‘You’re the genius,’ said Mack. ‘You tell us.’
‘All right, I will: it doesn’t. You’re wrong. Finish your food and leave.’
Arkle looked down.
‘Why don’t you wear socks?’ he said.
‘What?’ said Sep. ‘I just – I just don’t. It’s comfier.’
‘What are you, a hippy?’
‘Shut up, Darren,’ said Lamb. ‘I don’t believe you, Sep. This is just the kind of bullshit you’d pull.’
‘Really?’ said Sep. ’You know most of the abuse I get at school is because I don’t pull any bullshit? Like, I follow the rules and do my homework, and now I’m some mage who can smash your mirrors?’
‘The sacrifice was your idea!’ Lamb snapped.
‘What the hell,’ said Arkle slowly, ‘is a mage?’
‘Like a magician,’ said Hadley.
Arkle pulled a face.
‘All right, geek.’
Hadley picked the mushrooms from her pizza, making a little pile in the centre of the box.
‘They’re not making this up, Sep,’ she whispered, gloved hand in her lap.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Arkle. ‘Tell him about your dream, Milky Bar Kid.’
Hadley glared at him through her white fringe.
‘Don’t call me that.’
Sep saw how reduced and tired she was.
‘Go on,’ said Lamb.
Hadley sighed.
‘I’ve dreamed about it the last couple of nights,’ she said, eyes on the table. ‘My sacrifice, I mean. There was a voice saying secret things that nobody else knows. Things I wrote when I was little.’
Sep remembered standing in the clearing that day, the five of them gathered round the stone box, remembered tossing Barnaby after Hadley’s little red book.
‘Your diary?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘It’s the exact words. Words I thought I’d forgotten, but they’re all there. I’m scared to go to sleep.’
Sep held his breath, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her.
‘Your subconscious is a powerful thing,’ he said after a moment. ‘We don’t ever really forget stuff like that – it just gets buried. We’re all stressed from the exams, you know – the mind does funny things.’
‘Well, I’m probably not suffering from exam stress,’ said Arkle. ‘I mean, I fell asleep in maths. And I nap all the time.’
‘And the mirrors in my house?’ Lamb asked Sep. ‘Is that exam stress?’
‘It is if you smashed them.’
‘They smashed on their own, in the middle of the night!’ shouted Lamb, slamming her fist on the table.
Mario looked over, and she settled back in her chair.
‘They smashed on their own,’ she muttered.
‘And what about you?’ Sep asked Mack.
‘Nothing yet.’ Mack pointed a droopy pizza slice at Lamb, ‘But she made me come anyway.’
‘That accent,’ said Arkle, ‘you’re like the Terminator, Macejewski. Say, “I’ll be back”, I’m begging you.’
‘Are you eating those chips?’ said Mack.
Arkle tipped the last of his supper on to Mack’s plate and gave the big athlete a pat on the head.
‘Look at the way he eats. You inspire me, Golden Boy. I mean, look at you – pink and smooth and smelling of apricots.’
‘Look, we all made sacrifices, right?’ said Sep. ‘So if the box is causing all this, why hasn’t anything happened to Mack and me?’
Hadley pressed the soles of her feet together.
‘It’s happening in order,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ said Sep.
‘I was first, then Lamb, then Darren –’
‘– Arkle! Jesus, call me Arkle –’
‘– so today is the fourth day.’ She looked up at him, and the sun made gold coins of her glasses. ‘You were the fourth sacrifice. It’s your turn. Tonight.’
The four of them looked at Sep.
‘Listen,’ said Sep, taking a step back, ‘there’s no way it’s the box. But … I do have another idea –’
‘Oh, we’re all ears,’ said Lamb, lip curling in a snarl.
‘Well, I’ve been getting a toothache the last few days – ever since I started looking for the comet.’
Hadley looked up.
‘You’re watching Halley’s comet too?’
‘Oh my God, you guys are such total dorks,’ said Arkle.
