Adel

I’m Adel Saavedra Valencia, and if you can say my whole name properly the first time, you’re already doing better than most of my teachers.

I'm sixteen and was born in London, but I’m half Salvadoran, which basically means I talk fast, move faster and have opinions about everything. But, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure my heritage is entirely responsible for that.

It’s just me and my mum at home. She came here from El Salvador when she was seventeen to study business, then I happened, and now we are a tiny two person empire in Stratford.

Mum owns five shops, all small, all busy, all somehow organised with great people that Mum knew instinctively would be great staff. We have clothing, technology, stationery, it's all random bits and pieces, plus the online stores that I run. If you've ever walked past a girl in a school uniform or gymnastics trackie carrying boxes taller than she is, that was probably me. I complain, obviously, but I am stupidly proud of her. She built all of it from nothing, with no one but me helping her out, just stubbornness and late nights at the kitchen table. I know how hard she fought to get away from my dad and start again, so when she asks me to help, I roll my eyes and help, but then steal her phone charger on the way out.

We also work with this charity nearby called Hope & Health for the Homeless. Mum donates clothes and some laptops, I help hand out food packs on the broadway. Sometimes I just sit on the pavement and listen. I like that part, actually. People look at you funny when you are sitting on the floor in a school jumper talking to a man that most people step around, but once you start listening, you cannot unsee or unhear these things. It's like, there's this whole hidden layer of the city, and now my brain won’t let it go. Mum says that’s a good thing. I agree, mostly. It also means it's harder to pretend everything’s fine when it obviously is not.

About my brain.

The polite version people sometimes use for me is that I’m “very energetic”. The honest version is that it feels like having ten thousand tabs open, three different songs playing, and someone shaking my chair. Things just feel too loud sometimes, and my thoughts jump like some parkour kids across rooftops.

Sitting still in class feels like being wrapped in cling film; my body instinctively wants to wriggle free because just sitting there feels like suffocating to me. But I do try. Sometimes I spend so much effort concentrating on sitting still, I forget what I’m meant to listen to. I can focus really well on things I absolutely love, but if something is boring, unfair, or seems like nonsense, my whole body just rebels. Small things set me off, stupid things really, like people not doing what they said they would, or systems that make no damn sense, and people just being mean.

I know I have a temper, and I don’t mean to be rude; it just comes out before I can stop it. I’m working on that. Slowly. I guess. It's just that sometimes people need to hear it, you know?

The only time my head goes quiet is when I’m learning some new skill that scares me enough to drown out the noise. Gymnastics, rock climbing, anything where if you lose focus, you end up on your arse. I love that. I love the feeling of getting a move right after failing it twenty times, the way your muscles remember something before your brain. Skills are mine. Once I learn them, no one can take them away, no matter what happens. So yes, I collect them like the idiots and their Pokémon.

Mum’s my favourite person in the world.

But I never really tell her. Maybe I should. Somehow. I do try, it’s just that I can’t say things like that and sound sincere. My mouth has no problem saying other things. Sometimes, I wish it wouldn’t. But when it comes to talking about how I feel, how I truly feel, I just can’t say it. Not whilst sounding honest, anyway.

Mum can be strict with me when she needs to be, like when she wants me to remember to eat or not eat sugar all the time. But she’s also soft with me when I’m genuinely feeling overloaded. Somehow, she knows when to leave me alone and when to drag me out of my room.

She has this way of helping everything drop from a scream to a hum. I know she’s tired a lot, she does so much… work. Charity. George. Me. I’m grateful, even when I’m feeling angry and frustrated. She taught me you don’t wait for someone else to fix your life, you get up, and you do the thing, but you also help anyone else if they need it. I'll never forget this.

Then there’s George. Our Stray.

If I'm honest, I liked him right away. I don’t normally connect with someone so easily, or they don't connect with me; I don't really know which. Once I started to see Mum getting close to him, I think I started to think more about it, and then I watched him the way you watch a large dog you're not sure about. Then I realised he is not a dog, he’s a big dopey panda. A very grumpy panda that thinks it’s a bear. I should probably be more suspicious, but I’m not anymore. I trust him, and I don’t even have a reason why. I can just feel how he sees things, the same way I do. I can just feel it in my bones, he's a good guy. Not many people understand me. Not many people see things the same way I do. George does, and he makes mum laugh in a way I've not seen before. That alone is enough for me.

I worry about Mum, about them both, really. Adults like to pretend they have everything under control, but I can see the cracks. I can feel when something's off, even if they’re not saying it. That’s one of my fears, actually, walking into a room too late, after everything has already gone wrong, and I can’t fix it. Another is ending up stuck in some boring life where my brain slowly eats me from the inside because there is nothing left to learn, but that’s a different story.

What I need.

I want Mum’s shops to grow, but in a way where she can breathe a bit. I want our charity work to actually fix something, not just hand out meals to people who still have no bed to sleep in. I want what we do to matter. I want people to learn to just let me be sometimes. Stop making out I’m this bad kid just because I talk fast and won’t sit still. I’m trying my best. And so what if I get a little upset sometimes if things are wrong?

I also want to keep learning and being the best at new things that challenge me and make my heart race until I feel like I could climb out of anything!

And I want George to stay, even if I pretend I’m not bothered. We have this weird little pack, and for the first time in my life, I feel like we can have everything we want, but I worry it won't last, and there’s some storm coming. Good things never last for me.