Grass

by Cathy MacPhail

  ‘Have I got wings?’ I asked him when he was in the car.

  He tutted. ‘It’s your cloak. You’re a superhero.’

  ‘And what’s my special power?’

  He didn’t hesitate. He had obviously thought today’s special power through thoroughly. ‘You can put out fires with your eyes – like this.’

  His eyes went wide and started rolling around in his head. I copied him exactly.

  ‘Like this?’

  My dad was laughing.

  ‘I’m Fireboy, and you’re Fireman,’ David informed me.

  ‘Look for fires on the way home,’ my dad said, laughing. ‘Fireman and Fireboy are on their way!’

  But it wasn’t fires we saw on the way home. It was something much more ominous – just round the corner from our house, a whitewashed message that couldn’t be missed.

  GRASSES DIE HERE

  g

  10

  It was meant for me. It had to be meant for me. I was sure of it. A warning. That writing hadn’t been there yesterday. I would have spotted it. Couldn’t have missed it. Those giant whitewashed letters.

  GRASSES DIE HERE

  As soon as we got in the door I was sick again.

  ‘I think I should call the doctor,’ my mum said.

  ‘Don’t be daft. He’s only got a wee bug. Let his body fight it off itself.’

  That was always my dad’s opinion. Fight it off yourself. Don’t rely on pills.

  He was right. I didn’t need an antibiotic. All I needed was to know that Armour had been arrested or that he’d forgotten all about me.

  Sean was on the phone later that night with his exciting news and that only made things worse for me. ‘Cops are just away. Asking questions. They’re going round all the doors about here. “Did we see anything suspicious.”’ Then he laughed. ‘Up here? We see something suspicious every day. You should have heard my dad. “What are you going round the houses for? Everybody knows you’ve only got two suspects . . . Armour and Nelis.”’ Sean did a great impression of his dad’s gruff voice. He almost had me laughing.

  ‘Is that what everybody thinks?’ I knew they did but I had to have the reassurance.

  ‘Course they do. They even asked us if we’d seen any of them last night.’

  ‘Would you have told them if you had?’

  He let out a bellyful of laughter. ‘Are you kiddin’, Leo? I like living. We’re keeping our mouths shut. As long as they’re only killing each other, that’s what my dad says.’

  That was better than an antibiotic. Sean wouldn’t tell either. He’d keep his mouth shut too. And he was right. Armour had only shot McCrae, not some poor innocent guy who didn’t deserve it.

  ‘Hey, Leo, I’m just thinking. You must have been on your way home when the shooting happened. Did you see anything suspicious?’

  Now was the perfect time to blurt out the truth to my mate. Swear him to secrecy. Sean would never break a promise, and I would have someone to talk to about it.

  Yet in the same second I remembered those letters again, written on the wall.

  GRASSES DIE HERE

  If I told Sean he might – without thinking, without meaning to – one day let something slip to his dad. We would all be in danger then.

  Where did the lie come from? And when did I learn to lie so easily?

  ‘I was well on the way home when that must have happened. On the bus. Only suspicious thing I saw was some guy paying his fare with foreign money.’

  I almost believed it myself.

  The knot in my stomach disappeared after Sean’s call. I felt better. I’d done the right thing not telling him. Sean was my mate. I couldn’t put him in danger just because I needed someone to talk to. Armour by now would know I wasn’t going to grass him up. His secret was safe with me. He’d forget about me.

  I went back to school next day. Miracle recovery, my dad told me. My mum said it had been a twenty-four-hour bug and she hoped David didn’t get it. In answer David ran into the downstairs toilet and pretended to be sick. Told you he always wants what I’ve got.

  Over the next couple of days I almost forgot about the shooting. I even stopped having nightmares about it. It became almost like a scary movie I’d seen – not real at all.

  Then one night I woke up. Cold sweat. My first thought.

  Mint Imperials.

  My Mint Imperials. I had left them at the scene of the crime. Not one. Not two. But the whole blinking bag of them. They had betrayed me the night of the shooting. They could betray me again.

  The police were looking for witnesses. They would find my mints. If they were doing their job properly they should have found them.

  Everyone knew how much I loved my Mint Imperials. I imagined someone mentioning that to the cops.

  ‘I know a boy – sell his soul for a Mint Imperial. Leo McCabe.’ Then they would take the mints to forensics. My fingerprints would be on them, my DNA. They would trace them back to me.

  I heard a car in the distance, coming closer. Heading for my house, I was sure. I held my breath . . . but the car passed on another road. The sound faded into the distance.

  It wasn’t the police. Not this time. But it would be. I’d seen enough cop shows to know you couldn’t escape. They’d find me.

  They always find you.

  Those Mint Imperials were going to be the death of me.

  And I fell back to sleep eventually thinking, my mum was right. She is always warning me that sweets aren’t good for you.

  Things went back to a kind of normality. Sean came to my house for his tea and I even went to his. No risk there. Dad picked me up and we went nowhere near McCrae’s house. Couldn’t get near it anyway.

  ‘Police have got it cordoned off,’ my dad said.

