Obsidian Pebble (7 page)

And Michael Chambers would take off his glasses and sit back, regarding Oz with his patient, amused smile. And Oz would listen while his dad explained, whatever the question. And ten minutes would turn into an hour in which books would be taken down from shelves and stories told of trips that his dad had made to strange, inaccessible corners of abandoned cities in countries with unpronounceable names.

But things weren't different. They were the way they were and he was in the library at Penwurt, alone on a Sunday with eleven maths questions to finish and an essay to write on Sir Gawain. And all he really wanted to do was to talk to his dad and research ghosts.

Sometimes, life just wasn't fair.

The following morning in room 33 at Seabourne County School, Oz's class, 1C congregated for registration. As usual the room buzzed with a dozen different conversations, some louder than others.

“I went to my brother's Halloween party,” boasted Tracy Roper to a bored-looking Sandra Ojo. “Me and my friend Zoe were the only ones under fourteen with invites, and I wore this wicked costume and mask which cost loads.”

“Waste of money,” said Lee “Jenks” Jenkins from the back. “Take a look in the mirror, Roper. You could have gone as you are now and won best monster prize, no trouble.”

The small posse of Jenks' hangers-on clustered around him all sniggered, while Tracy Roper, whose pale skin was as thick as at least two rhinoceri, made eyes to the ceiling and shook her head in exasperation. Oz, sitting with Ellie and Ruff about halfway back under a poster of a rainforest, registered Jenks' insults only vaguely because he was too busy trying to take in what had happened in Ellie and Ruff's football game.

“Five-nil,” he said, aghast. “Why didn't you text me?”

“No credit on my phone,” Ellie mumbled, and Ruff shrugged in agreement. The three of them knew that they could have emailed or Skyped instead, but Oz let it pass. Obviously, they'd needed to just lick their wounds.

“But what happened?”

“We were rubbish,” Ellie said despondently.

“Total cow dung,” Ruff said, turning a page on a well-thumbed gaming magazine someone had lent him that morning.

“And I think our goalie's got narcoepileprosy,” Ruff explained, shaking his head glumly.

“What?”

“You know, that disease where people fall asleep all the time. He dived the wrong way twice and he scored an own goal when the ball came off the crossbar, hit him smack on the back of the head and went in.”

Oz suppressed a laugh.

“It wasn't funny, Oz,” Ellie said, clearly not amused.

Oz tried to smother his laughter. But hearing Ruff describe the incompetent goalie was almost as funny as seeing Ellie's sour expression.

“It's even worse than you think,” Ellie added, looking distraught.

“Why?” Oz said.

“Jenks scored two. TWO!” she wailed before spitting out her favourite expletive. “Sugar!”

“His head's so big I'm surprised he got in through the door,” Ruff muttered, drooling over screenshots of
Death Planet Hub
, which was his favourite Xbox game.

“Oh, no,” Oz said, and quickly glanced at Jenks, who was small in stature but very big in the mouth department and lightning fast on the soccer field. He was obviously reliving some manoeuvre from yesterday's game and, when he caught Ellie glancing over, took great pleasure in flourishing a red card from his pocket and thrusting it up in the air.

“What's that all about?” Oz asked.

“I got sent off,” Ellie said, looking suddenly very sheepish.

Oz's mouth fell open. “What?” he managed to say after a few speechless seconds.

“Bad language,” Ellie said and then quickly added, “We were already four-nil down. But their centre forward is a nasty piece of work and he barged right into Niko, so I told him what I thought of him. I called him a vicious git.”

“But she got the words mixed up a bit,” Ruff said, stifling a grin. “I don't know what vigous means, but you can guess what the other bit sounded like.”

Oz tried unsuccessfully to stifle another burst of laughter.

“He deserved it,” Ellie said.

“Trouble was, she yelled it out so loudly I'm surprised you didn't hear it at yours,” Ruff muttered without looking up from his screen.

But this criticism was the final straw for a clearly upset Ellie, who suddenly rounded on Ruff. “Well, at least I cared enough to give him a mouthful. The rest of you just gave up after halftime. I mean, look at you. Just look at you. You can't even be bothered to stop reading some stupid magazine to tell Oz what actually happened! I hate losing. I just hate it. Of all the teams in the league to get hammered by, the Skullers are the worst. But I honestly don't think you care. I don't think you care about anything.” She turned her back on them both and buried her head in her school bag, her mouth a thin gash of anger.

