Necroscope

question — the one that made me suspect perhaps you weren't with us — was this: what is the relationship between the diameter of a circle and pi? I take it that's the one you wanted to answer? The one you had your hand up for? Or were you swatting flies?'

Harry felt a flush riding up his neck. Pi? Diameter? Circle?

The class grew fidgety; someone sniffed disgustedly, probably the bully, Stanley Green — the pushy, big- headed, swotty slob! The trouble with Stanley was that he was clever and big… What was the question again? But what difference did it make without the answer?

Jimmy Collins looked down at his desk, ostensibly at a work book there, and whispered out of the corner of his mouth: 'Three times!'

Three times? What did that mean?

'Well?' Hannant knew he had him.

'Er, three times!' Harry blurted, praying that Jimmy wasn't having him on.'- Sir.'

The maths teacher sucked in air, straightened up. He snorted, frowned, seemed a little puzzled. But then he said, 'No! — but it was a good try. As far as it goes. Not three times but three point one four one five nine times. Ah! But times what?'

'The diameter,' Jimmy whispered. 'Equals circumference…'

'D-diameter!' Harry stuttered. 'Equals, er, circumference.'

George Hannant stared hard at Harry. He saw a boy, thirteen years old; sandy haired; freckled; in a crumpled school uniform; untidy shirt; school tie like a piece of chewed string, askew, its end fraying; and prescription spectacles balanced on a stub of a nose, behind which dreamy blue eyes gazed out in a sort of perpetual appre hension. Pitiful? No, not that; Harry Keogh could take his lumps, and dish them out when his dander was up. But… a difficult kid to get through to. Hannant suspected there was a pretty good brain in there, somewhere behind that haunted face. If only it could be prodded into life!

Stir him out of himself, maybe? A short, sharp shock? Give him something to think about in this world, instead of that other place he kept slipping off into? Maybe. 'Harry Keogh, I'm not altogether sure that answer was yours in its entirety. Collins is sitting too close to you and looking too disinterested for my liking. So… at the end of this chapter in your book you'll find ten questions. Three of 'em concern themselves with surface areas of circles and cylinders. I want the answers to those three here on my desk first thing tomorrow morning, right?'

Harry hung his head and bit his lip. 'Yes, sir.'

'So look at me. Look at me, boy!'

Harry looked up. And now he did look pitiful. But no good going back now. 'Harry,' Hannant sighed, 'you're a mess! I've spoken to the other masters and it's not just maths but everything. If you don't wake up, son, you'll be leaving school without a single qualification. Oh, there's time yet — if that's what you're thinking — a couple of years, anyway. But only if you get down to it right now. The homework isn't punishment, Harry, it's my way of trying to point you in the right direction.'

He looked towards the back of the class, to where Stanley Green was still sniggering and hiding his face behind a hand that scratched his forehead. 'As for you, Green — for you it is punishment, you obnoxious wart! You can do the other seven!'

The rest of the class tried hard not to show its approval — dared not, for Big Stanley would surely make them pay for it if they did — but Hannant saw it anyway. That was good. He didn't mind being seen as a sod, but far better to be a sod with a sense of justice.

'But sir — !' Green started to his feet, his voice already beginning to rise in protest.

'Shut up!' Hannant told him sharply. 'And sit down!' And then — as the bully subsided with a loud huh! 'Right, what's next?' He glanced at the afternoon's programme under the glass on top of his desk. 'Oh, yes — stone collecting on the beach. Good! A bit of fresh air might wake you all up. Very well, start packing up. Then you can go — but in an orderly manner!' (As if they'd take any notice of that!)

But — before they could commence their metamorphosis into a pencil-clattering, desk-slamming, floor- shaking horde — 'Wait! You may as well leave your things here. The monitor takes the key and opens up again after you've brought your stones back from the beach. When you've picked up your things, then he'll lock up again. Who is the monitor this week?' 'Sir!' Jimmy Collins stuck up his hand. 'Oh?' said Hannant, raising thick eyebrows, but not at all surprised really. 'Going up in the world, are we, Jimmy Collins?'

'Scored the winning goal against Blackhills on Saturday, sir,' said Jimmy with pride.

Hannant smiled, if only to himself. Oh, yes, that would do it. Jamieson, the headmaster, was a fool for football — indeed for all sports. A healthy mind needs a healthy body … Still, he was a good head.

The boys were exiting now, Green elbowing his way through the crush, looking surlier than ever, with Keogh and Collins bringing up the rear; the two of them, for all their differences, inseparable as Siamese twins. And as he'd known they would, they stood at the door waiting. 'Well?' Hannant asked.

'Waiting for you, sir,' said Collins. 'So I can lock up.' 'Oh, is that so?' Hannant aped the boy's breeziness. 'And we'll just leave all the windows open, will we?'

As the two came tumbling back into the classroom he grinned, packed his briefcase, did up the top button of his shirt and straightened his tie — and still got out into the corridor before they were through. Then Collins turned the key in the lock and they were off — brushing past him, careful not to touch him, as if fearing they'd catch something — dashing after the others in a clatter of flying feet.

Maths? Hannant thought, watching them out of sight along the shining corridor, slicing through the square beams of dusty sunlight from the windows. What the hell's maths? Star Trek on the telly and a stack of brand new Marvel comics in the newsagent's — and I expect them to study numbers! God! And just wait another year or so, till they start to notice those funny lumps on girls — as if they haven't already! And again: Maths? Hopeless!

He grinned, however ruefully. Lord, how he envied them!

Harden Modern Boys' was a secondary modern school on England's north-east coast, catering to the budding minds of the colliery's young men. That did not mean a great deal: most of the boys would become miners or employees of the Coal Board anyway, like their fathers and older brothers before them. But some, a small percentage, would go on through the medium of examinations to higher education at academic and technical colleges in neighbouring towns.

Originally a cluster of two-storey Coal Board offices, the school had been given a face-lift some thirty years earlier when the village's population had suddenly grown to accommodate greatly expanded mining operations. Now, standing behind low walls just a mile from the shore to the east and half that distance from the mine itself to the north, the plain old bricks of the place and the square windows seemed to lend it an air of frowning austerity out of keeping with its prosperous self-help gardens, a cold severity not at all reflected in its staff. No, for all in all they were a good, hard-working bunch. And headmaster Howard Jamieson BA, a staunch survivor of 'the Old School', saw to it that they stayed that way.

The weekly stone-gathering expedition served three purposes. One: it got all the kids out in the fresh air, allowing those teachers with a predilection for nature-rambling a rare chance to turn the minds of their wards towards Nature's wonders. Two: it provided gratis much of the raw material for garden walls within the grounds of the school, gradually replacing the old fences and trellises, a project which naturally bore the head's stamp of approval. Three: it meant that once a month three-quarters of the masters could get away from school early, leaving their charges in the care of the dedicated ramblers.

The idea was this: that all the pupils employ Tuesday's last period to walk a mile down leafy country lanes to the beach, there to collect up large, flat, rounded stones, of which there were plenty, and to carry them back one per pupil to the school. And as stated, along the way one male teacher (usually the gym-master, who was ex-Army Physical Training Corps) and two of the school's younger, unattached female teachers would extol the glories of the hedgerows, the wonders of the wild flowers and the countryside in general. None of which was of any real interest to Harry Keogh; but he did like the beach, and anything was better than a classroom on a warm, droning afternoon.