‘Yeah,’ said Sep, ignoring him. ‘I haven’t had a good sighting yet, but I did wonder if it was kind of … affecting my head. It hurts suddenly, when I’m outside. Or it could be Chernobyl – I mean, a nuclear reactor exploded. You don’t think that might be affecting our heads? Or our fridges?’
‘Who’s Chernobyl?’ said Arkle.
‘Seriously?’ said Sep.
Arkle shrugged.
‘Chernobyl – it’s a town in Russia. It’s been all over the news, Darren.’
‘I’m a cartoon watcher, Sep – think about it.’
‘God, Darren …’ said Hadley. ‘A nuclear reactor there leaked and poisoned the air.’
‘The Soviets are poisoning us? Oh, shit –’ Arkle took a box of dental floss from his pocket – ‘I knew it! I knew it!’
He pulled a string through his massive front incisors with a loud ptwing!
‘That’s dis-gus-ting,’ said Lamb.
‘I f’oss when I’m ’ervous.’
Sep’s mouth curled with distaste as he watched Arkle work.
‘I’m just saying, there’s a logical explanation for everything, and I don’t want to know about this.’ He shook his head and stepped further away from the table. ‘You can’t just come in here after four years and carry on like you’ve not been ignoring me the whole time.’
Ptwing!
‘It’s got nothing to do with –’ started Lamb.
‘You really don’t believe me?’ said Hadley. ‘Or any of us?’
‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sure … I’m sure you think weird things have happened, and maybe they have – I’m just saying they can’t be because of the sacrifice box.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it can’t be. It’s not logical. Things can’t happen for no reason.’
Ptwing!
Lamb’s eyes narrowed. She took out her ponytail and shook her hair forward, before whipping it back and retying it.
‘I told you the reason. You – or someone – has broken the rules. You remember the words, Sep? The ones you gave us?’
Sep tried to keep his face from betraying his thoughts, shocked by how easily the chant leaped into his head.
‘Never come to the box alone,’ she said, the others nodding along, mouthing the words with her. ‘Never open it after dark. Never take back your sacrifice. It’s so obvious you remember.’
‘So?’
‘Look, think what you want,’ said Lamb, scowling as another anxious speck ptwinged across the table. ‘I’m telling you, we’re telling you, that this is what’s happening. And it’s your turn – tonight.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Sep, shaking his head and looking over his shoulder. Mario was pretending not to listen, polishing a steel jug that was already shiny. Sep felt his chest twist with embarrassment.
‘You’re only here because you need me to do something for you. Well, ask your real friends.’
‘Ah, come on, Sepster,’ said Arkle, floss hanging from his mouth. ‘We can get the old gang back together.’
‘Nobody said that,’ said Lamb. ‘We only hung out one summer. I don’t need any more friends. I just want to find out what happened to my damn mirrors.’
‘I want to stop my nightmares,’ whispered Hadley, staring at her cold pizza.
‘Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you,’ said Sep.
‘Come on,’ Arkle said again. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this, does it?’
But nobody spoke. The electrical hum of the lights
filled the room, and they stared at the dew on their sodas. Mario cleared his throat and tried to look busy.
‘You should go,’ said Sep eventually, his throat tight.
‘Fine,’ said Lamb. ‘But you’re going to find out the hard way. And, if it turns out this was you, you’ll pay for the mirrors.’
Hadley fixed Sep with another long look, then hopped from her seat. They started to file out, and Sep returned behind the counter.
Mack sidled towards him.
‘A stick of rock, please.’
‘Twenty pence,’ said Sep.
Mack broke the rock in half, then handed the wrapped part back to Sep.
‘You can’t write this off,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe it was true at first, but they’re so scared. And what you … what you think about me, it’s not true. I’m not that guy.’
‘All right,’ said Sep, shrugging. He looked at the rock, the words ‘Hill Ford’ running all the way through its centre, then put it in his apron pocket.
Mack nodded, gave him a shy smile, then left.
He turned once, silhouetted by the blood-red sun, but Sep couldn’t see his face. Behind him, Arkle mimed a phone call with his lit cigarette, and Hadley gave him a tiny, sad wave before she disappeared.
Lamb was already gone.
