Read Online My Name Is Mina by David Almond - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Almond
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“I’ve called him Whisper.”
Later, in the house, at the kitchen table, Mina made models of the owls from heavy clay and laid them on the table. She opened up the owl pellet in a bowl of warm water. She loosened the scraps of skin and fur and bone. She laid the fragments of what had been a mouse or a vole on her table. It was still gorgeous, so mysterious. It had been alive, it had been killed by an owl, it had been inside the owl and now it was out again. It was in her fingers, on the palm of her hand, on her table beside a clay model of an owl. Later, in her dreams, she made owls as light as spirits, and she flew with them in the night.
YOU FLY IN THE VELVET NIGHT.
YOU SEE WHAT CAN’T BE SEEN,
YOU HEAR WHAT CAN’T BE HEARD.
LEND ME YOUR FEATHERS
AND BONES AND WINGS.
LEND ME YOUR EYES
AND EARS AND CLAWS.
LEND ME THE HEART
TO LEAP LIKE YOU
INTO THE ASTONISHING NIGHT.
It was always writing that got me into trouble with Mrs. Scullery. She said I just EXASPERATED her.
“You could be one of my very best pupils, Mina McKee – one of the very best I have ever had, in fact. But you are a constant disappointment! You let the school down, you let your poor mother down, and most of all you let YOURSELF down, time and time and time again. You are a silly and wayward and undisciplined child. Instead of concentrating on the task in hand, you spend your time playing about and drawing attention to yourself and your silly foibles!”
Draw attention to myself? That was just about the last thing I wanted. I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want to be there at all!
The day that brought it to a head was SATS day. SATS Day, the day she started out so calm and sweet, the day she ended screaming out loud in front of the whole class, the day she snarled that I was full of nothing but stupid crackpot notions, the day she put her hands on her hips, glared straight into my face and growled,
“Mina bloody McKee. You are full of sheerbloody daftness and you are an utter bloody disgrace!”
Bloody. She said it in front of the whole class. It was unheard-of! A teacher said bloody in front of the whole class! That showed how bad things had become!
It was nonsense that did it. And it was SATS day! SATS day! Aaagh! Everybody just had to stay calm! It was nothing special! But everybody was so stressed out! Everybody was so scared! Everybody was so focused on making sure that the school was up to standard. Everybody was so concerned that everybody would all turn out to be better than the average of children of our age throughout the country! Everybody was so concerned that we would get Level 4 and Level 5 and Level 99! We shouldn’t get worked up about it, though! We should just treat SATS day as another ordinary school day! It wasn’t really a test at all! It was just a way of checking that things were going OK at St. Bede’s! It wasn’t really a test of the kids! It was a test of the school! So nothing to do with the kids at all! So just stay calm! So justdon’t worry! Just relax! JUST RELAX! SATS Day was just another ordinary day! But SATS Day was SATS Day! IT WAS SATS DAY!
It started quietly enough. There we were sitting in class, some of the kids white-knuckled as they gripped the edge of their tables, some of them, such as Sophie, chewing their lips, some of them slouched and not caring at all. Some were poised and well prepared and smiling in anticipation, like Samantha, with new pens and pencils laid out neatly on the tables in front of them.
Mrs. Scullery looked like she’d spent the night seeing ghosts. Her hair was sticking out. Her lipstick was slashed across her chops. Her dress was buttoned up all wrong. Her hands were trembling. She goggled red-eyed from her desk at us.
“Remember,” she said to us in a high-pitched wobbly voice. “You must simply do your best, children.” She gave especially appealing glances to theones she thought were cleverest, like me. “Just do your best. Please do your
Later, in the house, at the kitchen table, Mina made models of the owls from heavy clay and laid them on the table. She opened up the owl pellet in a bowl of warm water. She loosened the scraps of skin and fur and bone. She laid the fragments of what had been a mouse or a vole on her table. It was still gorgeous, so mysterious. It had been alive, it had been killed by an owl, it had been inside the owl and now it was out again. It was in her fingers, on the palm of her hand, on her table beside a clay model of an owl. Later, in her dreams, she made owls as light as spirits, and she flew with them in the night.
YOU FLY IN THE VELVET NIGHT.
YOU SEE WHAT CAN’T BE SEEN,
YOU HEAR WHAT CAN’T BE HEARD.
LEND ME YOUR FEATHERS
AND BONES AND WINGS.
LEND ME YOUR EYES
AND EARS AND CLAWS.
LEND ME THE HEART
TO LEAP LIKE YOU
INTO THE ASTONISHING NIGHT.
It was always writing that got me into trouble with Mrs. Scullery. She said I just EXASPERATED her.
“You could be one of my very best pupils, Mina McKee – one of the very best I have ever had, in fact. But you are a constant disappointment! You let the school down, you let your poor mother down, and most of all you let YOURSELF down, time and time and time again. You are a silly and wayward and undisciplined child. Instead of concentrating on the task in hand, you spend your time playing about and drawing attention to yourself and your silly foibles!”
Draw attention to myself? That was just about the last thing I wanted. I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want to be there at all!
The day that brought it to a head was SATS day. SATS Day, the day she started out so calm and sweet, the day she ended screaming out loud in front of the whole class, the day she snarled that I was full of nothing but stupid crackpot notions, the day she put her hands on her hips, glared straight into my face and growled,
“Mina bloody McKee. You are full of sheerbloody daftness and you are an utter bloody disgrace!”
Bloody. She said it in front of the whole class. It was unheard-of! A teacher said bloody in front of the whole class! That showed how bad things had become!
It was nonsense that did it. And it was SATS day! SATS day! Aaagh! Everybody just had to stay calm! It was nothing special! But everybody was so stressed out! Everybody was so scared! Everybody was so focused on making sure that the school was up to standard. Everybody was so concerned that everybody would all turn out to be better than the average of children of our age throughout the country! Everybody was so concerned that we would get Level 4 and Level 5 and Level 99! We shouldn’t get worked up about it, though! We should just treat SATS day as another ordinary school day! It wasn’t really a test at all! It was just a way of checking that things were going OK at St. Bede’s! It wasn’t really a test of the kids! It was a test of the school! So nothing to do with the kids at all! So just stay calm! So justdon’t worry! Just relax! JUST RELAX! SATS Day was just another ordinary day! But SATS Day was SATS Day! IT WAS SATS DAY!
It started quietly enough. There we were sitting in class, some of the kids white-knuckled as they gripped the edge of their tables, some of them, such as Sophie, chewing their lips, some of them slouched and not caring at all. Some were poised and well prepared and smiling in anticipation, like Samantha, with new pens and pencils laid out neatly on the tables in front of them.
Mrs. Scullery looked like she’d spent the night seeing ghosts. Her hair was sticking out. Her lipstick was slashed across her chops. Her dress was buttoned up all wrong. Her hands were trembling. She goggled red-eyed from her desk at us.
“Remember,” she said to us in a high-pitched wobbly voice. “You must simply do your best, children.” She gave especially appealing glances to theones she thought were cleverest, like me. “Just do your best. Please do your
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