Tall Story (15 page)

‘Look, I was disappointed when I found out that the Souls were boys only. But they let me train with them, which was cool even though they’re hopeless at basketball. I was just taken aback when Rocky decided to sign you up. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. I wished I was
you
.’

Andi wished she was me? I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. How could
anyone
wish that they were
me
?

I cleared my throat. ‘I will not play,’ I said. ‘It is wrong. They only want …’ I searched for the English word for ‘sideshow’ but it eluded me. ‘Gimmick. They only want gimmick.’

Andi smiled, though tears continued to trickle down her face. ‘I wish someone wanted
me
to be a gimmick on their team. It’s not wrong, Bernardo. At least it’s not wrong if you
want
to play.
Do
you want to play?’

I looked at Andi and suddenly I could see how
much
she
wanted to play with the Souls, how much basketball meant to
her
. And me playing was the closest she would ever get to being in the team. At that moment, I wanted to play. For Andi.

‘Yes, yes, I will play,’ I said.

‘I’m glad.’ Andi sighed and smiled. In the shifting light, the amber in her eyes changed to a greeny brown. ‘That would be so cool, Bernardo.’

I smiled. ‘My best friend. He want me to be … he want me to be gimmick for his team too.’

‘Is that the friend who calls himself Jabbar?’

‘Yes. Jabby. Short for Jabbar.’

‘Such a cool name,’ Andi said. And I could see that she meant it.

So I told her about Jabbar and the Arena and the Mountain Men and the Giant Killers.

W
hen we emerged from the gym, my head was buzzing with Bernardo’s story.

How Jabby had tried to cash in on his friend by organizing a game with a team called the Giant Killers. Telling it, Bernardo went red, his eyes wet and his voice gruff, reliving the upset again.

He didn’t like being treated like a freak.

So, if he wouldn’t let his best friend exploit him, why was he letting Rocky do it?

I was suddenly aware that a bunch of kids were watching us from the brick arch to the primary school that adjoined Saint Sim’s.

They stayed carefully in their playground – primary kids weren’t allowed into the secondary playground and these guys looked about seven or eight.

They giggled as they eyed up Bernardo.

‘Hello!’ One little boy waved, a big grin on his face.

Bernardo smiled back and waved shyly.

The children sniggered and whispered amongst themselves and the boy quickly detached himself from the crowd.

Looking over his shoulder to make sure their playground supervisor didn’t see him, the boy crossed the primary boundary, ran up to Bernardo and kicked him on the shin.

Bernardo yelped and momentarily lost his balance. I steadied him with one hand and made a grab for the little monster with my other. But he’d already rejoined his cohorts at the arch and they were sniggering like hyenas and making faces at Bernardo and chanting.

‘SHREK! SHREK! SHREK!’

The nerve! I was just about to lunge at them when I became conscious of Bernardo’s hand on my shoulder.

He had a big smile on his face even though he was bent over, rubbing his leg.

‘No, no,’ he called to the children, his voice friendly. And he mimed a pair of horns on his head. ‘Not Shrek! Shrek is
ogre
. He have horns!’ Then he beat his chest like Hercules. ‘I am GIANT!’

The kids laughed their heads off.

I clenched my fists but Bernardo’s hand was firm
on my shoulder, urging me away. He waved and they all cheered and waved back.

Then the lunch bell rang and Bernardo returned to Mrs Green and I went to my next class, my thoughts in turmoil.

While Bernardo had been talking, I had stared hard at his face. It’s funny how you could spend time with someone and not look closely at him. I mean, really
closely
.

With Bernardo you looked everywhere but his face.

Mostly because he was so tall, there was so much to take in.

But also because you were afraid of what you might see.

It’s like when Coach, from my old school, had an accident with his bicycle and came in with both eyes reduced to massive bruises and his nose in a fat bandage which came off later to reveal ugly swelling that turned his snout into lumpen blue rock. Suddenly none of us could look him in the face. We were afraid our eyes would linger on his deformities. We were afraid we would be disgusted by what we saw.

Anyway, this was the first time I’d had a proper look at Bernardo.

And what I saw was a boy.

Just a boy.

And something more.

