Dead Branches

by Benjamin Langley

  On the way back to the school, Will pulled out the P.E. top.

  “We’ve got to phone the police,” Liam said.

  “We can’t,” I said.

  “Why not?” asked Will.

  “They’ll know we bunked school, and broke into his shed,” I said.

  “We can call anonymously,” Will said. “We’ll leave a note in a box, telling them what we saw, and where.”

  “We can draw them a map,” Liam said.

  “Good idea,” Will said.

  “We’ll leave it all somewhere they can find it, and then call them from a phone box,” I said.

  It was really dodgy that Jake had that school uniform, but what proof was there that it was even John’s? “Name tag!” I blurted out, and Liam and Will looked at me. “All of John’s clothes had name tags in. Check the t-shirt.”

  Will pulled the t-shirt back out of his pocket again and peered into the neck hole. “Torn out,” he said and looked at me blankly.

  I snatched it from him and looked myself. There was a small tear in the back of the neck where the little white label used to be.

  When we were nearly back at the school, it started to rain, and not gently. The sky opened up and we had to hug the edge of the drove to get some kind of cover from the wild trees and bushes. It has been so dry, that most of the droves had turned dusty, but now that was like a thick paste that was sticking to our trousers.

  We got back into the school without being spotted, but we were leaving filthy wet mud-prints behind us. Jenkins would be furious.

  I popped my head inside my classroom door. “Liam’s still in the toilet, Miss,” I said.

  “Do you need some help?”

  “It’s okay, I’ve been to the office. Mrs Harding has called him Mum, and she’s coming to get him.”

  “Well, if he’s waiting for Mum, you’d better come back to us now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “He sicked on my leg. It smells. I better not come in.”

  Mrs Palmer sighed. “Don’t bring it in here. Can you borrow anything from the lost property?”

  “I rinsed most of it off... but it’s all wet. I don’t think I can sit down.”

  “I suppose the best thing for you to do is to wait with Liam then. You will have to catch up on these maths problems tomorrow though.”

  “No problem. Thanks Mrs Palmer.”

  Aunt Anne was waiting for us on the playground under a huge umbrella. All of the parents had umbrellas open which made a huge covered canopy. She looked down at us when we got to her. “How’d you three get so wet?” she said, looking at Liam, Will and me, and then at Andy, who was bone dry.

  “Dodgy tap in the toilets,” Will said.

  “And trust you three to be there when it went wrong. I don’t know. Anyway, Tom, Will, a bit of bad news, you’ll have to come home with me.”

  I was pleased. This would give us the opportunity to put together our evidence box.

  “Why, what’s up?” Will said.

  “The police are back at your house again. Your mum phoned and asked if I could feed you some tea. Come on, let’s get you out of the rain.”

  Back at Aunt Anne’s, after she pulled out some of Liam’s clothes for Will and me to wear, Liam found a suitable shoe box, and we started to put our note together. We were honest, in as far as we said that we climbed into his garden, then we listed what we’d found. The t-shirt we put in the box, along with the map that Liam put together, indicating the spot where the gloves were hidden.

  “Should we sign it?” Andy said.

  “We can’t,” Will said. “It’s anonymous.”

  “But we could sign it as the Turtles?”

  “We’re not the Turtles.”

  “The Crusaders then?”

  “All of that stuff was a game, Andy. This isn’t a game. We can’t put our names to it.”

  So, it was done. Just the facts. What we’d seen, and none of the speculation that had no doubt been running through our heads. Was the rope tied around John’s neck? Was he wearing the gloves when he tried to strangle John? Why did he keep the t-shirt in his shed, and what other souvenirs were hiding in there?

  Once complete, we had to convince Aunt Anne to let us out. There was a phone box outside the house next door, so we didn’t need long, and Liam had us all kitted out in raincoats and old trousers so the rain wouldn’t be an excuse.

  “Can we watch the rain run off Mr Wilson’s shed?” Liam asked. There was a gap in his guttering, and it would cascade down the side like a waterfall, and it would have been tainted green from all of the moss and sludge on the top of his shed.

