City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  For the following few days, Seckry and Eiya looked up to the headmaster like a hero. Even though the scaring off of the board of education officials had been involuntary, he had still managed it, and both the animals, and Butterkins, were safe.

  “So what on earth’s wrong with him?” Eiya asked. “He just went . . . insane, didn’t he?”

  Seckry shook his head. He had no idea. He had never seen a medical condition like it.

  Eiya’s question, however, was answered sooner than they expected.

  As they were passing the headmaster’s office once more, on their way to a double period of animal care, they saw that Mrs Cutson was inside, and had Gobbledee almost pressed up against a wall.

  They made sure they weren’t visible through the glass and pressed their ears close so they could hear.

  “You had better sack Vance, Allon, I’m telling you now. The man is undermining me in my own lessons. And do you know that he spent Seckramas with Seckry Sevenstars? That’s breaking the rules, that has to be. You can’t go around socialising with pupils outside of school. Sack him, Allon.”

  “Cecilya . . . Jonn is a very valued member of staff and a personal friend of mine,” Gobbledee said, a quiver in his voice. “I will not be sacking the man because you have a dislike for him.”

  “Allon, I’m not sure if you understand what I’m saying here,” Cutson said viciously. “If you don’t sack Vance I’m afraid I might be inclined to mention a certain word to the board of education. Do you know what that word is, Allon?”

  Gobbledee said nothing.

  “Chlorocalm,” said Cutson, and they heard Gobbledee whimper.

  “Chlorocalm?” Eiya mouthed silently to Seckry, but Seckry had never heard of it.

  That evening, the first thing Seckry did when they got back to the flat was an internet search for the word chlorocalm.

  “Eiya,” he said, devastated. “Look at this.”

  There was a brief explanation on an online encyclopaedia.

  Chlorocalm

  A substance that was injected, for a short period of time, into prison inmates who were deemed especially dangerous to staff and others. Its purpose was to temporarily calm the subject down and make them less likely to have violent outbursts, but the substance also had permanent side effects. It would cause the subject to become completely disjointed from reality and to appear as though they had lost their mind. The only known cure for this was the antidote Sanium, which had to be administered every time the Chlorocalm’s side effects became active.

  Chlorocalm was eventually deemed dangerous and extremely unproductive and was banned from use. The substance was only ever injected into approximately two hundred inmates around the world and only on those convicted of murder. Those that were injected with Chlorocalm still suffer the side effects today.

  Seckry and Eiya’s mouths were hanging open.

  “Gobbledee . . . . was in prison?” Eiya said.

  “For murder?” Seckry added.

  Two days later an assembly was called, and Mrs Furrowfog announced that the headmaster would not be returning to the school and that she would be acting as headmistress until the school decided on a suitable replacement.

  Seckry saw Cutson licking her lips. She was clearly aiming to take that role.

  With all the drama with the headmaster, Seckry had completely forgotten about the ball. He couldn’t understand how Mr Gobbledee could have been capable of murder, but he just had to accept it.

  “Seck, who are you taking?” Tippian asked him one lunchtime, while Eiya was off handing in some theatre studies coursework.

  Tenk rolled his eyes. “Who do you think he’s gonna take, Tipp?”

  “Well I haven’t actually asked her yet,” Seckry said.

  “I’m going with Curly Hetchings now,” Tippian said triumphantly.

  “Curly Hetchings!” exclaimed Tenk. “Tipp, you do realise that Curly Hetchings, otherwise known as The Giant of Skyfall, is six foot three, don’t you?”

  “Well . . . she was the only one that said yes.”

  “I mean . . . how are you gonna kiss her when they play With Me Tonight? You won’t be able to reach.”

  Tippian shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll jump or something.”

  “What’s With Me Tonight?” Seckry asked them.

  “It’s this song that they always play at the ball, guaranteed. And it’s like an unwritten rule that you have to kiss your date when they sing the line, ‘never knew how much I’d miss you, I close my eyes and kiss you.’”

