Текст книги "Half Bad"

Автор книги: Sally Green

Соавторы: Sally Green
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Thomas Dawes
Secondary School

Notification of the Resolution of the Council of White Witches of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Any contact between Half Codes (W 0.5/B 0.5) and White Whets and White Witches is to be reported to the Council by all concerned. Failure by the Half Code to notify the Council of contact is punishable by removing all contact.

Contact is deemed to have been made if the Half Code is in the same room as a White Whet or White Witch or otherwise within a close enough distance that they are able to speak to each other.

“Shall I go and lock myself in the cellar now?” I ask.

Deborah takes the parchment and reads it again. “Removing all contact? What does that mean?”

Gran looks uncertain.

“They can’t mean removing contact with us?” Deborah looks from Gran to Arran. “Can they?”

I’m amazed at Deborah; she still doesn’t get it. It can mean whatever the Council want it to mean.

“I’ll just make sure that we keep a list of witches Nathan has contact with. It’s easy enough. Nathan hardly meets anyone and certainly not many White Witches.”

“When he starts at Thomas Dawes school, there’ll be the O’Briens,” Arran reminds her.

“Yes, but that’s all. It’ll be a small list. We just have to make sure we follow the rules.”

Gran is right; the list is small. The only witches I come into contact with are my direct family and those I meet at the Council Offices when I go for assessment. I never go to any festivals, parties, or weddings, as my name is always missing from the invitations that arrive on our doormat. Gran stays at home with me and sends Jessica, and, when they are old enough, Deborah and Arran as well. I hear about the celebrations from the others, but I never go.

White Witches from anywhere in the world are welcomed into witches’ homes, but visitors to our house are thin on the ground. When anyone does stay with us for a night or two they treat me as either a curiosity or a leper, and I quickly learn to keep out of sight.

When Gran and I traveled to London for my first assessment, we turned up late in the evening on the doorstep of a family near Wimbledon, and I was left staring at the red paint of the front door while Gran was taken inside. When she reappeared a minute later, white in the face and shaking with anger, she grabbed my hand and dragged me away, saying, “We’ll stay in a hotel.” I was more relieved than angry.

* * *

Before going to Thomas Dawes Secondary School, I attend the small village school. I’m the slow, dumb kid at the back, the one with no friends. Like most fains the world over, the kids and teachers there don’t believe in witches; they don’t understand that we live among them. They don’t see me as special—just especially slow. I can barely read or write and am not quick enough to fool Gran when I skip school. The only thing I learn is that sitting in class bored stiff is better than sitting anywhere else with the effects of Gran’s punishment potions. From the start of each day, all I do is wait until it’s over. I suspect secondary school is not going to be any better.

I’m right. On my first day at Thomas Dawes I’m wearing Arran’s cast-off too-long gray trousers, a white shirt with a frayed collar, a stained blue-gold-black striped tie, and a dark blue blazer that is absurdly oversized, although Gran has shortened the arms. The one item I have been given that is not a cast-off is a cheap phone. I have it “in case.” Arran has only just been allowed one, so I know that Gran expects there will be an “in case” situation.

I put the phone to my ear and my head is filled with static. Just carrying it around makes me irritable. Before I leave for school, I put the phone behind the TV in the lounge, which seems a good place, as that too has recently started to set off a faint hissing in my head.

Arran and Deborah make the journey to school and back bearable. Thankfully Jessica has left home to train as a Hunter. Hunters are the elite group of White Witches employed by the Council to hunt down Black Witches in Britain. Gran says they are employed by other Councils in Europe more and more as there are so few Blacks left in Britain. Hunters are mainly women, but include a few talented male witches. They are all ruthless and efficient, which means Jessica is bound to fit right in.

Jessica’s departure means I can relax at home for the first time in my life, but now I have secondary school to worry about. I plead with Gran that I shouldn’t go, that it is bound to be a disaster. She says that witches must “blend in” to fain society and should “learn how to conform,” and it is important for me to do the same, and that I “will be fine.” None of those phrases seem to describe my life.

Phrases that come to mind, phrases that I’m expecting to hear, to describe me are “nasty and dirty,” “pond life,” and the old favorite “dumb ass.” I’m prepared to be teased about being stupid, dirty, or poor, and some idiot is bound to pick on me because I’m small, but I don’t mind too much. They’ll only ever do it once.

