Class Act (9 page)

C
HAPTER
16

WHAT'S THE BUZZ?

Scurrying across the field, Brian felt a tap on his head. A drop on his shoulder, a plop on his hand: gentle at first, like a tickle of silver fingers, then harder and faster as the rain got into its stride. And now the whole sky was dissolving, dropping glittering needles down the back of his neck and through his jersey, softening the earth beneath him. Mud spat up his trouser legs as he raced towards the woods, his fear briefly quenched by the drenching.

But under the trees it came roaring back. He leaned against a trunk, itchy and shivering. His jersey steamed sourly. He peered into the gloom. Branches dripped and leaves trembled under the few fat drops that made it through. Splinters of light cracked the shadows. Memories flashed like broken glass. Mum hopping on one leg along the path. Mum hide-and-seeking round tree trunks, picking those tiny blue flowers and sticking them into her brown hurly burly of curls.

‘You did it,' peeped Dulcie. ‘That wasn't so hard, was it?'

‘I'm not going on down there.' Brian nodded towards a track through the trees. Footprints dented the soft earth.

‘Why not?' She snorted. ‘You've not gone down there for the last two years – and it's hardly helped you, has it?'

The words stung him, sharp and true. The more he'd tried to bury the memory the more it had embedded, breaking the surface only in dreams but twisting and sprouting under every waking hour. There was only one way to root it out.

Have you ever looked at a scab on your knee and just had to pick it, even though you knew it would hurt like a headache in hell? Or turned on the telly to a scary film and just had to keep watching because turning it off would be scarier?

No? Well in that case you won't understand what Brian did next. But because you're smart and kind and a teeny bit nosey, you'll go with him down the path of his nightmares, pushing back branches and brushing wet leaves, until you get–

‘There.' He stopped.

Set back from the path, sucking up space and light, was a massive oak. Smaller trees stood at a respectful distance, like courtiers making way for a king.

Brian pressed a hand to his stomach. He couldn't look at it. He couldn't look away. His eyes took him up into branches that wriggled and explored the sky. His feet took him over to the mighty rutted trunk. He reached for a branch above his head.

‘I didn't mean
climb
it!' squeaked Dulcie. ‘The footprints go that way, along the path. We'll lose Mr …' She trailed off, as if suddenly realising that this was more important than following the gardener.

Brian pulled himself up into the tree. He remembered every foothold. That knot on the trunk like an old man's knee; that crooked branch above it. Twigs scratched and leaves licked as he climbed into a secret, glass-green world.

‘Careful!' said Dulcie as his trainer slipped on wet bark. The higher he climbed the wetter it grew, raindrops sneaking between branches and bouncing on leaves. Another branch, another heave – and there it was. He squashed into a bottom-shaped hollow and looked up.

The branch above him was grooved and wrinkled like rhino skin. Thank goodness for the rain, pressing the tears back inside his eyes. ‘That's where she got to.' He pointed at the branch. ‘She reached down and tried to help me up. I stretched out my arm and …'

And what?
Did he actually grab her hand? That's what his memory said: that instead of Mum pulling him up, he'd pulled her down. And that Dad, watching from the ground, had never been able to talk about what he'd seen.

But now, looking at the branch, Brian couldn't recall the moment they'd touched. All that came back was the smile, the scream, the snap of a thousand branches. ‘I – I can't remember exactly what happened.'

‘I can.' Dulcie's voice was strangely gentle.

‘What?' He must have misheard. ‘You weren't even there. Didn't she take you off to climb the tree? Otherwise you'd have known that she died before I told you.'

‘No. I must've blocked out the terrible memory. But now it's coming back.' She spoke more firmly. ‘It had been raining and the bark was wet. Your mum wiped her hands on her trousers. That charged me up on her finger. I called out but she didn't hear. I saw your hand reach up as hers went down. But before she touched you she slipped and fell.'

Rain popped on the leaves, little buttons of sound. Brian closed his eyes and tried to remember. But between Mum's scream and that unspeakable crumple on the ground lay a shimmer of silver doubt. Could Dulcie be right?

