by Gill, J. G.
If things weren’t already humiliating enough, they were about to get even worse. I should have clued onto it straightaway, the minute I saw one of the BBTs looking right at me and giggling, but it took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on. Vince had started doing an ape dance behind my back and before I could stop him he reached across and snatched the hairclip from my ponytail. It hurt, too, as he grabbed a whole fistful of my hair with it. He waved the clip in front of my face, before shoving it into his pocket and laughing like a deranged hyena. Now the whole class was looking. I wanted my desk to open its lid and swallow me whole.
“Give it back,” I said to Vince, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible and not draw any more attention to myself.
“Give it back,” he mimicked, while the BBTs laughed maniacally.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Thomas watching with a kind of horrified disbelief and for a moment I forgot all about the hairclip. I turned to see him quickly shovelling his stuff off his desk and into his bag, before heading for the door. He almost made it too, before Vince slid out of nowhere and blocked his exit.
“Ah, not so fast,” he said.
Thomas quivered. The top of his head only just reached the bottom of Vince’s throat and whereas Vince’s shoulders jutted out from the base of his neck like a broad coat-hanger, Thomas’s sloped away like a sheet draped over a piano stool. There was no way he’d be able to take on Vince without being pulverised. I cringed as I saw a mix of humiliation and defeat flash across Thomas’s face. Then, suddenly, a voice piped up from across the other side of the room.
“Let him go Vince. I need a smoke.” Justin was walking towards the door, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket.
“But what if Old Crusty comes back?” said one of the BBTs. “You’ll get seriously done.”
Justin shrugged. “Shit happens.”
As he brushed past Vince, a small gap opened in the doorway and Thomas leapt through before Vince could stop him. The sound of panicked footsteps thundered down the hallway outside, as if Thomas was running for his life.
I glanced at the clock again, willing the big hand to be on the six and the small hand to be on the three. Surely, if there was a God, he’d make the damn bell ring. Then, as if my prayers had suddenly been answered, the gorgeous, ear-splitting sound cracked the air like a pneumatic drill. The BBTs immediately slid off their desks and oozed out of the door faster than wet slime. Vince followed them, but not until he’d had a chance to flash my hairclip at me one more time and smile nastily. It struck me that he had way too many teeth.
I gathered my stuff and crammed it into my bag. My hair was now driving me crazy, falling forward over my face and making it difficult for me to see what I was doing. As I left the classroom the sound of ‘ging-er’ kept replaying in my head, like a buzzing insect had flown into my ear and become trapped. The most frustrating thing was that I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Going to a teacher and complaining about a stolen hairclip was obviously unthinkable. They’d probably just look at me as if I was about three years old. As for telling them what had actually happened, well that was just too mortifying. I hardly wanted to admit to myself, let alone to anyone else, that I was a social pariah. Besides that, it was Vince, the school darling who’d done it, so there was no chance the teachers would even believe me. My only consolation was that it was Thursday and there was only one day of school left to go. Plus, Dad and Arlene would still be at work by the time I got home, so the house would be mine for a couple of hours. Perfect.
I turned out of the school gates and started heading towards the shops. It was the long way home, but I really needed the walk to clear my head. I’d only gone a short way and had paused at Mama Jo’s to watch a four-layered cake stand being squeezed into an impossibly small corner of a window, when I heard a familiar, flap, flap, flap of fast-moving feet approaching from behind. I froze, forcing myself to keep staring at the glass. The last thing I wanted to do was make eye contact with Mary.
I don’t remember when I first became aware of Mary, but I know that she’d lived on the streets of Wiltsdown for as long as anyone could remember. She was often seen around the shops, her wide, startled eyes permanently haunted. She was very thin and very tall – at least as tall as me – with a mop of crazy, steel-grey hair that looked like something you might scrub the bottom of a pot with,. Her skin was so weathered and wrinkled it was like a piece of old brown parchment that had been screwed up and then flattened out again, hundreds of times. Arlene simply branded her ‘The Resident Crazy’.
It wasn’t just the way that Mary looked that scared me, it was her unpredictability. I still remembered the time I’d been standing at an intersection with a whole bunch of people, waiting to cross the road, when I’d suddenly felt someone pushing and shoving behind me, trying to get to the front of the queue. It was Mary. The lights had turned and we’d started to cross, when Mary had danced out into the middle of the intersection, tilted back her head and begun screaming like she couldn’t quite work out the difference between pain and laughter. It had seriously freaked me out. Since then I’d always tried to stay well out of her way. Today was no exception.
I subconsciously drew closer to the window, allowing Mary as much room as possible to pass behind me. Suddenly the manic footsteps stopped. Had she passed already, gone around the corner? She must have. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to move away from the window when I found myself suddenly face to face with her. Unfortunately Mary doesn’t do ‘personal space’, so our faces were now uncomfortably close. Her violet-blue eyes drilled into me as if I was some sort of science experiment that had produced an unexpected result. She suddenly grabbed my arm, making me jump.
“Can I help you?” I stuttered.
Mary ignored the question and kept staring at me with the same unflinching intensity.
