The Disappeared (21 page)

Kay scowls at him. ‘No! You have to fight. Do the things I showed you.’

I nod absently at both of them. I just want it to be over.

Ali tugs gently on my shirt.
Don’t show you’re frightened. Pretend you don’t care,
she signs.

I smile at her. ‘I’ll try.’ It’s funny how Ali’s vocabulary is so much better than most of the other Specials, including Ilex. When I taught her the sign for ‘pretend’ the other day she seemed to already know what the word meant. Maybe it’s because she’s spent so much time not talking that she’s really listened to every word that she’s ever heard.

The drum room is packed. The seats are crammed with shouting and laughing Specials. I wish I was looking forward to this as much as they clearly are. We squeeze into a space on the second row. I try to focus on next Saturday when we’ll finally get out of this place.

I’m distracted by the door slamming open. Suddenly the Specials fall silent. In stalks Dom. She’s done something to her hair. It’s divided into tiny plaits that are twisted in loops standing away from head like a halo. She’s also dripping with shrap. One of the little Specials next to us gasps in delight. Dom slinks across the floor, lapping up the attention. Close behind her are Lou and a number of the other Red girls, all with their hair styled in a similar fashion. The Specials break into applause and Dom’s pout opens into a gracious smile. I look at Kay. She can’t take her eyes off Dom’s head and when Lou’s laser eyes swivel around to give Kay a triumphant look, I notice that Kay’s hands start clapping. Obviously she hasn’t entirely given up on what the Red girls think of her.

The Red girls are followed by Deon, Pete and a bunch of thick-armed Hon Reds. I wonder if it’s one of them that Rex has chosen to teach me a lesson.

When everyone has taken their seats Rex runs through the door like a game-show host.

‘Let’s have fighting!’ he shouts.

The Specials howl with approval.

I feel sick.

I have to sit through two other fights before Rex calls my name. I make my way on unsteady legs to the centre of the floor. I walk around a smear of blood left from the last fight. Rex is standing on one of the first-row seats. He gives me a wolverine grin. ‘It’s the boy that thinks brainers are best.’

The watching Specials laugh and jeer.

‘Let’s see his fighting. Blakey-boy fights . . .’

I resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. I need to see my opponent coming.

‘. . . Ilex Dalton!’ Rex gives me a self-satisfied smirk. He’s done this on purpose.

My eyes find Ilex in the crowd. He clambers through the Specials on to the floor and lurches his way towards me, his eyes wide. He didn’t know this was going to happen. No one told him he was fighting tonight. Rex has set this up because he thinks it will be a laugh to see me fight my friend, but Rex is the fool; does he really think that Ilex and I will hurt each other for the sake of the stupid ranking system? This isn’t going to be the ordeal I thought it was.

Ilex joins me in the centre of the floor. I give him a conspiratorial look. He just shrugs in response.

‘It’s a big one, this fight, Specials,’ Rex goes on.

‘We’ll have a bit of a scuffle and then we’ll pretend you’ve got me pinned down,’ I whisper to Ilex.

Before Ilex can reply Rex breaks in, ‘Blake, Ilex, you are luckers . . .’

I realise that the audience are hanging on his words. What’s he playing at?

‘. . . big luckers because tonight it’s a three-er!’ Rex beams at us.

The Specials gasp in surprise and then revert to cheering. What the hell is a three-er?

Rex shakes a fist in the air. ‘Yes Specials! A three-er! It’s brainer Blake and slow-boy Ilex.’ He turns to flash his teeth at me again. ‘And they fight . . . me!’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I say. ‘We can’t possibly have three of us in a fight.’

Ilex shakes his head. ‘Rex fights two Specials lots of times.’

Oh.

The Specials are on their feet, yelling and stamping already. It seems they’re keen on a three-way fight.

Dom slinks her way across the hall to Rex and smothers him in a good-luck embrace.

I don’t know why I’m so filled with dread. After all, this is better than me going one-on-one with a Red, which is what I was expecting. I step closer to Ilex. ‘This is good,’ I whisper to him. ‘There are two of us; we can take him on.’

‘Specials don’t win Rex,’ he whispers back.

Rex breaks away from Dom and hands Deon his whistle. Deon gives it a blast and suddenly Rex is striding towards us.

‘We just need to work together,’ I say, but Ilex is mesmerised by Rex’s progress. ‘Come on, Ilex! What move do you want to try?’

‘Blake, look out—’

Rex smacks me across the side of the head and sends me sprawling into Ilex. I crash down on top of him, getting his elbow jammed into my neck.

Good grief. Two against one and we’re on the floor already.

Rex reaches down and hauls Ilex up by his collar. Ilex has enough time to kick out at Rex’s knees. I scramble up and throw myself on Rex’s broad back.

‘Hit him, Ilex!’ I shout. Rex is bucking about, trying to throw me off. I tighten my grip around his neck. ‘Hit him!’

Ilex reluctantly raises a fist, but Rex is quicker and punches him under the chin. Ilex spins away. Rex drops down to the ground and rolls heavily on me. He’s crushing my lungs. I think one of my ribs is cracked. Ilex drags him off me and Rex starts laying into Ilex with a volley of kicks and chops. Ilex sidesteps the first one, but then takes a blow to the head, followed by one to the chest, then the stomach. As he backs away Rex drops into a low spin and uses an extended leg to take Ilex’s legs out from under him. Just as Ilex goes down and Rex is getting up I try throwing myself on to Rex’s back again. This time he’s caught off-balance and tips forward to his knees, then over on to poor Ilex, bringing me with him, so we’re piled in a stack, with me on top. Before I can get up, a mass of I-don’t-know-whose limbs are scrabbling over me. Then we’re all rolling about like animals in the dirt.

