Graveyard Shift (13 page)

A
s soon as Mercy Road School came into view, I slowed to a standstill and doubled over on a street corner, hands on knees, gasping. The street vibrated with car engines and the voices of kids in the yard.

The warning on the wall had shaken me up. It wasn't just saying don't meddle. It didn't just mean they could get to me whenever they liked.
You and yours
. Had I made a target of Mum as well as myself?

“Behind you,” someone whispered.

I swung around and there he was, the raggedy man, the pirate, lolling on the low wall outside the chapel, his face upturned to the sun.

“You,” I said, surprised but glad to see him.

“You've been having an emotional ride, I can tell.”

“How did you know? Did I call you again?”

“You must've done. I can't answer if you don't call. What's the problem?”

“Mum's very ill. I found out last night. And I don't know what to do. I think it's because of you and the Ministry.”

A look of sheer surprise. “Really?”

“Yes, because I've taken sides. I think they're getting to me by getting to Mum.”

Across the street, five of the gang of six stepped off a bus and into the gray and maroon mob. In the midst of the crowd, Raymond Blight was picking on a kid half his size, dragging him along by his tie.

“You sometimes appear as a businessman,” I said to Mr. October. “Very smart in a suit.”

“So I do. Not my alter ego of choice. I'm not exactly the tie-wearing kind, but you have to keep your superiors sweet at board meetings.”

“Did you ever dress up like that and go to a café on Mare Street? Did you leave the waitress a massive tip?”

Mr. October frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“Because someone did, and if it wasn't you, it could've been one of them. She made him sound like a charmer, but I bet he put a curse on her or something.” I looked at him sharply. “Could they have made her sick?”

He considered this for a moment. “They could, but I doubt they did. It would be a waste of resources. And other things could have made your mum ill. Working too hard, pining for your dad all these years, always worrying about money. Life gets to people in all kinds of ways.”

“You sound very sure.”

“Well, I noticed her with you at your Aunt Carrie's funeral. I can tell a lot about people at a glance. First impressions aren't always everything, but that's what I saw in her.”

“But their warning . . . They left me a message on a wall. Doesn't that mean something?”

“I know these demons,” he said. “I know Randall Cadaverus and all his evil hordes. They're basically bullies and, like all bullies, cowards at heart. They know you can harm them by being with us, and they mean to scare you away. That's precisely why you should stay. Always do the thing your enemy would least want you to do.”

The first bell sounded across the street.

“Will Mum be all right?” I asked. “Is she safe?”

“Try not to worry. I'll put a watch on your house if you like. But I believe she needs something more than protection and medicine.”

He slid off the wall, checking his pockets, and pulled out a fresh set of cards. He made a face as he read the first one.

“Duty calls,” he said. “My plate is full again. So will I see you at the office later? I'll understand if you can't come.”

“Dunno. I'll try.”

“That's all you can do. And now I'd better look lively. There's a 24381 in Bermondsey — very unpleasant indeed.”

“Mr. October?”

“Yes?”

“What does she need? If it isn't protection or medicine, then what?”

“Closure,” he said mysteriously. “You'll soon understand what I mean.” He glanced up and down the street. “I don't suppose there's a phone booth nearby, is there?”

 

Becky wasn't in homeroom that morning, and by English with Mr. Glover she still hadn't appeared. Although we'd only spoken once, I felt at a loss without her there. She was the only one who'd had anything to do with me so far.

“Listen, everyone,” Mr. Glover said as we settled at our desks. “Here's your chance to let those wildly imaginative minds of yours run free . . . as long as you don't let them run freely through the door to the corner store. Today you'll write your very own short stories, on any subject you like. Each of you will produce a masterpiece of at least five hundred words. You have fifty-five minutes from now.”

Groans around the room. Much shuffling and fidgeting. Mr. Glover sat behind his desk, grading papers for the first half hour, then patrolled the class, snatching half-written pieces from desks and reading aloud:

“Fascinating, Tommy. ‘The creature came into the room looking uncannily like something no one had ever seen before.' I'd have a think about that if I were you.”

