Saving Silence (25 page)

One of them was waiting just outside the main stairwell doors.

He smiled, waving his knife at us as though he was about to carve a joint of beef. Looking at him face to face, I could see that they were less identical than I’d thought. This one was
taller. Slightly broader. And right now, a hell of a lot more dangerous.

‘Patience is a virtue,’ he said. ‘Knew you were here somewhere. I saw what you did to my brother, bitch!’

His words were slurred. He’s pissed or doped up, I thought. That could work in our favour. I wondered why the other one wasn’t here too. Perhaps he was hiding, or waiting on the
stairs. I felt Sam’s hand press into my waist.

‘We came here to show you no one messes with us,’ he carried on. ‘We’re invincible, me and Dale. We done the service station up the road tonight. You know the one?
We’ll never get nicked for it. We won’t get done for nothing.’

So this was Josh. They’re on a high, I thought. This new robbery must have reminded them they had unfinished business.

‘We weren’t gonna hurt you that bad,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘Just give you a little something to remember us by. A nice little scar. But now –’ he waved
the knife – ‘you hurt my brother. It’s different –’

Without waiting for Josh to finish I pulled at Sam and we ran. Josh shouted and came after us. We had a head start, but Sam wasn’t a runner and I was so dizzy from blood loss I could
hardly see straight. We finally reached the back stairs. Chancing a backwards look I saw that Josh was gaining on us. As we hit the third floor, hope surged through me. Unless I was hallucinating,
I could hear a siren!

We were almost at the first floor when I lost my balance and fell down the rest of the staircase. Winded, I lay at the bottom. If you pass out, you’re dead, Imo, I told myself, and with
every bit of strength I had left I heaved myself up. Looking over my shoulder I saw with horror that Josh was on top of Sam at the top of the stairs and they were grappling. Sam was lashing out,
but Josh had the upper hand. His knife flashed and I screamed. But then I saw it falling. Over the banister, right to the bottom of the stairwell. Sam had knocked it out of his hand!

I had to get help. I could see that in the hall police and teachers were ushering everyone outside. Nadina and Mat were there. So was Dale, being helped out by a paramedic. I sprinted towards
them, waving my unhurt arm and screaming.

WEDNESDAY 18 DECEMBER

Memories are odd. They bring back things you’d rather forget in excruciating detail. When I was finally able to think properly, I realized I remembered very little of the
run upstairs, apart from Imogen’s incredible shoe throwing. I remembered even less about the final chase. People told me I’d been incredibly brave to fight Josh to save Imogen. They
were amazed I’d managed to get the knife off him. They asked how I’d done it. I said I didn’t remember.

Actually, I remembered perfectly. The truth was, I hadn’t knocked it out of Josh’s hand at all. He’d simply lost his grip on it and dropped it. I guess he was more drunk or
high than we’d realized.

I wasn’t going to tell anyone though. Let people think I was an amazing knife-grappling hero. Why not?

Everything was cleared up pretty quickly after the police got there. It reminded me a lot of the night when Josh and Dale had tried to mow me down outside the chicken shop, only this time it was
Imogen who was hurt and me who was doing the explaining. Well, actually it was the police who really did the explaining. Apparently they’d been in the area following up a robbery at a garage.
Once they’d been alerted there was trouble at the school they’d come straight over.

‘But how did you know?’ I’d asked the officers, confused.

Nadina waved her phone at me. ‘You ain’t the only one doing a bit of heroics.’ She explained that she and Mat had been in one of the ground-floor classrooms. She didn’t
need to say what they were doing. They’d heard shouting and Imogen rattling the door and had peered into the corridor just in time to see us head upstairs, closely followed by Josh. I stared
at her, putting everything together.

‘Wait – Dale never came after us. Did you take him out?!’

Nadina gave a modest shrug. ‘What, like it was hard? Nah.’ She grinned. ‘We got lucky. He didn’t realize me and Mat were there. Don’t underestimate the power of
surprise, innit.’

I winced, but I was impressed – and grateful. If both brothers had come after us, who knows whether things would have turned out so well.

I rang Dad and Tamsin and they rushed over to the school. After I’d managed to convince them I was fine, Dad said, ‘You know what all this means, don’t
you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘What?’

