Cat Kin (6 page)

She clicked on it.

‘Cathy, I’m not being negative, but if there was some new wonder drug wouldn’t the hospital know about it?’

‘Maybe not,’ Tiffany put in. ‘Pashki is wonderful and no-one knows about that. In the lesson today–’

‘It’s not a drug. It’s a supplement. You don’t need a prescription. Ah,
finally
.’

The screen blossomed with a colourful homepage. The banner headline appeared in leafy letters:
Only Nature’s Own
.

‘I like their name,’ said Dad. ‘Shame about the acronym. O NO.’

‘Can you be serious for a moment?’

Mum clicked around until one page made them all lean forward. It showed a toffee-brown pill jar with a striking orange label. A panel popped up beside it.

‘“Panthacea”,’ Dad read. ‘“A revolutionary new formula that combines traditional Asian medicine with the latest research.” Well, that covers all bases,
doesn’t it?’ He read on. ‘“Proven in trials to stimulate muscle growth in tissue-damaged areas. To be taken as a dietary supplement with meals.”’

‘I don’t think you say
Pan-thay-se-ah
,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s probably
Pan-tha-saya
.’

‘And see here, Peter. “All natural ingredients”.’

‘So is deadly nightshade.’

Mum tutted.

‘I don’t think they’d last long if they sold people deadly nightshade,’ she said. ‘Look, you can buy a first course of four bottles for sixty pounds. That’s
no more expensive than some vitamin pills.’

She was already clicking
Add to shopping cart
.

Dad drummed his fingers on the desk.

‘All right. But we are not getting carried away. We’ve been here before. I shall check with Dr Bijlani, and if he agrees we let Stuart try it for a few weeks. And expect nothing. Are
we clear?’

‘Yes, yes. Peter, I need the credit card number.’ Mum clicked and typed and clicked. Her left hand had clenched into a fist.

Tiffany drifted to her room, where she and Rufus read another chapter of
Gormenghast
before she put herself to bed.

Another Monday, the same old ordeal. Shuffling into the school gymnasium Tiffany took deep breaths. Miss Fuller had set up the apparatus.

‘Heck,’ muttered Avril. She was another girl who tended to get pigeonholed with Tiffany under Weeds, Whiners and Weirdos. ‘If she makes us do another relay race I’m
calling in dead next week.’

‘Say I’m dead too,’ Tiffany whispered back. Her nervousness had an edge today. At pashki she had started to feel strong for the first time ever, and it made her wonder. Perhaps
in this PE lesson she might turn in a half-decent performance.

However, she was also worried that Mrs Powell’s classes were playing tricks on her imagination. Late on Saturday she’d heard Mum and Dad talking in their bedroom. She never had
before. So either they never normally talked, or her hearing had improved. Both explanations seemed unlikely. Then there was last night. Going to the bathroom in the dark, she’d avoided
stepping on a drawing pin. It was only afterwards that she realised she couldn’t possibly have seen it with the lights off.

Miss Fuller blew her whistle. The class sorted into four teams—as usual, Tiffany and Avril were amongst the last to be chosen. Her team mates set off one by one and Tiffany tried to
memorise the course. Balance beam, wall bars, monkey bars and ropes, then over the gym horse they flew like contenders for Olympic gold, the girls rosy-cheeked and grinning, the boys making out
they were marines. It was depressing, it was sickening, it was…whoops, it was her turn.

She crossed the balance beam. That was easy. At the top of the wall bars she looked down and froze. She had never climbed so high. Somehow she got down and reached for the monkey bars. Heaving
and whiplashing her way from one rung to the next, she knew, by halfway across, that she wasn’t going to make it. Her arms were paralysed. She dropped to the floor. Staggering to a rope she
tried to climb it. Four feet up she lost all feeling in her shoulders and with it, her grip. Down she slithered, the rope burning her palms and the insides of her knees.

She landed on the mat in a heap. A hand pulled her, none too tenderly, to her feet.

‘That was a lame effort, wasn’t it?’ said Miss Fuller. Uneasy laughter rippled through the gym. ‘Chin up, nothing’s broken. Do it again.’

Tiffany could only stand there, trembling, sucking her scorched fingers.

‘What am I going to do with you, Tiffany Maine?’ Miss Fuller looked to heaven. ‘Okay. Go and sit it out. I’m thinking of getting your name engraved on that sicky
bench.’

If she cried, she was dead. Dead. It was as simple as that. She trudged to the bench and sat down, hugging her knees, cold and yet boiling hot as if she had a fever.

Miss Fuller whistled and yelled at the class, driving them on round the course. Tiffany sat in the corner and stared at her. Hatred knotted in her stomach.

That was a lame effort, wasn’t it?

‘I should be in that hospital bed,’ she whispered. ‘Not Stuart.’

And now it was impossible not to weep, silently, into her fists.

It was a scene he saw every day, in some form or other: three boys crowding a smaller one against the playground fence. As usual Ben paid no attention, more interested in
saving the last of his ice lolly from falling off its stick. The bullies whirled and twitched in a mockery of dance moves.

‘Hey, Forrester! Show us some crazy steps.’

‘Make the floor burn, Danny-boy.’

‘Oh, leave off me!’

