Page 26 of Shadows in Bloom

I walk to my seat that’s right next to Justice. Justice has light brown hair and green eyes that always scrunch up when he looks at me with a happy smile.

“Hi, Sal,” he says when I sit beside him.

“Hi, Sal—” I shake my head very hard, and say, “Hi, Justice.”

One day, when I was little, Mum took me to see Doctor Hart. He said that my brain is different, and that sometimes it makes me say things I don’t really want to say. Sometimes, it even makes me do things like smacking my head, copying other people, and kicking my legs out, and I can’t stop any of it.

Doctor Hart said it’s called Tourette Syndrome. He said that I can go to see him lots of times to help me get a little bit better, and there’s even some medicine that might be able to help me, but Mum said “No, no, no,” to everything. She said it’s my dad’s fault because he didn’t want to come to our house, and that’s why I don’t stop “this attention seeking behaviour.” I don’t know what that means, but Mum says it all the time to every single person she talks to. That’s why I don’t like my mum now.

“Attention seeking behaviour. Attention seeking behaviour…” The words keep spinning around inside my head and telling me I have to say them, so I press my teeth together as hard as I can to try to stop.

“What?” Justice asks, and he looks at me with a scrunched up face that makes me do a big smile. Justice has lots of tiny spots on his face called freckles, and when he smiles, I can see them all across his nose and cheeks.

“Nothing, nothing,” I say. I shake my head to stop all the words mixing up and falling out of my mouth when I don’t want them to.

“I’m using a blue pencil,” Justice says, holding up the pencil. He leans over his paper and writes his name at the top of the page.

“I’m using a blue pencil.” I pull my hair until my head hurts, but the words keep coming out. “Blue pencil. Blue, blue, blue.” I smack my head again and again, and make an angry, growly sound in my throat, but it doesn’t make the words stop.

Miss Tanner comes to the table and leans down to me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs it softly. “Do you need a break, Sal?” she asks. “I can call Tracy to take you for a walk outside.”

Tracy is my helper in the classroom. Sometimes, she sits with me while I do my work, and sometimes, she helps other kids then comes and gets me if I need to have a break.

I shake my head quickly. I don’t like going outside without Justice. I have to stay here to look after him. “No, no, no, no,” I say.

Miss Tanner smiles and pats my shoulder again before she walks to the front of the classroom and points to the words on the board as she reads them out. When she asks someone to tell her what word she’s pointing to, Justice puts his hand up and bounces up and down in his seat.

Miss Tanner doesn’t pick Justice, and it makes me angry. When I get angry, I think about making fire. Inside my head, lots of pictures of fire move around with orange and yellow flames. I blink very fast to make the pictures go away, and so I don’t remember Mum’s lighter that’s in the bottom of my school bag.

“Do you like fire?” I ask Justice.

He shakes his head fast. “Noooo, I’m scared of fire.” He pushes up his long, blue sleeve and shows me his arm. His skin is all wrinkly and has lots of squiggly lines. Some bits are pink and a little bit red, and some are whitish coloured.

“What is that?” I ask him.

He shrugs and says, “It’s a scar. My brother did it with a stick that had fire on it. My brother likes fire.”

“It’s a scar. Scar, scar, scar,” I say, copying his words. “A stick that had fire on it. Can I touch it?” I ask.

Justice nods and holds out his arm. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. The doctor said I’m so, so brave.”

I touch it softly with my fingers. “So, so, brave,” I say. I like the bumps and lines and marks, and I keep moving my finger around all the weird, bumpy scars, then I make my hand flat and press it over Justice’s arm. “You need to have lots of these,” I tell him.

“Salvatore!” Miss Tanner calls out. “Back to work, please.”

“Back to work please. Back to work please.” I punch my head because I don’t want her words in my mouth anymore.

When we’ve done all our work and eaten all our lunch, the bell rings, and Miss Tanner says we can go outside to play. Justice smiles a lot when we’re outside. He likes the slide and the swings the most.

He runs straight to the swings and points to the red one. “I wanna go on the swing!” he says, jumping up and down. “Will you push me, Sal?”

“Will you push me, Sal? Yes.” I jump up and down too, but when I see the other kid on the swing is Miles, who lives next door to my house, I stop jumping and walk closer to the swing. “Get off, Miles,” I say.

“No, it’s my turn.” He kicks his legs so he goes higher and higher.

“You had a long enough turn,” I tell him, then I hold Justice’s hand. “Justice wants to go on that red swing.”

Miles keeps swinging, but it’s slowing down because he’s dragging his feet through the sand on the ground. “He can use the blue one,” Miles says. He points to the blue swing while he holds onto the chain of his swing with his other hand.

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