The Fearful (21 page)

‘Wait for your uncle or me at the end of the day,' Bill reminded them as they climbed out of the van at the school gates. He waved once as he drove away.

Tim braced himself for the stares and the gossip that was bound to greet them inside, but Jenny had a hand on his arm.

‘Did you mean what you said just then?'

‘Yes. It's my fault. It has to be. Because of what I was doing on the lake.'

‘I thought it was me,' Jenny said. ‘I walked down to the lake and begged the Mourn to show itself, so Gully and Scott would feel shitty for what they did to me – and to make you see some sense.'

‘Like Dad said, only Mourners can summon it. But maybe we both wanted it hard enough. We're both Milmullens.' He shrugged. ‘Whatever, I guess I've been forced into believing in it now, haven't I?'

‘So you are going to be Mourner?'

It might not be what he deep down wanted. He might hate having to do it. But he began to wonder if his father had ever actually
enjoyed
his duties. Being the Mourner wasn't about enjoyment, he realized; it was about stopping what happened to Gully happening to anyone else.

‘It's my duty, isn't it?' he said. ‘It's what I'm meant to do.'

TIM MIGHT HAVE
decided he was going to be the Mourner, but it didn't make walking into school any easier that day. Even Jenny had her head down, wary of catching anybody's eye. Most of the kids were watching them – and those who weren't were soon told why everybody else was. They walked a gauntlet of gossip and stares along the footpath from the gates to the main block. It prickled Tim's skin worse than goose pimples.

Someone called his name.

He flinched. But the girl was smiling at him, even if it was in a nervy kind of way.

‘What d'you want?' he said, a bit too sharply, making
her
flinch.

She was in his year, but he didn't share any classes with her and couldn't remember her name. She hovered, looking awkward, and with one hand pushed her long fringe out of her eyes. In her other hand she was holding a supermarket carrier bag. ‘My mum's sent this for you.' She held the carrier bag out to him – Tesco's.

He stared down at it, then looked for Roddy Morgan. Where was he? He had to have something to do with this,
right? But although there were plenty of other kids hanging around, curious about what was going on, Roddy was nowhere to be seen. And Roddy never did like doing anything if he couldn't accept the applause afterwards.

He turned to his sister. All she could do was shrug.

The girl squirmed now, looking horribly uncomfortable. Her nervous smile flickered.

He said, ‘Thanks . . .'

She thrust the bag at him. ‘For Saturday.' He had to grab it quick before she let it go. And she was obviously very happy to have got rid of it. She hurried back to her friends, who were waiting for her at the side of the footpath.

He was surprised by the bag's weight.

‘Just see what's inside.' Jenny tried to peer in herself. ‘What is it?'

‘An oh-so-funny present from Roddy Morgan, probably.' But it wasn't. It was a massive lump of beef. He opened the carrier bag wide for his sister to see.

‘Do you think it's feed?'

‘Must be. She said it was for Saturday, didn't she?' He was searching the loose gangs of kids wandering by, but the girl's group of friends had moved on along the footpath towards the main block. ‘What am I meant to do with it?' he asked.

‘Put it in your locker until tonight, I suppose.' She looked as bemused as he felt.

They parted at the main block. Jenny headed for her form room, Tim for his locker so he could get rid of the meat. But hanging from his padlock was yet another plastic
bag. Old habits die hard and he peered around. The corridor was busy but there was no sign of Roddy. Tentatively, without actually taking it down from where it hung, he looked inside. Chopped liver – with a note.

He threw both carrier bags into his locker and took the folded sheet of paper to his form room. Only when he was sitting at his desk, making sure no one else in the room was spying on him, did he open the note.

Dear Timothy Milmullen,

We apologize for never having contributed to the Feed before now, but we would like you to know how Fearful our family has always been. We are usually very busy on a Saturday morning (due to dance classes, swimming lessons etc.) but now feel sure we can play a more prominent role in the future.

Please pass on our gratitude and best wishes to your father for all of his selfless duty. We look forward to supporting you as our future Mourner.

