The Boy with Two Heads

by Andy Mulligan

  ‘Yes, sir,’ everyone said.

  Nobody made jokes in the training sessions, and Mr Barlow’s spittle problem was never referred to.

  ‘Eric, you’re going to be key.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I want to st-start with a lot of right-wing work, so Eric’s our front man. Salome, I don’t want you up front at all – I want you way back, p-pushing it up.’

  Salome nodded. Her suspension was over. She’d signed a strict contract of behaviour, and she was due to have an anger-management session with Dr Warren, whose visits to the school were getting ever more frequent. He was keen to experiment with mild medication, though Salome’s family was resistant. She and Rikki exchanged bitter looks over the desks – but kept out of each other’s way. Even on the football field, they kept their distance.

  When Blagdon Road Juniors kicked off, there was an instant hurricane of whistling and cheering. It was soon clear that the Barlow tactics were working, for Green Cross had most of the possession.

  For twenty minutes it was nil–nil, but then Mark got the ball way out to the school’s lethal weapon – Eric – and he hammered in the most gorgeous cross. Salome’s friend Carla muffed it, missing the volley, so a defender booted it hard. Rikki was there: right place, right time. He dived sideways with extraordinary courage – and his forehead made full, glorious contact. The header was unstoppable, and the goalkeeper was open-mouthed as the ball shot straight over his shoulder into the net.

  The Green Cross team rushed howling into a huddle, and Richard and Rikki were carried shoulder high to their own half. Jeff, who was goalie, ran all the way from his goalmouth for high-fives, and when the game re-started, the team was solid as a rock. They held their lead through sensible defending, and at half time Mr Barlow congratulated his team warmly.

  ‘Change of t-tactics, now,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Why, sir?’ said Jeff. ‘They don’t know what’s hit them!’

  ‘Six–nil,’ said Mark. ‘Minimum!’

  ‘I think we have to surprise them,’ said Mr Barlow. ‘They know what we’re about, now. They’ll be talking about you, Eric, I’m sure of it. So I want to sh-shift the main play onto the left – it’ll be just enough to confuse them. I want Carla supported, all right? I want to get her up f-front – left wing – c-crossing it in. Richard – Rikki. I want you even further forward.’

  The two heads nodded.

  ‘Get it to Carla, Eric. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Eric.

  ‘I’m expecting magic. From all of you.’

  Magic was exactly what he got.

  The Blagdon Road Juniors team fell straight into Mr Barlow’s trap. They had repositioned themselves to close down Eric, and it was a long time before they realized he was no longer the principal danger. Carla was now the mainspring, and everyone was pushing the ball in her direction. She was a forceful girl and had mastered some very delicate footwork. Soon, she was putting the ball in from all angles, seeking out Richard and Rikki. There were two Blagdon players who were particularly tall, and they dealt with some of her crosses. But Rikki and Richard could jump higher than they’d ever jumped before, and seemed to possess a far better sense of timing.

  Fifteen minutes before full time, Richard found himself at the near post as the ball sailed in, long and hard. He leaped like a salmon, and Rikki nodded it straight through the goalie’s hands. Five minutes later Carla found him again, and he got impossibly high to head it down to Mark. Mark chested it onto his right foot, and managed not to panic. He cracked it into the back of the net, and stood goggle-eyed with amazement. Then, in a final movement that looked more like dance than football, goalie Jeff found Salome, who booted a massive pass up to the strikers. Rikki received it on his temple, flipping way across the pitch to Eric. Eric was through like a whippet, and his final shot tore the goal net from its hooks. The quarter-final score was an unbeatable, unmistakable and totally uncompromising . . . four–nil.

  They would play the cup-holders in the semi-final: the dreaded St Michael’s Preparatory School, who trained in all weathers, every day. It was a boys-only team who’d toured Brazil the previous summer, and been coached by professionals.

  When Richard and Rikki trotted off the pitch, they saw their father. He was standing, huddled up in a big coat, gazing at them.

