“Yay! Good one, Robbie!”
“The blue angel!”
“How come I can never do ’em as good as that?”
Baz remained leaning on one elbow, staring into the shadows in amazement. Lighting your own farts! He’d heard of such a thing, but had never actually seen it done before. Wow.
“Hey! I got one! It’s coming... it’s coming...”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh.”
Another lighter sparked up – from the far side of the room this time. Someone else was having a go. Jubo. He too had propped himself into an upside-down bicycling position, buttocks in the air, and as the lighter flame steadied, he said, “Ey! Here we go... here we go...”
Jubo’s effort was even more spectacular than Robbie’s had been – a flaring jet of blue and yellow that roared out of him like a bunsen burner, a blowtorch, a fire-eater’s incandescent belch. Whurrffff... the flame launched itself into the darkness and disappeared. Absolutely amazing. And amazing that Jubo hadn’t blown his insides apart in the process, thought Baz. Wasn’t it supposed to be really dangerous?
“Christ, Jubo! Were those curried beans you got tonight?”
“Ha! Blue angel or what, man? Respec’ to the champ!”
“Yeah, yeah. I got one brewing make that look like a fairy fart.”
“Ey – newbies! See what it does to your guts living here? Got anything for us yet? You soon will.”
Baz considered the state of his own inner workings, but decided that any rumbles he felt down there were merely hunger. He peered towards Ray’s bed.
“Ray – you awake?”
There was a pause before Ray replied. “What do you think?”
“You been watching this?”
“Yeah, sure. Like I’d be interested. Go to sleep.”
Baz bit his tongue for what seemed like the umpteenth time today. There was just no talking to the guy sometimes.
“Uh-oh!”
“Uh-oh!”
Another lighter flared into life... and then another...
And now it seemed that they were all at it. Demon shadows chased each other up the walls and across the ceiling as boy after boy attempted to ignite his own body gas. It was like some weird firework display or Halloween thing – the rasping flick of lighter wheels, the twisted shapes and shadows of the boys, and the occasional ballooning bursts of flame.
Some efforts were more successful than others, and there were accompanying hoots of mockery or approval.
“Hey – good one, Dyse! Woo-ee!”
“Yah! You call that a fart, guy? Me little sister do better than that.”
“Hey – watch this! I’m going for the rocket!”
“The rocket! The rocket! Come on, Amit. Countdown! Ten! Nine...”
“Eight... seven...” Other voices chimed in.
Amit was upright, standing on one leg and bouncing gently up and down on his mattress in time to the loud chanting around him. With his other leg hugged close to his chest and his cigarette lighter waving around his backside, he looked more like a demented stork than a rocket.
“... four... three... two... one...”
“Lift-off!”
Frrrr-rrr-rrrt. The high-pitched sound of escaping rocket fuel was audible enough, but Amit had got his timing wrong somehow. The lighter simply went out and Amit could be heard collapsing onto his mattress with a thump, cursing in the darkness.
“Damn! No way!”
“Ha, ha! Amit blew it!”
“Blew it out, you mean! Amit, you’re friggin’ useless!”
“Er... Houston, we have a problem...”
“Ha, ha... yeah—”
The chatter came to a sudden halt. A pause – a rapid shuffle of bedclothes – and then silence. Instant breathless silence. Some signal, some squeak of the door handle perhaps, must have given the boys warning, for the light that came streaming in from the far corridor fell upon rows of bodies that now lay stiff and still as those in a morgue.
Baz was still sitting up – hadn’t had time to react. A huge swaying bulk filled the doorway, throwing a shadow down the center of the room, so long that it reached the foot of his bed.
Isaac.
There was a glint of light on glass – a bottle in the skipper’s fist – and as Baz shrank down onto his mattress, he saw the bottle being lifted high. It seemed to him that he was the focus of Isaac’s fearful glare.
A pause, and then Isaac flung the bottle towards the middle of the room. Baz automatically ducked. He heard the roar of Isaac’s voice above the sound of breaking glass as the missile smashed onto the floor, its broken shards bouncing and skittering along the carpet tiles.
