Twenty Questions for Gloria Read online

  “I’d like you to knock on it before entering my tutor room.”

  “But I’m already in your tutor room.”

  “Then could you please go back out, knock on the door, and come in when I say so.”

  “I could very easily do all those things but—if you don’t mind me saying so, sir—it would be a poor use of my time. And yours, for that matter.”

  An odd sound escaped Mr. Brunt’s mouth. The rest of us were utterly silent and still.

  The boy continued, “You’ve already established that you prefer people to knock before entering—fine, point made, I’ll know for next time—so what you’re doing now is attempting to assert your authority over me through a process of ridicule.” He shrugged. “So, no.”

  Just like that: no.

  I didn’t dare breathe or so much as glance at Tierney, sure if I caught her eye I’d burst out laughing. In any case, I couldn’t tear my gaze from the two figures at the front, face to face, like boxers at the start of a fight. Or lovers in a TV drama. That was it: there was no aggression in the boy’s tone or body language; he was relaxed, almost seductive. As I sat there, enthralled, I pictured him leaning forward to kiss Mr. Brunt on the lips.

  As if he’d had the exact same thought, the form tutor took a half step backward.

  Unlike some teachers, Mr. Brunt doesn’t tend to lose his temper with us, individually or as a group; I don’t think I’ve heard him shout. Not properly. But we know where he draws the line, and there’s no doubt when we’ve crossed it. That morning, though, he seemed bewildered. A confused old man who’d escaped from a care home and somehow found himself in a room full of teenagers.

  “You’re, you…What did you…This is totally…Young man, I want you to…”

  He must have started the sentence ten times. Then he gave up trying to get the words out. Simply stood there—shoulders sagging, head tilted to look up into the boy’s face—as if awaiting further instructions. It was shocking to see him like that.

  The boy rescued him.

  “We haven’t got off on the right foot, have we, sir?” he said, still wearing that half smile. He offered his hand. “Hello. I’m Uman.” He pronounced it oo-maan. “You must be Mr. Brunt.”

  The form tutor stared at the hand like he’d never seen one before. Maybe he’d noticed all those bangles—a flagrant breach of school dress code—and was debating whether to confront the boy about that, too. “Uman?” he said.

  “Padeem. Uman Padeem.”

  Mr. Brunt frowned. Took the hand. Shook it. At least, allowed his own to be shaken.

  Still holding the teacher’s hand, Uman Padeem said, “I’m the new boy.”

  —

  I’ve seen the effect Uman has on people many times since then, but that morning, it was almost literally unbelievable—as if the episode had been staged, with the form tutor and the new boy in cahoots to play a practical joke on the class.

  “What’s wrong with Brunt?” I whispered to Tierney.

  She just shook her head.

  “Tier, he looks like he’s been drugged.”

  “Or hybdodized.”

  “Or what?”

  “Hyb-do-dized.”

  “That’s what I thought you said.”

  In the hours and days that followed, this was one of the theories about Uman Padeem’s “effect”—that he cast a hypnotic spell on people. In that tutor room, though, all we could do was watch—bemused, awestruck—as Mr. Brunt capitulated.

  “New boy?” he said. “I wasn’t inform— Let me check if I have…” He went over to his desk and fumbled at his computer. “You sure you’re meant to be…Ah, yes, here we are.”

  When he’d finished reading, he stood up. Straightened his tie. Studied Uman with the strangest expression. I know what it conveyed now, but back then I couldn’t read it at all.

  “Well,” he said, raising a hand toward the rows of desks, “you’d better join us. Uman.” He spoke the name as if testing it. “And, um…welcome to Ten-GB.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Whatever he’d read on that PC, the confrontation over Uman’s failure to knock before entering the room was no longer an issue. The new boy had defied the teacher, spectacularly, and got clean away with it. I’d have expected him to look smug; most of the other boys in the class would have taken their seat with a smirk and a swagger if they’d pulled a stunt like that. Uman, though, had erased all trace of a smile from his lips. If anything, he looked sorry for Mr. Brunt.

