C.J. Skuse - The Deviants

I grabbed the roll of loo paper from the cistern behind Corey and wound it around and around my hand, then rinsed it under the cold tap.

Bang bang bang . ‘I’ll have you, bitch, I’ll kill the pair of you! Get out here now !’

I crouched down beside Corey and inspected his face. Blood ran from his mouth.

‘Don’t worry, he won’t get in,’ I told him, dabbing with shaky hands. ‘Do you remember when he wet his pants in the middle of our Nativity? And that picnic, when he got stung by the bee? And Jessica telling us horror stories on sleepovers – Zane was the worst wuss. They had to call his mum once!’

Bang bang BANG BANG BANG. Corey winced.

‘Jessica told the best stories.’ He bowed his head. ‘The one about the Witch’s Pool was my favourite. Remember when she told that on Halloween night? I go through the graveyard and sit beside her sometimes. Stupid.’

‘It’s not stupid, Corey. I’ve done that too,’ I said. ‘I always felt like she was my sister as well as Max’s. I wished she was. Instead I’ve got two great big brothers who still think it’s funny to fart on my head.’

Corey smiled.

‘Oh, you think that’s funny, do you? Olly once put blue food colouring on my toothbrush. I had blue teeth all day. My mum went mental.’

Corey laughed properly at that, the sound taking me way back. It was only then I realised the banging outside had stopped. There were appalled voices outside. Teachers. Zane wasn’t about to admit a girl had thrown slops over him – he must have come up with an explanation for them. The voices died away into the distance.

‘See? Told you he’d go away,’ I said, holding the cold compress to Corey’s eyebrow.

‘I saw you at County Champs,’ he said. ‘You were amazing. Like Volcano Girl.’

‘That’s what they call me,’ I said, recalling the recent headline in the local paper.

‘No, the real Volcano Girl. She’s a superhero in one of my comics. She’s faster than Flash, and she’s got lava coming out of her heels.’

‘I’m not into comics.’ I dropped the wad of bloody paper and bundled up another one, ready to wet it.

Corey sucked his bottom lip, split where Zane had punched it. ‘I saw you erupt at your house, too. I was walking past and your lounge curtains were open. You were punching the pillar in your lounge.’

My cheeks burned. ‘You might have a scar. It’s going to look cool, though. Let’s check your vision. OK, how many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three.’

‘Er—’

‘How many were you holding up?’

‘Almost three.’

There was a depressed silence.

‘I’ve never seen him go at anyone like he does with you,’ I said, returning to the toilet cubicle with another batch of wet compresses. ‘You used to be such good mates.’

‘It’s because I know his secret. He thinks I’ll tell everyone. But I haven’t. I wouldn’t.’

‘What secret?’ My phone buzzed in my pocket. Without looking, I knew it was a text from Max.

Corey shrugged. ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell.’

Automatically, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the message.

Are you done with education yet? Fancy coming over to mine? The olds are out. We’ve got all afternoon. Maxxx

I turned off my phone and looked back at Corey. ‘School’s over now. I don’t have anywhere to be. So what’s Zane’s secret?’

‘Did he tell you Zane’s secret?’

6

An Adventure Beckons

No, he wouldn’t tell me. He’d sworn to Zane that he would keep his secret, and he wasn’t going to budge. That was the kind of boy Corey was. If not for his condition, he’d have been perfect for the SAS; no way was anything going to break him. He was a much better person than me.

Zane had gone by the time we trooped down the hill on our quest for Mort. Thank God. He’d always been a bit weird as a kid – he ate too much, swore too much, he insisted on always challenging us to duels or fights. He had this stupid habit of hiding our things and making us look for them and he was also the stopper of sneezes – surely the most evil of all vices. But at school, these things had been amplified. He swore at teachers, shagged around, picked fights with any ‘poof’ who dared to argue with him. Corey was exactly the kind of geek a brainless beefcake like Zane Walker grown up would bully, but I still didn’t understand why you’d pick on someone who’d been one of your best friends.

We looked everywhere for Mort – all the Rittmans’ businesses, the pubs, up and down the High Street, the bins in the alley at the back of the seafront hotels, Tesco car park, and finally the pier. Corey went inside the kiosk to ask the manager if he’d seen him – sometimes cats went there for fish scraps. It was starting to drizzle, and Max rubbed his hands up and down my arms. The breeze from the sea was a cold one, and my cheeks were getting sore with wind chill. Max must have been freezing too. He only had his Street Reaper sleeveless hoody on,

‘He’s a bloody nightmare, isn’t he?’ he said, teeth beginning to chatter.

‘Dressed in a daydream,’ I added, moving his hair from his eyes and cuddling him in close. He looked good today. He was wearing the basketball vest I’d bought him for his birthday, skinny jeans and his new Vans. ‘You saw Zane hanging around, didn’t you? Opposite Corey’s house?’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘I don’t want to leave him on his own today, Max. Just in case.’

Just then, Corey came out of the shop with a massive bag of sweets, crisps and cans.

‘For you guys,’ he said. ‘For helping me look for Mort.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But we should get back. Maybe Mort’s gone back to yours?’

Corey shook his head. ‘He won’t. He’s too scared.’ His face radiated terror. ‘Oh my God – what if Rosie’s got him?’

‘Why would she have him? She lives in the back of beyond. It’s a bit unlikely,’ I said, trying to head him off.

‘Ooh, I dunno,’ said Max, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘If a cat’s gone missing in suspicious circumstances, Roadkill Rosie’s got to be involved, hasn’t she? Old Witchy Woo herself.’

The Brynstan-on-Sea grapevine had declared years ago that Rosie Hayes was a witch. Any animal that went missing, Rosie was the prime suspect. Sometimes we’d seen her as kids, hanging out at the farm with Fallon, but more often than not she’d be out in the tractor, or just going somewhere in the ‘Torture Truck’. People said worse about them now: Fallon had been expelled for sleeping with a teaching assistant, and people said now she was some kind of prostitute. Rosie was a gypsy, possibly even a serial killer. They stole cattle, had bats in their cellar, fed their pigs on human remains. There was talk of skulls in the freezer, body parts left out for the bin men, even an amputated you-know-what in the kettle on her stove. You know how people talk – rumours appear like cracks in egg shells and before long giant eagles have taken to the air.

Neil had done a lot to help spread those rumours.

‘I reckon Mort’ll be in a pie by now,’ said Max. ‘Ooh, I’ve got a hell of a peck on for Mort ’n’ chips. Remember Rosie’s suspicious stews? You never saw the same cat twice round their house. And the stories Jess used to tell us about Witch’s Pond?’

‘Stop winding him up,’ I said. ‘All that stuff about the cannibalism and the Witch’s Pool is crap. We know Rosie – at least, we used to.’

But Corey wasn’t laughing. ‘She might have picked him up, just by accident. She does that – we know she does. The farm was always crawling with stray cats when we used to go there. Could we go out and look? Just to see?’