Robin Jarvis-Jax 02 Freax And Rejex (24 page)

“Let’s rock this dump!” Maggie shouted.

Later that evening, the children Maggie had managed to enthuse with her idea, and who were feeling up to it, took over the lecture room in the main block. Drew and Nicholas, two of the video-gamers from Spencer’s cabin, worked out how to connect an MP3 player through the AV equipment there. Music thumped through the camp. Maggie threw herself into the dancing, dragging Jody and Christina on to the floor.

Marcus stayed well clear. He remained in his cabin, sitting quietly on his bed. ‘Hiding’ was too strong a word. ‘Avoiding’ was more accurate. He didn’t want any embarrassing scenes with Lardzilla. She might throw herself at him in a desperate attempt for one final snog. He shuddered at the thought and continued folding his clothes and packing them away.

“Not going out?” a voice asked.

Marcus looked up. He had thought he was quite alone. Jim’s head appeared on the stairs.

“Nah,” Marcus said. “I’m too old to dance with kids. I’m more of a stand at the bar, eyeing up the totty type anyway – and this well is bone dry.”

“Can I come up?” Jim asked.

“Sure, I’m just putting my gear away. Never got to wear these Hollister shorts. And the Ralph Lauren shirts never saw the light of day. Why aren’t you over there jigging about?”

“Not my thing,” Jim said. “I wanted to race instead.”

“Race?”

“Yes, I asked the other lads, but they weren’t interested.”

“Funny time to want to race.”

Jim started running on the spot. “I’m full of energy!” he said. “Like I’m about to burst.”

“Why don’t you jog round the camp then? Take your cloak off first though – you’d look like Batman running for a bus.”

Jim smiled to himself and touched the centre of his T-shirt. Was it really so obvious? Could people tell he was changing?

“Aren’t you going to do your exercises?” he asked. “I saw you the other night. We could train together.”

Marcus shook his head. “Nah,” he said flatly. “Not with that racket going on out there. Early to bed for me, then straight on that coach first thing. Be glad to leave this hole. Been a waste of my time; can’t wait to get back to Manc.”

“You must still have lots of friends there then?”

Marcus looked away. “Course I have,” he bluffed. “Even
DJ
can’t stop the Marcus magnetism. Got loads of mates, me. Loads!”

Jim viewed the older boy’s bruised and beaten face.

“I tried to stop him you know,” he said. “Tried to stop that fight.”

Marcus put the last of his clothes away.

“I wasn’t strong enough then,” Jim continued. “I’m sorry. I know I’m stronger now.”

Marcus said nothing. He regretted he hadn’t made an effort to be nicer
to this kid. He regretted a lot of things.

“Know what,” he said, “pull that bedside table out and I’ll give you an arm-wrestle.”

Jim obeyed hurriedly and Marcus proceeded to let him win every contest. His defeats were loud and convincing. He thought he was being kind, but it was the worst thing he had ever done. It was the final proof Jim needed. He believed his powers had arrived.

Lee was outside on the step, wishing for the hundredth time he’d brought more cigarettes with him. It was really getting to him now and he’d resorted to chewing a pencil end. He had no intention of joining that lame party – he was ready to snap. Besides, there was nothing to celebrate. Wrapped in thought, he stared at the camp gates.

“Not in the mood neither?” Charm asked as she sat beside him. “I can’t even listen to my own tunes now to get away from that din. Why’d they go and rob our headphones? I had a lovely baby pink pair.”

Lee said nothing. She straightened her back, correcting her posture, always conscious of how she looked. The music continued to pound.

“I’m surprised old whassisface hasn’t put the kybosh on that already,” she said, looking past Lee to the end chalet. “Not seen him since tea. Thought he’d be in there the minute they turned it right up. Funny little fussy bloke, ain’t he? Proper rude to me he was earlier, totally ignored me when I tried to ask him stuff.”

She paused to allow the boy to respond. He didn’t. Charm returned her attention to the main block.

“I dunno how they can,” she complained. “I’m gutted, totally gutted. I was so sure it were gonna happen for me this weekend, so was me ma. It ain’t fair. I want it more than they do, know what I mean? Them lucky kids, the ones who got there, all they’ve been doin’ since is read togevver. They got all the cameras on ’em before. I couldn’t get a look-in. Makes you sick it does.”

Lee made no answer. The girl carried on.