I’m prepared for all that, but what I’m not prepared for is the noise. The school bus is a cauldron of shouting and jeering, simmering with the hiss of mobile phones. The classroom isn’t much better, as it is lined with computers, all emitting a high-pitched whistle that gets into my skull and is not reduced one bit by sticking my fingers in my ears.

The other problem, and by far the biggest, is that Annalise is in my class.

Annalise is a White Witch, and an O’Brien. The O’Brien brothers also go to my school, apart from Kieran, who is Jessica’s age and has now left. Niall is in Deborah’s year and Connor is in Arran’s.

Annalise has long blonde hair that glistens like melted white chocolate over her shoulders. She has blue eyes and long pale eyelashes. She smiles a lot, revealing her straight, white teeth. Her hands are impossibly clean, her skin is the color of honey, and her fingernails gleam. Her school shirt looks perfectly fresh, like it has been ironed just a minute before. Even the school blazer looks good on her. Annalise comes from a family of White Witches whose blood has been uncontaminated by fains as far back as can be remembered, and its only associations with Black Witches are her ancestors who have either killed or been killed by them.

I know I should steer clear of Annalise.

The first afternoon the teacher asks us to write something about ourselves. We are supposed to fill one page or more with writing. I stare at the paper and it stares blankly back. I don’t know what to write, and even if I did I know I wouldn’t be able to write it anyway. I manage to print my name on the top of the page, but even that I hate. My surname, Byrn, is that of my mother’s dead husband. It is nothing to do with me. I cross it out, scratching it away. My palms are sweaty on the pencil. Glancing around the room I see the other kids are busily scribbling and the teacher is walking around looking at what they are writing. When she gets to me she asks if there is a problem.

“I can’t think of anything to write.”

“Well, perhaps you could tell me what you did this summer? Or tell me about your family?” This is the voice she uses for the slow ones.

“Yeah, okay.”

“So, shall I leave you to it?”

I nod, still staring at the piece of paper.

Once she has moved far enough away and is bent over some other kid’s work, I do write something.

i hava bordr and sisser my bordrs Arran

he is niss and Debsis clvrer

I know it’s bad, but that doesn’t mean I can do anything to improve it.

We have to pass our essays in, and the girl who collects mine stares at me when she sees my piece of paper.

“What?” I say.

She starts to laugh and says, “My brother’s seven, and he can do better than that.”

“What?”

She stops laughing then and says, “Nothing . . .” and almost trips over in her rush to get to the front of class to hand the papers in.

I look to see who else is sniggering. The other two at my table seem to be fascinated by their pencils, which they are gripping. The table to my left are grinning away one second and then staring at their desk the next. The same happens with the kids on the table to my right, except for Annalise. She doesn’t look at the table but smiles at me. I don’t know if she’s laughing at me or what. I have to look away.

The next day in maths I can’t work anything out. The teacher, thankfully, has quickly realized that if I’m ignored I’ll sit quietly and not be any trouble. Annalise is hard to ignore. She answers a question and she gets it right. She answers another, correct again. When she answers a third one, I turn slightly in my seat to glance at her and I am caught again by her looking at me and smiling.

On the third day, in art, someone brushes my arm. A clean, honey-toned hand reaches past me and selects a black rod of charcoal. As the hand moves back, the cuff of her blazer grazes the back of my hand.

“That’s a great picture.”

What?

I stare at my sketch of a blackbird that has been pecking at crumbs on the deserted playground.

But I have stopped thinking about the blackbird and the sketch. Now all I can think is, She spoke to me! She spoke to me nicely!

Then I think, Say something! But all that happens is Say something! Say something! booms in my empty head.

My heart is banging on my chest wall, the blood in my veins throbbing with the words.

Say something!

In my panic all I come up with is, “I like drawing, do you?” and “You’re good at maths.” Thankfully Annalise has wandered away before I say either of them.

She’s the first White Witch outside of my family to smile at me. The first. The one and only. I never thought it would happen; it might never happen again.

And I know I should steer clear of her. But she has been nice to me. And Gran said we should “conform” and “fit in” and all that stuff, and being polite is part of those things too. So at the end of the class I manage to direct my body enough to walk over to her.

I hold out my picture. “What do you think? Now it’s finished.”

I’m prepared for her to say something horrible, laugh at it or at me. But I don’t think she’ll do that.

She smiles and says, “It’s really good.”

“You think so?”

She doesn’t look at the picture again, but continues to look at me and says, “You must know it’s brilliant.”

