Fifteen Bones Page 6

  “Mug,” one of them said.

  “Oh, GET ’IM, MONK. He’s mugging you off.”

  “’E’s mugging you off!”

  “MUG.”

  The leader surged forward. I braced and a prayer flew out my mouth. Please, please let me in.

  The wind whipped my back, a hand gripped my shoulder and I flew into the house.

  Slam.

  The hallway was dark and reeked of damp. Machines revved somewhere. I bolted away from the door towards the back of the house.

  A force hooked my shins and slammed me to the floor. My face hit the muddy tiles with a thud. I was spun over and my hands pinned behind my head. To my horror it was a girl. No, wait, it was the girl. And, what’s more, under her grip, I couldn’t move.

  “Who the hell are you?” she said.

  “God, you’re strong,” I blurted.

  “Yes, I am, and if you don’t tell me what you were doing in my yard, I’m going to slap the white off your cheeks.”

  There was a full-armed bang on the door.

  She stormed towards it and flung it open.

  “No!” I cried.

  “What?” she yelled in the leader’s face. The gang bolted. The skeleton stood petrified in the doorway. “You selling pegs or what?” With her long fingers she flicked him splat in the centre of his eye. He clutched his eye, inhaled mightily, and wailed. He gritted his teeth to stop himself crying. “Go on,” she said, “fuck off.”

  Slam.

  She turned back to me. I sat on the bottom stair with my hands between my knees. She folded her arms and squashed her chin to her neck in disgust. “You tastin’ your tongue?”

  I fidgeted with my shirt.

  “You can’t speak?”

  “Look what you did.” I held up my wrists to show the red imprint of her hands.

  “My hands ain’t red.” She held up her white palms.

  She crossed her legs and sank to the floor without using her hands. She wiped the dust on the brown tiles back and forth until it collected into a ball beneath her fingers.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “For what?”

  The hallway was empty except for a few dark coats thrown on the bottom stair. A dying refrigerator revved angrily in the kitchen. “I haven’t seen you in school.”

  “I don’t go school.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  She shrugged. “Where do you go?”

  “Cattle Rise.”

  “Cattle Rise?” she squinted. “Where’s that? Texas?”

  “It’s on the long road down that massive hill, past the park, past the shops.”

  She slapped her hands to her thin knees and laughed. I hadn’t heard someone laugh properly for a long time. “How long you bin there?”

  “Three days. Why?”

  “Three days? Three whole days?”

  “Well … not whole days.”

  She put her hand to her tiny belly and waited for the laughter to fade. “That’s Castle Rise,” she said finally, “not Cattle Rise. It’s on Castle Rise Road? The logo’s a castle. The place looks like a castle? Why would they call somewhere Cattle Rise?”

  I dug through my bag for my planner. I could not believe it. A drawing of those four ugly towers: Castle Rise.

  “Who are you anyway, walking round these ends? You look like a ghost.”

  “I live next door,” I said.

  “Well, you’re better than that weird old git who used to sit there all day grizzlin’ like he’d just been kicked in the tits.”

  “That was my grandfather.”

  “Oh, shame.”

  “He died.”

  “Oh, shame,” she said, smiling. It almost made me laugh, and this felt strange. I realized I hadn’t laughed for a long time. Years, perhaps. “Now there’s some doughy geezer who mopes down the garden like a mad gnome.”

  “That’s my dad.”

  “Oh, shame.” She twisted her face. “So you’re the kid always looking in the mirror over there?”

  I looked at the floor.

  “Sexy,” she said with a grimace. “You wanna get down a chicken shop, bruv. Bony as a morgue.”

  I smiled faintly.

  “Thin as wages.”

  I smiled.

  “You look like that muppet, uh…” She clicked her fingers.

  “Beaker,” I said. I knew him well.

  “Yeah, Beaker on hunger strike. Guantanamo Beaker.”