Sep put on his headphones, felt his heart rate settle into the perfect, urgent, downbeat optimism of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Then he gathered their pizza boxes and cans, stacking them neatly in his arms.
12
Patience
The pellet smelled of lead, and left a circular dent on Daniels’ thumb as he pressed it into the barrel, holding his balance against the whip of the forest wind.
Anger curled like a snake in his stomach as he pushed through the trees, cutting his skin on briars and thorns, thinking about Sep and the look on his face as he’d taken the piss in front of the gang, then hidden behind the fat Greek.
You’re still mine, Hope, Daniels thought, grinding his teeth. You’ll get what’s coming to you – and so will your toothy friend.
He squeezed under a decayed warning sign at the entrance to the Windercross estate, its message rotted to a paint-flaking mess – and as he stood a coil of rusting wire tore a chunk from his ear.
Daniels fell to his knees, gripping his ear tight as though he could squeeze away the pain, and howled into the darkness.
The blood was shiny with moonlight as he lifted his hand away, and he wiped it across his chest, tensing his muscles as the night air hit the wound and it began to throb. Then he smashed the sign to bits with the butt of his air rifle.
When he reached the meadow he lay flat and still, his ear throbbing, feeling himself vanish into the trees. He watched an oblivious rabbit bump along, its tail flashing white in the gloom.
He let it go.
They all thought he was angry, that he lashed out. They thought he couldn’t control himself. But he could be patient.
They didn’t know how patient he could be.
A fox passed on the far edge of the paddock. A squirrel twirled up a tree trunk. More rabbits passed, their twitching noses empty of his scent. Minutes fell away, measured only by the pulse in his wound.
Still he waited for the target his anger craved – the hardest shot, the biggest prize.
A bird in flight.
And then he saw it: a crow dropping from the trees, its wings spreading as it banked to turn. He dropped his head to the sights, pictured Sep – and fired.
The crow carried on, silent and untroubled, wings fluttering as it landed on a distant treetop.
He climbed to his knees.
‘Daniels doesn’t miss,’ he spat, looking again along the rifle’s sights.
Just to prove it, he lined up a branch that hung from a nearby tree and squeezed the trigger. The pellet left a perfect circular hole in the centre of a dangling leaf.
Daniels looked at the crow. It had turned to face him.
‘Bullshit,’ he whispered.
A swallow dived from the treetop above him, swooping low over the meadow and banking sharply in a bow-winged arc.
Daniels raised the rifle, followed the little bird until it lined up with the horizon – and fired.
The swallow fell in an exclamation of feathers.
Daniels looked at the crow again. Its eyes were fixed on the swallow’s twisted body.
‘Daniels doesn’t miss,’ he said again, and loaded another pellet into his rifle.
-2
Sacrifice: 1982
‘Raiders of the Lost Ark is your favourite film?’ said Arkle, leaning over his handlebars. ‘That’s just … I mean … I actually feel sorry for you. Have you even seen The Empire Strikes Back?’
‘Obviously,’ said Lamb, trying to scratch under her cast with a blade of grass.
It was the hottest day of the summer, and clouds drifted, high and thin, across the bleached-white sky. Sep lifted his T-shirt from the pink sunburn on his neck.
‘Friday the 13th: Part III is the best film ever,’ lisped Hadley.
‘I’ve never seen that,’ said Sep. ‘Is it scary?’
‘Oh, God, yeah,’ said Hadley, giving him a little smile. ‘The scariest. And it was in 3D.’
‘I farted in 3D once,’ said Arkle. ‘It was a few years ago – I got a fright on the carousel. Then when I went home to change, my mum told me my dog had gone to live on a farm. Literally the shittiest day ever.’
‘My gran went to live on a farm when I was six,’ said Hadley.
Arkle’s eyes flashed with mischief.
‘I wonder if it was the same one as my dog?’
‘Why are you smiling like that?’ said Hadley.
‘What are we going to do today?’ said Sep quickly.
They sat watching the sea lash over the rocks, rainbows shining in its spray.
Mack finished his hot dog and took out a pack of gum.