“It won’t always be like this you know,” she said.
“Like…what?”
Mary was now so close that I could feel the stale moistness of her breath against my cheek. I drew back, desperate for some space, as she studied me curiously.
“Sometimes we bite the apple to the core. We don’t mean to. We don’t want the pips. But that’s the risk. We still have to bite.”
She nodded at me, as if we’d just reached some sort of common understanding, then spun on her heel and scurried up the street as quickly as she’d arrived, the soles of her shoes flap, flap, flapping against the pavement. I watched, dumbfounded, as Mary quickly melded into the sea of backs. Had what just happened really happened, or had I imagined it? I could see that Arlene had a point, Mary was seriously weird.
The rest of the journey home passed in a fog and I was soon on Hern Street. Our house was the third on the left, one of those red-brick bungalow things that Arlene had decided would make ‘a good family home’. As far as I was concerned, we already had a perfectly good family home – the one that Mum had helped choose – but somehow Arlene had managed to convince Dad otherwise.
As I turned into the driveway I noticed something odd. Our fence was buckled and the post that used to stand closest to the concrete driveway was lying on its side in the grass. Fresh clumps of dirt were strewn roughly around the hole where the post used to stand. Still, it wasn’t the first time that something like that had happened. Even Arlene admitted she was pretty lousy at backing the car. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d just run over it again without realising.
It was only when I’d reached the front door, and was fishing about in my bag for my keys, that I noticed something really was wrong. The door was slightly open and hanging lopsidedly on its hinges. I gave it a slight push and it made an unhealthy splintering sound. I pushed it again, a little harder this time, and the whole door collapsed in a diagonal heap across the entrance. Man, whatever excuse my brother came up with this time, it was going to have to be good.
“Bede!” I shouted.
There was no answer. I waited a coup
le of seconds then called again. There was still no reply. Dumping my bag, I carefully edged my way through a gap in the doorframe.
Chances were, Bede had taken off for the night to give Dad and Arlene time to cool down. I stepped inside the house, then stopped short, as my eyes struggled to make sense of the carnage that had become our lounge. Both sofas had been turned on their sides, the stuffing ripped from their bellies, and the coffee table was now a mess of splinters, strewn across the rug like a sacrificial offering to the Gods. As I looked around I couldn’t see a single thing that hadn’t been broken. Would Bede have gone so far as to deliberately trash our whole house? That would be pretty extreme, even for him.
“Bede, are you here?”
I still had a vague hope that he was out the back somewhere and hadn’t heard me yell the first few times. I started following the trail of devastation that led from the lounge, down the hall, towards Dad and Arlene’s bedroom. It was getting colder and colder and as I entered the bedroom I could see why – the window was wide open and the curtains were flapping wildly in the breeze. I glanced quickly around the room. Large red pools were congealing on the floor and on the mirror, scrawled in blood, was one word: ‘RUN’
CHAPTER II
A short, fleshy man leaned against the doorframe of the office, panting heavily. He’d just climbed three flights of stairs and wasn’t happy. Sweat ran down his forehead into his small, squinty eyes. He tried to wipe it away with the back of his hand. Pausing, his stomach wobbled over the top of his trousers, as he tried to catch his breath to speak.
“Boss, the kid’s here.”
The man sitting at the desk glanced up briefly from his manuscript, the candle flames quivering nervously before settling again. He was dressed almost completely in black, from his black suit and matching silk shirt, down to his boots. The only colour that punctuated his dark silhouette was the decoration he wore at his throat. Instead of a tie, a tiny emerald cross gleamed in the light.
“Power shortage again, eh boss?” The sweaty man nodded towards the candles.
“Something like that,” the man replied. He began writing his manuscript again as his visitor shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
“Ah, erm, the boy…”
“Well, show him in then,” said the man at the desk, impatiently.
The sweaty man turned and shouted to someone outside the door. A tall, athletic boy sloped into the room.
“Yes?” The man at the desk said, without looking up.
“I dropped off that parcel for you boss.”
The boy paused, waiting for a response, but the man kept writing.
“Umm…I was just wondering if I could pick up my wages?”
The man scrawled something into his manuscript with his left hand, reaching with his right into the top drawer of his desk. He pulled out a thick roll of banknotes and peeled off one, placing it ceremoniously on the table, directly in front of the boy. It was only then that the man rolled his eyes away from his writing, fixing the boy with a level stare.
The boy glanced at the solitary note and curled his lip.
“You said you’d pay more than that,” he said, waggling his fingers impatiently.
The sweaty man, who’d been watching from the doorway, drew a sharp intake of breath, grimaced, then quickly looked away. The man sitting at the desk raised his right eyebrow inquisitively at the boy.
“So you think I am your servant now?” he said coolly. He paused, studying the boy’s face for a second, before suddenly slamming his fist on the desk. The boy jumped back. “Don’t ever speak to me like that again.”
“S...sorry boss,” said the boy.
An uneasy silence seeped into the room as the man returned to his manuscript. The boy fidgeted with something in his pocket, considering how best to phrase his next sentence.
“It’s just…well…you said that you’d pay me double that if I delivered that parcel.”