  She laughed and I joined her. She waited for me to have my turn. “Look at you,” I stammered, pointing vaguely, “with your … nice … face.”

  She laughed so much she had to put her hand to her stomach. She glanced back at the door. “What are you waiting for? Pumpkins?”

  “Pumpkins?”

  “Yeah, the fuckin’ pumpkins! You want to piss off or what?”

  I got to my feet. My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t open the door. She yanked it open. The street was clear. The epic journey to my house had shrunk to a few simple steps.

  “Oh.” I took a breath. “From Cinderella,” I said.

  “Are you on tranquillizers?”

  “I—”

  “Can you pick locks or what?”

  “Can I—?”

  “I saw you picking that door. I thought you was some jabbering crackhead at first, but then it took you so long I thought you must be related – or desperate – so I left you to it.”

  “I—”

  “Why’s it take you so long? In films it’s like clickedy-click.”

  “It takes a long time in real life.”

  She kissed her teeth with a low, slow, sucking sound. “Oi, can you see my attic from your attic?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t—”

  “There’s two windows facing each other, like yours and mine, up in both attics.”

  “I—”

  “Have you ever been up there? In the attic? Spyin’?”

  “No. I can barely get up stairs.”

  “It don’t matter,” she said, her face busy with something.

  “Did you want to take a look?” I asked.

  “Might,” she shrugged.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “FIX UP YA SELF!” she said as she pushed me on to the doorstep. “That’s my name.”

  Slam.

  “Funny old name,” I said to the door as the red security light flickered above my head.

  That night, I lay awake as the light from the Toad House blared through my window. How could a teenage girl scare off a gang with one look? How could someone so quick, so vital not even go to school? With my quilt pulled over my head, I stationed myself by the windowsill. Hours later, I saw her push open her window, climb on to the garage and jump to the ground. Off she walked into the darkness, carrying her rucksack, her head flung back, compensating for the fear of it all.

  “Where are you going?” I said as she disappeared into the night.

  The next day at school I was told by everyone I came into contact with that Darscall was after me.

  “What particular psychotropic drugs were you on yesterday?” Bash said as I sat down in biology.

  “You stood up to him too,” I said.

  “I’m massive,” Bash said, “and I know when to back off.”

  Kane joined us. “That was well funny in English,” he said. “Suicide, but funny.”

  “Bash,” Sean said, waving his finger between the two of us, “when did you get a boyfriend?”

  “When your dad stopped treating me right,” Bash said.

  Laughter.

  “Where’ve you been hiding?” Sean said to me. “Stepping up to Darscall, you must’ve gone full-Britney.”

  “He’s not that scary,” I said.

&nb
sp; “Are you dumb?” Sean said.

  “Are you mad?” Bash said. “He’s the worst person here. He’s a Boss. He was arrested last week, gun-related charges, but they couldn’t hold him. What were you thinking?”

  Clarissa came to our table. “Wa’gwan, Papa John?”

  “Peachy keen, Krispy Kreme,” Kane said.

  “Pimpin hos, Dominos,” Sean said.

  They looked at me.

  “I feel honoured like Mc … Donald. Like McDonalds.” I coughed. There was an awful pause.

  “Nice one, Kanye,” Clarissa said, and they laughed. She had good timing. “You’ll need them wits when Darscall’s about to kick your teeth in.” They laughed again.

  “Come on, Jake, what happened?” Kane said.

  “What’s your story?” Bash said. “What’s with you? Where are you from anyway?”

  “Tell us the story of Jake,” Sean said, smoothing an imaginary beard.

  While that was a terrifying prospect, I looked at their faces, their expectant brown eyes and bitten lips, and felt a small wave of warmth. I wasn’t going to tell them about my ridiculous life, but I did have her.

  “There’s a girl who lives next door,” I said. “There’s, like, a garage between our two houses and I can see right into her bedroom.”

  “Jackpot,” Sean said.

