Almost True (8 page)

‘I don't believe you,' says Archie. ‘I'm sure that's against the law. My parents wouldn't send me to a school like that, anyway. My dad's not even a Catholic.' He doesn't sound very certain. I pounce.

‘Won't make any difference to them. You'll probably have to pray even more to make up for that. They're after your soul . . . not to mention your body. . .'

Anyone normal would realise I was teasing. But Archie looks like he's going to burst into tears.

‘Wh . . . what do you mean?'

‘Well those monks, they're not allowed sex, are they? And then they see some pretty young boy like you and . . . let's just say you won't be getting much sleep. . . You'll have to be on the alert twenty-four hours a day. Some of those monks are really big and strong.'

Archie blinks. He sits down on the end of the bed and does up his shoes. He keeps his head down longer than he needs to, I notice. I'm chuckling to myself. This is an excellent wind-up.

And then he lifts his head and he says, ‘Ty . . . what you're saying, it's not true, is it?' and I can see that he's really scared and the tears aren't just in his eyes.

So I say, ‘Nah . . . it'll probably be fine. I'm just winding you up.'

‘Oh. It's just . . . I don't really want to go to boarding
school again.' He sighs. ‘I thought I'd fixed it by getting expelled from the last one.'

‘Can't you tell your parents?'

‘I did. But they're both away a lot. They said it wouldn't be fair to leave me at home with an au pair.'

‘Oh. Can't you talk to them again?'

‘They're away such a lot.'

‘Talk to Patrick in the car.' Patrick seems to me to be the sort of person who it'd be good to have on your side in an argument.

‘I'm not sure. Grandpa doesn't like me much.'

Well, who can blame him? I bite my tongue. ‘Have a go. Or swear at the head teacher. Make sure they won't take you. Good luck.'

Left alone, I think about going back to the book-cleaning job. But maybe I should limit my exposure to the dust. Helen's calling me from downstairs. Reluctantly I go and find her in the kitchen.

‘They've gone,' she says, ‘and I thought it might be a chance for us to have a chat. Just about how things are going . . . we don't seem to have talked much. . . You did very well with the Maths, by the way. Well done. We'll do some more tomorrow.'

She's always nice to me. She really tries to see my side when I argue with Archie. It's just the way she looks at me sometimes – like she's looking at
someone else. Someone she's really worried about. It gives me the creeps.

Meg rubs against my legs. I lean down and pat her. ‘It's . . . ummmm . . . it's going OK,' I say cautiously.

She laughs. ‘You were such a quiet baby. I thought you might have changed. In some ways it's good to see you fighting with Archie. We worried that you'd always be a shy, nervous little scrap.'

Huh. She's talking nonsense again. It's obvious to me that she and Patrick have got really confused and they must have had Archie to stay a lot and are getting him muddled up with me. Not that I can imagine him ever being particularly shy.

It's because they're old, I suppose, and maybe they feel a bit guilty that they never had anything to do with me, so they've kind of told themselves stories which they now believe are true. I can relate to that. Maybe it runs in the family.

I was not quiet at all when I was little. When I was a toddler, I had legendary tantrums. Great long noisy storms, where I would shout and cry and thrash around and only my gran could calm me down. My auntie Emma teases me about the time I screamed for an hour solid because there weren't any red Smarties in the packet, or the day I bit the greengrocer when he offered me an apple. Anything could set me off.

I was sacked by three child minders and my gran had to give up her job so she could look after me more or less full-time.

Once I started big school, I think I did it once, and then Arron told me that I was being a baby and I stopped. End of. No more tantrums.
That's
when I turned into a quiet person. I can't actually remember these furies myself – although I've heard the gory details a lot – but I do have a dim memory of Gran holding me and rocking me and telling me that everything was going to be all right.

I wish she was here now. Helen is cooking onions in a big iron pot – just like Gran used to – and she's chopped up carrots and turnips into another bowl, also just like Gran. In fact, I'd say she was making exactly the same stew that was my favourite thing that Gran ever cooked. My mouth ought to be watering. But instead, tears are pricking my eyes. It must be the onions.

