Authors: David Mitchell
Ant Little said, ‘Wilcox’s
crazy
. You’re gonna
cream
him, Grant.’
‘Yeah,’ said Darren Croome. ‘’Course you are.’
Great
news. Ross Wilcox’s building up a sort of gang at school and he’s made it pretty clear he’s got it in for me. Grant Burch is one of the hardest kids in the third year. Wilcox getting his face kicked in’d label him as a loser and a leper.
‘What’s the time now, Phelps?’
Phelps checked his watch. ‘Quarter to ten, Grant.’
Ant Little said, ‘Chickened out, I reckon.’
Grant Burch flobbed again. ‘We’ll stay till ten. Then we’re off down Wellington Gardens to invite Wilcox out to play. Nobody gets away with being that arsey to
me
.’
Phelps said, ‘What about his dad, Grant?’
‘What about his dad, Phelps?’
‘Didn’t he put Wilcox’s mum in hospital?’
‘I ain’t scared of a bent mechanic. Give us another fag.’
Phelps mumbled, ‘Only Woodbines left, Grant, sorry.’
‘
Woodbines?
’
‘They’re all my mum had in her handbag. Sorry.’
‘What about your old man’s Number Sixes?’
‘’Fraid there weren’t any. Soz.’
‘God! All
right
. Gi’ us the Woodbines. Taylor, want a smoke?’
Ant Little said, ‘“Given up”,’ sneerily, ‘ain’t yer, Taylor?’
‘Started up again,’ I told Grant Burch, scrambling up the embankment.
Dean Moran helped me over the muddy lip. ‘All right?’
I told Moran, ‘All right,’ back.
‘Yee-
HAAAAAAR!
’ Squelch straddled the Hollow Log like a horse and whipped his own bum with a whippy stick. ‘Gonna kick dat boy’s
ass
to da middle o’next week!’ He must’ve got it off some film.
A middle-ranking kid like me shouldn’t refuse an invitation from an older kid like Grant Burch. I held the Woodbine like my cousin’d shown me, and pretended to take a deep drag. (Actually I kept the smoke in my mouth.) Ant Little was hoping I’d cough my guts up. But I just breathed out the smoke like I’d done it a million times before, and passed the cigarette to Darren Croome. (Why does something as forbidden as smoking taste so foul?) I glanced at Grant Burch to see how impressed he was but he was looking towards the kissing gate over by St Gabriel’s. ‘Look who it flamin’ isn’t.’
The fighters sized each other up in front of the Hollow Log. Grant Burch’s got an inch or two over Ross Wilcox, but Ross Wilcox is knucklier. Gary Drake and Wayne Nashend’d come as his lieutenants. Wayne Nashend used to be one of the Upton Punks, briefly became an Upton New Romantic, but now he’s firmly an Upton Mod. He’s an utter thicko. Gary Drake’s no thicko, though. He’s in my form at school. But Gary Drake’s Ross Wilcox’s cousin so they’re always dossing about together.
‘Fuck off home to Mummy,’ Grant Burch told Ross Wilcox, ‘while you still can.’ (A dirty opener, that. Everyone knows about Ross Wilcox’s mum.)
Ross Wilcox gobbed at Grant Burch’s feet. ‘
Make
me fuck off.’
Grant Burch looked at the gob on his trainers. ‘You’re gonna be cleaning that off with your fucking tongue,
Piss Flaps
.’
‘
Make
me.’
‘Don’t make shit, it comes natural.’
‘Really original line, that,
Burch
.’
Hate smells of burnt dead fireworks.
At school, scraps are ace fun. We all scream ‘SCRA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP
PP’ and rush to the epicentre. Mr Carver or Mr Whitlock wades in, tossing aside members of the audience. But this morning’s scrap was more cold blooded. My own body flinched under the punches, automatically, like how your leg hoists itself when you’re watching a high-jumper on TV. Grant Burch body-tackled Ross Wilcox low and fast.
Ross Wilcox got in a weak punch, but had to squirm sideways to not get toppled.
Grant Burch clawed at Ross Wilcox’s throat. ‘
Cunt!
’
Ross Wilcox clawed at Grant Burch’s throat. ‘
Cunt
yer
self!
’
Ross Wilcox punched Grant Burch’s head. That
hurt
.
Grant Burch got Ross Wilcox in a headlock. That
really
hurt.
Ross Wilcox was swung one way, swung the other, but Grant Burch couldn’t deck him so he punched Ross Wilcox’s face. Ross Wilcox managed to twist his hand up and sink his fingers into Grant Burch’s face.
Grant Burch shoved Ross Wilcox and booted him in the ribs.
Straight away they head-butted each other, like rams.
They grapple-wrapped each other, garking through clenched teeth.
A crimson streak’d appeared from Grant Burch’s nose. It smeared Ross Wilcox’s face.