  “Shut up, Sean,” Bash said. “Go on, Jake.”

  I took a deep breath and told them about the Toad House. I told them I had heard a scream and seen a young girl fight off a big white man. I told them she had run away when the police came, holding a duffel bag. I told them about the two men in a van, who seemed to intimidate and upset her.

  “What exactly were they wearing?” Bash asked, and I described their grey trackies and the white guy’s beanie cap in some detail. Bash raised an eyebrow.

  “Fist bump?” Kane said, drumming his fingers.

  “Yeah,” Bash said, leaning forward, “did she bump the white guy?”

  “No,” I said, dragging my hair down over my forehead, only for it to pop back into its maddening upright shock.

  “Act it out,” Sean said.

  I bumped my fists together.

  “That’s you with your boyfriend!” Sean grabbed himself and looked desperately for others to laugh with him.

  Bash stroked his chin. “Traffickers?”

  “Traffickers? With a black girl from London?” Kane said. “Unlikely.”

  “I never said she was black,” I said.

  Kane shifted uncomfortably. “What?” he said. “Some white girl gan jump off a roof and not die?”

  The table laughed politely.

  “Oi,” Sean said, tapping his pen. “What accent she got?”

  “Sarf London,” I said.

  “Ain’t traffickers then,” Clarissa said.

  “Yeah,” Bash said, “that’s what we’re saying.”

  “Must be debt collectors,” Kane said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I think,” Bash said.

  “But he was attacking her,” I said.

  “Not those kind of debt collectors,” Kane said. “He owes them. They’ve seen he’s got a teenage daughter and, well, there you go.”

  “You’re saying she has something to do with the repayment?”

  “I’m saying she is the repayment, son,” Kane said.

  We all looked at each other.

  “You’ve got to get in that yard, blud,” Sean said, “see wa’gwan.”

  Clarissa kissed her teeth and the others laughed. “Sean, you ruin bein’ Jamaican for me, man. Shut up, man.”

  “Clarissa,” the teacher said, “sit down, please.”

  “Sorry, sir,” she said. Her voice was soft and raspy. She turned back to us. “So what are we going to do about this girl?”

  “Clarrisa, didn’t I tell you to sit down?”

  “I believe you did, sir,” Clarissa said as she turned back to us. “We have to find out who she is and help her out of whatever hell her old man has—”

  “Clarissa.”

  “We know her address so we can find out who she—”

  “Clarissa!”

  “’Sake, sir, I’m not the only one talking!” She turned to me. “What’s her address?”

  “I tried the address, it doesn’t work.”

  “Clarissa, I’ve called SLT.”

  “Am I the only one talking? Am I? Or am I the only girl talking?”

  The class whooped.

  “Clarissa, calm down,” the teacher said.

  “That’ll work,” Clarissa said as she took the address.

  A black suit appeared at the door. “Clarissa Neale?” he said. Clarissa folded the address into her notebook and snapped it shut. “Now,” the suit said, wielding his walkie-talkie.

  “I need my mice,” Clarissa said.

  “Now, Clarissa.”

  “Sir! I need my mice! He’s only sending me out ’cos I’m a girl.”

  “Now, Miss Neale.”

  “Sending bitches home like Venus and Serena.”

  Laughter.

  “Sir,” Clarissa said, digging through her tiny bag and retrieving two tampons, “I need my mice.”

  She clattered out of the classroom and I knew she wouldn’t care about having to go, because nothing is better than making your whole class laugh.

  I looked uneasily at the door. Clarissa had the Toad House address in my handwriting, which anyone could use to find my address, which could link me to calling the police, and still what I was most upset about was not being able to think of a good rhyme earlier when that was what I basically spent my whole childhood doing. My mouth ran ahead of my brain.

  “I could have thought of a hundred of those food rhymes,” I said to Kane.

  “You’re all right, love,” Kane said, with a little pat on my back. He and Bash creased with laughter. “You’re all right, pet.”

