Darren Shan - Slawter

“N for Nora,” Juni says.

I search for the Ns. There’s a lot of them. I scroll down. There it is—Nora Eijit. I hit the dial button. It rings. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Fi—

“I don’t want to talk about it!” a woman’s voice snaps. “Kooniart can fry in the fires of hell! You tell him—”

“Mrs. Eijit?” I interrupt.

A pause. “Who’s this?”

“Grubbs Grady. Emmet’s friend.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I saw Juni’s name come up, so I assumed…”

“I’m ringing from her phone.”

“I see. Do you want to speak to Emmet?”

“Yes please.” Speaking mechanically, figuring this could be any woman—I don’t know Mrs. Eijit’s voice well enough to make a definite identification. Waiting for the kicker, for her to say he’s asleep, or he doesn’t want to talk to me, or—

“I’ll pass you over.”

The sound of her phone being handed across. The noise of a car engine in the background. Then—Emmet. “Hi, Grubbs,” he says quietly, miserably.

“Hi,” I reply weakly.

“I can’t talk now. I’m sorry I split without saying goodbye. I’m hoping we can come back later, when—”

“No way!” Emmet’s mum shrieks. “Not unless that fat fool Kooniart gets down on his knees and—”

“I’ll have to call you back,” Emmet says quickly and disconnects.

I look at the little red button on Juni’s phone. Slowly, reluctantly, I press it. Hand the phone back to Juni. Raise my eyes. And smile like a fool, silently admitting to Juni and the others that I was wrong—even though, inside, part of me still insists the demon was real.

“I can’t believe you thought Emmet had been killed,” Bill-E chuckles. It’s the morning after. We’re on our way to class.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter.

“I just don’t see how you could—”

“Enough!” I snap. Then, softly, “Remember what I told you about my parents? How they died?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Bill-E’s face drops. “Grubbs, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s OK. Just don’t say anything about it. Please? To the others?”

“Of course not,” Bill-E smiles. “This stays between us. I’ll never breathe a word of it to anyone, especially not Bo Kooniart and her mob. They’d have to torture it out of me.”

“Thanks. Because if they knew…”

“Like I said, your secret’s safe with me,” Bill-E promises. “Dervish won’t say anything either, or Juni. Nobody will ever find out. It’ll be coolio.”

“Look out!” Bo screams as we walk into class. “It’s a demon!”

Bo, Abe, Vanalee, Salit—even Kuk and Kik—howl theatrically, then burst out laughing. Miss Jaun blinks at them, astonished. I groan and raise my eyebrows at Bill-E, who can only shrug, bewildered.

“My dad was in the corridor outside your room,” Bo says smugly. “He heard you talking. He heard everything .” She laughs again and I know I’m in for a long few months.

The joke doesn’t wear thin for Bo. Every day she drags it out, mocking and ridiculing me, keeping the story of my hysterics alive. She tells anyone who’ll listen, the other actors, the crew, Davida. Most smile and dismiss it, too busy to bother about such trivial matters. But knowing they know causes me to blush fiercely every time somebody even glances at me.

Emmet never rang back and I’m too shamefaced to call him. I doubt if he’ll have heard about my panic attack, but there’s no telling how far Bo might have decided to spread the joke.

The person I’m angriest with—apart from myself, for being such an idiot—is Tump Kooniart. I can’t blame Bo for wringing such wicked pleasure out of my embarrassment—it would be hard for any kid to ignore such a juicy bit of bait if it fell into their lap. But why was her father sneaking around outside our room? And why didn’t he keep his big mouth shut? If Dervish had heard something like this about Bo, he wouldn’t have told me.

Tump Kooniart should have kept quiet. He didn’t. So now it’s payback time!

I spend a lot of hours thinking about ways to get even with Bo’s father. Itching powder in his clothes? Rat droppings in his soup? Human droppings in his stew or chocolate ice cream?!? Shave him bald or glue his lips together while he sleeps?

All good stuff, but basic. I want something that’ll give him a fright, that I can use to humiliate him. Like, if he’s scared of rats, borrow one of the trained rats which are being used in the film, drop it down the back of his shirt when there’s a crowd around, laugh my head off as he writhes and screams. But to do that, I’ll have to find out more about him and what he’s scared of.

So I start shadowing him. I do it when I’m not in class. I don’t tell Bill-E. He’d happily join in if he knew what I was up to, but I don’t want him getting into trouble if this backfires. Tump Kooniart’s a powerful player. If I humble him in public, I might end up being booted off the set. I don’t mind that, but there’s no need for Bill-E to suffer too.

Tump’s easy to follow. Tall and wide, always dressed in a drab brown suit. He walks with a slow waddle, mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief which rarely leaves his hand. He usually talks loudly as he strolls, to himself if no one’s with him. He doesn’t seem to be able to keep silent, except when a scene is being filmed. I bet he even talks in his sleep. If I was blind, I could probably follow him by sound alone.

I don’t learn much about Tump, except he loves to talk and eat. He has a trailer on the western edge of Slawter, separate trailers beside it for Bo and Abe. Three of the biggest trailers on the set. When he’s not on the prowl, making sure his actors are happy or pigging out in one of the canteens, he spends most of his time in the trailer. He makes lots of phone calls. There are no personal computers allowed in Slawter—no video mobiles either—so he has to work from a huge Filofax in which he keeps all his contact details and other info. I think about stealing the Filofax and burning it, but that’s hardly going to leave him a trembling wreck!

Close to Tump’s trailer, nearly a week after I began shadowing him. Waiting for him to emerge, sitting in the shade of another trailer, reading a movie magazine—always plenty of those around. Starting to tire of the detective work. Bo’s still annoying me, but her insults have grown stale. Nobody really laughs at her jokes any more. Maybe I should quit this game and forget about vengeance.

Someone knocks on Tump’s door. I look up and spot Chuda Sool entering the trailer. I haven’t spoken to Chuda since the day of the “demon” attack. I’m sure Bo told him about my hysterics. He must think I’m a right nutter. He might even feel insulted that I didn’t believe him when he told me about Nora and Tump.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” someone says behind me. I jump, but it’s only Bo, on her way back from filming. “Discover any demons today, Grady?”

“No. Discover any new jokes?”

“Don’t need them. Not when the old ones are still funny.” She flashes her teeth and growls demonically. I yawn and focus on my magazine until she loses interest and goes away. I wait for the sound of her trailer door locking, then get up, angry, sick of hanging around. I could be playing foosball with Bill-E, not sitting here like a third-rate substitute, wasting my—

Tump steps out of his trailer, followed by Chuda Sool. Tump’s talking loudly, mopping away busily at his forehead. Chuda never seems to sweat, which is handy—without eyebrows, sweat would flow straight into his eyes. The pair set off in a northerly direction, looking a bit like Laurel and Hardy from the rear. Since I’m here, I decide to follow. But this is the last time. I’ve had enough.