Fighting in the films is like choreographed dancing; real fighting, it’s all over the place. My chest heaving as we punch and kick each other, I somehow manage to get on top in one last attempt to get him to listen to me, when Parker grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet.
“Care to explain yourselves?”
Breathless, the tension rips me even further apart as I wait to see if Spencer’s going to tell.
“Well?” Parker demands, hauling Spencer to his feet with his other hand so we’re both dangling like puppets in his grasp.
Spencer wipes his bloody nose with the back of his hand. He’s going to blab. One look at his twisted face was all I needed to know I was doomed.
“Jarvis was the one…”
I brace myself for it. I have no defence. I’ve been set up good and proper, and then everything gets completely out of control when I see Chrissie leaving the staffroom.
“It’s all my fault,” she tells Parker and the two prefects who’ve come downstairs for a closer look. “I’ve been really upset, and Robert, I mean Spencer, was being really nice…”
For a terrifying moment, I think Chrissie’s going to take the fall for me, just like that time I was run over pushing her out of the way of that jeep. She’d die for me too.
“Rich gets really jealous when I spend time with other guys…”
What? What’s she saying all this rubbish for? I never get jealous, and since when has she ever had a boyfriend?
“He must have seen Spencer holding my hand and got the wrong idea,” she goes on, sniffing back a couple of tears. “So you see, Mr Parker, it’s all my fault.”
“Is she the reason you two were fighting?” Parker asks us.
Spencer’s not going to go for it. He may have been running around after Chrissie all day, but he isn’t going to risk being mixed up with Parker’s stolen mobile. Luckily for me, I’m saved a second time from an unlikely source.
“What’s going on?” Wilson demands, glaring at my torn shirt.
“Just trying to establish here why Jarvis and Spencer are trying to kill each other.”
“Well, this is a night for drama.” Wilson exclaims, stepping round us to go into the staffroom. “Theft, fighting, whatever…” He breaks off as he bends down to get his newspaper and sees Parker’s mobile for the first time. “Is this what you were looking for, Mr Parker?”
Releasing me and Spencer, Parker steps inside and stares in astonishment at his missing mobile.
“Must have had one celebration whisky too many,” Wilson says with a condescending smirk. “I’ll go and tell the Head it was a false alarm.”
I exchange glances with Spencer and know with certainty — I can feel the cold sweat running down my back — that this isn’t over for me, not by a long way.
Chapter 17
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Spencer in front of Parker’s desk, my insides turn into a complex array of knots. I’d have rather been caught with his stupid mobile and been put on the next plane back to Mumbai, but now there’s nothing I can do. If I tell the truth, Chrissie’s going to get into a whole load of trouble for helping me, and in this crazy place, that could mean anything.
“Which one of you was it?” Parker demands, his face as purple as our school ties.
To my surprise, Spencer’s still keeping quiet.
“I know I didn’t leave it in the staffroom,” he hisses, so pumped up with anger the veins on his neck look like ropes. “Which means one of you two brats put it there.”
Not sure what to do, I keep my hands behind my back and my mouth shut as the guilt slowly throttles me.
“Very well,” Parker mutters after the silence becomes too painful for all of us. “Loss of privileges for the next ten days.”
I freeze as I wait for Spencer to say something; there’s no way he’ll get punished for me, but once again he keeps his mouth shut and just stares straight ahead.
“Do you have something to say, Jarvis?” Baxter barks.
I shake my head.
“Good,” he growls. “Now get the hell out of my office!”
As I lead the way out of Parker’s office, Spencer grabs my arm.
“Bathroom,” he whispers in my ear. “Twenty minutes, and if you say anything about this, you’re dead!”
I’m still shaking inside and out when I get back to the dorm. I’m not mad at Spencer, even though he’s cut my lip and my right eye’s turning black.
“Are you all right, Jarvis?” Hermit asks as I sit on my bed, staring at the faded blue carpet.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He’s being nice, but I don’t need nice. I need to find out who set me up.
“What were you fighting about?”