Ruff looked across at Oz, his expression a mixture of confusion and irritation. It looked like he was going to say something, but Oz shook his head and waved his hand out of Ellie's view as a warning; Ellie really did hate losing more than anyone Oz knew.

He risked another glance to the back. Behind Jenks sat his faithful shadow, Kieron Skinner. Tall and bony, Skinner usually wore a vacant expression and constantly picked at his forever running nose. But this morning he was grinning like a loon and smirking worse than Jenks was.

“So, did you get all your homework done, then?” Oz asked Ruff in an attempt at steering the conversation away from football.

“No. Just about managed to finish stuff for Badger Breath Boggs, that's all.”

Oz groaned. “We've got maths first lesson, haven't we?”

Ruff slumped in his chair. “Thanks a bundle. I'd almost forgotten about him.”

“Wish I could,” Oz said. “I just hope he doesn't pick on me today. He has it in for me, I swear.”

“You and half the rest of the class.”

“You mean the bottom half of the rest of the class,” added Oz glumly. “It's really weird. I used to like maths when I was in junior school. I was even quite good at it.”

Ellie turned back. Her face was still flushed and angry-looking, but it was obvious that she had to respond to what she was hearing. “Oz, Badger Breath doesn't have it in for you because you've suddenly become a maths idiot,” she said.

“No,” Ruff agreed, “he has it in for you 'cos he's a miserable gonk.”

There was no time for more chat about Boggs. The door to room 33 opened and in breezed Miss Arkwright, 1C's form tutor. Oz quite liked Miss Arkwright because she was a bit different. She wore smock dresses and gladiator sandals and put “Save the Whales” and rainforest posters up all over room 33. She'd even worn a flower-print headband on a day trip to Techniquest once, and she knew absolutely loads about Xbox games. Okay, so she was a bit dizzy and sometimes forgot to take registration altogether, but 1C could put up with that, no problemo. The one thing that made Oz uncomfortable about Miss Arkwright was how earnest she was. Especially, for some reason, when it came to him.

This Monday morning, however, Miss Arkwright seemed to be on a mission. She took registration in record time—even before the bell went—and told Jenks to sit down or he'd be spending the morning outside Miss Swinson's office. That shut Jenks up as Miss Swinson, aka the Volcano, was Seabourne County's deputy headmistress, and she was not the person you wanted to meet on your first day back, or any day, come to think of it. Finally satisfied at having got everyone's attention, Miss Arkwright stood in front and smiled at them all.

“Now many of you, I'm sure, will have celebrated Halloween. But I wonder how many of you know its real meaning?”

“All Hallow's Eve, miss?” volunteered Marcus Skyrme, whose arm seemed to be permanently held up in the air whenever a teacher asked a question.

“Yes, indeed, Marcus.” She wrote the word “Samhain” on the board and pointed at it with her felt pen. “Our Celtic ancestors celebrated Samhain, pronounced ‘sow-ein,' as their New Year's Eve on October 31, which was then tidied up into All Hallows' Eve by the Christian church in the eleventh century—”

Jenks' voice piped up from the back. “Do you believe in ghosts, miss?”

Miss Arkwright frowned. Jenks' sidetracking tactics were well-known to all the teachers and were usually trodden on unceremoniously, but on this occasion Miss Arkwright decided that it was a fair question.

“I believe that there are more things in the world than can be explained by our common understanding, if that's what you mean, Lee.”

“Yeah, but what about actual ghosts?” Jenks said, and then added theatrically, “You know, woooooooo.”

Half the class laughed. For one horrible moment, Oz wondered if Jenks knew about what had happened in the orphanage and he glanced warily over at Ellie, who was looking puzzled, too. But then Oz saw Jenks' mock innocent expression and knew he was simply winding Miss Arkwright up. She cleared her throat to ensure silence before continuing. “Well, literature gives us different interpretations. Some great writers believe that ghosts are the spirits of dead people yet to pass, spirits who are unaware of their deaths. Then there are those who favour the ‘herald' theory, which suggests that ghosts most often bring messages of comfort to their loved ones to say that they are well and happy, and not to grieve for them. They visit with the express purpose of helping the living cope with their loss.”