  ‘Dad!’ said Richard shyly. ‘I didn’t know you were watching.’

  It had been a sensitive family issue, because Richard’s grandad had never missed a game – even when his health was failing.

  His father said, ‘I didn’t want to put you off. I just sneaked in and stood at the back.’

  ‘What about work?’

  ‘Told them I had more important things to do. Sorry . . .’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m . . . ooh. Something in my eye, son. You played so well. Rikki, that was—’ He hugged his son to him, and kissed the tops of both heads. ‘You’re beautiful. You know that? He’d be proud.’

  ‘Who would?’ said Rikki.

  ‘You know who. He’d have been dancing.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Meanwhile, the tests got harder.

  Everyone in Year Six was used to the weekly papers, which were building to the scholarship exam – but Mr Barlow seemed to be setting questions that were impossible.

  Only Eric seemed not to care, and he was sometimes absent altogether. Everyone knew that he had a complicated life. He’d missed a lot of school the previous year as well, and had come close to being sent away altogether. He was always vague about the details of his family, but his friends were fairly sure he lived in several different places. There was a mum, and an auntie, and also a friend of the auntie, and they all took charge and shunted him from one flat to another. There was an older brother too, nicknamed ‘Spider’, and Eric claimed that he spent weekends with him and his mates, doing wild and crazy things. There were rumours of stolen cars and house-breaking, but nobody was sure if they were true. Now, however, Eric was arriving late, and he was often unwashed, wearing only half his uniform. He was surrounded by the faint smell of liquor, and his eyes were wild and unfocused. If he took part in a class test, his results were shocking, and he told Rikki and Richard that his visits to Dr Warren were being increased.

  ‘They say I got something wrong with my neurones,’ he said.

  ‘What are they?’ said Jeff.

  ‘I don’t know. They want to laser them out, though. Cut out my bad bits, so I can get fostered or something. It would be three days in that Institute place, and the food’s pretty good. Flatscreen TV, chocolate-chip cookies—’

  ‘Eric,’ said Rikki, ‘are you talking about surgery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On your brain?’

  Eric nodded.

  ‘But you’re normal. Don’t let them near you, buddy.’

  ‘They say they want to help me – there’s Doctor Summersby, too, coming back from America or somewhere. It’s research, so everything’s paid for.’ He grinned. ‘Warren says I can’t go on the way I’m going.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mark.

  ‘I don’t know. They’ve been doing stuff on monkeys, so now it’s my turn. They got a lab on the top floor, through secret doors.’

  He was grinning as he said it, but Jeff looked worried. ‘I don’t know how serious you are, Eric,’ he said. ‘But that sounds bad.’

  ‘What did you see?’ said Mark.

  Eric shrugged. ‘I haven’t been in, but you hear weird noises. There’s chimps, I think, in cages, all kind of . . . wired-up. I saw one, through the doorway – then they shooed me back out again.’ He laughed and pushed his hair back. ‘I don’t care what they do – I’m joining the Army, and you don’t need brains for that. If Warren wants mine, he can have it.’

  Richard and Rikki had a different attitude.

  They were taking their work very seriously, and so were their parents. There were only three scholarships to the grammar school, and they
were awarded for academic excellence. As a result, the Westlake home was often silent with concentration. The television was on for a maximum of one hour per evening, and Rikki and Richard stayed up late memorizing facts and formulae. In the classroom, Mr Barlow panicked about what he hadn’t taught, and the children got anxious about what they hadn’t learned. It was an emotional time, and every day someone was in tears.

  Richard kept tight hold of his grandad’s wings. He often held them in his fist as he worked, and at the end of the day he’d replace them in his locker, letting them rest on the dangling Sea Venom. It was coming up to the anniversary of the old man’s death, and he knew that day would be difficult. Nobody at home had mentioned it: the subject was too huge, so they trod carefully round it.

  The two heads worked together, burying themselves in work. There had been a time when Richard had laid his homework out on the old man’s table by the window, and breathed the scent of pipe-tobacco. Three steps up along the landing: the door to Grandad’s room, which now smelled only of newness.

