by Stuart David
“Good luck for the morning, pal,” he says. “I’ve brought you a tie.” He holds it up in the darkness but I can’t see anything. “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” he says. “I spoke to Frank Carberry this morning and he says the job’s yours. The interview is just to keep things above board.”
Something to really help me fall asleep without a care.
“Is the suit in good shape?” Dad asks. “I could run an iron over it before I go to bed.”
I make another kind of sleeping noise and then mumble that it’s fine. He goes over and puts the light on, just about taking my eyes out, and then he picks the suit up off the back of the chair. He hums a bit while he’s holding it up to inspect it.
“Looks okay,” he says, then puts it back where it was, in a bit more of a crumpled state, and lays the tie on top of it.
“Come in and see me when the interview’s over,” he tells me. “I’ll be in the bottling hall. Let me know how it went.”
“All right,” I say, and he turns the light out again and leaves me to spend some productive hours going over and over the mess I’ve got myself into.
I think for a long time about Cyrus, wondering what it matters to him whether he tells Bailey he fought Yatesy or Harry. I lie there wide awake, trying to convince him in my head to say it was Harry after all.
He seemed a little bit insane in the playground when I was trying to get him to do just that.
“Yatesy’s going down for this,” he kept saying. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“But why?” I asked him.
“Because he ruined my life. And he’s going to pay for it. Guaranteed.”
“But think of how you’d be helping Harry out.”
“Who the hell is Harry?” Cyrus asked, and I pointed toward him. “Who the hell is he, though?”
“He’s my cousin.”
“But who the hell are you? I don’t know either of you. And you’d better not mess this up for me. If either of you go to Bailey and tell him I fought this guy, I’ll go straight there and tell him it’s a lie. I won’t even wait to see if Bailey bothers to ask me.”
Harry made a strange little noise, but I didn’t dare look at him.
“In fact,” Cyrus said, “I might even go to Bailey now and tell him what you said to me. How would you like that?”
“Your word against ours,” I said. “I’ll tell him it’s a blackmail.”
Cyrus looked at his phone for a minute and pressed a few buttons on it. It started making a noise, and he pressed a few more buttons, then held it out to us. There was a big ugly grin on his face. The phone was playing back the conversation we’d just had.
“Get lost, Sparrow,” he said, and he went back to his weirdo little gang, who all stared at us as we walked away. By the time the bell rang for the end of lunch break, Harry and I were back round the front of the school and I hadn’t spoken a word to him.
“Don’t bug me again, Jack,” he said. “I’ve had it with you.”
“Me?” I said. “What did I do? All I’m trying to do is help.”
“You’re an idiot,” he told me. “If you’d let me go and see Bailey when I wanted, it might have worked out. He might not even have asked Cyrus.”
“But you heard what Cyrus told us. He’d have gone to Bailey anyway and said it wasn’t you.”
“Maybe,” Harry replied. “But maybe not. And he wouldn’t have had the evidence you’ve just given him. You’re a moron. We’re finished.”
He walked away, and I stood about for a while trying to work out where I was and where I was supposed to be. I finally worked out I had French and made my way there at a snail’s pace. And, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I walked into the class to hear them all humming the tune “Greensleeves” under their breath, while a few of them tried to make kissing noises.
“Silence!” the teacher shouted, and I decided I was going to kill Sandy Hammil.
In the early hours of the morning, when the room is getting brighter, I start to see the big orange shape and hear the chattering of dream voices again. I stop thinking about Cyrus and my body goes soft and light. Then the bedroom door opens. Then my dad comes and stands at the side of the bed again.
“I’m away now,” he says. “Don’t sleep in.”
Not much chance of that.
“What time is it?” I ask him.
“Quarter to seven.”
“What time is the interview?”
“Half nine.”
“I think I’ll be all right,” I say, and he rubs the quilt up near my shoulder, then leaves the room and goes to work.
That’s the last I see of the big orange shape for one night. The room gets brighter and brighter, and I just lie with my eyes open and take part in an imaginary version of my interview. The Frank Carberry guy sits behind a desk, and I sit on the other side, trussed up in Harry’s suit.
“You won’t be handling bottles straightaway,” the Carberry guy tells me. “We’ll start you off on label licking. You’ll hand the labels to a more experienced random and they’ll stick them on. It’s hard to get them straight at first. All right?”
“What if my tongue gets all squeaky?” I ask him.
“No problem,” he says. “We’ve got stuff for that. A pump-action spray. But we can start you first thing in the morning. Sound good?”
I tell him I’ve got double history, and he tells me he’ll write me a note. Then he brings out this piece of paper for me to sign that says I’ll stay on for fifty years and won’t drink any of the whiskey from the broken-glass oil drums.
Maybe I am sleeping a bit after all. Either that or I’m having a full-scale mental collapse. I hear the front door slam, meaning Mum has left for work now too, and I decide I can’t take any more of the fake Frank Carberry and I head along the hallway for a shower. Then I get myself ready.
