Ostrich Boys (6 page)

Sim put the lid back on. “We’re doing it because of everything they
didn’t
say at the funeral yesterday—everything that everybody else forgot.”

“Or didn’t even know in the first place,” I added. I noticed the old woman with cobweb hair was watching us over the top of her magazine. I turned my back on her, wrapped Ross up in my jumper and pushed him down to the bottom of my rucksack again.

At the top of his voice, Sim said, “Some people are just really dead nosy, aren’t they?”

When I turned round again the old woman looked like she’d been sucking lemons, but her eyes were back fixed on her magazine. Now that we were moving, I wanted to talk to Kenny and Sim about what Ross’s dad had asked me. I could still feel the fuse he’d lit fizzing away inside my head.

“That thing about the police…,” I whispered, leaning across the table. “About why they wanted to see Ross’s dad? You’re not gonna believe what’s been said. The driver reckons Ross did it on purpose.”

Kenny was confused. “Did what on purpose?”

“The accident.”

But he still didn’t get it. “How? How d’you get knocked off your bike on purpose? That’s why it’s called an accident, isn’t it?”

Sim was getting angry. “The driver said it?”

“Yeah. And Ross’s dad was asking me if Ross was all right, if he had any
problems.”
I was surprised how hurtful I found it. It felt like an attack on us, his friends.

“Yeah, Ross had problems,” Sim said. “A dad who’s a moron, for one thing. Why’s he want to believe Ross killed himself?”

“I don’t think he believed it,” I said. “But it definitely felt like he was checking up.”

“He shouldn’t have had to. It’s obvious the driver’s just trying to get himself out of trouble. What a shitbone!”

“D’you think he should have been there yesterday?” Kenny asked. “The driver, I mean. My mum told me he sent a wreath. But how do you say sorry for, you know … for what he did?”

“I’m glad he wasn’t there,” Sim said. “So it was an accident and everything, okay, but he’s still the one that knocked Ross off his bike and killed him. No way should he have been allowed anywhere near. And especially if he was gonna spread bullshit too. I’ve thought about it, right. And I bet Ross was coming round that corner fast and just reckoned he could beat him. How many times have you dodged in front of cars on your bike?”

“Millions,” Kenny said.

“Every day on the way to school,” I said.

Sim nodded. “Exactly. Everybody does it. Ross was just unlucky.”

We sat there in silence contemplating our own luck compared to that of our friend. But it’s always uncomfortable thinking that luck can be the fine line between life and death. We bounced along with the train, not looking at each other. We thought about Ross’s mangled bike. TV had filled us full of images of solitary wheels spinning, crowds gathering, broken bodies bleeding—we didn’t need too much imagination to put Ross’s face in amongst it all.

I’d never admitted to the others that I’d cried when I’d found out about his death, but no way did I think for one second that I was the only one who had. Still, I doubted we’d ever talk about it. We claimed we were the closest friends in the whole world, yet there were certain things we couldn’t share—there was always a front to keep up. We’d stand shoulder to shoulder, no hesitation, fighting against the rest of the world. But the crying would always be done in private.

We stopped at Grimsby Town station. I hoped old Mrs. Cobweb Head opposite would get off but she didn’t move. A handful of people got on—nobody we recognized. As the train pulled away again the conductor appeared.

We acted innocent; probably looked guilty as hell. I realized he couldn’t know what we were doing, it was impossible for him to know. I told myself to stop being paranoid. But it didn’t stop the prickling nerves.

He towered over us in his uniform, feet planted firmly but the rest of him swaying with the movement of the train.
He was sweating in the summer heat and had his sleeves rolled up, displaying half a blue tattoo on his forearm. He checked Sim’s ticket first; punched it. “Quite a journey you’ve got there,” he said. “You all going?”

We nodded but didn’t speak.

He took Kenny’s ticket. “That’s your return,” he said, and Kenny had to ferret around in his rucksack for his outgoing stub while Sim and I rolled our eyes at each other. “You know all your connections?”

We nodded again.

But: “Change at Doncaster,” he told us anyway. And checking his watch, he added, “You might need to run when we get there if you want to make the next train.” He wasn’t apologizing for this train being late, I noticed. Taking my ticket, he asked, “Holiday, is it?”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “We’re visiting a friend.”