  And for a second I remembered Armour and the blood and the gun.

  And Veronika Kuschinska smiled at me.

  Did I say that? I don’t care whether she smiles at me or not. I only try to be nice to her because she’s new here. But Sean insisted I blushed all over when she smiled. ‘Even your spots blushed,’ he said.

  ‘I did not! You’re winding me up. I must have a rash from that bug I had.’

  Maybe I was still blushing when I walked home from school that day. I certainly wasn’t concentrating. I must try to be cool, that’s what I was thinking. And blushing in front of a lassie just isn’t cool.

  I turned the corner and walked right into the Bissett Boys.

  They were standing in front of me, blocking my path. There was no way they could miss seeing me. My mind immediately started to work out an escape route – back the way I’d come or over the wall and through the back greens of the tenements.

  I held my breath because I knew they were too close. They turned when they heard my footsteps behind them. Too close. They could reach out and grab me from here. I wouldn’t have time to run. I began to panic.

  And do you know what happened?

  They were the ones who stepped back from me.

  Both of them.

  They saw me and moved back and there was something in their eyes I couldn’t understand. They didn’t say a word to each other, as if they had talked together about what they would do already, knew in advance what they would do if they saw me. They just took a few steps away from me and without saying a word they broke into a run and left me.

  Puzzled.

  Amazed.

  The Bissett Boys had had a chance to pulverise me – to break me into little pieces – and they’d run off instead.

  Maybe they’d decided to turn over a new leaf.

  Maybe they’d found religion.

  Maybe they’d left the family brain cell at home.

  I hurried home myself in case they changed their min
ds. And it was only as I closed my front door behind me that I realised what the look in their eyes had been.

  Fear.

  g

  11

  Why would the Bissett Boys leave me alone? They’d never done that before. I had always been an easy target for them. They’d been bold enough to follow me to my door, even though they knew my mum and dad would be there.

  Now, tonight, they had stepped away from me, turned their backs on me and looked at me with something in their eyes I was sure had been fear.

  I must be mistaken.

  I mean, how would I know what fear in their eyes would look like?

  Yet they had turned away from me as if they were afraid.

  I was sure I was right. They were scared of me.

  I was desperate to tell Sean this new development, see what he thought.

  What stopped me? Because I didn’t call him, didn’t even tell him next day at school. And he knew I was holding something back.

  ‘What is wrong with you, Leo?’ he asked.

  I wanted to tell him, even began babbling something to him. But I found the words just wouldn’t come.

  ‘You’re in a dream. Have you got something on your mind?’

  I didn’t have to answer him.

  Sean supplied the answer himself. ‘Dreaming of Veronika, is that it?’

  At that moment Veronika had just walked by. A couple of other girls had made friends with her. She was arm in arm with them, smiling at something they were saying. The other two began to giggle but Veronika still only smiled. Like that Mona Lisa lassie. Did she understand what they were saying? Her English was really good – almost perfect in fact. She probably spoke better English than me. But she did sometimes miss a joke, didn’t quite get our humour.

  My eyes followed her.

  Sean watched me. He laughed, put his arm round my shoulder. ‘Aye, it’s Veronika,’ he said. Satisfied he was right.

  Let him think it was Veronika who was on my mind. I could never tell him who it really was.

  Every time there was a knock on the door, every time the phone rang, my heart stopped. My mind was in constant turmoil, as if it was caught in a twister. Going from graffiti on a wall to Mint Imperials and now to the Bissett Boys.

  And still the gossip round the town was all about the shooting. Headlines about it in the local paper every night.

  I’M GLAD HE’S DEAD

  Mr Sheridan, the man whose daughter had died, was never out of the paper. He had hated McCrae with a vengeance for what he’d done to his daughter.

  Nelis’s photo was in the paper too. Emerging from the police station sneering, holding up his hand in a victory salute.

  THEY’VE GOT NOTHING ON ME

  Those were the words he’d spoken after being taken in for questioning.

  And Armour. I froze when I saw his photo staring at me from the front page. Couldn’t help reading the story. He had a cast-iron alibi, the paper reported.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ my dad said when he read it. ‘He’s probably got a few cast-iron alibis lined up.’

  But there were still no leads.

  ‘Someone knows something,’ a police spokesman was reported as saying. ‘But they’re too afraid to come forward. They have no reason to be afraid. We will protect them. Be sure of it.’

  Aye, right! The police must know that was rubbish. They couldn’t protect you. If I came forward, I’d be a dead man or my whole family would have to go on the witness protection programme. We would have to hide for ever. Change identities. No way.

  Sean came home with me one night after school and my dad was reading the evening paper. ‘Look at this!’ he said, showing us another headline.

  VICTIM WAS LIKE A FATHER TO US

  His finger almost went through the page. ‘People in that street are saying McCrae was like a father to them. A man they could all rely on. He made them feel safe. Children were in and out of his house all day, for advice. For help.’

  Sean laughed. ‘For drugs.’

  My dad nodded grimly. ‘Aye, probably for drugs.’

  ‘What makes them say things like that, Mr McCabe?’ Sean asked.

