Read Online Grow Up by Ben Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

his lovely blond skull recede into the distance. What a brave man. It must be difficult to cope with the knowledge that there is a paradise but he is almost certainly not going to it.
    In two days’ time I will forget about him, like everyone forgot about Tabitha Mowai, like everyone forgets about everything, eventually.

10
    When we congregated outside school this morning, Abby Hall was not there. This made me feel relieved and successful.
    A fortune teller in Brighton told me last year, ‘You will be successful in all of your endeavours.’ Perhaps this is beginning to be realised. Perhaps I will achieve four As and write a Booker winner and have sex with Georgia Treely. Except these things will not happen because I lack motivation, talent and charm.
    We are sat on the bus. It smells of old women and travel sickness. Tenaya is reading Sylvia Plath and remaining stubbornly quiet. The air is chocolate. Everyone’s mouths are occupied either with sexual gossip or salt and vinegar crisps. We are stationary but my stomach has already started to fester.
    The bus driver introduces himself as Ben, attempts to win our favour with humour (What bus crossed the ocean? Columbus) and starts the engine. The engine sound, combined with the bus’s drunken sway, forms a mild poison that turns my insides into a throbbing corduroy ache.
    We are going on a Psychology trip to Plymouth. It is a ‘fun’ optional trip that is our little treat for all the hard work that we will do during exams. It will involve staying in a hostel and attending a conference where a number of murderers and rapists will address us. They will likely attempt to include some sort of interesting twist so as to surprise and entertain us. I think I will feel bored and cynical, because we are listening to bad people who have done bad things and I would rather listen to good people who have done good things, although that is of less use in Psychology. Or the type of Psychology we do at school, anyway. They should give you the A-level options, positive and negative Psychology, because our Psychology largely involves learning about serial killers and schizophrenics but I would rather learn about people who are in love and kids who have beaten cancer.
    Some of the girls will maybe find the murderers attractive. Ana Korsakov once remarked that Jeffrey Dahmer was ‘really fit’ and ‘mysterious’. He is an American man who killed seventeen people and attempted to turn them into sex zombies. Some of the girls may also find the rapists attractive because I know of at least three girls who fantasise about being raped. For example, when I had sex with Sarah Ivor she tried to make me to choke her.
    We will also visit a crime museum on the second day.
    Mrs Norton is reading the register in her furry whine. Even though she is not a Psychology teacher, she is coming because one of the Psychology teachers is attending his sister’s civil partnership ceremony. The Psychology teacher that is not attending a gay wedding is called Mr Mandalay, and today he looks particularly anxious. Mr Mandalay enjoys folk music, rambling and evenings by the fire. I found this out one night when me and Tenaya were drunk and began to search our unmarried teachers on dating websites.
    â€˜Kimberley Acheman?’ Mrs Norton reads.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Sarah Asti?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Imran Balki?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    There is a small fountain of laughter. Mrs Norton is deaf.
    â€˜James Falk?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Abby Hall?’ A pregnant pause. ‘Abby?’
    The girls sat along the back row fall into gigglefits.
    â€˜She’s on maternity leave, miss.’
    Mrs Norton mutters ‘Heathens!’ then continues to read the register. I feel slightly guilty but the feeling is not overwhelming.
    â€˜It worked?’ Tenaya asks.
    â€˜Apparently, yea.’
    â€˜Does she know you did it?’
    â€˜I extricated