Millions (10 page)

This was the bottom of the page. I said, ‘OK. I’ve read it. So what?’

Then Anthony scrolled down a bit further for me.

Anthony had been reading it over my shoulder. He was smiling. ‘You have to hand it to them,’ he said.

‘Hand what to them?’

‘Well, it was brilliant, wasn’t it? Six million. In unmarked notes. Completely undetectable. No one was even hurt. And the money was going to be burned anyway. So it wasn’t even a robbery at all in one way. It was more like recycling.’

At first I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then I said, ‘Shut up!’

‘What?’

‘What did you have to go and do that for? Why couldn’t you keep it to yourself ?’

‘Damian . . .’

‘I saw it. It fell out of the sky.’

‘You saw it fall off the back of a train.’

‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Why d’you have to tell me?’

‘Because you need to know. Because the people who did this, they’re dangerous. They dropped the money all over the country. So there must be dozens of them. If one of them was supposed to collect a bag and got there late, what would happen then? Someone else might have found it. Someone like you. D’you think they’d just say, oh dear, never mind? Or d’you think they’d go looking for it? They’d come looking for it, Damian, looking for you, and they could be anyone – a man with a glass eye, a woman with corn rows, some people with funny accents and unfeasibly white shirts. You’ve got to be careful. They’ll want their money back and they’ll want it quick. They’ve only got a few days left to change it.’

‘I thought it came from God.’

‘What?’

‘Who else would have that much cash?’

‘Well, maybe it did. After all, God does move in mysterious ways.’

‘He does not rob banks. God does not rob banks. All right?’

Whenever things get theological, Anthony stops listening. He just said, ‘Well, if he didn’t, who did? Just think about that.’

On Monday morning, during Numeracy Hour, Mr James came into our class, which he never normally does. He made us put down our pencils and look at him. He looked very serious.

‘Last week,’ Mr James said, ‘you may recall a lady came to the school on behalf of Change for Change. She’s here with me now and she’s got something she wants to ask you. I want you to listen politely and to answer her questions honestly.’

He opened the door and the smart lady came in. Mr James stood next to her while she was talking, staring at us one by one.

She said, ‘On Friday I asked you to give up your change and you responded generously. Very generously. But one person gave a big donation. A worryingly big donation, to be honest. And we just need to know where that donation came from, so that we know it’s . . . well . . . legal really. So if the person who made that donation could come forward, that would be great.’

I really was about to put my hand up and say, ‘It was me,’ when Tricia jumped out of her seat and said it was her.

Mr James looked at her. ‘How much did you put in, Tricia, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I put ten pounds in.’

‘Well,’ said the smart lady, ‘that was very kind, but . . .’

Mr James butted in. ‘Where did you get ten pounds, Tricia?’

She turned her head towards me just a little bit as she said, ‘I sold something, sir, and then when the lady told us about the water, I just wanted to do something. Sorry, sir . . .’

‘Don’t be silly. What you did was excellent. Really. Well done.’

She never mentioned that what she’d sold was a drawing of two horses with some mountains in the background
and no saddles
for 100 pounds.

‘But that’s not what we’re looking for.’ He looked around the class. ‘I think the best thing would be for whoever did this to come to my office some time – any time – today. As I said, we just need to know where it came from.’

And he left.

All through Numeracy Hour, I thought about what I was going to say. By the time the bell went for Small Play, I had it all worked out. I went straight to Mr James’s office, practising my speech. ‘We didn’t know it was stolen,’ I was going to say. ‘We want to give it to the poor. The government wants to burn it just because it’s old, which is wicked. OK, it’s a bit tatty, some of it, but nothing a bit of Sellotape wouldn’t fix, and the poor people of this world don’t care what money looks like . . .’ I wasn’t sure the bit about the Sellotape was entirely necessary. I was trying to decide when I realized that someone had got there before me. A surprising person. Our Anthony.

‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered.

‘I knew you’d tell them. I wasn’t going to let you do it on your own. I’ve got interests to protect here.’

Before I could argue back, Mr James opened the door, called us in and told us to sit down.

I’d never been in Mr James’s office before. You have to be really bad to go in there. There’s a clock on the wall with the numbers going round the wrong way. The hands go round the wrong way too. You’d think that if you looked at it long enough it’d give you the feeling that time could go backwards. It doesn’t work like that, though. It makes you feel like time is coming at you from all directions.

‘OK,’ said Mr James. ‘The Cunningham brothers, eh? What do you want to tell me?’

I said, ‘I put the . . .’

Anthony said, ‘We made the big donation. To Change for Change.’

‘I did,’ I said, ‘it was me actually.’

‘But it was both our money.’

‘I’m sure it was. It’s just . . . well, if you don’t mind me asking, where exactly did you get the money?’

I started, ‘Well, at first I thought it had just fallen from the . . .’

But before I got any further, Anthony said, ‘Stole it.’

Mr James stared.

Anthony said, ‘We stole it from some neighbours.’

Neighbours?

Mr James said, ‘Don’t say any more.’ Then he held his hand up to stop us talking and phoned Dad. ‘Mr Cunningham? I think you’d better come to the school if that’s possible. We have a situation.’

It took seventeen backwards minutes for Dad to get to the school. Mr James explained that he didn’t want to talk to us until Dad got there as that was the proper procedure. He did some phone calls and marked some books while we sat in silence. I wanted to shout at Anthony, but I didn’t dare.