‘We could swim again.’
‘Maybe,’ said Hadley. ‘It was so peaceful, floating together.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Sep, thinking of the crabs lurking under the surface.
Lamb rubbed his head.
‘It’ll be all right, Seppy. We didn’t see any crabs last time, did we?’
‘How’d you know I was thinking about that?’
Lamb grinned at him, and settled back with her cast behind her head.
‘Swimming in the sea was ace,’ she said. ‘That was my favourite thing.’
‘I’m up for skinny-dipping,’ said Arkle.
Lamb threw a daisy head at him.
‘No one said anything about skinny-dipping, dude,’ said Mack, shaking his head.
‘I loved it when we toasted marshmallows on the beach and listened to my new mixtape,’ said Hadley. ‘That’s been my favourite.’
‘I liked our movie day,’ said Arkle. ‘Pirate Betamax of Alien and The Thing, with plenty of Spike.’
‘And a ton of popcorn,’ said Mack.
‘You really can eat, Golden Boy.’
‘Touch it,’ said Mack, flexing his arm at Arkle. ‘I dare you.’
Arkle flexed his own noodle arm and they laughed, watching the clouds and smelling the air.
‘We could go back to the woods today,’ said Sep.
‘Would we be sure of a big surprise?’ said Arkle, rocking on his back tyre. ‘Had we better go in disguise? Is today the day the teddy bears –’ His bike slipped from under him. ‘Ow! Oh, guyth, guyth – I bid my thung!’
‘You might have deserved that,’ said Lamb. She was facing away from them all, looking out to the mainland, where her real friends were at sports camp.
As Sep followed her gaze he felt the looming threat of separation, of school being the same lonely space he’d known before this summer of unlikely friendship ever happened. He remembered that loneliness, that slow passing of lunchtimes and weekends, and felt that without action, without doing something, this perfect bubble would burst – and he’d have to watch the sandcastle he’
d built crumble as the others went back to their usual groups, to their real friends, while he went back to being alone.
And so he dipped his toe into the idea – the one he’d dreamed, that had stuck in his mind and blocked his other thoughts.
‘We found that box the other day,’ he said. ‘We could go there.’
‘And do what?’ said Hadley.
‘I thought we could … put something in it. It’s got a lid and – it just kind of makes sense, don’t you think?’
‘To put things in the ground?’ said Arkle. ‘Like a time capsule?’
‘Yeah,’ said Sep carefully. ‘Or a sacrifice.’
‘Could I set it on fire?’
‘What?’ said Sep, turning his head.
‘You’ve already burned everything. Even your report card,’ said Hadley.
‘I’d do yours too, if you’d let me. I bet it would even burn better than mine.’
‘What do you mean, a sacrifice?’ said Mack.
‘Well,’ said Sep, remembering the way the idea had arrived – sudden and hot – in his head. ‘It’s nearly the end of the holidays. It would be something for us all to do together, so we stay, like, friends. We each give the box something that’s important to us, and it keeps us together.’
Mack blew a bubble, then ran a hand through his hair. Sunlight gleamed on his arms.
‘I’m up for that,’ he said.
‘Definitely,’ said Lamb.
A carload of New Romantics rumbled past, their sleeves and music wafting on the hot breeze.
‘So we’re doing it?’ said Sep tentatively, as though he was creeping up on a wild animal.
‘Yeah,’ said Hadley. ‘I know what I’m sacrificing too.’
‘And me,’ said Mack.
They all stood. Sep straightened his bike and joined the others in formation on their BMXs and Choppers.
‘That’s … brilliant,’ he said, fighting a tremble in his voice as his throat tightened.
‘Cool idea, Sep,’ said Lamb. ‘Cool thing to do.’ She winked at him.
‘Do you know what you’re going to sacrifice?’ asked Hadley.
‘Yeah,’ said Sep. ‘Definitely.’
He cycled up the hill towards his house, quickly so they wouldn’t see the happy tears in his eyes – turning his good ear so their voices stayed with him for as long as possible.
The Sacrifice Box Page 6