Pigeon English: March Summary & Analysis

Harri sees blood outside Chicken Joe’s, and Jordan offers him one pound to touch it. Harri is tempted, but there is police tape around the blood saying, “DO NOT CROSS.” The dead boy’s mother is nearby, “guarding the blood.” A pigeon walks past looking for food. Its eyes look sad. Nearby, there is a pile of flowers, pictures of the boy in his school uniform, bottles of beer, and messages of love. The boy’s football boots are there—Nikes, almost brand new. Jordan proposes stealing them, and Harri doesn’t reply. Harri was “half friends” with the dead boy, who was older and went to a different school. He prays for the boy, thinking about a chief back in Ghana who brought his son back from the dead. 

Harri leaves a bouncy ball for the dead boy; Jordan leaves a pebble he found on the ground. Harri then gives Jordan a strawberry Chewit candy to give to the boy. They run home, and Harri gets there first. He boasts that he is “the fastest in Year 7.” Harri lives on the ninth floor of a fourteen-story tower block named Copenhagen House. He loves looking down from his balcony and going up in the lift. Sometimes he stands at the bottom of the tower and holds his arms out, feeling the wind rush around him and pretending to be a bird.

Harri observes that in England, there are lots of different words that mean the same thing. For example, “gay and dumb and lame all mean the same.” When Harri started at his new school, Connor Green tried to trick him into saying the sentence “I have a penis.” Harri likes to stand on his balcony and watch the helicopters. He sees X-Fire paint his name on the wall of the next tower block, Stockholm House. He wonders who would stab a boy just to get his Chicken Joe’s. 

On the phone, Harri tells Papa that a pigeon flew into their flat, and that Lydia was scared. Harri put flour on his hand, and the pigeon flew into it. Harri was thrilled, thinking that this was now his “special pigeon.” He let the pigeon fly away from the balcony. Papa says, “good work,” and Harri can hear him smiling. Harri observes that people in England are very paranoid about germs, especially Vilis, who runs away from Harri because he claims that if he breathes African germs he will die.

Harri’s baby sister Agnes is still in Ghana, where Grandma Ama takes care of her. Once Papa sells everything in his shop, he’ll buy tickets for the three of them to join the rest of the family in London. It has been two months since Harri, Mamma, and Lydia moved there. The calling card runs out, and Papa’s voice cuts off.

Harri once saw a dead person at the Kaneshie market in Accra. A woman selling oranges was knocked over by a tro-tro, and some of the shoeshine boys tried to steal from her. At Harri’s church in London, there is a “special prayer” for the dead boy. Pastor Taylor tells the children that if they know anyone with a knife, they should tell on them. Later, Harri stabs himself with a fork and wonders aloud what it feels like to be stabbed “for real.”

On the first day of Harri’s new school in London, Manik’s papa shows Harri how to tie his school tie. Manik’s papa has walked Manik to school ever since the Dell Farm Crew stole Manik’s trainers. Harri and Lydia pretend not to know each other at school. At break time, Harri plays a game called “suicide bomber,” where you run and crash into other people with the aim of making them fall over. When he’s not playing games, Harri swaps things like football stickers and sweets.

X-Fire demonstrates how to stab someone using his fingers. Harri is “the dead boy.” X-Fire explains that it’s best to stab someone in a soft part of them because otherwise it feels “disgusting.” Dizzy and Clipz join in the discussion, but Killa stays quiet. Harri wonders if this is because Killa has stabbed so many people and that this is how he got his nickname. Harri feels sick when he hears the other boys discuss stabbing, but he forces himself to be still and listen.

Harri and his family always go to the market on Saturdays. His favorite shop is the sweet shop, but he never buys jelly babies in case it reminds Mamma of the dead babies that she sees in real life. At the market, Mamma looks for a pigeon net, which upsets Harri. He wants pigeons to fly into the house even though Mamma says they are “dirty.” He is relieved to learn that pigeon nets are not sold at the market. While Mamma buys Harri a Chelsea Football (soccer) Club shirt from the clothes stall, Harri sees Jordan steal a phone. The dead boy had the official Chelsea shirt, not a knockoff like Harri’s one. Harri loves his shirt even though it’s scratchy.

Harri is frightened by X-Fire’s dog, Harvey, but likes Terry Takeaway’s dog, Asbo, who is “funny and friendly.” Terry got his nickname because he is always stealing things. He always offers to sell his stolen goods to Harri and Dean even though they are children and don’t have any money. Harri says Terry is “dey touch” because he drinks beer for breakfast.

