Panic rose in him again and he scrambled out of bed. The only light in his room was a gloomy orange glow from the street lamp outside.
I shouldn’t have forgotten. I meant to check them. Uncle Tom’s mate said they shouldn’t be exposed to it for too long. How many hours has it been on? He pressed the button to illuminate his Homer Simpson clock: 4:18. Oh, God, I haven’t looked at them since we went out.
He stepped out onto the silent landing and felt his way down the stairs. He pushed open the living room door and approached the tank. A broad smile spread across his sleepy face as he saw his fish, darting through the now clear water like shimmering rainbows under the stark light of the ultraviolet bulb. Danny crouched down to the socket on the skirting board and switched off the light. As he began to rise, something in the darkened waters made him do a double take.
“What?” He was on his knees, his nose pressed against the glass.
He tried leaning back to see if gaining perspective would alter what he saw, but no, there on the floor of the tank, dotted amongst the blue stones, plants and pirate ship, were five incredible glowing beacons. They shone out of the darkness like red-hot embers.
He turned his head away, blinking several times before looking back at the tank again. The blood-red stones seemed to pulsate. He wasn’t dreaming.
“Wow! What the hell…?”
Just a moment ago, all those stones looked the same as usual, didn’t they? There were no red ones – nothing was glowing – I would have noticed! Maybe it’s something to do with the light? It’s never happened when I’ve turned the normal light off.
Danny scampered up the stairs and into Gina’s room. If his mum had been like all the other mums and let him have a mobile phone he could have taken a photo of it himself but, as it was, he needed a witness. Say they’d stopped glowing in the morning? No one would believe him. They’d say he’d been sleepwalking or just making it up. He needed Gina to see them, now!
He shook the duvet-covered mound. “Gina, wake up. You’ve got to come and look at this,” he said in a loud whisper.
“What?” she groaned.
“Come downstairs. I want to show you something; it’s amazing.”
A disembodied hand emerged from the duvet, swatting him away like a fly. “Get lost, will you? I’m asleep.”
“Please, Gina. You’ll love this.”
“I’ll see it in the morning,” she murmured.
“No, it might not be the same in the morning. You need to look now. Come on, Gina. It’s so cool!” he proclaimed, whisking the duvet off the bed and revealing her in foetal position.
“Danny, I hate you!” she said, swaying groggily as she sat up. “This had better not be just a boy kind of cool, as in rubbish!”
Taking her hand, Danny led the zombie-like Gina downstairs and into the living room.
He felt pleased with himself as he watched her expression. “Wow! They look amazing? When did you put them in?”
“I haven’t put anything in. They’re the normal blue stones that have always been there. I came down to turn the light off and everything looked normal but when I turned the bulb off, those stones started to glow.”
“Weird, but you’re right, that is cool. Why would they suddenly start doing that?”
“I reckon it must be the UV bulb Uncle Tom put in. It’s the only thing that’s changed. Can we look it up on the computer?” he asked eagerly.
“Not now, Danny.” Gina yawned. “We’ll do it in the morning, hey?”
“But say they stop glowing. Say they never glow again! No one will believe us.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen, of course they’ll believe us and if it is something to do with that light then it’ll happen again. Now, get up to bed, please,” she begged.
Danny tutted and shuffled up to bed but Gina remained standing there, in the unlit room, mesmerized by the shining blood-red stones at the bottom of the dark, humming tank.
Curiosity got the better of her; she walked over to the family computer and sat down.
I might as well look it up now. I’m awake anyway. It’ll be quicker without Danny jumping around me.
The screen flickered into life and she brought up a search engine. She paused, pondering how to describe what she’d seen.
She tried a few keyword combinations until some relevant results came up. Gina’s brow crinkled as she scrolled down the screen. Links to articles about the same topic kept coming up, again and again. She opened the first one and her eyes scanned the text.
“No way,” she laughed to herself. She clicked on the next link and the next and despite her cynicism she became more and more engrossed – all the articles seemed to agree.
