Burning Secrets

by Clare Chambers

  Cold and frustrated, he marched back to the poolside. “Kenny,” he hissed up at the lifeguard dutifully keeping watch over an empty pool, “someone’s nicked my stuff.”

  Kenny looked astonished. “What do you mean?” he said, climbing down from his high chair.

  “My bag’s gone. I left it in there and it’s gone. I haven’t got any clothes! Is there any spare kit I can borrow? Or can you phone my mum?” Even as he said this he realised he didn’t know the phone number at The Brow.

  “I’m not allowed to leave the pool unattended,” said Kenny.

  “But there’s no one in it!” Daniel protested.

  Kenny hesitated.

  “I’ll stay and look after the pool,” Daniel pleaded.

  “Have you got a lifesaving certificate?” Kenny asked.

  Mum was right: he is retarded, thought Daniel. “Look, if anyone comes I’ll tell them they can’t go in until you get back,” he said desperately.

  “All right,” said Kenny with extreme reluctance. “There might be something in Lost Property you can borrow. What size shoes?”

  “Nine,” said Daniel, wondering what his mum was going to say when he told her he’d lost his trainers. Not mentioning it wasn’t an option as they were the only pair he had. Unobservant as she was, she’d notice if he took to going out without shoes.

  After five minutes waiting in the cold, Kenny returned carrying a short green science overall and a pair of rugby boots, thickly crusted with dried mud. “All I could find,” he said apologetically, as he handed them over before climbing back on to his high chair.

  “Er . . . thanks,” said Daniel, doing his best to hide his dismay. There was no alternative – he had to get home and he couldn’t walk over the moors barefoot. The boots at least fitted, although they felt clammy and disgusting without socks. The overall looked plain weird with hairy legs, but it couldn’t be helped. Oh well. The locals already thought he was weird – this would just confirm their view. He poked his head out into the corridor, checking that there was no one about, and then crept out, the boot studs clattering on the lino. He hadn’t taken more than two steps when the door to the girls’ changing room flew open, there was a squeak of surprise and he found himself looking into the astonished face of Ramsay Arkin.

  “Ohmygod! It’s you,” said Ramsay, biting her lip against a laugh as she took in his strange appearance. “Why are you dressed like that? In fact . . . ” She looked more closely at the pattern of chemical stains and scorch marks on the overall. “That’s my lab coat!”

  “Sorry, I was just borrowing it. Someone’s nicked my clothes,” Daniel tried to explain, beginning to sweat with embarrassment as he recounted the story of the disappearing bag and Kenny’s raiding of the lost property box. On any other day he would have been pleased to bump into her – hadn’t he kept coming over this way with just that in mind – but not now, when he was looking like a drowned flasher.

  Ramsay looked appalled. “Nobody here steals things,” she insisted. “There must be a mistake.”

  “People keep saying that,” Daniel said, beginning to get annoyed. “But my stuff didn’t walk off by itself.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ramsay said firmly, a frown of concentration crumpling her smooth forehead. She marched past him and pushed her way into the boys’ changing room without bothering to knock. Fortunately the basketball teams had already left, although she didn’t give the impression that it would have bothered her if they hadn’t. Daniel hesitated before following her in, wondering what the hell he would say if anyone walked in on them.

  “Here!” she was saying with a triumphant air, holding out a bundle of belongings rolled up in a greyish towel. “Are these yours?”

  He could see at a glance that the towel was his. Bewildered, he took the bundle from her; clothes, trainers, wallet, contents of wallet – bank card and four ten-pound notes – all untouched. “Yeah, this is it,” he said, still mystified. “Where was it?”

  “On a bench in the showers. Someone must have moved it for some reason. Is it all there?”

  “Well . . . yes. Apart from the bag, but that doesn’t matter.” He was so relieved to have his clothes back, and his money, which he’d never expected to see again. Besides, he could hardly kick up a fuss about a bag which he had nicked from a bin in the first place. He felt stupid that he hadn’t noticed his stuff on the bench, but there had been lots of other kit lying around then, and he’d been looking for the blue bag rather than its contents.

