The Spin (13 page)

When Ralf appeared, Stormy couldn't help asking him about the accident. ‘Is it true Hector's spitfyre killed Ollie?'

Ralf went bright red, then deathly white. He nodded.

‘Ollie hadn't got a chance.' He swallowed and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Ollie was a good guy, Stormy. He was a good friend. A really good friend.'

‘Hector must have tried to stop his spitfyre, though.'

‘D'you think so?' Ralf said. ‘Didn't look like he tried that hard to me. Mind you, those Star Squad spitfyres have minds of their own.'

‘Will you help me, Ralf?'

‘Do what?'

‘Anything. Anything to find out what's wrong here, because something is wrong. Help me stop Al drinking. Improve the conditions for the spitfyres?'

Ralf shrugged. ‘Stormy, it's not possible. Don't try. Don't end up having an “
accident
”.
Don't. It's not worth it.'

‘It is worth it! The spitfyres are worth it.' Stormy surprised himself by shouting. ‘I can't do nothing. I'm going to . . . At least let's all use their names, and give them the right food.'

He ransacked the drawers in the servery until he found some old card labels. PLATES. CUPS. PANS. They must have been stuck on the cupboards when the servery had a bit of order. He turned them over and wrote on the back of them in large, clear letters: Sparkit, Snapdragon, Westerlie, Daygo, Bluey, Lacewing, Polaris, Kopernicus, Cloudfree, Spikelet, Smokey and Kyte.

Ralf shook his head. ‘Al won't like it,' he warned him. ‘He doesn't like things smart and sorted and all neat. He likes it all undone.'

‘What about the Director? He'll appreciate it.'

Ralf shuddered. ‘I have an idea it's not
names
that the Director doesn't like.'

‘Al spends so much time in his room he probably won't even notice the cards,' Stormy said. ‘But I think if we use the names all the time, the spitfyres will be easier to control. And maybe you could stop giving them that stuff in the little bottle. The yellow powder.'

‘Huh,' Ralf grunted.

‘And I'm going to ask Al about his spitfyre again. He can't just neglect it. It's cruel.'

‘Hark at you ruling the spitfyre stables now!' Ralf made a rude face and shook his head. ‘Al won't like any of it – and here he comes! Take care, Stormy! Seriously.'

Al weaved in, glugging from a tall dark bottle labelled
Super-Strong
Robber's Rum
. So it was rum, not sherry, but then all alcohol smelled the same to Stormy.

‘Wass goin' on?' Al's voice was slurred. His wooden leg crashed hard against the table and he fell onto a chair.

‘He's just making some nice labels for the dear little spitfyres,' Ralf said in a sickly childish voice. ‘I'm off. I don't want any part of it.' He went out and Stormy heard him playing his mouth organ outside.

‘Stormy?' Al looked surprised. ‘Stormy, Ralf says you're making labels.
Labels?
Wha's labels?' He swivelled round and tried to make eye contact, but his eyes lost their focus. He blinked. ‘Stor . . .?'

‘Yes. I'm –'

‘Labels. Writing things down. Matching things up . . . Don't! Don't do it.' Al tipped up the bottle and drank. ‘You put this thing with that thing and you make something bigger. Worse. Stormy. I like you. You're my friend. Stop with the labels.'

‘I am your friend. I'm helping, that's all – since you're not doing anything,' he added. ‘And things aren't right here.'

‘I can't do anything. I can't. How can I? I'm sick of life. Sick of everything.'

‘I went into stable thirteen,' Stormy told him. And when Al looked blank he repeated, ‘Cave
thirteen
, Al – where
your
spitfyre is.'

Al choked on his drink and shot upright, coughing.

‘I don't have a spifft, flying spiff, spitfyre!'

‘OK, but you used to,' Stormy said. He took a big breath. ‘I've been visiting her. I had to!' he added quickly when Al lurched towards him angrily. ‘It's on my list of duties,' he added.

Al sank back into his seat with a groan. ‘
Duties
,' he muttered. ‘Who cares about them?'

‘And it clearly says that I have to go in and change the water and take in the food to every single spitfyre. So I must. If I didn't I wouldn't be doing my job properly, would I? Might get sacked,' he added with a forced brightness.

Al groaned again.

