The World Out There - 4. Four

It was a Wednesday morning, Liam’s first lesson had been English with Rhys Clarke sitting behind him. Just the thought of it had made him shake with fear - he couldn’t even face stepping inside the classroom. Instead he’d turned around and walked away. He’d kept walking and walking. He walked right out of the school’s back entrance. He kept on walking until he reached home. There he let himself in with his key and spent the rest of the day watching television, alone and safe there.

He didn’t know school had texted his mother that he’d absconded, but he knew when she returned home that evening. She’d been so angry at him as soon as she had entered their flat, snacking him hard across the back of his head and screaming at him that she wouldn’t have him showing her up like that. He fled from her anger in tears, he didn’t get a chance to tell her what actually happened.

He only took the carving knife to school as protection: he only wanted to frighten Rhys Clarke with it. That Friday morning, it was easy to take the knife out of the knife block in the kitchen and hide it in his school bag - his mother was too busy getting ready for work to notice him.

The knife made his school bag feel twice as heavy, the strap biting into his shoulder, and he was certain someone would notice it. As soon as he’d walked out of the house, he’d wanted to return the knife to its place in the knife block, but it was too late - his mother was already locking the front door and chasing him off to the bus stop.

That morning at school he’d expected to be exposed for carrying that knife: for a teacher to demand to see what was in his bag; for another kid to shout out that he was carrying a knife. His nerves were wound so tightly causing time drag very slowly. And all through the morning, there hadn’t been a single sighting of Rhys Clarke.

At break time he was sat in front of the science block, hiding away and hoping not to be noticed - it was one of his favourite places to hide away, and for half of the time, it worked. Then Rhys Clarke and his sidekicks found him, suddenly appearing in his vision. He jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of his school bag, hurriedly feeling inside of it for the knife’s handle.

“Little queer’s trying to hide away from us,” Rhys Clarke snarled at him.

“Leave me alone!” Liam shouted back at them, pulling the carving knife out of his school bag and waving it at them, hoping that just the sight of it would frighten them away.

“The little girl has got herself a knife,” Rhys Clarke snarled. “Bring it on and we’ll kick your queer arse!” Rhys Clarke stretched his arms wide, leaving his abdomen exposed, and shouted, “Bring it on! Bring it on and we’ll fucking kill you!”

Liam jumped into action, not thinking about his actions, just acting on fear and Adrenalin, letting his body lash out at his tormentor. Liam lunged forward, pushing the knife towards Rhys Clarke’s stomach just to scare him. When the blade reached the boy’s body, it just ripped through Rhys Clarke’s school shirt without any problem, sliding though his skin without any resistance, sliding deep into the other’s abdomen. It slid into Clarke’s flesh almost to the handle with barely any resistance. Liam pulled the knife back in surprise. Was it supposed to be that easy to stab someone? As the red blood spread out across his white shirt, Rhys Clarke screamed, “You bastard! You fucking bastard!”

In panic and mounting fear, Liam pushed the knife back into Rhys Clarke’s stomach. He was trying to silence Clarke’s screams. He was trying to stop Rhys Clarke. He wanted the torment to stop, but he kept stabbing away at Rhys Clarke. With each stab, the knife slid easily into Rhys Clarke’s stomach, barely with any resistance, as if sliding into a side of meat. At last, for one brief moment, he was hurting Rhys Clarke back: he had power over the bully.

Then, Rhys Clarke collapsed at his feet - he finally had beaten the bastard. Liam’s last knife blow struck Clarke in the shoulder, the blade’s tip bouncing off something hard under the skin, and someone’s hand was pulling him backwards. The hand pulled him back with such force that he lost his balance, causing him to fall sideways until his shoulder struck the wall of the science block and he slid down it, coming to rest, slouched on the ground.

Mr Stein was stood over Rhys Clarke, his hands pressing down on Rhys Clarke’s stomach, and there was so much red blood everywhere, and it was so bright red. People were shouting and rushing around. Someone was screaming. There was so much noise and movement. Liam lay still there on the ground. Somewhere he’d dropped that knife, but he still had hold of his school bag. Was it really that easy to stab someone? It had taken so little effort; the knife had slid into Clarke without much force. It had never looked that easy on TV. When actors stabbed each other on drama programs, it always looked as though they had to put so much effort into: they forced the knife into their victim. He’d barely had to push the knife to sink it up to the handle into Clarke’s stomach. Was there something wrong with Rhys Clarke’s stomach? He only meant to scare Rhys Clarke, a small cut to his stomach, to stain his school shirt with blood, to finally threaten him off. Why had it gone wrong? He wanted those moments back: he wanted not to have taken that knife out of his bag, for none of all this to have happened.

“Get that little bastard out of here!” Mr Stein shouted. For a moment Liam didn’t know who he meant: all he heard was that the Deputy Head had sworn. Then, another hand was pulling him up by the arm and dragging him to his feet, causing a sharp pain in his shoulder as his arm was nearly pulled out of his shoulder. He looked around and saw it was Mr Bowley, the PE Teacher, staring angrily at him, beads of sweat on the man’s forehead and one running down his nose.