‘Can you pass me that bowl, darling?'

I nudge the carrots in her direction.

‘Do you remember when we used to cook together?' she asks. ‘The doctor told us it was a good idea to get you involved as much as possible. Patrick told Julie when she took you – I hope she carried on – anyway it obviously worked out because you've grown up so tall and strong.'

What
is
she talking about? What doctor? I never go and see doctors. She's really confused. She's the one who needs to see a doctor. I wonder if I should suggest it tactfully – but it's hard to tell a kind old lady that she's probably losing her marbles.

I sniff the onions and then I get a weird glimmer of memory. Balancing on a high stool and smelling food cooking and putting my hand into a bowl of red sticky cubes and throwing them one by one into the pot. And I like the squidgy feeling of the meat and the sizzle of the pan, but I'm hungry and worried at the same time. So much worry that there's not much room for anything else.

I must be remembering cooking with my gran. But why did I feel so scared? It's all a bit much.

‘I'm just going to the loo,' I say, and I stumble from the room. In the hallway I sit down on the floor and bring my knees up to my chest. I have no idea what the matter is. This place – locked up, a prisoner, cell-sharing with Archie – is doing my head in. It's so hot and stuffy. I need fresh air. I need exercise. Five minutes fresh air won't hurt, surely. And I go to the front door and push it open as quietly as possible.

I'm outside. For the first time for more than a week. And once I'm outside I know exactly what I need to do to chase away the scary feelings. I need a run. Surely
I could have just a short run?

At the end of their driveway is the road, and there's no pavement or anything – it's not really built for people who aren't in a car. One way goes uphill, one way down. I start running down the hill. If I meet a car on the way I'll probably get run over, but that doesn't really bother me right now.

It feels so good to be running again, even though I'm not really dressed for it. I've got my running shoes on, but I wouldn't normally run in jeans. After about fifteen minutes I begin feeling a bit hot and uncomfortable, and I'm still feeling achy. Never mind. I run on.

A dark grey cloud covers the sky, and it seems to get lower and lower until it's almost pressing on my head. Thunder growls like a pit bull, and then a raindrop spits onto my head. I pull up my hood, but it's hopeless, the rain starts and it's like running in a car wash. There's water flooding down my face, my shoes are filling up, I'm wet through to my boxers. I don't care. I keep running.

There's a path leading off the road through some fields. It'll be safer, I think, and run on past cows and tractors, squelching through mud and cow shit and all kinds of horrendous smells. I must have been bitten by some sort of insect, because my face feels incredibly itchy. My jeans are heavy with water, clinging to my legs.
And the rain is still pouring down. But it's great to be running. I just don't know where I'm running to.

My jeans are so heavy that I lose the rhythm of the run, stumble over a ridge of mud and fall, splat! into a huge puddle. I'm so wet that it doesn't make much difference – except that now I'm filthy too and I stink of God knows what. Some people come to the countryside on purpose, I don't know why.

I pull myself up and I carry on running. I'm out of the field now and into some woodland. It's getting dark already, and the path is petering out. I don't care. I run through brambles, pushing past branches, getting scratched by holly and all the time getting wetter and wetter as the rain pours down.

And then I hit a big hard lump of wood, my ankle turns under me and I come crashing down into green plants that prick and tear at my skin. I roll away and the pain in my ankle jabs like a knife.

‘Aaah,' I groan with pain as I try to stand up, but my ankle can't take my weight and I collapse into the mud again.

I'm lying in a stinking muddy puddle, it's almost dark and I'm surrounded by trees. I'm in the middle of nowhere. My skin is on fire – I'm clawing at it, trying to stop the itch, but it just makes it worse – and my ankle is probably broken. I'm not sure how anyone's ever going
to find me. I'm probably never going to be able to run again. I might even die here in this wood.

I'm dizzy with exhaustion and someone's got inside my head and is hammering their way out. The cold and wet and pain keep me awake – which is good, I realise, hazily, because it wouldn't be a great idea to go to sleep. Not when it's so cold and getting dark.

I'm just thinking of having a try at crawling when I look up and my heart gives a big thump.

