While he washed up Simon vanished, only coming in through the back door as the last plate was dried. “It’s raining. Hard.”
Tom glanced at him. Today his brother wore expensive jeans and a green sweatshirt and had his hair slicked down in the way Tom secretly wanted his. He looked tall and confident. There wasn’t a drop of rain on him. But then, there wouldn’t be.
Tom pulled a coat on and shoved the package in his pocket. “Are you coming?” he asked, into the mirror.
Simon came up behind him, and he turned, facing again the wonder of his own face saying things he wasn’t saying, thinking what he couldn’t think. His brother said awkwardly, “Look, Tom. You know it’s up to you. Keep strong, or I can’t help.”
The rain was heavy. It poured off the cottage porch, soaking him as he went through it, and all the stone walls of the lane gleamed granite-gray. The sea was invisible in squalls and clouds, but the gulls were raucous, screaming and mewling over the far cliffs. Tom pulled his hood up and trudged, jumping puddles, past the caravan park to the stile in Martinmas Lane. A few expensive-looking mobile homes were still there, locked up for the winter. Underneath one, a child’s stroller with a wheel missing lay forlornly. Tom climbed over the stile and saw Darkwater Hall.
In the November rain, shrouded with ivy, it looked like some house out of an old Cornish tale of smugglers, demons and squires, all gothic windows and gargoyles. People said the devil had lived there once, and that under it he had dug a tunnel that led straight down to hell.
“Daft.” Simon sat on a wall. “It’s a natural chasm in the rock.”
“I know that.”
“It’s just you prefer the other yarn.”
They grinned an identical grin, but glancing back, Tom’s face darkened. Darkwater may look like some lord’s house, but it wasn’t. It was a school. A really good school. But he didn’t go to it. His mother was just the cleaner.
“You’ll miss the post,” Simon muttered.
Tom didn’t move. Outside the Hall a taxi had pulled up, a sleek black one. A man was getting out. He was tall, dark-haired, and wore a long black coat. The driver came around and opened the car trunk, dumping two suitcases ungraciously on the steps of the Hall, and the tall man paid him. But he didn’t ring the bell. Instead he stepped back and looked up at the building, a long look, with something of reminiscence about it. Then he turned, looking up at Tom, high on the cliffs, curiously. He wore a neat dark beard.
Tom jumped down.
“New teacher,” he said sourly.
Then he ran. Down the lane, the wet umbels and ferns soaking his boots, past the school cottage and the converted art gallery and the craft shops, racing past the garage and around to the post office with its front stacked with Christmas trees, freshly cut.
He stopped dead, feeling Simon thump into his back.
“Well. They’re here.”
Outside, among the fir branches, two bicycles leaned.
fifteen
For five minutes he sweated and prowled among the houses, sick with fear. Finally, with a great effort, he managed to get himself to the door and turn the handle. There was a bell on the door; it jangled.
The shop smelled of Christmas trees, polish, cabbages, chewing gum. Its fluorescent lights flickered and hummed.
Steve Tate was lounging by the cash register. The other two were leaning over some magazine, giggling, until the small one, Mark, looked up and nudged his friends. Instantly Steve was on his feet. “Well! Look who’s crawled in. Little Tom Thumb.”
The name hit Tom like a blow. They’d called him that since they were all kids. He’d been small then; he wasn’t now. But they knew how much he hated it.
“Shut up,” he muttered.
It was a mistake. Steve went wide-eyed. “Touchy, isn’t he?”
Mark grinned and the big one, Rob, came over and blocked the way through the shop.
“Can we help you?” he asked sarcastically.
Tom’s heart sank. He glanced past. The post office counter was empty; he could hear Steve’s dad rummaging for something in the storeroom at the back. Simon had vanished. He was on his own.
“No. Thanks.” He even felt small; his whole self shriveling up inside. His voice went tight and scared. He hated himself for trying to sound friendly. “I’ve just got to get this posted, that’s all.”
He stepped to one side; Rob stepped with him, as if in some ludicrous dance.
“I’ll weigh it for you,” he said.
He snatched the package, tossed it to Steve.
Tom swung around, despairing. “Be careful!”
“Why? Fragile, is it? Watch it, Mark, it’s fragile.” Steve juggled the small box from hand to hand, then threw it to Mark, who only just caught it, slamming back into a shelf of cans and sending a few rolling down the aisle. Tom felt sick, though he knew there was nothing breakable in the box. Hot and humiliated, he let his mind grope miserably after Simon, but there was no one there.
“Come on,” he said, managing a weak smile. “Let’s have it.”
“Did you hear that?” Steve came out from behind the counter. “He’s asking for it, boys.”
Tom froze. Cold chilled his back. The other two were idiots, but Steve was worse. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Years ago, just for the hell of it, he’d pushed Tom down the old tin shaft out on the moor. The terror of that fall flashed over him now, the black sludge, his head bleeding, the way he’d curled in the corner and sobbed. He’d been lucky not to have broken his back.
That was then. He raised his head and looked at Steve’s eyes. They were pale blue and cold. He was grinning.
“Not like you to come in here, Tom. Thought you were too keen on the old schoolbooks. Think yourself a bit above us, don’t you.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
The shop door clanged. A blond girl with a backpack came in and looked at them. Then she went around to the groceries. Tom almost let the relief show.
Steve stepped closer. “Like those snobs up at the Hall. Bet you’d like it up there, Tommy. Pity your mother’s just the cleaner.”
Rob snorted. But the door at the back opened and Mr. Tate came in. “Right. Who’s next?”
There was silence.
Then Steve took the package and threw it back to Tom. “He is.” He came up and rumpled Tom’s hair and whispered in his ear. “See you later, bright boy.”
Tom pushed past. It was better to say nothing. Dumping the hated package on the scales, he pulled out some money and counted the slithering coins out blindly, feeling his face heat up as if it were swollen or had been slapped.
“One sixty.” Mr. Tate tore stamps out of the book.
Tom glanced in the convex mirror, nervous. The girl was watching him. Behind the rows of soup and baked beans she was watching his back thoughtfully, and then she turned and took four cans to the shop counter. “Do you cut keys?” she asked.
Carelessly jabbing the cash register buttons, Steve nodded.
“Thanks.” Tom shoved the package across and headed for the shop counter quickly. He had to get the rest of the stuff while there were people here. But to his despair he saw Steve’s dad glance around and go back outside.
Grabbing the potatoes and some margarine from the fridge he dumped it hastily next to the girl’s cans. She glanced at him as she took a bill from a small velvet purse. But she’d go, wouldn’t she. And he’d be left with them. Steve was already counting her change. Tom felt Rob come close behind him. Something tapped him on the back of the head.
The girl put the cans in her backpack. Then she swung it onto her back and put her hands in her pockets. She took out a pair of blue woolen gloves and pulled them on. Slowly.
Tom slapped his money down. Straight-faced, Steve punched the cash register buttons, then tutted. “Oh dear. Done it wrong.” He smiled. “Bear with me.”