Thirteen

by Tom Hoyle

  But Adam had lost interest in the task. He had the two cleverest people in the class on either side of him—a wonderful opportunity to discover the right answer. He flipped open his textbook to the biology section. There was a picture of a peculiar-looking fish. “That’s you in the morning,” he said to Leo, who chuckled.

  Megan looked at the picture. It did bear a passing resemblance to Leo.

  There was a pause as Adam flipped to a page featuring an octopus. “Hey, Meg—look. This creature’s amazing. It says here it has eight testicles.”

  Megan whacked him with her exercise book. “Tentacles!”

  “I know!”

  Leo laughed, half at Adam, half at Megan. Mr. Rugg didn’t hear, but Jake Taylor did.

  Returning from elsewhere in the room, Jake stopped at the end of the row and yet again punched Leo for no reason.

  Leo pushed his lips together, keen not to antagonize Jake, who walked on.

  Adam frowned and turned around. “Why did you do that?”

  Jake had forgotten about Leo already and was saying something out of the corner of his mouth to the boy on his left. They were laughing in a cold and humorless way. Jake had already turned fourteen and was several inches taller than anyone else; his voice had broken, and he even had the hint of a moustache.

  Adam felt anger stir within him like a deep rippling pool. Why did Jake want to spoil their fun? He stared at Jake and spoke louder: “Why did you do that to Leo?” Leo was one of the good guys, awkward and odd, but good. In need of protection.

  Jake heard Adam over the hubbub of the classroom and raised his middle finger, but subtly, dismissively, as if an automatic, lazy response. He mouthed words at Adam: “Leo is a fat sack. I’ll do what I like.” Then he smirked and nudged his right-hand neighbor, a boy with a square face and gray eyes; they were staring at Megan’s chest as she put her thermometer back in the box.

  Jake’s sniggering and muttering made Adam’s anger more forceful and energetic, a fountain rather than a pool. Jake was unreasonable, nasty. Adam felt as if he was having an allergic reaction.

  Mr. Rugg said something about the experiment, but it was all a haze to Adam. The words One hundred degrees is boiling point stared down from the whiteboard.

  Adam wanted to calm down; he wanted this sudden anger to go away. But it was like gravity—hopeless to resist. He stood up. Five strides later, he had reached Jake and hit him. No one had noticed Adam leave his seat, not even Megan. A single spurt of blood shot out of Jake’s nose and onto the science book on the desk: page twenty-eight was later given an arrow and the words Jake’s blood.

  Jake fell from his chair and everyone else in the room backed away as Adam stood over him. Megan closed her eyes and breathed out deeply.

  Mr. Rugg dashed from the front of the room to restrain Adam. He wasn’t a big man, but he was wiry and probably would have been good in a scrap himself. But the moment had passed for Adam now—his anger evaporated as quickly as it had arrived.

  Jake squealed his innocence from the floor. “I was just getting on with my work and this idiot came over and thumped me. He’s probably broken my nose.” He wiped his face and held out his hands as if in surrender. “What have I ever done to him? He needs to get his head examined. Typical—no wonder his parents gave him away.”

  Adam said nothing. His head felt as if it was full of porridge. He had never done anything like this before.

  Mr. Rugg marched Adam out of the room. Mr. Sterling, the deputy head, was just passing, as he always seemed to be when least wanted. He looked through the glass strip in the window and shook his head at the situation. Jake was inside, fingers prodding his nose. A group had gathered around him: boys asking him if he would get revenge; girls chuckling and pointing. Sterling didn’t try to give advice, nor did he ask for an explanation. He treated everyone equally rudely, but he was rarely actually mean, and never unfair.

  Mr. Sterling slowly massaged the dark smudges under his eyes. “Adam Grant. It’s a disgrace that one of the smallest boys in the class has floored the biggest. And especially a boy as warmhearted as Jake Taylor. I’m sure you understand how disgusted I am.”

  Adam wasn’t sure. He thought there was a compliment tangled up in Mr. Sterling’s reprimand, and maybe the whole thing was sarcastic. It was always hard to tell with Sterling. Though what he said next was very clear:

  “You’re suspended. Until Monday.”