He pulled off a leaf and crushed it in his hand. ‘But Dad. He saw everything.'

‘How do you know? Did he tell you? Did you ask?'

‘I didn't have to. He's been so sad and polite ever since. But underneath it's like he's angry, like he blames me for her death.'

‘Tell me, what could you see from the ground just now, looking up into this tree?'

‘Leaves. Branches.'

‘Lots of leaves?

‘Mmm.'

‘Lots of branches?'

‘Uh-huh.' Brian frowned. Where was this going?

There was a sniff. ‘So. You're telling me that you'd sooner believe the imagined report of someone who was standing on the ground and quite possibly looking elsewhere at that moment … someone who you
think
, but can't be sure because you've never actually asked, might have seen you pull – or push, what difference does it make? – your mum to her death through a muddle of green … than the eyewitness evidence of an exceptionally smart, outstandingly attractive bee, who just happened to be sitting on the ring finger of her hand, and who now recalls perfectly the fall that left the aforesaid insect with a sore head and a bruised basitarsus.' She paused for breath. ‘And before you ask, that's the proper word for a bee's thigh.' Whether she'd run out of energy or patience, she went quiet.

Brian tried to swallow the hugeness of her words. Could it be true? Could she really have seen it all?

He tilted his head back. Rain soaked his face, sank through his skin and softened his bones.
It wasn't my fault.
The words should be comforting. But they whizzed round his head, crazy and confusing. Over the last two years guilt had become a grim but reliable friend, shaping and guiding his every move. Now it was loosening like the lid on a Coke bottle, leaving him fizzy and dizzy and ready to pop. He looked up. For a second it felt as if the sky was below him: blue-white cracks in a green floor. He closed his eyes and steadied his hands on the rough bark. When the giddiness had calmed he opened his eyes and surveyed the woods from above.

Through the trees, about thirty metres ahead, stood an old cottage. The grey roof tiles, patchy with moss, gleamed darkly as the sun broke through the clouds and the rain began to ease. It was surrounded by a circular stone wall.

Brian had forgotten it was there. But now he remembered walking past it with Mum and Dad. They couldn't see over the wall but had looked through a gap where a gate must once have been into a garden overgrown with weeds and brambles. He'd asked who lived there.

‘No one,' Dad had said. ‘It's been empty as long as I can remember.'

‘Who
used
to live there then?'

Mum had smiled and said, ‘Maybe a poor woodcutter like in Hansel and Gretel. Or maybe a prince who was cheated out of his kingdom by a wicked uncle. Perhaps he fled to the woods to live off nuts and berries because …'

‘The uncle was a wizard,' said Brian, ‘who'd put a curse on the prince so that every night he turned into a …'

‘Woodworm,' said Mum. ‘So at least he had plenty to nibble on.'

‘Or perhaps,' said Dad, ‘it was someone working for the Forest Service who looked after the woods, planting trees and cutting logs and clearing paths.'

‘Party pooper,' Mum had laughed, pelting him with leaves. But he was probably right. And now, gazing down from the tree, Brian wondered if maybe Mr Pottigrew had moved in there. Perhaps he had another job after school, tending the woods. The garden certainly looked tidier than he remembered. The weeds had been cleared. There was even a bit of a lawn. And on the far side of the cottage, furthest from the path, was a flower bed.

Brian frowned. With very strange flowers.

They were big, even from this height. To say they bloomed would give completely the wrong idea: their thin oval petals were as grey as dread and their centres were black. At one end of the flower bed stood a white box with a lid. Through the steam rising from the wet leaves it looked as if the box was trembling.

Brian eased himself out of the hollow and climbed carefully down the tree. Jumping the last bit, he stumbled forward. The earth smelled of damp decay. A twig snapped underfoot. The black rags of rooks scattered from a tree. He followed the footprints along the path towards the cottage.

‘Shhh,' he hissed. There was a humming in his ear.

‘It's not me.'

‘What is it then?'

‘No idea.' Low and flat, it sounded like a distant chainsaw. Was someone cutting logs? There'd been no sign of that from the tree. His skin prickled. It felt as if the air itself was humming.