  The photographs were gone from his walls, but Richard remembered each one: the long runways on wild islands, and the faded gatherings of men in uniform standing on the decks of vast carriers.

  He could hear the voice. ‘That was Terry. That was our commander.’

  ‘That’s not a Venom, though, is it?’

  ‘That’s a Hornet. That was state-of-the-art, then. Look at her . . .’

  ‘How fast?’

  ‘Four-fifty, I think. Slow, by today’s standards—’

  ‘You call that slow?’

  ‘The first drops were over Wales, you know. In over the sea. Now that’s the Baltic fleet . . . that’s the Q-hut – remember that?’

  His grandad’s hands would be on his shoulders, and turn him, or shift him along. Such strong fingers, which he’d dig into the boy’s shoulder-blades that little bit too hard, and Richard would grit his teeth, knowing the game.

  Now and then, a smell or a sound would make him turn, usually when he was on the landing, and there’d be a flicker in the air. His grandad would be there again, and gone. It happened in front of the wretched mirror, as Rikki stood with his eyes tight shut, the scent of new carpet rising around them. Yet the changes were right and proper, for his dad had been working in the kitchen, which was always a nuisance. It had made sense to create an office upstairs, and they’d talked it through. They had repainted the ceiling and chosen new wallpaper. The pictures were wrapped up in the attic.

  Why hadn’t they moved the mirror?

  It had a brass frame, and was screwed to the wall. It was the only thing that had stayed . . .

  ‘Danda, you coming later?’

  ‘If I can. Come back here.’

  Richard would turn. ‘You meeting me?’

  ‘If I’m not busy.’

  Grandad’s chair had been there, in the reflection. Even when he’d been sick he’d made the effort to get up and sit in it, smartly dressed. Even as he withered.

  ‘You wouldn’t rather walk home with your friends?’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You want to walk with Jeff, that’s fine.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘What did they teach you today, then?’

  He remembered more silence than talking. Or maybe he prattled on – maybe they did talk, and he’d forgotten. What had they talked about, though – when his hand was in the old man’s? Such a creased thing, and it had once held the controls . . .

  He remembered planning the tree house, which his dad had said was way too high.

  His grandad had laughed. ‘If he breaks his neck, it’ll be a valuable lesson. You won’t though, Richard – will you?’

  And the old man’s shed, way below, that was still full of screws, nails, tools, glues, bicycle pumps, blunt saws and too much to identify or sort. Richard had found an old mug there, pushed onto a shelf and never returned to the kitchen – never washed up. It might have been his grandad’s last cup of tea, set down before the last time he pulled his jacket on and changed his shoes, to walk the last mile ever to Green Cross School.

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘If I can. Come back here.’

  Richard would turn. ‘You know it’s practice today?’

  ‘You’re getting taller, you know. Hold your hand out.’

  ‘No, Danda—’

  ‘Hold your hand out! Do as you’re told.’

  A two-pound coin, pressed in and closed in his fist, his grandad’s fingers frighteningly strong. His pilot’s eyes, weaker now behind bi-focals, but always bright with life.

  ‘You keep it.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t like it—’

  ‘Don’t tell her, then. Simple as that.’

  Richard was breathing hard. He crushed the wings, squeezed them hard, and he found that this time his eyes were shut. When he opened them, he was gazing into his locker and Rikki was staring at him.

  ‘We’re at school,’ said Rikki. ‘You’ve got to stop.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘You know what. Remembering.’

  ‘How? I just . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just want . . . to know where he is.’

  ‘Dust to dust, buddy. No heaven – you know that. There is no heaven.’

  ‘He’s somewhere, Rikki. He cannot be gone.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  The same afternoon, the headmaster dropped a bombshell.

  Mr Prowse didn’t often smile, but that day he went from classroom to classroom, grinning broadly, and rubbing his hands.