  Adam nodded and looked down.

  Mr. Sterling leaned forward and spoke only slightly above a whisper. “Don’t get caught being so rash again.”

  Adam certainly heard an emphasis on the words get caught.

  And that was it. Mr. Sterling strode off. Adam had two days off school.

  Megan’s garden was back to back with Adam’s, separated only by bushes and a rarely used path that ran between the houses.

  They had been friends since before they could remember, and people often joked about how they were like an old married couple. Adam had never previously thought about Megan like that, though recently he had begun to notice things about her that made him uncomfortable. Like how her hair fell against her cheek, and how her swimsuit clung to her. This was the one subject he couldn’t talk to Megan about, and he pushed it to a corner of his mind.

  That evening Megan appeared through the bushes that separated the gardens.

  “He’s grounded,” said Adam’s adopted dad, who was putting away the mower. “He hit a boy at school and has been suspended.”

  Megan knew: she was in the same class, after all. “Please, Mr. Grant, can I see him for a second?”

  Adam’s dad sighed. “Okay. But not for long.”

  Megan dashed in and ran up the stairs. She didn’t knock. Adam lay on his bed in his usual blue shorts and tatty T-shirt, tapping a drumstick on his forehead.

  Megan went to the window and half-sat on the ledge. “You are stupid. Jake says that he’s going to get you,” she said.

  “And hello to you,” Adam said, sitting up. “Look, Meg, I couldn’t help it. Leo never does anyone any harm. And Jake is a—prat.” He wanted to say something worse, but Megan rarely swore.

  Adam wanted to explain that Jake had also been looking at her, but he couldn’t find the words to explain it in a way that didn’t hint at jealousy.

  “I have to write a letter—can you believe it? To Jake! Screw that. I’d rather be expelled.”

  Megan turned and looked out of the window. “Just write the letter. We all know it doesn’t mean anything. You know teachers have to make it look like something’s being done.” She glanced unthinkingly at the bushes at the bottom of the garden. “Come on, we can write it tog—”

  She stopped. Then her words came out very slowly and deliberately. “There’s someone at the bottom of the garden, in the bushes by the path. He’s looking up here.”

  Adam tapped the drumstick from knee to knee. “Oh, it’s probably that lunatic from two doors down looking for his cat again.”

  “No, Adam. He looks much younger. And this guy’s trying not to be seen. He’s by that old milk crate.”

  By the time Adam reached the window the hooded figure had gone, but it was not the first time the house had been watched. Nor would it be the last.

  4

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

  Darkness lurked in the tunnel, pressing against the walls, searching for glimmers of light to choke.

  A faint rattling came from the rails, then a high-pitched whine echoed closer. The rattle became thunder, the whine a screech. Louder and louder—a mechanical thunder of wheels and carriages. A tube train was on its way.

  Nick stood near the exit from the tunnel, backpack hung over one shoulder, school tie short and wide, pants low enough to reveal the red Hugo Boss brand on his boxers. He stood in the same place every morning, trying to get a seat in the last car. His mind was fuzzy with the early-morning thoughts of a boy who was three months shy of his fourteenth birthday.

  Rats scampered away from the o
ncoming train, trampling over one another to hide from the wall of metal that swept away the darkness and replaced it with a blaze of lit cars.

  Wires dangled from Nick’s ears. “Hurry up,” he said into the space over the track. “Come on.”

  The train hurtled toward the station: a twenty-five miles-per-hour wall of metal.

  On the platform a hundred people stood in near silence. Arrivals came every two minutes, announced by a breeze from the tunnel as air was pushed ahead of the train.

  A city banker stood to the left of Nick. She did not know that she should have been looking carefully at what was happening around her. But the mornings were always the same: drowsy people heading to work, iPods and iPads, scruffy kids, free newspapers. It was just another day.

  The train raced closer, its rumble becoming a rattle, its light just visible on the walls at the bend in the tunnel before the station.

  To Nick’s right was a girl, slightly older than him, perhaps fifteen. She had dark brown hair and blue eyes. Not ordinary eyes; deep oceans of eyes. He admired the scatter of freckles on her nose.

