Seven Strange - Brian Jacques

“Hey, this wind’s getting up to gale force. We could be blown off.”

Bingham was in no mood for complaints.

“Shut up whining, Smith. Keep your eyes open and let me know the moment you see the kid coming, or anyone at all. We might have to hoppit quick if he’s snitched to the teachers or the police.”

The minutes ticked by and Bingham began to grow uneasy. Maybe the little rat would bring some adult help. But they were committed now, the prospect of twenty pounds for a bit of bullying was too good to pass up. Eight for her and six pounds apiece for the other two. She drew her collar up against the keening wind and waited. Robbins’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Here he comes. He’s just stepped out of the bushes on the far side.”

“Good, is he alone?”

“Wait, let him get out on to the field a bit.”

“If you see anyone with him get down off there right away, you two.”

“No, it’s okay. He’s all on his own. Haha, come to us, little coalman.”

“Cut the comedy and keep your eyes peeled. They could come in from either side to trap us.”

“Ha, no chance. Apart from this wind there’s only us and him. He’s as cold as us; he looks very pale and chilled.”

Now Bingham could see Jonathan clearly. “No wonder, he’s only got his school uniform on. But who’s worried, as long as he’s got the money with him.”

Without warning the wind died away completely. Now the pale-faced boy stood in front of them. He was smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile. Behind Bingham the three garbage cans took off across the windless field with a nerve-jangling clatter. Then there was silence, total and complete, the gloom pressing in on the three bullies. Bingham knew without looking that the other two were utterly petrified. She tried to shrug off the feeling. Moistening her tongue and swallowing hard, she did her best to sound cool and arrogant. “Well, coalman, brought the money?”

The boy had stopped smiling. He raised a hand and the wind sprang up again with renewed fury. His appearance began changing before their astonished gaze.

He grew taller, much bigger and broader too. Lines and wrinkles creased inexplicably across his face; the eyes narrowed, burning with a terrifying intensity. No longer was he a boy in school uniform; now he was a fully grown man, tall and severe, dressed in a long-gone fashion. He wore a black frock-coated suit, and beneath his eight-buttoned waistcoat a stiff white shirt gleamed, surmounted by a black bow tie. The man’s powerful hands played idly with a gold watch fob and chain strung across the front of his waistcoat, his face a mask of forbidding authority, broad nostrils quivering fitfully over a stiff, waxed mustache.

Smith and Robbins had fallen to their knees on the roof of the hut, the wild wind chilling their bloodless faces as it tore at open mouths. The man’s dark hair was neatly combed in an old-fashioned middle parting, not a hair of it moved in the howling gale as he nodded his head solemnly at the hut. It shook and trembled, and the two boys on top fell flat on their faces. Now the hut began to rise from the ground. Up, up it travelled, ascending into the empty starless skies of the storm-filled night, high above the darkened planet. Smith and Robbins grasped the edges of the roof, too terrified even to shut their eyes as they stared out into the dim reaches of the universe. The school grounds far below were not even a dot on the map as they hovered in empty space, yet like overhead thunder they heard the voice of the man as he spoke to the girl on the ground.

“I have brought the money. Take the rewards of your cowardice!”

Bingham had fallen upon her knees. The wind whipped through her hair and stung her eyes, yet she could not take them off the apparition that stood before her, unruffled by the howling gale. Slowly the man put finger and thumb into his vest pocket and drew forth four large outdated white five-pound notes. He held them out to her, his voice booming like a cathedral bell tolling requiem.

“Vile creature! Grovelling wretch! Take the price of the misery you have caused!”

His eyes bored into her very soul as with nerveless fingers she reached out and touched the money.

A crackling flash of forked lightning ripped the night sky apart. Thunder banged overhead like the crashing of the gates of doom.

The girl’s screams were mingled with those of her two companions as the sports hut plunged earthward—they wailed like lost souls in the pits of fear. The hut hit the field, shattering into matchwood, throwing Smith and Robbins senseless in the dirt alongside Bingham. She knelt on the ground, clutching a torn piece of newspaper in one hand as she smeared dirt on her face with the other. The man had gone, but the smiling boy stood watching her for a moment before walking off into the calm windless night.

In Saint Michael’s next morning Jonathan stood next to Kate. The assembly hall was packed to the doors with silent pupils. The staff sat on stage, flanking the principal, a police superintendent and a doctor from the local hospital. Immediately after the school anthem had been sung, the principal stood up on the rostrum. He addressed the pupils in his stern morning voice.

“Certain events took place on the sports field of this school last night which you may or may not be aware of. Let me dispel any foolish tales or rumors you may have heard by telling you precisely what happened. I hope this will also serve as a warning to any would-be trespassers or vandals. What I have to tell you will be amply borne out by Superintendent Atherton and Doctor Pradesh, who attended the three pupils involved. At about 11 p.m. last night there was a shortlived, but extremely powerful freak storm. Charlotte Bingham, Geoffrey Robbins and Malcolm Smith, three sixth-graders, were in the school grounds without permission. At some point these unfortunate trespassers were playing around the school sports hut when it was struck by lightning. Fortunately none of them was killed. When the police arrived on the scene they found the hut totally demolished. Smith and Robbins were both unconscious, and although Bingham had not been injured she was in a very distressed state. Doctor Pradesh tells me that it is unlikely they will ever be able to return to Saint Michael’s again, though with proper psychiatric counselling and medical care they will return to normal life in due course.

“So let me repeat a warning that you have, no doubt, been given often by your teachers. You will not, I repeat, not, use this school as an adventure playground or meeting place when you have no business here. Once you leave school each afternoon, it’s straight home, unless told otherwise by myself or your teachers. Three children who ignored school rules are now lying in hospital—imagine the concern they have caused, to their parents, police, hospital staff, their teachers and myself. Bingham, Robbins and Smith are regretting now that they ignored warnings and school rules; let us hope that you will learn from what happened to them in their disobedience, and stay clear of unattended school grounds after hours. Do I make myself clear?”

Jonathan and Kate joined in the mass chorus of “Yes, sir!” but they were not looking at the principal. They were both gazing out the window at the smiling boy who was waving goodbye to them from the wreckage of the sports hut.

Copyright © 1991 by Brian Jacques.

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