Muffled snorts and giggles.

“Don't know what you're laughing about, Dan,” Mr. Glover said, stopping by the twins' desk. “‘“Curse you!” McBride bellowed. “Just for that, I challenge you to a duel at dawn.”'”

Even I laughed at that one, but I hadn't fared any better. In fact, I'd barely started. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was my mother holding her pen in the wrong hand. I could see the hungry cat's eyes on the wall. The demon thrashing its arms by the water as the ravens swept down. I had loads of things to write about, but I didn't dare share them with anyone.

At the top of the page, I'd scribbled,
Where there's life, there's hope.

“Very profound, Ben,” Mr. Glover said over my shoulder, making me jump. “So what's the rest of your story about?”

“Dunno,” I shrugged. “That's all I've come up with so far, sir.”

“Well, you still have twenty minutes to pull something out of your hat. Must try harder.”

I didn't get much further. I'd have to do the rest for homework. When the class ended, I started putting away my pens and books, then looked up to find Matthew and Kelly from Becky's gang standing over me.

“You're Becky's pal, yeah?” Kelly said accusingly, her usual stone-cold stare fixed on me.

“Am I?”

“Well, that's what she says. She says there's something she needs to talk to you about. Sounds important, but she wouldn't tell us what it is. Do
you
know what it's about?”

“No idea. Where is she?”

“Dentist,” said Matthew. “Having all her teeth out.”

“Just a filling,” Kelly said. “He's joshing.”

“She'll be in about lunchtime,” Matthew added. “She asked us to tell you, that's all.”

“OK. Thanks.”

The conversation ran dry after that and they soon turned away. After break we had Mr. Glover again, this time for English Lit: more readings from
A Tale of Two Cities
followed by half an hour's reading by ourselves while Mr. Glover graded more papers.

Becky came in ten minutes before the end and sat with her friends, but when the bell rang for lunch she stayed at her desk, obviously waiting for me.

“How was the dentist?” I asked.

“Fantastic. Best time of my life,” she said.

We started down the corridor.

“Are you going to your usual place?” she asked. “You always chow down at the crypt, dontcha? I'll join you, but I can't eat anything. And remind me not to order hot drinks. I won't feel a thing and it'll run all down my chin.”

“Something cold with a straw,” I suggested.

At the crypt tea rooms I got a grilled cheese with coffee while she got milk. It was as noisy and echoey as ever, but less busy than usual, so we took a table in an alcove near the entrance, just below the steps. While I stirred my coffee, Becky pulled a newspaper from her bag and opened it on the table to page seven.

“So what've you got to say about this?” she said.

She pointed to a follow-up story on the fire children.
“
SOURCE OF FATAL BLAZE STILL UNKNOWN
,” read the headline. It was too dim in the alcove to read the smaller print, but Becky wasn't showing me that. She wanted me to see the photograph of Mitch and Molly that accompanied the story: Mitch holding a teddy bear, Molly clutching a rag doll to her chest.

“Got your sketch pad?” Becky said. “Let's see it.”

She drummed her fingers on the table while I unzipped my backpack.

“By the way, my folks were dead impressed by your portrait. They want to get it framed. They think you're very gifted.”

“Tell them thanks.”

She flipped through the sketch pad to my drawing of the children. Her gaze skipped between that and the newspaper photograph.

“Yup,” she said, “as I thought. Apart from the sooty marks they have in your drawing, they're nearly the same. How do you explain that?”

“I can't.”

“Tell the truth, Ben.” She sat forward, watching me with impatient eyes. “You saw them after the fire, didn't you, all smoky and dirty, right there in Miss Whatever's class. Why not admit it?”

Part of me wanted to, but if I spoke about the fire children I might be opening a door to everything else. One word about them and I'd soon be chewing her ear off about Mr. October and the Ministry and the rest of it.
Some secrets, I knew, were best kept to yourself and never shared.