“None of your business!” I get up, unable to keep still; any moment now things are going to get really nasty for me.
“But—”
“Stay out of it, Hermit.” By picking on him, it somehow makes me feel better, and then I realise who it is, who stitched me up!
It’s the only explanation. I was getting on with everyone like I always do. Loads of kids signed up for Quasi, and when I scored the winning try, even a group of sixth formers came over to tell me what a great bloke I was. There was only one person who’d be better off with me demoted to enemy number one — the guy who’s sharing my dorm.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I shove him hard so he falls back on his bed. “It was you, you little shit!”
Shaking like the coward he is, he scrambles away from me. “Jarvis, what’s this about?”
“Don’t play dumb,” I snarl, drawing back my fist with every intention of smashing his scrawny little face in. “You tried to stitch me up so you wouldn’t get your own puny arse kicked all term!”
He shakes his head, now looking terrified and confused. Either he’s putting on an Oscar-worthy performance, or he really doesn’t have anything to do with it. I decide he’s a good actor.
“You!” I say, giving him another shove. “You, Hermit—” Like in every good film, I am going to have it spell it all out, how he hatched a plan to bring an end to his bullying by setting me up as a thief, but before I can launch into my speech, I’m joined by Baxter and Finny.
My stomach tenses as Baxter crosses his huge arms. Looks like Spencer’s been blabbing, and getting ready to fight my way out, I square up to Baxter because he’s the biggest.
“Way to go, Jarvis,” Baxter says, and I realise he isn’t glaring at me; he’s glaring at Hermit. “About time you put the little squirt in his place.”
As my mind scrambles around to figure out what’s going on, Finny smacks Hermit around the head.
“Get his glasses!” Baxter tells him.
Finny grabs them, and while he goofs around, doing a good impression of Hermit, the real Hermit legs it — pathetic.
Still sniggering, Finny removes Hermit’s glasses and chucks them on his bed. “So, what’s the deal with you and Spencer?”
I gulp and wait to see if they’re going to turn on me. “Don’t you know?”
They both shake their heads.
“Spencer won’t say,” Baxter explains. “He’s being as mysterious as you.”
I don’t know whether to feel relieved or even more stressed, but the way my stomach’s turned into a tornado, I think I’m stressed, and feeling like I’m performing to a full house having forgotten all my lines, I go off to meet Spencer and find him alone at the bank of white washbasins, brushing his teeth.
It’s like one of those old cowboy films where the two gunmen face off to each other at high noon, only we’re in a cold, sterile bathroom, armed with towels and a wash bag, but it’s no less tense.
Cool as anything, Spencer continues to brush his teeth, with cotton wool plugging up his left nostril. His only other visible injury is a graze on his forehead.
“Thanks for not saying anything.”
Still blanking me, he spits into the bowl before wiping his mouth clean on his white hand towel.
“Someone planted
it in my bag.” I don’t know why I keep trying to tell him when he’s in no mood to listen, but things like this don’t happen to me. I’m popular. I’m everyone’s best friend, and I don’t know how to be anything else.
“If you don’t want me telling everyone you’re a thief,” he warns me, sounding as menacing as Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction, “you’ll stay away from me and my friends, you won’t come in the common room, and you’ll only go to the village when I’ve got a polo match.”
The one single thing that stops me from telling Spencer where he could stick his polo mallet is that if I were him, I’d be doing the same.
“The only reason I’m keeping quiet is because of your sister,” he explains. “She’s got no idea of the trouble she’d be in saving your neck, and I don’t want to see her going through hell because her brother’s scum.”
I don’t know why but I feel like thanking him, and if I had taken the stupid mobile, I would have. But I’m innocent. “I told you, I didn’t take it — I was framed!”
“And who would want to do that?” he asks with hate-filled sarcasm.
Even though I’m convinced Hermit’s done it, I can’t say his name, but I must have a guardian angel watching my back, because Hermit chooses that exact second to come and clean up after taking another pasting.
