The Fire-Eaters (13 page)

T
he first photograph of Todd appeared next morning. It was pinned to the notice board just inside the school's front door. It had been taken in the schoolyard. There were lots of kids in it, standing about in groups, playing football, lost in thought. Todd, in this one, was just a figure in the crowd. He held the pose that had quickly become so familiar to all of us. One hand was stretched out to hold a kid's forearm still; his other hand was raised, about to strike downward with the strap. The kid was Martin Keane, a second-year.

“Aye, that was me,” I heard Martin say. “I took this shot and it hit the window. He give us two. He done the second right across me wrist, the sod.” He puffed his chest out as he started to tell the tale again. “Aye, you're right, it's me….”

The photo was soon removed but not before a few dozen of us had seen it. We thought little more of it.
Then the second photograph appeared that afternoon. It was taped up in the science block toilets. It was the same photograph, but this time it was enlarged, so that Todd and Martin filled more of it. You could see the cold look on Todd's face, and the way Martin was flinching. Loads of lads saw it, and even the girls started coming in. One of the science teachers, Bunsen Brooks, took this one down. I was there when he came in. He clicked his tongue, as if it was all just a little thing.

“Come on,” he said. “The show's over. What's all the fuss?”

He yanked it off the wall, but underneath there was black ink, the single word, EVIL. Bunsen ran his fingers across it.

“Who knows anything about
this
?” he said.

We looked back at him. Nobody.

On the bus home that day, Diggy said, “Wouldn't like to be in his shoes when they find him.”

“Todd'll kill him,” said Col.

“Aye,” said Ed. “I wonder who it is.”

I looked at Daniel. He lounged with his knees up, reading. He met my eye for a second. He lowered his eyes again. As he began to read again, he let a finger cross his lips:
Keep quiet
.

“Was it you?” I said as we stepped down outside the Rat.

“You don't want to know too much,” he said. “Keep mum. First rule in resistance. Anyway, whoever it
is, it's a bit different, eh? Stops things getting yawn yawn yawn.”

He pulled his collar close against the wind, looked up into the bleak gray sky.

“Hell's teeth,” he said. “This is it, then? Northern winter on its way.”

He pressed his finger to his lips and headed away.

Next day it was different. This time the image was much closer in: just Todd and Martin right in the foreground, the strap at the top edge of the photograph, Martin's hand at the bottom. You saw the true fear in Martin's eyes, the true cold contempt in Todd's. As we were looking at this one, which was pasted over a photograph of last year's school athletic team, there was news of several more. They'd been found throughout the school: on walls, dropped into desks, slipped into library books. There were several new images now, all of them containing Todd and his strap. Sometimes words accompanied them, written on the walls beneath or scrawled across the photographs themselves. Simple words: EVIL, WICKED, CRUELTY, SIN. The photographs quickly became collectors' items. Those that weren't taken down by staff were hidden deep in satchels and workbags. The most famous image was of Todd and the Whitby twins, Julia and John. The twins had their hands out together, side by side. They leaned their heads together and closed their eyes as the black strap descended.

In the classroom, Lubbock prowled through the aisles between our desks. His breath seethed.

“I pray that there is no one in this room connected to this business,” he said. “There is a sly sneak at work. A serpent, a snake.” He cracked his knuckles. “We will draw him out. He will slither out into the light. And then …” He licked his lips and sighed. There was silence as we worked, drawing a map of Jesus' journeys through the Holy Land. Then a crash as Lubbock smashed his fist onto Dorothy Peacock's desk. We jumped. We stared at him, his bulging flushed face.

“Mr. Todd,” he snarled, “is worth ten of any of you inside this place.”

He swept his hand across Dorothy's work. Her book and pencils flew onto the floor.

“Well!” he yelled. “What's the matter with you, girl? Pick them up! Pick them up!”

Dorothy scuttled to pick them up. Daniel raised his hand. He was expressionless.

“Sir!” he called.

Lubbock watched him, said nothing.

“Please, sir,” said Daniel. “Could you show us where it was that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount?”

T
hat afternoon, a special assembly was called. The whole school was ushered by prefects and grim-faced teachers through silent corridors toward the hall. The teachers mounted the stage and sat on hard chairs facing us. Many of them had their black gowns on. Todd was in the front row. His head was tilted, his eyes were lowered, his chest kept rising as he sighed, as if he'd been deeply wronged, as if he was in pain. His strap was nowhere to be seen.

Grace, the head, stepped forward. He carried a clutch of the photographs in his hand. He stared down at us for seconds; then he slowly started to rip the photographs. He bent forward and let the pieces fall into a waste bin at his feet.

“These objects,” he said, “are worthy only of our contempt.”

He wiped his hands together, as if cleaning away filth.

“We are a community,” he continued. “It is our duty to care for each other, to protect each other, to ensure that none of us is made a victim of evil forces. When one of us is threatened, all of us are under threat.”

He scanned our faces. “There is a wicked force at work inside our school,” he said. “We must not allow it to flourish. We must not allow it to corrupt us. The perpetrator—or perpetrators—of this evil may be standing beside you. Some of you will know who the perpetrators are. If you carry that knowledge, we call on you to speak up. Do not be intimidated. Your information will be received in confidence. At least one among you is that perpetrator. From you, whoever you are, we await a confession.”