  “There’s a spare seat by the window,” the form tutor said, pointing. “Next to Luke.”

  Uman Padeem glanced in that direction. Then he cast his gaze about the room, as he’d done when he first came in. This time he seemed to look more closely, as if assessing us one by one. His attention settled on our desk. First, on Tierney. Then me. Then Tierney again. I am so used to that. He could only have looked at me for a couple of seconds, but it felt longer. His face gave nothing away. I willed myself not to break eye contact.

  Who the hell do you think you are? I distinctly recall having that thought as he stared at me; he might have messed with Mr. Brunt’s head, but he wasn’t going to mess with mine.

  The odd thing was that, during his visual trawl of the room, none of us said a word; Mr. Brunt, too, simply stood patiently beside him, waiting for him to finish whatever he was doing. What was he doing? I’m not sure any of us knew, but despite its bizarreness, there seemed to be a general acceptance that he was perfectly entitled to do it.

  Eventually, Uman moved. With a long-legged stride that somehow managed to be both ungainly and graceful at the same time, he picked a route between the desks.

  Until he came to ours. Specifically, to Tierney’s half of it. Of course.

  “Hello,” he said to Tierney. “What’s your name?”

  “Tierdey.”

  “Well, Tierdey, would you mind—”

  “Her name’s Tier-ney,” I cut in. “With an n.”

  Uman looked at me, with that half smile in place again, then back at Tier. “Tier-ney, can I ask you to sit over there with Luke, please?”

  Her expression was priceless. “Are you habbing a larp?”

  “Is she speaking Danish?” Uman asked me.

  “Hay fever,” I said.

  “That’s a language? Wow, we never got past Latin and Mandarin at my last school.”

  That was actually quite funny but no way was I going to show it. Anyway, who learns Latin these days? And what kind of school offers Mandarin?

  I looked at Mr. Brunt, wondering if he would intervene. Clearly not. Like the rest of the class, he just watched the scene unfold as if fascinated to see how it would end.

  “So, Tierney with an n.” Uman nodded at the empty seat next to Luke. “How about it?”

  “Doh way! Why should I hab to moob?”

  “Because your friend looks by far the most interesting person in the room and—with all due respect to Luke—I’d prefer to sit with her.”

  —

  Uman Padeem brought many surprises to 10-GB that morning. But none greater than this:

  Tierney collected her stuff and went over to sit with Luke.

  —

  I summarize this episode without interruption from DI Ryan. But she cuts in with a question now. Can’t say I blame her. It’s exactly the question I would ask at this point. It’s the one I asked myself at the time—and Uman, afterward—without ever really producing a satisfactory answer.

  “Gloria,” she asks, “why did he choose you, do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have no idea? You never spoke to him about it?”

  “What, you don’t think I’m ‘interesting’ enough for that to be the reason?”

  Mum tsks. DI Ryan says, “You must have thought about it a lot since then.”

  “Does it matter why?”

  “It might be a factor, yes.”

  “A factor.”

  “In his motivation.”

  Bef
ore I reply, I take a slug of water. I study her tanned kneecap through the rip in her jeans, the dusting of tiny blond hairs. “He chose me because he chose me. That’s all.”

  I just stop myself from adding, Who knows what draws one person to another? I don’t think she’d appreciate a philosophical sound bite from a schoolgirl some thirty years younger than her.

  Love at first sight, Tierney reckoned. But it wasn’t that. With a choice between me and Tier—between me and most other girls in that room—what guy would pick me? I was never under any illusion that he even fancied me at first sight, let alone loved me. To be honest, it took me a while to figure out if he actually liked me. And whether I liked him.

  —

  After Uman’s explosive arrival in the tutor room, the remaining time before Mr. Brunt dismissed us was an anticlimax.