When Dad came in, his hair was all sticking up at the front. Whenever he’s confused or worried, Dad pushes his fingers backwards through his hair and it stays sticking up. So he must have been doing a lot of that while he was driving over.

‘After what we’ve been through,’ said Dad, scowling at me, then at Anthony, then at me again, ‘after all that, you lied to me. Because that’s the worst part, not the thieving, the lying.’

Mr James coughed. ‘Actually the thieving is quite bad. The stealing that is. The stealing is quite bad. If you did steal it. Did you steal it?’

He looked at me. And I realized I could tell the truth now and it would all make sense and they’d take charge of the money and everything would be all right. I said, ‘No. We didn’t. Well, we . . .’

Anthony said, ‘We did steal it. We stole it from them people.’

‘What people?’

‘The people with the shirts, you know. In our road. The morons.’

‘Mormons!’ Dad went bright red. ‘You stole money from Mormons?’

I said, ‘No,’ and Anthony said, ‘Yes.’ Somehow Anthony was more convincing. He almost convinced me.

Dad pushed his fingers through his hair backwards and said nothing.

Mr James leaned forwards and gently invited Anthony to tell us why he had done it.

Anthony looked at the head and looked at my dad, then he gave an almighty sniff, said, ‘My mum’s dead,’ and started to cry.

The minute he did that, the grown-ups started to panic. It was like a fire had started. Dad hurried us out of the room, while Mr James kept saying, ‘Of course . . . of course . . . of course . . .’ Outside the room, he kept pushing us all the way outside, through the millennium garden and into the car park. Anthony carried on sniffing and crying all the way.

In the car park, the lady with the corn rows was just getting out of her car. When she saw me, she smiled. Then she stopped and called after Dad, ‘Don’t mind me asking, but are these by any chance the boys who . . .’

‘Stole money, yeah.’

‘Oh. It was stolen, then. I thought the school was just a bit, you know, prosperous. And generous. I was the one who noticed. I’m sorry if it’s caused trouble. I just thought . . .’

‘You did right. You did right. They stole it. What can you do?’

‘At least they gave it to a good cause. I wouldn’t have done that at their age. So, you must have done something right.’

‘Are you from the Social?’

‘Me? No! I’m just a visitor. I go round schools explaining about the new money and collecting for charity.’

Anthony gave another big sniff. Dad pushed us both into the back of the car and shut the doors. The minute the car door was shut, Anthony turned to me and smiled. He said, ‘Result. The old ones are the best ones, eh?’

I wasn’t listening. I was watching the lady with the corn rows performing a wonder while alive. She was talking to Dad and he was laughing. Not smiling or doing that polite thing with teeth and air, but actually laughing. And patting his hair down again. He was still smiling when he got back into the car. I leaned forward and asked him what she said.

‘She said the pair of you should be locked up.’

We went home over the bridge. I watched all its ribs flicking by through the sunroof. I said, ‘Dad, what’s a transporter bridge?’ He’d definitely mentioned a few bridges in his time – Sydney Harbour, Humber, of Sighs and so on – and I thought it might take him out of himself to talk about some now.

He said, ‘Just shut up, for Christ’s sake.’

Which is what St Roch did, so I did it too.

When we got back home, Anthony was worried to hear that the police were returning the money to the Mormons and that we were supposed to go round and apologize to them. Since we hadn’t actually stolen the money from the Mormons, this might be a moment of mortal danger and mortification. I mentioned this to Anthony, but it would be unenlightening to write down his reply.

The community policeman came with us to the Latter-day Saints’ house and gave them back their money, saying, ‘These boys wish to offer their apologies and to return the 3,000 pounds they stole from you.’

The Saints looked at each other.

‘You have missed 3,000 pounds?’

The Saints bit their lips.

They should have said no and one of them looked like he was going to, when Dad said, ‘It’s all right. They’ve admitted everything.’

‘Oh. Well, yes, then and thank you,’ said Eli.

‘Only you didn’t report it,’ said the policeman.

‘Yes. You know,’ said Eli, ‘the things of this world and so forth, I think.’

I saw Anthony’s eyebrows go up.

‘I’d be interested,’ said the copper, ‘to hear how you came to have so much cash in the house.’

‘It was a donation. An anonymous donation.’

‘You weren’t suspicious about the source of that donation, then?’

‘No. Why should we be? We pray a great deal. We thought it was the answer to our prayers.’

‘Interesting. It’s just that it’s been mentioned that you spent 7,000 pounds in cash in Comet a few days back.’ He took out a wad of receipts and started to read from them. ‘Plasma-screen home cinema, dishwasher, microwave, foot spa . . . Were you praying for these things specifically?’

‘We were praying for comfort and encouragement. I think we felt comforted and encouraged.’

‘By the dishwasher?’

‘And the foot spa.’

So somehow the Saints ended up confirming Anthony’s story. Liars don’t have a patron saint but they seem to be very good at working together.

On the way home, lots of zebra finches flew right past my nose. The right word for lots of finches is a charm. A charm of zebra finches. Dad had a whole phase on collective terms once. Geese on the ground, for instance, are a gaggle but in the air are a sword, and it’s a roister of ravens.

I tried to explain to Anthony the miraculous nature of our escape from earthly tumults in this instance.

He had a different theory. ‘It’s them. Think about it. We go in there and give them a pile of money and say we nicked it from them. They know we didn’t really but they take the money just the same. So that is dodgy. They are dodgy. That’s the first point. Second, they’ve got a house right by the railway line, just where the money was going to be dropped. Is that a coincidence? Or is it something else?’