The rain had stopped completely by the time he reached the wall. The humming grew louder. It seemed to be coming from the other side. A new smell was rising on the air, thick and sweet. Brian looked further round the wall. The gap that he remembered had been filled by a solid wooden gate. It rose to the top of the wall, about a metre above his head. The gate was closed but the bolt was drawn back. In it dangled an open padlock.
Maybe I can push it open.
He was itching to get a closer look at those flowers.

He walked towards the gate. And stopped. What if there was something, or someone, inside that he really didn't want to see?

As if in answer, there was a squeak. For once it wasn't Dulcie. A bolt was sliding on the other side of the gate. Brian dived off the path. He shrank into the undergrowth, falling backwards into a bramble bush. Thorns bit his arms and snagged his hair. He clamped his lips over the squeal that mustn't escape as the gate opened and Mr Pottigrew came out.

C
HAPTER
17

A MAP AND A TRAP

Brian hunched his shoulders and gnarled his fingers into claws. Maybe if he acted like a bramble he'd look like a bramble.

Mr Pottigrew slid the outside bolt across and snapped the padlock shut. He turned –
oh no
– left onto the path towards Brian. If the gardener didn't actually see him, he was bound to hear his heart booming round the woods like a rock concert. Closer: Mr Pottigrew's boots thudded on the path. Closer: his beard was within tickling distance. Closer:
What will I say? Oh, hi, Mr P. Fancy meeting you here. I was just practising my bramble impressions.

Brian had always thought that if you could see somebody it meant they could see you too. But either that wasn't true or he'd discovered a talent for bramble impersonation because, to his astonishment, the gardener walked straight past. He carried a small rucksack on his back.

‘What's he up to?' he whispered as the old man vanished through the trees, back towards Tullybun.

‘One way to find out,' peeped Dulcie. ‘Can you climb over that wall?'

Brian felt a flutter of annoyance. It was all right for her, barking out instructions from the safety of his earlobe. ‘Anyone could be in there,' he muttered.

‘Including Alec, Tracy and Pete.'

‘But it might not be safe,' he tried.

‘Good point. If it's safety you want, you should go home now.' Brian was beginning to think that was a good idea until she added, ‘See you, then.'

‘What?'

‘I said, see you. Bye. Adios. Toodle pip. Because I'm staying here.
Safe
indeed!' She snorted. ‘I've had twenty million years of safe, stuck in this jail of a jewel, and I'm not giving up on an adventure. We're onto something and I'm going to find out what. So before you leave, be a pal and throw me over that wall.'

There's nothing quite so humbling (so I'm told) as being out-braved by someone a thousandth of your head size and two million times your age. It makes you feel a thousandth of their heart size and two million times more wimpy. But only for a moment. Because after that (so they say) you begin to think that if a tiny trapped creature can have that much get-up-and-go without being able to get up and go, then the least you can do is get up and go yourself.

Well, you do if you're Brian O'Bunion.

Standing up, he unhooked the thorns from his jersey and shook the pins and needles from his foot. ‘I'm coming with you.' He could have added cuttingly that an amber earring thrown over the wall onto a patch of grass wouldn't be up to much investigating or exploring or adventuring in general. But he wasn't that sort of boy. He did insist, however, on throwing something that
wasn't
Dulcie over the wall first. If anyone was on the other side, surely they'd come out to investigate.

He found a short, thick branch. With his hurliest hurl, he hurled it over the wall. Then he fled across the path into the undergrowth, this time managing to avoid the brambles. He peered out, his heart in his throat, his stomach in his knees and his guts in his elbows.

Nothing. The gate didn't move.

When his internal organs had wriggled back home, he straightened up, crossed the path and examined the wall.

There was a little crack just above knee level. Wedging his foot in, he pushed himself up and grabbed a stone that jutted out above his head. He reached his other hand up to the top of the wall, where jagged stones sat vertically like teeth. He grasped one for a second then lost his grip and thumped down on the ground. He tried again. Again he lost purchase.

‘Damn.' The wall was too high and too smooth; there were no other foot or handholds.

‘Find something to stand on,' suggested Dulcie. But none of the loose branches or logs lying about was thick enough. It was no good. The wall was unscalable.

