Nobody Saw No One (12 page)

But with Mad Baz on the warpath, the sensible option would be to Take My Leave by the nearest exit; aka leg it for all my life was worth.

Somehow, though, my feet weren’t fitting into Citizen Digit’s shoes. My toes defied all great expectations, like they were in shock. I was in shock from the toes upwards. As I zombie-walked back to the Tenderness House accommodation block, Barry was still in the driveway, literally beating about the bush. It gave me time. I sneaked straight past the night-keeper, who was half asleep on duty. He missed me in front of his very eyes, because – on the outside at least – I was smooth, sure and silent. Inside, my heart was bashing madly against my ribs, like a rat in a trap.

At Alfi’s doorway, I momentarily lost the ability to pick the lock. I started pushing against the door while it was still locked. Byron sweat was dripping down my forehead.

I
forced
my senses to come back and, a half a mo later, the door creaked open. Over on the bed, I could see Alfi sleeping soundly, like a baby. I was jealous. I didn’t think I could ever sleep again. My eyes kept repeating, over and over, what the iPod had recorded.

No way I was going to be able to take Alfi with me now. Once I showed him the evidence, he’d freak big time. And the two of us would never be able to sneak away without Barry spotting us, even when Alfi
wasn’t
freaking out. Alfi carried a big flag around with him that said, “Hey, here I am! I’m Alfi Spar!”

I had to think triple quick. Soon as the Jimmys copped hold of me, they’d take the iPod and obliterize it. Then they’d obliterize me. Barry would grapple my ass to the ground and grind my brains into gravel.

But the evidence was going to do Alfi more good than me. When he saw it, he’d finally get the danger he was in. Blabber-Boy could use it better than me. I didn’t want it. It was sick. I was getting out of there. The Squealer could pass the film on to the Sherlocks, sell it to the
Daily Mirror
, whatevs. Once I’d delivered it, it weren’t my busyness no more. I’d done my bit. Thanks kindly and goodbye to bad rubbish.

I tossed the iPod across the room, onto the foot of his bed. He sighed in his sleep. I wished I was where he was. I wanted to lie down on the floor next to the bed, clutching my arms round myself. I couldn’t stop shivering.

Citizen Digit doesn’t shiver. He doesn’t tremble. This wasn’t in the plan. I could still hear the violin music wailing away, see the scene on the sofa, the WhyPette with the cigarette, and through the smoke, her shivering just like me.

I was going to get caught. I was going to get hurt. They would put a stop to me.

Mooooove!

I scribbled a note telling Alfi to brace himself and take a look at the iPod’s video function, screwed it into a ball and tossed it onto the bed next to the iPod. I shut the door gently behind me. I invisibilized myself all the way back to Norman Newton’s car. OK, slight Citizen Fib – I
panicked
and ran as fast as I could to Call-Me’s car. There was no sign of Barry. He must have been searching around the other side of the grounds. I picked the lock with shamefully shaky fingers, slid behind the wheel, hot-wired it and slammed my foot down on the accelerator.

The car jerked forward and smashed straight into the security fence. It stalled.

The smash made the in-built ashtray pop open, stale stubs scattering over the passenger seat, so the car smelled like Norman Newton had his tobacco-breath face right against you. The glove compartment fell open too, a grubby pair of boy’s boxers dropping onto the seat.

I looked up, and in the wing mirror there was Barry’s face, snarling at me.

I turned round and saw him charging towards me.

I hot-wired it again, reversed a bit, and slammed the car forwards again. The seatbelt cut against my chest.

The fence held.

Barry’s baseball bat smashed against the driver’s seat window and glass shattered all over me. Cold evening air rushed in at me like rage. I rammed the fence again. There was a crack and a crash, and the bonnet of the car rose up like I was going to be tipped out, as the wheels revved over the collapsing fence. Then a jolt as the tyres smashed back down on the ground on the other side. Another crash, as Barry’s bat smashed uselessly against the car boot.

He yelled my name.
Byron.
He saw my face.

But I was gone, pedal to the metal in Call-Me’s car, screeching and beeping across the fields behind Tenderness; smackeroo through the farmer’s fence at the back of it, scattering sheep; across a few more fields and tracks and then
zoomerang
– straight down the fast lane of the M1.