  Ramsay, pleased to have defended the honesty of her fellow students so successfully, was enjoying the double benefit of having been both right and helpful. “No, no, don’t thank me, it was a pleasure,” she said wryly.

  He looked up sharply and saw she was smiling. “Thank you,” he said with heavy emphasis. “I was thinking it; I just forgot to say it.” He sat down on a bench and pulled off the rugby boots as a preliminary to getting dressed. Was she going to stand there and watch him? “I’m going to get changed,” he hinted.

  She held out a hand. “I’ll have my lab coat back then.”

  Daniel was surprised and pleased to find Ramsay leaning against the wall waiting for him when he came out, dried and fully clothed, a couple of minutes later. He no longer felt at quite such a disadvantage. They walked out of the school together at a slow stroll towards the village, without actually discussing where they were going.

  “You didn’t come to the party,” said Ramsay. It was a statement of fact rather than a criticism.

  “No,” he agreed. “I thought I wouldn’t know anyone.”

  “How else are you going to get to know people?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Next time I’ll come. If you ask me.”

  “OK. Do you want some Leaf ?”

  Ramsay produced a crumpled paper bag from her blazer pocket and offered him what looked like a bunch of wilting dandelion leaves. Daniel looked around nervously. Was she really offering him drugs in the middle of Stape in broad daylight? While he hesitated she took a pinch and began to chew them dreamily, a tiny bubble of green liquid frothing at the corner of her mouth.

  “What the hell is that stuff ?” Daniel asked. In spite of everything he’d seen in Lissmore he was shocked. Ramsay was the last kind of girl you’d expect—

  “It’s just Leaf,” Ramsay protested, taking in his disapproving expression. “It’s not a drug.” She began to laugh at his misunderstanding. “It’s just a herb-type thing that grows here in summer. Like rocket or parsley. But it’s totally delicious: try some.”

  Daniel looked doubtful. “It’s not hallucinogenic or anything?”

  “Of course not! No one here takes drugs.” She sounded genuinely offended – just as she had done at the suggestion that someone at school might conceivably steal.

  Wondering why on earth he trusted her, Daniel took a small withered leaf from the bag and sniffed it suspiciously. Ramsay folded up laughing. “What is wrong with you? It’s like . . . salad. You do eat salad, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. But not out of a paper bag. And not for fun,” Daniel replied.

  Ramsay’s laugh rang out again as Daniel put the scrap of foliage in his mouth. A foul bitter flavour like nothing he’d ever tasted exploded on his tongue. It was like sucking an old rusty nail or a leaky battery. “Bleaagh!” he spluttered, spitting the fibrous pulp into the kerb. “That is disgusting.” He spat again, and wiped his tongue on the back of his hand. “How can you eat that?”

  Ramsay, still chomping away happily, looked at him in amazement. “You are funny,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t you like sweet things?”

  “That wasn’t sweet!” Daniel exclaimed. “It was like . . . ugh!” Words temporarily failed him. A coppery aftertaste remained in his mouth and his face was screwed up with revulsion.

  “Sorry,” said Ramsay. “I thought you’d like it. Everyone at school loves the stuff. And the best thing is, it grows wild all over the island – even on the school field. So it’s totally free.�
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  “I can honestly say I wouldn’t eat that even if I was starving,” said Daniel with feeling.

  They walked across the village green, past the café where he and Louie had been given the ancient cola. A group of teenagers was sitting on the grass playing cards and passing around a bag of Leaf as though it was full of sweets. They gave Ramsay a wave, which she returned without slowing down.

  “Are they your friends?” Daniel asked.

  “Everyone’s my friend,” Ramsay replied, not boastfully, but in a matter-of-fact way. “They’ll be talking about us now,” she added, when they were out of earshot. “They’ll be wondering about you. Wanting to know what you’re like.”

  “What are you going to tell them? What am I like?”

  Ramsay met his gaze cleanly without blinking. A tiny current, an invisible spark, arced across the gap between them. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’d have to do more research.” He looked away first.