We lock eyes, and I glare at him, then without warning, Spencer throws me up against the wall and presses his forearm across my neck.
“Get lost, Hermit!” Spencer tells him, never taking his eyes off me.
Hermit does what he’s told, leaving me spluttering for air as Spencer uses his full weight to crush my neck.
“You really are lowlife scum, Jarvis!”
I swallow as I realise Spencer thinks I’m being a snitch, when all I was doing was… well, I don’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t mean to grass Hermit up… “Spencer, it’s not what you think.”
Now morphing into Jack Nicholson in The Shining when he was possessed and trying to break into that hotel bedroom to murder his wife and son, Spencer presses even harder.
“I didn’t mean… I was thinking…” I babble as I gasp for air. I can’t help it; this is getting completely out of control.
“It wasn’t Hermit,” he hisses as I continue to splutter. “And do you know how I know it wasn’t him?”
I shake my head as much as the pressure on my throat will allow.
“Because Hermit’s just got out of sickbay,” he tells me, almost spitting the words in my face. “He had an asthma attack this afternoon after I pretended to drop his violin out the window.”
Suddenly I hate myself more than I hate the real thief, as I realise I’ve just made poor Hermit’s life even worse when he was only trying to be nice.
“I might not be able to tell the masters what really happened,” he explains, speaking each word as a threat. “But by the time I finish with you, you’ll be wishing I had!”
Succeeding in pushing him off, I pull myself tall to show him he’s not got to me, even though I’m crapping myself.
“You broke The Code,” he says, stabbing me in the chest with his finger. “And now I’m going to break you!”
Chapter 18
Stretched out on my bed, staring at the ceiling, I press the backlight on my watch to discover it’s only midnight. Every hour passes with the pain of ten Latin lessons. I’m almost looking forward to getting up at 4:45 a.m., before I remember tomorrow’s Sunday and we don’t have rugby practice.
Turning my back on Hermit because I can’t look at him without feeling sick, my thoughts continue to race. I’m not used to things like this happening to me. I get on with everyone. Always have. That’s not to say I haven’t had fights — what guy hasn’t? But we’re talking scraps, nothing serious. Certainly nothing like this.
I check my watch again, eyes throbbing in time with the second hand. Ten past midnight. Shit. I rub my face and try to think who could possibly have it in for me, and what, if anything, I can say to Spencer to get him to back off. One thing’s for sure… I’m not going to let him kick me about like he does Hermit. I’m going to sort this out. But who would set me up? I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, and so far the only people I’ve pissed off have been the teachers, which made me even more popular, unless… unless it was an accident, and the person just hid Parker’s mobile in my bag when they panicked.
That makes sense. It was an accident. The only difference is whoever did it isn’t going to confess. I’m going to have to turn detective. So who could it be?
It had to be someone in the Main Hall, someone who was near me, because I put my camera bag in the cardboard box where Jones keeps his chess board and all his other games.
It wasn’t Jones, and it wasn’t Baxter or Finny — they never left the hall all night. Don’t think it was Spencer either, unless he tried to stitch me up to take the heat off himself. No, forget that — I’m just mad at him because he didn’t believe me, just like Fiona was mad because I wouldn’t give her a bigger part…
That’s it — Fiona did it! She had the motive, and she had the opportunity. I saw her leave the hall loads of times, and with something to go on, I finally fall asleep, only to find myself trapped in this nightmare where Spencer’s put posters up all round the school telling everyone it was me.
Chapter 19
Unsure what I’m going to be walking into, I put on my headphones to make out I’m listening to music even though they’re not plugged into anything. When I enter the communal bathroom, everyone is checking out my black eye.
“Bet Parker’s well embarrassed,” Jones says as I brush my teeth. “No wonder he gave you and Spencer such a hard time.”
Ignoring Spencer as he shoots death rays from his eyes on his way to the shower, I go back to brushing my teeth.
“Did you really start a fight with him to warn him off your sister?” Jones asks me for the twentieth time that morning.