Harry’s suit looks completely bonkers when I put it on. I don’t know where he ever wore it, but it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. It looks as if it’s made out of tinfoil, all silver and shiny, and I’m not even sure it fits me. I’ve put on the white school shirt I never wear, and I have a go at fixing up my dad’s tie. It’s quite a wide thing, sort of woolly and green, and I don’t really know if this is a good way to look when I check it all out in the mirror. I don’t think so. I know you’re supposed to look kind of insane when you go for an interview, but I don’t know if this is too much insane or not. I should’ve had a trial run in front of my dad last night.
I take his big tie off and try wearing my school one instead. Can you do that? At least it’s quite narrow, but maybe it’s just as crazy as wearing the whole school uniform. I wonder if I need a tie at all. Eventually I decide to put the green one back on, and sit over at my desk, exhausted. I can’t carry on like this. I need to think of a way round the whole Cyrus situation. Maybe I need another plan entirely. Maybe I need to trace my line of dominoes all the way back to where it went wrong and start over from there again. Maybe there’s a different way to get Drew Thornton naked. Maybe Yatesy was the wrong path to go down in the first place.
I get myself a bit fired up on that, and it’s enough to give me the energy to contemplate heading downstairs for breakfast. Should I have put my suit on after my breakfast? What if I drop some cereal onto the tinfoil suit? I think about putting my pajamas back on, but I couldn’t bear to go through the whole tie business again. I’d need to look in the mirror to get it right, and my plan now is to avoid mirrors until the interview is over. That way I can just pretend I look all right.
I put my shoes on and rub them with the corner of my quilt, then pick up my phone and make a break for the kitchen, only to find my mum sitting waiting by the bottom of the stairs.
“Looking sharp this morning, Jack,” she says. “Looking very sharp indeed.”
18
One time, I saw this bit in a comic where a character got caught between two decisions, and he froze at that point in time forever. He wasn’t sure which deci
sion to go with, and he made an attempt to do them both at once, and that was supposed to be why he got caught there. That’s exactly how I feel when I get to about three-quarters of the way down the stairs and see Mum sitting there. I can’t decide whether to carry on going down, or to turn round and run back up to my room and lock the door. So I just freeze on the step and stand there trying to smile.
“Hello,” I say eventually, and I think Mum almost laughs.
“Good morning,” she says.
My head is completely empty. I can’t think of anything. She sits there next to the telephone, looking at me, and I haven’t got a clue what to do. Then she hands me a lifeline.
“Where are you off to?” she asks, and suddenly the brain freeze is over. It all comes rushing in.
“Just school,” I tell her. That was all I needed. Just the right prompt. And now the thing that never fails me has kicked in, and I’m firing on all cylinders. “We’ve got this careers class today,” I tell her. “We have to do this fake interview role-play, as if we’re applying for a job.”
Mum nods. “What’s the job?” she asks.
I don’t even stop to think. “Management consultant in a corporate chain,” I say. I have no idea where these things come from. My brain must be, like, a scientific wonder or something.
“You’re sure that’s the job?” Mum replies. “You’re sure it’s not junior warehouse assistant in a bottling hall?”
Crap. That sounds like it’s probably what I was lined up for in my dad’s place. I start wishing I’d read that form properly, so’s I’d know for sure. All I can do is ride it out.
“No,” I say. “It’s not that. The teacher said this would make a more difficult interview.”
Mum doesn’t look like she’s about to laugh anymore. “Come off it, Jack,” she says, getting up off the telephone chair and heading toward the kitchen. “I know exactly what’s going on. And I’ve already phoned the factory and told them they’ll be one applicant short for their interviews this morning.”
Busted!
Suddenly, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. All I can think is, I must still be upstairs in bed and the big orange shape overtook me without me knowing about it. I’m certain this must be a dream. I come down to the bottom of the stairs, and Mum turns to face me.
“What’s the matter?” she says. “Cat got your tongue?”
I think it must have. I think it must have got my brain as well. All I can do is stand and stare at her, then ask how she found out.
“Who . . . ?”
“Ray,” she says. “He phoned first thing this morning and told me everything. He said he wanted to save you from ruining your talents. Whatever they might be.”
Then she wanders into the kitchen and starts clattering.
I’m speechless.
Uncle Ray! The big fat crazy bastard. I can’t believe it. And all at once it hits me: I’m free. I’m free and it’s not my fault. I’m off the hook, and Dad’s got someone else to blame. I did everything I could. Uncle Ray’s face looms up large in my imagination, with its black eye and its broken chin, and if I could, I think I would probably kiss it.
“Get back up to your room and change,” Mum says. “Get your school clothes on. It’s over, Jack.”
I try my best to look hurt and disappointed, in case there’s ever a point in the far distant future when she talks to Dad again. She might tell him about this moment, so I do everything I can to look crushed. Then I almost float back up the stairs.
While I’m eating breakfast, Mum tells me she’ll be driving me to school, to make sure that’s where I go. And to make sure I stay there. This is all good. It clears me of any responsibility for not turning up at the interview. Even if I wanted to trick my way there, it couldn’t be done.
I wait till Mum goes out of the room for a minute, then knock up a text to Dad.
“We’ve been rumbled!” it says. “Uncle Ray told Mum everything. She stayed at home and canceled the interview.”
