Page 87 of The Player
“But have you asked Paul?” I pressed. “Paul is nice. He’d change it for you, if you asked him.”
“Paul might be nice to you, but he ignores me. He thinks I’m a troublemaker. He won’t listen. He never does.”
This was the most I’d heard Zye speak since we’d got here.
“Do you want me to ask him?” I suggested, but Zye spun around in his chair and gave me a stern glare.
“Don’t do that. If you do that, he might move you to my dorm. You need to stay where you are. That’s the best room. Don’t spoil it by making trouble.”
“But I wouldn’t be making trouble,” I argued.
“Everything in this place is trouble if it’s going against what they say.”
Zye turned back around and folded his arms over his chest. I tried to ask him why he hated his dorm so much and why he didn’t want to go into other rooms and look out of other windows, but he ignored me.
The conversation was over.
He was back to being silent boy again.
* * *
One day, as Frankie sat on my lap on the bean bags, watching Thomas the Tank Engine, one of the workers came in to give us cupcakes. It was someone’s birthday and they wanted to share the cakes out as a treat before dinner. When the plates were placed on the floor by us, Frankie made a grab for the icing, his eyes lighting up, and the worker laughed and bent down to pick Frankie up.
What happened after that happened so fast that I could barely register what was going on. A flurry of movement distracted me, and I watched on in horror as Zye shot out of his chair and barrelled into the man, shouting, “Don’t fucking touch him,” pushing him away from Frankie and standing between the two of them.
Zye glared up at the man, panting, his nostrils flared. He looked like he wanted to fight with him, and the man… he just took a step back and laughed.
“Calm down, Zye,” he said in a mocking voice as he stepped back towards the door. “It’s just cake.” He winked and then added, “See you later,” before he turned away from us and left.
Zye stood staring at the door, standing with his legs apart like one of my wrestling figures, ready to jump on their opponent. Then he huffed, picked up the paper plates with the cakes on them, and threw them into the bin in the corner of the room. When Frankie saw what he’d done, he started to cry, and I stood up, ready to challenge him.
No one made my brother cry.
“Why did you do that?” I snarled, pushing Zye as he stalked past me. But he just let me push him, he didn’t even attempt to fight back.
I followed him back to his chair, and with my fists clenched tight, I thumped him on the arm.
“You made my brother cry, you asshole,” I thundered, pushing him again, trying to coax him into standing up and facing me, but he didn’t. He just sat there and took it.
When I heard the crying had stopped, I turned to see Frankie standing over the bin, scooping the cake out to eat it.
“Don’t do that.” I ran over to him to stop him. “It’s dirty.”
“Anything from them is dirty,” Zye piped up. Then, as I sneered behind Zye’s back and wiped the cake off Frankie’s sticky hand, he added, “Stay away from Harold.”
“Who’s Harold?”
“That man that brought the cake. Stay away from him. Stay away from Harold, Fred, Mario, all the ones in charge of east wing. Your dorm is the west wing. Keep it that way.”
I wasn’t in the mood to argue, so I grabbed Frankie’s hand and pulled him out of the room to play in the backyard. I was done with trying to help Zye today.
* * *
Later that night, I was lying in bed, desperate for the toilet, but I was too scared to get up and go. The bedroom was dark, lights out had been ages ago, but I didn’t think I could hold it until morning, and I definitely didn’t want to risk wetting the bed. That’d make me a target to the other boys in here. I’d never live it down.
Quietly, I threw back the covers and sat up, then I stood up slowly so the springs in the mattress wouldn’t make a sound from me getting off the bed. So far, so good, no one had noticed me, so I crept over to the door, and suddenly, a hand shot out, grabbing my arm.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Obi hissed.
