If I Could Fly (14 page)

In its hands, which are covered with black gloves, the blob is holding a pumpkin which has a loose lid and no features.

‘Freakin’ Friday,’ I exclaim.

‘I’m a black hole, in case you’re wondering,’ says the blob.
Blink blink
, go the lights.

‘Kicking hair, Alfie – sorry, black hole.’

‘Used Mum’s straighteners,’ he says. ‘Can I come in? This pumpkin weighs a ton.’

He shuffles inside,
blink blink
, and puts the large orange ball on the table.

‘Can you take the mask off now? It’s a bit creepy.’

Alfie is shaking his head. ‘Do you feel the gravitational pull?’ he asks, holding his arms out towards me.

Blink blink.

‘Nice try. The lights are good,’ I say. ‘What are they running off?’

‘Personality,’ he answers. I can’t see if he’s grinning. He can’t see me pull a face. He lifts up his jumper revealing a round moon of a belly and a battery pack stuck to his skin with brown tape. The movement sends the lights into manic mode.

‘Uh-oh,’ says Alfie. ‘Cyber meltdown.’ He hits the pack with his fist and the lights die. ‘I’ve killed the universe – I am all powerful,’ he bellows, making me jump.

With his mask off, he looks like a girl. I can’t stop staring at his hair. It’s longer than mine.

‘Did you see your mates before coming here?’ I ask. Alfie said he’d had another invitation for tonight and I had my fingers crossed that he would decide mine was the better option.

‘Nah. Didn’t fancy watching
Night of the Purple Slayers
and sticking my face in a bowl of green jelly. Anyway, they’re out trick or treating.’

‘We could do that,’ I suggest. It’s the one night of the year when calling on strangers is allowed. I can join in without anyone suspecting I’m a missing kid. Everyone else will be wearing a wardrobe from Hell too.

‘Curfew’s in an hour,’ warns Alfie. ‘And, anyway, people won’t answer their doors.’

‘It will be fun seeing all the costumes,’ I plead.

‘Well . . .’

‘Yabradoodle!’ I say, before he has a chance to say yes or no.

I’m eager to rush straight out, but Alfie is taking ages putting his mask on again. What’s got into him tonight?

‘I’m going to blow out the candles,’ I say, when I can’t stand it any longer.

I extinguish the last of the tea lights and pull my scarf up over half my face for anonymity.

I open the cardboard door and we are just about to set off on our adventure when Alfie stops in his tracks and grabs my arm.

‘What is it?’ I whisper. Then I hear it too – the unmistakable sound of voices.

‘Visitors,’ says Alfie. ‘Get the torch.’

I fumble around in the dark until my fingers find it on my bookcase. They wrap round its handle and I hold it close to my thumping heart.

‘What are we going to do?’ I ask, panic building.

‘Stay calm. They might just go away. But if they come in, shine the beam in their eyes and hold it there.’

‘The lights have gone out, look,’ says a girl, just a few metres from where we’re standing.

‘Double dare you to go in.’ It’s a boy’s voice this time. There is a babble of excitement – it must be a big group. My hand reaches for Alfie’s and grips it tightly.

He squeezes it back and puts a finger to his lips to remind me to be silent. Every part of me is trembling, even my ears.

‘What do I get if I do it?’ the girl asks. She’s flirting with him. The crowd is jeering and cheering. They sound like my dad when he comes home from the pub – loud and argumentative.

‘You’ll find out if you do it,’ says the boy. ‘But you’ve got to come out with a trophy.’

‘Give me your blade, then,’ answers the girl.

‘Mind, it’s sharp.’

‘Unlike your brain.’ More jeering from the group.

There is a scrabbling outside the window, laboured
breathing, and the scrape of a shoe with a heel as it lands on the floorboards inside the café.

‘I can’t see anything,’ the girl complains. ‘Anyone got a lighter?’

‘Yeah, Harry has, but he’s too much of a girl to go in,’ calls another boy.

‘Watch out for the Undead, Steph,’ yells the first one.