It should have been an absconding act of the highest style – but I felt as smashed up as the car. As I drove down the motorway, all I could see was that girl, the cigarette smoke curling around her, like Norman Newton’s greedy yellow fingers.

I hit London in the early hours. I drove to a gloomy industrial estate, burned the car out, grotty boxers and all, and Citizen Digit’s been under the radar ever since.

The End. Happy Ever After. Goodbye.

I’d never been as happy as when I went to bed that night. For the first time ever, I had some kind of idea who I was. I know it were only a name, Katariina, but up ’til then, I’d had nowt. It gave us some hope. Maybe I could find out about me mam after all. She must have had family, somewhere or other. I probably had grandparents, an’t I? Uncles and aunties, maybe. If I could find out more, if I could track any of ’em down, I could find meself a home. A family.

It were a grand feeling, going to sleep wi’ that rolling round in me head.

In the morning, o’ course, it were all different. Summat had happened. Lessons were cancelled and Barry and t’other Carers were going round in a right strop. Turned out someone had nicked the Governor’s car and actually smashed down the fence that keeps us in. Someone: Byron. He’d really gone and done it, then; done his Citizen Digit trick, and broken out of Tenderness.

After breakfast we were all sent back to our rooms and locked in. It were then that I saw his note, on the floor by the end o’ me bed. And me iPod in the folds o’ me bedding. So I watched it, din’t I?

I’d heard about videos like this, o’ course, on t’internet, but I wan’t prepared for seeing it.

I paced the room, desperate for fresh air. But o’ course the windows didn’t open. I were trapped. And I had to watch the film again,
’
cos I cudn’t believe it were as bad as it was. But the second time it were worse, and I started shaking wi’ it.

Byron were right.

But now we were locked in. He’d exploded the whole thing, done a runner to London, and left me to face the consequences. I should o’ gone with him when I had the chance.

Outside the room, it all sounded horribly quiet. It were like the whole of Tenderness had shut down. No one came. No one shouted. The whole morning ticked by, minute by minute, endless.

I needed someone to come and open the door, let us out. But I knew that when they came, they might just as easy drag me over to the Governor’s den, and do all that stuff to us like they done to the other WhyPees on the video.

Dinnertime came and went. Normally, I hate missing me dinner, but this were the first time for as long as I could remember that I cudn’t stomach any grub anyway.

Half the afternoon went by, and I began to wonder whether they were ever going to let us out again. I were thinking maybe the police had turned up and arrested Call-Me and Barry. Maybe Digit had gone straight to Social Services and told ’em everything that were going on. Maybe the police ’ud turn up any minute and unlock me door and tell us we could all go home; that Tenderness were shut down.

Except none of us could go home, could we? We ha’nt got no homes to go to. And Digit wun’t o’ gone to Social Services anyways; he hates them. There’s no way he’d have gone to the authorities at all. He’d o’ gone straight off down to London, looking for that lass whose picture he printed.

So eventually, when Barry came and unlocked the door, and me and the other WhyPees were all called into the dining hall for an important announcement from Call-Me hisself, I knew it were up to me.

I had to say summat, din’t I? If I din’t, no one else would.

We were all crowded together in the dining room, full o’ whisper and rumour about the Jimmys and Byron, but no one were saying it out loud,
’
cos no one wanted to really admit how bad it were. Everyone were just sort o’ muttering stuff to their mates, and you cudn’t hear owt proper.

Barry kept throwing us thundering looks, and he even threatened one or two o’ the lads, like he cudn’t wait to give ’em a good smacking.

Then Call-Me Norman came into the room and went and stood at the front, so’s we all had a good view of him. I could tell he were gathering hisself together to make a speech.

A hush fell across the room.

“You’re all here,” he said, “because you broke the rules. Many of you broke the law. Some of you are a danger to yourselves, or to society. That is why you are here.”

That were a joke. Me head kept replaying the film. The only dangerous ones were Norman Newton and his pals.

“One of you—” he paused, for effect. “One of you has, over the last night, proved – yet again – what a dangerous, destructive and downright criminal bunch you can be.”

