Jamie willed himself to remain still, even when the pebble thrown by Monaghan struck him on the arm.
“See, I told you there’s something wrong, he’s too still.” (Cliffie.)
“Oh, don’t be stupid. Can’t you see he’s playacting?” (Kelly Ann, who else.)
“Cliffie’s right, we shouldn’t have left him on his own. He is lying too still, I don’t like it.” (Good old Gary.)
Jamie heard them creeping out of their hiding place. They came toward where he was lying.
“Bet you when we turn him over there’ll be two marks on his neck, an’ blood too.” Little Cliffie sounded really concerned.
They moved forward, rather subdued and scared. Jamie, timing the moment exactly right, leaped up with a scream. “Eeeeeeaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!”
They panicked instantly, bumping into each other and crashing off into the bushes, even Kelly Ann. Jamie sat down straight-faced. “Five hundred and ninety-eight, five hundred and ninety-nine, six hundred! Well, here I am, gang, don’t be afraid.”
Little Cliffie, Paula and Gary grinned sheepishly. But Kelly Ann and Monaghan were seething. Jamie laughed aloud, pointing scornfully at them as he leaned against the bronze door of the tomb.
“Hahahaha! You should’ve seen your faces! What a load of old women, what a bunch of ninnies! Hahahaha!”
Little Cliffie laughed with him out of pure relief. “Er, haha, you mean you weren’t scared?”
Jamie flipped the dead bat over with his toe. It went sailing through the air into the bushes.
“Me scared? You must be joking. What’s to be scared of? A heap of stone with daft writing on it. Ha! No chance.”
Monaghan shrugged. “Bet you’d be scared if it was dark.”
Jamie missed the wink that passed between Monaghan and Kelly Ann. Bursting with confidence, he fell straight into their trap.
“Dark doesn’t scare me. I’d come here any time!”
Kelly Ann was quick as a cat upon a rat. “Bet you wouldn’t come here at midnight.”
“Huh, ten, eleven, midnight, it doesn’t bother me,” Jamie replied airily.
Monaghan sneered triumphantly. “Okay, I’ll bet you, in fact I’ll dare you to come here at midnight when the church bell rings.”
Jamie could see by Kelly Ann’s and Monaghan’s faces that he had fallen headlong into their snare. He could hardly believe his own ears as he heard himself answering in a still very cocky voice.
“All right, it’s a bet!”
Mentally kicking his own backside he placed his hand over theirs on the cold stone vault and recited the gang’s solemn oath with them.
“Take this bet, take this dare.
If you bet me I’ll be there.
If I don’t then you’ll know why,
Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Fingers were wetted and drawn across throats and over hearts. No more was said; they went their ways in silence.
Jamie wandered home with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. What a fool he had been, letting himself get tricked like that. There was no way anyone could back out on the dreaded double, a bet and a dare. Monaghan and Kelly Ann had fixed up the details; they were to wait for him by the cemetery gates; they had sworn a serious oath not to follow him into the cemetery. Jamie was to sit on the steps of the tomb for ten minutes as the clock struck twelve. At least he had the consolation of knowing there would be no stupid tricks to scare him. But midnight! He would have to find some way of sneaking out of the house, his mother and father would never allow him to roam loose at that hour. It was all right for the likes of Monaghan and Kelly Ann, they could hang around the streets or go anywhere they pleased without their parents giving a hoot. Maybe his mother had been right about hanging around with the arcade gang. Jamie did not bother jumping the hedge or crossing the lawn. He slouched up the path to where his mother was waiting, lips tight, arms akimbo, ready to launch into her tirade.
“Do you know what time it is? Lunch went cold half an hour ago. Beautiful homemade chicken soup, all greasy and cold now. Just look at those shoes, you’d think they’d never been cleaned since I bought them. And what have you done to your hair? It looks as if a bird’s been nesting in there. Five minutes later, my lad, and I’d have been along to that arcade place with a glass of water and these allergy tablets, make no mistake about that! You dirty little beast, what’s all that green muck on the back of your clean shirt? I slave my fingers to the bone, washing, ironing, trying to keep you decent. Look at you! You’re a disgrace to the family… .”
Jamie climbed the stairs to his room, his mother following behind, wagging her finger and carrying on like a pack of wolves chasing a sausage manufacturer.
“All right, that’s it! You can stay in your room now for the rest of the day. I’ll show you. And don’t think you’re getting away without eating my lovely chicken soup. I’ll warm it up again. Now you can clean your room out; it’s like a battlefield. Then you can get down to doing some homework. And don’t entertain any ideas of slipping away to gallivant with that arcade lot, my lad. You can stay in all this evening too. If I told your father about the way you behave, he’d certainly have a word or two to say to you, he certainly would… .”
Jamie closed his bedroom door as the talking machine retreated downstairs, still carrying on like a hi-fi with a busted needle. “I know lots of children who’d be very glad of a clean, decent home and loving parents to care for them. The trouble with you, young man, is that you’ve had it too easy, ten times too easy, a lot easier than I ever had it when I was your age, a lot easier, believe me. …”
Jamie lay back on his bed and tried to imagine his mother at the same age as himself. He found it practically impossible, though he bet himself that even as a baby she went about with a dustpan and broom in her hands, yes, and a bottle of allergy pills, looking for normal children to dose against allergies, and grabbing children from baby carriages, twisting the corner of her apron up and … ugh!
He wrested his imagination away from infant mothers and tried concentrating on the problem that faced him. The cemetery at midnight. Half an hour later his fertile imagination had come up with a solution. The tables were going to be turned on Kelly Ann and Monaghan. They were sending him into a cemetery to be frightened out of his wits. Well, he would come walking out of that same cemetery and frighten them out of what little wits they had between them!
It was 11:30 p.m. As he slipped out of bed and got dressed, Jamie could hear the sound of a late television program from the living room downstairs. Checking his special equipment he put it carefully into a paper bag and pocketed it. He could be back by half past midnight with any luck, plenty of time before the late movie finished and his father locked up for the night. As he stole past the living room doorway he could hear his mother. Dad would either be dozing or engrossed in the film, but that made little difference to the talking machine as she gabbled on, trying to get an Olympic gold chattering medal and gab the opposition to death in the bargain.
“Goodness knows why you have to keep smoking that filthy old pipe! I have to get up early every morning, just to spray air freshener around this room before breakfast. It’s bad for your health. I wonder why they keep showing that same commercial over and over. Why don’t they get on with the film? Then decent people could get to their beds earlier, instead of watching how Antibiactosuds wash ten times cleaner than any other laundry detergent. If you keep walking on the backs of your slippers like that you’ll ruin them, and fall and break your neck too.”
Jamie closed the front door softly, made sure the side window was unlatched for his return, and padded across the lawn. As he jumped the hedge and set off down the road he felt much easier in his mind, now that he had a plan set to confound Monaghan and Kelly Ann. They were waiting for him at the cemetery gates. Monaghan emerged from the shadows.