The Specials in the audience laugh. We must look ridiculous flailing about on top of one another like this. I try to push myself up, but someone’s leg is across my neck. My hand connects with Rex’s greasy hair and I dig my nails into his scalp. Suddenly Ilex’s face is in mine. His nose is bloodied. ‘Go down,’ he says. ‘Go down and let him win faster.’ Then we roll again and somehow the two of us end up on top of Rex. I clench my fist and hit him in the nose and then as he twists away, I get him again in the temple. Something rushes through me. This is it. This is what he deserves. I smack him in the mouth. The impact ricochets up my arm but I don’t care. I punch him with my other hand.
That’s for being such a bastard
, I think. I want to pound him again and again, but he’s twisting out of my reach. ‘Hold him,’ I say to Ilex, but Rex manages to half sit up and send a fist into Ilex’s face. Ilex falls backwards and Rex yanks one of his legs out from under him and throws me off the other one. I’m staggering to my feet yet again when Rex punches Ilex full in the face. Ilex falls and I know that he’ll be taking his own advice and that he won’t be getting up again. Which leaves me and Rex. I won’t give up. I want to land another satisfying smack on his smug face. Anger courses through me, powering me forward to deliver the best punch of my life.

Which is when Rex launches a spinning kick that sends his accelerating foot into the side of my head and knocks me out.

When I come round, Kay is leaning over me. ‘Blake? Are you okay?’ She bites her soft bottom lip and frowns in concern. My head is buzzing and there’s an ache in my kidneys, but seeing her sweet face worrying about me helps me to push my battered face into a smile.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. I know I should just be grateful that it’s over, but I wish Kay hadn’t seen me get such a pummelling. ‘We didn’t do very well,’ I say.

‘You did a good punch.’

‘I did four! Four good punches.’

‘That’s good.’ She nods her head encouragingly like I’m a small child.

‘You missed them, didn’t you?’ I say.

‘Sorry, Blake, but Rex is so big and so fast that I couldn’t see goodly what you did.’

I can’t help but wince. ‘
Rex is so big and so fast
,’ I imitate.

Kay scowls.

Ilex comes over to us. He’s mopping at his bloody nose. ‘Are you hurting?’ he asks.

‘Of course I’m hurting – or didn’t you see the part where a boy the size of a rhino was crushing the air out of me?’

Ilex raises his hands in defence.

‘Sorry,’ I say to him. ‘It’s just . . .’ I grimace as I ease myself into a sitting position and scan the room. Rex is at the centre of the Reds’ seating area. There are girls all over him. ‘I just feel a bit cross.’

‘You wanted to win it!’ Kay says. ‘Were you really going for the win, Blake?’

‘You can’t win Rex,’ Ilex says, rubbing his elbow. ‘It’s goodest to go down fast.’ He grins. ‘Like me.’

‘Blake isn’t like you,’ Kay says to Ilex. ‘He wants to be winning.’

She’s right; it’s ridiculous, but I would have liked to have beaten Rex. I used to think that all this fighting stuff was primitive and pointless. I thought that my intellect would win over every time. But look at Rex. He’s got exactly what he wanted; he’s shown me up by taking both me and my friend out in a matter of minutes and the girls love him for it. I thought the outside world was so removed from this place, but now I’m not so sure that it’s only in an Academy where people like Rex are in control. After all, when you think about the Long War, the Greater Power was basically a bully and they were the ones calling the shots.

Kay helps me to my feet.

‘Hey, Blake-boy!’ Rex bellows across the hall.

I turn to face him.

‘Good fight. The Specials loved it.’ He beams at the two girls hanging on his left arm and then winks at me. It doesn’t make me feel any better. Rex only seems to get aggressive towards me when he sees me as a threat. Clearly all this magnanimity shows that he thinks he’s reduced me to a nobody again. I acknowledge his beneficence with a nod and turn to leave the room.

But Rex hasn’t finished being kind to the conquered. ‘You got a good punch! You got me one good punch!’

The girls around him giggle at such generosity on the champion’s part.

I stiffen. ‘It was
four
punches,’ I say under my breath.

Kay tugs on my arm to keep me moving towards the door.

‘I think you’re right,’ I say to her in a low voice. ‘I think everyone needs to learn to fight.’

‘You are learning it,’ she says. ‘You’ve learned to want the win. That’s the biggest lesson.’

Which gives me the strength to send Rex and his adoring crowd a cheery wave.

Because maybe he has taught me something worth knowing after all.

The next morning in the grid we study circuit board diagrams and then we’re given a box of parts so we can practise component assembly. I empty out a jumble of wires and small parts.

‘If you have finished, Kay, do some more,’ my mother says.

Kay has finished. I haven’t even identified all my components. I imagine Kay’s dextrous fingers pushing pieces into place and I almost groan. Somehow it’s become impossible to think about Kay without getting excited. I spend my time caught between extreme arousal and deep embarrassment. I sort my capacitors into a pile and try to think neutral thoughts.

Sometime later, an impeccable appears in the doorway. ‘Blake to go with me to Enforcer Rice,’ he says.

My mother shoots a worried look at me before she can stop herself. She’s been fidgety since she saw my bruised face. She composes herself and says, ‘Blake, go with the impeccable,’ in a neutral tone.

My stomach plummets. Does Rice know about my mother? I avoid looking at her in case the impeccable has been told to watch us. I climb out of my seat and head for the door. Kay gives me a look that is both worried and encouraging as I pass. I feel a warmth in my chest and, armed with that, I make my way down the corridor behind the impeccable. Maybe this isn’t about my mother – maybe Rice has found out about the reading lessons, or the recs.

The impeccable takes me to Rice’s office and pushes me through the door.