He handed me my ticket again. “Heck of a long way to go.” He turned his back on us, leaned his arse against our table as he checked the old lady’s ticket too. And from over his shoulder we heard him mutter, “Must be a bloody good friend, that’s all I can say.”

Sim glared at the back of the conductor’s head as the man walked through to the next carriage. “What’s it got to do with him? We’ve paid for our tickets. What’s he care where we go?”

“
I
paid for the tickets,” Kenny said.

Sim rolled his eyes. “I said I’d pay you back, didn’t I?”

Kenny didn’t answer.

“I said I’d pay you back, okay? I always pay you back, don’t I?”

Kenny shrugged.

Sim forced a casual laugh. “Come on, then, when? When haven’t I paid you back?”

Kenny seemed reluctant; he looked at me. I held up my hands—staying out of it. I made a point of never getting involved in any of Kenny and Sim’s little
tiffs
. Lovers’ tiffs, Ross called them. We used to bet on the outcome. Sim usually won, but I reckoned he was on shaky ground today.

“When?” he said. “Name a time. Any time.”

“That time we went swimming,” Kenny said.

“Swimming?”

“Yeah, with Sally Shaw and her brother.”

“That was two years ago!”

“Okay: I bought you a pizza last week. I’ve bought you loads of pizzas. You’ve never paid me back for them.”

“That’s rubbish. You were buying them for yourself, and just let me share.”

“I don’t buy large pizzas just for me, do I?”

Sim looked as though he knew he was cornered. But then he grinned, clicking his tongue the way he did whenever he was feeling pleased with himself. “Yet.”

Kenny was confused. “What?”

“Yet. I haven’t paid you back
yet
. I promised I’d pay you back, but you never set a time limit, did you? And you can’t call me a liar unless I
never
pay you back. You can’t call me a liar unless I die tomorrow and you still haven’t got your money back.”

Kenny wasn’t happy. “But—”

“It’s true. Tell him, Blake.”

I had to admit I admired the way Sim had wriggled his way out of that one.

Kenny pointed a finger at him. “Yeah, well, I’m telling you, okay? I’m going to kick your arse.”

Sim leaned back in his seat, put his sunglasses on and spread his hands. “See what I’m doing? I’m waiting.”

“I just haven’t done it
yet,”
Kenny said. “But I will. Just not
yet.”

Sim only grinned wider. He and I passed several enjoyable minutes winding Kenny up.

Thing was, Kenny had also paid for my ticket—no way would we be able to do any of this if he hadn’t agreed to put up the cash for all three of us. We knew we were going to have to stay overnight somewhere, and we’d need to eat too, and Sim and I were relying on Kenny to help us out.

To be fair, he was loaded. He was an only child. Mr. and Mrs. England had divorced when he was eight or nine and his rich businessman dad had moved to Canada, meaning Kenny hardly got to see him anymore. He once told me he’d seen his dad a total of five times since the divorce. And Kenny wasn’t as daft as he looked: he reckoned the only reason his dad forced money on him was out of guilt. And what was he meant to do? Refuse it?

Not so long ago I’d asked him if he missed his dad.

“Sometimes,” he’d told me. “But whenever I do get to see him, he’s never as nice as I thought he was when I was little.”

Sim’s mum and dad are still together, but in Sim’s eyes might as well not be. His dad’s a security guard, night shifts mostly, while his mum’s on the checkouts at Tesco—one on the way out the door as the other’s coming home. Since his older brother moved out his mum and dad even have their own bedrooms so they won’t disturb each other. Sim finds it easy enough to dodge in between them. If he plans his
days well he can go for maybe as long as a week without seeing either one of them, only communicating by notes stuck to the fridge. His brother’s a bouncer at some club over in Hull, but he doesn’t seem interested in having anything to do with anyone south of the Humber anymore and Sim never talks about him. Sim just suits himself a lot.

I’m part of a mixed-up web of a stepfamily. When my mum and dad split they’d made an agreement to stay close for my sake. Which means occasional but pretend happy Christmases, or forced smiley picnics with Dad and Kim and her two kids, and Mum, Pete and me with my new baby brother Harry. I get on with Kim better than Mum sometimes—which upsets Mum, obviously. And I have to get on with Pete because I live with him, but it can get kind of strained. I’m sure there’s been plenty of times he’s wanted to clout me for being a clever little git, yet he manages to hold himself back somehow.