  Uman sat next to me. But he said nothing. He did nothing, apart from have a coughing fit. Sometimes boys—less often, girls—will cough to disrupt a lesson; working as a team, taking turns, driving the teacher to distraction but making it hard to prove they’re doing it deliberately. Uman’s coughs seemed genuine. (Were genuine, I know now.) They had the effect, though, of jolting poor old Brunt even further out of sync. As we filed out for first period, he asked Uman if he’d mind staying behind for a quick word. If that was okay. When Uman agreed, Mr. Brunt’s face was a mime of surprised relief that the boy would do as he’d been asked. The form tutor almost looked grateful.

  As I reached the door, Uman called after me. “Wait for me in the corridor, yeah?”

  “Wait for you in the corridor, no,” I answered.

  Really, he was something else. I left the room without a backward glance and headed off to class (English, I think), hurrying to catch up with Tierney.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “I doh—wadda dodal weirdo.”

  “No, you. Giving up your seat for him.”

  Tierney pulled her so what? face. “Doh big deal, really.”

  I let out a laugh. “Tier, that was so not like you.”

  “He’d dew.”

  “I know he’s new, but that doesn’t—”

  And so on. It was obvious, despite her trying to shrug it off, that Tierney was thrown by what had happened—what she’d done but also why she’d done it. She looked just as confused as Mr. Brunt had been.

  “Who is he?” I heard someone ask, behind us. “Where’s he come from?”

  Uman Padeem was all anyone could talk about, the babble of our voices echoing along the corridor as class 10-GB dispersed.

  QUESTION 3: Why me?

  I didn’t see him again until morning break. Actually, I heard him before I saw him.

  “Where did you get to?”

  I turned to find Uman behind me in line for the snack kiosk. “What?” I knew what, of course, but I was irritated by his suggestion that I’d broken some kind of arrangement.

  “You didn’t wait for me,” he said.

  “That’s right, I didn’t.” I turned away.

  “Anyway, never mind—you’re here now.”

  “No, you’re here now. I was already here.”

  “Technically, we’re both here—but I take your point.” Then, before I could think of a comeback, “Where’s your Danish friend?”

  “She’s gone to see the nurse to get some antihistamines. And she’s not Danish.”

  “Tierney,” he said, as if suddenly remembering her name. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

  I exhaled. I still had my back to him. “Yes, she is.”

  “But you’re much more complicated.”

  “Complicated. Thank you.” I kept my voice flat and emotionless. “I can’t tell you how happy you’ve just made me.”

  “Do I mean complicated—or complex?”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I read people.”

  “You read people. Right.”

  We were at the head of the queue. I’d intended to buy a bag of dried apricots, but the annoying conversation with Uman had put me in the mood for chocolate. “You not having anything?” I asked, unwrapping an Aero bar as Uman followed me away from the counter.

  “I don’t know your name,” he said.

  His height was disconcerting. He was taller than my dad but with an adolescent body and limbs, like he’d been stretched to adult size. As for his face, I’d have killed for his eyes (almond-shaped, chocolate brown), his cheekbones (high, sharp), his hair (shiny as a model’s in a shampoo ad), but the nose was a bit too big and the patchy stubble looked like a child had scribbled on him while he was asleep. He had the top half of a girl’s face and the bottom half of a boy’s.

  “Why did you bother to sit next to me?” I asked. “You totally ignored me after that.”

  “Let me see if I can guess it.” My name, he meant. He walked beside me, studying my face in profile as I headed out of the dining hall and into the yard. “Hmm, you look like a—”

  “Gloria,” I said. I couldn’t be doing this let-me-guess-your-name routine.

  “Oh. As in the hymn, ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’?”

  That made a change. Most people ask if I’m named after the hippo in Madagascar. Some of the boys still greet my entrance into a classroom with “I like ’em big, I like ’em chunky,” even though the film’s years old and I’m not exactly big or chunky.

  “No, as in the Van Morrison song.”

  “I thought that was Patti Smith.”

  “She covered it.”

  “Are we going retro here?” Uman asked.

  I tried not to smile. “Apparently, Gloria is the two hundredth most popular girl’s name in the UK.”

  “Would it embarrass you if I sang the chorus, right here, right now?” Uman asked.