“It were goin’ so well,” she said, clasping her hands round one knee and leaning back. “The Plan were all worked out. I was goin’ to be dead famous, get meself papped outside clubs, be seen wiv footballers or pop stars, though they don’t last long nowadays, so a footballer’s the best bet, providin’ he don’t get injured nor regulated nor nofink. You got to be so careful see; the public can turn on you in a minute. If summink like that happened, I was gonna get tropical ill, like Foreign Legion disease, cos malaria’s been done, to get them back on side. Then I’d have my own product ranges and I’d go to America and then…”

She gave a sad, wistful sigh. “I worked so ’ard. Now what am I gonna do? No one’s interested in this country no more, if you ain’t part of the book fing.
Heat
magazine’s full of knights and queens, but they’re just nobodies, ordinary nobodies wiv bad hair and faces like old chip pans. What sort of a future I got now wiv that going on? There’s nofink at home, ’cept me ma – an’ Uncle Frank.”

“You got a hell of a lot more than the rest of us,” Lee grunted.

Charm thought for a moment. “S’pose,” she said. “But I’ve not been able to get through to me ma all weekend. I’ve rang but no answer, sent her texts but had nofink back. That ain’t like her. Maybe she was told it was part of the fing here. That we shouldn’t have no contact, like in
Big Bruvver
. That’d make sense. We used to luurve
BB
, me an’ her.”

She brightened. “Yeah,” she said, the smile returning to her face. “That’d be it. An’ there’s always a chance I really could wake up in the castle tomorrow – or the day after.”

Lee shook his head and spat on the ground. The girl bit her lip.

“About what you said yesterday,” she began carefully. “Wiv your family and mates and stuff. I didn’t know none of that kind of fing were ’appening. I’m sorry. That’s like well wrong. My mouth runs off sometimes wivout finkin’, but I got me a good heart, honest. I really wouldn’t want to go that place if it is all white. That’s just wicked – and not wicked in the good way. That little Indian lad… well, I says he’s Indian, he might not be – I dunno,
I didn’t speak to him before it worked on him, and it’s too late now. I saw him and them other turned kids, laughing at his colour during tea. That’s plain evil, ain’t it?”

Still staring into the distance, Lee nodded.

Charm wondered what else to say. “Shall I tell you what flavour you is?” she asked. “I always do this, it’s one of my gimmicks; you need a gimmick if you’re gonna catch on wiv the public. This is what it is, right – I tell people what their flavour is. So, for example…”

“Girl, if you say ‘dark chocolate’, one of us is going to have to get up and leave, to avoid necessary violence.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that!” she cried. “I was gonna say you’re a Brazil nut, hard to crack but soft and sweet in the middle. Now though, I reckon you’re one of them tiny round chillies, not much to look at, but one bite’ll blow your head off.”

Lee rose and walked away, but he was laughing. Charm noticed he had an empty holdall with him.

“What you doing?” she called.

“Looting me some life insurance,” he answered.

Alasdair wasn’t in the mood for dancing and they weren’t playing his sort of music, but it was good to see the others enjoying themselves on their last night. Leaving the lecture room, he went into the dining hall where the remains of their final tea still covered the tables. It had hardly been touched because most of them had felt too shaken to eat. He was glad it hadn’t been cleared away and filled a goblet with wine, downing it in two gulps. He poured himself another and flexed his hand. His arm was still numb. A number of the children had complained of pins and needles or loss of feeling in their limbs since passing out that afternoon. Old Captain Mainwaring hadn’t shown the slightest interest when informed and told them not to waste his time with their ‘infantile bleating’.

The door swung open again and Maggie came stomping in, clapping
her hands and jerking her head from side to side.

“Brilliant!” she shouted above the din. “Dancing always gives me the munchies. I could murder a kebab, but this’ll do just fine. You back to bonnie Scotty land in the morning then?”

“Dinnae have a choice!” he yelled back.

“You know what we should do,” she told him, waving a half-eaten chicken leg. “We should email that website and see if we can get out of this barmy country completely.”

“What website’s that?”

“The one by that maths teacher. The bloke everybody thought was a loony before all this happened, the one the papers had a field day with. What was his name? I tried Googling him before I did my flit to Dover, but couldn’t find anything.”

“Baxter,” Alasdair said. “It were Martin Baxter. I’ve tried his site. Talk about paranoia – the guy’s a nutcase. Says there’s a big conspiracy to get him off the Web and track him down.”

