“I was having a dig at Tyler.”
“Tyler Bayor?” she asks.
“Yeah. Nancy stuck her nose in and told me I was being racist.”
“Were you?”
“No.” I scowl. “I mean, yeah, in a way I was, but nothing bad. I said something about his kind not being civilized.”
“That was stupid,” Mrs. Reed murmurs.
I bristle but don’t retort. Because she’s right—it was stupid.
“Anyway,” I mutter, “Nancy squared up to me. I told her to butt out. She didn’t. Then she slapped me.”
“She struck first?” Mrs. Reed asks.
“Yeah. Everyone saw her.”
“And you hit back?”
“No. I let her slap me a few times. I tried to make a joke out of it. But then she cut me and I lost it.”
“I see. Is there anything else you wish to add?”
I think about stopping there, but Mrs. Reed is looking at me archly, like she still doesn’t think I’m capable of telling the truth. “I made some gorilla noises,” I sigh, my blush deepening.
Mrs. Reed hums, picks up my file again and glances through it.
“I know your father,” she says out of the blue.
“My dad?” I frown.
“Yes,” she says. “We share concerns about our nation’s disintegrating morals and have attended many of the same meetings over the years.”
I blink, confusion turning into outright bewilderment. Dad has never talked about Mrs. Reed. I can’t imagine where they could have run into each other, except at parent-teacher evenings.
“Your father is an upstanding member of the community,” Mrs. Reed continues, and I have to choke back a scornful laugh. “He works tirelessly for the things he believes in. Always there to lend his support when it is needed, giving selflessly of his time and energy. We need people like him. People like you. People who want to make Britain great again, who are prepared to fly in the face of public apathy and political correctness.”
She pauses to make sure I’m on her wavelength. And I am. Mrs. Reed must share Dad’s low opinion of foreigners. I wouldn’t have thought someone in her position could be as small-minded and bigoted as my old man, but thinking back to the meetings he’s made me attend, there were all sorts present. I guess racists come from every walk of life.
“This is not where we fight our battles,” Mrs. Reed says as I gape at her. “You achieve nothing by stirring up trouble like this. You merely hand ammunition to those who wish to undermine our cause. When you get into difficulties of this nature, it reflects poorly on your father, and by extension on the rest of us.”
“I wasn’t fighting any battles,” I wheeze. “I was just having a go at Tyler and then Nancy got in my way and…”
Mrs. Reed smiles gently. “I know it can be frustrating when people like Nancy interfere. Like your father, I am critical of this government’s immigration policies. They have let in too many people of Nancy’s caliber, and afforded them far too prominent a voice. But we must fight sensibly for a sensible Britain. When you are older, you can vote and campaign and express your concerns politically. The tide is turning. Public opinion is swinging our way, and will continue to do so, but only if people can trust us, if we behave calmly and responsibly. We must rise above insults and petty fights. We’re better than that.
“You can return to class now,” Mrs. Reed says. “I’ll have a talk with Miss Price. Since she slapped you first, I’m sure I’ll be able to convince her to let the matter drop. But, to be safe, tomorrow I want you to take her to one side and apologize.”
“But–” I start to object.
“It’s that or a suspension,” Mrs. Reed snaps.
I fall silent. I wasn’t going to argue about the apology. I was going to say that this isn’t fair. I thought she was going to chew me a new arsehole. I didn’t expect her to sympathize with me. I wasn’t fighting for a cause. I’m not like my dad. I don’t give a stuff about any of that crap. I expected her to bawl me out, suspend me, maybe expel me. Instead she’s commending me. For making gorilla noises to a black girl.
It’s wrong. I lost my head and did something I shouldn’t have. That was bad, but this is worse. It’s disturbing to think that a woman in Mrs. Reed’s position would praise me for losing my temper and saying such a thing.
But how dumb would I need to be to criticize my principal for being a racist? She’s giving me a get-out-of-jail-free card. I’d have to be a moron or a martyr to turn that down. And I’m neither.
“All right,” I mutter and get up and go.
