The Infinite. Patience Agbabi

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СКАЧАТЬ told me when she was a girl she only ate meat once a year at Christmas, when they killed a goat and roasted it for the whole village. The rest of the time they ate fish from the river like tilapia. I was happy when she told me that because I like fish even more than meat. But when I read about us fishing too many fish until there will be none left I was sad.

      I wanted to celebrate vegetables. I brought a yam into school as an example of a vegetable. Big Ben had to go with my idea because he has difficulty reading and talking in class unless it’s maths or PPF. Anyway, he wasn’t at school yesterday because of Anger Management so I had to present on my own.

      I got to geography last because I always try to avoid the rush between lessons. As soon as I walked through the door I heard, ‘Where’s your Leaper boyfriend?’ It was Pete LMS. He always says this when Big Ben isn’t at school. Some of the class laughed, but Jake smiled at me and Maria said:

      ‘Shut up! You’re not funny.’

      I like Jake and Maria, they often stick up for me. Jake’s very good at PPF, even though he shouts out in class, and Maria does the high jump at athletics club. She’s so good she represented Brazil.

      I sat down at the back of the class and refreshed my mobile for the speech. I knew it off by heart but liked reading it over and over again. It distracted me from the talking that goes on during lessons when the teacher is speaking. The class is extra noisy for Mr Carter who speaks extra loudly in a slow, croaky voice, even though the geography class is small, only 15 children.

      Suddenly, it was my turn to present. I took the yam out of my bag and I could hear someone laughing but I didn’t know why. I stood up, scrolled down my mobile for the prompt list and took a deep breath like I was going to push out of the blocks for the 100 metres.

      ‘Toomanycowsintheworldeatpeople.’

      The whole class laughed so loud I couldn’t rearrange my thoughts properly. That wasn’t what I wanted to say but we were advised to deliver from prompts rather than read the full speech from the page. Mr Carter said we could use our mobile phones and make a list of words so we knew what to focus on for each section. My list said:

      COWS

      DAIRY

      FISH

      VEGETABLES

      Looking at the word COWS had made me say cows first, when I should have said people. I’d memorised my speech word for word; I could see it in my mind, but my mouth mixed everything up and it came out like a long sentence in German that’s all one word. I love German but not when I want to speak English. Mr Carter cleared his throat like he was starting a car on a cold day. He does everything in slow motion because he’s older than Grandma. But before he could say anything at all, Pete LMS said, in my voice: ‘MAD cows.’

      Everyone laughed except Maria, who shouted across the room: ‘Just cos you’re Pete LMS doesn’t mean we like you.’

      Maria has hated Pete LMS since he wasn’t picked for the athletics team and said high jump was only for freaks. Pete LMS makes fun of people who are different, especially if they’re good at something. He calls Ben a Leaper after Big Ben let slip he was born on the 29th of February. Pete LMS doesn’t know everyone in this school is a Leapling with The Gift. When we do PPF, he does history on his own.

      I went from 0 to 10 in 0.5 seconds. I felt tears coming into my eyes and my face going red, even though I’m black and it doesn’t show. But I had to do my speech. If I didn’t do my speech, I’d get into trouble.

      I stared down at my phone, the word COWS, and began again.

      ‘Too many people in the world eat cows. They are addicted to burgers.’

      ‘Ever seen a cow eat a burger?’ shouted Pete LMS and banged his fist on the table. Everyone was laughing now, even Jake and Maria. But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant PEOPLE are addicted to burgers.

      I tried to continue my speech but every time I started a sentence Pete LMS would say the opposite and roll his eyes clockwise while Mr Carter looked out of the window because he’s 103. Pete LMS gave me a hard time because his dad’s a millionaire factory farmer who specialises in cattle, so if no one bought meat his whole family would starve. Actually, they wouldn’t starve; they could eat the meat other people didn’t buy. They’d be eating forever!

      When I got to the FISH section, I looked down so I’d say the right words in the right order and noticed my screen was flashing. I had a text. In capital letters, it said:

      SOS L

      Sent Tue 3 Mar 2048. 23:00.

      2048! It must be a mistake. I didn’t recognise the number and I had lots of thoughts in my head at the same time. I closed my eyes and opened them again because the thoughts were coming too fast, one on top of the other, and maybe if I closed my eyes and opened them everything would be normal and I could carry on doing my speech. But when I opened my eyes, the thoughts kept coming like this:

      SOS L

      Who sent it? Why did they text ME?

      SOS means someone’s in trouble.

      Howdidtheygetmynumber?

      This isn’t supposed to happen.

      What does L mean? Is it a person who ends their texts with the initial L?

      L means 50 in Roman numerals.

      Is it someone pretending to be L to humiliate me? Like Pete LMS. Does he sign texts as L? But he’s not a Leapling, how could he send a text from the future?

      SOS means someone’s in trouble!

      It was sent in 2048 so it hasn’t happened yet.

      If you get a text about something that’s GOING to happen, it’s a Predictive.

      SOS L is a Predictive!

      Sent Tuesday the 3rd of March 2048, 11 o’clock at night.

      2048 is the year of the school trip.

      Maybe I can stop the bad thing that’s going to happen.

      I thought all this in ten seconds till I realised someone was nudging my hand. Suddenly, Pete LMS had my phone! He smiled like it was his birthday and this was the present he’d wanted for ages.

      ‘SOS L,’ he said, in my voice, to the whole class. Then, in his voice, ‘A message from your Leaper boyfriend.’

      I had a shooting pain in my head but I rushed across the room to get it back. I lunged towards Pete LMS and he laughed in my face. He was holding the phone too tight for me to grab it. Of course Mr Carter was a minute behind. Before he could say anything, Pete LMS said: ‘Is The Palindrome about to cry? Boohoo!’

      ‘That will be quite enough, Peter,’ said Mr Carter in his slow, croaky voice.

      Pete LMS stood up at his desk.

      ‘Enough? I’ve had enough! Expect us to believe all this rubbish about man-made climate change?’ We all gasped. ‘My dad says Nature does what she likes. Nothing to do with man.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