“Graaagh! Now belt up, the lot of you – I can hear you down t’ bottom end o’ t’ corridor! You’re here to work, not to sod about! Or maybe you don’t have enough to do? Is that it? Well, I’ll soon change that. You can all start an hour early in t’ morning. Aye, and you’ll stay in your ruddy beds till then – unless you fancy picking bits o’ glass out o’ your feet!”
The door slammed shut and Isaac was gone. From the carpet arose a strong smell of whisky, heady fumes that filled the darkness.
It was a long while before anyone moved. Eventually there were a few creaks and shuffles, the sounds of bodies turning over on their mattresses, bedclothes being rearranged... deep sighs... and then silence.
Baz let out his breath and curled up into a ball, his blanket wrapped protectively around his bare shoulders. But the heat was too stifling for this, and anyway the blanket reeked. It stank of mildew and old sweat, and it was unbearably itchy, the texture of it prickling against his skin. Baz scratched his neck two or three times, then his ear. God, it was driving him crazy – almost as if—
Ugh! Now he understood. The blanket was crawling with lice. He threw the thing off him in disgust and scratched furiously at his head, his arms, his legs. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t require attention. Finally he lay down again, on his back this time, spreading himself into a star shape in order to try and cool off. He must get some sleep.
But the thoughts and images that came jangling through his head were too frightening to allow him any peace. This place was dangerous. Not a factory, but a madhouse. Once again he heard Steiner’s voice, chanting at his heels: Dead... dead... dead. Steiner might have carried out his threat already if Isaac hadn’t been there to stop him. And who would stop Isaac? Who was going to pull Isaac off – a man who used whatever weapons came to hand, guns and whisky bottles alike?
He should quit now. Try and get back to the mainland while he was still in one piece. But the thought of what it had cost his dad to get him here, and what it might cost to get him back again, made him feel bad. He knew how hard it was on his dad, continually trying to find enough food for the two of them. No, running away after less than twenty-four hours would be weak and stupid. He’d have to stick it out, for a while at least. Try to.
Some tiny sound caught his attention. Baz turned his head towards Ray’s bed, listening. There it was again, a brief shiver of movement, almost lost among the snores and grunts of the other sleepers. Bad dream, probably. That was some hammering Ray had taken today, poor kid. He was a tough one, though. No way was he going to give up, and you had to admire him for that...
A sniff. He’d definitely heard a sniff. Baz rolled over onto his side.
“Ray?” He kept his voice to a whisper. “You OK?” There was no reply, and after a few moments of hesitation Baz reached out in the darkness. His fingertips found the rough texture of Ray’s blanket, and for a moment he was sure he’d felt it quivering. But then there was a startled jerk of movement. Baz pulled back his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ray’s voice sounded angry, suspicious. But not weepy.
“Nothing. Nothing... I just wondered if you were all right. I thought you were—”
“What? Course I’m all right. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. Sorry. It sounded as if you were—�
��
“Well, just keep your hands off me, OK?”
“Sorry...”
Baz shrank back onto his mattress. He wished he hadn’t said anything – wished he could wipe out the last few moments and start again. In fact he wished he could wipe out the whole day and start again. Not get on the boat. Not meet Ray. Not come here at all. Since saying goodbye to his dad he’d been shot at, half strangled, punched, given death threats...
And what had he done wrong? He’d tried to be friendly, tried to look out for Ray, someone smaller and weaker than himself. But he’d just ended up being slapped down and made to look stupid. Right now he could be sitting with his dad, the two of them together in their room, playing cards, sharing a bit of food, whatever his dad had managed to win...
Except that he couldn’t. There wasn’t enough food for two, and that was why he was here – alone and friendless in the dark – the smell of whisky in his nostrils and the hot sting of tears in the corners of his eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
The urgent clamor of an alarm bell brought him from the depths of sleep, dragging him upwards amid a swirl of images: Mum walking into his bedroom with a cup of tea... cereal packets on the kitchen table... lunchbox... uniform...