Ross Wilcox tried to trip Grant Burch.
Grant Burch counter-tripped Ross Wilcox.
Ross Wilcox counter-counter-tripped Grant Burch.
By now, they’d three-legged themselves to the lip of the embankment.
‘Watch it!’ Gary Drake shouted. ‘You’re right at the edge!’
Knotted round each other, they teetered, clutched, swayed.
Over they went.
At the foot of the embankment, Ross Wilcox’d already got to his feet. Grant Burch was half sat up, cradling his right hand in his left and squinting with agony.
Shit
, I thought. Blood and soil clotted Grant Burch’s face.
‘Aw,’ mocked Ross Wilcox. ‘Had enough, now, have we?’
‘My wrist’s
bust
,’ Grant Burch grimaced, ‘yer fuckin’
wanker
!’
Ross Wilcox flobbed, dead casual. ‘Looks to me like you’ve lost, then, ain’t yer?’
‘I’ve not fuckin’
lost
, yer fuckin’ wanker, it’s a fuckin’
draw
!’
Ross Wilcox grinned up at Gary Drake and Wayne Nashend. ‘Grant
Piss Flaps
Burch calls
this
a “draw”! Well, let’s carry on with round two, then, shall we, eh? Settle this “draw”, shall we, eh?’
Grant Burch’s only hope was to turn his defeat into an accident. ‘Oh,
sure
, Wilcox, yeah, with a bust wrist, ’
course
I will.’
‘Want me to bust yer other wrist, then, do yer?’
‘Oh, that’d be
rock
hard of yer!’ Grant Burch managed to get up. ‘Phelps! We’re
leaving
!’
‘Yeah, yeah, off yer go. Home to Mummy.’
Grant Burch didn’t risk saying,
At least I’ve got one
. Instead, he glared up at his frozen, pale servant. ‘PHELPS! I just
told
yer, yer deaf-aid, WE’RE LEAVING!’
Philip Phelps jerked into life and slid down the embankment on his arse. But Ross Wilcox blocked his path. ‘Don’t you get
tired
of that pillock ordering you about, Phil? He doesn’t
own y
er. You
can
tell him to fuck off. What’s he going to do?’
Grant Burch yelled, ‘PHELPS! I ain’t tellin’ yer
again
!’
Phelps thought about it for a moment, I’m sure. But then he dodged round Ross Wilcox and jogged off after his master. With his good hand, Grant Burch flashed Ross Wilcox a ‘V’ over his shoulder.
‘Oy!’ Ross Wilcox picked up a clod of earth. ‘Forgot yer breakfast, yer bumboys!’
Grant Burch must’ve ordered Phelps not to turn round.
The soil-bomb’s trajectory looked perfect.
It was. It exploded on the back of Phelps’s neck.
It’d been a risky fight for Ross Wilcox, but it’d gone brilliantly. Burch’s scalp makes Wilcox
the
hardest kid in the second year. He’ll get invited to be a member of Spooks, most like. He settled on his throne on the Hollow Log. Ant Little said, ‘I
knew
you’d have Grant Burch, Ross!’
‘Me too,’ said Darren Croome. ‘We was saying, on our way here.’
Ant Little got out a packet of Number Sixes. ‘Smoke?’
Ross Wilcox swiped the entire pack.
Ant Little looked pleased. ‘Where’d yer get yer ear-stud put in, Ross?’
‘Did it myself. Needle, candle to sterilize it. Hurts like shit but it’s a piece o’ piss.’
Gary Drake stabbed a Swan Vesta against the bark to light it.
‘You two…’ Wayne Nashend squinted down at Dean Moran and me. ‘You was here with Burch, wasn’t yer?’
‘I didn’t even
know
about the scrap,’ Dean Moran protested. ‘I’m off to White Leaved Oak, me. To stay with my gran.’
‘
Walking?
’ Ant Little squinted. ‘White Leaved Oak’s over the Malverns. It’ll take ages. Why doesn’t yer old man drive yer?’
Moran looked awkward. ‘He’s ill.’
‘He’s on another of his benders,’ Wayne Nashend said, ‘ain’t he?’
Moran looked down.
‘Then why can’t yer mum drive yer?’
‘Can’t leave my dad, can she?’
‘What about
you
,’ Gary Drake speaks snakishly, ‘President Jason Taylor of the Grant Burch Arse-Slurpers Association. What are
you
doing here?’
You can’t just say, ‘I’m out for a walk,’ ’cause walks are gay.
‘Yee-
HAAAAAR
!’ Squelch straddled a limb of the Hollow Log like a horse and whipped his own bum with a whippy stick. ‘Gonna kick dat boy’s
ass
to da middle o’ next week!’
‘
You
,’ Darren Croome flobbed, ‘should be in Little Malvern Loonybin, Squelch.’
