Stonebird (11 page)

You know it's going to be a bad day when lunch ends like this:

“Hey! Short shorts! Tell us a story!”

Move move move move.

Thumping footsteps behind me. I race across the playground, not wanting to turn around because then I'll know how close they are. Better not to know. Better to try to ignore them and focus on my legs moving quicker and quicker.

Over the hopscotch and over the tree game no one understands, past the shed . . .

Just keep moving.

“What's wrong?” one of them shouts.

“Tell us about the gargoyle, Liam!”

“Can it do my gardening?”

The footsteps are louder now—they're right behind me. I'm running, not even thinking, just running. Around the corner and through the doors and—

I crash straight into Mrs. Culpepper, scattering books everywhere.

“Oh!” she squeals.

Now I glance back.

There they are, through the door. All three of them, with Matt in front. But they're not coming in. They've stopped on the other side. Slowly they turn around, swaggering and spitting, and walk off.

“No, no, don't worry about those!” says Mrs. Culpepper, when I crouch to help her with the books. “Actually, you're just the person I was looking for. The principal would like to see you. It's important.”

“Right . . .”

“Are you okay, Liam?” she asks. “Why were you running?”

“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just in a hurry to get to class.”

I guess I should start again. You know it's going to be a bad afternoon when you get chased into school and crash into your teacher and find out that the principal wants to see you.

I knock on her door three times and stand back, waiting. The hall is lined with photos of all the different classes in the school, alongside pictures drawn and painted by kids. The smell of coffee wafts from the teachers' lounge a
few doors down. Through the window I can see the kindergarten boys and girls being walked back into the building by their teacher.

Chatting chatting chatting. They're talking and smiling and looking so happy.

Mrs. Willis pokes her head out of the door and says, “You can come in now, Liam.”

I can hear my heart.
Thump thump thump thump
. Even though I can't think of anything I've done wrong.
The principal!
It's like when you walk past a policeman and it feels as if they're watching you and even though you haven't done anything it makes you think,
What if I have?

Jess says that if you break the rules at her school, you get detention. We don't have detention here, but I've seen some people have to stay inside when everyone else gets to go out for lunch, or they have to sit in the corner and not take part in the lesson.

Head down, I follow the principal into her study. There's a green leather chair behind a wooden desk, which has photos of her and her family on it.

“No need to look so guilty,” says Mrs. Willis. She leans over the desk and smiles, which makes the three gray hairs on her chin poke in different directions. “Your mother has called to let us know that your grandmother is in a bad way again. She says she's arranged for you to go to the Higgins's house after school.”

“The Higgins's . . . ?”

Then I get it. Matt's house. Again.

She must see something in my face, because she smiles her whiskery smile.

“It's not that bad,” she says. “I'm sure it won't be for long.”

Matt smirks when I get back to class, like he already knows the news and has planned how he's going to torture me. He leans back in his chair and stares at me, and I can feel his eyes on my back as I sit down at the desk.

Tell us a story, Liam.
It goes around and around in my head.

Tell us a story, Liam.

Tell us a story.

So I do.

Later on, when we're sitting in the circle on the floor and the magic egg is soaking up words and there is quiet in the classroom, quiet except for the stories and the gasps—later on, I tell a story about Stonebird and Matt.

I thought it would be hard, but it's not.

When the egg gets to me, I close my eyes.

I remember them running after me, remember the pond water rushing up my nose. I picture their faces and hear the sound of their voices.

Even remembering makes my heart beat faster. The egg's warm in my hands and the words spring to my mouth. They flow easily, like they've always been there, like they're waiting to be spoken out loud.

The gargoyle smelled something on the air
, I say.

In the cold and the dark, sitting on the roof of its haunted church, it raised its great stone nose and sniffed. And what it smelt was boys. Stupid boys out too late, out in the lane below.

