Dark as fresh mud, and softer than a cloud his small pink nose wobbled nervously. Someone had brought him in for the last day of school. They passed him around the circle, small hands outstretched towards him, he was cradled the same way a monk would hold a holy object, reverently. His name was Peanut and he was two years old.
When it came to Hannah’s turn, she held him up to her face to get a good look at him. He wriggled around in her grasp, he was warm and alive under her fingers. She could feel the vertebrae of his back and the hot muscles under the skin, could feel his dainty ribs beneath her palm, interlocking around the front like puzzle pieces, protecting some treasure hidden deep within. She ran her finger over his spine, counting the vertebrae, she knew there was 33 bones in the human spine, she wondered if there was as many in a hamster’s? She had learned all about bones and the heart and brain during the biology unit, diagrams of how the skeleton fitted together fluttered in her mind, but this was different, this wasn’t just pictures or words, this was alive. She could feel where the spine became the neck and then the skull, where ribs gave way to a soft and sagging belly. This was alive. She held his right foot, so small in her hand and spread his toes. The skin between each one stretched so paper thin you could see the light through it, she held one and gently began to pull.
'Hurry up banana, you’ve had your shot let me have a go' someone whined to her left. Hannah reluctantly passed on Peanut, but there was a pin prick feeling of loss in her hands as she watched her friends ooh and ahh over him. The further he went away from her in the circle, the more her hands ached. A tiny spark seemed to light up within her. At playtime, whilst the other children in her class were out playing tig, she snuck back into the classroom, her movements as deliberate and silent as a tiger.
Cradling Peanut once more, she felt the flame being stoked. She could feel just how supple his ribs were. A bird’s cage, so delicate and breakable, tapping something wild and untamed within. She felt strength coursing through her heart to her veins before finally reaching her small fingers. She began to squeeze.
Gently at first, as if she was testing the ripeness of a fruit. As Peanut wriggled and squirmed under her the flame started to demand more, she could feel it growing into a bonfire. She squeezed harder still, despite the squeals now emitting from the animal. Her blood was fast and red hot in her veins now, she squeezed harder and harder. Peanut was still clawing at air when his ribs cracked and gave in, his beady little eyes now bulging out of his head. Still this did not sate the fire blazing within her. She kept squeezing, crushing him even as his body became more and more loose and crunchy under her hands, her fingernails red crescents.
Finally, the heat dissipated. Hannah could barely hear her own breathing over the sound of her heart pounding in her ear. She began to hear the sounds of her friends running around outside, laughing and tumbling about the concrete. In a flash Hannah could see how this would play out if they found her here like this. Michael would cry and Sarah would stare at her, eyes furious, chin wobbling as the others looked on at her in horror, this broken body dead in her hands. She let herself imagine for a moment owning up to the horror, of waving the carcass high in the air like a stuffed toy won from a fair stall. How the class would look on at her in fear, she’d no longer be prey, she’d be the victorious hunter. The rest of the class just as secretly jealous of Michael and Sarah with their perfect curls and button noses would surely put her atop their shoulders and pronounce her their Queen, their Conqueror.
The sound of a door slamming from the down the corridor pulled Hannah out of this fantasy. The heavy thump of wood against the door frame matched the thump of her heart in her chest. There would be no cheers, no celebration. She’d be labelled a threat, like Reese from next door had been when he was caught kicking people instead of the football during a game last week. There were rumours from the year above of him being sent away to a children’s prison, or to his dad in the army so he could sort him out, and Hannah’s crime was much bigger than just giving out bloody shins. Hannah stroked his soft fur, trying to let the gravity of what she had done sink in. I killed him, she thought, he is dead because of me, I have made him this cold and sticky thing. She waited. Nothing. She felt nothing about what she had done, nothing but a tingle of satisfaction deep in her spine.
The paper windchimes above her, that they had made the week previously taunted her, circling her like vultures. On the board were a list to adjectives that the class had written out to describe their new furry friend. Amongst them were “Cute”, “fluffy”, “Friendly”. The word “Mine” was written in Sarah’s loopy handwriting.
Underneath was Hannah’s word: “Small”. Her teacher had laughed and joked at her about how they now had someone in the class smaller than her, but Hannah had not meant it like that. Peanut was not small in the way Hannah or a baby was, small in a way that you’d instinctively like to protect. No, Peanut was small in the way twigs were small or leaves in Autumn, easily snapped or crunched.
Hannah left the cage door open. She calmly walked over to her bag and brought out her packed lunch box. Out went yoghurt, sandwiches and a cookie made by her mother and in went Peanut. There was no one in the corridor as she skulked out of the classroom. Her hair raised up on the back of her neck, blood pounding in her ear she skulked through the empty corridor. She was so sure that a teacher, cleaner, classmate would jump out from behind a door or a plant and throw her to her knees demanding she pay for the crime she had committed; her finger gripped the box tighter as she sped up.
With the cage door left open everyone simply thought that Peanut had escaped. For the rest of the day everyone was on their hands and knees searching for him, under tables, chairs, cupboards and desks calling out his name, as if he were a dog and would come running towards them. Hannah went along with this, nervously at first so sure that the deception would be easily read on her face. But once she realised no one would expect that level of brutality from anyone in the class, least of all herself, she began to shout louder than any other child, searching high and low, digging her way through cupboards and crawling around that her once black tights became grey from dust.
When her mother came to collect her after school Hannah felt like she was flying. She quickly launched into telling her mother all about Peanut’s mysterious disappearance, and how sweet and soft he’d been. She told her mother how she hoped nothing bad had happened to him, that she hoped he had found a lovely garden to play in, filled with carrots and lettuce perhaps even with a few furry little friends of his own.
She talked and talked, only stopping when, on the way out of the gates, they passed the bins.
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