Dad smiled. ‘It means another court case, of course. That’s assault, what those boys did tonight, and they were carrying weapons. And if there’s some decent CCTV on our side
this time, they could get done for robbing that garage.’

I pulled a face. ‘Isn’t what Imogen and Nadina did to Dale technically assault?’

‘Self-defence! Bit of a difference.’ Dad went on: ‘There’s no hope of them being retried for those previous robberies and the murder – and trying to mow the car
into you, more’s the pity – but if you don’t get ’em for one thing, you get ’em for another—’

‘Phil,’ Tamsin interrupted, ‘Sam’s been through a terrible ordeal tonight – yet another one! – and I don’t think he needs this right now, do
you?’

Dad opened his mouth, then closed it. Gruffly he said, ‘Right. I need to think more before I open my gob. Sorry, Sam. Home, eh?’

I smiled at Tamsin and tucked my hands into my pockets. After a few more words with the police, we went to the car.

As we drove home, I leaned my head against the window and watched the lines of Christmas trees and rows of takeaway shops zip by. I was so tired. It was incredible when I thought about what had
happened – too incredible. But Dad was right to be upbeat. These weeks of fear, looking over my shoulder every time I went outdoors – they were over. At least for the meanwhile. There
was no way Josh and Dale could get out of what had happened tonight.

I took out my phone and started writing a new message.

Imo, I hope you’re OK. Pls text and let me know what they say in the hospital. OK?

After a moment’s hesitation I added a kiss at the end.

TUESDAY 24 DECEMBER

I leaned back in the cushions on the sofa, warming my hands on a cup of coffee, half watching the Pixar movie Benno had put on. Across the room Dad was tapping away on his
laptop. This was a first. Usually I didn’t know where he was in the house. It was nice really. We were doing our own thing, but we were hanging out. Mum was out doing some last-minute
shopping, though the heap of wrapped gifts at the base of our tree looked pretty large to me.

Let’s have a nice Christmas, she’d said to me the night of the party. It looked like that’s what we were going to have. It was weird to be looking forward to it for once.
Things weren’t sorted, not entirely. But it felt like they were getting there.

The doorbell rang. It was probably Sam. He’d mentioned coming over.

‘Nadina, I expect,’ Dad said as I put my coffee down and got up.

‘Nah, she’s got a date with someone else today.’ I smiled. ‘Turns out knocking out knife-wielding nutters is a pretty bonding experience.’

Dad nodded. He knew the ins and outs of what had happened. As I went past I surreptitiously took a quick peek at his laptop screen, but he was just writing an email.

I opened the front door with my good arm. The one Dale had cut was a mass of stitches, as was my shoulder. Like Sam had said, they didn’t hurt, though they stung like anything if I knocked
them. Still, I’d only have to put up with them for a few more days.

‘Hey . . .’ I started, then blinked. It wasn’t Sam. It was Ollie.

‘Hey. All right?’

‘Mostly,’ I said, rather stunned. ‘You?’

Ollie shrugged. He was wearing his long stripy scarf and his old basketball hoody. ‘Can we talk?’

Realizing he didn’t want to come in, I grabbed my coat. I had my slippers on, but after all I’d gone through, I really didn’t give a toss how weird it looked. We walked to the
road in silence. The 123 trundled past, packed with Christmas shoppers. Ollie cleared his throat.

‘Heard what happened. I’m really glad to see you’re OK.’

‘You know me,’ I said, feeling a sense of déjà vu. ‘I’m always OK.’

‘Yeah. One way or another.’ Ollie put his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ve been thinking about everything. Made a decision.’ He turned to look at me, and it struck me
how much healthier he looked. ‘I went to the police and made my statement again.’

After a beat I said, ‘As in – the statement you withdrew?’

‘Not exactly. See, that was never a full statement. Not as full as it should’ve been. I held a few things back, like stuff Josh and Dale said to me about other break-ins, people
they’d beaten up, that kind of thing. This time round, I didn’t leave out nothing. So guess what? It gets classified as new evidence. You know what that means.’

I did. It meant that the case against the McAllisters – the one we’d given evidence at – could be reopened. It was good news. I wasn’t looking forward to doing the court
thing again, but I knew it was necessary.

‘Don’t back out this time, OK?’ I said.

‘Not going to. Want to know what made me change my mind?’

‘Christmas miracle?’