Character assassination, in’t it? I could see why Byron wanted to create a new persona when the ones we had at the moment were supposed to be so rotten.

I had to say sommat, din’t I? But I wondered how it might be, if it were just my word against the Jimmys. For a moment I thought that might be OK –
’
cos it’d be
me
who were telling the truth. But Call-Me’s speech reminded us what happened wi’ the Barrowcloughs, how nobody had believed us then, and I were telling the truth then, wan’t I?

“Some of you have been in cahoots with this individual. This is not acceptable.”

All of us knew, all of us in the room. None of us were in cahoots wi’ anyone. It were
them
– the adults – who were up to no good. The whole room were full of our muttering. They cudn’t ignore us all. So I stood up, meself.

I pointed at Call-Me. Straight at his head. And I yelled out, “Everybody knows.”

Then Barry punches us in the belly. All the wind goes out o’ us, and I’m hearing a big intake o’ breath from all t’others, still sitting round, but saying nowt. I’m bent down, holding me belly, trying to get me breath back, and Barry gets us in a headlock and marches us out o’ the room.

Once we’re out, he punches us in the head. I fall over. Then he kicks us in me belly. I’m all winded and seeing stars, curling up wi’ it all, and Barry kicks us again. It hurts too much for me to even yell out. Then he’s kicking me arms, which are trying to protect me belly.

“Not his face!” I hear the Governor yelling. “Don’t kick his face!”

Then I’m getting carried through, back into the main Unit, and I’m thrown down into a room, in the dark. I lie there sobbing and hurting, feeling sorry for meself. Through me pain, I’m feeling round, and I can’t find owt to lie down on, so I curl meself up on the floor and have a right old cry. Ages go by and I can’t hear no sounds ’cept me own sobbing, and no one comes at all, and in the end I cry meself to sleep, right there on the floor.

When I wake up I’m aching everywhere, and someone’s switched a light on. I’m in a sort of cell wi’ nowt in it but a fixed bench made o’ wooden slats. Only one of the slats has been taken out, so you can’t really sit on it. And there’s no window. It’s lit by a bare bulb, switched on from outside. That’s it. This must be the Relaxation Room.

After a while, Barry comes in. He takes me arms and makes me bend ’em and straighten ’em, and he feels all round me belly and looks at me head. Then he says, “Nothing broken.”

Some time later he brings in some soup. But he don’t say owt.

I don’t know how many days I’m in there, but I keep count o’ the number of meals Barry brings us, and I’m still in there after he’s brought in
fifteen
meals.

So I’ve been in there for a week. And I have to poo in a bucket, which Barry empties when he brings in the food. It’s disgusting. Stinks out the cell.

I suppose Call-Me Norman and Barry thought it were funny, calling this place the Relaxation Room. But it in’t funny at all.

It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.

You can’t do this to people. It’s torture.

They won’t get away with it.

I don’t have owt to read, but that’s all right,
’
cos I’m planning me revenge. I’ve got to play this right, make sure it ends proper, with Call-Me and Barry getting properly punished. Me brain just keeps wondering about what they’re going to do to us, and about what happened to Byron, whether or not he managed to get to London. Maybe he did go to the police. Any time now, I’ll be freed and Norman Newton and Barry and t’others ’ull be sent to prison. I’ll be allowed to go back to the Barrowcloughs, to make up for all this horribleness.

I wish.

More likely, Byron got caught and he were locked up as well. Or if he did manage to escape, would he have even looked back? Would he have even given a second thought about what might happen to me or t’other YPs? He just chucked the evidence on the end o’ me bed and left us to it.

’
Cos it is, in’t it? Up to me. Byron gave me the iPod
’
cos he knows I’ll speak up, that I’ll make sure the authorities find out about what the Jimmys are up to.

The door opens and the pong of stale cigarette smoke wafts in. This time it’s Call-Me Norman. “Hello Alfi,” he says. “How are you doing?”

How’s he think I’m doing?

I had nowt to say to that, which seemed to tickle him
’
cos he gave a smile and reached into his jacket pocket and brought out his packet of Bourbon Creams. “Biscuit?”