I look up. They're all staring at me, the whole class, because I'm the one with the egg. But Matt and his friends? They're not like the others. They know what I'm talking about, because what I'm talking about is them.

They know it.

I can see in their eyes that they know it.

Stonebird didn't protect me before, so I've got to make sure he protects me now.

The gargoyle sees them,
I say.
Sees the boys, swaggering about like they own the place. But the gargoyle is as old as the stones and the wind and the trees. The gargoyle has been in this village for longer than any kid, and it doesn't like people swaggering on its land.

It watches, from the rooftop.

Waiting.

And when the kids get too close, the gargoyle jumps, down down down, gliding on the wind under the stars. The gargoyle's massive and its wings are heavier than cars, but when it flies it's like a bird.

The kids, there's three of them, and they see something now.

A shadow, passing over the road.

They look at each other and their eyes are wide and they don't know what to do.

One of them says, “Who's there?”

But there's no answer. The gargoyle can listen and understand and know, but it can't speak. Its language is the language of eyes and beak and claws.

“We're not scared!” says the biggest kid.

And that's when the gargoyle thuds down onto the road, crouching low, glaring. Its eyes are made of moonlight and its tail swipes back and forth. The boys take a step back, and another, and they turn to run—

But the gargoyle is faster. It chases them, beating its stone wings, chases them and catches the leader of them and the kid screams, but his friends just run. They don't even look back.

The boy cries out and cries out, but there's no one left to hear him.

No one to see him get carried off, into the night.

The class is so quiet you could hear a bug scurrying along the windowsill.

I hold the egg out for the next person in the circle, but they don't take it. It's only then that I look around and see their faces. All of them, mouths open. Once when I was a little kid I was playing with Jess in her room and I saw one of those french fries on the floor. I flicked it, just flicked it like you'd flick a aphid on your clothes, and it shot through the air and straight into her mouth. I'm not even kidding: it got stuck in there, poking out as if she was trying to smoke it.

Even if I tried a million times, I'd never be able to do that again.

Except if I tried it now, with my class.

Because their mouths are open caves.

I look from face to face. I'm still holding out the egg, but no one's taking it. Matt's lips are so tight they're just one long thin line across the bottom of his pale face. He's gripping his knees and rocking back and forth. His friends nod at each other and stare back at me, and there's a message in their eyes and the message is this: YOU'RE DEAD.

Mrs. Culpepper stands up and takes the egg. “I think that's enough storytelling for one day,” she says.

She puts the egg in the drawer and slams it shut. There's a look on her face that I've never seen before.

When the bell goes at the end of school, I don't get up. I don't leave. I just wait, wait for everyone to push their chairs under their desks and get their bags and their coats from the pegs outside. Wait for them to go.

Matt and his friends are first out the door as soon as the clock hits quarter past three. But they'll be waiting for me. I know it.

I sit until I'm the last one in the room. Just me and Mrs. Culpepper. She looks up from her desk and is about to say something when a woman pokes her head in and says, “Is this Mrs. Forrester's class?”

“No,” says Mrs. Culpepper. She glances at me again. I've never seen her look so disappointed. But when she stands up, all she says is “Here, I'll show you.”

And then it's just me. I grab my bag and walk to the door. Peeking through the glass, I can see the corridor outside. Empty. That's how it seems, anyway. They could
be anywhere. But they'll probably wait in the courtyard between the school and the playground where the parents are, because there's a flint wall there blocking them from view.

The door handle feels cold after the warmth of the egg.

Once I'm out of the classroom I turn left, away from the exit, through another door toward the bathroom.

If I can just hide in here for a few minutes, then . . .

Then what?

They're bound to look for me. They'll probably find me even in the bathroom. It's not like there are many places to hide in school, and if I don't go past them, they'll know I'm inside somewhere.

The bathroom smells of soap and stale pee. I can feel my shoes sticking to the floor as I walk to the nearest stall and lock the door behind me. Whenever someone hides in a bathroom on TV, the bad guy always checks under the door, so I put the lid down and sit on it and lift my feet up.

