Lottery Boy (9 page)

He looked out at his alleyway. He could see his step settling in the shadows. The rain touched his face. He pictured himself cozying up dry and warm in his sleeping bag, watching the weather drip and blow. Something, though, was different about his doorway. Perhaps it was just strange to see it from this angle, but it was like one of those stupid kids’ magazines where they had two pictures that were exactly the same, except for
one
thing. And you had to spot what it was to win a stupid prize. And he puzzled over it for a moment, the alarm still going, and then he got it, what was different about
this
picture compared to the one he’d left this morning. His wheelie bin was facing the wrong way.

He was still staring at his bin, wondering about it, when the green lid crept up a couple of centimetres. Something inside was trying to get out! There … a strip of brown fur! A rat! Getting at his stuff!

He moved out into the alleyway to find something to hit it with but then he looked again, his mouth opening up because what he was seeing wasn’t fur, it was
hair
.

The shock of it wiped his mind clean away. The lid flipped back on its hinges and he watched a joke of a man struggling to get out of the bin, whilst jabbing and pointing at him.

Still Bully couldn’t move. He had to reboot and that took a few seconds. And like most people caught up in a
situation
, he didn’t have much more than a few seconds…

“Give us a hand!” the man was shouting. And Bully saw two men peel away from the walls at the entrance to the alleyway and come running.

Crash!
The bin toppled over. The man inside groaned and swore for help but Bully knew they weren’t running to help him, they weren’t helping anybody but themselves. He didn’t know who they were. He didn’t recognize them but he instinctively knew they were that breed of men that would take what they wanted from him, without begging for it. And they wanted his
ticket
.

And now he was back online, his system up and running, and he stumbled inside. He grabbed the bar of the fire door to slam it in their faces.

But where was Jack?

“Here! Jacky! Jacky!” he said in a hard whisper like he might still hide from these men. And then he yelled it, louder, in case she thought it was a game.

Bully forced himself to look up, to gauge the distance left between them and him. The men were still the other side of the bins but no more than a long spit away from the door, and he frantically slapped his knees like Jack was a puppy. And there she was! Belly on the tarmac coming out from
under
the bin with a rat between her fangy teeth.

“Here, girl!” he yelled, pulling on the metal bar of the door. And he snatched a last look at the men he’d never seen before, sharpening up in the shadows without him having to squint, getting bigger, much bigger than him, with Jack
just
coming through the door ahead of them.

“Come on, girl, come on!” And Jack knew it was no game they were playing and she was through the gap and Bully was pulling as hard as he could with both hands on that metal bar.

The split second before the fire door locked, a body on the other side ran into it –
bam!
– doing the job for him. And then Bully was taking the stairs two at time, a different boy to the one with shot legs a few minutes ago. And he flew past a burger boy, back the way he’d come, dirty looks swelling up with horror on all the eating faces because Jack still had that rat in her mouth.

Outside he ran blind, straight across Old Paradise Road without looking, heard the car braking afterwards, voices shouting, then in the distance his name chasing after him.
“Bully…”

At the main road on the way to the river he looked down into the mouth of the old tunnel. He could lose them if he went down there and they ran on, thinking he’d crossed over, making straight for the river.

He hesitated then took a chance, went down the concrete slip, skidding, his legs nearly overtaking him like he was running away from a smack. He ran as hard as he could, keeping away from the strip lighting, the graffiti bubbling away on the walls. Back on the estate he’d had his own tag: a
B
with a squiggle on the end. The
B
had been for Bradley then. What the squiggle was for he never really knew.

Up ahead a bright flash, then another, stopped him for a second: what was
that
? A torch? A bike? No sound to it, just
light
. And then behind him he heard a man shout. He looked round and saw two shadows slipping along the walls, the echo of their feet already catching up with him; they had followed him down.

He swore at himself for getting things wrong again. He was always doing that at school and getting caught out.

He saw faces in the flashes of light up ahead. And he ran towards them. There were people inside the tunnel taking photos on their phones, just standing still, waiting … queuing, that’s what they were doing. He saw the sign then, glowing red, set into the wall.
@
it said. And there was a door! Two men in black and white were guarding it, one tall, one small, and both as wide as each other. Bully ran straight in behind the taller one. He didn’t see Bully until he was almost through the door, didn’t make a move until the last second, but when he did it was quick and his hand shot out and grabbed Bully’s shoulder. The big guy’s fingers jabbed into his collarbone but couldn’t grip the greasy coat and Bully was away. Not for one single second did it occur to him to stop and ask either man for help.

“Look! There’s a boy!” People laughed and then “Oh! What the – what is that
thing
!” they gasped when they saw the funny-looking dog galloping at his feet. Bully kept going, in between the red and black tables, across the dance floor, knocking women off their heels, one, two, three … and into the kitchens: staff in their whites freeze-framing in the bright light, too slow to stop him because he knew
where
he was going now – full pelt towards the little green man on the exit sign, already off and running…

He came out underneath a railway arch. He hid behind one of the cars parked in the street, catching his breath, watching the door to the kitchens to see what came out of it.

