Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [84]
‘Good question. OK, I don’t want to worry you or anything, but there does seem to be something going on, and your family are definitely the centre of some kind of attention.’
‘What kind of attention?’
‘Damn; I’ve got you worried after all,’ said Amy. ‘Are you all right?’
Ricky had been all right until she asked if he was all right.
Now, to his horror and shame, the pressure of recent events came to a head. Ricky felt a shifting, liquid sensation behind his nose and eyes.
He was going to start crying. Like some snot-nosed little kid. Like a girl, like a sissy.
Ricky reared up from his chair and struggled blindly for the office door. He found the handle and tugged it open, but it was too late.
Amy scrambled out of her chair and put her arms around him, holding him tight, the soft pressure of her breasts against him, the
fringe of her blonde hair ticklish against his face. The smell of her perfume all around him.
‘She really is a piece of ass,’ said Wolf Leemark.
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Wally Saddler.
‘Well, she’s the guidance counsellor, right? So I go to her and get some guidance counselling.’
‘Good plan.’ Wally kept any hint of irony out of his voice.
‘Like, I tell her all about my personal problems,’
continued Wolf.
‘Very good.’
‘And she takes notes, crossing her legs and I get to look up her skirt and maybe see her beaver. That’s phase one of the plan, anyway.’
‘Sounds fine,’ said Wally Saddler. They were walking back along the corridor that led from the lunchroom towards the school library. ‘You going to pretend to be schizophrenic, or are you in two minds about it?’
A couple of members of the Wolf Pack laughed as they followed Wolf and Wally down the corridor. They got the joke.
Most of the others didn’t get it, but they laughed anyway, eager to be part of the group. Wolf didn’t laugh. Wally figured that he got it, but the Wolf didn’t like to laugh at any joke unless he told it himself. He continued talking, all serious.
‘Listen, Wally. With my record I’m not going to have to pretend at all.’
Wally Saddler remained respectfully silent. He knew better than to interrupt Wolf when he was talking about his past.
‘All I’m going to have to do is mention my family history and I’ll be in there. Amy Cowan’s going to start taking notes-’
‘That’s her name, huh?’ said one of the Wolf Pack.
‘What?’ said Wolf. He stopped walking and turned around to face the boy who’d spoken, a new kid who’d just arrived at Scopes High this year. It was easy to see that Wolf’s chain of thought had been disrupted and that this pissed him off.
Wolf shrugged his shoulders in his leather jacket, a gesture of impatience and imminent anger rather than uncertainty. It was as if he was limbering up for a fight, which indeed, quite often, he was. Wally had seen this mannerism of Wolf’s countless times. It caused the wolf on the back of his jacket to twitch in an interesting way, as if the painted wolf was eager for blood, too.
Wolf stood staring at the new boy. The new boy began to sweat under his gaze. He obviously wished he’d never spoken; he just wanted Wolf to stop looking at him. But Wolf was waiting for an answer. When the boy finally replied it was in a frightened, tongue-tied voice.
‘I just said, that’s her name, huh?’
Still Wolf said nothing; still he stood there waiting.
‘I mean,’ said the kid, almost stuttering with fear now,
‘you said Amy Cowan and, uh, I mean, is that her name or what?’
Wolf stood there, looking at him, silent. The kid realized to his terror that he wasn’t off the hook yet. He kept on stuttering.
‘I mean, the guidance counsellor, that’s her name, right?
The real piece of ass you-’
‘Watch your mouth,’ hissed Wolf.
‘Sorry. Hey, I apologize. I don’t know what I said. I just said what you said. I didn’t mean nothing. You just said she was a piece of-’
‘Don’t you refer to Ms Cowan in that way,’ said Wolf, deadly quiet and very dangerous now. Wally began to tense up, expecting Wolf to challenge the kid to a fight.
But instead Wolf just said, ‘Keep a clean tongue in that