  “There are all sorts of rumours flying around,” Ramsay went on.

  “Like what?” said Daniel in alarm.

  “Oh, like you’ve come here to spy on us.”

  He almost laughed with relief. “Spying? Who for?”

  “I don’t know. People are saying your mum is writing a book about the island.”

  “Well, that’s not true. She’s translating Swedish crime novels.”

  “Have you read them?”

  “No. She’d be a rubbish spy, anyway. She hardly leaves the house.”

  “Why did you come here? Why don’t you come to school?”

  Daniel sighed. It wouldn’t do any harm to tell her about Louie. Not everything, of course – some things were off limits – but she was so nice, so easy to talk to . . . “We came for my sister, really. She got bullied a lot so she moved schools, but then she got bullied there too. She seems to attract it, I don’t know why. Well, I sort of do. She can’t keep her head down and just fit in. She got really depressed and started self-harming and stuff.”

  “What do you mean, self-harming?” asked Ramsay, as if such a thing had never reached the peaceful shores of Wragge.

  “She used to burn herself with cigarettes. Stub them out on her arms.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?” said Ramsay.

  “I suppose it made her feel better. Or worse. Or both. I dunno. I don’t want you to think she’s a total freak. I mean, quite a lot of people do it.”

  “Not here they don’t,” said Ramsay.

  “You won’t tell anybody else this, will you? I shouldn’t have said.”

  “No, of course not.”

  They had nearly come to the end of the village. The road led away towards Filey, completely the wrong direction for Daniel.

  “That’s where I live,” said Ramsay, pointing towards the last house on the left. It was a two-storey cottage, like The Brow, but larger and in much better condition. A dark-haired boy, not older than Daniel but certainly bigger, was leaning against the wall, bouncing a tennis ball off the crook of his elbow and catching it, over and over. “That’s my room,” she added unnecessarily, pointing at an upper window surrounded by neatly trimmed creeper. “And this,” she said as the boy stood up to meet them, “is my boyfriend James.”

  “WHAT YOU IN FOR?” said Warren, who had the cell next to mine.

  I’d been preparing myself for bare bricks and an iron bed and maybe a bucket in the corner, but it wasn’t actually a cell at all. It was a square room with cream walls and a beige carpet, bed, desk, chair, chest of drawers and a thin strip of (locked) window just below the ceiling: a bit like a Travelodge but without the kettle and teabags and stuff. There was a built-in cupboard – you couldn’t call it a bathroom – containing a loo and washbasin. I’d stayed in worse places on school trips.

  But no school trip ever gave me such a sick dead feeling in the pit of my stomach. They could have done the place up like a five-star hotel and it wouldn’t have made any difference. It was the loneliness that was the worst bit. No, the second worst. The worst bit was the company.

  “Arson,” I mumbled. “And stuff.”

  Warren nodded, respectfully. “What about you?”

  “I didn’t do nothing. I was stitched up,” said Warren.

  Over the course of my stretch I heard this so often I began to wonder if I was the only person in a secure unit who’d ever pleaded guilty.

  I was allowed to wear my own clothes and bring a few things to remind me of home. But anything I brought there would end up reminding me of Lissmore for ever after so I kept it to a minimum. I stuck a photo of Chet above my bed and kept one of Louie in my pocket: I didn’t want any other inmates defacing it – or even looking at it. I also brought a clock radio, tennis ball, torch, and the sweatband I’d been wearing when we won 56-54 on the last basket of the national basketball finals as the whistle blew. I thought no one would nick a stinking sweatband, but I was wrong.

  On the other side was Tyler, or Taylor – I never knew which because I never saw it written down. He was in for nicking cars. He said he’d been doing glue since he was ten, but he’d moved on to harder stuff. He reeled off a long list of substances as though he’d got a degree in chemistry. I’d never even heard of half of them. But his main addiction was stealing cars and crashing them. Cautions, fines, ASBOs had no effect whatsoever. He had trashed half the cars on his estate in six months, not to mention several gates, walls and lamp-posts. He said his ambition was to nick a Porsche Boxster and drive it the wrong way down a motorway. Then he said, watch out for Roach because he’s a psycho.

