by G Mottram
Jason felt buried alive here, passing under countless tons of granite and struggling to breathe in the musty air of a passageway not touched by sunlight for hundreds of years. Countless harsh voices and the buzzing of the fluorescents echoed around the walls, growing louder by the second.
‘Come on, almost there,’ Louisa whispered in his ear and her voice cut through his new-found claustrophobia. Jason focussed on the growing arch of glaring sunlight ahead and moments later they stepped outside.
They were in a work-yard, one corner blazing bright with sunlight, the rest in deep, cold shadow. Five huge boulders of chisel-scarred granite stood around the yard with a number of half-fashioned blocks lying by each one. Four grey storeys of tiny dark windows rose up on all sides to completely enclose the yard. An identical tunnel to theirs ran out of the work-yard through each of the other walls but apart from these, the only escape from the yard was one small black door set deep in the shadows.
Jason swallowed hard. All the passages had heavy, iron strapped doors on the inside as well – the work-yard could be entirely sealed off from the outside world.
Louisa tugged him through clusters of students to the nearest boulder. It was taller than him with chisel cuts gouged deep into its surface. Jason traced a deep cut with one finger, feeling the cold stone pulling at his skin. How many centuries ago had some ragged prisoner, bound in silence, scored that cut in the cold shadows of this yard? Jason shivered.
‘It is cold now but wait until midday,’ Mouse said, clasping Jason on the shoulder, ‘it becomes an oven in here with the sun overhead. This was the monks’ rock garden, yes?’
Jason didn’t laugh. Mouse shrugged and carried on anyway. ‘The Brash and Skins keep out of here most of the time and so the normal kids keep in. This is a safe place.’
Jason looked around. Mouse was right. Dozens of ‘normal’ kids clustered around in groups, straddled the half-carved blocks and leaned against the walls. A bunch of younger kids were helping each other climb out of the shade onto the top of one of the smaller boulders. There were certainly no Skins around and Jason didn’t know what the Brash gang members looked like.
‘Keep out of quiet corridors and toilets, go straight to lessons and come here at breaks is my wonderful advice to you,’ Mouse said. ‘Now, I am going to see if any of my many, many friends have survived Easter without me.’ He slapped Jason on the back and wandered off towards a small group of boys lounging against the next boulder. They grunted and nodded as he approached.
‘How are you feeling?’ Louisa asked.
‘I’ve had better days,’ Jason said and Louisa smiled, flashing perfect white teeth behind her soft, red lips.
‘Listen, Louisa, it sounds a bit sad but thanks for you know… sort of being my friend. Things could have been pretty bad moving to a new house and school and all that and…’
Louisa touched a finger to his lips and he froze mid-sentence. She left it there – cool and still. She must use hand cream that matched her perfume as once again, Jason’s head was filled with the light evening scents of a summer garden. He hoped he didn’t dribble.
‘No thanks are needed, Jason, none at all. We are “all in the same boat”, as you English say.’ She slowly took her finger away, which was probably a good thing because it was all Jason could do to stop himself from kissing it.
Louisa glanced around. ‘I know you have questions after Alan Brash’s visit last night. We will talk after school – at home, where we are private.’
Jason just stared at her, managing to mumble ‘Okay, great.’ whilst trying to untwist his stomach and clear his mind. A cold dread of being left alone here shivered up through him but he forced a smile.
‘I also should find my friends,’ Louisa continued. ‘You will be safe here. The year ten form classes are all through the West passage, on the ground floor.’ She pointed towards one of the identical passageways. ‘We will see you at break time… if you survive that long.’ She winked at him and then turned to walk away towards a group of good looking girls all dressed in tight jeans and sleeveless, brightly coloured tops.
Jason watched her go. Did she fancy him… even a little bit? He’d worked out she was in year 12 but what difference did a couple of years make?