  Nick pulled out his phone to have an excuse to glance down and to the right. She wore white sneakers with no socks. He noticed smooth legs and a short black skirt. She was more than pretty—she looked as if she knew things. Things he wanted to know.

  “Hi,” he said, glancing away for a second.

  “Hello,” she mouthed, the sound hidden by the approaching train. Nick only saw the movement of her tongue and lips.

  Behind Nick were a man in a suit and a blond boy of about sixteen. The man carried a leather-bound book; the boy’s hands hung idly at his side. Like everyone else on the platform they gazed ahead, staring at the tunnel wall and sometimes the adverts. They glanced at the arrivals board that now warned, STAND BACK. TRAIN APPROACHING.

  No one thought of murder, or of blood.

  The train thundered closer and closer, a fist of metal and air and noise. It sped out of the tunnel, the driver only half aware of his actions as he prepared to slow.

  The man shuffled to Nick’s left, next to the city banker, and the girl moved a little closer on his right. Nick felt his stomach flip pleasantly as she brushed against him. The boy, arms still limp, had stepped forward to stand immediately behind Nick, who, in the excitement and confusion of girl and train, knew nothing.

  The boy pushed out his arms, and Nick was sent into the air over the track. The space was immediately filled with the train.

  The driver saw a shape and heard the crack of his window before he understood that the blur was a body. There was a screech of brakes, then several seconds of slowly spinning silence.

  Next came screaming and crying. People turned away, united in shock, too late to help. Not that Nick could be helped.

  Blood dripped onto a crisp packet that lay between the tracks.

  In the confusion, a man in a smart suit, a boy with blond hair and a pretty girl in a short black skirt left the station—unhurried, calm and professional. They had been watching Nick for a long time.

  He was the eleventh boy to be killed by The People.

  5

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

  Adam awoke. A memory of Jake clutching his bleeding nose jumped into his head. He felt depressed and dragged his covers over his head. Then he leaned across, pulled back the curtains and looked toward Megan’s house. Her bedroom faced his, although they were some distance apart. No sign of her this morning. But, he realized, with a pair of binoculars he could probably see in.

  “Adam, get dressed. I can hear you’re awake.” It was his mum.

  He went down for breakfast. The good news was that he was allowed out with Megan that afternoon.

  Before that, there were jobs as a punishment.

  First his dad: “Adam—it hasn’t rained for nearly two weeks. . . .”

  So he had to water the garden. He actually enjoyed this, as the hose didn’t reach the far end, which meant sending a snake of water over improbable distances. He held the hose between his legs and said, “Champion pisser—look, no hands!” until vigorous banging on the window behind him made him stop.

  Then his mum: “The washing machine has finished its second load. . . .”

  So he had to put clothes on the line. It was boring and fiddly, but the sun was out and he could hear the radio playing some good tunes through the open patio door.

  Then Megan appeared through the bushes at the bottom of the garden. She ran up the garden and stood in front of Adam’s parents with her hands behind her back, looking completely innocent, more like she was eight years old than just turned fourteen.

  “Hello, Mr. Grant. Hello, Mrs. Grant. Is it still okay if we go to Paradise Fields?”

  After they left the house, their conversation was mostly about the fight:

  “I bet he won’t try to hassle me again.”

  “I bet he’ll try to kill you.”

  And a few other things:

  “I will admit to liking Cheryl Cole. Everyone does, Meg!”

  “Adam, even you can tell that new guy on X Factor is way fitter than Harry Styles!”

  Adam was his usual lively self, turning toward Megan and smiling, his arms waving around as if he was a puppet with a drunken operator.

  Lost in conversation, they didn’t really notice the scruffy teenager on the bench at the corner. He was part of the scenery, like a tree or a passing car. Adam was looking ahead, wondering if Asa would be outside Spar as he had promised.

  So they did not notice the boy hiding his stained hoodie behind the bench and following them, at a distance of about a hundred yards, all the way to the shops.

  Mr. Rawley’s Corner Shop had the best collection of sweets in the area, and was regularly targeted by kids, who nicked their favorites when Mr. Rawley wasn’t looking—even Adam had taken a handful on a couple of occasions, though he’d felt guilty both times.