  “It’s a stupid rule,” said Tippian, suddenly looking quite solemn.

  “Tippers had a bad experience last time,” Tenk explained.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Tippian said stubbornly.

  “Come on, it wasn’t your fault that you grabbed Mrs Flimbergloop. It was really dark in there.”

  “Alissen Himsworth never spoke to me again after that.”

  “Yeah . . . well I suppose it’s not great to be mistaken for a sixty seven year old with a wonky toupee.”

  Tippian said nothing.

  “You made Margarat’s night, you know,” Tenk said matter-of-factly.

  Tippian shuddered. “Tenk . . . please . . . do not call her by her first name. Let’s just change the topic.”

  “Okay. The topic is on Seckry. When are you gonna ask Eiya?”

  “You’re the experts, when is best?”

  Tenk thought for a moment.

  “Tomorrow. I don’t think you can leave it any longer, there’s only a week left.”

  Seckry’s stomach lurched. The thought of actually asking Eiya on a date filled him with incredible excitement but also insurmountable nerves.

  “If only they’d let me invite someone outside of school,” said Tenk. “I’d invite Fewgy,”

  “Who’s Fewgy?” Seckry asked.

  “It’s what Tenk’s decided to call the Friction emporium welcome girl,” explained Tippian. “F,E,W,G.”

  “Fewgy,” Seckry said. “What’s the Y stand for?”

  “It doesn’t stand for anything,” Tenk said. “But you can’t just call someone Fewg. Doesn’t sound right.”

  Tippian laughed mockingly.

  “She’s probably, like, twenty eight or something. She’d never come to a school ball.”

  “I bet you she would for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’ve got something going on,” Tenk said proudly.

  “Have you ever even spoken to her?”

  “Of course I have. Loads of times.”

  “What, an actual conversation?” Tippian pressed.

  “Well . . . I’ve said ‘Hi,’ and she’s said ‘Hi’ back.”

  Tippian shook his head.

  “She’s the Friction emporium welcome girl. That’s what she does. She says ‘Hi’ to me every time I go in there too.”

  “Yeah, but Tipps, you don’t understand. When she says ‘Hi’ to me there’s like this whole unsaid conversation going on silently. I’m telling you, it’s like we’ve got this unspoken connection.”

  “Man,” said Tippain, dreamily. “If I could take anyone in the world to the ball I’d take . . . Alesia Tamari.”

  “Who’s that?” Seckry asked, though he was drowned out by Tenk’s sudden burst of hysterical laughter.

  “Sorry, Tipps,” Tenk said. “I just can’t imagine you standing next to Princess Tamari. I mean. She’s a princess.”

  “I’m not talking about in real life!” Tippian said defensively. “I’m just saying, if I could take anyone in the world, you know, in a fantasy situation, then yeah, I’d want to take Princess Tamari – she’s princess of Arivel, to answer your question, Seck. Anyway, what about you, Seck, who would you like to take, in a perfect world where you could take anyone?”

  “Uh . . .” Seckry said meekly. “Maybe that singer Cinthya Blayke, or . . . that actress Lawra Seaport . . . or someone like that.”

  But Seckry wasn’t telling the truth. If he had
the choice to take anyone in the world to the ball, there was only one person he’d want to take. And that was Eiya.

  For the whole of the next day, Seckry felt sick. He was so excited about finally asking Eiya to the ball and finally letting her know how he felt about her that his stomach seemed to be staging a revolt.

  Eiya seemed to avoid him for the second half of the day, which he found a little strange, though it made it easier for him to psyche himself up in order to ask her when they were at home.

  When it came to the evening, Seckry could put it off no longer. After having a dinner around the table in the kitchen at which Seckry and Eiya neither spoke to one another, and Coralle and Leena looked slightly perplexed as to why, Seckry followed Eiya into the bedroom and said shakily, “Eiya, I was . . . I was wondering if . . .”