She shook her head. There must be some other explanation. She focused on the other suggestions and read carefully, but none of them really matched what she was seeing.
She looked back to the fish tank. The glow from the stones was fading fast! Gina rushed across to it. Her instinct told her to get the stones out while she could still identify them. She lifted the hood and slowly sank her arm to the bottom of the tank, delicately plucking out the five stones, trying not to distress the fish, who were darting around frantically like they were looking for a fire exit.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she put the hood back down and waited for the disturbed water to settle again. She turned on the main light in the living room and examined her catch. Five chunky, cloudy blue stones, their surfaces rough and uneven. She ran her fingertips over their bumpy exteriors then, one by one, she held them up to the light. There was no trace of any red, of any glow. Now there was little to distinguish them from the hundreds of other stones that lined the floor of the tank. Some may have been slightly bigger, some were smaller and, between them, they covered the whole spectrum of the colour blue, but all looked nothing out of the ordinary.
Danny put his head under the pillow, trying to block out his alarm clock.
“Doh! Get up, buddy! You’re late,” Homer Simpson declared. Danny groaned, hitting Homer’s shiny head to silence him. Opening one eye, he looked at the clock display. He was late, really late! Why hadn’t he heard the first alarm go off? Why hadn’t he heard his mum coming into his room, telling him to wake up?
He shot out of bed, tussling with his uniform until he was fully clothed. Excitement suddenly bubbled up in him as he remembered the strange discovery of last night. He went to get Gina, but her room was empty. Danny headed down to the living room and found a yellow Post-it note stuck on the fish tank.
Danny, I’ve taken the glowing stones out of the tank. (Don’t panic, I was careful.) Just want to find out more about them. I’ll get them back to you soon. Hope you don’t mind. Gina x
“What!” He threw his hands up in protest. “That’s not fair.” He stomped into the kitchen, frustrated that he had no one to complain to.
The doorbell rang and Danny opened it to a blurry-eyed Tom, dressed in a crisp work suit. Tom didn’t wait to be invited in. He headed for the kitchen, groaning, “I’m just picking up my car but, God, I need a strong coffee! Has your mum gone to work?”
“Yeah. There’s only me in, but I’m late for school.”
Tom stood over the kettle, spooning coffee into a mug. “Give me a minute and I’ll give you a lift. Did anyone find my aftershave?”
“Don’t know. Not sure.” Danny shrugged. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks. This time it is a hangover. Let my face be a warning to you about the evils of drink.” He gave a weak smile. “Anyway, what were you shouting about? I could hear you from the pavement.”
“It’s Gina! She’s gone and taken the stones,” Danny began to rant. “She didn’t even ask me! It’s not fair, because she made me go back to bed and she said we’d both look it up in the morning but now she’s gone and taken them and they’re mine! I wanted to bring my friends back and show them. They’re so cool!”
Tom winced at the noise level.
“What are you raving on about, Danny?” h
e said wearily.
“The blue stones in the fish tank. You know…chunky, kind of…cloudy-looking.”
“I’ve got to be honest with you, I hadn’t really noticed, but I’ll take your word for it,” Tom said, pouring the boiling water into the mug.
“The thing is, Uncle Tom, I came down last night to check the fish were okay. I was worried about them after what you said about that bulb you put in. Anyway, I hadn’t turned it off. I thought the fish might be hurt or something. But they were fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Has it done the trick?” Tom yawned, picking up the mug.
“Yeah, the water’s all clear. It’s brilliant! But the mad thing is, when I turned that light off, five of the stones at the bottom of the tank just started to glow, and I mean really glow, blood-red – it was incredible – like magic.”
Tom froze. The mug hovered by his lips.
“Cloudy blue stones that glowed red.” His voice was a whisper, his bloodshot eyes narrowed.
“Yeah. You should have seen them, it was amazing!”
“And the UV bulb had been on?”
“Yes, but they only started glowing when I switched if off.”
