Twenty

I have been watching Maya Toyne carefully this week. And I am sure that there is Something Up. I thought about her crying all weekend. Well, not all weekend, because there was a lot going on with building work and we went to the allotment to see how it’s doing and stuff. But some of the time I thought about her. It doesn’t seem right that someone should cry in an alleyway and no one takes the time to find out what’s wrong. Crying outdoors seems different to just regular crying. Unless you’ve fallen over, then it’s OK.
Anyway.
I wanted to find out if Maya’s crying was the normal I’ve-just-fallen-over-and-scraped-my-knee kind, or if it was something else. Something more serious.
So, I’ve been watching her.
She comes to school by herself.
She spends breaktime doing one of two things. Mostly, she sits on her own near the big tree that grows up out of the concrete at the edge of the yard. But yesterday she flicked little stones at the little ones skipping. She did it almost as though she wasn’t thinking about it. She just picked up a stone and pressed it into her thumb until it popped out. Which would have been fine if her thumb hadn’t been pointing at the year 3s. She didn’t hit any of them, but I think she was trying to. And she was trying to pretend that she wasn’t.
Yesterday, I thought enough was enough. So, I went up to her in break and said ‘Are you better now?’
‘There’s nothing wrong,’ she said.
‘Well, it looks like there is,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you leave me be and mind your own business!’ she said.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I will. Just so long as none of your stones hits anyone. Then it will be my business again.’
She looked shocked. I think she was surprised that anyone noticed what she’d been doing. But I had.
There is definitely something up.