Fight the current — grasp at the hands — kick against the river's rush. Fight, fight! Fight for Harry…
There! You've got the hands! Grip tight! Hold on! Try to lift your head up through the hole and breathe, breathe!
But… the hands are pushing you down!
Seen through the water the face wobbles, shifting and changing. The trembly jelly lips turn up at their corners. They smile — or grimace! You hang on. You scream — and water rushes in to replace the escaping air.
Cling to the ice. Forget the hands, the cruel hands that continue to hold you down. Just grab at the rim and lift your head. But the hands are there, breaking your grip. They thrust you away, under the ice. They murder you!
You can't fight the cold and the river and the hands. Blackness is roaring down on you. In your lungs, in your head, in your eyes. Stick your long fingernails into the hands, claw at them, tear the flesh from them. The gold ring comes loose, spirals down into the murk and mud. Blood turns the water red — red against the ultimate black of your dying — blood from the cruel, cruel hands.
No fight left in you. Waterlogged, you sink. The current drags you along the bottom, tumbling you. But you no longer care. Except… you care for Harry. Poor little
Harry! Who'll care for him now? Who'll look after Harry… Harry. …Harry — ?
'Harry? Harry Keogh? Christ, boy! — are you here at all?'
Harry felt the elbow of his pal Jimmy Collins digging him covertly, however sharply, in the ribs, causing him to draw air explosively; he heard Mr. Hannant's rasping voice crashing in on his eardrums above the receding tumult of water. He jerked upright on his bench, gulped again at the air, thrust his hand up foolishly, as if in response to some question or other. It was an automatic reaction: if you were quick off the mark the teacher knew you knew the answer and he'd ask someone else. Except… sometimes it didn't work out that way, teachers didn't always fall for it. And Hannant, the maths teacher — he was nobody's fool.
Gone now the sensation of drowning; gone utterly the bitter cold of the water, the pitiless torture of thrusting, brutally inhuman hands; gone the entire nightmare — or, more properly, the daydream. By comparison the newer situation was a mere trifle. Or was it?
Harry was suddenly aware of a classroom full of eyes, all staring at him; aware too of Mr. Hannant's purple, outraged face glaring at him from out in front of the class. What had they been dealing with?
He glanced at the blackboard. Oh, yes! Formulae — areas and properties of circles — the Constant Factor (?) — diameters and radii and pi. Pi? That was a laugh! It was all pi to Harry. Pie in the sky. But what had been Hannant's question? Had he even asked a question?
White-faced now, Harry peered about the classroom. His was the only hand in the air. Slowly he drew it down. Beside him, Jimmy Collins sniggered, coughing and spluttering to hide it. Normally that would have been sufficient to set Harry off, too, but with the memory of the night-or day-mare so fresh in his mind, he had little difficulty staving it off.
'Well?' Hannant demanded.
'Sir?' Harry queried. 'Er, could you repeat the question?'
Hannant sighed, closed his eyes, rested his great knuckles on his desk and leaned his stocky body on his straight arms. He counted ten under his breath, but loud enough for the class to hear him. Finally, without reopening his eyes, he said: The question was, are you here at all?'
'Me, sir?'
'God, yes, Harry Keogh! Yes, you!'
'Why, yes sir!' Harry tried not to act too innocent. It looked like he might get away with it — or would he? 'But there was this wasp, sir, and — '
'My other question,' Hannant cut him short, 'my first 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.