Yours respectfully,

Mrs D. Custance and family

Under his breath Tim whispered, ‘Bloody hell!' He glanced around the classroom as it slowly filled with students. Two more of his classmates were bearing carrier bags before them. ‘
Bloody hell!
' he repeated.

Miss Kelly, Tim's form tutor and German teacher, arrived five minutes after the bell for registration had rung. There'd
already been hopeful comments from some of the kids that she might be ill and then a general disappointment when she hurried in. She looked as though she'd been rushing all morning, but swept her gaze around the room until she spotted Tim, and only then took out the register.

‘Settle down, settle down. Quiet, everyone, please.'

Everybody took a seat. The chatter and fidgeting gradually subsided.

Miss Kelly bent over the open register. ‘Answer your names clearly, please.'

She only managed to get as far as the Gs, however.

‘Will someone please tell me what on earth that awful smell is?'

Tim, who had a pile of raw meat warming nicely inside the plastic carrier bags by his feet, slowly raised his hand in the air. ‘I think it's my fault, miss,' he said, blushing.

Miss Kelly rolled her eyes. ‘Someone help Tim take that to the kitchens. Ask the canteen staff if they would be kind enough to put it in the refrigerator until the end of the day.'

As Tim was leaving the room she touched his elbow and spoke to him in a hushed voice. ‘Can you see me after today's German lesson? I went past the supermarket myself this morning.'

‘It's because of what's happened,' Jenny said. ‘Everybody's seen the telly and now they're scared because it proves the legend's all true. It's because of Gully. Everybody's scared.'

It was lunch time and Tim was sitting with Jenny and Sarah on the long wooden bench in the cloakroom outside
the library. The morning had been one of the weirdest of his life – he'd been given another two bags of feed at break – and it didn't seem as though things were going to get any more normal before the end of the day. Looking at Jenny he could tell she felt the same too.

He kicked at a couple of sweet wrappers on the floor by his feet. ‘I know what Dad said, but I can't help thinking it was me who summoned it.' He looked up at his sister, then at Sarah. ‘Do you think I did?'

‘We both wanted it to come,' Jenny said. ‘After what Gully did to me I was desperate for something to happen.'

‘I don't think I cared who it happened to. Gully, Scott or Roddy Morgan – I wasn't fussy.' He realized the words sounded harsh as soon as they were out of his mouth. ‘I didn't mean . . .' But he couldn't swallow them back. ‘I just needed to prove them wrong and the legend right. Like you said on Saturday, about wanting to be different to them.'

Jenny nodded. They were quiet, thoughtful. They could hear the racket from the other kids outside.

‘It couldn't have known what we wanted, could it?'

‘But we didn't mean
this
, did we? No way did we mean this. I didn't want anyone dead.'

‘It's not definite he's dead,' Sarah said, then blushed when Tim and Jenny stared at her. ‘He could have just drowned – by accident.'

Tim shrugged. ‘Could have, but . . .'

Their silence was heavy above them.

‘Do you think they'll find his body?' Sarah asked. She was talking about the police divers.

‘If he drowned, yes. If it was the Mourn, no.'

On the wall opposite was artwork from their year group: a misshapen bowl of fruit, an insulting portrait, but a rather good landscape of the valley and Lake Mou. It was the landscape which caught Tim's eye. He stared at it.
Is that
. . .? He got up and walked over to get a closer look.

‘You definitely think it
was
the Mourn?' Sarah asked.

Tim squinted at the pencil marks. Was that meant to be a wave? Or had somebody drawn . . .?

‘I think it had to be,' Jenny said. ‘Like Dad said about it sensing it's close to Tim's Carving, and if he was trying to get it to show itself, it seems logical that it answered its new keeper.' She was watching her brother. ‘That's what you think, isn't it?' He ran his finger over the picture. ‘Tim?' He had his nose virtually pressed up against it. ‘What're you doing?'

He squinted hard.
Only a wave.
He blinked.

‘Nothing,' he said too quickly, embarrassed. ‘Just . . . Nothing.' He sat back down without meeting his sister's eye.

‘
Do
you think it was the Mourn?' Sarah asked.

