Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [22]
‘So?’ prompted Mrs Palmer. ‘How did this dream go?’
‘Well, miss . . .’
‘Don’t just tell me. Tell the whole class.’
Many of the faces in the classroom were faces he knew from primary school, others were new to him, but all stared at him eagerly, just waiting, he thought, for him to make a fool of himself.
‘It didn’t start like your story,’ he said. ‘It started with an eye that got bigger and bigger until I fell through it. Then I was underwater and I was a fish being chased by an otter.’
There were a few snickers from the back of the class. Like a tightrope walker who has stepped on to the wire, Zaki knew he had to keep going or fall.
‘I swam as fast as I could towards the surface to get away, and then I went right through the surface of the water into the air and suddenly I wasn’t a fish any more, I was a bird!’
Zaki saw looks being exchanged, but he could feel the same excitement building inside that he felt in the dream – the wonder of being a bird, the soaring exhilaration of flight.
‘It’s fantastic being a bird! The wind carries you like you’re riding a wave and there’s nothing underneath you, just air, but you don’t fall because you’ve got wings and your wings are lifting you higher and higher.’
Zaki winced as a stab of pain reminded him he couldn’t lift his left arm to demonstrate.
‘But then there was a hawk up above me – right in the sun – a black shape like a shadow, and I knew it was after me. I dived sideways but it dropped like – like this! – claws reaching for me. I tried to get away but . . .’
Zaki glanced up and saw that a poster promoting healthy eating was slowly detaching itself from the back wall of the classroom. First the top left corner, then the right curled over and it began to roll downwards. A drawing pin glittered and became an eye and then the poster was gone and the air was full of beating wings and the harsh, screeching keek-keek-keek of a swooping, whirling hawk.
Chaos followed. Children dived under tables, chairs were overturned, Mrs Palmer crouched, screaming, the book of myths and legends held over her head. Zaki and a girl he didn’t know were the only ones still standing, both staring in stunned amazement at the place on the back wall where the poster had been. With a violent lurch, Zaki’s world tipped and spun and everything leapt into sharp focus; objects flashed past at dizzying speed. Zaki was looking down on the heads of his classmates; he skimmed over tabletops, swerved to miss a wall, one moment the ceiling was rushing towards him and the next he was swooping down towards startled, upturned faces. The sickening, helter-skelter ride lasted for no more than a few seconds, then he was back in his own body and the hawk was flying straight at him. Instinctively, Zaki threw up his arm to shield his face, saw the hawk’s talons reaching out, then felt them grip his arm and the claws stab through his sweatshirt sleeve. In the sudden quiet, Zaki stood, frozen; the bird perched on his upheld arm, its piercing eyes glaring into his own.
‘Bring it to the window.’ The girl’s voice was tense but steady.
Zaki saw that, by climbing on a table, the girl had managed to get a window open. Slowly, he made his way across the classroom, like a figure from a medieval hunting scene, the bird of prey, proud and fierce, gripping his outstretched arm.
The hawk’s head swivelled to take in the girl. Zaki felt its grip tighten on his arm as its muscles bunched, ready for flight. A wing brushed his face, the harsh keek-keek-keek broke the silence and the hawk was airborne, through the window, and gone.
The next moment Mrs Palmer’s hand was on Zaki’s shoulder. She spun him around, bending to thrust her face, contorted with anger, close to his own.
‘What sort of a stupid stunt was that?! Do you realise that people could have been seriously hurt? Do you? Hmm? How did you get that bird into the classroom? Did somebody help you? Somebody must have helped you. If it hadn’t been for Anusha getting the window open . . .