Voices in Stone (4 page)
Authors: Emily Diamand
Yooooo… Yooooo… Yooooo… Yooooo…
Your friend, Isis. I wonder what she would have made of what you saw?
Isis? She was in 4F, the class that was supposed to go in first… oh. Is that why Dr Harcourt was so put out about the change in order?
Now don’t try to put things together. You only want to talk, and tell me everything.
Well Isis didn’t see anything, because no one else got taken into the quarry after us. They couldn’t, could they? Not with all the ambulances and angry parents.
As I said, Dr Harcourt was wrong to assume that a single exposure to the rock dust would have no effect on untalented children. She was only thinking of one child, instead of all of you.
‘One child’? Are you saying Dr Harcourt arranged a whole school trip just to get Isis into the quarry? But anything could have happened to us! Why did we all have to be involved, if Isis was the one she was interested in?
Calm down, Gray, there is no need to become agitated. Relax, focus on the watch I’m holding, notice the way it glitters
as I move it from side to side. Now, that’s better, isn’t it? And to answer your question, wouldn’t it have been extremely difficult to take a single child into the quarry, without drawing attention to the act? But a school trip, what could be more ordinary than that?
How… do you… know about Isis?
I have met her, and I know of her remarkable abilities. I’ve met you as well, Gray, although you don’t remember. Now please, stop worrying about things that don’t concern you. Shut your eyes, that’s right, and continue telling me your story. Every detail.
Mum and Dad both came to the quarry. It was like a disaster movie – police, ambulances and parents screeching up in their cars.
Mr Watkins started that.
“What have you done? What have you done?” he yelled at Dr Harcourt before pulling out his mobile phone and dialling 999.
“There’s no need to panic!” said Dr Harcourt, but it was too late, because Mr Watkins was already shrieking into his phone about an accident at the quarry, and how a class of school children was involved. You can imagine how that went down.
You know, it’s weird though. I’d have thought it would’ve
been on the news or something. But there was nothing, not even in the local paper.
It is easy to divert local press from a news story, Gray. A terrorist alert is sufficient, or a decent-sized power cut. Reporters are easily distracted by anything that causes a lot of fuss and activity, even when it amounts to nothing in the end. Those that cannot be distracted, well there are other means…
Are you saying someone covered it up?
I am making observations. Continue telling me what happened to you and your friends.
Well… Gav staggered past me and puked again, this time at Mr Watkins’s feet.
“There must be something toxic here!” Mr Watkins screamed. “Oh God, what if the deposit is radioactive?”
Dr Harcourt stepped calmly away from Gav. “That is not possible. I think the children have become overexcited, so I suggest we get them back to the office.”
“Overexcited?”
shrieked Mr Watkins. “They aren’t toddlers!”
Dr Harcourt carried on in this annoyingly calm way. “If rare earth metals were toxic, they wouldn’t be allowed in touchscreen devices all over the planet. Perhaps your pupils are playing some kind of prank?”
Mr Watkins gave her the filthiest look ever, then grabbed hold of my arm and started trying to pull me up.
“Come on!” he shouted. “Everyone out of here!”
Those who could, ran, but most of us staggered. The driver climbed down from the digger, pushing up his dust mask. He went over to help Ruksar, but Dr Harcourt snapped at him.
“Get back in the cab. Put your mask on!”
“But look at the state of them,” he said. “You shouldn’t have brought kids in!”
“I’m dealing with it!” she shouted, and he backed off, pulling his mask down again, below his worried eyes.
Mr Watkins took Jamilia’s arm, because she was definitely the worst.
“What did the driver mean?” he asked Dr Harcourt.
“He didn’t mean anything.” she said angrily. “He’s just panicking, like you seem to be.”
“I’m not panicking,” he yelled. “I’m responsible for their
welfare
!”
We must have looked a sight, stumbling, crying and choking our way back to the Portacabins. The rest of our year was waiting there, watching us with open mouths and wide eyes. A few people laughed, but they stopped when we got closer and it became obvious we weren’t mucking about.
The man who’d given us the safety helmets came rushing out of the Portacabin office looking properly upset.
“Are they all right?” he gasped at Mr Watkins.
“Do they
look
all right?” Mr Watkins shouted back. He’d lost it by then, and he turned on the other teachers, who were staring open-mouthed like everyone else.
