Maggot Moon (8 page)

“A pity that you didn’t think to do that a long time ago,” said the leather-coat man.

I didn’t know what I was expected to do after that. So I walked unaccompanied back to my classroom, certain it was a trap of some sort. On the first-floor landing I stopped and looked out of the window at the playground. The leather-coat man was walking with Mr. Gunnell past the body of Little Eric. He stopped, and Mr. Gunnell looked surprised. The leather-coat man calmly took his pistol from his holster and placed the barrel against Mr. Gunnell’s temple. One shot rung out, ricocheting round the playground. Mr. Gunnell slumped to the ground.

Do you know? I didn’t give a shit.

In the classroom, Hans Fielder was standing in the dunce’s corner with a pair of scissors. He had Robinson Crusoed his trousers. Goodness knows how many lies Mrs. Fielder had to make up to be rewarded with those. I don’t think she is going to be too delighted to see she has a rebel on her hands. But that’s her problem, not mine. No, my problem is elephantine. How do you eat an elephant, sir? Bit by tiny bit.

I told the Greenfly who was in charge of us that I had been expelled. He said nothing. I don’t think they cover what to do with uncooperative pupils in their manual. Every boy in the class had his head down. I was an undesirable among the sheep. I returned to my desk. I felt stupid and didn’t know what to do, so I lifted the lid. There was a note pinned inside. It was written in big words so that I, who can’t read, could read it.

I got the gist of it. I put the piece of paper in my shorts pocket. There was nothing else in my desk. From the classroom window I saw a van drive onto the playground. Two orderlies, overseen by the Greenflies, gently picked up Little Eric Owen’s body and less gently, Mr. Gunnell’s, and placed them in the van.

What that note told me was that this time there was no get-out-of-jail card.

I was in the corridor when I saw Miss Phillips. She was still wearing that blood-soaked skirt. She walked right past me without a word and I nearly jumped out of myself when I felt a finger on my shoulder. Miss Phillips had darted back while the clockwork camera was turned the other way.

She whispered in my ear, “Tell Harry they know,” then ran to the point in the corridor where the camera would next find her.

I kept my face as dumb as possible which, considering what Miss Phillips had just said, wasn’t easy.

There was blood on the pavement. One of Little Eric’s shoes, scuffed and worn, lay there abandoned. The sole of that shoe hollered, megaphone loud.

“Standish, wake up, you fricking daydreaming bastard! Wake up! Wake up or you’ll be dead like me.”

In the guardhouse, the school caretaker didn’t even look up from his paper. I was about to tell him I had been expelled when he pressed the button that electrically opened the school gates. I walked, snail-slow, out of the school, wondering why no one stopped me.

Did you think I hadn’t seen cruelty like that before? We all had. Nothing like the unexpected, terrifying death to keep everyone calm and orderly.

I was doing my best to imitate my old self, the one that looked as if he was lost in a dream. My plan was simple: go home.

“Standish!”

Coming down the road towards me was Gramps. We tried never to run, as that drew attention, and what both Gramps and me wanted most in Zone Seven was no attention whatsoever.

When I reached him, I said, “Where were you?”

“In the old church, watching the TV.”

Only then did it strike me, lightning-bolt hard, that someone must have ordered Gramps to come and fetch me.

“They said there had been some trouble at school.”

“Yes. Mr. Gunnell killed Little Eric Owen, and I’ve been expelled.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. That squeeze said everything. It said,
thank God you are all right.

We carried on walking, intentionally slowly, up the street where once there were shops that sold things you might have wanted. Not now. All the shops were boarded up.

Half under my breath and in the quietest of whispers, so Gramps had to lean towards me, I said, “This is a trap.”

“I know,” replied Gramps.

No matter how bad things looked, Gramps had always seemed a giant to me. He wasn’t made up of any monstrous parts.

There were two men, plain-clothes policemen, following us in a car.

Gramps smiled at me like it was a good summer afternoon, a day to be proud of.

“Did you hear the president of the Motherland speak?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “No, not really. The TV set . . .”

One of the men in the car had a pair of binoculars. He was lip-reading.

I said, “Did you see the astronauts walking out to the rocket? Cripes, they are so brave.”

“Very impressive,” replied Gramps. “Good to know about all the missiles they can launch from the moon. That will do it, put an end to the enemies of the Motherland.”

“We missed that bit,” I said. “It must have happened while Mr. Gunnell was being shot.”

Either we were just too boring for the detectives to bother with any longer, or they’d found something more important to do, for their car sped off.

We carried on, past the disused bus shelter at the roundabout, and crossed the deserted road. It was then I told him about Little Eric, and about the note and Miss Phillips. He listened carefully, weighed it all up.

At one end of our road were the grand, rooster-breasted houses. Those were where the good Families for Purity lived. They looked smart enough, but they were only stuck together with the glue of dead men’s bones.

In the distance, at the very top of the road, you could see that hideous building which should have been left in ashes when it first burned down. I suppose it added to the stage effect that all was as it should be. But I’ll tell you this for nothing — it wasn’t.

That huge ugly building was lit up. It shone brighter than the stars, even in the daytime. That was something. People in Zone Seven dared not ask why. We just wondered what was going on inside. Why did it need so much electricity when we were lucky to get an hour or two a day? You could hear the citizens of Zone Seven silently ask that question. It crept along the streets, oozed out of everyone you met.

I wished I didn’t have even a hint of what the answer might be, but I did.

Down the dip in the road where the tall trees hid the rest of our street, the houses were just rubble, destroyed for harboring terrorist cells or undesirables.

That summer, in the wilderness of crumbling bricks and mortar, white roses had appeared in those derelict suburbs. Gramps said that if man was mad enough to destroy itself, at least the rats and cockroaches would have front-row seats, be able to enjoy the sight of Mother Nature reclaiming the earth.

Outside our house, two black cars were waiting. We watched as the television set was carried away.

“What if they find him?” I asked in a whisper.

“They won’t, not even with their dogs. Neither will they find the hens.”

“So why did you let them have the TV?”

I knew that was the end of the plastic lady who had a ball of a time in the land of Croca-Colas.

“Because if I didn’t, they would be even more suspicious that we are up to no good. Forfeiting the television is a lighter penalty than the alternative.”