Dream Guy (24 page)

The phone rang. He heard his mother answer it. Then she called Ben. First Joe heard Ben’s deep tones on the phone, then he heard his mother’s footsteps racing lightly up the stairs to her bedroom.

She dumped stuff on her bed before noticing the open bathroom door.

“Why are you using my bathroom and not the family one?”

“Liesel always wants a shower straight after dance class. I needed a long soak, and I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

Mrs. Knightley muttered that he was a chancer and turned away. Then she turned back.

“Why do you need a long soak? Have you been thumped or something?”

“I’m just feeling a bit stiff. I don’t know why. I must have wrenched something in PE.” Joe groped for an explanation, but his mother wasn’t letting go.

“Come on, Joe. They don’t make you do anything that strenuous in PE. They’re too scared of getting sued.” She looked at him, but his body was safely concealed beneath the bubbles. “You haven’t been in a fight, have you?”

“Not exactly.” He decided to confide in his mother. “Don’t tell Ben, but I helped out Zahid. He was getting clobbered in an alley, and I helped him get away. I was a bit excessive. I didn’t hit anyone or anything. Okay? Please don’t tell Ben. He’ll be really fed up if he hears about it.”

“Zahid is going to tell him, even if you don’t.” His mother pondered. “Why would Ben be fed up? He’ll be grateful.”

“He’ll just beat himself up about not being there and feel all guilty. Then he’ll take it out on me. You know what he’s like.”

“I don’t recognize the Ben you’re describing, actually, Joe, but if you don’t want me to say anything about it, I won’t.”

Joe heard her going back downstairs to the kitchen.

When he joined the rest of the family, they were all still talking about Zahid’s news. Liesel was quick to tell Joe how he’d been set on by muggers, but then they were disturbed and some nice guy had put him in a cab and made sure he reached home safely. It was quite amusing to hear Ben, the normally woolly liberal, become the right-wing ranter, banging on about chavs with nothing better to do than wear hoodies and nick mobile phones.

“The problem is, Zahid is so skinny, and he does nothing to look after himself. He should really go to some sort of self-defense class.” Ben couldn’t let it go.

Mrs. Knightley had had enough of the subject. Joe could see that she was uncomfortable knowing the truth and lying by omission to her elder son.

* * * *

The subterfuge proved entirely useless the next day in any case, as Charlie Meek went around the school boasting about beating up Ben Knightley’s boyfriend. He swaggered and crowed and threatened to mash any poof who came near him.

The showdown came in the main school canteen after the big rush for lunch, when seven of Ben’s sixth form friends quietly formed a wall around Charlie Meek. Then Ben appeared. He was nearly a foot taller than Charlie. His sharp, symmetrical features, tidy nose, floppy dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes made most girlish, and some boyish, hearts flip.

Before him, undersized, pasty, pink-eyed Charlie looked like a malnourished ferret shorn of hair, shivering and undignified.

“I’ve been hearing things, Charlie,” began Ben. Charlie did not answer. His eyes shifted away, focusing on the laces of Ben’s tan work boots. “Things about the way you’ve been talking to my brother. Things about the way you’ve been talking about my boyfriend. The way you’ve been talking, Charlie, is going to get you into a lot of trouble, unless you apologize to me and to my brother and to Zahid. A nice formal apology right here. I haven’t decided exactly when you’re going to be apologizing, Charlie, but it will be in the next couple of days.”

“You can’t do anything to me here,” said Charlie. His defiance was short-lived when Craig McDonald looked at him. Craig was a champion of the Schoolboy Boxing League. He was about to move into the Seniors as a light heavyweight.

Charlie tried to step back and found himself making contact with Connor Reilly, who had reached fifth dan in his judo classes. They were Ben’s friends.

“I’m not saying anyone is going to do anything to you anywhere, Charlie. That would be a threat, and threats are against our Anti-Bullying Policy. You do remember the Anti- Bullying Policy, don’t you Charlie? I seem to remember you have to sign a contract at the beginning of each school year.” Ben held out a hand. Connor handed over a blue spiral-bound diary. Ben flicked through it.

“That’s my prep diary,” yelped Charlie. “I been looking for that.”