Ben looked without thinking and saw Daniel from Cat Kin, trying to stop a much bigger boy from snatching his glasses. In the same moment Daniel, hunting desperately for a way out, recognised
him. Oops. Ben stood still, torn. Presumably the bullies were only in Year Seven, but they were all Ben’s size. Cowardice fought briefly with shame and lost. He walked towards the group.

‘Hey, Daniel,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Not that great.’

The boys stopped their jiving.

‘Ooo,’ said one, ‘is this your dance partner?’ He poked Daniel, who lashed out with his fist. The boy squealed in fake terror and moonwalked away.

‘Hang on,’ said his friend, fingering the studs in his eyebrow. ‘You’re Gallagher, aren’t you? The pinball guy.’

‘The pinhead?’ snorted the third, a boy whose face would have been quite handsome on a toad.

‘Yeah, right,’ grinned Eyebrow-studs. ‘It must be tricky playing with those tiny balls.’

The boys cracked up. Ben tried to make the most of his extra inch of height.

‘Do you know a quicker way to earn easy money?’

That got their attention. ‘What you talking about?’

Ben pointed towards the strip of bare concrete that served as a football pitch. ‘You see that guy playing in goal?’

‘The really big fella?’

‘Yeah. That’s Cannon. I play pinball, he bets on me, he rakes it in. I get a share. It’s simple.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Eyebrow-studs chewed his gum. ‘How much?’

‘He’ll tell you himself,’ said Ben. ‘Go and talk to him. Ask how much money he won on me. He might even let you join the syndicate if you say you’re really good
friends of Ben Gallagher.’

As the three boys hurried eagerly towards Cannon, Ben grabbed Daniel by the arm and pulled him away.

‘This is going to be ugly. I don’t think we want to watch.’

On the far side of the school they found a fire escape to sit on. Half-hearted gang warfare was taking place around the burned-out car across the street.

‘So what was that about?’ asked Ben.

‘’S’nothing.’ Daniel flicked a bottle-top, sending it bouncing down the steps. ‘Ed Orlando and his mates trying to wind me up.’

‘Looks like they succeeded.’

‘They tease me for going to Dance class,’ said Daniel.

‘What fun for them. When do you go dancing?’

‘I don’t. I do pashki with you, remember?’

‘Then why…?’

‘I
was
going to do Dance,’ said Daniel. He took a deep breath. ‘My dad was really off the idea at first. He only caved in so I’d stop bugging him. But
there’s no way he’d let me do pashki. He’d say it was New Age tosh. I haven’t told him that’s what I really do.’

‘Have you tried?’

Daniel sucked his teeth in impatience.

‘He’s a
builder
. If he can’t pile it up or knock it down, it doesn’t exist. Or it does exist but it’s for pansies. Which is worse. He’s happy to let
me sit beside him in a JCB or a crane, but if I want to learn swipes and freezes I’m on my own.’

‘Swipes and–?’

‘I mean it
is
Street Dance, not flippin’ ballet or something. That’s if I did it. Which I don’t. But everyone thinks I…look, it’s complicated,
okay?’

Ben nodded vigorously.

‘So how about your dad?’ said Daniel. ‘Does he mind?’

Ben scratched rust off the banister.

‘I haven’t got round to telling him,’ he said.

The pub windows framed a glorious sunny day. Cyclists in dark glasses and string tops freewheeled down Church Street to the sound of birdsong and police sirens.

Two steaming plates descended like UFOs.

‘You don’t get a nicer Sunday roast than in the Rose and Crown,’ said Ben’s dad. ‘Not even my gran did better. Thanks, love.’ He winked at the waitress.

Ben attacked his lamb ravenously. Normally he ate the Yorkshire puddings first, but not today. Dad savoured every mouthful as if he were at the Ritz.

‘So how’s tricks, Ben?’ he asked. ‘Seems like nothing goes on with you lately.’

Ben stuffed a hot potato into his mouth.

‘Did your mother get the fuse box sorted?’

‘Mm-hm.’ Ben had to strain to remember that particular problem.

‘You know I would have done it myself. If she’d let me.’

‘I know.’

Dad was an electrician.

‘Well then…’ Dad glanced guiltily around him and, with a cheeky grin, re-filled Ben’s empty coke glass with some of his own beer. ‘How’s your game? Or
shouldn’t I ask?’

‘It’s okay.’ Ben sipped at the beer. He didn’t get the taste at all, but pretending to like it made Dad happy.

‘I suppose I shouldn’t encourage you. Still, everyone needs a hobby. And you don’t get hurt playing pinball.’

Remembering Cannon, Ben could have disagreed. But he knew what Dad meant. Before meeting Ben’s mum, Raymond Gallagher had been a semi-professional boxer on the Hackney circuit. Though he
had been, in his own words, an extremely average fighter, with as many losses as wins, he remained proud of his ‘magic jab’, a fast punch that could come out of nowhere to send
opponents reeling into the ropes. It was this handy if unreliable weapon that had briefly earned him the nickname Death Ray.

‘Benny? Is something up?’

‘Just tired. School…’ Ben made vague gestures. And then it all came out. He had to say something or never speak another word again. Over the next twenty minutes Ben whispered,
stammered and choked out the story of John Stanford. By the time he had finished there was no beer left.

‘And then Mum got this letter yesterday,’ Ben went on. His lunch was cold and he had a splitting headache. ‘Stanford’s taking us to court over breach of something or
other. Mum says he’s bluffing but I can tell she’s not sure. I don’t think she knows what to do.’