I grunt a “nothing” reply to keep Chrissie out of it.
“I told you before,” Jones tells me, refusing to let it drop. “Spencer wouldn’t mess her around.”
I don’t correct him.
“So was Parker really drunk?” he asks, not noticing I don’t want to talk.
I shrug. “Wilson winding him up didn’t help.”
“Bet it didn’t; they hate each other…” And as Jones goes on to tell me all about some argument they had years ago, I go back to planning how I’m going to prove to Spencer I’m not the thief.
I go down to breakfast on my own. More stares and whispers as the girls check out the results of Spencer’s fist. I try not to let it get to me, but it’s not easy when you’re hiding a secret the size of the next Star Wars plot, and grabbing a bowl of cornflakes, I sit at the empty table near the girls so I can spy on Fiona.
She smiles when she sees me. I smile back and proceed to use my Empire magazine as camouflage so I can sneak quick peeks at her. She doesn’t look like she feels guilty or disappointed I’m not excommunicated — then again, she does keep trying to tell me what a good actress she is.
“What you doing on your own?” Finny asks, sitting next to me with a huge tray of eggs, bacon, and toast.
“Just felt like it,” I tell him, hoping he’ll go away; I can’t afford to piss Spencer off anymore until I’m in the clear.
“God, you don’t like her, do you?” he asks, making a huge sandwich of two fried eggs and bacon. “She’s a right high-maintenance diva.”
“She is?” I ask casually as he bites into the gross sandwich he’s concocted, cemented with a lake of ketchup.
“I thought you had a girlfriend.”
“I do,” I say, chewing on a mouthful of soggy cornflakes. “I just want to know a bit more about Fiona.”
“Nothing much to tell,” Finny says after downing a pint of milk. “I went out with her last year until I realised what a bitch she is.”
I sit up. “What happened?”
“I got her the wrong handbag for her birthday,” he
explains, rolling his eyes. “She wanted Bulgari, but I couldn’t get it, so I got her this Hermes one instead, and after she shouted at me in front of my mates and called me a self-obsessed rugby moron, I dumped her.”
I knew it. It was her, but after getting it so wrong with Hermit, I’ve got to make doubly sure. “So is she going to give me grief until I give her a bigger part in Quasi?”
Finny nods. “Just give her the part she wants unless you want a permanent headache.”
“And what if I don’t?” I ask, pushing him for more info. “Wouldn’t she do anything else?”
He stares at me blankly. “Like what?”
Now my heart’s on high alert for a completely different reason; even a rugby-obsessed moron like Finny will be able to figure out why Spencer and I were fighting if he thinks this is about Parker’s mobile.
“I think someone tampered with my camera,” I explain, keeping my voice low. “Deleted a load of footage I took—”
“Well, it wasn’t me!”
“I didn’t—” I stop, not sure what to say; I’d completely forgotten about Finny borrowing my camera, but before I get chance to apologise, put things right, Spencer saunters over. Judging by the way he’s shooting another round of laser fire from his eyes, I realise he thinks I’m accusing Finny. Great, my timing sucks big time.
“All right, Spencer?” Finny asks, continuing to devour his gross full English breakfast sandwich. “Want to join us?”
Spencer’s top lip curls into a classic gangster sneer. “Not with him.”
“Give it a rest, Spencer…” Finny breaks off when it’s clear Spencer isn’t interested in making up.
“Stay out of it!” Spencer warns him just as Jones comes running over to see what’s going on. “And, Jarvis, remember what I said, unless you want things getting even more unpleasant?”
Perhaps it’s because I’m not used to being threatened, but I can’t think of any smart comeback.
“Spencer” — Jones sighs — “whatever this is—”
“What did I just say?” Spencer looks just like my dad if you dare to disagree with him, and just like Finny, Jones backs down.
“Sorry, Spencer,” he apologises under this immense pressure of silent rage. “But there’s stuff…”
“Not interested!” Spencer snarls, not caring that everyone’s stopped eating to see if there’s going to be another fight. “Finny, a word.”