Erebos (2 page)

‘Oh, is that so, Dan?' he said slowly. ‘What would he have to talk to you about? Selling Guide biscuits maybe?'

Colin threw him a quick look from his brown eyes, but didn't say a word. If his skin hadn't been so dark Nick would have sworn that he was going red.

This couldn't be happening. Did Colin have some terrible secret that Dan knew about? Was he blackmailing him?

‘Colin,' Nick said, ‘Jamie and I are meeting some people after school at Camden Lock. Are you in?'

It was a long time before Colin answered.

‘Don't know yet,' he said, his gaze fixed resolutely out the window. ‘You should probably count me out.'

Dan and Alex exchanged a meaningful look that gave Nick an uneasy feeling in his gut.

‘What is all this about?' He took his friend by the shoulder. ‘Colin? What's going on?'

It was that pathetic moron Dan who took Nick's hand off Colin's shoulder. ‘Nothing that concerns you. Nothing you would even know the first thing about.'

At five-thirty it was standing room only on the Northern Line. On the way to the cinema Nick and Jamie were jammed in between tired, sweaty people. At least Nick towered over the masses and got unused air, but Jamie was hopelessly wedged in between a suit and a large-bosomed matron.

‘And I'm telling you, something's wrong,' Nick insisted. ‘Dan was treating Colin like his lackey, and he treated me like a little kid. Next time I'll ...' Nick paused. What would he do next time? Thump Dan? ‘Next time I'll straighten him out,' he finished his sentence.

Jamie shrugged one shoulder; there wasn't space to do more. ‘I think you're talking yourself into something,' he said calmly. ‘Maybe Colin is hoping Dan will help him with his Spanish. He tutors lots of people.'

‘No. That wasn't it. You should've heard them!'

‘Then perhaps he's plotting something.' Jamie's grin widened, reaching right to his back teeth. ‘He's taking the piss out of them both, don't you get it? Like the time he convinced Alex that Michelle really liked him. That joke lasted for weeks.'

Nick had to laugh despite himself. Colin had been so convincing that Alex had practically stalked the shy Michelle. Of course it all came out and for a couple of days Alex didn't manage to change colour at all. He stayed bright red.

‘That was two years ago, when we were only fourteen,' said Nick. ‘And it was infantile rubbish.'

The carriage doors slid open and a few people got out, but far more pushed in. A young woman in high heels stepped on Nick's foot with all her weight, and the pain banished all thought of Colin's strange behaviour for a short while.

It was only later, when they were sitting in the dark cinema and the trailers were showing on the giant screen, that the image of Colin alongside the two freaks appeared before Nick's eyes. Alex's face glowing with zeal, Dan's superior grin. Colin's embarrassment. There was no way it was about tutoring, no way.

* * *

Nick didn't see or hear from Colin for the whole weekend, and on Monday he barely spoke to Nick. He always seemed to be on the go. At one recess Colin saw him pass something to Jerome. Something slim made out of shiny plastic. Jerome looked mildly interested while Colin went on at him, gesticulating madly, before he rushed off again.

‘Hey, Jerome.' Nick went over to him, deliberately upbeat. ‘Tell me, what did Colin give you?'

Jerome shrugged. ‘Nothing much.'

‘So let me see it.'

For a brief moment it looked as though Jerome was going to reach into his jacket pocket, but then he changed his mind.

‘Why are you interested?'

‘No reason. Just curious.'

‘It's nothing. Anyway, go ask Colin.' With that, Jerome turned away and joined a few kids who were discussing the latest football results.

Nick fetched his English books out of the locker and strolled into class, where as always Emily caught his eye first. She was drawing with great concentration, her head lowered. Her dark hair hung down to the paper.

He tore his eyes away from her and headed for Colin's desk. But Girl Guide Alex was in residence. He and Colin had their heads together whispering.

‘You can get stuffed,' Nick muttered grimly.

Colin wasn't at school the next day.