“Not hard enough. It’s been in the Lost Property office for over a month, so I thought I’d return it to you and remind you of the contract you signed.” Ben held up the relevant page for Charlie. “See. You made your mark. Now, I’m assuming you have trouble reading, so I’ll just refresh your memory.”

Ben started reading the school behavior contract. “Respect others. You do that every day, I’m sure, Charlie. Behave well. You’re conspicuous for your good behavior, aren’t you, Charlie? Follow instructions given by a member of staff. You jump when they say to, don’t you, Charlie? Come to all lessons fully equipped and prepared to learn. You equip yourself with other people’s belongings, don’t you, Charlie? Shall we go through the contract again, Charlie, just remind ourselves of the deal you signed?”

Then one by one, other sixth formers planted around the canteen stood and began to speak the words in chorus with Ben.

“Respect others. Behave well. Follow instructions given by a member of staff. Come to all lessons fully equipped and prepared to learn.”

The call was repeated then reduced until it became a simple chant of “Respect others.” All the hordes of year seven, eight and nine children who had been terrorized by Charlie for weeks and months and years rose up and took up the call, repeating over and over again, “Respect others. Respect others.” They did not shout, simply spoke. Charlie looked around him and saw the faces, some spiteful, some rejoicing in his situation, others neutral and blank.

Ben and his friends stepped away from Charlie, melted back toward the doors. The space between Charlie and the other children in the canteen widened. They were all retreating from him, but they sustained their steady repetition until the bell went, and he found himself standing alone in an echoing cafeteria where a row of dinner ladies stood, their arms folded, nodding at the sentence passed on Charlie.

He was frozen in the canteen, rage surging through him, aware that his humiliation was being relayed around the school by every kid who’d been at lunch. His reign had been dissolved and his crown was rolling around in the gutter. There would be no more acolytes. His spell had been broken.

Then an adult walked through the canteen—a new one, a supply teacher, surprisingly dapper for a schoolmaster, wearing a freshly ironed shirt, pale blue, toning with his trousers and his tie, his hair a little on the long side, but swept back from his brow, his eyes pale and detached, his beard and moustache neatly trimmed.

“Where are you meant to be, Charlie?”

“How do you know my name?”

“I made it my business to find out.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m Mr. Dolon. You must have seen me around. I’ve been here, teaching drama.”

“Drama’s for poofs.”

“If you knew anything about it, I might take that remark seriously.” Dolon crossed his arms and inspected Charlie with a faint air of disappointment. “You’d better get to your next class.”

Charlie mooched off, but he turned and looked at the new teacher before leaving for sociology. Dolon was standing there, his arms still crossed.

“What are you waiting for, Charlie?”

Charlie shook his head and replied, “I don’t know.”

Dolon smiled. “You don’t now, but I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. See you in detention, Charlie-boy.”

* * * *

Joe heard about the canteen showdown from various people who’d seen it. He’d been in the library, wondering how to discover at lunchtime the source of his evolving dream-traveling, so he’d gathered only stray whispers and murmurings as the afternoon had worn on. He had to leave promptly to collect Liesel. As he walked out of school, he saw various villains mooching into the classroom where detentions were held. A teacher was there, walking from desk to desk. Joe didn’t recognize the slim blue back, although his casual air, the thick sweep of dark hair and the stance with one hand in a pocket pinged some bell in his subconscious. It was only sitting on the bus, tuning out while Liesel prattled, that he realized who it had been.

Chapter Twenty

Ten Thousand Doors

Joe did not want to dream. He wanted to rest. He wanted his aching body to recover and he wanted to avoid Eidolon, whether in the guise of a doctor, a teacher or his own suave and polished self. In the still of the night, he woke over and over, sometimes drifting to consciousness then regressing, other times smashing into wakefulness as another place or time beckoned. Once, he found himself being sucked against his will toward another world that he knew was Eidolon’s and he had to heave himself back into his own, scrabbling for purchase in a deep tunnel of some friable material. He woke just before the alarm went. There was no point in snatching any more time in bed. In fact, it was almost a relief to have made it through a night with no complications. He rose and set about the routine of the morning, although a residual stiffness from the riding hampered him from moving as smoothly and unselfconsciously as normal. Every action, from putting gel in his hair to slinging on his shirt was creaky and ungainly.