“It’s okay. . . . I can’t get the tarmac right.”

She laughs, but stops abruptly when I glance at her. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s great.”

I look at the picture again. The bird isn’t bad.

“Can I have it?” she asks.

What?

What would she do with it?

“It’s okay. That’s a stupid idea. It’s a great picture, though.” And she sweeps her own drawing up and walks away.

From then on, Annalise contrives to sit next to me in art and to be on the same team as me in phys ed. The rest of the school day we are split into graded groups. I am in all the lowest ones and she is in all the highest, so we don’t see a lot of each other.

We are in art the following week when she asks, “Why don’t you look at me for more than a second?”

I don’t know what to say. It feels like more than a second.

I put my paintbrush in the jar of water, turn to her, and look. I see a smile and eyes and honey skin and . . .

“Two and a half seconds at most,” she says.

It felt a lot longer.

“I never thought you’d be shy.”

I’m not shy.

She leans in close to me, saying, “My parents said I shouldn’t talk to you.”

I do look at her then. Her eyes are sparkling.

“Why? What did they say about me?”

She blushes a little and her eyes lose some of their shine. She doesn’t answer my question, but whatever they said doesn’t seem to be bad enough to put Annalise off.

Back at home that evening I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I know I’m smaller than most boys my age, but not a lot smaller. People always say I’m dirty, but I hang out in the woods, and it’s hard to keep clean, and I don’t see what the problem with dirt is. Though I do like it that Annalise is so clean. I don’t know how she does it.

Arran comes in to brush his teeth. He’s taller than me but he’s two years older. He’s the sort of boy I imagine Annalise would like. Handsome and gentle and clever.

Debs comes in as well. It’s a bit crowded. She’s clean too, but not like Annalise.

“What you doing?” she asks.

“What’s it look like?”

“It looks like Arran’s brushing his teeth and you’re admiring your beautiful face in the mirror.”

Arran nudges me and smiles a frothy smile.

My reflection tries to smile back and puts toothpaste on its brush. I look at my eyes as I brush. I have witch’s eyes. Fain eyes are plain. Every witch that I have seen has glints in their eyes. Arran’s eyes are pale gray with silver glints; Debs’s are darker green-gray with pale green and silver glints. Annalise has blue eyes with silver-gray shards in them that twist and tumble, especially if she is teasing me. Deborah and Arran can’t see the glints and neither can Gran; she says it’s an ability few witches have. I haven’t told her that when I look in the mirror I don’t see silver glints, but that my black eyes have dark triangular glints that rotate slowly and aren’t really glints at all. They aren’t shiny black, but a sort of hollow, empty black.

* * *

Annalise’s brothers Niall and Connor have blue eyes with silver glints. They are also instantly recognizable as O’Brien brothers by their blond hair, long limbs, and handsome faces. I avoid Annalise at breaks and lunchtimes, as I know if her brothers see us together she will be in trouble. I hate it that they might think I’m afraid of them, but I really don’t want to cause trouble for Annalise, and in this huge school it’s easy to avoid people if you want to.

At the end of the first month it’s drizzling that fine misty rain that quickly covers your skin to let you wash yourself clean. I’m round the back of the sports hall, leaning against the wall and considering the alternatives to an afternoon of geography when Niall and Connor turn the corner. From their smiles it seems that they have found what they are looking for. I don’t move from the wall, but I return their smiles. This is going to be more interesting than the Mississippi delta.

Niall starts with, “We’ve seen you talking to our sister.”

I can’t understand when or where, but I’m not going to bother asking, and I give him one of my “so what” looks.

“Just keep away from her,” Connor says.

They both hang back looking uncertain what to do next.

I almost laugh, they are so inept, and I don’t say anything, wondering if that is it.

It may well have been but then Arran appears behind them and blusters in with, “What’s going on?”

As they turn to him they change. They’re not afraid of Arran, and they’re not about to let him see they have been a little cautious with me.

They say, “Piss off,” in unison.

When he doesn’t, Niall advances on Arran.

Arran holds his ground, saying, “I’m staying with my brother.”

The bell marking the end of lunchtime starts to ring, and Niall shoves Arran on the shoulder, saying, “Piss off back to class.”

Arran is forced to step back, but he then takes a step forward, saying, “I’m not going without my brother.”

