The Summer We All Ran Away (18 page)

He could hear the hysteria in her voice, but it seemed far too big a problem for him to deal with. Priss began to wail.

“Kate! Tom! Isaac! Are you there? Come and get us out!”

“They'll never hear us,” murmured Davey, feeling the waves close over his head. “They're in the other wing. They might look for us at breakfast time. Might as well get some sleep while we're waiting.”

“No, they'll never find us, not in here – they might not even look at all – Davey, stay with me, stay awake, the torch is fuckin' going out.”

Davey felt the light strike his eyeballs through his tightly closed eyelids, driving away the comforting lethargy. He sat up. And as if it was the most natural thing in the world, the door had swung open, and Isaac stood in the doorway. Behind him were Tom and Kate.

chapter twelve (then)

Welcome to MSN Messenger!

Online: Elvisgirl, EdwardBulyerLytton

hey elvisgirl online at last J how U doin?

hey ed how RU?

XLnt as always. so how was it 4U 2day?

place is fkn shit-hole Ed

srsly?

YY

yr skool is actual den of sodomy?

LOL no! pedant

i no soz. so wot u mean ‘shit-hole'?

BRB
.

“ - a non-selective mixed comprehensive school in the [stranger danger deletion LOL] area of Liverpool. It is ethnically diverse, with nineteen per cent of its population coming from a non-white racial background. Thirty-seven per cent of its pupils are entitled to free school meals. Thirty-nine per cent of its pupils leave the school with at least five GCSEs at A - C grade.”

u no all that off top of hed?*impressed*

LOL no. wiki'd it

U no u cant trust wiki rite?

ha not trusting wiki. using wiki 2 prove point. oh and 9 staff on long-term sick w stress & supplys keep leaving 'cos we're a bunch of fuckin' animals

snds like tuff place L

i'll survive. get GCSEs get out n do 6th form. then world = fkn oyster. besides 1 or 2 good teachers U no? like eng guy. he gave us this fkn wild assignment this w
k

Heavily made up and with their skirts hitched high, the cream of the Year Eleven girls leaned against the corridor wall and preened at the Year Twelve boys, who watched them from outside the History room.

“You done your assignment?”

“Fuck off.”

“Only askin'. Don't have a fuckin' baby, alright?”

“Yeah, well, don't be so fuckin' nosey, alright? Did you do it?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuckin' swot.”

“Fuck off. Didn't take long.”

The girls glanced slyly at Priss.

“Bet Priss did it.”

“Priss lurves Mr Jones. Priss has got a crush on him.”

“Fuck off, I have not,” said Priss, absently.

“Haven't done your assignment?”

“Haven't got a crush on him.”

“Ooh. She's denying it! It must be true.”

Priss shrugged. “If you say so. Mind you, Katie that means you must fancy Harry Fearn. Which would be a bit of a fuckin' shame, really, since he told his mates he'd rather fuck mud.”

Katie reddened. There was a collective
oooh
from the other girls, but Priss had already lost interest. Mr Jones – a professional latecomer who had quit a lucrative sales job to retrain – was making a disorganised passage down the corridor, dropping papers, getting stuck in doors, knocking half-dislodged posters off walls. One of the Year Twelve boys stuck out a foot, but Mr Jones, apparently distracted by a drawing pin on the floor, swerved neatly around, homing triumphantly in on the pin and capturing it in thick fingers.
Everyone swarmed into the classroom.

“Everyone make it here okay?” Mr Jones asked, studying the register. “Who are we missing? Lee-Anne, have we got Lee-Anne? Anyone?”

“She's got her period, sir,” said Katie, for laughs.

“Has she really. Thank you for that, Katie, nice to see a true comic genius at work. Anyone with a sensible answer? No? Okay. Anyone else? Mark, have we got Mark?”

The boys stuck their tongues in their lower lips and made spaz noises. Mark Asher was in a wheelchair, and had special permission to go into the classrooms before the teacher got there because if he waited outside, he blocked the whole corridor.

“Locked in the toilet.”

“Got lost on the way here.”

“Maybe he's taking the stairs?”

“For a bunch of reasonably bright kids, you're all quite horrible sometimes,” said Mr Jones severely.

“Mark doesn't mind, sir.”

“It's just for a laugh.”