Except by Brian O'Bunion.

Feeling for his collar, he pulled off his school tie.

‘What are you doing?'

He tied a loop. ‘Making a lasso.'

‘It's not strong enough. You'll fall and break your–'

But Brian had already wedged his foot in the crack and was gripping the handhold above him. With the other hand, he reached up and hooked the loop round the pointy top stone. Then he leaned back and pulled himself up with the tie.

‘Wow,' Dulcie gasped as he clambered on top of the wall. ‘Spiderman.' Which he guessed was her way of being impressed.

He half-climbed, half-jumped down into the garden. The humming was louder and the smell stronger, syrupy-sick like lilies soaked in petrol. It coated his tongue and the back of his throat. Crossing the lawn to the flower bed, he pressed a hand to his mouth.

The soil was the colour of wet concrete. The flowers stood in neat rows. Their stalks were as thick as his arm and as high as his shoulder. They bore fleshy grey leaves with silver veins. The tops were like monstrous daisies with grisly petals and black, black hearts.

The humming grew to a low roar, like an approaching motorbike.

‘Holy hyacinth!' Dulcie must have jumped in her air bubble because Brian felt his earlobe wobble.

Something was flying towards the flowers. It was coming from the white box that he'd seen from the tree. The box that wasn't a box. And that was trembling not from the rising heat but from the creatures buzzing around it. ‘What are
those
?'

For once Dulcie was speechless. Because the word that came closest to describing the furry blobs with fuzzy wings was–

‘Bees.' Brian's voice was in his toes. He stared at one of the creatures lumbering through the air. Its body, striped grey and black, was as big as his hand. You'd think its bottom was packed with lead, the way it flew low and almost vertically like a huge furry comma. Its slatey wings sang of exhaustion as it struggled up to a flower and plonked onto the centre. Despite their size the petals shivered, as if even they were repelled by the ghastly guest. An aching disgust rose in Brian's throat. It was all so wrong.

‘I can't look,' Dulcie gasped. ‘Cover me up.'

Brian pulled hair over his ear.

‘Call this evolution?' came her muffled voice. ‘What was wrong with us twenty million years ago?'

‘Nothing,' Brian whispered. ‘You saw Alf's bees. They're just like you. This isn't evolution.'

‘So what is it?'

Even if there
was
a word it escaped him because the smell was clogging his brain. He tilted his head to avoid the fumes. Little clouds bubbled in the sky. Imagine dancing up there, a feather on the breeze, nestling into their creamy, dreamy …

‘Wake up!' Dulcie stamped a foot in his ear.

He stumbled backwards. ‘Sorry. The flowers are making me woozy.'

‘Blooming buttercups, this is no time for woozy! We need to check out the house before Mr P. comes back.'

‘What if there's someone else in there?'

‘What if you check through the window?'

He crept round to the side and peered through the dirty glass. Thankfully the room appeared empty.

Back at the front door, his hand paused on the knob. ‘What if it's locked?'

‘What if you try it and see?'

There were no more excuses. He turned the cold brass knob.

The door opened. Time took a tea-break as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Gradually he made out a room. It smelled musty and damp. At the far end was a kitchen area with a fridge, a sink and an oven. The front half was more of a sitting room. Next to a black leather sofa lay a white rug, round and lacy like a paper doily. A lamp stood beside it on a low table. Nothing looked out of the ordinary … except for the wall on the left.

It was covered by a large, unframed map of the world. Photos of faces were stuck on different countries. From each smiling mouth came a speech bubble. ‘Wazzup, superdude,' said a boy in the middle of North America. From Spain, a face that was mostly moustache said, ‘Hola mi besto!' A South African man did a thumbs-up with a ‘Howzit, Q ma bru?' A girl at the bottom of Australia grinned, ‘G'day, Number One Unc.' And from Antarctica, a penguin held up a flipper and declared, ‘Hey Bro Q, you're cooler than Antarctica.'

Apart from that, nothing seemed out of place … except for the shelves on the right.

