MORNING SERIAL

WITH English what you had to do was build armour, and stand there behind your shield to shoot people down. Pigeon buried his own language deeper and deeper in that armour. Until the beatings stopped.

Salim wasn’t able. They came for him. Time after time. Until one day Salim was taken off the wing. Pigeon never knew what happened to him. He was sent home, the lads said. But where was home for Salim? You never really knew.

Then it was the long last months alone, with only the quiet pale boy called John for company. And he wasn’t Salim. John was serious and pale, and thin and disappearing. Pigeon buried missing Salim under as many new English words as he could. Now, in education. Pigeon sat at the back of the class. John sat at the front. So you had to not speak to John. You had to let him learn.

Pigeon was somebody now. When he walked down the corridors, people shrank away. It was all just reputation. Pigeon spread stories about himself. He was tough, he was strong. He’d killed a grown man. And, as usual, you never quite knew if all of it was true.

Allan kept hoping for Pigeon. And, secretly, Pigeon kept learning, sneaking books around, under his clothes, under his bedclothes, raiding them for worlds where none of this was happening. Allan kept quiet about it. “Enjoy it?” he’d whisper when Pigeon brought a book back, watching him pull it shiftily from under his jumper, checking with nervous eyes to see if any of the others had seen.

“Nah,” Pigeon’d say. But he’d grin. And Allan’d grin too. He was alright that kid, Pigeon. Whatever the others said, that kid was alright. It was Allan who told him. “You’re due out next month,” he said, looking Pigeon straight in the eye.

Pigeon said nothing. He took a step back. Impossible. It felt impossible. Most of the lads here knew when they were due, but he’d forgotten. There was no one to tell him. No visitors to keep him thinking about Home.