Two silent figures are standing over me. And one of them has a knife.

You wouldn't think that anyone could be pleased to see a ghost, but when I realise that one of the people standing there is Alistair, I let out a little sigh of relief. The other guy is shorter, his face hidden under the shadow of his hood. All I can see is the blade of his knife, shining against his dark clothes. Who is it? Is he real or a ghost? And then blood drips into the mud beside me and it all comes rushing back.

Rio. The boy who was stabbed in the park. The boy my friend Arron was trying to mug all those months ago, who pulled out his own knife rather than hand over his iPod and ended up dead as a dinosaur.

Rio, whose poor sad parents wept on TV pleading for witnesses. Especially the boy who called the ambulance. That boy was me.

It's because of Rio that I had to go into witness protection. I'm telling the truth about his death. It's just the next bit that I'm lying about. The bit where I stabbed Arron.

‘You must be Ty,' he says, ‘I've heard about you.'

My mouth moves, but no words come out. And then I remember the photos the police showed me of Rio's body after it'd been sliced by Arron's knife. I vomit, hot and sour, into the mud.

‘Try and control yourself,' says Alistair, quietly cold. I'm gulping, trying to stop another wave of nausea.

Rio bends and puts his knife to my throat. I can feel the edge scraping my skin and I kind of whimper, ‘No . . . please . . . I tried to help you . . . please, Rio, don't. . .'

He laughs. ‘Go on . . . beg. . .' and then says to Alistair, ‘He's wet himself, the little baby. . .'

He's right, and my stomach clenches with utter shame, but I'm so wet all over anyway that I can't see how he knew. The blade stays under my chin. Rio moves it over my skin, a prickling tickle, a tiny scratch, and says, ‘How long you gonna lie about me? Make out I was the one shanked your frien' Arron?'

‘I . . . errr. . .'

‘Cos I never. An' my folks don't need your lies. You hurt dat boy.'

‘I . . . I never said it was all you. Arron said that. I said . . . you were fighting . . . that was how he got injured.'

‘And that was a lie,' says Alistair, and I sob and gulp and say, ‘Yes . . . I'm sorry. . .' even though it wasn't totally a lie. Rio did hurt Arron. It's just that I did too.

‘You gonna take back that lie or you gonna take my punishment?' says Rio. I have no idea what to say. Am I going to die at the hands of a ghost? Is that even possible? Or can I go on lying to save myself, to save Arron, to make sure the real bad guys go to prison?

And then something flies out of the darkness right at my chest. Something warm and loud and soft and furry, something that knocks me flat on my back and nuzzles up beside me and licks my face with its rough, wet tongue.

‘Meg!' I gasp, hugging her tight, then she barks and jumps and runs away and then straight back to me again, and her face is as smiley as a dog's can be and I can't believe I was ever scared of her.

But Rio and Alistair are still there, and Alistair says, ‘Get the dog,' and as Meg jumps around, tail wagging, I see a flash of silver. ‘Meg . . . no. . .' I scream, and I'm holding onto her, frantically searching for the bleeding wound.

Patrick looms out of the darkness. Behind him comes Archie, clutching a torch. ‘Ty . . . thank God!' says Patrick.
And then more harshly, ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, running off like that? Scaring us to death? We were lucky to find you. Leave Meg alone and get up now.'

I'm desperately looking behind him, behind me, looking to see if Rio and Alistair are still there. I can't see them, but the darkness is full of rustling movement. And Meg is whining – is she in pain?

‘She's hurt . . . Meg is hurt. . .' I say, and then I think I see Rio crouching in the shadows and I try and shield Meg's squirming body from the blow that's going to finish her off.

‘She's fine,' says Patrick. ‘Come on, get up.' And he grabs my arm and tries to pull me up, but I collapse back into the mud.

‘He's gone bonkers,' hisses Archie, in what's meant to be a whisper. ‘Maybe he's been taking drugs.'

‘Maybe,' says Patrick, grimly, and I sense that when we get home I'm going to get the hairdryer worse than if I was Berbatov and I'd just missed five open goals against Chelsea. Which could happen, let's face it.