“Yes, yes, I'm sure you're all princes among men and Mark is eternally grateful for your kind support and understanding. Alright, here he is.” Mark wheeled silently into the classroom. “Any special reason why you're late, Mark? Never mind, you're here now.” Mr Jones smiled at the class. “So, I'm sure you all remembered to bring in the piece of writing that made you feel something.”

U mentioned him B4. mr jones i mean

so?

so nothing. just sayin. J shows I listen rite?

U rnt gonna ask me if I fancy him RU?

LOL no

good

so do U?

fuck OFF

soz cudnt resist it J tell me more

“Who's going first?” Mr Jones looked around. “Tyler. How about you?”

Tyler stood up and unfolded the magazine he had stuffed in his back pocket.

“Sir, I've brought
Razzle,”
he said.

The class erupted with laughter. Priss sighed in disgust, and pulled her hair around her face. Mr Jones rapped loudly on the desk.

“That's enough!” he said. His tone cut the laughter like a guillotine. Everyone looked at him to see what would happen next.

“Okay, Tyler,” he said. “Tell us why you chose
Razzle.”

Tyler's face was that of a comedian who's just been handed the setup of his dreams.

“'Cos it made me feel something, sir,” he said.

“And what was that?” asked Mr Jones, encouragingly.

“Horny, sir!” said Tyler, grinning like a madman and grabbing his crotch. The class was verging on hysteria, but once again Mr Jones, bizarrely out of character as Mr Tough Guy, rapped on the desk, brought it back under control.

“Horny,” he repeated, very loudly.

Everyone stopped laughing.

“That,” he said, “is a
great
example of the power of words. Words on a page. A description of events. And just those words – just words on a
page
– twenty-six letters arranged on a piece of paper can evoke our most primitive responses. Just words on a page and they can make us feel like having sex. How is that even possible?”

Priss watched curiously as Mr Jones balanced on the knife-edge he'd found for himself.

“However,” he said, “I don't think we'll ask Tyler to give us a reading. Thank you, Tyler, sit down, and I'll have the name of the newsagent who sold you that magazine before you leave. Who's next?”

LOL I wan2B in yr class! mr jones = WIN

mr jones = FUCKWIT. he'll get fired if hes not careful

???

discussing porn wiv 15 yr old kids. FGS. askin 4 trbl. only tks 1 to complain & hes fkn finished

hmm gd point. shame he sounds lk gud guy. still 10/10 4 style YY J

so wot did U pick?

“Priss,” said Mr Jones.

“Bet it's, like, fuckin' Shakespeare,” Katie whispered to Destiny.

“Romeo and fuckin' Juliet,” Destiny whispered back.

Priss held up a battered copy of
The Dark Knight Returns
. Mr Jones raised an eyebrow.

“A graphic novel,” he said. “Okay. That wasn't
quite
what I was expecting from you, Priss, but it's definitely an interesting choice.”

OMG
you picked miller! rock'n'roll!!! go elvisgirl go elvisgirl

J J J J J

i blame U & yr influence K a yr ago wud hv picked peyton

place

BRB

“Peyton Place
is a 1956 novel by Grace Metalious
. Peyton Place
has become an expression to describe a place whose inhabitants have sordid secrets.”

that peyton place?

YY

well I spose it did sell 60k copies w/in 10 days of release

thought U sed cldnt trust wiki LOL

damn U got me J so Y wld U pick it?

author made fortune J

that makes it good?

YY it makes it fkn good. her words moved ppl. & made fortune in process. thats wot I wan2 do

hey U will I no it

how do U no? U nvr read my stuff

got faith

tx. doesnt mean much since U hvnt read my stuff but tx J no prob. how did DK go down?

“Sir, you said to choose something that made us feel something,” said Priss, shaking her hair off her face. “I wanted to talk about - ” she thumbed through the book. “This page.”

“Okay. Why this page in particular?”

Priss took a deep breath. “So this story is, like, set in a time where Bruce Wayne is middle aged. He's been retired for years, but the gangs are taking over Gotham. And he can't watch that happen. So he comes back again, takes over where he left off.”

