Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman - book trailer

Real Church

“Me: ‘We could go to the real church, the one where the dead boy had his funeral. It’s only round the corner.’
Mamma: ‘It’s the wrong kind of church.’
Me: ‘How?’
Mamma: ‘Just because. They sing different songs. They’re not the songs we know.’
Me: ‘We can learn them. They might be better.’
Mamma: ‘They’re not better. We don’t know them.’
Me: ‘But I don’t get it. It’s even a real church. They had the dead boy’s funeral there. It must be good.’
Mamma: ‘It’s just the wrong kind, that’s all.’
Mr Frimpong: ‘Bleddy Catholics. They want to give us all Aids so they can steal our land back again. It’s true.’
I still don’t get it. It has a cross and everything. It must be the right one if it has a cross.”

Mammas and Sad News

“Mamma doesn’t like the shows, she says there’s too much jibber-jabber. Her only favourite show is the news. Somebody dies on the news every day. It’s nearly always a child. Sometimes they’re chooked like the dead boy and sometimes they’re shot or run over by a car. One time a little girl got eaten by a dog. They showed a picture of the dog and he looked just like Harvey. The little girl must have pulled his tail. Dogs only attack people who are cruel to them. Somebody should have told her to never pull a dog’s tail, they don’t like it. Nobody told her and that’s why she’s dead.

Mamma likes it best when it’s a child who died. That’s when she prays the hardest. She prays proper hard and squeezes you until you think you’re going to burst. Grown-ups love sad news, it gives them something special to pray for. That’s why the news is always sad.”

Pigeon English

“She was asking the kids questions, nobody could go home until they’d been interviewed. It was brutal. I think lady cops are a very good idea. They just talk to you instead of hitting you all the time.”
**
“Anyway she bluffs too much, she’s always abusing our TV just because it’s made of wood and it’s very old. We got it from the cancer shop, it used to belong to a dead person. The picture doesn’t come straight away, you have to wait for it to warm up. When the picture first comes it’s proper dark, then the real colours come after. The whole thing takes donkey hours. You can even go and greet the chief in the time between turning the TV on and the picture coming. I even tried it and it works.”
**
“I don’t even know where the real chickens are. Everybody just buys them already dead and plucked. It even feels crazy. I miss their faces. Their dead eyes were lovely, like they were dreaming of all the good times when they were running around in the sunshine pecking each other in the head.
Chicken: ‘Peck peck peck peck!’
Other chicken: ‘Peck off!”
**
“I don’t have a favourite raindrop, they’re all as good as each other. They’re all the best. That’s what I think anyway. I always look up at the sky when it’s raining. It feels brutal. It’s a bit hutious because the rain’s so big and fast and you think it will go in your eye. But you have to keep your eyes open eye. But you have to keep your eyes open or you won’t get the feeling. I try to follow one raindrop all the way down from the cloud to the ground. Asweh, it’s impossible. All you can see is the rain. You can’t follow just one raindrop, it’s too busy and all the other raindrops get in the way.

The best bit is running in the rain. If you point your face up to the sky at the same time as running, it nearly feels like you’re flying. You can close your eyes or you can keep them open, it’s up to you. I like both. You can open your mouth if you want. The rain just tastes like water from the tap except it’s quite warm. Sometimes it tastes like metal.

Before you start running, find an empty bit of the world with nothing in the way. No trees or buildings and no other people. That way you won’t crash into anything. Try to go in a straight line. Then you just run as fast as you can. At first you’re scared of crashing into something but don’t let it put you off. Just run. It’s easy. The rain on your face and the wind makes it feel like you’re going superfast. It’s very refreshing. I dedicated my rain run to the dead boy. It was a better present than a bouncy ball. I kept my eyes closed the whole time and I didn’t even fall over.”
**
“Mamma says giving up is a sin. It’s the same as lying. It’s even worse than that because it’s lying to yourself.”
**
“When there’s a star on a flag it stands for freedom. The star points in all directions, it means you can go anywhere you want. That’s why I love stars, because they stand for freedom.”
**
“Terry Takeaway: ‘Wanna buy some DVDs? I’ve got some good ones, there’s one with zombies somewhere.’
Me: ‘No thanks. If you buy a pirate DVD the money goes to Osama Bin Laden. We learned it at school.”