  “You’ll get soaked,” said Aunt Anne.

  “We’ve got our raincoats on, and it looks so cool!” said Andy.

  “Okay, but only five minutes.”

  Liam had had to convince Andy to give up the only ten pence piece in his moneybox, and he held it out proudly as we walked for the telephone box.

  “Where should we leave our evidence?” Liam asked.

  “Here,” Will said.

  “In the phone box?”

  It’ll stay dry and be easy to find.”

  “What if someone else takes it?”

  “They won’t. The police will be here within minutes to pick it up.”

  “Who’s going to make the call?”

  “I will,” I said. I felt it was my duty.

  I picked up the handset, put the money in, and dialled 999.

  The operator on the other end asked what my emergency was, and I asked for the police. Within seconds I was put through and asked for my name.

  “I can’t tell you my name, but we have evidence for the murder of John Glover in Little Mosswick.” They tried to cut in, but I kept talking. “I am leaving it in a shoe box in this telephone box on Main Street, around about number twenty-six. It is evidence that shows that Jake, who lives at the corner of Downham Lane and Main Street is hiding something. Please check it out as soon as possible.” I clicked the phone back into place, and there was a tinkle as the ten pence piece came back out again.

  “Hey, I got my money back,” Andy said.

  We were back in place, watching Mr Wilson’s shed by the time Aunt Anne called us in, and though my legs were soaked, they were soaking so much, I couldn’t feel a thing.

  “What were they doing?” I asked Mum when we got home.

  “They were searching the whole field.”

  “I’ll tell you what they were doing,” Dad said. “They were cutting up the land, fucking up the potato crop, and finding the sum total of bugger all new. Waste of bloody time.”

  “What are they looking for?”

  “A clue, because they haven’t got one.”

  There was no way I was going to get any sense out of Dad. He looked wound up. His hair was sticking up in crazy tufts, almost as if he’d grabbed handfuls of it, and his beard was bushy and wild. I couldn’t look at him, so I gazed into the corner. Chappie’s basket caught my eye. It was empty. His food bowl was still full, and I’d put that food in there in the morning before I left for school.

  “Where’s Chappie?”

  “How the fuck should I know? Police have probably taken him in for questioning. They need to eliminate him from their enquiries. Maybe they’ve promoted him to lead detective, because the current lot are bloody clueless.”

  “Mum have you seen him?”

  “Sorry?” she’d tuned us out. Maybe that was the best way to cope with Dad.

  “Have you seen Chappie?”

  “Not since I let him out this morning. He’s probably shielding away from the rain somewhere.”

  I put my coat back on. “I’m going to look for him.”

  “Stay in sight,” Mum yelled, panic in her voice as she followed me out the door and repeated the instruction that I had no intention of obeying.

  I kept looking over at the tree. Chappie wouldn’t have gone there, I was sure. Not after the way he froze in fear when cl
ose to it before. He knew better than that. He also knew the location of all of our hideouts. I went to them one-by-one to see if he’d gone there. Narnia was flooded, which reminded me why we’d abandoned it in the first place. Moon Base One was deserted. We’d not been there for days because of the curfew. I walked around the edge of the field, peering into the overgrown ditches as I went. There were a couple of runs where animals had gone in and out, and I tried calling Chappie, but there was no reply. I walked past the place where I’d been chased a few weeks ago and kept my eyes on the spot, but there was no movement. I walked around the top of the field, with the bypass only metres away, at the top of the bank. I could see where the police had been. They’d staked off a larger area of the field with police tape, and they’d turned the ground over, leaving dark ridges and darker troughs over half of the field. Any sign of the potato plants on that part of the field was gone. I looked across to the house, and my eyes fell upon the tree first, and then on Chappie.