  He had astonishing news. Kidspeak – the debate project the school took so seriously – was going to be featured on prime-time television, and Green Cross School had been chosen as the venue. It was the culmination of months of hard, competitive work – and it had finally paid off.

  ‘They confirmed it today,’ said Mr Prowse. ‘I am so proud of you all, particularly you older children.’ His voice trembled with excitement and he waved a paper in the air. ‘Sixty schools applied, children! Sixty! And they chose just two of us. Why did they select us? Because our speeches were the best. Just listen to this: “The ideas that emerged from Green Cross were some of the most stimulating we received, and demonstrated the pinnacle of sensitive and intelligent discussion.”’ Mr Prowse smiled happily. ‘You ought to feel very, very pleased with yourselves. You’ve shown that young people really do care about the world they live in – and these television moguls want to make that fact public!’

  Mr Barlow’s class burst into joyous applause, and the headmaster nodded.

  ‘Dedication, you see. It’s paid off again.’

  When he went on to name the actual programme that would feature them, there was an audible gasp. Some of the girls squealed in disbelief, for it was the most popular, fashionable children’s show on the network: School’s Out, hosted by celebrity heart-throb Anton Dekker. Twice a week it went out, at quarter past four. It featured young people doing wonderful, inspirational things, and it had a huge audience all over the country. This was because of Anton, its super-cool lead-presenter, who had tripled ratings in his first month.

  ‘When?’ shrieked Eleanor. ‘When?’

  ‘Will . . . he be coming?’ shouted someone.

  ‘Who, my dear?’

  ‘Anton! Anton!’

  ‘Anton who?’ said the headmaster. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Anton Dekker!’ cried the children, and Eric immediately burst into one of his rap songs, while others demonstrated his dance steps.

  The name was familiar to every child over the age of five, but the headmaster seemed unaware. Anton was in his early twenties, and was famous as a breakdancer, a rapper, and a tireless fundraiser. He’d saved tribes in the Amazon. He’d set up a hospice for whale-sharks, and he had his own boy band with a string of hits. He was supermodel handsome too, and wore a new costume every time he appeared, transforming high-street fashion overnight.

  ‘I don’t know who’
s going to be presenting,’ said the headmaster. ‘It’s our top speakers they want to see – a feast of debate, with questions at the end. And I have to say I’m not surprised. It’s going to put this school on the educational map, children – it’s the most fabulous opportunity. Miss Maycock, you’re co-ordinating things, yes?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Prowse.’ Miss Maycock was a young student teacher who had recently arrived ‘on placement’, supporting Mr Barlow. She was very keen – if a little nervous.

  The headmaster continued. ‘The winners of last term’s competition will be the ones featured. You need to be thinking about new topics now – I don’t want repetition. What we need are extra-specially good, topical ideas. It will be in the lunch hall, filmed in front of everyone, parents included. So I want those thinking caps on, and I want real ambition. What do you want, Rikki?’

  Rikki had his hand up and was waving wildly. ‘Can we talk about anything?’ he said.

  ‘The floor is yours,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, you see. It’s just the six speakers, Mr Barlow—’

  ‘Only six?’ said Rikki. ‘And that includes me?’

  ‘Like I said, we’ll have the six winners from last term, so that’s a nice spread of ages. And totally new topics. Aparna did political prisoners, and as a result of that we had the fundraising disco, yes? Then there was Natasha in Year Five, and she spoke about, er . . . the famine in . . . somewhere. Africa, I think – and that led to the Design-a-T-shirt competition. Topical ideas, you see.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rikki.

  ‘Mr Barlow will guide you. We want cutting edge, don’t we, Mr Barlow? Be bold!’

  ‘You said Kidspeak was for losers and dweebs,’ said Richard, a little later. It was Thursday afternoon, and that was always given over to art.

  ‘It is,’ said Rikki.

  ‘So how come you got so excited?’

  ‘I want to change the world, Richard. I want to express myself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Things need changing. The past must be destroyed, and we need to embrace a whole new way of looking at things.’