I don’t look at Nancy as I pass. I can’t meet her eyes. She probably thinks it’s because I’m upset at having been punished. But it’s not. It’s because I’m ashamed that Mrs. Reed thinks I’m a racist. And because I’m worried that she might be right.
ELEVEN
On my way home, I choose to tell Dad about what happened with Tyler, Nancy and Mrs. Reed, figuring it’s better that he hear about it from me rather than someone else.
To my surprise, Dad is already there when I arrive. He must have clocked off early. He’s in the kitchen, talking with someone. No sign of Mum.
Dad often has people over to the flat. As Mrs. Reed noted, he’s heavily involved with local movements to stem the tide of immigration and keep Britain white. He does a lot of canvassing for politicians, works hard behind the scenes, helps stir things up.
I’ve always tried to stay out of that area of his life, but it’s getting harder. Now that I’m older, he’s started taking me to meetings. I’ve been to a few rallies with him too, and once he took me to a house packed with Muslims. I stood outside while he went in and had a long conversation with them. Well, it was more of a screaming match. I could hear them from outside, the Muslims shrieking, Dad shouting even louder. I felt small and afraid, no idea what was going on or what would happen next, standing in the middle of the street like a lemon, wondering what I should do if Dad never reappeared.
But he did emerge in the end, and I saw a Muslim guy glowering behind him. Dad pointed to me and said, “That’s who I fight for—my kid, my wife, my friends. Anything ever happens to any of them, I’ll come back here and burn the lot of you down to the ground.”
Then Dad hugged me hard. I glared at the Muslim and shot him the finger. Dad laughed, clapped my back, took me for dinner and bought me the biggest hamburger I’d ever seen. I felt bad about it afterwards but at the time I was on cloud nine.
Part of me knows I should stop acting, that I’m on thin ice, growing less sure of where the actor ends and the real me begins. When I grunted at Nancy, that wasn’t part of an act. That came from the soul.
I should tell Dad I don’t share his views, that I’m not warped inside like he is, start standing up to him. But how can you say such a thing to your father? He loves me, I know he does, despite the beatings when he’s angry. It would break his heart if I told him what I really thought of him.
Dad doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s discussing the state of affairs with his friends and associates, so even though I’m hungry, I slide on by the kitchen, planning to head straight to my room. But Dad must hear me because he calls out, “B? Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“Come here a minute.”
He sounds more subdued than usual. That tips me off to the fact that there might be somebody important with him. Dad’s loud and bullish most of the time, but quiet and submissive around people he respects.
I head into the kitchen, expecting someone in a suit with a politically perfect smile. But I stagger to a halt halfway through the door and stare uncertainly. The guy with Dad is like nobody I’ve ever seen before.
The man is standing by the table, sipping from a cup of coffee. He sets it down when he spots me and arches an eyebrow, amused by my reaction.
He’s very tall, maybe six foot six, and thin, except for a large potbelly. It looks weird on such a slender frame, and the buttons on the pink shirt he’s wearing beneath his striped jacket strain
to hold it in. He has a mop of white hair and pale skin. Not albino pale, but damn close. Long, creepy-looking fingers.
But it’s his eyes that prove so startling. They’re by far the biggest I’ve ever seen, at least twice the size of mine. Almost totally white, except for a dark, tiny pupil at the center of each. As soon as I see him, I immediately think, Owl Man. I almost say it out loud, but catch myself in time. Dad would hit the roof if I insulted one of his guests.
“So this is the infamous B Smith,” the man chuckles. He has a smooth, cultured voice. He sounds like a radio presenter, but one of the old guys you hear on a Sunday afternoon on the station your gran listens to.
“Yeah,” Dad says. He runs a hand over my head and smiles as if he’s in pain and trying to hide it. “How was school?”
“Fine,” I mutter, unable to tear my gaze away from Owl Man’s enormous, cartoonish eyes.
“Some people think it’s rude to stare,” Owl Man says merrily, “but I’ve always considered it a sign of honest curiosity.”
