by Meg Rosoff
Justin grabbed Dorothea and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Dorothea.’
‘For what?’
‘For finding my dog.’
She frowned at him. ‘I merely saw him. You brought him back.’
38
With Boy’s reappearance, Justin felt calmer, more connected to reality. That his reality encompassed an invisible dog and the occasional presence of the voice of doom seemed less significant than his ability to sleep at night, rise in the morning, and interact meaningfully with other human beings during the day.
This morning, from the kitchen window, he had seen a large muscular tabby prowling along the walls of the back garden. It disappeared suddenly, emerging from beneath a hedge with a mangled blackbird in its mouth. Though upset by this spectacle from the perspective of the bird, Justin admired the cat’s ruthlessness, the way its lean belly hung from angular, powerful shoulders and hips, and nearly brushed the ground as it stalked.
‘Have you seen Alice this morning?’ Dorothea entered the kitchen, still in her nightdress, followed by Anna.
Justin nodded, stirring porridge on the front burner for Anna, and pointed to the outdoor hutch. ‘He’s there, with Boy.’
It was a mild morning, and the greyhound lay in his favourite position, stretched out by the heating vent, watching over the hutch through one half-open eye while Alice hunkered somnolently, half-buried in straw, secure in the presence of his bodyguard. Dorothea had been concerned that Boy would revert to the instincts of a natural cat-killer, but since his reappearance he had seemed content just to observe; he barely acknowledged the presence of the cats.
‘Well, that’s a relief. It’s been a terrible night,’ she said, her face grim. ‘You must have heard them. Non-stop yowling. The fox has the neighbourhood all wound up.’
Sightings of the fox that lived at the bottom of next-door’s abandoned garden occasioned great excitement and required special vigilance where Alice was concerned. Dorothea referred to her as a vixen, which puzzled Justin. How could she know? A fox was a fox, especially at a distance.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Dorothea chided him. ‘She’s small for one thing, and delicate around the chops. And for another she’s sneaky. She thinks like a woman.’
Justin nearly laughed, but stopped in deference to Anna, who listened anxiously, her exaggerated terror mixed with a frisson of pleasure.
‘What about Alice?’ she gasped.
‘Alice,’ Dorothea pronounced through clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, ‘is in danger. Because right now that fox smells rabbit.’
Dorothea squinted out of the window at the mangy red creature on the fence, then turned back to face Anna. ‘Once she has the scent of rabbit in her nostrils it’s curtains’ Dorothea grimaced horribly and drew her finger across her neck in a slicing motion.
Anna’s face went blotchy with fear and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor Alice,’ she cried.
Dorothea shot her sister a look of contempt. ‘Don’t be pathetic,’ she commanded disapprovingly. ‘It’s nature’s way’
‘Alice!’ By now Anna was howling.
Dorothea threw Justin a look of infinite suffering, but Anna appeared so genuinely stricken that he felt obliged to step in.
‘Don’t worry, Anna. No fox in his right mind would take on a rabbit the size of Alice.’ He took her hot podgy hand in his two, and held it for a moment. Her answering gaze was full of devotion and the desire to believe him. When she looked at him that way he felt clear, almost luminous.
‘Sentimental idiocy,’ Dorothea declared calmly. ‘Foxes eat rabbits. Doesn’t matter how big they are. Predator and prey, that’s the natural order of things. If the fox gets Alice, too bad, that’s his fate.’
Justin stared at Dorothea, who tilted her face away, triumphant.
All this fuss about one little life. It’s only a rabbit!
The fear-switch in Justin’s head flipped to ON.
Isn’t it?
39
As the days passed, Justin propped himself between Boy and Peter, drawing strength from their constancy and discretion. He found that he could rest while Peter studied; his friend’s even breathing and methodical page-turning pacified him. Peter had the gift of moving quietly, of taking up so little space in a room that Justin often forgot the other boy existed, leaping startled to his feet when Peter made a noise. He began to see how successfully Peter’s modesty deflected attention from whatever talents he possessed. The world seemed to flow around him silently, like water around a minnow.