It always seems like strategy and tactics with my parents anyway. Pretending to still get on, pretending to like each other’s new family. Then Mum and Dad playing me off against each other.

They’d both come to Ross’s funeral: Dad had brought Kim, but Mum was alone. And believe it or not, this had caused an argument. Because I’d said I’d like Kim to be there, but I’d not told Mum she could bring Pete. It was only because Kim had met Ross a couple of times and had
offered
to come. I didn’t mean it as a slight against Pete that I
hadn’t handwritten an invitation asking him to come and have fun at the funeral. I’d always thought avoiding funerals was most people’s main aim in life. But when I’d told Mum this she’d warned me that I tried to be far too clever for my own good sometimes, and one day I’d find myself knocked down a peg or two.

“Like Ross?” I’d asked (but not out loud).

Maybe I wouldn’t dare tell my parents, but Kenny, Sim and Ross had always felt like my real family anyway. I’d chosen them as friends because I liked them, and they liked me. Nobody had allowed me to choose my family. They’d just been dumped on me.

We felt the train slow as it pulled into a station and craned our necks to see where we were. Sim spotted the sign first. “Scunthorpe already. Get your map out, Blake.”

I dragged my rucksack from underneath my seat and rummaged for the map of Britain I’d sneaked out of Pete’s car this morning. I waited until any passengers getting on or off had squeezed by down the aisle and then spread it out in front of me. It appeared to be only the size of an exercise book but unfolded noisily, endlessly, becoming as big as a duvet.

“You’ll have to move your bag, Kenny,” I said. He’d left it on the table after digging through it for his ticket. He had to stand on his seat to push it onto the rack above his head, which drew an evil look from the web-headed old woman across from us. We ignored her and struggled to huddle over the massive map.

“You should have just got one of Scotland,” Sim said.

“It was all Pete had. And I had to sneak this out without him knowing.” I leaned across it, trying to find the place again, wishing I’d marked it with a big cross. “There,” I said, just as the train pulled away from the station, stabbing my finger at the southwest coast of Scotland. “That’s where we’re going.”

Sim and Kenny both peered. I had to remove my finger because it completely covered the dot that was the place called Ross.

“That’s it?” Sim asked. “That’s
Ross?”

I nodded. “Yep. That’s it.”

“What’s there?” Kenny wanted to know.

“About three houses, going by the size of it,” I said.

“Looks like there might be a beach,” Sim added, sounding far too hopeful to me.

“Are you sure that’s Scotland?” Kenny said. “I thought Scotland started up there somewhere. Look, there’s Edinburgh there.”

“The border’s just above Carlisle on the west coast,” I told him. “And this bit that sticks out toward Ireland? This is all Dumfries and Galloway—definitely Scotland.”

“It’s not as far as I thought, then,” Sim said. “I was thinking we’d be going all up around here somewhere.” He was pointing north of Loch Ness.

“It’s something like two hundred and sixty miles from Cleethorpes. But that’s why I said we can be home
tomorrow. Day there, day back. If we hadn’t messed up stealing Ross—”

“If
you
hadn’t messed up stealing Ross,” Kenny said.

“—then nobody would have even noticed we’d gone.”

“So if we’ve just left Scunny now …?” Sim was tracing our route on the map. “We’ve got to change at Doncaster; then where?”

“Doncaster to Newcastle, Newcastle to Carlisle, Carlisle to Dumfries. But then we have to get a bus. I looked it up on the Internet, and we can get a bus fairly close, but we might have to walk some of it.”

“Because it’s in the middle of nowhere,” Kenny said.

“Pretty much,” I agreed. “But that’s where Ross always said he wanted to go.”

Kenny pulled the map closer to him. “When he first told me about it, I just thought he was making it up.”

“It looks real enough on here.” I noticed his eyes were down at the bottom of the map, around Plymouth somewhere.

“It’s up here, Kenny.” I pointed again. “Scotland.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just looking to see if there’s a place called Kenny. I might want to go there too one day.”

Sim and I exchanged a look. “What’s your surname?” Sim asked.

Kenny was running his finger along the Cornish coast. “England. You know it is.”

We stayed quiet—let it sink in. It took almost a full minute.

Then he started laughing. “England! Right … I don’t need to go there, do I? I
live
there.” He thought it was the funniest thing ever. In fact, he laughed most of the way to Doncaster.