“Okay - ”

“And in this part, the Joker's got out of Arkham Asylum and forced Selina Kyle, she used to be Catwoman, to send one of her escorts to kill the president. So all that's, like, pretty standard for a Superhero story, right? But then, he makes her, Selina, dress up in a Wonder Woman costume, and he ties her up and leaves her on the bed.”

Connor wolf-whistled.

“Yeah, you would think that, Connor, but that's 'cos you're a div who can't actually read,” said Priss, deadpan and devastating. Connor, who had been in the remedial reading programme for as long as anyone could remember, turned pale and slumped down in his seat. Mr Jones looked at her reproachfully. “See, she's middle aged too. And the costume doesn't fit her, it's too small, and her make-up's a mess. So she's never looked worse.”

Everyone's eyes were on her; the girls from competitive envy, the boys from low-grade lust, but Priss seemed coolly oblivious to their gaze.

“And then Bruce arrives, and he's still, like, buff and strong and doing the superhero thing, and he finds her – he
sees
her
– looking like that. And she's, like, totally humiliated. 'Cos when she was Catwoman, she was, like, hotter than any of them, right? So she tells him what the Joker's going to do, and then there's this one panel - ”

She held the book out to Mr Jones, her slim pale finger with its silver ring and bitten nail resting on the panel.

“This one? Where he's kissing her?”

Priss nodded. Behind her, a spitball war had broken out.

“Yeah. That's the one. That panel. Just that one. It's, like, so totally
not
the way it's normally done in Superhero stories. Like, the men can be ordinary-looking underneath the costume, but the women are always,
always
gorgeous. And the men can get old and maybe a bit fat, and still get laid, but the women either don't age, or they, like, have to retire and disappear. But just this one time, there's a buff, powerful superhero kissing an ordinary middle-aged woman. And I've got no fu - no idea why. Is it 'cos he wants to make her feel better? Is it 'cos he loves her? Is it 'cos he feels sorry for her? Is it, like, a promise? Or is it just 'cos it turned him on to see her all tied up like that?”

The spitball war had now engulfed everyone apart from Priss and Mark Asher, but Mr Jones ignored it.

“You know, Priss, there aren't actually any words on that panel,” he pointed out.

“I know, sir. That's why I picked it.”

“So how did it make you feel?”

“Frustrated.”

Mr Jones blinked. “I'm sorry?”

“Frustrated,” she repeated. “Because, as much as I want to be a writer, that panel does something that you couldn't
ever
do with words.” She sat down. “That's all.” A spitball landed in her hair. She picked it out wearily.

“Thank you.” His eyes were warm. “I didn't expect that at all, Priss. I'll give you one thing, you're always - surprising.”

She shrugged a little, hiding behind her hair again. Katie made kissing noises.

“Okay, you lot, that's enough,” said Mr Jones. “Destiny. You're on.”

“Sir, I chose this magazine,” said Destiny, holding up a copy of
Closer
.

hey, fkn good analysis. ive trained U well J

corrupted me U mean. I used 2 read real books

oh not this again PLS. graphic novels ARE real books priss

U no that

YY I no. just getting U back 4 asking if I fancied mr jones

LOL J

ha fkn ha. U no how 2 wind me up elvisgirl

u still there?

elvisgirl???

jesus fkn wept ed who the fuck RU

???

u called me by my real name

??? I DK ur real name!

YY you fkn do U CALLED ME PRISS U WANKER SCROLL

BACK UP N READ IT

oh shit

are u stalking me U freak

no priss no

so who the fuck RU n how long hv U known who i am

priss look

no U fkn look U FOUND ME. u sent me frnd request U got

tlkn 2 me U said U wanted 2 get to no me

YY I did cos I do UR amazing

we agreed no real names 4 safety n shit U SAID U DIDNT

WANT 2 DO THE RL THING

let me explain

weve been msging 4 six fkn mths now talking abt all sorts of stuff hopes dreams wishes books writing drawing every fkn

thing and now UR just some FKN PERVERT WHO WANTS 2

JUMP ME RNT U

priss please please let me explain

OMG RU mr jones? is that why U keep fkn askin abt him n

wot I think of him n if I fancy him?

PRISS SHUT UP SHUT UP AND LISTEN IM MARK ASHER

priss? RU there?

priss please please dont do this

mark asher?

YY mark asher! OK? that fkn weirdo twat in the wheelchair
.