James Munkers (13 page)

So is that what Pippa's doing when she's looking all vague and mindless? Talking to you?

I'll tell her you said that.

You're quite laid-back for a Guardian really.

Said the expert on Guardians.

No, but I thought you'd be all stiff and proper and imposing, but instead you're all warm and cuddly, and occasionally sarcastic.

Well, I'm only guarding Pip's mind at the moment, and it's more of a casual position.

You mean you're not always here fighting off intruders?

No. I'm usually off being all stiff and proper and imposing.

So how come you're here now?

Because I knew you'd go poking.

I'm not poking.

Of course you are. You're a little boy with a new toy, and you just had to go test out its boundaries. That's how things get broken, Jumbo Jim.

How could I possibly break anything? Look – no hands.

I'd laugh, seeing as what you just said was funny, but do you have any idea how dangerous it is to go diving into someone else's mind?

I just did it with Gwen, and no ninjas jumped out at me brandishing weapons.

Listen, I love Gwennie Dog, but she's a dog. It's quite a different thing.

Okay, I sigh, accepting the role of student yet again. Tell me, Oh Great One, why it's dangerous to swim around in someone else's mind.

Because the mind is infinite, and you'd get yourself lost.

That's it?

That's enough.

Isn't there a map you can buy?

What, a mind map?

Funny yourself.

No. No map, no atlas, no compass. And there's not much point going in anyway.

Why not? Doesn't Pippa have anything in her brain?

‘Don't mind me, will you?' Pippa says, opening her eyes and turning to glare at me.

‘Hey, what are you doing listening in on a private conversation?'

‘It's not private if it takes place in someone else's head. Talk about invading privacy.'

There's no point
, Kit continues a little louder,
because you wouldn't understand it anyway
.

‘That's because you're too stupid,' Pippa explains.

Shut it, Pip. You'd be deluged with information and emotion and images so fast that you wouldn't be able to keep up, and you'd probably end up going insane.

Oh.

If you're going to try to read people, don't go past the eyes. They'll tell you most of what you need to know anyway.

I pull my mind back a bit, and focus it on Pippa's eyes.

I think she's annoyed at me, I report.

Nah, she loves you. I have to go now, campers. Pip, I'll talk to you later. Jim, stay out of people's heads. Oh, and don't tell Will I was here the other night, okay?

I pull my mind out of Pippa's head. ‘Why can't I tell Will that Kit was here the other night?' I ask.

A grunting sound behind us makes us look around. Will's standing in the doorway to the back room. ‘She was here?' he asks stonily. When Pippa doesn't answer he stalks across the room and grabs his leather jacket, his face looking like thunder.

‘Where are you going?' Pippa asks tensely.

‘Out.' He walks down the hall and slams the front door behind him. Gwen pads over to the closed door and looks up at it, whining. A moment later we hear the car engine start and the skid of wheels on the driveway.

Wow. Will must really not like Kit.

Pippa clips me over the ear. ‘Now I'm annoyed at you,' she says.

‘Hey, I didn't know he was standing right there.'

‘What was all that about?' Jem asks, emerging from the back room with a mace in his hands. ‘He just up and left.'

Pippa sighs. ‘Don't worry about him. He just gets moody sometimes, and needs to be alone.'

‘Well, couldn't he have decided to be moody and alone
after
he drove us home?' I ask, looking out the window at the stormy evening. ‘Unless I use a protection shield all the way home, we're going to get wet walking.'

In the end, Pippa calls a taxi for us, and gives us the money to pay for it as well. I wonder if people who work for the Guardians get a pay-cheque fortnightly, and if so, why aren't I getting one? I skim through the foyer of Pippa's mind to ask Kit about it, but she isn't there.

I ask the taxi driver to pull up ten yards from our driveway, pay him with Pippa's money, and run the rest of the way with my jacket over my head. It's bucketing down now, and I'm damp and shivering by the time I gain the shelter of the front door. I turn my key in the lock and hurry inside.