‘They could be up to just about anything. Hey, I'm normally more suspicious than you!' Jamie slammed the door of his locker for emphasis. ‘Has it occurred to you that maybe Colin's got a crush on someone? That's when most people start acting crazy.' Jamie rolled his eyes. ‘Maybe it's Gloria. Who knows. Or Brynne. No, she pines only for you, Nick, you old charmer.'

Nick was only half listening, because two boys from Year 7 were standing further down the corridor, outside the toilets. Dennis and . . . a boy whose name Nick just couldn't think of. At any rate Dennis was doing some fast talking at the other boy as he shoved something under his nose: a narrow, square package. It looked very familiar to Nick. The other boy grinned and discreetly spirited the thing away into his bag.

‘Perhaps Colin's madly in love with sweet Emily Carver?' Jamie was still speculating. ‘He'd be up against it with her; that would explain his bad mood. Or maybe it's everybody's favourite – Helen!' Jamie poked the plump girl hard in the side just as she was trying to get past him into class.

Helen spun around and gave him a shove that sent him halfway across the corridor. ‘Get your hands off me, arsehole,' she hissed.

Jamie recovered quickly after the initial shock. ‘But of course. Although with your looks it's a real struggle. I'm crazy about pimples and blubber.'

‘Leave her in peace,' said Nick. Jamie looked astonished.

‘What's the matter with you? Have you joined Greenpeace? Save the walruses and stuff?'

Nick didn't answer. Jamie's jokes at Helen's expense always left him feeling like someone was throwing firecrackers at cans of petrol.

The Simpsons
was on television. Nick sat on the couch in his tracksuit pants and spooned lukewarm ravioli out of a can. Mum wasn't home yet. She must have been in a rush and done a sloppy job with her packing again, since half the contents of her ‘toolkit' were lying around the living room floor. Nick had trodden on a hair roller as he'd come in and nearly fallen flat on his face. Chaotic Mum strikes again.

Dad was snoring in the bedroom and had hung his ‘Do not disturb – sleeping in progress' sign on the door.

The ravioli can was empty and Homer had driven his car into a tree. Nick yawned. He'd already seen the episode, and anyway he had to go to basketball training. He got his things together without much enthusiasm. At least Colin might show up today, since he'd missed the last training session. It wouldn't hurt to ring him and remind him. Nick tried three times, but he only got voicemail, which Colin was well known for checking about once in a blue moon.

‘Anybody who's not serious about the game shouldn't be on the team.' Bethune's bellow filled the gym. The members of the noticeably shrunken team looked down sheepishly at their shoes. Bethune was yelling at the wrong people. After all they'd come to training. But there were eight of them instead of seventeen. You couldn't even make two starting teams with eight players, let alone think about substitutions. Colin hadn't come of course, but Jerome was also missing. Curious.

‘What's the matter with those losers? Are they all sick? Has everyone around here suddenly gone soft in the head?' Nick hoped Bethune would be hoarse soon.

‘Since he's always in such a foul mood lately, I may as well stay home next time too,' he muttered and was rewarded with twenty-five push-ups.

On the way home Nick rang Colin twice, but there was no answer. Damn it.

Why was he so upset? Just because Colin was acting stupid? No, he decided after thinking it over. Stupid would have been okay. But by the look of it, Colin had cut Nick out of his life completely overnight. He at least owed Nick an explanation.

When he arrived home, Nick bolted into his room and flung himself into the wonky swivel chair at his desk. He booted up the computer and opened his email program.

Hey dude! Are you sick? Is something wrong? Did I off end you or something? If so, I didn't mean to. And by the way, what's up between you and Dan? The guy is weird. I thought we both agreed about that . . . Are you going to be at school tomorrow? If there's a problem, we should talk about it.

CU
Nick

He clicked
Send
, then opened his browser and entered the basketball club chat room. But no-one was there, so he surfed over to deviantART. To Emily. He looked to see whether she'd posted a new manga or a poem. She was incredibly gifted.

He found two new sketches, which he saved on his hard disk, and a short blog entry. He hesitated before reading it. He had to overcome an invisible barrier each time, because he knew it wasn't meant for him. Emily had taken trouble to stay anonymous, but she had friends who talked.