“Sorry,” I say, blushing at the polite rebuke.
“No need to be,” Owl Man laughs. “The young should be curious, and open too. You should have nothing to hide or apologize for at your tender age. Leave that to decrepit old warhorses like your father and me.”
Dad clears his throat and looks questioningly at Owl Man. “Anything you’d like to ask?” he says meekly.
“Not just now,” Owl Man purrs and waves a long, bony hand at me. “You may proceed. It has been nice seeing you again.”
“Again?” I frown, certain I’ve never met this guy before. There’s no way I could have forgotten eyes like that.
“I saw you when you were a child. You were a cute little thing. Sweet enough to eat.”
Owl Man gnashes his teeth playfully, but there’s nothing funny about the way he does it and I get goose bumps up my arms and the back of my neck.
“I’m going to my room,” I tell Dad and hurry out without saying anything else. I half expect Dad to call me back and bark at me for not saying a proper good-bye, but he lets me go without a word.
I find it hard to settle. I keep thinking about the guy in the kitchen, those unnaturally large eyes. Who the hell is he? He doesn’t look like anyone else my dad has ever invited round.
I surf the Web for a while, then stick on my headphones and listen to my iPod. I shut my eyes and bop my head to the music, trying to lose myself in the tunes. Sometime later, opening my eyes to stare at the ceiling, I spot Owl Man standing just inside the door to my room.
“Bloody hell!” I shout, ripping off the headphones and sitting up quickly.
“I did knock,” Owl Man says, “but there was no answer.”
“How long have you been standing there?” I yell, trying to remember if I’d been scratching myself inappropriately over the last five or ten minutes.
“Mere moments,” he says, his smile never slipping.
“Where’s my dad?” I ask, heart beating hard. For a crazy second I think that the stranger has killed Dad, maybe pecked him to death, and is now gearing up for an attack on me.
“In the kitchen,” Owl Man says. “I had to come up to use the facilities.”
He falls silent and stares at me with his big, round eyes. At the back of my mind I hear Mum reading that old fairy tale to me when I was younger. All the better to see you with, my dear.
“What do you want?” I snap, not caring about insulting him now, angry at him for invading my privacy.
“I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Oh yeah?” I squint, wondering if he’s going to make a pass at me, ready to scream for Dad if he does.
“Do you still have the dream?” he asks, and the scream dies silently on my lips.
“What dream?” I croak, but I know the one he means, and he knows that I know. I can see it in his freakish, unsettling eyes.
“The dream about the babies,” Owl Man says softly. “Your father told me that you had it all the time when you were younger.”
“Why the hell would he tell you something like that?” I try to snap, but it comes out more as a sob.
“I’m interested in dreams,” Owl Man beams. “Especially dreams of monstrous babies. mummy,” he adds in a high-pitched voice, and it sounds just the way the babies in my nightmare say it.
“Get out of my room,” I moan. “Get out before I call my dad and tell him you tried to molest me.”
“Your father knows I would never do anything like that,” Owl Man sniffs and takes a step closer. “I’m not leaving until you tell me.”
“No,” I spit. “I don’t have it anymore, okay?”
Owl Man studies me silently. Then his lips lift into an even wider, sickening smile. “You’re lying. You do still have the dream. How interesting.”
The tall, thin man pats his potbelly, then presses his fingers to his lips and blows me a kiss. “Good evening, B. It has been a pleasure meeting you again after all these years. Take care of yourself. There are dark times ahead of us. But I think you will fare well.”
With that he turns and slips out of my room, carefully closing the door behind him. I don’t put my headphones back on. I can’t move. I just lie on my bed, think about his enormous eyes, wonder at the nature of his questions and shiver.
TWELVE
I don’t see much of Dad over the next few days. It’s like he’s avoiding me. I want to ask him about the strange visitor, find out his real name, where he’s from, why he was here, why Dad told him about my dreams. But Dad clearly doesn’t want to discuss it, and what Dad wants, Dad gets.