Harri loves to pee into the toilet just after Mamma bleaches it because he can pretend he is God peeing on a cloud. While on the plane journeying from Ghana to England, Harri saw the top of the clouds. When he couldn’t see heaven, Mamma explained that you can’t see heaven “until you’re ready.” Harri wants to see heaven now so he can see what his Grandpa Solomon is doing.

When Harri gets home from school, there many police officers looking around the bushes and bins. One of the cops is a woman, which Harri finds “very crazy.” The female cop asks if anyone knows where the dead boy was on the day of his death or if anyone was “after him.” The kids say no. Dean asks if the police have any leads, and the cop replies that they’re “working on it.” Harri boasts that he saw the dead boy’s blood, which was like a river. He wanted to jump in and swim in it, thinking that this would make it seem as if the dead boy was still there. Harri thinks that if he only knew he had five minutes to live, he would fill the time with all his favorite things.

In music, Harri’s class plays the drums. He teaches Poppy Morgan how to play the bass drum, and while doing so he smells her hair “by mistake.” Poppy’s hair smells like honey, and when she smiles at Harry, it makes his “belly turn over.” From Harri’s balcony, he can see lines of flats, including the flats where elderly people and the “never-normals” live. Jordan’s mom uses the term “never-normals” to mean people who are “not right in the head.”

That night after Mamma and Lydia fall asleep, Harri goes out to the balcony and pours flour on the handrail. He almost spits down onto the ground but stops when he sees someone by the bins. Harri can see that the person is male, and Harri shouts up to the helicopters flying above that it might be the killer. He sees the man pull something that looks like a knife out from under the bin and tuck it into his pants. Then he runs away toward the river. Harri waits for a while in case he sees something else bad, but then goes inside. He is sad that the pigeon didn’t come back and wonders if the pigeon thinks Harri is going to kill it. In reality, Harri just wants to feed it and teach it tricks.

The narrative is interrupted by a brief passage told from the perspective of the pigeon. It says that humans and pigeons are more alike than people think, but “not too alike.” The pigeon pities people, whose “lives are so short and nothing’s even fair.” It didn’t know the dead boy, but it understands grief.

 Harri is “the man of the house,” so it’s his job to scare away “invaders.” If an invader comes into the house, Harri will stab them in the eyes with a fork. Harri looks through the peephole and sees Chanelle and Miquita on the other side. He opens all the locks on the door and lets them in. Lydia and her friends like watching Hollyoaks, but Harri hates it because it has kissing in it—sometimes even men kissing other men. Harri thinks both Miquita and Chanelle are dey touch because they are always talking about the boys they “suck off.” Miquita threatens to kiss Harri, but he says if she does he’ll spit.  

Miquita isn’t going to the dead boy’s funeral. She said it was his fault he was killed because “he shouldn’t have been fronting.” Harri tells her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and that the killer stabbed the boy to steal his Chicken Joe’s. Miquita replies that Harri “don’t know shit” because he’s too young. Harri leaves, furiously thinking that Miquita is “disgusting.”

On the doors of the shopping center, there is a sign that reads, “NO ALCOHOL… NO BICYCLES… NO DOGS… NO SKATEBOARDS… NO SMOKING… NO BALL GAMES.” Beneath, someone has added “NO FUGLIES.” Harri explains that fuglies are girls who immediately get pregnant after you only kiss them. They smell like cigarettes, and so do their babies. Dean is Harri’s second-best friend, after Jordan, who is Harri’s best friend “outside of school.” Dean advises Harri to put his dinner money in his sock so it won’t get stolen. 

Dean thinks that CSI should take over the investigation of the dead boy’s murder. He explains that CSI are the best detectives in America, and that they are “real,” not just on TV. Dean tells Harri about the high-tech methods the CSI detectives use to solve crimes, and Harri suggests that they do the same to help find the dead boy’s killer, but Dean points out that they don’t have the right technology. At that moment, Terry Takeaway comes running past, carrying a tray of chicken that drops to the floor. The butcher shouts after him angrily.

Harri explains that dead babies must be named in order to get into heaven. If the parents are too sad or aren’t believers, Mamma names the baby for them. Today, a baby died because it was ectopic, meaning it grew outside the womb. Mamma named the baby Katy, which made the mother very happy. Harri suggests that next time she should name the baby Harrison, but Mamma replies that it would be bad luck to do that. Harri was relieved to learn that dead babies grow up in heaven, because he’d hate to be a baby forever.

Harri searches for footprints by the bins but can’t find any. At break time, he jumps in a puddle and is briefly worried that a nearby bird is going to poop on him. Connor Green explains that in England, it is considered good luck if a bird poops on you. Vilis chimes in that Harri “must be lucky because he smells like shit.” When Dean angrily responds, Vilis says something in “his language” and runs away. Harris vows that next time Vilis insults him he will kick him in the crotch.