School! It was time to go to school.
Baz opened his eyes and jerked upright just as the alarm clock stopped ringing. Was he late?
But of course there was no school. He’d for gotten. No school, no Mum, no anything. There was only this. A roomful of strangers, an empty feeling in his belly, and the stale smell of alcohol.
He had reason to be grateful for the whisky fumes at least. They reminded him that there was broken glass on the floor. As Baz fumbled around in the semi-darkness for his shorts and trainers, he glanced towards the huddled-up bundle on the mattress next to him – Ray.
“Watch out for the glass,” he mumbled. The back of his mouth was dry and sore, and it tasted of metal.
No reply came from the next bed, and Baz realized that Ray wasn’t there. Could he have run away in the night? No. Even as the thought occurred to him, Ray appeared, ducking beneath the makeshift curtain as he came out of the jakes – already washed and dressed, apparently.
“Christ. You’re up early.” Baz pulled trainers onto his bare feet.
“Yeah, I always am. Makes no difference what time I go to bed, I always wake up at stupid-o’clock. It drives me nuts. You snore like a pig, by the way.”
Baz didn’t say anything to this. He stood up and peered around the room. The rest of the boys were only now beginning to stir – grumbling and muttering as blankets were thrown aside. He saw that Taps was awake and sitting up, a forlorn and tousled little figure in the dingy light.
“Hey, Taps,” said Baz. “What happens now?”
“Pardon?” Taps rubbed his eyes. “What did you say?”
“I said what happens now?”
“We have fifteen minutes to be outside the sort room.” There was something slightly odd in the way Taps spoke. Quite careful and precise, as though he were reading from a piece of paper.
“OK.” Baz nodded and made his way into the jakes.
Steiner and Hutchinson appeared as the boys were congregating in the corridor outside the door to the sort room. The capos looked bleary-eyed, and more sour-faced than ever.
“Right then, thanks to you lot we’ve all got to start an hour early,” snarled Steiner. “And Hutch and me get a rollocking for not keeping you in line – too soft on you, Isaac says. We’ll soon see about that. Amit, you’re on t’ jetty. Dyson in t’ sort room. Dyson, take first pick.”
“Jubo.” Dyson spoke without hesitation. This was obviously a well-worn routine.
“Robbie,” said Amit.
“Enoch.”
“Taps.”
“Er...” Dyson looked from Baz to Ray – the only two now remaining. “Er... I’ll take Ray.”
“OK. Baz,” said Amit, “you’re with me.”
Baz had been surprised not to have been chosen first. He was sure he must be stronger than Ray. Why would Dyson have picked the weakest?
“OK.” Steiner looked straight at Ray. “So today you got lucky. You’re in t’ sort room. But tomorrow you’ll be with me. On t’ jetty.”
It sounded as if the jetty was the tougher option. Maybe that was why Dyson had picked Ray.
Hutchinson unlocked the door to the sort room. “Dyson, get your lot in there,” he said. “The rest of you go on up to the sports center.”
“Yeah,” said Steiner. “And I want to see you back down on t’ jetty with t’ first load o’ blocks in ten minutes.”
So Baz was one of four climbing the steep asphalt path that apparently led up to the sports center. Amit, Robbie, Taps and himself.
“What’s at the sports center?” he asked.
“Stone and rubble and stuff,” said Amit. “They were building a new science block when it all happened.”
“So that’s where the stone for the jetty comes from? We have to carry it down?”
“Yeah.”
“What, in wheelbarrows?”
“Yeah, listen, mate. Don’t talk so much, OK? It’s too early in the morning, and we’ve got a hell of a long day ahead of us.”
“Sorry.” Baz took a swig from his water bottle. It was still only about seven-thirty, and the island was hung in mist, but already he was sweating from the humidity.