He grunted over breakfast. This time last week, he had been ill, thanks to Smokey’s intervention in his dreams. Now it was Smokey who was sick. Even if he recovered, it was highly likely that he’d be permanently excluded from school, thanks to his fundraising activities over the weekend. He’d be lucky to escape a prison sentence. According to Mrs. Knightley, the police had already told Smokey’s parents that he would probably be sentenced to something called an STC—a secure training center, basically, a kid’s prison. Smokey hadn’t been told yet. He was going to be in the hospital for another week, having tests. Then he’d be arrested and charged with possession and supply of a class-A drug. His parents were devastated. They’d known things weren’t going well, but they hadn’t imagined that their son would break the law—still less that he’d get caught, face trial and a custodial sentence.

Sooner or later, Joe thought, someone would demand to know where Smokey had gotten hold of the cocaine. There was more than enough of it to test. Joe guessed from what Liesel had said about his deals in the park that Smokey had been bagging it up in half-gram measures, hiding the bulk of it in his bedroom. If Eidolon wanted it back, he’d have to dream his way into the police station or wherever evidence for court cases was stored, since the gear had been seized from a shoebox in Smokey’s room.

There was half a kilo left, but enough had gone to get him nailed for supplying.

On the way to the bus, Ben said, “I wonder if Charlie Meek got the message yesterday. I want to break that fucking maggot’s face, but I’m not going to play his stupid games and get done for hurting him.”

“What are you going to do if he carries on like yesterday morning?”

“He won’t dare, because I’m going to get in there first. Wherever that little toerag is, I’ll be there too, and when I’m done, it will have penetrated even his thick skull that he’s not getting away with beating anyone up.”

They’d reached the bus stop by this time. Joe leaned forward. “Listen, Ben. Be careful. He’s got a knife, and if you get him riled, he’s just the sort of cretin who’d actually use it.”

Ben’s face hardened. “How do you know this?”

Joe managed a save. “Just something I’ve heard. You know, his mates put it around. Maybe it’s just to make him seem harder, but maybe it’s true.”

“He was threatening you the other day. He didn’t pull a knife on you, did he?”

Joe shook his head. The bus came and they were crammed in too tight amid the drizzle-dampened bodies to talk.

As they reached the school gates, Ben turned to his brother. “Don’t forget that it’s your turn to get Liesel. I’ve got a rehearsal this afternoon, and I can’t do it, okay?”

“Okay. Mum only told me a hundred times over breakfast. I won’t forget.”

Joe ambled toward his form room. It was open. He took out a maths book to do more revision for McKechnie’s latest test. People began piling in, all talking about Charlie Meek and how no one had seen him that morning. It would be quite an achievement if Ben and his friends had stopped Charlie from coming to school. He was all kinds of hoodlum, but sadly, the one thing he’d never done was to play truant, much to the distress of the kids in the forms beneath him.

There was almost a holiday air about the kids in the lower school, free for once from Charlie’s malignant presence. At break, Joe was in the canteen. All sorts of little kids emerged like moles blinking in daylight, sniffing the air in case their nemesis appeared, but gradually relaxing, scoffing crisps and fruit gums without fear of a grim hand appropriating them. They chattered like starlings, swigging their Cokes and Sprites from the vending machine instead of taking surreptitious sips, laughing, recalling and replaying the moment when Charlie had been left alone as the last of his tormentors turned their backs on him.

Even if he did come back and try his old tricks, Ben had provided the lower school students with a chant against him. They would just start reciting the school code of conduct. It was easy to talk when there was no sign of Charlie.

It was only during break, after his maths test, that Joe remembered having seen the new supply teacher. The thought curdled his enjoyment of the day. It was time to track down Eidolon and find out how he was managing to juggle two stressful jobs simultaneously.

Subterfuge did not come naturally to Joe, but he had to try something. He went up to the reception desk at the main school entrance. Miss Wickens had steel-gray hair falling straight to her shoulders and a fringe, like a chain mail helmet. Her eyes were ice chips and her skin was leathery from her regular trips to Valencia. She was always showing off her latest snaps to the two secretaries who worked in the same office.