The dead boy’s coffin has a Chelsea Football Club badge on it. Harri thinks his funeral seems very sad because his family is all dressed in black, it is raining, and there is no singing or dancing either. Mamma squeezes Harri and Lydia tightly. They are not allowed inside the church because they were not close enough to the boy, so they wait outside along with a TV crew. The presenter keeps stopping to get her hair fixed, and at one point turns and asks the kids to stop swearing. The kids swear back in response.

In Ghana, some coffins are in the shape of “what the person loved the most,” such as a sewing machine or a taxi. There is singing and dancing, and everyone is allowed to join in. Harri whispers that the dead boy’s coffin should have been a football boot and thinks that he would choose an airplane for himself. Harri sneaks away from Mamma and Lydia and watches the crowd with Dean, looking for signs of suspicious activity. Harri says that the person by the bins had his hood up, but this doesn’t help much as it is raining, and everyone has their hoods up. Dean and Harri shake the hands of everyone in the crowd, offering commiserations and trying to look for the killer until someone tells them to go away.

At the end of the funeral, Killa rides by on his bike. He slips off in the rain, and a man attending the funeral shouts at him to watch where he’s going. Harri thinks there’s going to be a fight, but Killa just cycles away. Harri thinks it’s wrong when children die and is scared that he is going to be next.

Harri explains that the steps outside the cafeteria “belong to the Dell Farm Crew”—it is the best spot in school, and only they are allowed to sit there. Year elevens are allowed to sit there, but only if they are personally invited by X-Fire. The Dell Farm Crew is named after the Dell Farm Estate. X-Fire is the leader because he is the best at basketball, has stabbed the most people, and stolen the most stuff.

One day, the Dell Farm Crew take Harri’s bag and threaten to throw it on the roof. X-Fire asks where Harri is from, and when Clipz teases him about Ghana, X-Fire tells him to stop, saying Harri’s “alright.” X-Fire says Harri can have his bag back if he does a “job” for him. Harri doesn’t understand, replying that he doesn’t need a job. Dizzy adds that it would be a good idea for Harri to roll with them. X-Fire eventually gives Harri his bag back, saying that if Harri ever needs anything he should come to them.

One of the never-normal women rides a “chair car” because she’s “too fat to walk.” Harri once saw little kids climb on top of it for a ride. Harri loves running in the rain and tasting the drops on his tongue. Auntie Sonia comes over, and Harri and Lydia show off the lift in Copenhagen House. Auntie Sonia tells them about the lifts in America, which are called elevators. Auntie Sonia has “been everywhere.” She once made Will Smith’s bed while working as a hotel maid. Auntie Sonia’s fingertips are “all black and cracked,” but Harri pretends not to notice. Mamma tells Auntie Sonia about a woman who was racist to her at work, requesting another midwife because she didn’t want an immigrant. 

Jordan was expelled from school for kicking a teacher. Jordan is mixed-race, and his mother is obruni, which Harri finds crazy. Jordan’s mom wants to find another school for her son, but Jordan wants to stop going altogether and instead stay at home watching DVDs and playing Xbox. Jordan spits on the buttons of the lift; Fag Ash Lil presses them and exclaims in horror. Harri is scared of Fag Ash Lil because she killed her husband and baked him into a pie.

In art class, Poppy sits next to Harri and paints her fingernails with paints. She does it very slowly, and it makes Harri feel relaxed to watch her. Harri’s art teacher tells the class to take inspiration from anywhere for their picture, and Harri paints with yellow after being inspired by Poppy’s hair. He paints with green for the time Agnes found a cricket in the grass, and red for the dead boy’s blood. However, he can’t mix the right shade of red and gets frustrated to the point that his vision becomes blurry. He gives up. 

There is a fence with spikes surrounding Harri’s school and a sign that says, “No climbing, serious risk of injury.” Harri and Dean’s favorite sign is one by the river warning people that the watercress growing there is “not fit for human consumption.” They search near the river for the murder weapon, and Harri boasts that they are “proper detectives now.” Harri explains that the dead boy was once nice to him, and that he wanted them to become friends, but then the boy was killed. The boys wonder how much of a reward they’ll get if they catch the killer. Dean suggests they might get one thousand pounds, and Harri thinks that if this happens, he’ll use the money to buy tickets for Papa, Agnes, and Grandma Ama to come to England.

Dean double-checks with Harri that the person by the bins retrieved a knife, and Harri confirms, demonstrating how big the knife was with his hands. However, Harri is worried because he knows that if the killer threw the knife in the river it will have already drifted out to sea. There are no fish or ducks in the river; Harri explains that the younger kids killed the ducks with a screwdriver.