‘Is that you, love?' Mum calls from the sofa, not bothering to look around from her TV show. Claire and Garth are watching it too, and Peter's reading the newspaper. He glances up at me, and then goes studiously back to reading. I hope this means he's stopped being suspicious.

‘Yeah,' I answer Mum. I hang up my dripping jacket, wander to the kitchen and flick the kettle on. Teacup. Where's my teacup?

‘How many of you?'

‘Just me,' I say, finding my hilltop sheep cup in the sink. ‘My evil twin is out stealing cars.'

‘Sue,' Michael calls down the stairs, ‘Winnie's not looking too good. I think she might have the flu. Will you be able to stay home with her tomorrow if she isn't any better?'

‘The last week of term? Not a chance.'

‘Hmm. I might be able to work from home tomorrow…' Michael mutters, and disappears again.

‘So it's been busy, then?' Peter asks Mum.

‘Oh, it's just this Christmas show at the end of the week,' Mum replies. ‘The admin staff are trying to organise it all because most of the teachers seem to have forgotten about it. Honestly, you'd think they had cotton wool for brains.' She turns to me as I walk past with a cup of tea. ‘So, how's Philippa?'

‘Yeah, good.'

‘Yeah, good? Is that all you've got to say about her?'

There's a lot I could say about her, just not out loud.

‘Philippa is in very good physical health, although a little dispirited about a test on her mathematical abilities that is to take place on the morrow,' I expand. ‘Calculus. We've been studying most of the day.'

Mum grunts in satisfaction, but Claire turns her head sharply and stares at me. What did I say?

I wander down the passageway to my room. I put my cup of tea on the desk, strip off my wet sweater and am just pulling a dry, almost-clean one over my head when Claire storms in through the door. She stands at the top of the stairs, arms crossed.

‘What?'

‘I'm in Pippa Green's maths class,' she says. ‘We don't have a test tomorrow.'

Oh.

‘Are you sure?' I say. ‘You may have missed Mr Lancer saying that –'

‘That we had to do the questions on page eighty-three for homework, to be handed in on Monday?' she finishes, walking down the steps towards me.

‘You can have homework and a test, can't you?'

‘We're studying probability, not calculus.'

Oh, I give up. ‘Fine,' I say, falling into my desk chair, ‘we weren't studying maths. Congratulations, you've rumbled us. Breaking news: teenagers don't do their homework.'

‘So what were you doing all day?' she demands.

‘I don't know,' I say, desperately trying to think of what we could have been doing. ‘Having sex?'

Claire rolls her eyes. ‘If you want anyone to believe that, you shouldn't start off the sentence with “I don't know”,' she informs me.

‘What do you care what we were doing?' I say, grumpy at the thought that I'm not even having hypothetical sex.

‘Because I'm scared for you!' she bursts out. I look up from my desk and find her close to tears. ‘You've been acting like a completely different person. Jimmy, seriously, are you on drugs?'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, that's the third time you lot have asked me that.'

‘Well, what is it then?' she says, an edge of hysteria in her voice. ‘You hang out with freaks, you disappear for hours at a time, you have violent mood-swings when you do show up, and you almost burnt the house down.'

‘That was the Christmas lights.'

‘That's bollocks! I was there, James, I know what I saw. You got angry and the Christmas tree exploded. Now either you tell me what's going on or…' She backs away from the desk. ‘Or I go and tell Mum and Dad what happened.'

‘Claire, no!' I say, grabbing her arm. She shrieks and twists away from me, pulling me out of my chair. I trip over the leg of the chair and go crashing down on top of her.

‘GET OFF ME!' she screams, but I can't let her go. I can't let her tell them. She tries to roll me off her and we thump into the side of the desk. Then she looks past my head, and gasps. I look up. The steaming cup of tea sitting on the edge above us wobbles, teeters on the brink, and falls.

Claire screams and closes her eyes. I do what I've been doing with falling objects all afternoon, and catch it.

Claire opens her eyes and looks at the teacup hovering in mid-air. She looks at the steaming tea sloshing out of it, frozen in time. She looks at me, sprawled on top of her with both my hands still on her arms, and a guilty look on my face.

