Deathwatch (7 page)

Everyone talked about career choices. But how much choice would she really have? How much control?

She hurried along the canal after Angus and Polly, and tried to put the woman out of her mind.

BIOLOGY.
Not Cat’s favourite subject. And today’s lesson looked like being worse than normal. Every now and then the school got a random expert in to talk about something from the real world. This time it was an entomologist. Someone who studied insects. A weirdo, in other words.

Cat was feeling lousy that day anyway. Not the best weekend. After the Phiz incident, she’d slept badly, woken tired and gritty-eyed, which explained why she’d run badly on Saturday. Then they’d gone to see her grandparents in Fife for the night, come back on Sunday afternoon to pouring rain and so much homework to do that she’d had no time to go on Phiz. Actually, she’d tried to, late at night on Sunday, but her laptop was playing up, going slow, had to be rebooted twice before it would work properly, and then her mum had insisted on turning the wireless router off downstairs because it was bedtime.

So the weekend had been the pits from beginning to end. Monday morning had a lot to recover from. And it had been really hard to get up to go to her early morning swimming, with the house dark and damp. When her swimming coach had come to the house to collect her as usual, she’d kept him waiting for five minutes and he’d not been best pleased.

Miss Bleakney had apparently told them about this insect talk after the lesson the previous Friday, but Cat hadn’t been there because she’d had to show some new parents round. So it had come as a surprise when she’d arrived at biology on Monday morning to find this odd, nervous-looking man, with his very thin hair carefully draped over his shiny head, standing beside Miss Bleakney and taking small plastic boxes out of a crate. She was helping him, holding them up every now and then and exclaiming.

“Ooh, a dragonfly! Isn’t it stunning!”

“Yes, indeed, indeed. Odonata Anisoptera
Libellula forensis
, of course,” said the man, taking it from her and placing it softly on the bench.

“Of course,” agreed Miss Bleakney. As if she knew.

Some of the boys and a couple of girls were crowding round, jostling. One tried to touch one of the boxes but the little man became instantly agitated. “No, please, please, no! Don’t touch!”

“But they’re dead, aren’t they?” said Marcus.

“Oh, quite dead! Naturally, they’re quite dead. But fragile, very fragile.”

“Sit down, please, class! Rebecca, Jonathon, Neil, you too! Priya! Amrit! Amrit, for goodness’ sake!” snapped Miss Bleakney.

They obeyed, though noisily. Cat, Bethan, Emily and some others sat at the furthest possible table, their faces slightly screwed up, a little tensely, wondering what on earth was the point of this.

Ailsa came and sat at Cat’s table, squeezing in beside her. “This makes a change,” she said. “Better than Bleakney.”

“You think?” said Cat. “He looks creepy.”

“Now, class.” Miss Bleakney was clapping her hands, her long straight hair tied back severely, her white coat clean and starched, her trendy, rectangular glasses halfway down her perfect nose. “Settle down. I would like to introduce you to our special guest, Professor Bryden.

“Professor Bryden works in the National Museum of Scotland, where we visited recently. He is an expert on insects. A very distinguished entomologist. He used to go on terribly exciting expeditions to exotic places around the world, collecting insects.” It was hard to imagine this balding, shiny man in any exotic place, but there you go. Professor Bryden blinked rapidly from behind his glasses like a gecko.

“Professor Bryden is now retired from his academic career, but he works part-time at the museum.” Miss Bleakney beamed excitedly. “And now he has brought some of his insects to show you. I am sure we are going to find it fascinating and, who knows, perhaps there’s a budding entomologist among you! Please put your hands together and show your appreciation in the usual way.”

And everyone clapped loudly. Some even cheered, which flustered poor Professor Bryden. His tongue flickered in and out a few times before he started speaking.

Cat concentrated on not looking at the insects. She listened to what he had to say – after all, there’d probably be a test or an irrelevant task for homework – but she tried not to look at the creatures as Professor Bryden picked up each box and described the contents. She was glad she was sitting near the back.

The funny little man was actually not a bad speaker. He started off nervously, making what he probably thought was a joke to get them relaxed, but he hadn’t learned that his sense of humour was ancient.

