Personality/History: Misha leaves the townhouse with his rucksack slung over one shoulder and his coat zipped to the throat even though it's warm. Inside his bookbag is a geography workbook, a ballpoint that writes in half-fade, and a lunch that Mrs Patel prepared him the evening before. They are sandwiches wrapped in cling film, decked with chicken and cucumber and lettuce, no crusts, he doesn't like crusts. She snuck in a clementine too, also wrapped in cling film, and some shortbread biscuits and a carton of apple juice. He arcs the clementine beautifully over the laurel hedge on Hills Road without breaking stride and smiles faintly at the soft thud of it finding grass. There will be a whole forest of clementine trees there someday. He wonders if clementines come from trees, he isn’t sure. Maybe one might grow tall enough that he could climb it, higher and higher, until he could see all the way to the sea. He dreams like that sometimes.
The hall table at home has a shallow dish for keys and a neat stack of lanyards beside it. Misha knows he is the only kid who goes anywhere with a lanyard and the house keys, so he can let himself in anytime. When he gets home, he puts the keys neatly on the stack, perfectly straight, next to the dish. That is where the landline is, next to the dish, they still have a landline, and sometimes his mother's voice sounds from there, flattened by the speakerphone. Her voice echoes in the kitchen while she waits at the airport or signs something at a hotel reception. They say a few nice, polite things to each other, the kind of things you might say to a stranger in the lift, and then she asks for someone else, his dad, the cleaner, the lady that walks the dogs or Mrs. Patel.
He likes Mrs. Patel, she's better than the others. When she's done at six and puts on her coat and says, "see you tomorrow, love," he smiles. He wishes she'd say something else, but he doesn't know what. She used to ruffle his hair, which he liked, but she stopped doing that and he wonders why.
Mrs. Patel makes the house look good on photographs, and she makes it smell nice too. Vases of flowers are delivered fortnightly by subscription, and she uses a particular brand of lemon-scented cleaner for the worktops that lingers for a day or two. His parents do not notice these smells, but Misha notices everything. He knows every squeaking step in the stairwell, and knows the precise angle at which you must hold the toaster lever to stop it burning the bread. It's not the only broken thing in the house, but he has given up asking his dad to help him fix it.
Misha has acquaintances, not friends. He has never stopped to put words to how that makes him feel, but it hurts him. Teachers think he's fine. He's always fine. Just fine. In the lunch hall there is usually a space at the end of a bench where he can sit without anyone having to move their tray, and in PE, he's never paired off first or last.
On Wednesdays and Saturdays he has swimming, and he likes those days best. He slips into the water without a sound, hardly leaving any ripples and dives to touch the tile at the bottom of the pool. He pretends he's a dolphin and does little quiet tricks underwater. When he climbs out, his hair hangs dark and heavy with water, clinging to his cheeks until he shakes it loose. Nobody's thought to take him for a haircut in a while.