Then her eyes roll back in her head, and she's out.

She hasn't woken up yet.

Should I be worried? It's been six minutes so far and she hasn't woken up. What if she's fallen into a coma from the shock? What if she isn't getting enough oxygen to her brain and she goes crazy?

I suppose she might deal with all of this better if she does.

I grab my pillow and put it under her head. She's got a nasty bump coming up near her hairline. I suppose it happened when we fell over. Ice – she'll need ice.

‘Um, don't move,' I tell her lifeless figure and run out of the room and down the hallway.

I burst through the door into the living room, and then figure that it might be better not to draw attention to myself. My frantic racing turns into a casual wander halfway across the lounge room. I look across to Peter, who is the only one left watching the TV. Only now he's watching me instead.

He follows me with his eyes as I make my way into the kitchen and come back holding a pack of frozen peas – we don't have any ice.

‘What are you doing with those?' he asks.

I shrug, not looking at him. ‘I'm hungry,' I say.

‘For frozen peas?'

‘Mm-hmm,' I say, and leave the room quickly.

Claire's sitting up against the wall by the time I get back. I have a second of feeling relieved before she starts screaming.

‘Shh!' I hiss desperately, shutting the door behind me. I walk across the room towards her, but she yelps and shuffles sideways along the wall. I take a step back, hands raised, trying to show her she's safe. She doesn't look convinced. She keeps her eyes on me and continues inching away, looking angry and scared. She scowls at me, then winces and puts her hand to her head.

‘Yeah, you hit your head when you fell,' I say, holding out the peas. She doesn't stretch out her own hand to take them. I slowly inch forward, then kneel down and press the cold packet to her forehead. She flinches, but more, I think, at the touch of my hand than the pressure on her throbbing temple. She's still glaring at me.

‘Where's James?' she says harshly.

I look at her unhappily. ‘I'm James,' I whisper. ‘I'm still me.'

‘No,' she says, pushing my hand away and making the peas fall to the floor. The packet splits and peas scatter everywhere. ‘No, James can't do that. Nobody can do that!' Her voice rises to a shriek and her hands start to shake. I don't think my proximity to her is helping so I back off and sit on my mattress with my back against the wall. I don't try speaking again until Claire's breathing slows down.

‘I'm still James,' I say at last. ‘It's just that I can do… stuff.'

‘Prove it,' Claire says, a little of her usual bossiness coming back.

‘What, you want me to show you what I can do?'

‘No, I've seen enough of what you can do,' she says crossly. ‘Prove you're James.'

‘How?' I protest. This seems a little unreasonable. ‘Other than sitting here looking remarkably like myself.'

‘When's your birthday?'

‘May the twenty-second,' I say.

‘You could have got that off the school records.'

‘Hey, you're the one who's asking dumb questions.'

‘I've only asked one so far, and you answered it suspiciously.'

‘By answering it
correctly
? How is this game fair?'

‘This isn't a game!' Claire yells, standing up.

‘No, it's bloody not!' I shout, getting to my feet too. Then we both jump and look around as the door to the hallway opens with a creak. It's Peter, frowning down at us.

‘What on
earth
is going on?' he says.

‘James is being a complete freak!'

‘Well, Claire is being annoying!'

‘Well, you're both being very loud,' he says, coming down the stairs. ‘And unless you want the entire family processing in here to listen to you two debating the point, I'd keep it down.'

‘But he
hovered
things!'

Peter freezes. ‘What do you mean, he hovered things?'

‘Over there,' Claire says, pointing. ‘He knocked his teacup off the desk, and then froze the bloody thing before it hit the ground.'

Peter stares at her.

‘In mid-air,' she says. ‘For ages. Without touching it.'

Peter shakes his head like he's trying to wake himself up from a bad dream. ‘That's impossible,' he says. ‘You saw it wrong.'

‘I did not!' Claire says, stomping her foot. ‘All the crazy things that have been happening recently – it's James. He's the one causing it.'

‘No, he's not,' Peter says desperately. ‘He… he can't be.'

‘Peter, you know he is.'