  I could only make out the white tops of his ears first of all, as his coat was both camouflaged by, and covered in, mud. I scrambled down into the field from the drove and struggled through the mangled earth over to Chappie. “Hey Chappie,” I said, but there was no movement. The ground around him was soft and I could feel my feet sinking into the mud. “Chappie,” I called again, and reached out to stroke him. He was still. “Chappie?” I touched his head and it flopped over, lifeless. “No, Chappie!” I said. “You can’t be dead. Not here.” I put my arms around him and tried to lift him up, but the mud was sucking him back in. I could hear laughing. I looked up and the tree was shaking its branches over me. The rainwater had weighed the branches down and they seemed to be lurking over me, occasionally cascading their collected water down on to me. I hugged Chappie again and tried to pull him to me. I slid my arms down, so my face was on his cold, wet, body and pulled at him from lower down and he started to lift out of the mud. I fell back as his body came free and he fell on top of me. I lifted him gently off to the side, away from the tree, where the ground looked firmer. I shuffled back and could feel my shoe held by the ground. It was trying to pull me in. Thankfully I was around the back of the tree. Surely it couldn’t pull me into its mouth from there? I imagined it spinning round to face me, the mouth coming open, and the branches dropping behind me and pushing me towards the entrance. I could sense the dead-eyed wanderers inside, ready to pull me in, and despite being soaked through, I could feel my temperature rising due to the presence of the fire demon inside. I shook my head and banished the vision. I couldn’t let them inside my brain. It was the back of the tree that was in front of me; surely that was its weakest point. I yanked my foot back, and out it came, without the shoe. I reached forward and grabbed my shoes by the laces and gave then a good yank. They were going to snap, surely. Somehow though, it held. I put it back on my foot and felt the mud inside squelch into all of the gaps. I picked up Chappie and took the safest path back to the house.

  “They got him,” I said when I bundled inside.

  “Who?” Mum said, before she turned to look at me.

  I must have looked some sight, soaked through and covered in mud, with Chappie in my arms.

  “Don’t bring him in here all covered in muck,” Dad said, getting up from his chair and putting the paper down on the table. Normally they were so careful to hide the news from me. On the front cover was a picture of John, and beside it a picture of the crematorium, with the headline, ‘REST IN PEACE’. Under that, a related story. ‘New lead in Mosswick Murder Case?’

  “He’s dead, Dad,” I said, and put Chappie on the table.

  I didn’t see his hand coming. A sideways swipe caught me on the side of the head and sent me flying to the floor. Then he must have realised what I’d said, and he looked at the dog.

  Mum stepped away from the cooker and looked at the table.

  Will must have heard the commotion because I heard his feet on the stairs next, and a few seconds later he was peering at us too. I was on the floor, covered in mud, my face burning; Dad was standing in the middle of the kitchen, his chest heaving as he breathed heavily; and on the table, the mud and water on him soaking into the table cloth and turning it from white into a murky grey, was my pet, my friend, my dog, Chappie.

  Mum was first to move, and it was over to me.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of those filthy clothes. Will,” she looked up at him, “Start a bath running for your brother.”

  Will turned and went up the stairs, and Mum helped me up.

  “Trevor, go take Chappie out to the barn. We can sort out cleaning him up and burying him later.”

  I let Mum help me up. It was the first time I’d heard her call Dad by his name. In front of us they always used ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. I was so confused, that I was utterly under her spell. I let her lead me into the utility room and whip off my clothes. She picked the barely used picnic blanket (I say barely used, it had been used to make bases a few times inside the house) and wrapped me in it to keep me warm. She rubbed my arms to get warmth back into them, “You poor thing,” she said. “Finding your dog like that.” And she stayed with me, saying sympathetic words until Will shouted out that the bath was ready. She led me upstairs then left me alone to wash.

  As I sat soaking in the tub, I played it all through in my head. We’d gotten close to catching out Shaky Jake, and the Underworld had responded by taking Chappie. Getting Jake arrested would not be the end of it. There would be repercussions. It was possible that the armies of the undead were gathering for an assault, or they could send more dead-eyes wanderers through. Leaving Chappie on their doorstep was supposed to be a warning. It was the Underworld showing me that they could get me here, and that I had to leave them alone. There was no way I was going to let them get away with it.