‘Please, Al, tell me what happened. Maybe I'll be able to help, or understand if you explained. You were about to tell me, before, about the circus –'

‘Don't know anything about a circus.'

‘Cosmo's Circus,' Stormy pushed on. ‘You were going to tell me about the Spin.'

‘
Spin?
' Al looked bewildered. ‘Did I tell you all that? Did I? I don't like talking about it.' He lifted his bad leg up to rest on the chair and rubbed his knee. ‘It makes me ache, deep into my marrow. Why did I tell you?'

‘Because you know I love spitfyres like you do – like you
did
. Go on, tell me about the Spin, tell me.'

Al drank from his bottle again and rubbed his big hands over his face. He sighed.

‘The Spin. That was what did it for me. Cosmo had seen the stunt done in some far-off foreign land, somewhere hot and junglish, I s'pect, and was impressed. Most impressed. He didn't care that it was done with a different type of spitfyre, a foreign spitfyre; he wanted it in
his
circus . . . He kept on and on at me to try it. He knew it would bring in the punters. He knew he'd make money on it.'

‘What is it, exactly?' Stormy asked, a tingle of excitement rippling up his back.

‘What's the Spin?' Al swayed, and for a moment Stormy thought he was going to keel over. His hand was shaking. His eyes had a faraway look. ‘Spitfyres are moody. Delicate. Dangerous. They obey because we own them and then we name them. They can't ignore their name, Stormy; a name has a special hold on them. You speak it and they obey. It's just one of those weird things, so weird really, weird as weird as weird . . .'

‘Don't fall asleep,' said Stormy. ‘Come on! So what happened?'

Al hit himself on the forehead with the flat of his palm. ‘They got out of control,' he snapped and quickly took another drink. He sat up straight, suddenly lucid.

‘Picture this,' he went on. ‘A great round tent with a pointed roof, but today the roof is wide open and I can see the stars through it, silvery sparks in the dark, dark sky . . . Cosmo has sent the littles out into town with pamphlets so everyone knows I'm going to try the big number, the
Spin
. The tent is full, they're jammed in like sardines: there isn't an empty seat to be had. Everywhere you look there is a sea of excited faces, and they're laughing and clapping and yatter-yatter-yattering.
He's going to do the Spin. He's going to do the Spin.
There is a metal cage inside the ring; it's got thick bars but it's open at the top because the spitfyres are flying tonight.

‘The littles let the three best spitfyres into the ring where I'm waiting for them, waiting in my finest clothes, all spruce and bulging muscles, glistening skin. But although I look the part, I've had a drink, Stormy; maybe more than one . . . maybe more than two or three or four . . . and when I look at those three magnificent spitfyres I see six of them, and they're all swaying and lurching, their teeth ready to bite, hooves ready to strike.

‘I pull myself together. I can do this. There's Cosmo watching me. I wave. It's all right, Cosmo! No worries, boss!

‘I start the programme. Gently at first, I tell myself, it's supposed to be gentle at first, but I can't be gentle. I can't. I lunge out at Donata with my thork and a whip. Poor creature, she doesn't understand and she snorts and bounces, trying to work out what I want. You can see, any idiot can see that I'm doing it wrong. She gets more and more upset. I
want
her to be upset. I want her to look fierce so the audience will think I'm brave. They'll admire me if I'm brave. They'll love me! Then I go at Firefly and get him shaking, spitting and smoking, trying to scorch me, and thank God he's eaten non-combustible stuff or I'd be charcoal right now. I've got all three up on the pedestals with such a lot of flapping and tail swishing. I've done it thousands of times before with much less fuss and bother, only tonight I
want
the fuss and bother. It suits me.

‘Cosmo is looking worried. Good. Good.

‘I get out my whip and smack the ground. They hate it. They flinch and wince. But they jump. They bounce off their pedestals and onto the sides of the cage. You should hear their clattering hooves on the metal! What a racket! This is it, this is the first part of the Spin, and I can hear the audience clapping and
oohing
and
ahhing
. Such fools! Fools.