  Schools like this are undersubscribed so it isn’t hard to find abandoned classrooms, and their empty storage cupboards. These cupboards will be filled with past papers, photocopied in preparation for kids who never came, stacked and moulding, half chewed by mice, and, if you like, you can sit there until school has finished.

  I opened both doors with a rake key and a biro. They might as well not bother locking them.

  Isaac was playing on loop while I continued editing myself out of the Apple Pie scene. We play these gangsters who are playing Russian roulette with a McDonald’s Apple Pie. Isaac, in his genius, approaches the pie teeth-first, but the moment he bites into the pastry, I look at the camera and laugh. For months I’d been trying to edit out my awful corpsing. I couldn’t use any of the later takes because once he’d seen me laughing, he couldn’t help laughing too. He would buckle over, his legs twisted, his hands furrowing into his crotch, worried he would wet himself.

  He did, once. He wet himself when we were performing in the school playground. “Oh, my dignity, my dignity!” he cried, convulsing on the ground. I had knelt beside him, trying to shield him from everyone else’s view, but I was useless with laughter. I felt I might die laughing.

  I clicked off the videos and called him.

  This is the O2 messaging…

  The bell went for afternoon registration. I checked my path was clear and made my way to my locker.

  A low voice.

  “All right, Jake.”

  That graveyard voice. My bag came off my shoulder. I turned around without thinking.

  His shoulders were relaxed and his lips wet. I felt a spasm of electricity in my legs, as if a very ancient part of my psyche was telling me to run for my life. On the wall was that awful tag:

  $$☠

  Riches, skull.

  My eyes widened.

  Rich … skull.

  Ritchie Darscall.r />
  Jesus.

  Without a word, he lifted my jumper, revealing my thin trousers. He ran his hand along my belt, gently, almost lovingly. He put his paw down into one pocket, then the other, and fished out my phone.

  “No!” I cried.

  He grinned.

  “I need that.” I grabbed for it and he shoved me so hard against the lockers it knocked the air from my lungs.

  “Twenty quid,” he said, then spat in my face. “Queer.”

  I thought of the videos of me and Isaac as he pocketed my phone. I didn’t dare move, not even to reach up and wipe the phlegm from my face.

  “Open your locker,” he said.

  I did it.

  “Don’t wipe your face. Keep that on your face.”

  He took a package the size of a cereal box out of his bag and put it in my locker. “Anything happens to that, you are dead. You got it?”

  It wasn’t the first time someone had spat in my face. It wasn’t the first time some gangster had forced me to hold drugs for them. And it wasn’t the first time that some massive white kid had stolen something from me and ransomed it.

  “BOO!” He feinted a punch to my guts. I flinched and he laughed. I looked at the floor, at Darscall’s gaudy trainers.

  Clean-haired kids floated by in their logo-less shoes.

  That evening I watched our sketches on my computer. Over and over, all evening, just to block out the day.

  In one scene the Real Fly Rabbi is rapping and you can hear me laughing in the background. The camera shakes and often swoops to the floor because I couldn’t control myself.

  “Yes I’ve got loafers,

  but I need a new pair.

  Tesco ones are comfortable and practical

  and they do discounts there.”

  People at school used to crowd around our computers to watch our sketches and the Real Fly Rabbi was a popular character.

  My fingers twitched for my phone. I thought of the sketches I had on there and nowhere else. I thought of the pictures on my phone, and, I thought as I started to cry, of his number. I didn’t have it written down anywhere.

  A rustling came from the garden of the Toad House. A glob of darkness moved about. I blinked and the glob became a figure. The figure scaled the guttering and reached the bedroom window. The pocket of light from the streetlamp briefly brushed the fine face of the girl. I stretched to call out to her, but instead watched her pick at the moss on the garage roof. When I blinked it seemed she wasn’t there, but just a shape in the gap between our houses.