  Right here, right now, was a yard swarming with students drawn outside by the spring sunshine. I didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, I said, “No one calls me Gloria anyway. My friends call me Lory, or Glo-Jay, the teachers all call me Lory—apart from Mrs. Carmody, who thinks I’m Kate from Ten-SP—and, at home, I’m Lor.”

  I caught myself wondering why I was telling him all this.

  “Glo-Jay?”

  “My middle name’s Jade.” I offered him a piece of Aero.

  He shook his head. “Well, I’m going to call you Gloria.”

  “Because you like to be different.”

  “No, because it’s a lovely name.”

  “Okay, so—I’m going to have to find somewhere to puke now.”

  Uman laughed. Then he coughed several times and couldn’t speak for a moment.

  I waited for him to recover. “You okay?”

  “Consumption,” he wheezed, dabbing at his lips with his cuff. The bangles on his wrist—about six of them, a mix of wood, plastic, and metal—clicked against one another. “You should see the bloodstains on my handkerchief.”

  “Seriously, though, that’s a nasty cough.”

  “I should be a character in a Victorian novel.”

  I spotted Emma, Molly, and Bekah across the yard, looking our way, no doubt talking about us. Usually, Tierney and I spent break with them. It was my chance to detach myself from Uman, make my excuses, and join the others. A few minutes earlier I’d have done just that. But he wasn’t quite so irritating now. Actually, it was surprising just how easy he was to be with, considering we’d barely met. Also, he was new. Unusual. Okay, he was too self-assured for his own good, and he’d bossed Tier around and made a fool of Mr. Brunt, but…well, he was the most interesting thing to happen at Litchbury High in a long time. And he was talking to me.

  I produced a bottle of water from my bag and offered it to him.

  He drank. “Thanks.” His voice was less croaky and his breathing had steadied. He took another sip and handed the bottle back.

  “You won’t be allowed to wear those,” I said, indicating the bangles.

  “I know. I was in Geography just now and Ms. Vaux told me to take them off. I declined, naturally.”


  “You declined.”

  “We were discussing economic disparity between developing and developed nations,” he said matter-of-factly. “My bangles were an irrelevance.”

  “So you told her that?” Actually, having seen him at work on Mr. Brunt, I could easily imagine it. Ms. Vaux, with all due respect…

  “For an intelligent woman, she took longer than I expected to grasp the point.” Uman shook his head, as if disappointed in the geography teacher. “We wasted several minutes on the bangles issue and, after that, I’m afraid Ms. Vaux never quite recaptured her pedagogical mojo.”

  The laughter got stuck between my throat and the back of my nose. “Pedagogical mojo,” I said. “I loved their first album but I felt they lost their way with the second.”

  Uman nodded. “You see, that’s what I mean about you.”

  “What?”

  “Complexity. You know what ‘pedagogical mojo’ means, yet you choose to misrepresent the meaning in order to disguise your intellect behind a veil of humor.” He smiled. “That beats pretty, wouldn’t you say?”

  I fixed him a look. He was annoying again, with his assumptions about me. “You’re quite posh, aren’t you?” I said.

  “And you’re quite Yorkshire.”

  “Where are you from, then?”

  “The accent says Berkshire,” he said. “Ethnically, in case it matters to you, I’m something of a mishmash. Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, basically.”

  “So, why are you here?”

  “I was born in Britain. Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  “No, I mean why are you at Litchbury High?”

  “Oh, okay.” Uman hesitated. First time I’d seen him do that. “I’ve moved up here with my parents. On account of my father’s work.”

  His dad—his father—had been headhunted, he explained. Some big corporate law firm in Leeds wanted him to front up their something-or-other section. Uman had spent his whole life down south until now; he’d been at prep school, then boarding school, since he was eight years old. May wasn’t a good time of year to switch schools, he added with a grin, gesturing at himself—not if you were his height and hoped to find clothes your size in the school-uniform shop.

  “Anyway, I’ll only be at Litchbury High till the summer vacation.” Naming a ludicrously expensive boarding school in the area, he said, “I’ve got a place there in September.”