  You’re all psychos, I thought.

  Chapter 9

  BY FRIDAY LOUIE’S bout of low spirits had lifted and she had finished – or rather abandoned – her stormy painting, so Daniel suggested going into Port Julian to see a film.

  Mum said she’d be glad to have them out from under her feet – which made Daniel think of a lump of squashed chewing gum – and offered them a lift into town after lunch. They were to make their own way back by the evening bus, which took a meandering two-hour route along every possible road, or by hitching a lift. Surprisingly hitch-hiking was a common method of transport on Wragge for people of all ages. In a small place where everyone knew each other and petrol was expensive, it made sense to fill up empty spaces in cars, but Daniel and Louie still hadn’t got used to the sight of elderly women or girls younger than Louie, standing on lonely stretches of road to flag down passing cars. And their mum hadn’t quite plucked up the courage to stop for any of these hitchers – which had done nothing to increase their popularity with the locals.

  The cinema was a small 1930s Art Deco building on the corner of Main Street. It was only open on Fridays and Saturdays and had one screen showing a different film each week – often years, occasionally decades, after its original release. Faded posters outside promised that Jurassic Park was ‘coming soon’.

  “Ohmygod,” said Louie, folding up with laughter. “That’s, like, a hundred years out of date!”

  This particular afternoon they were in luck: the film on offer was The Bourne Identity, which at least was one that they didn’t mind seeing again. They entered the dimly lit lobby that smelled of ancient cigarette smoke and old carpet, and bought their tickets from a plump middle-aged woman behind the counter. She seemed quite excited to have customers. Having served them she scuttled around to the refreshment booth which advertised salted popcorn, vanilla ice cream and inevitably the bitter lemon drink. They felt obliged to buy something since she was standing there so eagerly, so they ordered a vanilla cone each.

  “You’re the first youngsters to have bought one of these in years,” she said, which made Daniel and Louie exchange looks of alarm. Just how old was this stuff going to be exactly? “I’m going to have one myself. And I’ll tell you what I do with mine. I dip it in chocolate.” She plunged the vanilla cone into a tub of sauce, which set instantly on contact with the cold ice cream to form a hard shell. “Do you want some?”

  It look
ed quite tempting, so Daniel and Louie accepted her offer. “It’s nice to see someone eating proper food,” she said, taking their money and carefully counting out the change. “Instead of that horrible Leaf.”

  She ducked out from the refreshment booth and stood in front of them, now in the role of usherette, solemnly tearing their tickets in half before showing them into the vast empty cinema. “Sit anywhere,” she said, sweeping her torch over the rows of steeply ranked seats. “And I’ll get started. You’ve got the back row to yourselves,” she added, with a suggestive wink which made Daniel and Louie recoil in horror.

  The woman was already letting herself through a concealed doorway into the projectionist’s room. Daniel and Louie made a point of sitting in the middle of the auditorium, skulking low in their seats, shaking with laughter.

  “What would she have done all day if we hadn’t shown up?” Louie hissed.

  “Just sat there eating ice cream, I guess,” said Daniel, and then the safety screen started to rise with a jerking motion, which set them off all over again.

  “Do you think she’s round the back cranking some huge handle?” he whispered, miming, until Louie had to flap her hand at him to get him to shut up because she was choking on her ice cream.

  *

  When they emerged into the open air again it was still only mid-afternoon, and the bus didn’t leave for another two hours. They’d decided against hitch-hiking: that would involve making polite conversation with a stranger – possibly more than one stranger – all the way home. To kill the remaining time they strolled up Main Street looking in the shop windows. The only other people about on a weekday afternoon were mums with pre-school children or pensioners. It had never really struck Daniel before that the pavements belonged to different groups of people at different times of day.

  The shops weren’t that different from any other parade in a small country town – and there was nothing much to tempt Daniel or Louie. On the corner of the street was a fish and chip shop called The Happy Haddock.