Matthew gave up. If the strain was getting to her, so that she was really ill, it wasn't much point in him just pretending to be. He did have a passing thought that he could offer to stay home and look after her, but that was no good. With a migraine she would rather have the house to herself and just sleep it off.
He groaned and began to get ready for school. And Mondays always began with double Maths.
But as he drew near to school things looked somehow different. To begin with, there were two police cars parked outside the steps leading to the main entrance. Also, no-one was going in through the pupils' entrances but instead teachers were standing there directing them all up the steps and in through the big wooden doors usually reserved for teachers and visitors.
Matthew, having arrived without meeting either friends or enemies, hung back for a moment by the pillarbox, avoiding the crush. Suddenly he found Gary beside him, and then Cherry and Abby turned up too.
Cherry said, “I just saw Karen. Ugh!”
“Did she try and get you?” Abby asked.
Cherry frowned. “No. She was weird. Just sort of stared at me. Horrid!”
Gary said, “I'm all shaky. Is this about... you know - us?”
“Gotta be,” Abby said cheerfully. “I'm not scared. And by the way, you were brilliant Gar, shouting ‘Fire' like you did. Anyway, there must be thousands of fingerprints on that door. If I have to I'll tell the truth for once, they can't - “
“Come on you four!” It was Jones, staring in their direction. They jumped guiltily, even Abby, and moved towards the steps, still clustered closely together. They went in silence across the foyer - like prisoners going to be shot, Matt thought, glancing at the door they had gone through on Friday night then quickly looking down again.
Teachers ushered them into the hall and they followed the person in front as row after row of chairs filled.
Now there was a tense silence. The last arrivals had shuffled along to their seats, clutching their school bags, the teachers were standing like sentries along the side walls and everyone was looking towards the stage, waiting eagerly to find out what was going on.
The next thing to come, surprisingly, turned out to be the caretaker. He had his usual brown coat on, but he was carrying his cap, for once. He came from behind them, down the centre aisle, with a policeman beside him. Matthew's knees were shaking against each other and his mouth was as dry as paper.
There was a giggle and a rustle behind and he turned, only to turn back quickly when he met Roy's glittering eyes, two rows back.
Now the caretaker and the policeman - a tall, thin young man with a fair moustache who was holding his peaked hat by his side in a stiff, straight arm - were walking very slowly back up the aisle.
They paused at the second row and the policeman spoke quietly to the caretaker who nodded, then looked carefully all along the row of faces on one side of the aisle, and then along those on the other side of him.
He shook his head and the two men moved up another line of chairs. Again they looked, but still with no result. They repeated the inspection, looking along row after row of motionless students. Now it was the turn of the row in which Matthew and Gary and Abby and Cherry sat.
First he stared along to his left, away from them, then he looked along their row.
He had a miserable face; it looked rubbery, Matthew always thought, like a mask. But now suddenly it changed. It smiled. The little eyes nearly disappeared as the red-veined cheeks plumped up with the effort.
With a swooping, sick feeling, Matthew was sure he was being picked out. Then relief took over as he realised the stare was going past him. Now the caretaker was muttering to the policeman and putting his hand up to the back of his head. Mr Pearson, the Headmaster, was coming down off the platform to join the two in the gangway.
The silence hurt.
The Head spoke to the caretaker and the caretaker nodded hard two or three times and answered him. Again his hand went to the back of his head.
Mr Pearson pointed along the row and said “You there, the girl with the pony-tail. Abigail? Yes you. Would you go to my room please.”
While Abby, white-faced, stumbled along the row, people squirming back to make it easy for her, there was still a quivering silence. Nearly everyone was enjoying the thrill and the drama, especially as they hadn't been picked out. The silence seemed to go on for ever, once the footsteps of Abby, the Head, the policeman, the caretaker, had passed through the doors at the back.
People were just beginning to wriggle and shuffle when the door swished open again.
The Head's voice said clearly, “Cherrylin, Gary, Matthew. Come this way please.”
They unstuck themselves from their seats, straightened their tensed bodies and went, up the long gangway, past all the staring blobs of faces, through the swing doors, along the cold passageway, and right to the door of the Head's room where the policeman stood waiting. They were made to stand in a line outside and forbidden to speak to each other. Cherry was the first to be called in, while Gary and Matthew stood shivering and waiting their turn. It was terrible.
15. I'm scared John. It's horrible
Like Abby said she would, we told them everything, John... How those two said we had to do it... How we used to do things with them but we didn't want to any more. We told their names and everything... They believed us because we all said the same. We said how we ran away and how Gary stopped to shout to the caretaker...
Matthew snuggled down lower on the bed.
I was half afraid to come out tonight. After we told them it was Karen and Roy who lit the fire we had to wait while they got them out of the hall. It was horrible when they came in... They wouldn't speak at all... Not even when the policeman asked where they were on Friday night - he knew anyway ‘cos we'd told him. All they did was stare at us, and Roy kept sort of smiling, but he wouldn't say anything. Nothing at all. It was real bad...