Connor is looking at Arran and has half turned away from me, and it is just too tempting seeing the side of his face like that. I hit him hard with my version of a left hook. Before Connor’s body touches the tarmac I sink down low to the ground behind Niall and jab him hard in the back of his knee with my elbow. He falls too, and so dramatically that I only just get out of the way. I am still low, so I punch Niall twice in the face, but I know I have to be quick to go to cover Connor. I rise, kick Niall in the side as he rolls away from me, and get Connor with a boot to his shoulder as he is getting up. Niall, though, is more of a danger, being bigger and much the tougher of the two, and he knows enough to roll away again as I start a run at him. I don’t connect my kick, though, as Arran has grabbed my shoulders, surprisingly powerfully, and is dragging me away. I don’t resist much. I’ve done enough.

Arran’s arm is round me as we walk back to the school building. He is holding me tight, pulling me to him, but as we near the entrance he shoves me away. It’s an angry shove.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Why are you laughing?”

Was I laughing? I hadn’t realized.

Arran carries on into school, his arms out as if he needs to fend me off. The door slams shut behind him.

More Fighting,
Some Smoking

I don’t go back into school that afternoon. I go to the woods and from there make my way home, timing my arrival to coincide with Arran’s and Deborah’s. I wait for Arran to say something, but he is giving me the silent treatment. It goes on all evening. I think he will relent when we go to bed, but he is already tucked up and switching the light off as I come into the room. I put the light back on and stand with my back to the door.

“I’ll tell Gran about the fight tomorrow.”

The lump under the bedclothes doesn’t respond.

“You know fighting’s normal, don’t you? Most boys do it. It would be weird if I didn’t do it.”

Still nothing.

“I laughed because we’d beaten them. I was relieved. Let’s face it, I had you on my side; we were at a disadvantage.”

He still doesn’t react.

“It doesn’t mean I’m the Devil.”

Finally he stirs and sits up to face me. “You know they’ll say you started it.”

Of course I know. I know that even if I don’t fight, even if I avoid Annalise, even if I get on my knees and lick Niall’s and Connor’s boots, it will make no difference; they will do what they like and say what they like, and what they say will be believed. Arran still hasn’t accepted that there is no hope for me. He looks miserable, though.

I sit on my bed and ask, “Do you get a lot of stick for being my half-brother?”

“I’m your brother.” And he gives me that look of his, the most-gentle-person-in-the-world look.

“Do you get much stick for being my brother, then?”

“Not much.”

He’s pretty hopeless at lying, but I love him more than ever for trying.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’ve lived with Jessica all my life. Those jokers are amateurs.”

* * *

I wonder when Niall and Connor will come back at me. My main concern is that they will go for Arran, but they don’t. Maybe they realize that is stupider than just getting their revenge on me.

After the fight I leave school at lunchtimes and hang out in the streets nearby, avoiding the O’Briens and everyone I can, but it’s a miserable existence and within two weeks I’ve had enough of hiding.

I’m leaning against the wall in the same spot as for the first fight when Niall and Connor round the corner. I know they’re going to be more prepared this time, but I think that if I get Niall down first I have a decent chance against them.

They run at me and I see that they are more prepared; Niall is holding a brick.

The best form of defense is attack. I’ve heard that somewhere. So I run at them, shouting as loud as I can—bad stuff, swear words.

Niall is surprised enough to hesitate and I push him away, swerve past him and land a poor punch on Connor, who is a pace behind. But somehow Niall reaches back and grabs my blazer. I pull away from him, but Connor gets his arms round me, pinning my left arm to my body. I try to punch him with my right, but it’s all over.

Niall catches me on the side of the head with the brick and Connor is clinging on to me.

Then I get rammed in my back, which must be with the brick again. But still I’m okay.

Then

T

H

U

D

It reverberates down my spine and stops me dead.

I’ve been hammered into the tarmac like a nail.

Connor’s hands push him away from me.

He’s staring at me. He looks pale, mouth open. Afraid.

Then he isn’t there.

And slowly, slowly the tarmac rises up to my face and I have time to think that I’ve never seen tarmac do that before and wonder how . . .

* * *

My body is cold . . . and lying on something hard. My cheek is squashed into something hard. I taste blood.

But I feel okay. Strange but okay.

When I open my eyes everything is gray and fuzzy.

I focus. Oh, right the playground . . . I remember . . .

I don’t move. The brick is there, lying on the tarmac. It doesn’t move either. The brick looks like it has had a bad day as well.