He hesitates. Oh God. He did see what happened in the woods, and he's been trying ever since to convince himself that everything's normal. It's easier than accepting the truth.

‘No,' he says a moment later. Denial reigns. ‘Sometimes strange things happen, but there's always a rational explanation.'

Claire looks at us both mutinously, then walks over to my desk and picks up the framed photograph of our dad. ‘Explain this,' she says, raising it over her head.

‘Claire,' I say murderously, ‘put that down!'

‘If you say so,' she says, and hurls it at the hard stone floor.

I know it's only a photograph – it's not worth getting busted over – but my memories of my dad are overshadowed by that last moment together when he was yelling at me. In the photograph we're both laughing. In the photograph he loves me.

A shot of dark blue surrounds the frame before it hits the floor. I whip it towards me and catch it awkwardly.

‘Bloody hell!' Peter shouts out, jumping backwards and falling onto my bed.

‘You see!' Claire shouts.

‘Will you both keep it down,' I hiss, jumping up the steps and slamming the door shut. I turn at the top and glare down at them. They've both frozen. I don't think they like being enclosed like this.

I sigh, sit down at the top of the stairs and hold the photograph to my chest. I feel a bit relieved. I know Will said not to tell my family, but it had to come out at some point, and I'd rather it be to Peter and Claire than anyone else.

They'll get used to the idea, after a bit of hyperventilating. I did.

I do feel a bit shaky, though. That bit of magic wasn't exactly emotion-free and I can feel more power trying to spill out after it. I slow my breathing until I'm calmer, and look around the room for something neutral to release the excess energy on.

My eyes rest on the peas that spilled out of the packet when it fell, and are now slowly defrosting on the floor. I feel pretty impartial towards peas. I pick one quite close to the split in the packet, create a tiny pale-blue protection circle around it, and give it a nudge. It starts to roll clumsily into the packet. While it's still only halfway there I detach some of my concentration from it and start the next one rolling. Soon there's a small greeny-blue line of peas trundling across the floor into their plastic home.

Claire yelps. She's only just realised what I'm doing. Peter is lying across my mattress, head leaning on his hand, watching the procession. ‘That's ridiculous,' he says.

‘Yeah,' I agree. ‘Kind of cool, though, don't you think?'

He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. ‘Okay. What the hell is going on?'

I sigh. ‘Is everyone sitting comfortably for story time?' I ask.

I wake up the next morning bleary-eyed and exhausted. I roll out of bed, grab my towel and stumble out of my room to –

‘Dah!'

Peter's standing right outside my door, fully dressed and wide awake. He looks nervous, like he's attending a job interview.

‘Good morning,' he says. ‘So are you still… I mean, have you… How are you feeling this morning?'

I glare at him. ‘Like I didn't get enough sleep last night,' I say, walking past him and making for the bathroom. ‘You guys kept me up until two in the morning.'

‘I see. Interesting,' he gabbles. ‘And does that affect your ability to… I mean, are you still… So, how are you feeling this morning?'

I shut the door in his face.

Claire's a little more direct when she bursts in on me getting dressed later.

‘Still a freak?'

‘Claire, I don't have any trousers on.'

‘Are you a freak with no trousers on?'

‘It's not the kind of thing that's fixed with a good night's rest,' I say, hurriedly trying to finish getting dressed. ‘Which wouldn't have worked last night, anyway, as I didn't get one.'

‘And you think we did?' she huffs, and disappears down the hall.

At breakfast they both sit opposite me, watching my every move.

‘He still likes peanut butter on his toast,' Claire observes to Peter.

‘Yeah, but I think he put more sugar in his coffee than normal.' They look worriedly at each other.

‘What am I, a science experiment?' I snap. ‘Back it off.'

‘Irritable,' Claire notes. ‘Do you think it's a side effect of the you-know-what?'

‘It's a side effect of being irritated,' I mutter, taking my plate to the kitchen. ‘I'm walking to school.'

‘I'm ready,' Claire says, jumping up and grabbing her bag.