At the top of the hill was an area of flat open ground. There were tennis nets and rusty goalposts rising amongst the tangle of overgrown grass and nettles. This must have once been the school playing field. A big modern building with a curved corrugated roof stood at the far end of the field, and next to that the beginnings of another construction – tall iron stanchions set into concrete. Baz could see a couple of diggers and a cement-mixer truck, grey shapes in the mist, and beyond them a group of trees. A small wood, perhaps, or a copse.
And that was the extent of the island. From up here the sea was visible whichever way you looked, an endless circular horizon. Closer to the shores were the half-submerged ruins of buildings that had once dotted the slopes of Tab Hill. The only structure that had survived was the school itself, standing just that bit higher up the hill than its neighbors.
A flash of white caught Baz’s eye – something popping up from among the tall grass, out towards the middle of the overgrown playing field.
“What... what’s that thing?” said Baz. But even as he asked, he saw that it was an animal of some kind. A sheep? No, a white goat.
“Oh, it’s only Old Bill,” said Amit. He laughed. “That was some kid called Yusuf’s ticket here. His old man was a butcher or something.”
“What happened to him?”
“Who, Yusuf? Couldn’t hack it. Sent back at the end of his first week.”
“Oh. So the goat – it just lives in the field?” said Baz.
“Yeah. Surprised Preacher John hasn’t eaten it yet. Mind you, Cookie’d have to catch it first. I can just see Cookie chasing round after Old Bill with a meat cleaver. Ha.”
They followed the pathway round the perimeter of the field, and the full extent of the construction site came into view: mountains of rubble and chippings, massive stacks of building blocks, timber, scaffolding poles.
“See the roof of that place – the sports center?” said Amit. “We get most of our water from that. Gene rigged it so that all the rain that comes off the roof goes into those blue barrels ‘stead of down the drains.”
Baz looked at where Amit was pointing. He could see six plastic barrels, arranged in pairs along the side of the building with the huge corrugated roof. The barrels were mounted on stacks of concrete blocks, and had downpipes leading into them.
“There’s more on the other side,” said Amit. “We got a couple outside the main building too, but they don’t work as good, so we have to cart water from here to fill the shower butts. It’s a pig.”
“Yeah. Robbie told me.”
“Right. Well, water duty’s three
times a week – Monday, Thursday, Saturday. Takes four of us to do it. You get one week on, one week off. You’ll be on next week – if you last that long. Come on.”
“So what’s in the sports center?”
“Swimming pool and stuff. It’s all locked up, though. You can’t get in there.”
Robbie and Taps were already pulling wheelbarrows from a stack that leaned against a pallet of concrete blocks.
“What are we on today, Amit?” said Robbie. “Blocks or rubble?”
“Er... blocks, I guess. OK, Baz. Grab a barrow and just do like we do. Four blocks at a time. I’ll show you.”
After the third journey Baz was beginning to get the knack of it. He copied the other boys, stacking the concrete blocks into the front of the barrow so that most of the weight was over the front wheel. This made the load easier to lift, although if the blocks were too far forward, the whole thing became unstable and likely to tip over. The barrow then had to be pushed around the playing fields and down the steep path to the jetty. Keeping it upright on the descent was the hardest bit, and Baz’s arms and shoulders were already aching from the effort.
The jetty extended about thirty meters out into the foggy sea – the same long mound of stone and rubble that Baz had seen the night before, topped with its flattened pathway of pinkish-colored chippings.
Here stood Steiner, directing operations. The boys brought their barrows to the edge of the pathway and tipped their contents down the bank of rubble towards the scummy water. It wasn’t easy to raise the handles with enough force to shoot the load of blocks any distance, and Baz, teetering on the brink, was wary lest Steiner decide to trip him or give him a push at the last second. But Steiner seemed content to do no more than yell at him.
“Tip it, you little turd, don’t just lift it!”
The process was long and slow and laborious, each circuit taking between ten and fifteen minutes and each load of four blocks making only the slightest difference to the overall construction. By mid-morning Baz was dizzy with fatigue and lack of food. He didn’t see how he was going to keep this up until evening.
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