‘Will you shut it?’ the girl inside the café – Steph – replies. She is moving towards my house, placing one foot carefully after another. I can imagine her hands reaching out to feel for anything solid, tracing across my wall of books, pushing at my flimsy front door. I feel sick and faint. Discovery is inevitable.

‘Oh fag boxes!’ Steph exclaims. There is a thud and the sound of metal hitting against metal. I grimace. The scooters! I left them outside the house, propped up against the wall.

‘You all right, Steph?’ calls the boy.

I can hear snorts of laughter and stones clattering against the top window panes.

‘Something weird here,’ Steph replies. Her breathing is closer now. Her hands have started to explore the wall blocking her way. My finger is on the torch’s switch. My heart is in my mouth.

‘Some sort of den, made of books,’ she says quietly to herself.

‘Hurry up, Steph, Harry needs a dump,’ calls a voice. Loud laughter. ‘Too late! Harry, that’s disgusting.’

‘You can be my trophy,’ Steph says, pulling at a hardback by the side of the front door. Any minute now, the wall will collapse. Any moment now, a teenager with a knife is going to get the surprise of her life.

Alfie has let go of my hand and picked up the pumpkin shell. He is holding it above his head.

‘Steph, come on, it’s time to get out of here,’ yells the first boy.

‘Just getting a trophy,’ Steph shouts back, tugging at the book.

‘Forget it,’ calls the boy, more agitated. ‘This is getting boring.’

‘Don’t waste your time, Steph,’ calls another voice.

‘Got it,’ Steph shouts triumphantly. It’s a miracle, but the wall doesn’t come tumbling down round our ears, and the intruder begins to move away. Alfie lowers the pumpkin and I can hear him start to breathe out, relieved.

Blink blink.
His star lights flash. The two of us go rigid. Steph gasps.

Blink blink.
Alfie is hitting the battery pack, but it’s no good.

Blink blink.
The cardboard door is suddenly flung open. Steph stands in the space, her eyes narrowed in a frown of determination, a long-bladed knife held out in front of her. In the same moment, I click on the torch and shine it directly at her face. We both scream. Alfie launches the pumpkin, which hits her on the head with a thud. She staggers back, dropping the blade.

‘Robbie!’ she screams, making for the window,
stumbling over the scooters for a second time. I switch the beam off again.

‘Steph?’ the boy calls.

‘Robbie!’ she whimpers this time. By now she is out of the café and back in the grounds. ‘There’s someone in there. But all I could see was this blinding light.’

‘Don’t matter now. We’ve got to cut. It’s after eight,’ says the boy. ‘Still, no trophy, no prize.’

‘You’re such a skank, Robbie Nuttall.’ Steph’s voice is almost an octave higher than before.

The group is moving away now. I hear feet on gravel, laughter fading. Alfie and I are still rooted to the spot in the dark. Several minutes pass and we don’t speak, just in case it’s a trap. Just in case the teenagers have attracted the attention of the FISTS.

‘I think it’s OK,’ says Alfie at last, removing his mask. I click the torch on again, aiming it at the floor to reduce its brightness.

‘That was close.’ I pick up the knife. Its blade is about twenty centimetres long. In that second, for no
reason, I feel a searing pain in my bad leg and my head is filled with flashing images of my mother, screaming and blood. Blood everywhere. Over her. Over me. And she’s yelling at me to run. But I’m throwing myself at her, hugging her, not wanting to let her go and we’re both crying and she is pushing me away.

I’m suddenly on my knees, and it’s hard to breathe.

‘I don’t understand,’ I keep repeating.

‘You will,’ Alfie says gently. He’s sitting on the ground next to me, an arm round my shoulders. His lights are still blinking every few seconds and it’s hard to take his earnest gaze seriously.

‘What do you mean? How do you know?’ I ask him. I know he’s just saying things to make me feel better.

‘Everyone does, in the end,’ he says matter of factly. I’m about to tell him to stop trying to be so smart when a loud bang sends a shudder through the whole frail building. It’s like a drill hitting concrete. It reverberates and echoes. Then it happens again. The noise seems to be coming from the street outside the
grounds. Its beat is insistent, slow and menacing.