I close my eyes again.

* * *

I’m in the woods near home. I vaguely remember walking here. I’m lying on my back looking at the sky and aching everywhere. I don’t sit up but feel my face with my fingers, millimeter by millimeter, slowly daring to work my way to the bits I know are bad.

I have a fat lip that is numb and a loose tooth, my tongue is sore for some reason, I have a bloody nose, my right eye is swollen, and a cut above my left ear is oozing blood and a sort of sticky mucus. A dome has grown on the top of my head.

* * *

Gran bathes my face and puts lotion on the bruises that have appeared on my back and arms. My scalp starts to bleed again and Gran shaves the hair around the cut and puts some of her lotion on that too. She does all this in silence once I’ve told her whom I’ve been fighting.

I look in the mirror and have to smile despite my fat lip. Both my eyes are black and there are other colors too—purple, green, and yellow—coming out. My right eye is swollen shut. My nose is puffy and tender but not broken. My hair is shaved above my left ear and the skin covered with a thick yellow lotion.

Gran allows me to miss school until my eye heals. Thankfully by then my bald patch has begun to grow over.

On my first day back Annalise sits next to me as I paint. She whispers, “They told me what they did.”

I have been thinking about Annalise and her brothers a lot in my days at home. I know it would be sensible to ignore her, and I’m fairly sure that if I ask her to she will avoid me. I have a little speech about it worked out, something along the lines of, “Please, don’t talk to me anymore and I won’t talk to you.”

But Annalise says, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

And the way she says it—the way she sounds like she is sorry, like she is genuinely upset—gets me angry. I know it isn’t her fault and it isn’t even my fault. And I forget my crummy speech and all my crummy intentions and instead I touch her hand with my fingertips.

* * *

Annalise and I spend the art lessons whispering and looking at each other, and I build up to well over two and a half seconds. I want to stare in private, though, and so does she. We begin working out how we can spend time together, alone.

We devise a plan to meet at Edge Hill, a quiet place on Annalise’s way home from school. But every time I ask if today is the day that we can meet, Annalise shakes her head. Her brothers are guarding her, sticking close to her whenever she is out of classes and out of school.

Annalise isn’t the only one being guarded. Once I am back at school, Arran and Deborah make a point of staying with me from the bus to the classroom. Arran escorts me home and misses lunch to be with me.

School is becoming unbearable, despite Annalise. The noises in my head are still there, and although I do my best to ignore them, sometimes I want to rip them out of my head and scream in frustration.

A few weeks after my beating, my head is hissing. It is Computer Technology and I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, I’m not interested, I don’t care. I make an excuse that I need the toilet, and the teacher doesn’t seem to mind as I walk out of the classroom.

The quietness of the corridor is a relief, and with nothing better to do I amble to the toilet.

I walk in just as Connor is coming out of a stall.

I take less than a second to register my chance and launch at him, landing a flurry of punches, and when he sinks to the floor I put in a few kicks.

Connor does nothing but try to protect himself. He never even tries to hit me. My attack isn’t stopped by him but by Mr. Taylor, a passing history teacher. He drags me off Connor and I am swamped in Mr. Taylor’s sweaty chest, where he keeps me tight while Connor writhes on the ground, whimpering for all he’s worth.

Mr. Taylor tells Connor, “If there’s something seriously wrong with you, stay still. If not, get up and let’s have a look at you.”

Connor stays still for a few seconds before getting up.

He doesn’t look too bad to me.

“Come with me. Both of you.” It isn’t a request or even an order, more of a resigned comment.

Mr. Taylor has a grip on my wrist so tight that blood is cut off from my hand. We head down lots of empty, squeaky corridors at speed and abandon Connor at a medical room I never knew existed. Then Mr. Taylor swerves me in the direction of the headmaster’s office and we come to a carpeted stop in front of the secretary’s desk.

Mr. Taylor explains the situation to the secretary, who nods, knocks on the headmaster’s door, and disappears inside. We only have to wait a minute before she reappears and tells us we can go in.

Only when I am standing in front of Mr. Brown’s desk does Mr. Taylor let go of my wrist and sit down heavily in the chair by me. The chair creaks.

Mr. Brown taps on his keyboard and doesn’t look up.

Mr. Taylor explains that he has found me fighting.