Just a few minutes . . .

I glance at my watch and follow the second hand as it
tick tick ticks
around.

Quarter past becomes half past becomes four o'clock, and there's still no sign of them. But I can't bring myself to move. I don't even dare breathe. Not properly. Not freely, in case they're outside, listening, waiting for me to slip up.

I keep telling myself
just a few minutes, just a few minutes,
but the minutes tick by until I've been there for an hour. The lights only go on if there's movement, so I'm sitting in darkness now. I picture the school being locked
up, and here's me just trapped inside, with no way out and nothing to eat or drink, just waiting until some janitor discovers me in the morning. But it's okay—it's music club this evening. The school won't get locked until six.

After a while I have to cover my nose from the smell. Darkness and soap and pee, thick in the air. There's only one small window, over by the sink, and the sun's moved on, so it's just this weak gray light getting darker and darker.

To keep from getting bored I try to remember things about Grandma. I know Mom dropped Jess and me off at Grandma and Granddad's house once when she went to a wedding in Bath. But all I can remember is feeling annoyed about it. Before you go somewhere you don't want to go, you always make out in your head that it's going to be pointless and annoying. But then it's never really as bad as you expect.

Grandma took us to the pub. I remember now. She took us to the pub in the village and there was a Shakespeare play on in the garden. It was loud and confusing, and it went on for practically a hundred years, and I couldn't really understand what was going on. But Grandma and Granddad loved it, so I pretended to enjoy it too, because they were really trying to give us a good time.

They can't have a good time anymore.

Granddad is dead, and Grandma has got a demon in her head making her forget everything.

I wish Matt and his friends would forget me.

Just this once.

Just now, so I can go home.

But they don't.

CRASH!
The outside door swings open. Footsteps on the sticky floor. Quiet voices. I try to breathe as quietly as I can. The bathroom light flickers on, and I can see shadows moving under the door. My heart drums louder than their voices, so loud that I know they'll hear it.

The stall's door's locked, but could they break through? I'm fast, but there are three of them, and I'll never get out before they grab me.

I don't usually pray very much, but I'm praying now, praying to God and Jesus and Zeus and King Arthur and Robin Hood and praying to Nancy Wake the White Mouse, just praying praying praying that they don't hurt me.

“Oh, Liam!” Matt calls, in a horrible baby voice.

“Come out, Liam!”

“We won't hurt you. We just want to give you a little wash.”

Giggling. Another crash as they kick open the end stall.

There are only three stalls. They'll kick my door next and find it's locked and know I'm in here and there's no way, no way I'll be able to get away. I keep picturing the rush of water on my face when they shove my head into the bog and trying to breathe but finding no air, no air, no air.

I need to get out of here . . .

BANG!
They kick on the door.

BANG!

“Liam, we know you're in there!”

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle
. I check the hinges, but they're thick and metal and not moving. There's no way they can break through. Surely.

BANG!

“Open the door!”

I don't say a thing. Don't move my mouth, even though there's nothing to lose anymore. Then I get an idea. I have to do something. So what I do is this.

I crouch on the lid of the toilet. I reach out my right hand, slowly, slowly and as quietly as I can, until my fingers touch the cold metal of the lock.

And then I unlock the door.

Bit by bit.

Clenching my teeth, straining so hard not to make a noise, easing the lock open.

Every now and then I stop and listen.

Every now and then they kick the door with another
BANG!
and it rattles on its hinges and I draw back, chewing my lips. But every time it goes quiet again I tug lightly on the lock.

Slowly slowly slowly slowly . . .

One more centimeter and it's open.

One last little bit.

They kick on the door again, and this time it swings in. I ram it with my shoulder, and it smacks Matt in the face and he falls back into the sink. The other two don't even know what's going on. Without looking, without even thinking, I run.