Peter possessed, in fact, exactly the qualities Justin sought in vain to cultivate. Where Justin was anxious, Peter was calm. Where Justin was murky, Peter was clear. Where Justin struggled to remove himself from fate’s radar, Peter seemed to amble through life below it.
With the transparency bestowed on the pure of heart, Peter seemed unaware of himself, of his gifts. But Justin could think of little else. How was such clarity obtained? He would do anything to look like that, to have his face reflect the peaceful symmetry of an orderly soul. Sometimes he dreamt of a medical procedure, a specialized surgeon who would slit him from his thorax to his crotch, peel back the tarry layers of his epidermis and insert a hose to suck out the grey areas, the filthy caves and murky darknesses that lurked around his heart, his stomach, his liver. What remained would be pink and healthy, springy and soft to the touch. It wouldn’t stick to his fingers and stain his thoughts.
He’d been with them a week when Peter suggested they train together. It seemed a good way to get his friend out of the house, reintroduce him to the world outside his own head. Justin hesitated at first, but eventually gave in. So the two boys began to rise at a quarter to six each morning and set off in the winter gloom with Boy, at a steady pace of seven minutes per mile.
At first, Justin couldn’t see the point. As much as he liked Peter, it was clear the boy was no athlete. He was far too tall, and his sweats never seemed to fit properly; he spent the better part of every practice tugging at his waistband to keep it from slipping down around his knees. In addition, his gait was clumsy and lumbering, attributable partly to lack of coordination, Justin thought, partly to lack of vanity. Even in full flight, he lolloped sideways, perpetually off-balance and awkward.
And yet, Peter never fell behind when they ran.
For a long time, Justin barely noticed. He’d adjusted his gait to match his friend’s; it seemed impolite to live in a person’s house and then leave him in the dust every morning. But after a few days Justin forgot to slow down, found himself working flat out. He arrived back at his new home streaming with sweat and puffing like a train. At his elbow, Peter wasn’t even breathing hard.
When he ran sprints, Peter ran with him; often keeping up a cheerful line of patter that Justin had neither the breath nor the intellect to answer.
Eventually he realized that he had never seen Peter tired.
Having made this observation, he upped the pace until workouts left him staggering with exhaustion. He added miles to their morning run, then more miles, in an attempt to outrun the other boy. But still Peter loped along at his elbow without ever breaking into a sweat.
Finally, one Sunday morning, Justin stopped. He glared at Peter. ‘What’s this all about?’
Peter looked mystified. ‘Um…’ He shrugged, looking slightly worried. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The running, Peter, the running. You never sweat.’
Peter smiled apologetically and shrugged again. ‘I don’t really get tired.’
‘You don’t get tired? What are you talking about? Of course you get tired. Everyone gets tired. Tired is what this is all about. I’m so tired right now I could throw up.’
Peter nodded sympathetically. ‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah? What do you mean “yeah”?’
‘I mean, I just don’t ever get tired myself.’
‘What?’ Justin shook his head. ‘Does Coach know this?’
Peter laughed nervously. ‘I… I don’t think so. I’ve n
ever told him.’
‘What happens if you pick up the pace?’
‘The pace? Um, not much.’
‘You still don’t get tired?’
‘Not really.’
Justin looked stunned. ‘You’re not fast too, by any chance?’
‘I don’t know. I never timed myself.’
‘Come on, let’s have a race, just a small one. Here to the end of the road.’ Above Peter’s protests, Justin dropped to a crouch. ‘OK? Ready, go!’
Peter hesitated, starting well behind his friend, but in five strides had overtaken him. At a sprint, he turned to Justin. ‘Come on, this is ridiculous, let’s not –’
Lungs bursting with the effort, Justin shouted, ‘RUN!’
Peter ran. He pulled effortlessly away from Justin, and began gaining ground, first one metre, then two. Boy bounded between the two boys joyfully: now this is better! Peter reached the end of the road first by nearly five metres, and Justin had seen him pull up at the end.