Four hand bells suddenly clanged out simultaneously, each reverberating down one of the passageways. Everyone started moving so Jason headed for the tunnel Louisa had indicated and tried to ignore the fact he was surrounded by a couple of hundred kids who all seemed to know each other. He wasn’t exactly new to starting new schools.
He gripped his small sports bag which held his pencil case, calculator and a couple of rough books. He wondered if he should have bothered bringing it – most of the pupils slouching off into their various passageways carried nothing whatsoever.
He heard some swearing from behind him and saw the Skins barging their way out of what must have been the East Passage. Trying hard not to look like he was rushing away from them, he reached his tunnel and disappeared into the flickering fluorescent gloom.
***
‘Very good, Jason – whatever school you joined us from is obviously very hot on Pythagoras. Now, everyone get on with the worksheet - you have fifteen minutes to finish.’
Jason sank down into his wooden desk. Why was it always so embarrassing when teachers praised you?
He was coming towards the end of his first lesson at Silent Hill – double maths – and was starting to get his bearings. Things here were very simple. There were three form classes in each year group and you were taught in your very mixed ability form class for every subject. There were no options to be taken until the sixth form so everyone was taught the same thing whilst sitting in the same seating plan with the same kids for every lesson. Simple.
Jason had already worked out that he was probably the brightest in his class with the possible exception of the girl he’d been placed with – Violet Gray.
Violet ventured a quick smile at him then quickly buried her head in her worksheet. She was a third of the way down the page already. Jason watched her work for a moment; her slightly pointed nose followed each rattled-out line of trigonometry as her left hand absently pushed back her long straight mousy hair over skinny shoulders. She’d barely whispered more than a few dozen words to him so far but she was pleasant enough he guessed and far better that he’d been seated next to her than with some of the others in his class.
He’d been put in form 10A with Alan Pastor as form tutor. When he’d finally found the right form class, he’d been unsettled to see four Skins sitting at the back of the room. One of them was the boy with the web tattoo on his face from Jason’s bus but he hadn’t seen the others before - two fairly well built, tall boys and a whip thin girl with a number 1 crew cut and small, hard eyes.
The form class also housed what he guessed must be five members of the Brash gang – three boys and two girls. They were all impeccably dressed in designer labels and immaculately groomed. All five seemed to watch him with a sort of superior curiosity.
No one had made an effort to talk to him but neither had there been any trouble in form or in his maths lesson, not even from the Skins. There seemed to be some sort of understanding in the school buildings and all the kids did more or less what the teachers told them to… apart from work particularly hard.
Mr Pastor had given him a printed timetable, put him next to Violet Gray and told her to show him around for the rest of the day.
Violet was obviously neither a Brash nor a Skin; in fact she didn’t seem to be anyone at all really. Painfully quiet, she answered his questions with yeses and no’s and occasionally offered the odd bit of information: ‘If you’re not in class by the second bell it’s a half hour detention’, ‘Call all the teachers sir or miss’, ‘Those are the quickest stairs to the yard for break.’
Feeling very ungrateful, Jason nevertheless hoped that Violet would not follow Mr Pastor’s instructions to the letter and stick with him all through break and lunch as wel
l.
Jason checked his watch – just a couple of minutes to go until the end of maths with a formidable Scottish teacher called Mrs Strachen. He looked around the room for about the thousandth time. The classrooms were all long and narrow – he guessed they were made from five or six cells knocked together. The only natural light came from tiny windows built high up the walls centuries before. The same dodgy fluorescent tubes as in the entrance passageways were set in the low ceilings which added to the feeling of incarceration.
At last the bell went for break and everyone packed up and headed for the door. Violet burst into a sudden rush, almost a panic, stuffing her books and pens away. She dropped a pencil and Jason picked it up for her.
‘Thanks’ she said quietly, then fumbled to fasten her bag.
‘No problem,’ Jason said. She reminded him of some flighty, skinny legged fawn rattled by a cracking twig in Bambi. He packed away more slowly. Around them, the ‘normals’ shot past and out of the door. Violet leapt up and started after the pack.