  Seckry stopped as he realised Eiya was crying.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, not expecting it.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, and smiled. “I just need to be alone at the moment, if that’s okay.”

  Seckry stammered a few times but eventually turned around to leave. What was he going to do now? He’d spent all his energy on psyching himself up for this moment. And what had upset Eiya?

  “I’m going to the ball with Thom Malerk, by the way,” Eiya said as he was about to close the door behind him. “He’s a year above us.”

  Seckry felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. He almost keeled over.

  “What? Um . . . I mean . . . oh,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Yeah, he asked me earlier today.”

  It was like all Seckry’s blood had drained out of his body. He felt like a dead weight, like a heavy, empty body with no life force inside of it. “I’m glad . . . you’ve got someone sorted,” he said, and he knew he couldn’t mask the sadness in his voice.

  The next few days seemed like the longest days in Seckry’s life. He had no idea who this Thom Malerk was, and no idea how Eiya knew him. Was this who she had been talking about at Tenk’s sleepover when she said she fancied someone at school?

  It was only when Seckry was washing his hands in the men’s toilets one day that he heard two boys enter and one said, “Hey, Malerk, what’s she like then, this date of yours?”

  They continued to talk as they positioned themselves at the urinals.

  “Mate, she’s really young looking, and her . . .” he cupped the air in front of his chest. “They’re pretty small, but I bet she’s a right animal in the bedroom. These little ones always are. They got something to prove, you know?”

  The other one laughed. “I bet she’s never done it before, either.”

  Seckry felt like vomiting. How could he talk like that about Eiya? It was like she wasn’t even a person. This Thom Malerk didn’t have a clue. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know that her favourite colour was baby blue, he didn’t know that when she slept she liked to hug a pillow in her arms, he didn’t know that her favourite thing in the world was eating candyfloss and letting it melt on her tongue, and he didn’t even know that she –

  Seckry realised his eyes were wet and he rubbed them furiously with his sleeve before leaving the toilets.

  Seckry spent the next few days feeling utterly miserable and trying to avoid Eiya as much as he could. Eiya looked just as sullen herself.

  After dinner each evening, Seckry would excuse himself and head to the arcade. He would go and sit in one of the Friction pods and let Atoria load itself around him, while he just sat and watched the digital birds fly across the sky.

  “Don’t you want to play?” Henrei asked one time.

  “I just like to sit in here,” Seckry said.

  Henrei gave him a concerned and somewhat confused look, and went back to eating his selection of assorted fruit jam sandwiches.

  Seckry tried listening to The Broken Motion, but even their songs now reminded him of Eiya and the time they’d spent together at the concert. He kept thinking of all the nights they had listened to music in the middle of the night, huddled in their blankets on his bedroom floor.

  Seckry couldn’t work out what had made Eiya want to go to the ball with that guy, and neither did Tenk, Tippian or Loca.

  “Maybe you just left it too late to ask,” Tenk said.

  Since that day, Seckry had found it hard to sleep at all, but when he did, he no longer dreamed about Eiya. When he finally drifted off on the Wednesday of that week, he found himself in a field that he had visited many times before.

  “Dad?” Seckry said, and the man with blonde hair, picking berries, turned around to give him a big, warm smile.

  “Dad, where are you?” he said. “I need you. I need you to tell me everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “Seckry, Seckry, come here,” he said, and opened his arms.

  Seckry ran to him but he wasn’t getting any closer. His legs were moving and the ground underneath him was moving, but he was still the same distance away.

  “I can’t get to you,” Seckry said, and tried to run faster. As he did so, he tripped over something in the grass. He stumbled to his feet and saw that he had tripped over some kind of watch, one with a large circular face that was glowing deep red.

  “What is this?” Seckry asked.

  “Don’t you remember?” his father said.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Pawl Ringold