“Help us!”
In a few seconds all the adults were rushing about, grabbing kids from our class and trying all sorts of rubbish first aid on us. Head between the knees. Glass of water. Wrap up warm.
Only Dr Harcourt didn’t seem bothered; she just disappeared into the Portacabin office, and I didn’t see her again that day. It was like she vanished.
It didn’t take long for the ambulances to arrive, which was pretty cool. This paramedic lady checked my heart
and breathing and stuff. While she was getting on with it, a man walked up and showed her some kind of ID.
“I work for the Health and Safety Executive,” he said, “Can I ask your patient a few questions about what happened?”
“You arrived quickly,” said the paramedic, a little crossly.
“Accidents have to be investigated,” he said.
“Well, he’s fine to answer questions.”
The paramedic went to help someone else, and the man from Health and Safety asked me about what had happened, and what I’d felt like. As he wrote my answers down, I had this weird feeling I’d seen him before. He looked… like you actually, now I think about it.
I’m telling you – there was no one who looked like me. No one.
Oh. No one.
Please continue.
Anyway, it turned out one of the teachers had phoned the school about what was happening, and the school
phoned parents. My mum must’ve driven over at super-speed. I could hear her shouting at people before I saw her.
“Where’s my son? Is he all right?”
And then she was grabbing me into this crushing hug. “Gray! Oh my God!”
“Let go!” I said, trying to push her off. “I’m fine.”
Mr Watkins came over. “They’ve all been checked over,” he reassured her, “and everything seems normal.” Mum let go of me but she still looked really worried. She got a hanky out of her pocket and I could see her hands were shaking.
“It’s all right, Mum,” I said. And I did feel mostly better by then. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all.”
Mum burst into tears.
“He could have died!” Mum sobbed at Mr Watkins, who I noticed was this weird colour, sort of grey.
“Please. None of the children have been seriously hurt. The paramedics think they possibly had a reaction to the dust, a bit like hay fever. It may even have been psychosomatic.”
“My son doesn’t make things up!” Mum said, wiping her eyes with the hanky.
Which was when Dad turned up.
“Gray!” he called, walking fast through all the kids and parents and emergency services people. Mum turned, glaring, and whatever she’d been planning for Mr Watkins got hurled at Dad instead.
“What are
you
doing here?”
“The school phoned me,” Dad answered, glaring back.
I looked between them and knew what was coming. I felt like running for cover.
“I’m surprised you were bothered,” said Mum.
“Of course I’m bothered!” said Dad. “He’s my son!”
“Oh, so you’re suddenly full of parental care?”
“How can I be if you won’t let me see him?”
“You nearly got him killed! You didn’t even try to keep him safe!”
“Look around you, Jenice!” Dad waved his hand at everything going on. “You agreed to this school trip, not me.” He pointed at the paramedics. “Things happen!”
“They do when you’re around!”
Dad went this sort of purplish colour then.
“I told Gray to stay at home that night.
You
brought him out to the field!”
“Because
you’d
filled up his head with UFO rubbish.”
“Can you stop?” I asked, but I don’t think they even heard. People were starting to stare, one girl had even stopped crying and was now listening closely.
“Gray’s not a little boy any more,” said Dad. “You can’t wrap him in cotton wool forever!”
“You lied to me about where you took my son. Not just once, but time after time, for
years
.”
“He was never in any danger.”
“He could’ve died! Your girlfriend’s daughter did die!”
Of course Cally had to choose that moment to appear.
She came out of nowhere, through a gap in the crowds of kids, wearing this ankle-length red dress, like a witch or something. Her face was white, her mouth was open and her black hair was trailing out behind her. Mental-looking, I thought.
She didn’t even notice us at first, just ran up to the paramedics and started hassling one of them.
“Where is she? Where’s my daughter? Is she all right? It was on the radio that something had happened up here, but no one will tell me
anything
!” She didn’t even give the paramedic a chance to answer, just spun away and started
questioning everyone in our class. “Isis! Where’s Isis?” she was calling, high and panicky.
My mum folded her arms. “Your girlfriend’s here.”
Dad didn’t need to be told. His eyes were stuck to crazy-Cally. Lots of other people were staring at her too, and even though I was glad she’d distracted them from us I felt kind of sorry for her as well so I went over.
