Doctor Who_ Time and Relative - Kim Newman [16]
It was viciously cold. Thick, gloomy cloud cover made mid-morning seem like nightfall. A sharp wind blew darts at exposed skin, driving children into sheltered corners.
I had a dreadful feeling, an after-the-iceberg, before-the-sinking numbness.
Officially, Mr Carker has banned snowballs, but teachers started this to-do. Mr Chesterton caught Ape Okehurst, who takes Games, on the back of the head, and shouted 'April fool!' Mr Okehurst swore bloody revenge, authorising his soccer pets to pitch in and support his cause.
F.M., no teacher's favourite (though his 'resident buly' position is at least tolerated at Coal Hill), made a small, hard-packed ball and tossed it as if shot putting, hitting Gillian in the head. I was standing close to Gillian, near the original snowman, and heard the crack of the ball hitting her. It fell apart. A couple of marbles were clustered in the middle.
What a rat! A rat's rattiest rat!!
Gillian, red-faced with rage, made fists.
'Anything your old man can do, I can do better,' said Francis.
He had his gang with him.
Gillian gets in trouble for fighting. She could charge through a pack on the hockey pitch, even without a stick. Sometimes, she loses control and goes berserk. I know she tries not to. She was trying now. If she forgets herself, she hurts people. She once won a fight with a Year Six lad who touched her chest.
'If your old man can put you in hospital,' said F.M., 'I can put you in the undertaker's.'
If Gillian went wild, the F.M. gang would have an excuse.
Instead, she picked up one of the marbles – a green glassie – and flicked it at him. I don't know if she was aiming for his eye, but she bopped him just above the eyebrow. F.M. yelled and found he was bleeding.
The snowball fight was making so much noise that no one noticed.
Mr Chesterton tried to call a truce, but Ape was being merciless. They had big boys' games to play.
F.M. took out his cricket bat and grinned, nastily. Half his forehead was blue, and a crust of frozen blood marring his temple like a birthmark.
I stood in front of Gillian, hoping F.M. wouldn't hit me with the bat.
'You stay away,' I told F.M.
There are rules in the playground. Not School Rules, Kid Rules. There are things boys can't do to girls in fights. For the purposes of fighting, Gillian isn't a girl. But I am. Rules get broken all the time, though.
F.M. took a swing. I was sure my head was about to be knocked for a six.
The bat whistled past my face and F.M. turned round, gaining momentum. The bat slammed against the snowman's head.
His gang cheered.
A flurry of ice-drops came off the snowman.
The cheering died.
The snowman wasn't beheaded. The impact hammered one of the pebble-eyes deep into the head and left a flattened mark.
F.M. dropped the bat and held up his hands, wrists badly jarred.
He said words I won't write down.
I went near the snowman, puzzled. It must have become an ice statue, solid as marble.
There was a creak inside the snowman. Its head turned. F.M. screamed like a girl.
I got out of the way.
The snowman came to life. It rose a couple of feet into the air, fusedtogether legs extending into a thick column. Arms came away from its sides, outsized hands sprouting a dozen icicle-barb fingers. Powder snow clung to the surface of the body, but the insides were clear ice, cracking and knitting.
F.M. was crying, and no wonder.
The snowhead still bore the mark of his bat. The cap and scarf gave it a jolly look.
The snowman flowed across the playground, more like a giant white
slug than a tubby cartoon person. It towered over F.M., pointing an arm down at him. Spears of ice shot out and went into his leg, shearing through his trousers.
Bright red blood spattered across the footprint-studded white ground.
F.M. screamed again, like an infant, like a baby. He wet himself.
(It'll be hard hanging on to the 'resident buly' office after wetting himself in front of the whole school. Do I sympathise? No fear.)
The snowball battle was suspended.