“Final answer?” she said, folding the newspaper back into her bag. “Well, if you won't say, then I won't tell you what
I
saw. You're infuriating, Ben, you really are.”

She got up in a fluster, with a look that told me I wasn't meant to leave with her.

“Oh, and another thing,” she said. “What's that on your face? That pattern? Looks like a scar.”

My fingers went to my face. I'd almost forgotten about Nathan Synsiter's “message.” Mum hadn't mentioned it. Nor had anyone at school — not the staff, not the other kids in 8C. Perhaps they couldn't see it. But if they couldn't, how could Becky?

I decided to check around class after lunch.

“Nah, there's nothing there,” Ryan said when I asked. “Someone's been putting you on, mate.”

“Is this a trick question?” Matthew said. “Nope, not a jot. Look in the mirror if you don't believe me.”

I asked the same thing of the twins, who both answered at once. “Nothing at all, Ben.”

Mel was more amused than anything, grinning at the question.

“This is one of them, like, practical jokes,” she said, “like when someone says your laces is undone and you ain't got no laces, innit?”

I spent social studies crouched down at my desk in hiding. We were supposed to have researched our chosen news sto
ries from the previous week, to be ready to discuss with the class. I'd given a lot of thought to the fire children, but I hadn't done any actual work. My classmates got up to speak in turn, but the last bell of the day sounded before Miss Whittaker got to me.

The bell was still screaming through the corridors as I ducked inside the bathroom. In the mirror, the scar on my cheek was clearly visible. I was still examining it when a toilet flushed and Raymond Blight left the stall to wash his hands at the sink next to me.

“What you looking at, fish?” he sneered, catching my eye in the mirror.

“Nothing.”

“Fixing your makeup, huh?”

He didn't have many social skills, old Raymond.

“Is there something on my cheek?” I asked, thinking I may as well while we were here.

Raymond shook beads of water from his hands and wiped them with a paper towel. “What, here?” he said. “You mean this?”

Without warning, he jabbed a hand hard into my chest, throwing me back against the sink with enough force to send waves of pain through my hips and legs. He pinned me there, pushing me back until I felt the cold mirror thump the back of my head. At the same time, he brought his free hand to my face, coiling his forefinger against his thumb.

“This here?” he said, flicking my cheek, flicking hard. It stung like a bite. “Got a mark on your face, fish? I'll
make you a mark. Where are your poncy friends when you need them?”

Flick flick flick.

“Stop,” I said. “I was only asking. And they're not my friends. Ouch! Stop. I don't even know them.”

“No, but you'd like to.” His fingernail snapped against my cheek again. “I've seen you sucking up to them . . . to Becky. Just 'cause you can draw you think you're something, but you're not, OK? You're not.”

“Ouch! OK.”

“There's nothing on your face,” he said. “I seen you asking the others the same thing. I don't know what your game is, but you're not making an idiot out of me. You're just an attention-seeking mummy's boy.”

He flicked me again, this time closer to my eye.

“Don't,” I said. “Don't say that.”

“What, mummy's boy?”

Somewhere in the center of the pain, with the sink pressing into the small of my back, a white-hot anger came flooding out of me. I took hold of his hand and pushed it away from my face.

“I said
don't
!”

Suddenly he stopped. A look of glazed shock came over him and he whipped back his hand, staring down at it in horror.

The forefinger looked like it had been slammed in a door — not once, but several times. The top joint was a mangled mess and bright blood seeped from the nail — or
rather, where the nail used to be. Something had ripped it clean off.

Raymond fell aside, yelping. He set the cold tap running and doused his hand under it, then tore another paper towel from the dispenser and wrapped that around it, pulling it tight. He looked at me then, only a flash and then quickly away, unable to meet my eyes. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I don't know. Here, let me look.”

He shrank away as if afraid one touch from me would kill him. He tottered backward, flat-footed, bashing into a stall door.