  ‘They’re scared of him,’ my dad said. ‘He’s dead and they’re still scared of him.’

  ‘Well, my dad says at least now he’s dead the place is free of him.’

  But my dad didn’t agree with that.

  ‘No. The other two will be fighting over his territory – just wait. There’ll be more violence.’

  Sean loved the idea of that. He pushed me into my room. ‘Gang warfare! Exciting, isn’t it? It’s like living inside one of our computer games.’

  But I couldn’t get excited about it the way I would have done just a few days ago. Because I’d seen McCrae’s blood spraying out over that doorstep. Real blood. Real death. Too real.

  This wasn’t a game. It was real life. And I was in the middle of it.

  Would I ever stop feeling like this? I woke up every morning thinking this time it would fade. The memory would fade. I would put it behind me. But something always happened to bring it right back at me. And Sean saw the difference in me.

  ‘You need cheering up, son. You’ve been a bit down lately,’ he said, as if he was my old grandad. ‘Who says we’ll go into town on Saturday and get ourselves a new game?’

  It sounded good to me. What would I do without Sean? I met him at the bus stop and we spent ages choosing exactly the right game – yet another Zombie game. Zombie Flesh-eaters this time. Then we went for a burger. It was late afternoon and we were walking through the mall, laughing and looking forward to a Saturday night with the Zombies, when I saw him.

  Armour.

  If I’d noticed him sooner I would have pulled Sean into one of the shops. Avoided him completely. But I saw him too late. He was almost on us. Striding through the mall as if he owned it. His nickname came back to me. He was The Man, and at that moment he looked the part. He was flanked by two of his henchmen. Big hard-looking guys, like a couple of sumo wrestlers.

  My mouth went so dry my lips stuck together. I prayed he wouldn’t notice me. I tried not to look at him. Kept my own eyes glued to the ground.

  It was his shoes I saw coming closer – his shiny leather shoes. He would walk past me in a moment, probably hadn’t even seen me anyway. That’s what I kept telling myself.

  Yet at that last moment I had to look. Couldn’t stop myself. My eyes were drawn to his. And just when I was sure he hadn’t even noticed me, he looked straight at me. He smiled.

  And then, he winked.

  g

  12

  He was past me in a moment. I didn’t look back. My eyes immediately darted to Sean but he had noticed nothing. Too taken up with the PlayStations in W. H. Smith’s window. I don’t think he even noticed Armour coming towards us anyway.

  Armour had winked at me. With that smile on his face, a smile that said he was . . . pleased with me. A wink that said ‘Thanks’. For keeping quiet. For not saying a word. For zipping my lip.

  I walked taller along the mall. I know I did. Shoulders back, my spine straight, striding forward, like a soldier.

  I felt . . . dead chuffed.

  I felt . . . good.

  The fear seemed to drop from my shoulders like a wet coat.

  It was at that moment I knew I had done the right thing. I had protected myself, and my family. Armour wouldn’t come blasting his way into my house. That friendly wink had proved it.

  I had done the right thing not telling Sean as well. He would have given it all away when he saw Armour walking towards us. Without wanting to, without even realising it, Sean would have given himself away.

  I had protected him too.

  And anyway, why should I tell? Wasn’t
everyone saying they were only killing each other? Armour had shot one of the bad guys. One less in the town.

  ‘You’re talking to yourself, do you know that, pal?’ Sean pulled me round.

  Had I been talking to myself?

  ‘And you’ve got a big stupid grin on your face.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Dreaming of Veronika, are you?’

  Veronika, with her long blonde hair and her sea-green eyes. I didn’t argue with him. Better he thought I was thinking of her than know the truth.

  ‘Well, you’d better get in there quick, ’cause I heard that Aidan Shaw fancies her as well.’

  ‘Big lanky Aidan Shaw?’ I said. ‘He doesn’t stand a chance next to me.’

  That night I thrashed Sean at Zombie Flesh-eaters. We had a great night at his house. His mum made her speciality spag bol, and Dad came to collect me with David in tow.

  We had a ball on the way home, playing soldiers in the back seat of the car and then superheroes when we got back home.

  I had a dreamless, contented sleep that night. First time since . . . The incident.

  And on Monday things only got better.

  My dad got a job.

  I’d never seen him smile so wide. He waved the letter in my face as soon as I stepped into the kitchen for my breakfast. ‘Your dad’s got a job!’

  He lifted David high in the air and swung him round. My mum looked so happy too. A big daft grin on her face. A moment to remember.

  ‘It’s not a great job,’ he told us over breakfast. ‘It’s just labouring work at the building site. Seems some guy I know suggested me to the foreman. But I always say once you’ve got a job it’s easier to get another.’

  When I went to school Sean knew all about it too. My dad had phoned his dad as soon as he got the letter. ‘Things are definitely getting better, eh?’

  My dad came to collect me after school. David was with him. ‘We’re all going out for a celebration tea. I’m collecting your mum at the hospital.’

  ‘Not even got a wage yet and you’re spending all the money, eh?’

  My dad laughed. ‘It’s OK, your mum’s paying . . . but don’t tell her yet.’