“So they're not always nasty, miss?” asked Tracy Roper.

“Not always. Unless they're poltergeists, of course. And they can be very nasty, able to move furniture and even harm the living. Because of that, poltergeists are considered by some to be demonic in nature.”

The class had gone very quiet.

“So…” Miss Arkwright beamed, looking slightly alarmed at the effect her explanation was having. “Since this was your first half term with me as your form tutor, I would like you to prepare a short piece of work on what you did over the holidays.”

Everyone groaned. The bell rang and several people stood to go, but Miss Arkwright was having none of it.

“Stay where you are. Just one side of A4. That's not going to kill you.” Miss Arkwright put her hands on her hips. “I would like a small essay entitled ‘What My Dad and I Did Over Half Term.' Maybe you went to a football match, or to the cinema. Maybe your dad dressed up as Dracula—anything that you did together. Next time it'll be you and your mum, but this time, you and your da…”

She stopped abruptly and Oz froze. She was looking right at him. He could feel himself start to redden. It took four long seconds for her to recover enough to say in a slightly faltering voice, “One side of A4, okay? Now, umm…off you go and work hard this half term.”

Oz got up and grabbed his bag, but Miss Arkwright stood right in front of him with her sad, earnest expression and frizzy blond hair. “Not you, Oscar,” she said softly. “Stay for a minute.”

Oz sat back down again. Everyone filed out of the room and as they did, almost everyone turned back to stare at Miss Arkwright pulling up a chair.

“Oscar, I am
so
sorry,” she said, her big eyes strangely moist.

“It's okay, miss, really,” Oz said in a voice that he hoped was low enough for just Miss Arkwright to hear.

“I don't know what I was thinking. Someone said in the staff room that we should get all of year seven to do something constructive, and I thought this would be a good way for me to learn a little more about each of you—”

“Miss, I'm okay. It's okay.”

Miss Arkwright looked as if she was about to cry. “Yes, but of all the things I could have chosen.” She shook her head.

“I'll do it anyway. I know what we would have done if my dad was still here, so it won't be too difficult.”

“Oh, Oscar. How long has it been now?”

“Just over two years, miss.”

Miss Arkwright blew her nose. When she spoke it was muffled through folds of tissue. “You know, if you want to talk at any time, I'm here. If there's anything I can do…”

Oz thought about it for a minute. What he really wanted Miss Arkwright to do was to treat him like everyone else. To not worry about upsetting him every time she mentioned fathers. But then he stared into her solemn face and saw the look of pity that he'd seen so often in his mother's and knew he couldn't say anything—even though he desperately wanted to.

“Yes, miss, I know. I'd better go. Double Badger… maths, miss.” He grabbed his bag and slid out from under Miss Arkwright's spotlight gaze.

Outside, Ellie and Ruff were waiting for him.

“What did Hippie Arkwright want?” Ruff asked.

“Worried that she'd upset me with the essay title.” Oz sighed.

“Oh.” Ellie frowned. “Not cool.”

“So now everyone else in the class must be thinking that I have been upset by it, even though I didn't even think about it at all at the time.”

“Miss Arkwright's good at that,” Ellie said.

“She's just buzzard mental, like all the teachers here, if you ask me,” Ruff said.

Oz looked at his friend and smiled. Ruff had a knack of summing things up in just the right way. But just as Oz had feared, Miss Arkwright's attention had not gone unnoticed.

“Oy, Chambers, what's with the cosy chit-chat?” Jenks demanded, bouncing over like an over-wound jack in the box. “What have you got that the rest of us haven't, eh?”

“Just shut up, Jenks,” Ellie said.

“No one asked you, Messenger. Come on, Chambers, let us in on your little secret.” Jenks had pushed himself among the three of them. He had a thin, ferret-like face, which he belligerently thrust in front of Oz's. Behind him Skinner loomed.

“Yeah, little secret,” Skinner said, parrot fashion. He liked nothing better than to repeat whatever he heard Jenks say.