‘Jesus, Prince,’ Justin choked, dropping exhausted to the kerb. ‘Jesus.’ It took him a minute to be able to speak. ‘Coach’ll drop dead when you tell him.’
Peter looked uncomfortable. ‘I, uh, I’d rather he didn’t know.’
‘What?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t tell him. He’ll make me work harder and start shouting, or set me up as an example. I’d rather just do what I’ve always done.’
Justin caught his breath. ‘I don’t get it. If I could run like that I’d take out a full-page ad in The Times.’
Peter Prince smiled. ‘No, you wouldn’t. And anyway, you’re more coordinated. You look right. No one would be surprised if it were you.’
They set off again – Peter, Justin and Boy – more slowly now. Justin felt gloomy. What was the point of working so hard, running himself into the ground, when on either side of him was talent of a completely different magnitude?
‘Don’t you ever feel like running as fast as you can and winning, just to know how it feels?’ he asked Peter as they puffed along in the flat morning light, the burn in his muscles reminding him of defeat.
Peter thought for a minute. ‘Not really. I guess if I wanted to win, I’d have done it before now. I hate the thought of being conspicuous.’
‘What does conspicuous have to do with anything? What about just running? What about running as fast as you can, just for you. Not for the applause or the medals or anyone else.’
Peter didn’t answer for a time. When he did, he was reluctant, shy. ‘I know what I can do.’
‘But why have a talent you don’t use?’ Justin knew he sounded petulant but couldn’t help it.
‘I do use it.’
‘You know what I mean. Why join the team?’
‘I like the discipline, the routine.’ Peter paused. ‘I run because it feels graceful. It’s the only time I don’t feel like an auk. And it helps me think.’ He grinned at Justin. ‘Increases the blood supply to the brain.’
They ran on in silence, crossing a road that on a weekday would be jammed with commuters. Now it was quiet except for a mail van, a mini-cab driver in a shabby Ford, and a twenty-four-hour launderette attendant, standing outside her shop smoking a cigarette. She waved as they passed.
‘What about you?’
Justin sighed. ‘It wasn’t my idea, I was sort of drafted. But it works. I do it…’ He thought for a moment. ‘To escape, I guess. And also to keep me safe.’
They ran in silence through a major intersection. Stopping for a red light, Peter looked sideways at Justin. ‘From fate?’
Justin nodded, defiant. ‘I don’t care that everyone thinks I’m mad. I’ve had too many near misses.’
Peter said nothing. Their feet hit the pavement in a careful, synchronized rhythm.
Justin looked straight ahead as he continued, his voice calmer, more resigned. ‘Only now I’ve changed into this other person who seems to be eating me alive. And most of the time I don’t know which of us fate wants to kill.’
Peter was silent for ten paces. Twenty. ‘How do you know he wants you dead?’
Justin shook his head. ‘How do you know things? You just do.’
‘Bad science is always based on a convincing chain of logic. Faulty logic, that is. Once it’s in place, it’s harder to unravel than no science at all. In order to disprove it you have to take apart all the old evidence and try to figure out where the logic has gone wrong. With just one small deviation you get the sun revolving round the earth. Or influenza from breathing the night air.’
‘So?’
‘So, try rethinking your proposition. Check your logic. Are you running because you’re being chased? Is something chasing you in order to do you harm? Think of a dog. What if fate is chasing you because you’re running?’
‘You believe me that he’s real?’
‘Not necessarily, but for this argument it doesn’t matter. It’s a bit like Boy. Even if the problem’s all in your head, it doesn’t change the dynamics of it.’
‘You think I should stop running?’
Peter looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t know. I think you could stop being afraid. If there really is some supernatural force out to get you, you’re not exactly going to fool it by pretending to be someone else. Or at least not for long. Why not go for an instinctive leap? Does it feel like it’s working?’
‘No.’
Peter didn’t say anything more, and for the rest of the run there was no sound but breathing and the slap slap slap of feet on the pavement.
40
Justin went back to school.
