So far this year there had been one phone call home about his appearance and two about his punctuality. He’d deliberately given them the wrong mobile number for his mum, so the messages had been waiting on the answering service for their home landline – easily erased and easily forgotten.
Miss Frith was useless with her sarcastic Good afternoon when he came in late every morning. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge the ‘joke’ anymore. He’d explained that the bus got in at a specific time and he wasn’t going to get up forty-five minutes earlier so he could get to registration on time. Sleep was more important – loads of studies had shown that teenagers didn’t function until mid-morning so why should he bother? Especially when he only had another six months left in school.
His mum and dad allowed him free rein at home now as well. He could stay out all night, come home drunk or high, bring girls back with him, anything, and they didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. Not that they had any right to tell him what to do with his life after what she’d told him two months ago on his eighteenth birthday.
The room had an unnatural stillness, as though everybody was waiting for something to happen – like that feeling in the cinema when the lights go fully down, and everybody goes quiet in anticipation. Harley wasn’t waiting though; he was watching and assessing.
The man by the door was obviously the one in charge, the one barking orders and keeping control and he fascinated Harley with a feeling that he’d never experienced before, part excitement and part hero worship. Watching events unfold in his form room, Harley Morton knew exactly who and what he wanted to be.
The man next to the window was standing to attention, his automatic rifle held diagonally across his chest, the barrel upwards, absolutely still like an android awaiting further instruction. He reminded Harley of the time his parents had taken him to Buckingham Palace and he’d seen the guardsmen standing outside the gates in their ludicrous black furry hats. Harley had been desperate to get the attention of one of the soldiers, to make him laugh or even just to acknowledge his presence but their faces had remained stoically impassive.
‘Phones!’ the one in charge barked. ‘On the desks now!’
Harley slid his iPhone out of his pocket and watched with amusement as his classmates fumbled in bags and jackets, their terror making them clumsy as they grabbed for their own devices.
Miss Frith laid her crappy looking Chinese knock-off on her desk and then glared at the boss. ‘You can’t keep us here. The police will be on their way as soon as somebody realises what’s going on.’ Her voice was trembling and she kept looking at the door and then back to the man in charge. ‘Who the hell are you and what do you want?’
Despite her obvious fear she had some balls, Harley thought. Nobody else was asking questions or making threats.
The boss smiled at her, his thick lips curving upwards, filling the gap in his ski mask with a huge grin. ‘Feisty. I like that.’
Miss Frith backed away as he took a step towards her.
‘Who are we? Maybe you already know. Maybe we’re here for you.’
He took another step and the teacher turned pale. She wasn’t surprised by the statement, didn’t dispute it, she looked like she might actually believe him.
‘We’re the Three Musketeers. Or maybe the Three Stooges.’
A snigger from the man next to the window.
‘Oh, you like that? You can be Mo, then.’ He was about to say something else when there was a tap on the door. Harley watched as the eyes of all his classmates were drawn away from the man, some of them daring to look hopeful. The one in charge turned the key and ushered another black-clad figure inside. They had a short, whispered conversation, the one in charge nodding his satisfaction.
‘And here’s Curly,’ he said to the class, locking the door behind the new arrival. ‘Which makes me Larry.’
His smile grew even wider.
‘So, Mo, let’s get all these phones collected, shall we?’
‘Mo’ shrugged. ‘Get one of the kids to do it. Might as well make themselves useful.’
Harley expected ‘Larry’ to explode faced with such insubordination but he simply reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out a crumpled Sainsbury’s carrier bag.
‘Here. One of you put all the phones in here.’
Everybody was looking at the desks, or their hands, or the window, anywhere but at ‘Larry’.
‘I’ll do it.’ Harley stood up and walked to the front of the room, his hand extended for the bag.
‘Good lad,’ the boss said approvingly, and Harley found himself grinning at the man as though they were co-conspirators. Was this what it was like to be somebody? Could Harley win this man’s approval and maybe get his name known? It was worth a thought; anything was better than being sent off to university in some poncey southern town.
Harley grabbed the bag, trying not to appear overeager, and approached the front row of desks. Two girls slid their mobiles over without protest and he dropped them into the bottom of the bag, noticing Julia wince as her lovely new Samsung clattered against whatever piece of crap Macy had given him.
‘Next,’ he said, moving along to the second row.
Boys this time and all their faces were filled with a tentative reluctance.
‘No way,’ Tom Cleaver hissed placing his hand over his phone.
‘Leave it, Tom,’ Annie Bainbridge said. ‘Just give him the phone. It’s not worth it.’
‘Why are you helping them?’ Tom asked. ‘Being a good little boy? Playing gangster? Bet this is like careers day for you, eh, Morton?’
Harley lunged at him and was gratified to see the other boy flinch back. The suddenness of the action had made Tom forget his phone for a second and Harley grabbed it triumphantly, dropping it in with the others from at least a foot above the top