  “Will,” I said, wrapped in a towel and dripping onto our bedroom floor.

  He looked up from the Nintendo.

  “I know you don’t believe me about the Underworld, but I want you to help me.”

  We spent the rest of the evening formulating our plan.

  NOW

  “Do you want to go up and see your Dad then?” Asks Mum, the tea drank, the cake eaten, and the conversation long since ceased.

  I want to say “No”. There’s a certain level of comfort sitting here but seeing Dad will spoil all of that.

  “Come on,” she says, and I’m obliged to do as she says.

  Like when I was a child, she’s decided that she’s going with me. She opens the door and I peer up the stairs. They stretch out, endlessly. She glides up them, and, tentatively, I climb onto the bottom step. As soon as I touch it, I shrink, making the next step almost insurmountable. I use the handrail to pull myself up and stretch my leg up as far as possible to reach the next step. This one feels like it’s made of marshmallow, and I’m sinking into it. Under the heat of the stairs, it’s melting. I grab onto the next step but part of it comes away in my hand.

  “Close the door,” calls Mum from the top.

  I turn, reach out for the handle, and pull the enormous door towards me. It slams just like the door of the aga.

  I clamber the rest of the way up the steps under her watchful eye.

  “Sit down,” she says.

  I sit on the top step, and she sits down next to me. “I suppose there’s no Father Christmas in your house either?”

  If I was at home, I would have told her that it was none of her business. I would have threatened to stop her from seeing Charlie. But in my old home, I was just as powerless as I was when I was ten. I manage a nod.

  “Don’t you feel that Charlie is missing out?”

  I shrug. I want to tell her that he’s not missing out. I want to tell her that he’s experiencing these things on a much higher level than other children, but I can’t think how to get the words out.

  “Look in here,” Mum says. She pushes herself up from the step, finding it much more difficult than I thought she would. She opens the door to my old bed
room, the room I shared with Will.

  “See that poster on the wall?”

  It has Bowser on it. I remember Will tearing it out of a magazine that John gave us when he had finished with it.

  “Does Charlie have any posters on his wall?”

  “Yes,” I say. He has a poster of the periodic table.

  “Any kids’ posters?” says Mum, seeing right through me.

  I shake my head.

  Mum goes into Will’s cupboard and takes out a box while I wait at the door, afraid to cross the threshold.

  “I kept all of these,” she says as she struggles across the room with the box. She places it at my feet and pulls it open. The sun emerges from behind a cloud to shine through the window and illuminate the row of green spines. “I know that you wanted to throw them all out, but I couldn’t let you.”

  I look at some of the titles, The Caverns of the Snow Witch, Appointment with F.E.A.R and of course, Secrets of the Scythe.

  “Does Charlie have any books?”

  “Of course he does!” I picture his bookshelf, the rows of encyclopaedias, Horrible Histories, and the collection of magazines about rocks.

  “Does he have any stories, Thomas, real stories?”

  “No, Mum!” I say, raising my voice at her for the first time in my life.

  “You can’t blame stories for what happened.”

  No. I blame myself. But before I can tell her that a booming voice comes from the room down the hall, a voice I’ve not heard for a very long time, and a voice that scares me as much as it always has. “Stay out of Will’s room.”

  I run.

  Wednesday 4th July 1990

  At school, all anyone could talk about was the World Cup semi-final. England were playing West Germany for the right to play Argentina in the final, who had knocked out Italy the night before. The West German team lacked magic. They played without any kind of flair. Their approach seemed to be to bore the opposition to sleep by passing the ball from side-to-side, and then kick the ball into the net. England, on the other hand, had Gazza. He was a proper player. Then there were Waddle and Beardsley, and David Platt had turned up out of nowhere and become some kind of goal-scoring wonder. All of those players had the ability to get the ball to Lineker, and he was the best striker in the world, so he wouldn’t miss. All of the skill was with England. Even if the German’s did manage to lull England to sleep, they’d have to get past Shilton the giant.