He was silent again. He searched our eyes. The teachers watched us. I felt my face burning. I looked downward.

“There is no hiding place,” said Grace. “If shame will not drive you to us, then we shall search you out, just as the Lord searched out Adam and Eve in the Garden. Now, let us guide the sinner that is among us. We will recite the Confiteor.”

And our voices joined together, began to groan the familiar prayer:

“I confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary ever virgin …” Soon each of us made a fist. We beat our
hearts, as we'd learned to long ago, at the crucial words: “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

Afterward, we were left standing for an hour. Grace walked among us. He barked at anyone who moved. He said that he would make our lives a hell. It made no difference. That night, I walked over the sand through the darkness to Daniel's place. I crouched in the garden, looked through the window. Daniel was with his parents. There were heaps of photographs on the table. They shook their heads as they looked at them. They clenched their fists, they glared. They drank wine and listened to jazz as they scrawled across the photographs and raised their fists and laughed together.

“H
e's here, in the dunes,” I said to Mam.

“Who is?”

“McNulty.”

It was late in the evening. Dad had gone to bed early. She was stitching the seam of my new white shirt. We listened to the wind outside gathering force, rattling the roof, the window frames, the doors. We heard the waves crashing on the shore.

“He came a few nights back,” I said. “He's in one of the old shacks.”

“Maybe he wants to winter there. Keep himself safe and warm.”

“We could take things to him. Bread or something. Tea.”

Her voice rose and quickened.

“I can't care for two of them, Bobby,” she said; then
she passed her hand across her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Of course you can take him something.”

She stitched on. Her needle slipped and pricked her finger.

“Damn thing!” she said. She flung the shirt aside. “Why can't they make things to last these days?”

She looked at her tiny wound. She sucked the blood from it.

“Sorry,” she whispered. She looked away. “He's got to have some more tests, Bobby.” She pressed her finger to her lips as I began to speak. “That's all we know. Nothing more.”

We switched the TV on, but within seconds a mushroom cloud appeared.

“Not that!” she snapped, and she switched it off again.

That night I woke and heard him groaning. The winds had calmed. I knelt at the window, listened to the far-off drone of engines. He groaned again.

“Stop it,” I whispered. “Let me be ill, not him.”

I pressed my needle through the edge of my thumb. I pressed it into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger.

“Let me take the pain,” I said. “Not him.”

I caught my breath and tears came to my eyes as I pressed the needle deeper.

“I can take it,” I whispered.

He groaned again.

“Stop it! Leave him alone!”

I said a string of prayers: Hail Marys, Our Fathers, Confiteors. I touched Mary and Bernadette in their plastic grotto. Then I touched Ailsa's broken heart, McNulty's silver coin, the tanners from Ailsa's dad, the penknife from Joseph, the CND symbol.

“Leave him alone,” I said again. “Take me instead of him.”

I saw a star fall fast toward the sea. I searched my head for the words to make a wish. I found a promise.

“If he gets better,” I said, “I'll always be good. I'll always fight evil.”

That morning, I left home early. I waited for Daniel in the hawthorn hedge in his lane. At last he came.

“Psst!” I called. “Daniel!”

He looked in at me.

“I want to help you,” I said.

“Help me?”

“With the photographs. I'll help you to put them out.”

He came toward me.

“They'll catch us,” he said. “You know that, don't you? I've always known, right from the start. Catching me's been part of it. They'll catch me in the act, or somebody will turn me in. It'll happen very soon. And when they catch me, then they'll have to face up to what the photographs show.”

We gazed at each other.

“So they'll catch us,” I said. I pulled my blazer open and showed him the CND symbol I'd pinned beside my heart. He grinned. “And we'll stand together,” I said. “Side by side.”

He opened his schoolbag. He showed me the photographs. Now they contained only Todd. His enlarged face filled each frame—teeth bared, froth at the corners of his mouth, eyes glaring down at some unseen victim—along with the repeated words: EVIL, WICKED, CRUELTY, SIN.

I nodded.

“They're great,” I said.

We shook hands, he told me what to do, and that day I dropped his photographs into desks and dustbins and I slid them into library books. My only close shave was at lunchtime, when I scuttled out of the boys' changing room, where I'd left one in the showers. Miss Bute was passing by. She hesitated.

“Hello, Robert,” she said.

“Miss.”

“Is there sports club today?” she asked.

“Yes, miss. No, miss.” I looked down. I felt so stupid, caught so soon. “I don't know, miss.”

We stood there. For a moment I thought of opening my bag, showing her:
Yes, it's me, miss
.

She reached up and caught something in the empty air.

“Oh, look!” she said. “Hello, little dangler.”

A tiny spider. It crawled across her palm, then hung from her finger on a string.

“Look at the skill of it,” she said. “Look at its perfect spiderness.”

She turned it three times around my head. “It will bring you luck, Bobby. Make a wish.”

I smiled.

“Thanks, miss.”

She let the spider climb right down to earth; then she turned away.

“Take care of yourself, Bobby,” she said.