Mr. Brown continues to tap on his keyboard throughout the story of my fight and then for a while more. He seems to be reading what is on his screen. Then he takes a deep breath, turns to Mr. Taylor, and thanks him for his vigilance.

Mr. Brown takes another deep breath and looks at me for the first time. He gives me instructions about acceptable behavior, instructions about my detention, and instructions to go back to my class. He’s obviously done this before and rattles through the whole procedure in less than five minutes.

I have to go back to class. Computer Technology will still be going on.

“No.” The word comes out of my mouth before I even think it.

Mr. Brown says, “What?”

“No. I’m not going back to that class.”

“Mr. Taylor will escort you back.” Mr. Brown says this with finality, and turns back to his computer.

Mr. Taylor starts to grunt as he rises from the chair.

I shove him back down.

“No.”

I turn and snatch Mr. Brown’s keyboard from under his hands, which are left poised above the bare desk. I smash the keyboard into the side of the computer and push the whole lot of it onto the floor.

“I said, ‘No.’”

Mr. Taylor is still sitting down, but he grabs hold of my wrist again and pulls me to him. I don’t resist but use his momentum to turn and slam into him, and we topple backward. Mr. Taylor flaps his arms in an attempt to fly us back upright. It isn’t going to happen. But I am now free and, unlike Mr. Taylor, I have a soft landing.

I get to my feet and walk out of the office.

I’m not sure that I’ve done quite enough for expulsion, so I grab the secretary’s chair and throw it through the window then head to the front exit, setting the fire alarm off on my way out. Just to make sure, I smash the windshield of the headmaster’s car with the secretary’s chair that has handily landed nearby.

The police are waiting for me when I get home.

* * *

I have to go back to the school, but only once, when I have to formally apologize to Mr. Brown and Mr. Taylor. For some reason, I don’t have to apologize to Connor. Gran complains about paperwork and the visits from the Community Liaison Officer. I have to do fifty hours of community service.

There are four of us doing community service, cleaning the sports center. I think the days might pass more quickly if we do something—even clean—but Liam, the oldest and most experienced in terms of repaying the community, won’t have any of that. We spend the first hour pretending to look for mops and brushes; at least I pretend but Liam just wanders around. Then we go outside for a break and a smoke. I have never smoked before, but Joe is an expert and can blow rings, and rings through rings. He teaches me all he knows.

Occasionally the muscular young man who works on reception at the sports center comes out and tells us to go back inside and clean. We ignore him and he goes away.

I spend most of the time sitting out the back, smoking and listening to the others talk.

Liam has been caught stealing many times. He takes anything, valuable or valueless, useful or useless. Stealing is the point, not the thing being stolen. Joe has been caught shoplifting, and Bryan crashed while joyriding and still has his neck in a brace.

When we aren’t sitting smoking, we wander the sports center. I sometimes carry a mop. Saturday mornings are the busiest. Joe and I like to watch the karate class. It’s for children, from beginners up to black belts. Afterward we go out back to practice our smoking.

One Saturday, after karate finishes, we see that Bryan has an expensive-looking pair of Nikes on. He says, “I might get fit now. Now I’ve got the neck brace off.”

Liam says, “Too right, mate. Just do it, that’s my motto.”

Joe and I lie on our backs on top of the low wall and get out our Marlboros. I am working on a series of three rings with a small one going through the center of them all. I have nearly got this to work when someone comes out of the emergency exit and shouts, “Which one of you shits has taken my trainers?”

I finish blowing smoke and look over at the boy. He is one of the black-belt kids, but he is in jeans now, though still barefoot.

Liam and Bryan have disappeared.

“I want them back. Now!” Black Belt Boy advances on me and Joe.

I don’t get up but lift my feet in my scruffy boots, saying, “I haven’t got them.”

Joe sits up and bangs the heels of his old gray trainers on the wall, but doesn’t say anything. He blows a smoke ring and then a beautiful cigar-shaped missile of smoke that sails through the middle of the ring into the boy’s face.

I sit up and say, “We saw you practicing kung fu.”

“Karate.”

“Right . . . karate. You’re a black belt, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“If you can knock me down I’ll get you your shoes back.”

Joe laughs. “Oh yeah, a challenge.”

“But if I knock you down you let whoever’s got them keep them.”

Black Belt Boy doesn’t need to think about this for more than a second. He is a head taller than me and at least ten kilos heavier, and I guess he’s fairly sure I am no black belt. He gets straight into his fighting stance and says, “Come on then.”