Matthew squirmed at the memory, then carefully pulled the sheet back up to his brother's shoulder. John had a hospital nightshirt on. It was white with blue stripes - pale, as if it had been washed a thousand times.
John's face was as pale as the cloth, and his breathing was slow and slight. Eyes closed, he lay there, face upwards, giving no sign that Matthew's words were doing anything but bounce back off ears that were totally deaf to everything in the world - even to his little brother's distress.
Johnny, please wake up soon. If they don't send them away they're going to get us. When Mr Pearson said we could go, you should have seen the look Roy gave us. But we all had to go back after and he didn't half tell us off. He didn't even say anything to Gary for giving the warning. He can't stop them getting us either. You should have seen the way Roy looked at us... John... John... you've got to wake up and tell me what to do... We need you ”
Again he wriggled on the bed. Pushing the collar of his jacket from his ear, he rubbed the edge of his hand across his eyes.
See, they're off school now. Suspended. That means they'll be around when we go home. We're working out how to get to the house all different ways... That was the only thing we didn't tell them - none of us did - we didn't say a word about the house... But I'm frightened John. It's horrible. I keep looking round me all the time - ”
Then the door swished open, and he jumped guiltily as the hospital noises surged briefly in. Sharon came straight to the bed.
“Are you OK Matt?” she asked gently, looking into his troubled eyes.
Matthew looked away, back to the white face on the pillow.
Nearly he said, “Do you think he can hear me?” and then, “He'll never wake up,” but he stopped the words just before they came out of his mouth, and swallowed them down with a gulp. Saying bad things might make them come true.
“It's all right,” he said. Nurse Sharon couldn't help him, as nice as she was.
“'Bye Johnny,” he muttered, and slid to the floor.
The nurse straightened the covers, looking intently for a mom
ent into the pale, still face. Then she lead Matthew out of the room, one hand resting comfortingly on his shoulder.
He said goodbye to her and went down the stairs, sliding his hand along the smooth wood of the rail. As his feet thumped from step to step, the stupid words kept time with them, and his mind was a jumble of feelings and worries.
By the time he was passing the hospital shop and the reception desk, he was frightening himself by imagining Roy finding the house when they were in it. His thoughts were so occupied by following up that awful possibility that he hardly looked where he was going as he pushed out through the hospital's outer doors and made his way round the driveway.
That was why it was such a total shock when his wrist was grabbed and his arm wrenched up behind his back. He screamed as the pain burned from his elbow to his shoulder, but a hard hand clamped over his mouth.
Through tear-filled eyes he saw Karen's mean face swimming in front of him, and he heard Roy's smiling tones from behind.
“Hello little Matty. Fancy finding you here. And all by yourself too. Let's go in that nice quiet shed over there... We want to say thank you for what you've done to us, don't we Karen, and you can tell us where your little hidey-hole is, as well.”
This time Karen didn't even giggle. She was leading the way.
16. they're going to kill me. They don't care
It wasn't really a shed, just a three-sided enclosure with a corrugated roof, dusky at the end of the double row of empty bike racks.
Matthew was forced along then turned so that his back was grinding against the far wall. He looked up, shaking, at the black silhouettes of Karen and Roy. His stomach was melting with fear as he thought, “They're going to kill me. They don't care. They don't care about anything.”
But even as he thought it, there was a noise outside and something large filled the entrance. It was a bulky figure, pushing a bike and panting.
“Hello! What are you lot up to? I bet it's drugs or glue! You come on out of there at once,” squawked a loud familiar voice.
Matthew's fear shot him into life. He took advantage of the interruption to tear his arm out of Roy's grip and dive between him and Karen. Scraping his leg on a pedal, he squeezed past the fat nurse and her bike and raced out of the shed, along the path, and down the side of the main building.
Behind him there was a volley of squawking and screeching, followed by a crash that told him he had a moment to find safety. He swerved round the first corner he came to, found another building blocking his way so he went round that, then the pavement ended and he hurtled on, first over cut grass then into a rougher area with weeds and hummocks.
Stumbling and nearly falling, his breath coming in great gasps, he had to pause then and think what to do next. Karen and Roy would have expected him to make for the road, he guessed. Now he found himself looking out over the lights of the town, in twinkling rows, spread beneath him. He understood that he was at the back of the hospital on waste ground, too steep for building perhaps. And there, away down the slope, was the dark little block, with only one window showing a light, which was the bricked-up terrace where the other three would be waiting, and where there would be safety at last.
Careful now, rather than panicky, he picked his way over the tussocks of grass and round the end of a fallen wall, the remains of a farm. Then he jumped a small, soggy ditch, nearly sliding down the muddy bank, and stepped out onto a little lane that lead back into the houses.
Hugging the shadows, he dived down the first backway he came to, across the next road with a quick look up and down it first, waiting for a moment in the shadow of a tree as a car flashed past - feeling a bit like someone in a TV film - then into another backway that lead to the alley where the houses stood, awaiting the day when the couple at the end would give up and go, and the bulldozers could come and finish them off for ever.