He shook off the thought. Here, on this page, he was close to her.

Emily wrote in her blog that her head felt empty. She wished she could move to the country, away from the giant moloch that was London. Her words felt like stabs to Nick. It was unthinkable that Emily would leave his city and his life. He read the entry three times before he closed the page.

Another check for emails: not a word from Colin. No new tweets either, not for days now. Nick sighed, thumped the mouse down on the desk somewhat harder than necessary and shut down the machine.

Chemistry was a punishment from the gods. Nick pored over his book with increasing desperation and tried to understand the problem Mrs Ganter had saddled them with for this lesson. If only getting a C at the end of the year would do. But if he got less than a B he could forget it – and what he really needed was an A. Medical schools didn't take Chemistry duds.

He looked up. Emily was sitting in front of him, with her dark plait falling down her back. It wasn't one of those narrow elfin backs; you could tell she did swimming training. Her legs were long and muscular too, and . . . He shook his head as if to force his thoughts back to the right place. Damn it. How many moles were in 19 grams of CH
4
 again?

The bell rang all too soon for the end of the lesson. Nick was one of the last to hand in his work, and he was convinced that Mrs Ganter wouldn't be pleased. Emily had already gone. Nick automatically looked around for her and spotted her a few metres down the corridor. She was talking to Rashid, whose enormous nose cast a beak-like shadow on the wall. Nick sauntered a few paces closer, and made as if to look for something in his schoolbag.

‘You're not allowed to tell anyone, got it?'

Rashid was offering something to Emily – a flat package wrapped in newspaper. Square again. ‘It's important. You'll be amazed – it's the coolest thing.'

The scepticism in Emily's voice spoke volumes. ‘I don't have time for silly stuff like that.'

Nick stood off to one side and studied the chess club notice board earnestly.

‘No time? Rubbish! Here, just try it!'

A sidelong glance revealed that Rashid was holding out his newspaper package to Emily, but she wasn't taking it. She took a step backwards, shook her head and walked away. ‘Give it to someone else,' she called over her shoulder to Rashid.

Yes, give it to me, Nick thought. What on earth was going on?

How come no-one was talking about these packages that were being passed round? And why the hell didn't he have one yet? It wasn't like him to be left out.

Nick watched Rashid, who had stuffed the package in his jacket pocket and was shuffling along the corridor. Now he was homing in on Brynne, who was saying goodbye to a friend. He started to speak to her, pulled the package out of his pocket –

‘What are you gazing at, dreamy?' Someone slapped Nick hard on the back. Jamie. ‘How was the gruesome Chemistry test?'

‘Gruesome,' Nick muttered.

A few people had stopped in the middle of the corridor, and were blocking Brynne and Rashid from sight. Nick went closer, but the transaction was already over. Rashid was walking away with his typical dragging gait, and Brynne had disappeared around the corner too.

‘Damn it,' Nick swore.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Oh, something's going on. The other day Colin passed something to Jerome and he was being all hush-hush about it. Rashid's tried the same thing with Emily, but she told him to get lost, so he started chatting up Brynne.' He ran his hand over his ponytail. ‘I missed the rest. I'd like to know what it's about.'

‘CDs,' Jamie said matter-of-factly. ‘Pirate copies of something, I'd say. Twice today I've seen someone dragging someone else into a corner and palming a CD off on them. It's no big deal, is it?'

CDs – that would explain the format of Rashid's parcel. A pirate copy going around – maybe banned music. Then it would hardly be surprising that Emily didn't want to have anything to do with it. Yes, that was possible. The thought appeased Nick's curiosity a bit, but . . . if it was a CD, why wasn't anyone talking about it? The last time a banned film had done the rounds it had been the number one topic. All the people who'd seen it held forth with wild descriptions, and everyone else listened enviously.

This was different. As if it were a game of Chinese whispers, as if a secret password was going around. The insiders were keeping quiet, whispering, staying apart.

Nick was pensive as he made his way to his English class. The lesson that followed was pretty boring. He dwelt on his own thoughts, and a full twenty minutes passed before he noticed that not only was Colin missing today, but Jerome too.