Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [20]
People would want to know about his arm, of course – how it happened. If only he could tell the real story! The cave, the skeleton, almost getting drowned – and the girl. He had to tell somebody, there had to be someone he could talk to about it. A thing like that can’t just happen and then you never talk to anyone about it – it would drive you crazy. It was driving him crazy.
He put on the blue school sweatshirt and black trousers that Michael had grown out of – at least they didn’t look new. Getting his left arm through the sleeve was a painful business, but the fact that the sweatshirt was a little too big for him made it easier. As he dressed, he thought about the story Grandad had told him. So there was a smugglers’ cave. It must have been the one he found, but that didn’t explain the skeleton. And what about the girl? Why didn’t she want him to tell? He was still puzzling over it all as he went downstairs.
‘What’s that cat doing here?’ asked his father, as Zaki entered the kitchen.
Zaki looked round to see that the cat was sitting, nonchalantly, at the foot of the stairs.
‘It was at the boat shed.’
‘That wasn’t the question, Zaki. I asked what it’s doing here.’
‘I don’t know. It just is.’
‘It just is! Zaki, why did you bring it home?’
‘I didn’t. It must have followed me.’
‘Grandad drove you. How could it have followed you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it got in the car.’
‘How could it have got in the car without you knowing? Zaki, you can’t go bringing stray animals into the house. It probably has fleas. I suppose it’s been in your room all night. Did you let it sleep on the bed?’
‘No! And I didn’t bring it in! It just came in! Ask Michael!’
‘Well, it’s not staying in the house while you’re at school, and after school it’s going back where it came from. Is that clear?’
‘Dad,’ said Zaki, ‘it’s nothing to do with me – honestly! Grandad’s been feeding it.’
‘That doesn’t give you an excuse to bring it home.’
‘I told you. I didn’t. It just . . .’
‘Eat your breakfast. You don’t want to be late for your first day at your new school.’ And his father went upstairs to tell Michael not to spend the whole morning under the shower.
* * *
As Zaki and Michael left the house – Michael, breakfast toast in hand – the cat shot past them. Zaki watched it run across the small front lawn and saw that as it ran it seemed to tumble, becoming a grey spinning blur in the centre of which something glittered. The glitter became an eye, a small, bright, round eye that blinked. Zaki stopped and stared. The grey blur around the eye twisted and shrank as though drawn inwards by the eye, coalescing quickly into a new form, a bird, a grey pigeon, that flew up to perch on the telegraph wire.
‘Come on, Zaki!’ shouted Michael. ‘We’ll be late. What are you gawping at?’
‘I have to find the cat,’ Zaki said, dropping his bag and running to the spot where the cat had seemed to have disappeared.
‘Leave it, Zaki. It’ll be all right.’
‘No, something strange happened.’ Zaki stood on the spot where the cat had last been, looking all around. The pigeon regarded him from the overhead wire.
‘Something strange is always happening to you, Zaki. If you’re going to mess about, I’m going without you.’
Reluctantly, Zaki followed his brother.
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Although it was only a short walk from Moor Lane to school, by the time they got there the playground was ominously empty and silent. They were late and classes had already started, so there was no chance for Zaki to find anyone he knew to ask where he was meant to be. Michael said it was Zaki’s fault anyway – that they would have been on time if he hadn’t made all that fuss about the cat.
‘Nobody ever showed me around when I started school,’ said Michael. ‘I had to find everything out for myself, so why can’t you?’
Left on his own, Zaki had to suffer the humiliation of being shown to his classroom by the school secretary, and thirty-two faces turning as one when she ushered him through the classroom door. On seeing him, almost every face lit up with the delighted fascination of a cannibal