. It's a nice, quiet, bench.’

‘It’s not so nice when it rains,’ Josh complains.

‘Mrs Blanch said I could sit in her classroom at lunch when the library is closed,’ Matty says.

‘Yeah?’ Aimee asks.

‘I could ask if we could sit in there when it rains.’

‘That would be great!’ Josh says, bouncing on his seat making the whole bench wobble, almost knocking over Matty’s small tub of seedless grapes.

‘That’s very kind of you, Matty,’ Jess replies.

‘I know.’

Matty and his new friends chat about all sorts, like when Matty can ask Mrs Blanch if they can sit in her classroom at lunch; whether year 7’s have a chance of getting into the school show; and if anyone actually understood the English homework. Obviously, Matty did.

Matty never really fitted in: apart from these three other kids at school.