“Your dad bought you that fish tank, didn’t he?” Tom asked urgently.
“Yeah, for my birthday. It was last thing he ever bought me. That’s why Gina had no right to take those stones. I want them back.”
“When did he give it to you?”
“He didn’t get a chance to give it to me. He’d gone and got it the day he died. It was in the back of his car when he went to that bridge with Gina.” Danny’s voice began to quiver; he didn’t want to associate the present with this memory.
Tom stepped towards Danny, fixing him with a manic stare. “Did you choose the stones?”
“No, they came with the tank.”
“So your dad chose them?” He sounded like a cross-examining barrister.
Danny shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, but it could have come as a package, you know, with the tank and filter and stuff,” he said, increasingly baffled by Tom’s questions.
Tom threw the mug down on the kitchen table and charged towards the living room. “Are any still glowing?”
“No! Haven’t you been listening, Uncle Tom?” Danny said, exasperated.
Danny followed and watched as Tom stared into the tank, before switching on the UV bulb and swishing the front curtains closed.
“Shut the door, Danny, and close the curtains down there,” he ordered, pointing to the far end of the room.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering. They’re not in there,” Danny said as he shrouded the room in darkness.
“Ssh!” Tom hissed, crouching in front of the tank to scrutinize the bed of stones.
Danny could only hold his silence for a minute before blurting out in frustration, “Gina’s taken them. We’ll just have to wait till she gets home and I’ll show you then.”
“What about her bedroom?” Tom said, thinking out loud.
He sprinted up the stairs and into Gina’s room. He scanned it and, not seeing the stones on display, he began to rifle through her cupboards. He felt along the top of the wardrobe, got on his hands and knees to look under her bed, tossed her pillow and duvet off the bed before upturning the mattress, pushing her pile of revision books onto the floor and feverishly prising open trinket boxes from the drawers of the dressing table. Danny stood in the doorway, watching open-mouthed as the room was turned upside down. “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong?” he squeaked.
Tom didn’t answer; he turned to the wall collage that bombarded him with images of Martin Wilson. Sour sweat glistened on Tom’s forehead. His breathing heavy, he stood like a pumped-up boxer, waiting for the bell. “You crafty bastard, Marty,” he muttered to the photographs.
Tom lurched down the stairs two steps at a time, with Danny at his heels.
Back at the fish tank, he turned off the light and held his breath. The tank remained in darkness.
Danny opened the curtains, letting the sunlight flood the room. “They’re not in there.”
“But are you absolutely sure she took them all?”
“Well…I think so, probably,” he wavered.
“I need to be sure,” Tom said, flinging up the hood of the tank and, without even pausing to roll up his sleeves, plunging his arm into the watery world.
“What are you doing? Stop it! You’re going to hurt the fish!” Danny howled.
“There could still be some buried underneath that haven’t been exposed to the light,” Tom growled, grabbing a handful of stones from the bottom, and unearthing a maelstrom of debris that instantly polluted the waters. Plants that had been embedded in the stones began to float up to the surface and the fish swayed violently in the turbulence.
“Don’t just stand there! Go and get me some plastic bags, anything I can put these stones into.”
“No! Stop it! Stop it!” Danny’s face was hot with rage and distress.
“Do as you’re told!” Tom barked, this time dragging his hand along the bottom of the tank like a dredger.
Fish began to wash over the sides of the tank in a tidal wave of water. Danny watched in horror as the ground became awash with bright, shimmering bodies, flapping frantically against the floorboards.
Danny scrambled around the floor, delicately lifting the dying fish into the palm of his hand. “Move out of the way!” he shouted at Tom. “I’ve got to get them back in the water.”
But Tom shoved him away, causing the fish to catapult out of his hand.
Danny felt rage overwhelming him. He ran at Tom, springing up onto his back, wrapping his arms around Tom’s neck and his legs around his waist, trying to pull the big man away from the tank.