‘I crack the whip again and again. The spitfyres don't want to run but I'm calling their names and asking it of them, again and again, and they begin to move faster. They start to strike off the sides of the cage now, leaping from one spot to another, so fast they are just a blur. They are moving as one, like a snake – all their colours meld together so it looks, yes, like a giant serpent is in here with me. And I think now, now! I shout at them. SPIN! They tuck their wings in close to their sides and go spiralling, spiralling upwards, spinning like weird magical tops towards the sky. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing . . . I can hear the audience screaming and clapping but as if they are far away, as if I'm in a dream. I've performed the impossible Spin but it's all a cheat, I'm just a cheat, and then –'

Al stopped. His eyes had become horribly glass-like, staring, cold and sad. He took a long swig from the bottle and set it down gently.

‘And then Firefly spins not upwards as he should, but
out
. He corkscrews over the top of the cage and into the audience.

‘Firefly is a big spitfyre. He's strong. Magnificent. He's roaring and smoking. The crowd scatter. They scream. Donata's out too. The Spin is too much for her, she's dizzy, can't walk, she knocks into people, tramples them. She is crazy with fear; it's not her fault. She gallops out through the door. Firefly follows. Mayhem. Madness. Screams. And they fly away. They leave me, my dear, dear spitfyres. Up and away and vanish.

‘The cage door is open now and Cosmo is coming inside to me . . . and so is . . . this other person, oh, this other person so dear to my heart, so much in my thoughts . . . I talk to the last spitfyre – she's my best spitfyre, my most talented, most beautiful, most trusting – I try and calm her . . . I don't know what I say, but she turns on them, she is so upset and she rears up and with one swipe of those polished, diamond-sharp hooves, she strikes this person to the floor. Dead.' He swiped his own arm across the table, knocking off his bottle with a crash. ‘Dead! Dead. Terrible!

‘Mayra. It is my Mayra who is lying there all broken and with her eyes shut as if asleep. She looks asleep. And then the spitfyre turns on me, she turns on her master.' Al smiled wryly. ‘She was crazy with fear and loathing and . . . Listen.' He leaned over and tapped his lower leg; it sounded like an old dry log. ‘One bite and she takes it right off,' he said. ‘
Snap!
'

Al slowly toppled over onto the table. ‘That spitfyre was number thirteen,' he wept. ‘Thirteen. I wish she'd killed me.'

Stormy walked out onto the terrace. There was no sign of Ralf. He breathed in the fresh cold air and tried to unclench his fists and unlock his tight jaw. Poor Al. Poor Mayra – his wife? Sister? And poor thirteen.

He glanced up at the white and black mountain peaks carved sharply against the clear blue. It was so beautiful. Bluey was making elegant figures of eight in the sky. He watched enviously, wishing it was he on the back of the spitfyre but knowing that was impossible. Still, how beautiful, how glorious, something to aspire to.

He looked along the terrace towards cave thirteen. Why hadn't Al destroyed the poor thing, or sold it, sent it away? Anything rather than commit it to a long drawn-out prison sentence like this. It was horrid. The two of them were locked in some terrible stand-off and it would end up killing them both.

He glanced down at the new name labels in his hands. Of course Al and Ralf knew the spitfyres' names. They chose not to use them – that way the spitfyres remained just ‘animals' to them. But if he didn't do something soon number thirteen would be dead and the Star Squad would be out of control.

What if the Director knew what Sparkit had done to Ollie? Would he investigate the yellow powder then? He knew that Ralf was giving it to the spitfyres, but why? Could it be in revenge for what happened to Ollie? What if he told the Director about thirteen? About how very sick it was? He couldn't. He couldn't go straight to the Director, he just didn't dare, and ever since he'd overheard the talk about the New World he was making, Stormy had found the Director more daunting. Maud couldn't help, didn't think he should interfere . . . What about . . . He pictured Araminta and how pleasant she had been the last time at the medal ceremony. She was flouncy, difficult, but – he smiled at the idea – she'd be impressed that he was trying to help; it would prove he was a capable lad. Prove he had potential. Yes, he would go and tell Araminta. The idea made his heart start thudding horribly loud and hard, but he had to do it.

He went that afternoon.

Maud opened the door. Stormy tripped backwards down the steps. He wasn't prepared to see her, and hadn't thought about anything other than how he would phrase what he had to say to Araminta, and now here was Maud. Instinctively he knew that she wouldn't want him to do this.

‘Hello again!' she said. ‘The littles ate the popapple tart all in one sitting! Aren't they funny?' Then she saw his expression. ‘What is it? Why have you come?'