To my surprise Ollie laughed. ‘No, it was last week. I thought, if someone like Sam can fight Josh McAllister, actually disarm him, what kind of person does that make me? And I don’t
wanna be a person who shuts up and says nothing. I’m a crime statistic now. I let my mum down. I let you down. But the statement – that’s not cut and dried. I could change it.
Make a difference. So I have.’

‘Proud of you,’ I said, half flippantly.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, giving him a push and thinking how like old times this felt. ‘Seriously, I’m glad. Not just cos of what this means, but cos of what this says about you.
Always felt you were better than this, Ollie. Now I know you are.’

‘Not good enough to get out of cleaning crap off walls,’ Ollie said with a sigh. ‘Got months more of that.’

I nodded. We watched the traffic, and Ollie said something about the basketball team at his new school. It felt perfectly comfortable and not at all strange.

After a while Ollie got up. ‘Happy Christmas then,’ he said. ‘Got any new year’s resolutions?’

I leaned back, considering. ‘To have a great life,’ I said after a while. ‘And that’s not me being sarcastic.’

‘Sounds good. I might nick it. See you round, Im.’

‘See you,’ I said, meaning it. As Ollie walked off, I thought about what having a great life really meant. For me, probably to stop lying to myself and to pay more attention to what
others were thinking. I could be really oblivious to that and I didn’t like myself for it. And I could be terribly judgemental and harsh, hurting people I cared about. Those weren’t
nice things, but now I knew I did them, I could work on them.

As for the past? I had scars. Much like I’d have physical scars from Dale’s attack. But when you treated them right, scars healed.

If all the stuff with Dad hadn’t happened, we’d never have come to Walthamstow. I wouldn’t have become head prefect, been introduced to volleyball or met the people who were
now my best friends. And while Walthamstow was, as Nads liked to say, no Chelsea, it was home. And it was where I belonged.

Then I caught sight of Sam.

TUESDAY 24 DECEMBER

As I stepped off the bus on to the road that led to Imogen’s, I saw Ollie walking towards me. I was half tempted to duck into the bus shelter. But that would be silly,
and he’d already seen me. When he was a few metres away, he said, ‘Hey. All right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, surprised that he was being friendly. ‘You?’

‘So-so.’ Ollie smiled. ‘Heard about last week. Nice going.’

It took me a moment to realize he was referring to my fight with Josh – and that he was genuinely complimenting me.

‘Right,’ I stuttered. Luckily Ollie didn’t seem to need anything else. He slapped my shoulder in an almost matey way and carried on the way he was going. I stared after him.
What did that all mean? Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Or maybe it meant that I had to give it to him, after all, for being big enough to get past disliking me. He seemed to be dealing with
the community sentence better than I thought I would. He’d said the last time I saw him that his future was just basketball and football. I wasn’t so sure. Ollie would probably be a lot
more successful than he thought, because really, despite everything – he was a hardworking guy. A good guy.

As I was psyching myself up for seeing Imogen, I realized to my amusement that she was right in front of me, sitting on her front garden wall in a bizarre combo of outdoor coat, trackies and
fluffy slippers.

‘What are you doing?’ I laughed, suddenly feeling more relaxed.

Imogen shrugged. ‘Oh, I do this all the time. You just haven’t caught me before.’

‘You don’t look very warm.’

‘I’m not.’ Imogen got to her feet. ‘Looking forward to tomorrow?’

I was actually. It would be my first Christmas with Dad and Tamsin. Last year I’d been with Mia and her parents, and while I’d had a good time, I knew that I didn’t really
belong there.

Now I finally had a place to call home. It made me happier than I could remember.

‘Next year will be my little brother or sister’s first Christmas,’ I said. ‘It’s exciting. I quite like the idea of being a big brother.’

We were nearly at her house, and I noticed Imogen rubbing her hands together. Deciding now was good, I drew out a wrapped gift from my bag. ‘Hey. Merry Christmas.’

Imogen’s eyes widened. She took the present, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes with her other hand. ‘Wow. You didn’t have to do this. Can I open it?’

‘Go on then.’ I grinned.

Imogen ripped it open and took out the pair of gloves inside. ‘I noticed you’d lost yours. I don’t like the idea of you getting frostbite and your fingers dropping off,’
I joked.