They were lined with trophies of every kind. Brian counted thirty-two in all: gold and silver cups, plates and medals, plaques and rosettes. He went over and read the engravings.
National Basketball Champion 1997
said a shiny gold plate. Next to it was a silver tennis trophy for 1999. There were five swimming cups dated from 2000 to 2002. There was a plaque for
Golden Goalie 2003
, and medals and plates for all sorts of games and sports, from chess to ice skating, Scrabble to pole vaulting, and even a cup that said
European Bag Packing Champion 2001
.

‘These can't belong to Mr Pottigrew,' murmured Brian. ‘He'd never be so good at all those things.' He did a quick – OK, slow – sum in his head. ‘And they're all less than twenty years old.' Mr Pottigrew looked about seventy, which meant – after an even slower sum – that he must have been at least fifty when he won them. ‘And anyway, if he was so brilliant at everything, why did he end up being a gardener?'

‘For which,' added Dulcie, ‘I can't see a single award.'

Brian stared at the prizes, trying to make sense of them. Had Mr Pottigrew been the world's most talented fifty-something, then crumpled under the pressure, given it all up and turned to the stress-free art of gardening? Was his deafness a disguise to escape the limelight?

‘Hard to believe,' said Dulcie when he suggested it. ‘And hard to carry off. You'd think some hint of his talent would slip out.'

Brian pictured the times the football had come Mr Pottigrew's way at break. When Unbeatable Pete had waved for the ball, the gardener's return kick had been anything but golden. As a fellow foot-fumbler, Brian had cringed for him every time.

And even if that had been an act – even if he
was
mega-talented – it didn't explain the map with its photo greetings from all round the world to someone whose name began with Q.

Brian frowned. ‘Perhaps this isn't Mr Pottigrew's house. Perhaps he was collecting something from someone called Quentin or Queenie. Perhaps they were out and left it in a rucksack for him, and he had a key to pick it up.' It wasn't very convincing, and didn't explain the freaky garden, but at least it let kind Mr P. off the hook. When it came down to it, his only offence was fake deafness: a little odd, maybe, but hardly a crime.

Brian tried hard to believe it. His suspicions about the gardener had squeezed his insides, made him feel tight and mean. Now he could leave the old man alone to his funny little ear tricks and weird woodland friend.

‘Let's go,' he said briskly. He had to get over that wall before Quentin or Queenie or whoever came back. How on earth would he explain his snooping? Besides, there was something about this place – the neat, stale gloom – that made him want to be somewhere,
any
where, else. He turned towards the door.

‘Eeek!'

‘Don't do that!' Brian pressed his hand to his ear. ‘What is it now?'

‘That lamp. By the sofa. It's moving!'

Brian turned back. Cold fingers tickled his spine as he crept over to the lamp. It had looked normal enough from a distance, the shade patterned with butterflies. But now he saw that they weren't patterns at all. They were real. Bright wings fluttered feebly. Their tiny bodies were stuck onto the shade.

‘I can hear them,' gasped Dulcie, ‘crying and moaning. And, oh, the rug!'

Brian looked down. The white circle was laced with threads that looped and fanned like dozens of joined-up cobwebs. And stuck to the central point of each web was a live – just about – spider. All over the rug, tiny legs twitched in dying semaphore.

‘This is torture.' Brian's stomach twisted. What kind of monster would do this for decoration? Bugs they may be, tiny and squashable, with no bigger purpose in life than to scuttle and flutter and lay eggs, but they had nerves which meant feelings and – if they were anything like Dulcie – thoughts and opinions too. To her this must be like a hanging or a crucifixion.

‘Do something!' she squealed. ‘You've got to help them.'

Kneeling down, Brian peered at a spider in the middle of a lace cobweb. Gently he took the little button body between his finger and thumb and tried to jiggle it free. The creature's legs shuddered, then froze. ‘I'm sorry,' he mumbled.

What's that?
He bent closer. There was bump near the middle of the rug. He ran his fingertip over a little raised circle. Frowning, he grasped the edge of the rug and pulled it gently away.

It felt like he'd swallowed a watering can.

There was a little metal ring attached to the floorboard. And the fifth floorboard across from it was hinged.
A trap door!