‘We should check it out,’ says Alfie.

‘You’re still blinking. I’ll go.’

Alfie fumbles under his top and tries to rip the wire out of the battery pack. It sticks. In frustration, he grabs the knife and cuts through it.

‘Sorted.’ He motions for me to turn the torch off before we venture from the café.

Once in the grounds, we run as quietly as possible across the overgrown lawn, through the wild borders to the pillars by the entrance where the griffins roar silently into the night. I’m impressed by how lightly Alfie moves, like a free runner, hardly making a sound. The ground is trembling with each new bang, as if a drummer is sounding a march for an army of giants.

‘Crikey Moses,’ says Alfie, who is the first to take a peek round the pillar. He seems reluctant to move out of the way – in fact he’s actively blocking me – so I do a mini cat leap and claw myself up the wall to get a better view.

‘Caly, get down!’ he whispers. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘It’s OK for you but not for me,’ I mouth at him, waving my arms in frustration. Alfie reads my lips but just glares hard at me, giving out a low, warning growl.

BANG!
Just a few metres away now, the noise is almost deafening.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. There must be fifty figures in full body suits and helmets, like storm troopers, marching in long lines on opposite sides of the pavement. They are holding large silver balls and twice a minute, in complete unison, they are bouncing them. In the centre of the road, another line of troops holds huge canisters, like fire extinguishers. Any minute now, I’m expecting someone to shout, ‘Cut,’ and for a film crew to appear, because surely, honest to God, this is not for real.

BANG!
go the balls again.

‘What are they doing?’ I mouth to Alfie. He shrugs.

And then it becomes clear. The noise is flushing out the creatures of the night – the foxes, cats, stray
dogs, rabbits, rats and lost guinea pigs. As they run, disorientated, into the path of the troops, they are sprayed with gas from the canisters. Death is swift, but, from the amount of writhing, it isn’t painless. Their bodies lie where they drop and a man jumps out of a white lorry following slowly behind to pick the corpses up and sling them in the back.

I slide down the wall and drop to the ground next to Alfie, who looks as shocked as I am.

‘It’s because of the virus,’ he says.

‘Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.’ I imagine Crease telling me to keep that thought to myself. My fingers find the bottle top in my pocket and turn it over and over. What if the government’s got it wrong and it’s not animals spreading the disease? What if they know that, but they’re killing them anyway?
That’s the question you’d ask, isn’t it, Dair?

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Alfie says.

‘There is.’ As soon as the white lorry and the marching morons have disappeared from view, I run
into the street and scour the verges, front gardens and hedges for signs of life – for signs of any lucky creature which stayed hidden and saved its skin.

And most of all, for signs of Furball.

‘Come on,’ says Alfie, tugging my sleeve. ‘It’ll be fun.’

Since Halloween, I haven’t felt like going out, not even to search for Furball. I’ve needed to be quiet, to read and to think.

Alfie says I’m depressed. He might be right. There seems a lot to be sad about. There’s stuff going on outside these walls that is plain wrong and I don’t just mean the killing of animals. People aren’t free to move around. Kids who fight the System are taken away. How many of them have microchips messing up their brains, like Dair?

I’m beginning to realise that I’ve lived with my eyes closed, in one place – the estate – never questioning how much the System controls everything. I didn’t think about what was going on outside our zone at all
until I met Crease. I accepted things, did as I was told. Kept quiet about stuff that upset me.

Kids are often born into situations they wouldn’t choose. It happens all over the world, every minute of every day. Why should it have been different for me? The important thing is to figure out a way to change things. Maybe hanging out with the Feathers was my first step.

A step on a path which has brought me here.

I’m feeling sorry for
myself
too. I’m a kid, living alone, in pain. I can’t go home. My stupid brain won’t let me remember why I ran away. I don’t know what to do.

I’ve been racing through the books in my walls. They’ve been full of revelations, but no answers to my puzzles. I want to understand why things are happening, why animals are being murdered at night, why all of us have to stay indoors after eight o’clock, why children are being sent to the detention centre. I want to know why family rules can be just as restricting,
like a rope round your neck, pulling ever tighter.