iBoy

"I don't know —"

"And why do you think he's doing it? I mean, do you think he's doing it for you, like he's some kind of guardian angel or something?"

She was about to bite into the fruit cake, but she paused in mid-chomp, lowering the cake and looking intensely at me. "What?"

"What?" I echoed. "What did I say?"

Her voice was quiet. "Why would you think he'd be doing anything for me?"

"Well ... you know ... I mean, he went after O'Neil and Firman and Craig, didn't he?"

"So?"

I suddenly realized that I wasn't supposed to know who'd raped Lucy, or who'd been there when it had happened. She hadn't told me. I looked at her, trying to hide the hesitation in my mind, "I just meant, you know ... he helped you when O'Neil and the others were outside your flat. iBoy, I mean. He was helping you, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, but —"

"Well, that's all I meant. He was helping you, and he got in touch with you on MySpace ... so, you know ... maybe it's possible that he's doing some of these things for you."

Lucy's eyes were fixed steadily on mine. "Right. . . but how would he know?"

"Know what?"

"How would he know who to go after? I mean, I know the only information I'm getting about any of this is what Ben tells me, but it seems like a lot of the people who were there when it happened ... you know, when me and Ben were ... when I was ... well, you know what I mean." She swallowed hard, trying not to cry. "A lot of those kids who were there ... well, they're the ones who've been getting beaten up or arrested or whatever."

"So maybe this iBoy really is your guardian angel?" I suggested.

"Yeah, right," said Lucy, biting into her fruit cake.

"Have you told anyone else about this?"

She shook her head, her mouth full of cake.

"What about the police?" I asked. "Have they been to see you?"

She nodded.

"What did you tell them?"

She swallowed. "Nothing."

"Same here."

She raised her eyebrows. "The police have been to see you?"

"Yeah ..."

"Why?"

I touched the scar on my head. "I was there, wasn't I? I mean, when they attacked you and Ben, I was there. Well, I was sort of there. The police wanted to know if I saw anything."

"How could you have seen anything? You were thirty floors below."

"I know ... and I was lying on the ground with an iPhone stuck in my skull."

She laughed, then almost immediately she said, "Sorry, I don't know why I'm laughing. It's not funny." She looked at me. "So the police just came to see you about that? They didn't ask you anything about the vigilante?"

"Yeah, they asked me about that too." I shrugged. "Apparently a bunch of FGH kids were attacked last week by our friendly neighbourhood Mystery Kid, and someone saw me sitting around the kids' playground a few minutes before it happened. So, you know, the cops just wanted to know if I saw anything."

"Did you?"

"No."

"What were you doing at the playground?"

"Not much ... just hanging around, you know."

She smiled. "On your own?"

"Yeah."

"Did you go on the swings?"

I shook my head. "They were all broken."

Lucy grinned. "Yeah, I bet they were."

"They were ... what are you grinning about?"

"You were always scared of going on the swings."

"No, I wasn't."

"You were. When we were kids ... you always had an excuse for not going on the swings — your gran wouldn't let you, they didn't look safe, you had a bad back —"

"Yeah, well, they weren't safe, were they? Kids were always falling off and cracking their heads open."

Lucy laughed. "I went on them."

"Yeah, but you never went on the whizzy-round thing, did you?"

"The whizzy-round thing?"

"Yeah, you know — the wooden roundabout thing that whizzes round really fast?" I smiled at her. "You never went on that."

Lucy shrugged. "It made me dizzy."

"You were scared of it."

"Yeah, but I was a little girl. Little girls are allowed to be scared." She looked at me, her eyes sparkling. "What's your excuse?"

I held my hands up. "All right, I admit it. I'm a wimp. Always have been, always will be."

Lucy shook her head. "You're being too hard on yourself, Tom. You're not a wimp."

"Thanks."

"You're more of a nerd than a wimp."

I gave her a pained look. "Now you're going too far. I mean, wimpiness I can accept. In fact, I kind of like being a wimp. But calling me a nerd ...?" I shook my head. "That hurts, Luce. Honestly ..." I put my hand on my heart, it gets me right here."

"In that case," Lucy said, "please accept my humblest apologies."

"Apologies accepted."

She smiled. "Actually, I kind of like wimps too."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"No, really ... I do. I'd rather be with a wimp than a non-wimp any day."

"A non-wimp?"

She grinned. "You know what I mean."

"All right," I said. "Name one."

"One what?"

"A wimp who you like ... name one."

"Apart from you?"

I shook my head. "It's no good trying to distract me with cheap compliments."

"It wasn't cheap."

"Come on," I said. "Name that wimp."

"OK ... all right, let me think. Right... a wimp that I like ..."

As she gazed up at the night sky, trying to think — or maybe just pretending to try to think — of a wimpy guy who she really liked, I did my best not to stare at her, but it was really hard. She looked so good — all muffled up in her coat and hat, with cake crumbs on her lips and crisp-dust on her fingers ... and I wondered if I could really let myself think that this game we were playing was perhaps something more than just a game. Were Lucy's joke compliments actually real compliments? Was it really possible that she liked me as more than just a friend?

"Spider-Man," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"Spider-Man ... a wimp I really like."

"He's not a wimp," I said. "Spidey's really tough."

"Yeah, no ... I don't mean Spider-Man, I mean the other one, the real one, what's-his-name, you know ..." She clicked her fingers, trying to remember the name.

"Peter Parker?"

"Yeah, that's it. Peter Parker. He's a wimp, isn't he?"

"Yeah ..."

"And I like him."

"No, you don't. It's Tobey Maguire that you like."

She shrugged. "Same thing."

I laughed. "It's not the same thing at all. Peter Parker, the fictional character ... yeah, he's a wimp. But Tobey Maguire is a Hollywood film star. He's rich and famous and —"

"Very attractive."

I pulled a face. "You think so? He's a bit kind of loopy-looking, isn't he?"

"Loopy?"

"Yeah, you know, that loopy kind of lop-sided face he's got —"

"No," Lucy said. "He's really cute. And he's sexy. Do you remember that bit in the first film when he's hanging upside down in the rain and he kisses what's-her-name —"

"Mary Jane Watson. MJ."

"Yeah ... I mean, that's a really sexy kiss."

"Only because he's still got his mask on, so you can't see his face."

"You don't have to see it. You already know how cute and sexy he is."

"Mary Jane doesn't know."

"Who cares about Mary Jane?"

"I think you'll find that a lot of people care about Mary Jane, especially when she's kissing the aforementioned upside-down Spider-Man in the rain, and her shirt is all wet and clingy."