“I can look after you.”
“You can’t even look after yourself!” Matt hadn’t meant to say it but the words had just slipped out. “You’re working in Leeds now,” he went on. “You’re always in the car. That’s why there’s never any food in the house. And you’re worn out! You’re only staying here because of me. It’s not fair.”
It was true. Richard had lost his job at the Greater Malling Gazette, but after a couple of weeks he had managed to find work on another newspaper, The Gipton Echo, just outside Leeds. It wasn’t a lot better. He was still writing about local businesses. The day before he had taken in a new fish restaurant, a rubbish disposal amenity and a geriatric hospital that was threatened with closure. Chips, tips and hips as he put it. Matt knew that he was also working on a book about their adventures together – the events that had led to the destruction of the nuclear power station known as Omega One and the disappearance of an entire Yorkshire village. But he hadn’t been able to sell the story to the press. Why should publishers be any different?
“I don’t want to talk about this now,” Richard said. “It’s too early. Let’s meet this evening. I won’t be in late for once, and we can go out for dinner if you like. Or I can get a takeaway.”
“Yeah. All right. Whatever.” Matt gathered up his books.
“What about breakfast?”
“I’ll go to McDonald’s.”
Forrest Hill was a private school, in the middle of nowhere, halfway between York and Harrogate. And although Matt hadn’t said as much, it was the main reason he had begun to think about leaving the north of England. He hated it there and although the summer holidays weren’t far off, he wasn’t sure he could wait that long.
From the outside it was attractive enough. There was a quadrangle – an old courtyard with arches and outside staircases – and next to it a chapel complete with stained glass and gargoyles. Some parts of the school were three hundred years old and looked it, but in recent times the governors had managed to attract more money and had invested it in new buildings. There was a theatre, a science block and a barn-sized library on two floors. All of these had been built in the last two or three years.
The school had its own tennis courts, swimming pool and playing fields. It was situated in a sort of basin in the countryside, with the roads sloping steeply down from all directions. The first time Matt had seen it, he had thought he was being driven into a university campus. It was only when he saw the boys, aged thirteen to eighteen, walking to classes in their smart blue jackets and grey trousers that he realized that it was just a secondary school.
It was certainly a world apart from St Edmund’s, the comprehensive he had gone to in Ipswich. Matt didn’t know where to begin when he compared the two. Everything was so neat and tidy here. There was no smell of chips, no graffiti, no flaking paintwork or goalposts with the net hanging in rags. There were more than a thousand books in the library and all the computers in the DT block were state of the art. Even the uniform made a huge difference. Putting it on for the first time, Matt felt as if something had been taken away from him. The jacket weighed down his shoulders and cut underneath his arms. The tie, with its green and grey stripes, was ridiculous. He didn’t want to be a businessman, so why was he dressing up as one? When he looked in the mirror, it was as if he was seeing someone else.
It wasn’t Richard who had come up with the idea of sending him here. The Nexus – the mysterious organization that had taken over his life – had suggested it. Matt had done little work for two years. He was behind in every subject. Sending him to a new school in the middle of the summer term would cause problems wherever he went. But a private school wouldn’t ask too many questions and might be able to look after his particular needs. The Nexus was paying. It seemed like a good idea.
But it had gone wrong almost from the start.
Most of the teachers at Forrest Hill were all right, but it was the ones who weren’t who really made themselves felt. It seemed to take Matt only days to make permanent enemies of Mr King, who taught English, and Mr O’Shaughnessy who doubled as both French teacher and assistant headmaster. Both these men were in their thirties but behaved as if they were much older. On the first day, Mr King had given Matt a dressing down for chewing gum in the quadrangle. On the second, it had been Mr O’Shaughnessy who had given him a high-pitched, ten-minute lecture for an untucked shirt. After that, both of them seemed to have taken every opportunity to pick on him.
But if anything, it was the other boys at the school who were the real problem. Matt was a survivor. There had been some real bullies at St Edmund’s, including one or two who seemed to take a real pleasure in hurting anyone who was small, hard-working or just different from them. He had known it would take time to make friends in a new school, especially with boys so unlike himself. But even so, he had been surprised by how few of them had been prepared to give him a chance.
Of course, they all knew each other. The other fourteen-year-olds at Forrest Hill were at the end of their second year and they’d already made their friendships. A pattern of life had been established and, as a newcomer, Matt knew that he was intruding. Worse than that, he had come from a completely different world. A comprehensive school and one that wasn’t anywhere near Yorkshire. Very few of the boys were snobs, but they were still suspicious about him and one boy in particular seemed determined to give him a hard time.
His name was Gavin Taylor. He was in most of the same classes as Matt. And he controlled his entire year.
Gavin wasn’t physically big. He was slim with a turned-up nose and blond, slightly greasy hair that hung down to his collar. He made a point of ensuring that his tie was never straight, slouching around with his hands in his pockets and an attitude that warned everyone – staff or student – to keep their distance. There was an arrogance to him that Matt could sense a hundred yards away. It was said that he was one of the richest boys in the school. His father had an Internet company selling second-hand cars throughout Britain. And he had four or five friends who were big. They followed him round the school like bit-part villains in a Quentin Tarantino film.
It was Gavin who had decided that Matt was bad news. It wasn’t what he knew about the new arrival that offended him; it was what he didn’t. Matt had come out of nowhere at the end of the school year. He hadn’t been to a prep school and he wouldn’t explain why he had left his comprehensive, what had happened to his parents or what he had been doing for the past two months. Gavin had taunted and teased Matt for the first few weeks, trying to make him drop his guard. The fact that Matt wasn’t scared of him and refused to tell him anything only angered him all the more.
But then something happened that made the whole situation infinitely worse. Somehow, Gavin overheard the school secretary talking on the phone in her office. And that was how he learnt that Matt had been in trouble with the police. He’d spent time in a secure children’s home or something similar. And he had no money. Some sort of charity, an organization in London, had picked up the tab to send him here. Within minutes, the story had spread all around the school and from that moment, Matt had been doomed. He was the new boy. The charity case. A loser. He wasn’t part of the school and never would be.
Maybe there were boys there who would have been more generous, but they were too nervous of Gavin Taylor and so Matt found himself virtually friendless. He hadn’t told Richard any of this. Matt had never been the sort of person to complain. When his parents had died, when he had been sent to live with Gwenda Davis, even when he had been working as a virtual slave at Hive Hall, he had tried to build a wall around himself. But each day was becoming harder to endure. He was certain that sooner or later, he would snap.
As usual, the bus dropped him off at half past eight. The day always began with an assembly in the chapel, a hymn sung tunelessly by six hundred and fifty schoolboys who were only half awake and a brief address from the headmaster or one of the teachers. Matt kept his head down. He thought about what he had said to Richard that morning. He really was determined to go. He’d had enough.
The first two lessons weren’t too bad. The maths and history teachers were young and sympathetic and didn’t allow the other boys in the class to pick on him. Matt spent morning break in the library, trying to catch up with his homework. After that he had forty-five minutes with the special needs teacher who was trying to help him with his spelling and grammar. But the last lesson before lunch was English and Mr King was in a bad mood.
“Freeman, will you please stand up!”
Matt got warily to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gavin nudge another boy and grin. He made sure his own face gave nothing away.
Mr King walked towards him. The English teacher was losing his hair. He combed the ginger strands from one side of his head to the other, but the curve of his skull still showed through. He was holding a dog-eared copy of