Through the car windows he saw both of the bouncers having a look round and then going back inside. A taxi went past, rumbling on the stones. He was near the river, but he had to cross it to go north to Watford to get to Camelot. He couldn’t face that journey
now
, not tonight, not in the dark, with those men behind him, catching up with him out in the open, running across the bridge. So he headed away from the river, looking for somewhere out of the rain, somewhere safe to last the night. But away from the river, every road they went down was just another he didn’t recognize, rows of houses crowding in, all looking the same, TVs warm and bright with advertisements. He thought about knocking on a door but what would they do? See him off or call the police. And then where would he be? Stuck answering questions, all his chances of winning
lost
.

The rain started to hit hard, like it was trying to make him wet, staining his jeans a new temporary dark blue. He looked down at Jack, with her waterproof fur. Rain never got her
soaking
wet. He poked his head as far down into his jacket as he could get it, and when he next took a look he was on
Kennington Road
. And there across the road, on the other side of the railings, was a big white house lit up inside a park. What drew him to it were two big, big guns, as big as buses, parked side by side on the lawn, pointing towards the river. Any place with guns was a safe place. And maybe he could hide out round the back of the house in a doorway and go back down to the river tomorrow, and cross further downstream.

He ran to the iron gates. His feet were wet and sore. No one was around, just cars swishing up and down the road through the rain. He shoved Jack inside his coat and climbed up, jamming his toes in the gaps in the ironwork.

When he got to the top it looked as if the ground had shrunk. He hesitated then began to climb down the other side. He slipped – no grip – and the leg of his jeans caught on a spike, leaving him hanging there upside down, Jack scrabbling with her paws and scratching his face. He swore, unhooked himself and dropped.

He got up, hopping and swearing.
“Jesus wet, Jesus wet,”
he said, because he’d twisted his ankle and his mum used to say it when things got twisted. And it
was
raining and he
was
soaking wet just like Jesus.

He looked around the park. There was no moon and away from the streetlights the ground quickly went black until it met the light from the big white house. He made for a small clump of trees next to the house, limping still. It was drier under the branches for a while but then he felt the rain beginning to work its way down through the gaps in the leaves and he ran over to the pointy porch at the front of the house. He read the sign above the glass doors.

He’d been to a museum once. Trips at school were free if you were poor, but after the first couple, he’d started losing the teachers’ letters.

He had a good look now, through the glass doors, for free. Inside the museum, hanging down from the ceiling on wires, was an old plane that looked like it had been stuck together from bits and pieces off the street. The tank underneath it looked real though, made of metal and bashed about like it had been in a proper war. And there was a rocket too, the top bit with the men in it that came back down to earth, like the end of a giant blunt pencil.

Bully shook the glass doors. They were too thick to break and though it was dry here under the porch, he didn’t feel safe in the light, so he went to hide out of sight under the artillery guns sticking out of the lawn.

He crouched down by the breach where the shells went in and where it was dry. Jack started licking at his shins. His twisted ankle felt numb now. He looked at the other one with his lighter. There was blood on one of his trainers, leaking out of him somewhere. He let Jack lick it off until he remembered the rat that had been in her mouth, then he pulled his foot away.

He examined the round breach above his head, much bigger than his head. These were big, big guns. Pity they were pointing north instead of south. He could knock out his old flat easy from here, even though it was six or seven miles away, take out the whole block – Phil and
her
and
it
– with just a couple of shells. Because each gun took a shell that was as big as a grown man, each barrel was maybe 15 to 20 inches across …
the
calibre
, that’s what it was called. And old guns were measured in inches and new guns were measured in millimetres. Phil had taught him that; the sizes and proper names for things that killed you. And big guns were called howitzers and cannons, and fired shells, but little guns fired bullets and they were called rounds. And bombs were IEDs. And anything coming
at
you was
incoming
… And you’d better duck, otherwise you were—

He suddenly panicked that his ticket was getting wet and unzipped the little pocket inside his jacket and took it out. It was still in one piece but the top of it was damp. He cried out when it tore a little. He needed a better, safer place to hide it. His hoodie didn’t have a zip pocket and his jeans were wet.

He hooked out the family bag of crisps he’d taken from the flat and finished them off. Then he turned the packet foil-side out, cut a patch out of it and wrapped the ticket up. That would keep it dry but where was he going to hide it? He didn’t fancy stuffing it up his bum like they did in prison. He couldn’t see how that worked anyway because what happened when you had to
go
? What about if he shoved it in his ear hole? But he didn’t like things in his ears. He’d had a beetle in there once when he was little and no one believed him until it uncurled itself the next day and flew out. He didn’t have any big holes in his teeth to jam it in, they were all filled. And it was no good poking it up his nose either because he had a cold and it was runny. He was always picking it anyway.

While he had a think, he let Jack crawl inside his coat like it was a tent. He rubbed her head and her dog tag jingle-jangled. It was a shame it was just solid metal and didn’t open up like some of his mum’s jewellery did. He felt round her collar. It had been getting tight, pinching her because it was for a puppy, until Bully cut another notch in it. He took it off and had a closer look at it with his lighter. It was basically two strips of leather sewn together. He got his penknife out and started unpicking the stitching with the shorter blade. It was a tricky job. He kept missing the stitches and burning his fingers on the lighter – and the stitches were so tiny, like cutting up fleas, but he managed to work the blade in between the leather and open up a gap.

He folded the crisp packet up until it was about the size of the end of his little fingernail and prodded it in with his metal spoon. He couldn’t sew it together but he always had gum on him and he chewed up an old piece and stoppered the hole. Once that stuff set, it was like concrete. He’d seen the men in high-vis blasting it off the pavements on the Strand.