‘You know what, I think I'll walk with you,' Peter says. He puts his coat on, then they each grab one of my arms and march me out the door into the frosty morning.

‘Okay, what are you doing?' I ask as they flank me down the road. Garth is a little way ahead of us, walking along with one of his ghastly friends. They appear to be attacking invisible zombies with sticks. Peter and Claire slow me down so we're out of earshot.

‘We just want to talk to you,' Peter says.

‘Oh, goodie. Because we didn't do that for half the night.'

‘Well, it's had a chance to sink in now,' he says. ‘James, I'm not sure you should do this.'

‘What, save the world?' I ask. ‘I think there might be a teensy bit of fallout if I don't.'

‘But surely there are other people who can do it,' he says, trying to look me in the eye and walk straight at the same time. ‘Seriously, Jim, this sounds dangerous.'

‘It's not that bad.'

‘You said someone threw a knife at your head,' Claire says.

‘Well… yeah, okay, they did. But then we stabbed him to death and threw him in a furnace.'

They don't look reassured.

‘Listen, you're looking at this all wrong,' I say. ‘I know it's scary, thinking of all these bad guys coming after me with knives and magic and whatnot, but what you have to keep in mind is that I'm equipped to deal with this now.' I stop walking so I can face them. ‘You've got to stop thinking of me as your little brother, and start thinking of me as a superhero.'

They look at each other and burst out laughing.

I cross my arms and glare at them. ‘What's so bloody funny?'

‘Couldn't they find any fully-grown superheroes?' Peter asks, poking me in the ribs with his elbow. Then he catches sight of Garth threatening a monster disguised as a robin, and bursts out laughing again. ‘It must be genetic.'

‘He can be your sidekick,' Claire suggests. ‘We can knit you matching leotards to wear when you fight crime.'

She and Peter fall about giggling. I walk on in a dignified manner and pretend I don't know them. They have to run to catch up.

We reach the school gates, and Jem comes jogging up to us. He looks worried.

‘What's up?' I ask.

‘Nothing,' he says. ‘I'll tell you later.'

‘Oh,' I say, realising why he's being evasive, ‘it's okay, they know. I got busted last night.'

‘Oh, right. Does your whole family know now?'

‘Be serious. It's just these two.'

‘So, are you a superhero as well?' Peter asks politely.

‘Um, no, not really. I'm more of a sidekick.'

Images of knitted leotards must go floating through their minds, because they both break out in sniggers.

‘Just ignore them,' I say as Jem looks confused. ‘They're still a little shell-shocked. So what's wrong?'

‘Pippa's worried about Will,' Jem says. ‘He's gone missing.'

I frown. ‘What do you mean, missing?'

‘Just the usual kind of missing. You know, he's not around, nobody can find him, that sort of thing. He's a traditionalist.'

‘Funny. You're a funny boy.' I scan the schoolyard, and spy Pippa coming towards us with less than her usual grace.

‘Who's Will?' Claire asks.

‘The drug dealer with the car,' I say absently.

‘Oh.'

Pippa reaches us, looking worried. ‘Have you seen him?'

I shake my head. ‘Not since he stormed out last night. Have you tried Kit?'

She gives Claire and Peter a quick glance. ‘Yes, but her, ah, mobile was switched off.'

‘No, I meant asking her with your brain.'

She looks pointedly at Peter and Claire, and then back to me.

‘Oh, they know.' I turn to them. ‘Pippa's a big freak too,' I explain.

‘James!' Peter says.

‘Well, she is.'

‘We'll discuss the meaning of “secret identity” later,' Pippa says. ‘Kit doesn't know where he is either, which is why I'm so worried. She can usually sense him.'

‘A Guardian sensing a Hoarder?' I ask. ‘I didn't think you could do that.'

‘Kit and Will are different,' Pippa says. ‘The only way the Upper Guardians would accept his help was if she took responsibility for him, so he was bound to her. He can't sense her, but she can sense him. The only time she can't is when he's unconscious.'

Jem and I both look worried at this. ‘You think someone's grabbed him?' I ask.

‘Or killed him?'