Songs For Your Mother Gordon MacMillan (good books for 7th graders .txt) 📖

When I walk down with Luke and open the front door, Georgia must sense something is up. They stand there looking at each other as TSP and I say hello, and they are quiet. It’s as if children who are close to each other can feel what is going on without the need for words in the same way animals can tell when a storm is coming. Georgia is aware of Luke’s troubled state of mind, and the two of them pad down the path as if they were going for a private chat, except they are not talking. I’m also quite sure that Luke doesn’t have the words to express what is going on inside his head.

‘What do you think?’ I ask TSP.

TSP twists her lip and looks after Luke. ‘He looks fine from what I can see. Like I said, going to school is probably all he needs.’

‘Are you sure? I never thought school or education was the answer to anything,’ I say.

‘Well, I know that, and that’s why you got a second-class degree, and I got a first,’ TSP says.

‘Feel free to pull your punches at any time,’ I say.

TSP laughs at this, thinks it is utterly hilarious. ‘You know what I mean, let’s speak later, I’m sure it will be fine,’ she says.

After TSP leaves with Georgia and Luke, I start to think that maybe she’s right. Perhaps it will be fine. Her note of optimism is contagious, and I’m temporarily buoyed. I tell myself that all Luke needs is time to get over Saturday and sticking to the routine has to be the best way to achieve that.

At about two o’clock, my phone rings. Before I pick up, I’m almost sure it will be Susan – instead of messaging or emailing, she always calls me about work. I don’t mind that at all. Being a freelancer means that you don’t talk to that many people and having a regular distraction is mostly welcome. Besides, I haven’t heard from her for a few days, and I’m pretty sure she will have heard by now about the supermarket incident.

It isn’t Susan. It’s the school. Luke has gone all dark side and, apparently, I’m right. Sort of. Going to school isn’t the answer after all, and my optimism collapses like a house of cards.

It’s the secretary for Mrs Holmes, the headteacher, and she wants me to come to the school straight away as there has been ‘an incident’. My first thought is, another incident? What is happening? I ask her for details of what the incident might be, and the secretary isn’t forthcoming. Instead, she reassures me that Luke is fine. She says Mrs Holmes wants to talk to me about it in person.

After the call, I sit staring at my laptop screen. I repeat the word ‘incident’ several times to myself as I try to work out what it could be. Unsurprisingly, repeating the word ‘incident’ doesn’t help. My mind is running wild. What the bloody hell could it be?

When people combine the words school and incident together, it suggests an awful tragedy like a kid with a gun mowing down his classmates or a deranged parent. That’s in America, though, not in England. Has he been throwing things again? Maybe he’s found substitutes for vegetables. Or could it be something entirely prosaic? Schools are always overreacting these days, shackled by box-ticking health and safety and the threat of parental legal action, or at least that’s what my mother tells me.

Or maybe Luke has taken some of my lousy language to school and started liberally sharing it with his fucking classmates? I know that I need to be more careful with what I say when Luke is around. Sometimes the words slip out.

What I don’t want is for Luke to end up like that kid on the bus I saw one time in Islington, who was no older than Luke and loudly called his mother a ‘cunt’. All the mother did in response was to roll her eyes at him in dull resignation. She looked utterly defeated.

I start to wonder if this is my fault. All this before I know what the problem is. There’s no escaping the fact, however, that today’s ‘incident’ at school has come hot on the heels of Saturday’s ‘incident’ at the supermarket. Our lives are suddenly incident heavy.

I grab my jacket and my phone and leave the flat. My steps are leaden, and I try to again think of what I could have done better with Luke. There is no flash of insight, and I experience no eureka moment.

I walk through the school gates and into the main building and arrive at the headteacher’s office. The secretary asks me to take a seat on the row of three low, soft chairs that sit near her desk. She knocks on Mrs Holmes’s door and pokes her head in. She looks back towards me and says Mrs Holmes will see me now.

There are two empty chairs in front of the headteacher’s desk. I had been half-expecting Luke to be sitting in one of them. Mrs Holmes stands as I enter and offers her hand, and we lightly shake.

‘Hello again Mr Clarke,’ she says, and she indicates for me to take a seat. ‘Nice to see you; I only wish it was under better circumstances.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, as I take my seat.

Before I get the chance to ask about Luke, Mrs Holmes gets straight to the point.

‘Star Wars, Mr Clarke,’ she says, starting softly, and I’m looking at her blankly, wondering what on earth that could have to do with any of this.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow?’

‘I understand that you and Luke recently watched the film. Today Luke has used this for inspiration to attack his classmates with a large ruler,’ she says.

‘Are you sure that it was Star Wars?’

Mrs Holmes looks at me sympathetically.

‘When Mrs Allison asked for the ruler, he said