“Gray?” Her eyes were huge in her face, and she was almost panting. “Where is Isis?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “Nothing’s happened to her.” I pointed to everyone milling around the coaches. “She’ll be somewhere over there.”
“Oh!” Cally let out this weird sighing breath. “I heard there’d been an incident and I thought…” A smile broke through the mad look on her face, and tears filled her eyes. “Thank you, Gray!”
Before I knew it, she was hugging me; she even kissed me on the cheek! I managed to push her off, but then I stumbled backwards into Dad.
“Cally,” he said from behind me.
That’s all it was, but you should’ve seen Cally. She stared at him, then looked away, then looked back. Bright red
spots flashed in her cheeks, and her eyes went bigger than ever.
“Gil,” she whispered.
I got out from between them as quickly as I could. It was like nothing else was happening around them, like I wasn’t even there.
Mum was watching them too, and frowning a bit.
“They had a big fight over what happened,” I explained to her.
Mum nodded. “And now they’re making up.”
She sounded… sad, you know? I looked at her, trying to work out what she was thinking.
“Do
you
want to get back with Dad?” I asked, very quietly.
Mum startled, then laughed.
“No, love, I really don’t!”
“You’ve got Brian though, haven’t you?” I said, to make her feel better. He’s Mum’s boyfriend; they’ve been going out for years.
“Yeah,” said Mum.
“You’ve got me too.”
Then she properly smiled at me, and gave me a hug.
I hugged her back, and I didn’t even care that everyone could see. It was the kind of day no one would make fun of you for something like that.
A minute later, I heard kids cheering.
“What’s happening?” said Mum.
“We’re all going home early!” someone said.
Mr Watkins was in such a panic he’d said that anyone whose parents had turned up could leave.
It wasn’t even lunchtime yet!
The cheering and general happiness even broke Cally and Dad out of their little world. They were hand in hand, smiling like idiots.
“I’d better go and find Isis,” Cally said to Dad.
“Can I come over later?” he asked. His eyes were glued to her.
“I’ll have Isis…”
Then Dad did look my way. “Why don’t you come, Gray? You haven’t seen Isis for ages – you could play computer games or whatever, like you did in the holidays.”
“
Gil!
” snapped Mum. “He needs to go home and rest, not help you with your romancing!”
“Oh yeah, of course,” said Dad, seeming totally
unbothered by Mum now. “What about another time, Gray, when you’re over this?”
“I know Isis would love to see you,” said Cally. She looked at Mum. “They really did become great friends over the summer, before…” she trailed off.
I thought Mum would go off like a firework, but she only stayed silent for a minute, then said, “Well, it would be good for Gray to see Gil, and I don’t want to stop him seeing his friends.” Which was the opposite of everything she’d been saying up to then.
Mum pulled me towards her. “Not until he’s better though.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Dad, and they were all smiling, like they’d solved everything.
I wanted to say something, but how could I explain? The thought of spending time with Isis…
You must have been happy. It can’t have been easy being kept apart from your friend, after what happened to you both in the summer. A terrifying experience, so nearly losing her.
You know about that?
The ghosts in the sky, which your father still believes were UFOs. Philip Syndal’s plans for the Devourer to consume Isis, and how you tried to save her. Everyone thinking she was dead, even you. I know all of it, apart from how she was able to survive.
But no one knows all that except me and Isis! How did you find out? Who told you?
You did, Gray. In your own words. I even have a recording.
But…
No more questions. You were telling me about meeting Isis again, after all you’d been through.
All we’d been through…
A monster had been inside her. I don’t mean when people talk about a bad person and say ‘monster’. It was a real monster. Crawling up her, wrapping around her like a snake. A mountain of darkness which poured out of her mouth, squirming and wriggling.
I wanted to be normal with her, honestly, but…
Every time I saw Isis I was watching her eyes, waiting for them to blank out the way they had that night. She’d told everyone at school she hadn’t really died, but I knew she was lying. Cally had been screaming, and the paramedics had shaken their heads.
Then she’d come back to life, somehow. Down in the mortuary, where they keep the dead bodies.
And whenever I saw her, all I could think was:
Are you still Isis?
Or are you just some
thing,
using her body?
So no, I didn’t want to spend time with her. The truth is, she scared me.