‘Well, Taylor?’ Ross Wilcox isn’t so easily distracted.
I spat out my flavourless Juicy Fruit, desperate for a way out. Hangman was gripping the root of my tongue and every letter in the alphabet was a stammer-letter.
‘He’s coming to my nan’s too,’ said Dean Moran.
‘You didn’t tell
us
that, Taylor,’ accused Ant Little, ‘not
before
Ross kicked the shit out of that wankstain Burch.’
I managed to say, ‘You didn’t
ask
, Little.’
‘Me and Taylor were meeting here.’ Moran began heading off. ‘That was the plan all along. He’s comin’ to my nan’s too. C’mon, Jason, better be off now.’
The Christmas tree plantation was dark as eclipses and whiffed of bleach. Armies of them in endless rows and files. Flies, titchy as commas, got into our eyes and nostrils. I should’ve thanked Moran for the lifeline he’d thrown me back by the Hollow Log, but that would’ve meant admitting how badly I’d needed it. Instead, I told him about the Dobermanns. But it wasn’t news to Moran. ‘Oh, Kit Harris? I knows ’
im
all right. Divorced the
same
woman, three times. She must need her bloomin’
head
examinin’. Kit Harris loves one thing only and that’s them dogs. He’s a teacher, believe it or not.’
‘A
teacher
? But he’s a psycho.’
‘Yep. At a borstal, out Pershore way. His nickname’s “Badger”, ’cause o’ that streak o’ white hair. Not that anyone calls him that to his face. Once one o’ the borstal kids took a dump on the bonnet of his car. Guess how Badger found out who done it.’
‘How?’
‘
Squeezing bamboo needles up every kid’s fingernails
, one by one, till someone grassed on the kid who done it.’
‘No way!’
‘God’s honest, that is. My sister Kelly told me. Discipline’s tougher at borstals, that’s why they’re borstals. At first, Badger tried to get the kid who done it expelled. But the headmaster of the borstal wouldn’t do it, ’cause if yer get expelled from a borstal that means automatic prison. So a few weeks later, Badger organized a wide-game on Bredon Hill. At night.’
‘What’s a wide-game?’
‘Like an army game, a war game. They do ’em in the Scouts too. One side has to capture the other side’s flag, stuff like that. So anyway, the next morning, the kid who’d crapped on Badger’s car’d
disappeared
.’
‘Where to?’
‘Exactly! The headmaster told Interpol and that, the kid’d run away during the wide-game. Happens all the time at borstals. Kelly got to the bottom of it, though. But you have to swear on your own grave you’ll never tell anyone.’
‘I swear.’
‘On yer own grave.’
‘On my own grave.’
‘Kelly was in Rhydd’s when Badger comes in. This was
three weeks
after the kid’d disappeared, okay? So. Badger buys bread and stuff. Badger’s just leaving, when Mr Rhydd asks him, “What about your Pedigree Chum for your dogs, Mr Harris?” Badger just says, “My boys’re on a diet, Mr Rhydd.” Dead evil, like that. “My boys’re on a diet.” Then when he’s gone, Kelly overhears Mr Rhydd telling Pete Redmarley’s old biddy that Badger hadn’t bought his usual cans of Pedigree Chum for
three weeks
.’
‘Uh-
huh
,’ I said, not quite getting it.
‘Yer don’t need to be Brain of Britain to work out what Badger’s Dobermanns was eating for those three weeks, right?’
‘What?’
‘Badger was feeding his dogs the missing kid!’
‘Jesus,’ I actually shivered, ‘
Christ
.’
‘So if all Badger did was put the shits up yer,’ Moran slapped my shoulder, ‘yer got off lightly.’
A farty ditch’d flooded the bridlepath and we both took a running jump. My superior athletic powers got me over. Moran soaked one foot up to his ankle.
‘So where
were
you on yer way to, then, Jace?’
(Hangman blocked ‘Nowhere’.) ‘Just out. For a doss.’
Moran’s trainer squished. ‘Must be heading somewhere.’
‘Well,’ I confessed, ‘I’ve heard the bridlepath might lead to a tunnel, through the Malverns. Thought I might go and take a butcher’s.’
‘The tunnel?’ Moran stopped and sort of slapped my arm in disbelief. ‘That’s where
I
’m going!’
‘What happened to staying with your nan in White Leaved Oak?’
‘I’m going
there
by rediscovering the lost tunnel, see? The one the Romans built to invade Hereford.’
‘Romans? Tunnels?’
‘How else could they kick out the blinkin’ Vikings? Done my research, I have, see. Got a torch and a roll of string, and everything.
Three
tunnels go through the Malverns. One’s the British Rail one for the train to Hereford. It’s haunted by an engineer in orange overalls with a black stripe where the train ran over him. The second tunnel’s a Ministry of Defence tunnel.’