The shock of the attack caught Tom off guard; he stumbled back for a moment, but regained his balance and fought to prise Danny’s limpet limbs from him.
“Danny, get off me!” His voice was strangulated.
“You leave my tank alone!” Danny bawled into Tom’s ear, tightening his grip as the man tried to shake him off. Danny clung on like a cowboy at a rodeo, but he could feel his hands beginning to slide apart, his ankles unlocking. Tom grunted as he separated Danny’s hands and sent him flying backwards through the air. He landed on the ground with a thud.
Tom’s febrile face loomed over him. “Don’t you dare get up!”
Danny immediately sat up, defiantly.
“I’m warning you,” Tom hissed, jabbing a threatening finger at Danny’s face. “Stay down!”
Tom took off his jacket and laid it out on the floor. He continued scooping out handfuls of the blue stones and deposited them onto the jacket. He groaned in frustration; it was taking too long. He walked over to the display shelf, grabbing a weighty metal running trophy with Martin’s name engraved on the plaque.
“Cover your face,” he ordered.
“No!” screamed Danny, as he saw Tom swing the trophy from behind his head and smash it into the fish tank. The impact created a pinhole crack in the centre of the glass and, for a split second, the sheet seemed to have survived. But then as Danny watched in horror, fracture lines started to crackle outwards, until the whole sheet of glass suddenly shattered, and water flooded out, carrying with it the remaining fish.
There was the sound of squelching and crunching as Tom stepped on flailing fish and broken glass to lean into the desecrated tank. He picked out the flaccid plants and coral. He discarded the pirate ship, before shovelling the rest of the stones into the jacket on the ground. He then bundled it up and tied it like a bulging knapsack and went to leave.
He stepped past Danny, who was sitting, hugging his knees, head bowed. Tom swallowed hard, his voice thick. “I’m sorry, Danny. This is important. I promise I’ll get you a new tank. Don’t cry, eh? Forgive your Uncle Tom.”
But Danny didn’t answer. He bit his lip, desperate to stop his tears, afraid of this man who was suddenly a stranger to him.
Gina was nearing the schoo
l gates when her phone rang. Home flashed up on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Gina…Uncle Tom has gone mental,” Danny sobbed. “He’s looking for those glowing stones. He smashed up my fish tank. He wrecked your room. He was really scary. He’ll be looking for you. He knows you’ve got the stones. I’ve tried to get hold of Mum but she’s not answering. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Calm down, Danny. What did he say about the stones?”
“Nothing! He just went crazy.”
“Listen, you’re best off in school. Have you got money for the bus?”
“Yeah.”
“Then go to school. I’ll keep trying Mum.”
“But what if he’s there when I get home? I don’t want to be on my own with him.”
“Don’t worry. Mum will sort it out. I’ll see you later. Love you!” Gina said anxiously.
As the call ended, her phone beeped. Someone had been trying to get through. She listened to the message.
The voice made her stomach lurch. “Hi, Gina, it’s Uncle Tom. Give me a call, will you, as soon as you can?”
She opened her school bag and unzipped her fluffy purple pencil case. The five cloudy blue stones sat atop an assortment of pens, compasses and protractors. She zipped it up again and turned away from the school gates, swimming against the tide of students who were flooding towards the entrance. As soon as she was out of sight of the school buildings she started to run.
As Gina entered Neptune’s Aquarium she was relieved to see that Jamie was there.
“Hi, Jamie,” she said as she approached him.
“Hi, nice to see you again. How’s your brother’s tank doing?” he asked.
“Actually, I’ve come about some of the stones that were in it.” She emptied the stones from her pencil case into Jamie’s hand. “They glow red – do you sell ones like these?”
Jamie inspected them. “No. We do sell glowing stones for decoration in the tanks, but they’re made of shiny, hard plastic material. Your ones are real stone. They look more like some of the bedding stones we stock.” He handed them back to Gina. “Sorry if I haven’t been much help.”
Blood Tracks Page 22