Doctor Who_ The Hollow Men - Keith Topping [14]
„I‟ll deliver it,‟ said Ace, snatching up the note and giving Steven a wink of encouragement.
„I am very grateful, miss,‟ said Steven Chen, before turning away for the kitchens.
The Doctor gave Ace a curious sideways glance. „He was asking me. Why involve yourself?‟
„I felt for him. He‟s obviously having a bad time with the fascists. And I hate fascists as much as I hate clowns.‟
„That much?‟ asked the Doctor, amused.
„You bet!‟
„Come on, Ace,‟ said the Doctor, getting to his feet. „We‟d better be going. I have a reunion to prepare for.‟
CHAPTER 2
THE BUTTERFLY COLLECTOR
Billy Tyley was smashed out of his skull, as usual.
He took another long swig from the two-litre bottle of cider.
The drink was horribly warm and flat, but it had a hint of apple about it, and was perfect in the summer sun. Billy pulled the sleeve of his T-shirt up to his lips to wipe them dry, swinging his legs against the wall. Then he stopped, deciding that it probably made him look like a kid.
Billy Tyley certainly wasn‟t a child any more. And he‟d smash the nose of any scumbag that said he was. Soon school would be over for ever and an adult life of doing nothing all day and getting paid for it would be waiting for him. The teachers knew about his bunking off, but they let him get on with it because he was a disruptive influence on everyone else. Outside the school gates he was, essentially, someone else‟s problem, so it was a pretty cool arrangement all round.
Billy glanced at his digital watch and smiled. He should be in an exam, but he didn‟t give a monkey‟s. Better just to sit here and enjoy the sun.
„Oi, Billy!‟
Billy Tyley turned, and saw a gaggle of younger children approaching him from the direction of school. He recognised most of them - dirty, freckled kids much like himself. „Yeah?
What do you want?‟
„Thought we‟d hang out with you,‟ said one lad through teeth clogged with metal braces. „We‟re skiving off PE. We thought, sod that for a lark.‟
Billy grunted and jumped down from the wall and screwed the cap back on to the bottle.
„Aw, Billy, can‟t we have some?‟ whined one of the others.
Billy shook his head. „No, it‟s mine.‟ His eyes - slowly - lit up with an idea. „We could nick some. That‟d be a laugh.‟ He trudged towards the post office with the chuckling youngsters in his wake.
Decades ago, the living room of one of the terraced cottages had been transformed into a shop with the addition of bigger windows and a counter. In the 1950s it became a post office, and a decade later Mrs Cluett took over the day-to-day running of the shop. Now, some forty years later, she was still in charge, and her shop was packed to the rafters with ice creams, toilet rolls and bunion ointments.
As soon as Mrs Cluett saw Billy Tyley‟s bulky frame in the jangling doorway, she knew there‟d be trouble. Trouble followed that boy like a bad shadow. A troop of little Tyley clones came into the shop after him.
„Afternoon, Mrs Cluett,‟ said Billy. „I‟d like a quarter of midget gems, please.‟
Mrs Cluett kept an enormous array of sweets in old-fashioned glass jars on shelves at the back of the shop. She had decided on this, as a way of preventing petty theft, and had doggedly stuck to imperial measures, in contravention of European law. No one in Hexen Bridge saw fit to report her to the proper authorities. The children often chose the bottled sweets over the pre-wrapped chocolates that edged the cash till as it meant that old Mrs Cluett would have to rummage around behind the counter for the pair of wooden stepladders
- which gave them all the time in the world to steal from elsewhere in the shop.
Today, however, Mrs Cluett was having none of it, and she ignored Billy‟s request. „Can‟t you read?‟ she said. „Only two children at a time.‟
Billy glanced back towards the door, as if he‟d never seen the handwritten notice before.