Adel

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

I'm sixteen and was born in London, but I am half Salvadoran, half English, which basically means I talk fast, move faster and have opinions about everything. It is 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 mum just 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 bailing her out, just spreadsheets, 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. Then maybe 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 tech, I help hand out food packs on the broadway. Sometimes we 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 most people step around. But once you start listening you cannot unsee it. It's like there's this whole hidden layer of the city and now my brain will not let it go. Mum says that is a good thing. I agree, mostly. It also means it's harder to pretend everything is fine when it obviously is not.

About my brain. The polite version is that I am “very energetic”. The honest version is that it feels like having ten thousand tabs open, three different songs playing and someone shaking the 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. I can hyperfocus on things I absolutely love, but if something is boring or unfair my whole body just rebels. Small things set me off, stupid things, like people not doing what they said they would, or systems that make no sense. 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. Reluctantly. Just sometimes people need to hear it, ya know?

The only time my head goes quiet is when I’m learning some new skill that scares me just 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 don’t ever tell her. Maybe I should. She is strict with me when she needs to be, like when she wants me to remember to eat, soft when I am overloaded, and somehow 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 do not wait for someone else to fix your life, you get up and you do the thing, but you also help anyone else up if they need it. I'll never forget this.

Then there is George.

At first I watched him the way you watch a large dog you're not sure about, but then I realised he is not a dog, he is a panda. A very grumpy panda that thinks it’s a bear. I should probably be more suspicious, but I’m not. I trust him and I don’t even have a reason why. I can just feel how he sees things in my own bones. Not many people understand me. Not many people see things the same way I do. George does. He makes mum laugh in a way I've not seen before. That alone is enough for me.

I do worry about her, about them both. Adults like to pretend they have everything under control, but I can see the cracks. I can feel when something is wrong even if they are not saying it. That is 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.

I want mum’s shops to keep going so she can breathe a bit. I want our charity work to actually change something, not just put plasters on cuts that won't heal. I want to keep learning things that make my heart race, keep collecting skills 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.