6
Kings, they felt like. Lem had seen films and documentaries in which those in the higher echelons of the Mafioso lived a charmed life. Untouchable by enemy or law, they existed in a protective bubble of fantasy, treating all as servants, condemning or promoting at will, and simply just epitomising the term happy-go-lucky.
Lem and Joey were the new people’s favourites in town. Along the streets that they walked, people offered them money, chocolate; they waved from windows in happiness or crossed to the other side of the street in respect. They never again knew a wait at traffic lights, or a queue for service in a shop. They were treated like films stars, although there were occasions when events unfolded that were quite puzzling.
“You don’t deserve this any more than my son,” said one man as he rose past on his bicycle.
“Don’t you condemn my little girl!” shrieked a woman shoving a shopping trolley towards her car.
“The devil will have your souls for lunch,” they were told by a man whose breath stank of vodka, as he staggered home one afternoon from the pub.
On the way to school one day, Lem and Joey decided to pop into a shop for hot sandwiches. As usual, the proprietor ushered them to the front of the queue; and as usual, nobody objected.
Almost.
One kid, weedy and insignificant, decided that he thought this behaviour unfair. And said so.
A groan went up, followed quickly by a chant of “Fight, fight!” But no fight broke out. Joey turned, fixing the boy with a sneer. He tried to hide away at the back of the queue, but those he attempted to use for camouflage shoved him out into the open. He shivered like a rabbit caught in headlights.
Joey simply jabbed a finger at him. “You are weak and puny, and not worth the effort.”
A mass groan went up: the kids would not see violence today. Pretty soon, the queue was moving again. Lem and Joey exited the shop with mouths full while the little kid, Liam, awaited his turn. He did not know that his order of chips and a ham salad roll would compose his last ever meal.
7
Joey was overcome with guilt, but he knew what to do about it.
It had been three days since the confrontation in the shop, and during those days Joey had seen neither hide nor hair of the kid he’d accosted in the queue. The boy’s mother had phoned in sick for him. That had been the morning after the strange night two days ago when Joey’s parents hadn’t allowed him out. In fact, none of the kids on his street had been allowed out. And at school the next day he’d learned not just about the sick kid but about some new gas leak. It seemed to be a constant now: the underground gas pipes leaking, forcing the parents to keep their offspring locked indoors. And always the next day nobody talked about it, as if to do so was somehow wrong. But that didn’t explain why those kids were never seen again…
So that was how Joey found himself detouring off his usual route home from school. He barely knew where he was headed. He simply followed his feet, yet was not surprised when they delivered him to a gate that said “Gabriel Residence.” This was it: the home of Liam Gabriel.
It was a large iron gate in a high hedge, and it had an intercom. Joey rang the bell.
A woman’s voice crackled over the speaker.
“I’m Joey, from Liam’s school,” he answered. There was no reply.
He rang the bell again, but nothing. He was about to turn and go when he heard a new sound: a door being unlocked.
A thin cobbled path decapitated a circular lawn with bright garden furniture. At the far end of the path sat a set of stone steps at whose top stood the house, and at the open doorway was a woman. She was petite but had a strong face, yet her eyes brimmed with tears.
Before he could speak, she said, “You have done enough damage, bully. Go now.”
Her voice had an ominous finality to it. Joey didn’t linger.
8
LEM: So, Moderator Joey, why have you called this tree meeting?
JOEY: Don’t mess around, Lem. I’m not happy with all this.
LEM: All what? Being popular? Being liked by girls? That’s not it, is it? You don’t like…?
JOEY: Course I like girls, I’m not gay. It’s all this new stuff, all this popularity. It’s all for the wrong reasons, this -
LEM: You’d prefer to be running from pathetic bullies again? Hiding up trees?
JOEY: We’re still running from bullies. It’s just that we have the Headmaster looking out for us. And oh look, we’re hiding up a tree!
LEM: So what do you want? To go back to how it was?
JOEY: I don’t know. I just know I don’t like all this Moderator stuff. We’re bullies. We do to people what some people once did to us. We’re as bad as them.
LEM: Don’t be cheesy. This is a job. We’re just school police. We’re respected.
JOEY: No we aren’t. We’re feared. We bully the weak kids because the Headmaster doesn’t like them. Like Liam Gabriel who we reported to the Gorgon. He hasn’t been to school in days. His family’s moving. I saw the state his mum was in, tears and stuff. She wouldn’t let me apologise, but she wasn’t angry with me, either. I went back a little later and watched his bedroom window, but the light didn’t come on at bedtime. I don’t think he was there. I think he’s run off.
LEM: Well there you go. Weak. The school doesn’t need people like him. The school is making future world shapers, and there’s no room for frailty.
JOEY: What? Frailty? What? That’s Headmaster talk. He’s poisoned you. You’re as mad as him. Look, I want out, and that’s that.
LEM: Out? Don’t be daft. The Headmaster’s waiting to see us. We’re already late. Stop this nonsense and let’s go.
JOEY: You don’t listen. I’m out, Lem. If he asks, tell him I found a new hobby that doesn’t destroy families.
LEM: (laughs) What are you doing? Come on, Joey, stop. Hey. Joey, he won’t like this. (shouts) Joey! Then you’re weak too!
9
“Lemme guess: you just discovered Santa Claus isn’t real?”
“He isn’t? Darn it. And I just asked for your death for Christmas.”
“You two,” Mum said. “Stop this bickering or we won’t go into the city.”
As usual, Joey had been in the door no more than a few moments when his big sister laid into him, this time for his dour expression. She was at that age when girls realise that their sexuality lends them a special power over boys, and it had gone to her head. She wore skirts and shirts that their parents disapproved of and had started staying out late. Over the last few weeks as her final months of school ebbed away, she had been staying in more often to compose an army of job application letters. But her social life hadn’t suffered for it, and the phone company totally loved creatures like teenaged girls.
Joey stood just inside the back door, facing the activity in the kitchen with the dour face his sister had commented upon. Dad was shaving over the kitchen sink again, but Mum seemed to
be letting it go this time. It was, after all, Friday night, the one night of the week they spent as a family.
“He’s not even ready,” Sis said. “He forgot again. He always forgets. Let’s go without him next time.”
Joey noted the paper scattered on the kitchen table. Sis was taking a break from important gossip calls to friends in order to ring round a few job vacancies.
“You could be a prostitute if you didn’t already give it away free.”
Over Sis’s objections and Mum’s admonition, Dad’s laughter cut through the air. As Joey stormed through the kitchen, headed for the stairs, the last thing he heard was Mum and Dad arguing.
It was forty minutes later that he heard a bang on his floor. Sis rapping the kitchen ceiling with the broom again. Who needed the Internet, English or sign language when a good broomstick was at hand? He traipsed down the stairs.
They were waiting in the kitchen, ready.
“Coat,” Sis said, and tossed it him.
It was getting dark out, and cold. Joey pulled his coat tight around him as he waited by Sis’s side for dad to unlock the car. The moon was bright and round, like a hole in the sky. Joey loved going to the city; he enjoyed