“Yes, and I shall,” said the man, continuing to scratch away at the paper with his fountain pen. “But first I have another job for you. If you complete it I will pay you the outstanding amount, tripled.”
“Tripled?” the boy repeated, incredulously. “Does that mean I’ve passed the final test?”
The man’s eyes flicked briefly towards the boy.
“Yes. I received confirmation that the package arrived safely, and on time, so you can consider yourself officially one of my staff.”
“Thanks boss, I won’t let you down.” The boy’s face could barely contain his smile.
“I need to recruit someone else for a particular job and I would like you to help me find the perfect candidate,” said the man.
“Okay, sure,” the boy replied, trying to sound casual but failing miserably. This had to be the easiest money he’d ever earned.
“I have particular specifications for this candidate and I need them to be met precisely. Do you understand?”
The boy shrugged. “Sure,” he said.
“Good.” The man rested his pen in the inkwell and pushed back his heavy, dark mahogany chair. He stood quickly and walked towards the window. Staring out beyond the derelict factories, the man’s eyes settled on the thin, black horizon. “The first criterion is that the candidate has to be small, by which, I mean, smaller than you,” he said.
“Like, small enough to fit through a window in a house you mean?” said the boy, smiling knowingly.
“Yes, exactly,” said the man, continuing to stare fixedly at the window. “The second criterion is that the candidate has to be a boy who is about the same age as you.”
“You mean someone who’s in my year at school?”
“Correct.”
The boy waited a couple of seconds for the man to elaborate, but the only sound was that of the sweaty man’s heavy breathing.
“So what job will the new guy be doing?” said the boy. “I don’t understand…”
“I’m not paying you to understand,” the man snapped. “I’m paying you to do a job. You’re either prepared to follow instructions, or you’re not. Which is it?”
“Okay, fine,” said the boy quickly. The last thing he wanted was to lose the job.
“Do you know anyone who might be suitable? Someone you could persuade to come and work for me?”
The boy paused, then smiled. “Yes, I think I know someone who fits that description.”
“Good. I need him here tomorrow afternoon,” said the man.
He turned abruptly from the window, strode back to his desk and resumed his position in front of the manuscript. The boy remained standing at the front of the desk, unsure whether or not he had now received his full instructions. He began fidgeting nervously with the thing in his pocket again.
“Go!” said the man, flicking his pen impatiently towards the door.
The boy jumped, his hand jolting free from his pocket. He didn’t notice that a hairclip had fallen out and landed on the man’s desk. The man, who was now writing furiously, didn’t notice either. The boy skated past the short, sweaty man standing in the doorway and slid from the room. The man turned to follow, stopping abruptly at the sound of his boss’s voice.
“Stanley, can you feed the pets?”
The man groaned. “Aww, boss, you know those freakin’ animals give me the creeps. Do I have to?”
The man sitting at the desk paused and raised his right eyebrow. “Do I really need to ask you twice?”
“No, course not boss. I’m on it,” said Stanley, snatching the key labelled “pets” from the rack by the door. He turned to leave again, his boss’s voice following him.
“Close the door behind you.”
The latch clicked in the door and the man sitting at the desk listened to Stanley’s footsteps pummelling the stairs. Once the noise had stopped he put down his pen. Lifting his gaze from the manuscript, he rolled his eyes slowly towards the hairclip perched on the edge of his desk. He studied it for a couple of seconds, before reaching out, picking it up, and holding
it to the candlelight. The man brought the hairclip to his face and pressed it to his lips, taking a deep, languid breath. He then placed it in the top drawer of the desk and locked it away.
CHAPTER III
I stood at the end of the bed, staring dumbly at the word scrawled on the mirror. It was as if my brain had completely forgotten how to think. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I became vaguely conscious that my breathing had turned into short, sharp gasps and that my lungs were fighting for air. I tried to move my legs but it was impossible – they were like two streams of water. Suddenly, I heard the door creak behind me. Before I could turn around someone had grabbed my shoulder. I managed to scream before a hand clapped down hard over my mouth.
“Shh!”
Biting furiously, I tried to snag the skin on the hand but it was too far for my teeth to reach. A thick, hairy forearm coiled itself around my waist and I felt my feet leave the floor. I was now being dragged backwards down the hall. I tried to kick myself free but it was hopeless – the guy was way too strong. Finally, just as I was about to give up, I felt the satisfying thud of my boot-heel connecting with his shin. The guy yelped and loosened his grip, allowing me precious seconds to wriggle free. Scanning the room for an escape route, all I could see was an ocean of debris separating me from the front door, my attacker looming like an ominous island in between. There was no other way; I’d have to beat him to the back door instead. I turned and started to run when something suddenly stopped me.
“Clare!”
The voice sounded surprisingly familiar. I spun around, in spite of my fear. There, hopping around sheepishly in the chaos of the lounge, clutching his leg, was my dopey brother. In all my panic I hadn’t even looked at him properly.
“It’s you?” I said. A wave of relief washed over me, followed immediately by a tidal wave of anger. “You scared the hell out of me, what were you doing?”