‘Uhh, thanks for your help this morning,’ Jason said to her back. ‘See you next lesson.’
She stopped and turned to him, her brown eyes big and round in her thin face. ‘Come on, hurry up,’ She said and glanced behind him where the Skins and the Brash were scraping their chairs back. Her mouth set in a determined line. ‘I’ll take you to the yard.’
Jason was not going to look as if he was running scared. He stood up and stretched. Just as he lowered his arms, the spider-web Skin pushed between them and went for the door at the same time as one of the Brash boys. The Brash boy elbowed in front so the Skin shoved him through. The Brash boy span around in the corridor, fists coming up but before he could do anything, the Skin was grabbed by the neck from outside and slammed against the opposite wall.
He twisted around swearing, and then froze. A huge lad stood in front of him, his arms crossed. The fight instantly drained from the Skin and he stood up straight, back against the wall and stared at the floor.
‘You’re scum, Richard bloody Baldwin – don’t you touch decent people again – you understand?’ the big lad said and cuffed Baldwin hard across the head.
The Skin – evidently named Richard Baldwin - didn’t react at all but just stood, head bowed and fists clenched.
Suddenly Baldwin’s tormentor span around to stare at Jason who had moved to watch through the doorway.
‘You want some of this?’ he asked, a sneer tugging at one corner of his mouth.
From the corner of his eye, Jason saw Mrs Strachen deliberately turn away from the door and begin wiping the board.
He let his bag slip from his hands. No way was he going to let some lout try to intimidate him.
‘He’s with me – he’s new,’ Violet almost shouted from behind Jason. She picked up his bag, thrust it into his hand and shoved him down the corridor.
‘That’s one of the Brash prefects,’ she whispered, still nudging him forward.
Jason glanced back. The prefect was still staring at him. He was well dressed in an open shirt and blue blazer, much like the Brash boys in his class, but he also wore an ebony badge of the Drunken Abbot logo - a freakishly jovial monk’s head with its exaggerated features etched in ivory. Squinting out above fat, laughing cheeks were eyes cast in tiny glinting rubies. Jason thought the logo had the look of a sinister clown from some old-time touring circus.
‘Come on,’ pleaded Violet and tugged him down the stairwell.
They ended up in the South Passage which was packed full of kids. The pupils split into two streams - Brash and Skins heading out of the building, presumably to their respective turfs, and the normal kids scurrying deeper inside to the work-yard. Jason followed Violet into the “normal” kids' stream. It didn’t seem right to be forced into the work-yard because the gangs ruled on the outside. Still, too early to make any heroic challenges just yet.
They stopped in the lee of one of the boulders. Sunlight had edged its way down the west wall but half the yard was still deep in shadow. Jason looked around the grey flagstone landscape. Everyone else was in pairs or groups, talking and stuffing snacks in their mouths. It seemed half of them kept looking over at him and Violet. Didn’t they have many new kids in this place? Did they think he and Violet were… an item?
‘I’d better go.’ Violet whispered, fiddling with the straps of her bag. ‘Keep away from the Brash prefects – they’re the ones wearing…’
‘The little monk badges – I noticed,’ Jason cut in.
Violet nodded. ‘I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble.’ She stared up at him, her grey/blue eyes hard. ‘We’ve got science next, west passage, second floor. Think you can find your way there on your own?’
‘Yeah, I think I’ll manage,’ Jason dropped his gaze. He was being a prat. He looked back up at her. ‘Listen, Violet… thanks for your help…’
Violet’s eyes softened and she gave a tight smile ‘You need it,’ she mumbled and walked off with a cursory wave.
‘Why are you talking to Violet Gray?’ Willow jumped as Mouse, appeared from behind the boulder.
‘She’s in my form, - Pastor appointed her as my nanny.’
Mouse watched Violet disappear into the crowd. ‘You know she is Alan Brash’s ward, yes?’
‘No.’
‘Well, now you do. Watch what things you say to her.’