Rumours as to the reason for his absence had spread and despite – or perhaps because of – their vagueness, attracted new interest. One or two classmates swore they’d seen him in a photograph of the Luton air crash, but the newspaper pictures were small and badly printed, and it was impossible to be sure. A few teachers eyed him nervously and he wondered what excuse his parents had come up with. Mental incompetence would at least have the benefit of being accurate.
He gave up any pretence of listening in class. He arrived when everyone else did, composed his features into an expression that just managed to look conscious and, while his teachers droned on about the Boer War and gravitational force, he thought about Agnes.
Occasionally he was singled out.
‘Hey, goat boy.’
‘Mental case.’
But the majority of his peers couldn’t be bothered.
Peter and Boy accompanied him nearly everywhere within school boundaries, and he was glad of the company. Peter had a kind of diplomatic immunity from harassment based on his intellect and his good nature, and Justin hoped some of it would rub off.
It was Peter who noticed that it was mostly the boys who saw Justin as a victim. The girls had gone uncharacteristically quiet.
Instead, they stared at him.
They stared at the black hollows around his eyes. They stared at his clothes, his indifferent way of wearing them, his haunted expression. They drifted towards him, towards his plane-crash glamour and air of tragic sexuality.
And so he developed a following. Girls hovered near him from the moment he arrived at school each morning until the moment he left.
Justin noticed them milling about in his general vicinity. He eyed them suspiciously, expecting abuse. Instead, their eyes slid over him, paused, then flicked back again, alarmed and attracted by how much he wasn’t like anyone else they knew.
They preened for him, rolled their hips, aimed newly grown breasts in his direction. They smouldered at him from flat, expressionless eyes.
He enjoyed the attention almost as much as he feared it.
‘Hey,’ said a leggy, world-weary fifteen-year-old.
Having no idea how to respond, he ignored her.
They interpreted his silence as mystery, imagined him tortured, passionate.
The fact of their interest aroused him. He had erections so often and so randomly that sexual desire became something to be en
dured, outlasted. He longed to give in to these girls, to the powerful certainty of their indifference. He longed to surrender to the intimacy of their cool, cruel hands.
And yet everything he knew about sex suggested it would only invite more humiliation. Another trap. It didn’t take much to imagine himself ensnared by lust. He was three-quarters there already.
Walking from one class to another he looked up and saw Shireen and Alex, arms linked, parading through the corridors with the absolute authority of Prime Minister and Lord High Chancellor.
We run this principality, their hip-rolling, sexually satisfied strut said.
As they passed him, Shireen stopped. Then she turned slowly, as to the lowliest serf in the filthiest hovel in the darkest of the Dark Ages, and with a single flash of her perfect almond-shaped eyes, and a flare of her exquisite nostrils, she annihilated him, turned her phasers on the space he occupied and – Zap! – made it empty.
He drifted, vaporized, to the library, found the gloomiest, most uninhabited corner and settled, a few random molecules with a wounded soul. He didn’t take up much space.
All around, people of average density came and went – walking near him, through him, hiding for a quick snog, swapping cigarettes or spliffs, sending illicit texts. One actually glanced at a book.
He noticed that one girl had followed him, was watching him.
Another fan, he thought bitterly, and drifted away through a wall of books before he had a chance to see that she had ventured, ever-so-slightly, to smile at him. It was a good smile, without subtext.
Sliding down into a tiny heap by a pile of daily broadsheets, he closed his dematerialized eyes and tried to console himself with his relatively privileged position in the world order. He knew from the headlines beside him that people were starving in countries with few natural resources. That earthquakes and freak storms killed thousands, while despots and fanatics turned their people into slaves, murdered children, tortured doctors.
Peter was right. Compared to them, he was the luckiest person on earth. Unloved and unlovable perhaps, but comfortable, well-fed, in command of his faculties. Not blind, not lame, not culturally handicapped in any way. Unless you counted the rubber circus ball on which he constantly scrambled for balance; the perpetually shifting, rolling ground beneath him.