Anyway, very soon, Cat sensed the class become still, listening carefully to his words. Though it pained her to admit it, he had some quite interesting things to say about insects.

Termites, for example. Those towers they built – they weren’t designed for living in, and they weren’t accidental either – they were air-conditioning systems to bring cool air down into the hot African earth. And bees – bees were amazing. Apparently, bees could count the number of wing beats their friends made and they’d know where to go to get the nectar. Bees danced for a reason. Dragonflies were interesting too – they actually stalked their rivals, he said.

Trouble was, then things changed. Professor Bryden asked if they’d like to hold an insect. A live insect. A cockroach. A Madagascan hissing cockroach. Dictyoptera Blaberidae
Gromphadorhina portentosa
, as he announced.

A murmur went through the room. Dizziness swam through Cat’s head. She breathed deeply, glancing at the door out of the corner of her eye. She, Emily and Bethan looked at each other, their faces screwed up. Ailsa was looking scarily keen. But then, she
was
sciencey.

Professor Bryden took a large plastic box out of the crate. It was about thirty centimetres long, about the same tall and a bit less wide, with condensation on the sides. Inside was a rotten log. At first, she could see no insects, until something moved, something brown, which she hoped was a piece of bark but rather obviously wasn’t. It was also unpleasantly large. Still, as long as it stayed a long way from her, impersonating bark, this was absolutely fine.

She was aware that more than one creature was in the box.

“Cool!” said someone.

Professor Bryden smiled at these eager faces, relaxed now that he could see their interest. He continued, “So who wishes to hold one?”

A
load of hands shot up. Not Cat’s. Nor Emily’s. Nor Bethan’s. The boys who hadn’t put their hands up straight away soon did. With the girls, it depended. It was a personality thing. Cat would normally want to join in with whatever was going on, but since she had zero desire to hold a cockroach, whether hissing or not, she stuck with the girls who stayed silent, their faces creased in distaste.

Danny’s hand went up.

Ailsa muttered, “Not Danny. That would be cruelty to animals!”

Danny looked directly at Cat. Cat returned his gaze. “Your turn next?” His words were clearly a challenge. She could see it in his eyes.

She felt her heart racing. She had a horrible feeling that this lesson was going to turn out even worse than she’d feared. She still wasn’t sure if it had been Danny on Phiz. But he knew her hatred of creepy-crawlies, and he would know very well that she didn’t want to touch one.

Everyone had to wash their hands with some special substance, to protect the cockroach from germs. What? Weren’t they the germiest creatures around? Professor Bryden was giving some explanation but Cat didn’t listen. To say that she cared nothing about the immune system of a Madagascan hissing cockroach would be the understatement of the year.

Now several pupils held out their hands and amid exclamations and laughter they each held a vile brown creature. Alison, at their table, was obviously up for it, but Alison wasn’t afraid of anything. Cat wished she wasn’t sitting at her table, though at least she was at the far end of it. Cat, Bethan and some others stayed quiet and waited for it all to be over.

Cat concentrated on breathing, slow and deep.

Why would anyone want to do this? The horrible thing sat there, antennae waving, crouched on tiny legs. When Professor Bryden touched the shiny brown back, a sizzling noise came like cold water poured on a hot roasting tray and everyone shrieked.

Miss Bleakney noticed Cat and her friends sitting silently. “Girls, none of you want a go? Any of you? You might regret it if you don’t.”

That seemed exceptionally unlikely.

“Yeah, come on!” said some of the boys.

“Go on! You’re not
scared
, are you?” It was Danny. And even if he didn’t say so, she knew it was directed at her.

“No, Danny. But just because you can have a deep and meaningful relationship with beetles, doesn’t mean we all have to,” Cat said. He shrugged.

“OK, I will,” said Emily.

Traitor! Ailsa held her hand up too, of course. And Amrit, who didn’t like to be left out of anything.

With any luck they’d all be bored after that. Or the lesson would end or something. Cat sneaked a look at the clock. Still twenty minutes left. Too long.

Cat realized something then. There was only one way to deal with this. Only one way to get Danny off her back. She would have to
pretend
not to mind. No, she wouldn’t actually volunteer to touch the thing, but if she got as close as she could, made every possible effort to look as though she didn’t mind, Danny would see that this wasn’t something he could get her on.

