Page 7 of Role Model
It is short. They sit me by the window and tell me to stay in my school uniform. They scurry to move things. Dad leaves with Gideon, he has a chess tournament to get to. I’m alone with Mum’s staff, and Fizz. She sits on the far side of the room, watching them arrange me, all while wearing an unreadable expression.
When they settle on their fourth vase of flowers, we begin. I look into the lens of the camera and say what Keren has told me to say.
“Hello. My name is Aeriel. Some of you may have seen a video of me at my school today. I was giving a speech about being autistic, and a role model for my school, when I had a fainting spell.”
Keren was strict with me. Telling me to say ‘fainting26spell’, not ‘I fainted’.
“I’m absolutely fine now,” I lie, smiling into the camera. “But thank you to everyone who has shown concern and sent their best wishes. I, and my family, really appreciate it.”
I pause. I don’t want to say the next part. One of Keren’s assistants has typed the whole speech out on a tablet and is holding it up, just next to the camera, so I can read from it.
But I don’t want to say their words.
“It’s important to carry on when these things happen. Which is what I have tried to do. Being autistic is my magic power.”
I want to say that it’s more complicated than that. But I just need to finish their speech and be done with it. I wouldn’t have written this myself, but no one ever seems interested in what I actually think. They all just talk to themselves anyway. No one listens.
“But I don’t let it define me.”
I hate that. I hate what they’ve written. It’smybrain. Being autistic takes up all of my brain, my muscles, my speech, my fingertips, my eyelashes, my toes and my spine. Of course it defines me. It’s not the only thing that defines me, but it’s definitely one of them.
I realise that I don’t like other people telling me27how to feel about being autistic. But I finish the speech.
“Thank you once again. From me and my family.”
They all wait in silence for a beat and then Keren says, “Cut!”
She lowers the camera and gives me an almost-pleasant smile.
“That wasn’t bad, Aeriel. We can certainly use that.”
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“Now let’s try to avoid any further dramatics at school, okay? I have enough work to do; I don’t need you adding to my to-do list.”
I feel the cold brush of shame as I nod my head.
“Well,” Keren bares her teeth at me. “Let’s hope that’s the end of it.”
Fizz and Ilya take me to the large Waterstones at Piccadilly and we sit in the café.
“Can’t stand that woman,” Fizz fizzes. Ilya gives her a look of reproach but there’s something in his eyes that hints at agreement.
I stare at the table. There’s a dent in it. I rub my finger over it. “I didn’t mean to make us all look stupid.”
“You didn’t,” they both say indignantly.
I don’t look up. I don’t want to hear myself speak anymore. I’m sick of always being in a bad mood. I’ve been in one since we moved to London.28It’s boring. I must be boring everyone around me, but I can’t seem to stop. No wonder my friends run away from me.
I want to run away from me. And it wasn’t always like that. I liked being me, I think. Once.
“Oh, my God!”
A voice, sounding overexcited and loud, breaks me out of my self-pity spell. Fizz, Ilya and I glance up to see a woman who is about Mum’s age. She has very frizzy hair and enormous glasses.
“You’re her! You’re Aeriel.”
She has a daughter with her, who looks to be a few years older than me and a few years younger than Fizz. She looks mortified by her mother’s outburst.