“How is that nuttier than what’s going on here?”

The boy began his third goblet. “Aye, mebbe not.”

“We should all stay in touch though,” she persisted, making short work of a piece of ham and mushroom pie. “Cos being stuck in York with Janice and my dad will drive me totally round the twist. And if one of us does manage to get in touch with that Baxter bloke, p’raps he could help get us all away.”

Alasdair agreed and they decided to swap numbers with everyone tomorrow morning. Then Maggie eyed the untouched syllabubs, fruit tarts and savouries piped with soft cheese. A devilish grin spread over her face.

“You know what we really, really need to do in this place before we go?” she asked.

“What?”

“FOOD FIGHT!” she shrieked, squashing a savoury in the boy’s face then hurrying back into the lecture room with the plate.

That was it. Total, sticky, in your face or wherever hadn’t been splodged
chaos reigned for the next half-hour. Food and ale went everywhere. Everybody got completely covered. It was caked in their hair, over their clothes, in their ears, across the faux stone walls and on the floor. Alasdair tried to save a jug of wine, but Jody tipped it down his front and Christina tucked a slice of beef in his trousers. Then, when the tables were bare and the children’s appetite for mayhem still boiled, they tore down the priceless tapestries and dragged them through the slops and swills. Even that was not enough. Their resentment and anger were ripe and ready to explode. They wanted to smash something, to really demonstrate how furious and despairing they were.

Slowly everyone turned to stare at the great model of the White Castle. Could they? Did they dare?

“What are you waiting for?” Jody shouted.

In the lecture room, an old track by the Arctic Monkeys started blaring. Dragging the nearest table out of the way, Jody lunged at the model with a meat skewer. The attack was as fast and ferocious as the music. She stabbed the castle with all the hate and anguish
Dancing Jax
had brought her. The others stared fearfully for a moment then they too seized knives, forks, cleavers and joined in, swept along by the blind need to destroy or hurt some aspect of that foul book – accompanied by the ballistic guitars of ‘Brianstorm’.

Returning from the woods to refill his holdall, Lee stopped. The noise coming from the main block was different to before. Now there were furious screams and yells amid the music. There was a wild, manic quality he didn’t like.

“This place is out of control,” he muttered. “Why ain’t that old guy stopping it?”

Charm had gone back inside the cabin. Hunched over the bathroom sink, with a towel over her head, she was steaming her pores before removing her make-up. She did not hear the door opening behind her. When she stood up and looked in the mirror, she got the fright of her life and screamed. Jody and Christina were standing directly behind her. At
first she didn’t recognise them. They were plastered with food and filth and their eyes were alight with menace. They looked like unholy creatures from a horror film.

Before Charm could speak, they pelted her with raw eggs, raided from the kitchen fridge. They rubbed yolks into her hair and crushed the shells against her face, scratching her skin.

“How’s that then, Barbie?” Jody bawled. “Girls like you make me puke. You make animal-testing big business. Without all that muck on your face, you’re nothing. Your name shouldn’t be Charm, it should be Chum, like the dog food!”

Christina thought that was hysterical and laughed like a small hyena.

Charm stood frozen with shock. Angered by the very sight of her and spurred on by Christina’s laughter, Jody pulled her hair then punched her in the stomach. Suddenly two strong hands caught hold of Jody’s arms and dragged her away. With Christina hurrying behind, shrieking in protest, the girl was hauled out of the cabin.

Standing on the step, Lee glared at her.

“What is wrong with you?” he snapped.

“Hypocrite!” Jody shouted back. “It were all right for you to lay into Marcus the other night!”

“That was different and you don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s that girl in there done to you? She is not the enemy here! Don’t you know that by now? Or is it just cos you’re jealous? Look at you, you’re a freakin’ mess. You’re disgusting. But before you clean yourself up, you best go put a stop to the riot goin’ down in that dinner hall. You think you’re goin’ back home tomorrow? You is seriously foolin’ yourself!”

Jody’s eyes flashed at him. But the night air was cooling her anger rapidly and her sopping, ale-soaked clothes suddenly felt worse than any Glastonbury mud. The last traces of fury drained out of her. She looked at Christina. The seven-year-old was in a wretched state and Jody felt ashamed for what she had done. Then she became aware of the sound of smashing and destruction coming from the main block. Without saying
another word, she ran off to try and stop it.