Professor Bryden was coming towards them with his plastic box full of disease-ridden, pointless bark impersonators, followed closely by Miss Bleakney. At that moment, Cat could willingly have strangled Miss Bleakney with her own over-long hair. Look at her: smiling away as though this was just the most exciting biology lesson in the whole history of biology lessons.

Here he was. Cat craned her neck, pretending to be interested.

Professor Bryden stood between her and Bethan, just behind them. He smelled sickly – old-mannish and unwashed – as he leant between them to put the box on the table. He wore a brown tweedy jacket, with baggy pockets.

He reached his hand towards the box and the smell of his jacket caught in her throat. He really was a horrible little man. There was something definitely creepy about him. She was sure he’d looked at her when he’d been walking towards them. Did he sense her fear?

“They’re quite cute,” she said lightly, as he brought one out and placed it on the back of his hand and she tried not to shrink from him. They weren’t cute, not even a little bit. They were disgusting. They looked artificial. Their only skill was in looking like a piece of rotten bark. They couldn’t fly, or build webs, or migrate to South Africa, or do anything vaguely clever.

“Well?” said Professor Bryden to Emily. “Are you ready?”

Emily nodded, her face a mixture of excitement and fear. She looked like someone who has just chosen to skydive and is regretting it but going to do it anyway.

“Hold out your hands. Nice and steady.” And the whole class watched while Emily did.

Cat struggled to stay in control, to stop her eyes and head buzzing with dizziness. She didn’t think she could speak. The thing was so close. And about six centimetres long. It raised its shell a little, and it was all she could do not to gasp. Professor Bryden put a small piece of apple a little way in front of its mouth and it began to walk slowly across Emily’s hand towards it.

Emily squealed, “Euuch, it’s tickling! It’s horrible!”

It was indeed horrible. How on earth could anyone find it anything other than horrible? It was disgusting and also incredibly boring. Cat felt trapped by both the disgustingness and the boringness of this thing. She made a vow there and then to give up biology at the very earliest opportunity. What was the point in devoting precious hours to studying such a stupid subject?

The world was extremely badly designed sometimes.

Presumably her parents had both had to study insects since they must both have done biology. But what was the point even for them? Did any one single thing about cockroaches come into their work? Mind you, madness and insects couldn’t be that far apart. She thought of Danny and his collection. Probably he’d end up as one of her mother’s patients.

“OK, my turn,” said Ailsa, way too keen for Cat’s liking.

“It’s cute,” lied Cat, fixing a smile on her face with a huge effort. “I like its kind of shiny shell.”

“And no wings, you note,” said Professor Bryden.

Surely this was nearly over now?

Over Professor Bryden’s shoulder, Cat could see Danny. Smiling at her. Grinning. He mouthed something at her. One word. Nothing particularly bad. But enough.

Loser.

She could not let that go.

CAT’S
mouth was dry and she felt the beginning of true panic. She wished she could be somewhere else. Anywhere. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for her. She had no choice. Well, she could scream and leave the room, but she’d never live it down.

“OK,” she said. “No big deal. I’ll hold it. After you, Ailsa.”

“No, go on, you go first,” said Ailsa. Grinning. Probably just a game to her – nothing malicious – but Ailsa didn’t know how hard this was. That it was serious; that Cat’s skin was crawling at the thought of touching this creature.

There was no point in postponing it – it was like jumping into cold water: you just had to do it without thinking too much.

It required every effort to force her hands out in front of her. Emily began to move her hands towards Cat, to pass the thing over. Slowly. No problem. Well, yes, a problem, but not an impossible one.

What happened next? When Cat thought about it afterwards, she couldn’t quite decide. It was as though someone jogged Ailsa and she in turn knocked the box with the other cockroaches, which Professor Bryden had put on the table; and at exactly the same time, just as Cat’s eyes were drawn suddenly to the box, she saw that two insects had half crawled out of it. Some of the other pupils must have seen this at the same time, because a couple of them shrieked. Emily’s hands came quickly towards Cat, opening as she tried to drop her cargo as fast as possible, but Cat wasn’t ready. She panicked.