‘She’s all right,’ Willow said, ‘she saved me from one of your evil prefects. Everyone seems terrified of them.’
‘How strange, I wonder why that is?’ Mouse said, his eyes widening in mock surprise. ‘Could it perhaps be that they can do anything they please to a pupil who is… misbehaving?’
‘What, anything?’
‘More than less, as long as no one dies – that would lose Brash a future brewery worker or security guard.’
‘Don’t the skin-heads fight back – gang up on the prefects or something?’
‘You saw their pretty badges? That means they are part of Drunken Abbot Industries. Their friends are those nice guards on the bus this morning, yes?’
Jason nodded.
‘Also, the prefects will all work for Brash security next year. They will have guns and batons of their own at that time... it would not be sensible to make them your enemy, I think.’
‘Yeah, okay, I see your point but what about the parents? Don’t they get involved with their kids being knocked about by prefects?’
Mouse laughed. ‘Every parent here has a job and a home tied to Alan Brash… just keep away from the prefects - there is no one to stop them.’
‘Great - so I have to run away from the Skins and the Brash, especially the Brash prefects… anyone else?’
‘Also, our caretakers are not very nice…’ Mouse said, ‘and then if you went into Drunken Abbot at night, to not become dead you should…’
Just then, Louisa stepped out from the West Passage and Jason’s attention was pulled over to her. She looked radiant, the sun kissing her face and turning her white blouse to shining incandescence. Her hair gently lifted behind her in the tunnel breeze as she surveyed the yard. She spotted Mouse and Jason and glided over.
‘I see you have found something more interesting than my wise advice,’ Mouse mumbled to the back of Jason’s head. ‘This, as you English say, will all end in tears.’
‘Mmm?’ Jason said, not really registering what Mouse had said. Then Louisa reached him.
‘I think I need private lessons from your father, Jason – you said he teaches chemistry, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, yes he does,’ Jason said, trying not to grin. Louisa, alone at his house for private lessons – what could be better?
‘Good. I have just had isotopes and they make no sense to me at all.’
‘Dad will be able to show you – he explains everything with daft pictures,’ Jason said.
‘Perfect – well that is a date then,’ Louisa smiled at him. ‘You seem to have survived your first morning quite well – no cuts or bruises.’
‘It’s not so bad here,’ Jason said, his mind still racing at the prospect of Louisa coming over to the Old Mill on her own.
Louisa nodded but she was distracted by a boy striding towards them. He was about her age, tall, well built with black hair tied back in a short ponytail. He was munching on some sort of cereal bar.
‘Mmm, the light has suddenly become too bright for me here.’ Mouse mumbled and wandered away to join his friends grouped nearby.
‘Hey, Louisa, who’s your little friend?’ the pony-tail asked in a rich, confident voice.
Louisa looked up at the boy, holding his gaze for a little too long Jason thought, before answering.
‘This is Jason Willow, he has just moved into Darkston Wick. Jason, this is Darius – he is in my class.’
I wouldn’t have said that Jason thought. He nodded a greeting, not wanting to appear any more friendly than he felt.
‘I hope you can run fast, Jason, you’re a bit skinny to stand and fight the bad boys we have around here.’ Darius grinned. His teeth were perfectly straight and white.
‘Well I’m sure I can always hide behind a mighty hillock such as you,’ Jason said.
Louisa raised an eyebrow. Darius’s forehead creased in concentration. ‘Better learn to run…’ he said finally, then put a large hand on Louisa’s shoulder, ‘I’m likely to be a little too busy for you to hide behind.’
Louisa smiled at him and Jason felt sick. Surely she didn’t like this idiot.
‘Listen, Louisa,’ Darius said, ‘Can you just go over that palindromic equation stuff with me before maths? Old Strachen said she was going to give us a test today, didn’t she?’
Louisa gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Quickly then, we have only five minutes before the bell.’ She smiled back at Jason. ‘Remember – stay inside the building.’
Why did she have to say that? He could look after himself.