C.J. Skuse - The Deviants

‘I know but just one more session doing this? Please? We don’t have to tell anyone. We can run for half the session and box for the other half or something. Can we? Please?’

‘Tell you what,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket. He pulled out a small set of keys, unhooked one attached to a Brynstan Academy fob and gave it to me. ‘How about we keep our training sessions to running, but any time you feel like punching the crap out of that pillar, you come here and use the bag and gloves. No more dry wall sessions on those fists.’

‘OK,’ I said, holding the key like it was a precious artefact. ‘Thanks.’

‘And you jog all the way here and all the way back, right?’

‘Right.’

He looked at me for a long time, then rubbed the outside of my arm. ‘And if you do want to talk, my door’s always open.’

I held up the key and smiled. ‘I won’t. But thanks.’

‘So, hang on, where does the missing cat come into it?’

4

The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat

Oh yeah, well it was the morning Max picked me up from training at Pete’s house, which he never ever did. He was leaning on his Audi across the road from Pete’s cottage when I emerged from the garage, fists shaking, sweat trickling down my forehead.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said, with an edge to my voice I hadn’t meant.

‘Oh that’s nice,’ he laughed. ‘I thought I’d pick you up, save you the jog back.’

‘I like the jog back.’

‘All right, I’ll go then, shall I?’

‘No,’ I said, wiping over my face again with my damp towel. ‘Sorry. Thank you.’ He was expecting a kiss, so I kissed him. Then I felt bad cos when he hugged me in to his chest, he rubbed my back like he did when we were kids and I was crying. I went round to open the passenger door.

Max got in too. ‘Sweated up a storm today,’ he commented. I didn’t answer. He didn’t switch the engine on either. He was just looking at me.

‘What are you waiting for?’

‘How was it?’ he asked. He wasn’t looking at my face, though. He was looking at my hands, red-tinged and shaking.

‘It’s just adrenaline. I only did a quick warm down today.’

He was looking at me funny, the way he did sometimes when he didn’t get something.

‘Pied Piper on form today, was he?’ He started up the engine.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know. Did he push you all the way?’

The car started off down Church Lane. ‘You don’t like Pete, do you?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Uh, cos I’ve met him? And cos he’s a dick?’ he said, stopping at the lights.

‘He’s not a dick.’

‘He’s posh.’

‘So are you when you’re not trying to sound like your dad.’

‘I am not!’

‘You so are, Max.’

‘Am not.’

‘So are.’

He stopped talking for at least a mile. Only when we came to the hospital roundabout just down the slope from my road did he open his mouth again.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my cock, is there?’

‘Where did that come from?’ I said, washed hot and cold with embarrassment.

‘I was just thinking about last night at Greenland. You would tell me if that was the problem, wouldn’t you? With us, I mean.’

I couldn’t help laughing, and the ice between us broke and melted away. He’d obviously been stewing on this all night.

‘The only thing wrong with you is you picked the wrong girlfriend.’

‘Never.’

I clicked off my seat belt and leaned across to kiss him back. ‘Thank you for picking me up. And for last night.’ I kissed him again. ‘And my card.’ And again. ‘And my necklace.’

He started doing Round and Round the Garden… on my neck with his fingertip and I cringed, remembering I wasn’t wearing it. ‘That tickles.’

‘Where is it?’ he said, looking at my neck where a pool of sweat had collected.

‘Where’s what?’

‘Your teddy necklace?’

‘Oh I can’t wear it for training cos it keeps hitting me in the face,’ I gabbled.’ I couldn’t actually remember taking it off.

‘What are you doing later? Do you wanna go into town or something? Or we could, I don’t know… Oh. You’ve got a visitor.’

I followed his eye line along the garden path towards our bungalow, where a figure sat crumpled in my doorway.

‘It’s Corey!’ I yanked open the car door and slammed it behind me, running up the path. ‘Corey? Are you OK?’

‘Ella?’ said Corey, un-crumpling. He was all bleary-eyed, and he had a noticeable scab on his eyebrow and a yellowing bruise on his chin. Old wounds.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

Another car door slammed and Max ran up the steps, two at a time. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m still trying to find out,’ I said. Corey was getting to his feet, adjusting his glasses with one hand and clutching his skateboard with the other. ‘Why are you on my doorstep?’

‘No one answered.’

‘My dad’s gone to Manchester to do a book signing and see my brother. He’s just had a baby. What’s happened? Is something wrong?’

‘Ells,’ said Max, folding his arms across his chest and nodding. I followed his eye line towards the bottom of the road. A figure stood beneath a lamp post opposite Corey’s grandparents’ house; a stocky figure with a shaved head, wearing a rugby top and jeans.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I said, getting out my key and ushering both boys through the front door, keeping one eye on the distant stranger.

Me and Max had grown up with Corey Malinowski (his full name was Corneliusz, but we’d never called him that). We’d spent the summers together, us and him and Fallon and Zane. He’d gone to Brynstan Academy too, but he’d mostly been one of the school loners – he had a mild form of cerebral palsy, a hearing aid and two dead parents, so he was pretty much begging to be an outcast. But to us, he’d been vital. He was the reader of books, the architect of dens, darer of dares, encyclopedia of Harry Potter trivia (seriously, down to page numbers), and the only one who could get a fire going using just sticks. To the other kids, he was that skinny weirdo with the limp; to us, he was a genius.

He took off his tatty Converse by the pillar in our lounge and padded into the kitchen, standing in front of our French windows like they opened onto a long dark tunnel.

‘He’s gone,’ he said, turning to me.

I knew his granddad had a bad heart. ‘Oh, Corey, I’m sorry. Are you OK? How’s your nan coping?’

‘No, no,’ he said, correcting me. ‘Granddad and Nan are on their cruise to the Rhineland. For their anniversary.’ His voice was shaky, and before each sentence, he would sort of rev up to get going. I’d forgotten he did that. ‘No, it’s Mort.’

His cat! Phew. ‘What’s happened to him?’

Corey sat down on one of the heavy pine chairs at the breakfast table. I got some Diet Cokes from the fridge. Max shook his head when I offered him one and leaned against the wall, taking a roll-up out of his tobacco pouch.

‘Patio,’ I said, ordering him towards the French windows. ‘Go on, Corey.’

‘I was outside on my skateboard yesterday, and Mort got in my way.’

‘And you… ran him over?’

‘No,’ he said, his eyes creasing up. A single tear fell. ‘I put him on my board. I was gonna Instagram it.’

I bit both my cheeks to stop the laugh. Corey was always doing things like this. His nan sometimes saw my dad – they both did the sugar-craft class at the community centre – and she told him how much Corey got on her nerves with his ‘experiments’. Putting foil in the microwave, just to see. Trying to drive his granddad’s car out the garage, just to see. Asking out a supply teacher, just to see. Nothing ever ended well.