So I say nothing. I keep my questions to myself. And I try to pretend that my surreal conversation with Owl Man never happened.
On Friday we visit the Imperial War Museum. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks and my spirits lift for the first time since my run-in with Nancy and the rest of that bizarre afternoon. We don’t go on many school trips—the money isn’t there, plus we’re buggers to control when we’re let loose. Twenty of our lot were taken to the Tate Modern last year and they ran wild. The teachers swore never again, but they seem to have had a change of heart.
“I don’t expect you to behave like good little boys and girls,” Burke says on the Tube, to a chorus of jeers and whistles. “But don’t piss me off. I’m in charge of you and I’ll be held accountable if you get out of hand. Don’t steal, don’t beat up the staff, and be back at the meeting point at the arranged time.”
“Do we get a prize if we do all that, sir?” Trev asks.
“No,” Burke says. “You get my respect.”
I love the War Museum. I was here before, when I was in primary school. We were meant to be looking at the World War I stuff, but the tanks and planes in the main hall are what I most remember.
“Look at the bloody cannons!” Elephant gasps as we enter the gardens outside the museum. “They’re massive!”
“You can have a proper look at them later,” Burke says.
“Aw, sir, just a quick look now,” Elephant pleads.
Burke says nothing, just pushes on, and we follow.
The main hall still impresses. I thought it might be disappointing this time, but the tanks and planes are as cool as ever. The planes hang from the ceiling, loads of them, and the ceiling’s three or four floors high. Everyone coos, necks craned, then we hurry to the tanks. They’re amazing, and you can even crawl into some and pretend that you’re driving them. We should be too old for that sort of stuff, but it’s like we slip back to when we were ten years old—the lure of the tanks is impossible to resist.
Burke gives us a few minutes to mess around. We’re the second group from the school to arrive. As the third lot trickle in, we form a group and head upstairs to where the Holocaust exhibition starts.
This is the reason we’re here. We haven’t focused much on the Holocaust in class–at least not that I remember, though I guess I could have slept through it–but our teachers reckon this is important, so they’ve brought us
anyway, regardless of the very real risk that we might start a riot and wreck the place.
Burke stops us just before we go in and makes sure we’re all together.
Kray sniffs the air and makes a face. “Something’s burning.”
I expect Burke to have a go at him, but to my shock it’s Jonesenzio–I didn’t even know he was here–who speaks up.
“One of my uncles was Polish. He was sent to Auschwitz in the thirties. Not the death camp, where they gassed people, but the concentration camp. He was worked like a slave until he was a skeleton. Starved. Tortured. The bones in one of his feet were smashed with a hammer. He survived for a long time, longer than most. But in the end he was hung for allegedly stealing food from a guard. They let him hang for nearly ten minutes, without killing him. Then they took him down, let him recover, and hung him again until he was dead.”
Jonesenzio steps up to Kray, stares at him until he looks away, then says softly but loud enough for everyone to hear, “If there are any more jokes, or if you take one step out of line from this point on, you’ll have to answer to me.”
It should be funny–pitiful even–but it isn’t. Everyone shuts up, and for the first time that I can ever remember, we stay shut up.
The exhibition is horrible. It’s not so bad at the start, a bit boring even, where we learn about the buildup to war, how the Nazis came to power, why nobody liked the Jews. But it soon becomes a nightmare as we dip further into the world of ghettos, death camps and gas chambers.
Old film footage of Jews being rounded up and chased by Nazis hits hard. So does the funeral cart on which piles of corpses were wheeled to mass graves. And the rows of shoes and glasses, taken from people before they were gassed and cremated.
But what unsettles me most is a small book. It belonged to a girl, my sort of age. She wrote stories in it and drew sweet, colorful pictures. As I stare at it I think, That could have been me. Sitting in my room, writing and drawing. Then dragged out, shipped off to a death camp in a train, shaved bare, stripped naked, gassed, cremated or buried in an unmarked grave with a load of strangers. And all that’s left of me is a stupid book I used to scribble in, in a cold, empty room where no one lives anymore.