It took Tim a second or two to realize she wasn't talking about the picture. ‘I don't know what else it could be.' This was the truth as he saw it. There was still that niggle at the back of his mind; obviously there was still doubt, but . . . ‘It's kind of a lot of fuss if it isn't. I mean, with the newspapers and TV and everything.'

‘That man from the paper is still at the gates,' Sarah said. ‘He's been stopping people who go home for lunch and asking them questions.'

‘About me?'

She nodded. ‘I think so.'

It had been Mrs Collins, the Head, who'd told him to stay in the building. The weather was fine and dry; usually no one was allowed inside during break or lunch time unless it was raining. But a photographer from one of the tabloid newspapers had sneaked onto the school grounds in an attempt to take pictures of him in his lessons. The photographer had been firmly kicked out by both the Head and the caretaker, but Tim guessed they couldn't do anything more about him if he was outside the gates, off school property. He shuddered at the thought of what might be being said about him by the other kids. ‘Oh yeah, we know Monster Boy. He's a right
freak
!'

Sarah was watching him closely. She'd been keeping her distance from him today; she hadn't given him the usual kiss or hug upon meeting. They hadn't seen each other to talk about what had happened on Sunday night yet; he'd just left her hanging, not sure where she stood exactly. But he was thinking that maybe yesterday had changed things. If he was going to be the Mourner after all, maybe they should stay together too?

He reached over and took hold of her hand, surprising her, making her jump. He smiled at her. Slowly, she smiled back; squeezed his hand.

There were footsteps coming towards them along the corridor and for some reason Tim wasn't in the least bit surprised to see Roddy Morgan. ‘Hey! Monster Boy! I heard you were hiding yourself away.' He grinned and the
tooth Tim had chipped seemed very obvious in amongst the rest.

‘Leave it out, Roddy. I really don't care what you've got to say to me, not today.' He felt exhausted at the thought of having to argue with him.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I'm going out to talk to that journalist bloke at the gates. I thought you might want to know what I was going to tell him.'

‘Piss off.'

Roddy took no notice. ‘I'm going to say you're a freak, your dad's a freak . . . in fact your whole family are freaks.'

‘I've heard it all before,' Tim said, sounding bored, but getting aggravated.

‘I'm also going to tell him my theory about all the Mourners being murderers and perverts.'

Jenny was shocked. ‘What?'

Tim just sneered at Roddy. ‘Yeah, yeah. If you like.' But he was angry at himself for letting this nob-head wind him up.

‘And I'm also going to give him the front-page scoop,' Roddy continued, ‘on my theory of how I reckon Gully really died. I'll tell him that your dad probably—'

Tim snapped. He was on his feet in an instant, glaring eye to eye. ‘Maybe he was on a dodgy jet-ski. Ever thought of that? Faulty repairs.'

Roddy shook his head, still grinning. It was mission accomplished for him – all he'd wanted was to get under Tim's skin.

‘Yeah, maybe I'll have a word with the reporter about
that
theory. Tell the police too.'

Roddy was laughing, shaking his head as if in pity. He backed away towards the outside door. ‘I'm not the one who comes from a family of freaks and weirdos . . .' He swung the door open, then called over his shoulder as he stepped through: ‘And
murderers
.'

Jenny was livid. ‘He can't say that. How can he say that? What if he really does talk to that reporter?'

Tim ground his teeth. ‘He probably already has.' He turned to her.

She shook her head. ‘Don't say it.'

He pulled a face but Sarah asked: ‘Don't say what?'

‘That the Mourn ate the wrong arsehole.'

Bill had to help load the van with the offerings at the end of school. ‘It's been like this all day,' he told them. ‘We're not going to get it all in the freezer, but I can't turn anyone away. Not now.'

‘It's been weird,' Tim said.

The afternoon had been almost unbelievable, with more and more people bringing feed after seeing the others doing it in the morning. He'd been invited round for tea to one girl's house. Two lads had squabbled over who was going to sit next to him in English. Even now a group of half a dozen boys walked by and three of them said, ‘See you tomorrow.' A girl he didn't recognize waved.