  Adam and Megan went in with Asa, who was bragging about his performance on Call of Duty and FIFA and trying to explain to Adam how to get around Internet filters. Megan was more interested in finding the type of licorice that went around in swirls. While they chatted, the bell jangled and in walked the boy from the bench; he went to an aisle near the back, where he put small items in a basket. Unnoticed.

  Megan didn’t recognize him as the person who had been in the bushes. Equally, he was uninterested in her—or only indirectly interested. Asa was of little consequence to him. It was Adam he watched, even as they left the shop and walked up the street.

  As soon as they reached the park, mouths full of sweets, Leo came running over. “Jake’s here and he wants a scrap. He says that only girls sneak up on people in a fight.”

  Megan sighed.

  Leo continued, voice like a tolling bell, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t think you can get out of this.”

  In the middle of the park was a field, and in the middle of the field was Jake, with three of his mates.

  Adam swore. After a brief pause, he said, “Stay here, Meg. I can’t avoid him forever.”

  Insults and swearing drifted across the park toward Adam. Adam couldn’t make it all out, but “orphan” and “complete knob” were certainly near the end.

  Megan put her hand on Adam’s arm. “He’s really not worth it.”

  He pushed her arm away.

  Megan sighed again as Adam strode toward Jake.

  Megan, Asa and Leo all wanted to see Adam beat Jake, but it looked like an unequal contest. Adam was six inches shorter and had a smaller frame, though he was all muscle. Still, he threw himself at Jake and grappled bravely for a short while, landing a punch or two. Then the pair fell to the ground and Jake’s weight winded Adam. A punch just below Adam’s belly button followed. Finally, to make his revenge and dominance clear, Jake pushed Adam’s face hard into the ground and held it there.

  Adam should have stayed still. Everyone could see that it was over. But anger buzzed in him like a thousand wasps and as soon as he was released he
threw himself on Jake again. Jake reeled as the punches came: chest, face, shoulder, ear, then back to face. He couldn’t recover; couldn’t hit back. Jake retreated to the ground as if looking for somewhere to hide.

  His friends looked on, dumb spectators.

  Megan yelled for Adam to stop. Leo and Asa bellowed for him to continue.

  Adam heard nothing. “Leave me alone. And leave Leo alone,” he shouted in Jake’s face.

  Megan ran to him. She pushed her mouth to his ear. “You’ve won. We can go now.”

  Asa and Leo patted Adam on the back, full of admiration. “Sick,” said one; “wow,” said the other.

  Jake never bothered Adam or Leo again. Nor did anyone else at school. “He beat up Jake Taylor,” they said. “He’s hard.” But the kids at Gospel Oak Senior were not the real threat.

  In the corner of the park, between the swings and the roundabout, a seventeen-year-old boy watched Adam intently, wondering when he should make his move.

  6

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

  Somewhere in the distance a gate swung lazily against a post. Trees rustled, hushing the night. Drizzle hung in the air. And a car, with little more than a rumble, crept along the quiet residential street, then stopped.

  Watery yellow light drifted from the street lamps, and a few early autumn leaves pirouetted to the ground. Otherwise, nothing happened and no one moved.

  After a while, a man, a blond-haired boy and a pretty girl stepped out of the car. All three of them were dressed entirely in black. The man carried a leather book.

  They had come to kill.

  Inside the house, a boy slept soundly, head deep in his pillow, surrounded by posters of soccer players, graffiti art and girl bands. On the floor, next to a crumpled and poorly completed math book, were a PlayStation and a belt. A green light winked from the laptop perched on the end of his bed.

  In the distance was the low rumble of a bus pulling away. Here, at 2:00 a.m., everyone slept.

  The three strangers didn’t enter by the gate: gates creaked. Neither did they enter by the front door: front doors were usually double locked and people recognized their sound. Through oily darkness, they went down the side of the house. Their first five paces were on the left of the path—avoiding recycling boxes and bins. Their next three steps were on the right—stepping around an old fence panel. They had rehearsed this many times. Back at the Old School House everything had been taped out in the gym.