Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [37]
‘Yeah,’ said Michael.
‘Are you rehearsing?’
‘Yeah,’ said Michael.
‘Got any gigs?’
‘Yeah.’
They walked on in silence.
‘Where are you going to play? What’s the gig, I mean? asked Zaki in a last attempt to get his brother to open up.
‘Hallowe’en,’ said Michael.
‘At the school party?’
‘Yeah,’ said Michael.
‘Brilliant!’
Michael added nothing further and Zaki couldn’t understand why his brother seemed so morose. The Hallowe’en party was a big deal at the school, a night that everyone looked forward to. To be the chosen band was really something! This knowledge, that his big brother and his band would be the stars of the party, made Zaki feel slightly better disposed towards school and a little less apprehensive about returning there after his disastrous first day. He wondered what sort of reception he would get this morning. He knew his classmates would pester him for answers and he had already decided he would simply say the hawk had nothing to do with him and he had no idea how it got into the classroom. But what about Mrs Palmer? How would she treat him? And naturally, he was anxious to talk to Anusha.
He had telephoned his grandad first thing that morning and asked him to look after the ‘school project’. Now he wanted to fix a time with Anusha when they could look at the logbook together and he needed to tell her about the bracelet and the voices. The memory of that second, monstrous voice sent a shudder through him and he couldn’t help, even now, in the light of day, glancing round in case, by the very act of thinking of it, he might summon up the being that had spoken the girl’s name and its awful shape would emerge from the morning mist.
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In fact, the school day went better than Zaki had feared. There was the anticipated initial rush of questions, but as he steadfastly refused to admit to any connection with the bird, his interrogators lost interest and went off to torment easier prey. Mrs Palmer studiously ignored him throughout English and on the one occasion when he looked up from his work and caught her looking in his direction, she quickly looked away and busied herself with the papers on her desk.
When morning break came, Zaki and Anusha hung back as everyone else filed out of the classroom. They both looked up at the rear wall of the room.
‘It’s a different poster,’ said Anusha. ‘Was one about not eating chips, and that.’
‘I know,’ said Zaki.
There was a glossy new poster extolling the virtues of Britain’s regional cheeses.
‘Cheesy,’ said Anusha.
‘Ha, ha,’ said Zaki.
‘So, do you think it was the poster that turned into the bird?’
It did seem crazy, thought Zaki, but the poster had vanished the moment the bird appeared.
‘But that’s mad, isn’t it!’ protested Anusha. Posters don’t turn into birds. How can a poster turn into a bird?’
‘Listen,’ said Zaki, ‘there’s something I haven’t told you.’
Zaki glanced at the classroom door to make certain no one was about to disturb them. He removed the bracelet from his pocket and laid it on the desk between them.
‘What’s that?’ Anusha reached to pick it up.
Quickly, Zaki caught her hand. ‘Better not touch it.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘It has special powers.’
‘You’re kidding me!’
Anusha crouched down and examined the bracelet without touching it.
‘You should show this to my dad. I’m pretty sure it’s Indian. Where did you get it?’
Zaki hesitated and Anusha read the guilt in his eyes. Her own eyes flashed with sudden anger. ‘You took it, didn’t you! It was on the boat and you took it. That’s why you wanted to get on to that boat! You wanted to steal this bracelet! What have you dragged me into? I’m not a thief!’
‘It’s not like that,’ pleaded Zaki. ‘I didn’t mean to take it. That’s not why I got on to her boat. But I’d seen the bracelet before. It was in the cave. She took it off me when she rescued me. When I saw it again on the boat, I picked it up and, in all the panic, I forgot to put it back.’
‘You forgot.’
‘Yeah. It’s the truth.’
Her dark eyes regarded him coolly. ‘So what does it do?’
‘There are two of them – two bracelets,