I send it out just as Mum comes back in, and then I turn my phone off in case he texts back and Mum gets wind of what’s going on.
“Hurry up,” she tells me. “You’re going to be late again.”
Then she stomps around the kitchen for a while, muttering things I can’t really hear over the crunch of my cereal.
We don’t talk much on the way to school. The muttering continues, but I manage to zone it out and start thinking about my dominoes again. Should I really go all the way back to the start, I wonder? Do I really need a new plan? I could ask Drew Thornton to come swimming, then steal all his clothes while he’s getting changed, and have Elsie positioned somewhere suitable for that. Or I could put a wasp or a worm down the back of his shirt and hope he’ll strip off in the playground trying to get rid of it. I can tell I’m just being silly now, but I’m in a silly mood. Being free of the interview has got me all full of the funny stuff, and I even consider just running into school and ripping Drew’s clothes off in a fit of noonday madness. Elsie couldn’t argue with that.
By the time we’re getting close to school, though, I start to sober up. The Coco Pops have stopped making my fingers tingle, and I’m thinking clearly again. I know my original plan is the way to go, really. I’ve come too far with it to give up now, and the belief that I can talk Cyrus round comes back full force. I start to recognize the Uncle Ray Intervention for the good omen it is. It’s a sign that my luck has changed, and I have to ride the wave of good fortune while it’s carrying me along in the right direction. I have to let it help me talk Cyrus into doing what he’s been refusing to do.
“I’ll still be sitting here when it’s time for your interview,” Mum says as we pull up at the school gate. “Don’t bother trying to sneak out and go down there. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“I didn’t want to go in the first place,” I tell her, but she doesn’t reply, so I open the door and merge into the crowd outside.
“I’m disappointed in you, Jack,” she shouts as I follow the randoms down into the playground. I look around a bit, pretending I’m trying to work out who’s being shouted at. A little leaf out of Chris Yates’s book. On a smaller scale.
I’ve still got ten minutes left before it’s time for registration, so I make my way round the back of the old building and head down toward the bins, looking for Cyrus. I’m in luck. He’s there with the same crowd as yesterday, doing the same weird thing in the circle with the phones. Cyrus is all caught up in it, jerking about and making strange noises, so I take the opportunity to get as close to him as I can, then just stand and wait. They all do that jerking thing for what seems like ages, then one of them shouts, “Bam it!” and they stop for a minute and regroup.
I take my chance.
“Cyrus,” I say.
He turns round and looks at me, then shakes his head.
“Get lost!” he says.
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” I tell him.
“Good for you. I don’t want to know.”
He fiddles with his phone, then lifts it back up to where the others are holding theirs. I move even closer to him and speak more quietly.
“I think I’ve thought up a way to get at Chris Yates,” I say. “Risk free.”
He doesn’t seem to respond at first, though he pulls his phone back a bit. I’m starting to get to him, but he’s trying not to show it.
“Can we meet up at lunchtime to talk about it?” I ask, and he doesn’t say no. He lifts his phone up close to his face and pretends he’s doing something with it again. Then he speaks without turning round to look at me.
“Where?” he says.
“Somewhere quiet,” I say. “Round behind the games hall?”
“When?” he asks.
“Half twelve? Something like that?”
“Be there,” he tells me, and then he gets fully involved in the phone madness again. I walk away and leave them to it.
I certainly will be there.
19
Du
ring the morning break, after a mind-numbing double of maths, I track down Chris Yates and tell him my cousin Harry is ready to stand in for him. Yatesy is on his own down near the art classes, staring at a broken calculator that’s lying in the grass, and drawing it in his notebook.
“When’s it going to happen?” he asks, and I tell him I just need to square it with Cyrus first. Then I decide to chance my arm and see if I can fix a date for the Drew Thornton session.
“How about this weekend?” I ask him. “Can you do it on Saturday?”
“We’ll see,” Yatesy says. “Talk to me when your cousin’s done his thing.”
“But you’ll be in the clear by the weekend,” I tell him. “I can guarantee it. Let’s set it up now.”
He puts a few more lines in his notebook and then holds it out at arm’s length. It’s a pretty good drawing.
“Cyrus wants blood,” he says. “You’ll have trouble with him. All he cares about is seeing me expelled.”
I act surprised, as if I didn’t know anything about it, and Yatesy nods.
“The bitch is angry,” he says.
He keeps scribbling away, rubbing things out and drawing them back in, and I decide to see if I can get any information that will help me get round Cyrus. Even just a kilobyte.
“What was the fight about, anyway?” I ask. “What started it?”
“Have you ever spoken to him?” Yatesy says.
I nod. “Just once.”
“That’s enough,” he says. “If you’ve spoken to him once, you know what it was about.”
Fair point.
“Just that?” I say. “Nothing else?”
Yatesy nods. “Just that. And he kept going on about me being a bohemian. As if it was an insult or something. Did my head in.”
“What’s a bohemian?” I say, and Yatesy screws his face up.
“You know,” he says. “Like an artist. Somebody who doesn’t buy into the bullshit. A freethinker.”