Quickly he made his way along the back of the row, and began to pick a path through the rubbish and over the fallen fences. Once he was in a pool of safe-feeling darkness, he looked at his watch. The green numbers said 18.48. Was that all! Seven o'clock was when they had arranged to meet, leaving time for homework... Cherry liked homework!... and for finding ways of getting there unseen.
Matthew found the spot where they had hidden on Friday. The piece of fence was as they had left it, over the manhole cover. Pushing it to one side, just in case of emergencies, he squatted down with his back against a lump of broken brickwork and took a deep breath. His knees trembled once he took his weight off them, and his breath shuddered in his chest. He hoped the others would come soon.
17. a weird figure appeared
Very slowly, five minutes passed. Down among the debris it was too quiet. Traffic noise from the main road was only a distant murmur. Matthew shifted uncomfortably, but the masonry just dug into a different part of his back. It was darker now and the heaps of rubbish seemed to float on their own shadows. Again he looked at his watch, but before he had time to read the figures a scrambling sound made him glance up sharply.
His heart leapt and his muscles tensed, ready to catapult himself down the coal hole, but the two faces that appeared above the pile were all right.
“Ow!” Abby squeaked. “You made me jump, Matt. I thought it was a Zombie!”
“Look again,” said Cherry. “It is a Zombie. Come on puss, don't be afraid of the nasty old Zombie.”
As she clambered awkwardly down, Matthew could see that she was clutching a skinny ginger cat, close to her sweater. The animal looked moth-eaten to Matthew, but it seemed contented enough.
“First one for the collection,” she told him, lovingly stroking its mangy fur. “I bet someone lost it when they had to move from here. It looks half-starved, poor little scrap.”
“Looks half bald to me,” Matthew said, feeling better now that he had some company. “Needs a wig. You'll get fleas off it and the Nit Nurse'll have a fit.”
He was going to ask her what she meant by “collection”, and tell them about Roy and Karen, but Abby was talking.
“We've got an ace way here, Matt. Cherry comes down my road with her brother when he's going to work. Then we tell my Aunty that we're going to the library to do our project - well, this is a project, sort of - then we put our books in the shed and go out over our fence - ”
“Straight into next-door's compost heap! I did, anyway,” Cherry broke in.
“Then over their fence, and the next one... all the way down the row. And then the best bit - ”
Cherry interrupted again. “The end bit's brilliant. We get over the last one on the edge of the street and there's a big advert board. You come out behind it. It's a bit of a squeeze and a bit yucky but - ”
“Then we wait ‘til no-one's about,” Abby finished, “and we leg it here. It's wicked!”
“I might have a job carrying all the stuff,” Cherry said, but before Matthew could ask what stuff she meant, Abby said, “I managed all right, just about.”
Matthew saw, then, that she had a bag looped over her shoulder.
“What's in there?” he asked.
“Oh, just some things. Light bulbs especially. I got three.”
“Three!” Cherry exclaimed. “I couldn't get even one. You didn't just nick ‘em?”
Abby said, “ ‘Course I didn't. I've only borrowed them. I didn't tell any fibs, either. I just took out the two in my room - the ceiling one and the lamp - and told Aunty that I didn't have any light in my room. That was true. She said, “Oh dear, have both bulbs gone?” and I said yes. That was true too, because they had both gone - well, they have now, anyway. She's got a box full of new ones, ‘cos she's different from me - she doesn't like the dark - so I took two new ones for my bedroom and borrowed an extra one as well.”
“Did you bring any?” Cherry asked Matthew, her face pressed against purring, patchy fur. “And how did you get here?”
Yet again, before he could start to tell what had happened to him, there was an interruption. A crunch was followed by
a thump, then a panting sound from the darkness beyond the brick pile.
As they looked up, startled, a weird figure appeared, silhouetted above them.
It looked like a small, fat old woman with a hood over her head, a long skirt and a glimpse of amazingly baggy tights. She carried a shopping basket.
“Hello,” she puffed, and it was the round face of Gary that was beaming out at them from the shadows under the anorak hood.
Cherry gave a crow of laughter that made the cat leap from her arms. “What's all that for?” she spluttered.
“It's my disguise,” Gary explained seriously. “I go down our backway, then up Reed Street. It's dark and I thought they wouldn't recognise me.”
Cherry couldn't repress another snort of laughter - it was the tights that were killing her - but Matthew was suddenly anxious.
“Sh!” he hissed. “Let's go down now. They are after us. They got me.”
Before they could ask what he meant, he slid feet-first into the dark hole, balancing carefully on the coal heap beneath, then going down onto firmer ground, to stand still in the cold, petrol-smelling dampness and steady the others as they came heaving and crunching down beside him.
Gary said, “Hold my basket someone, while I shut the door,” and as an invisible hand took it from him he struggled back to reach out and slide the fence panel over the hole.
Matthew took the torch out of his pocket and switched it on, keeping the light pointing to the floor. Something scuttled away into a corner, and a yowl and a flash of ginger in the torch beam showed that Cherry's cat had come down with them and found some old enemies to chase.
“It's real spooky,” whispered Abby appreciatively. “Like a haunted dungeon. I bet there's chains on the walls, and hanging bones, and stains and - ”
Nightmares in the Dreamhouse Page 4