His face was soft, not yet a man’s face or even something in between, like Rocky, whose cheeks plunged down in hard planes but without the broad jowly edges of an older man.

His eyes were soft too, beseeching puppy-dog eyes, searching, always searching. I could see Mum’s short snub in his nose and the tilt of the other Bernardo’s Chinesey eyes in his gaze.

But I realized with a start that our eyes were the same colour – hazelly, browny, with a sunburst of dark streaks and black pupils that magnified to deep black wells and shrank to tiny pinpoints with the changes in light.

Since he came, I had been conscious of Bernardo watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was creepy and annoying, but looking at him now, I realized with a start that he was waiting for something.

From me.

What was it? What did he want?

I knew things about Bernardo that Mum had told me over the years. That he broke his arm when he
was four. That he loved pork crackling. That
Star Wars
was his favourite film.

I’d even talked to him on the phone once or twice a year.
Hi, Bernardo. Happy Christmas. Happy Birthday! How are Auntie and Uncle?

But I didn’t really know him.

I decided I should make an effort to get to know my big brother.

After school, I would ask him stuff about himself.

There was so much I didn’t know.

I
thought my heart would burst.

We talked from school gate to front door, from front door to kitchen table. We made a pizza, had some supper and then went upstairs to Andi’s room and talked. The years of being apart seemed to fall away. I thought my heart would burst.

Andi asked me if I had any idea that I was going to grow so tall.

To answer the question, I had to tell her about Bernardo Carpio.

I had to tell her about Old Tibo, about how giants came to be.

I had to tell her about San Andres.

I had to tell her about Mad Nena.

And I had to tell her about Gabriela.

I was just thirteen and the smallest in my class.

That is not much of an excuse.

In fact, it wasn’t an excuse at all because what I did
next was stupid in the extreme. Jabby would have been horrified if he knew. But I didn’t tell him about it until afterwards.

All I knew was that I wanted to get back at Gabriela for what she and her gang did to me. Or maybe I was so upset that I wasn’t going to London after all that I needed to take it out on someone.

I decided that I was going to take the wishing stone from Gabriela the way she and her gang had taken the packet of shells from me.

I was stupid with rage.

Gabriela and her mother lived several blocks from school, in a small house, its concrete walls finished to imitate adobe brick, its windows arched like terrified eyes. It stood out amongst the dull grey houses on the street because it was the only one with a coat of paint – thanks to Ruben the painter who thought his kidney troubles would return if he didn’t do what Nena ordered him to do. So the house shone like a beacon, its gleaming whiteness concealing the blackness within.

Gabriela always parted ways with her gang at the school gates and always, always went straight home. Three days in a row, I followed her home but turned back at the last minute. On the fourth day, I steeled
myself. I had to do it. If I didn’t get on with the task, I never would.

Outside was a sign,
Beware of the Dog
. I gritted my teeth. I’d forgotten about Judas, Gabriela’s vile pet.

Under
Beware of the Dog
was another sign,
Trespassers Will Be Punished
– I don’t understand why they bothered with the sign. It was like underlining the obvious.

Nobody in San Andres would dare cross their threshold uninvited.

Nobody would risk Nena’s wrath.

Well, almost nobody.

I licked my lips. My saliva tasted bitter.

Nena had drawn a chalk line on the pavement around the house. At each corner of the chalk line she drew an upside-down cross. The message was clear. Anybody who crossed the line would be struck down by some unspeakable curse.

Did I believe it? If someone had asked me at the time, I would have puffed out my chest and said, no, it was pure superstition. The nuns at Sacred Heart were always lecturing us about avoiding false notions, like not washing your hair before going to bed for fear you will wake up a lunatic. Or never stepping over a
sleeping child to avoid misfortune. Or witches and black magic.

‘Just say no to superstition,’ Sister Mary John warned. But it had always been easy to see that the nuns were as afraid of Gabriela and her mother as the rest of the barrio.

On the day, I did not allow myself to think. Revenge. I was going to have my revenge.

I edged around the side of the house and peeked in through one of the wide, arched windows. It was shuttered with a mosquito screen and the thick curtains within were drawn. I couldn’t see anything.

But I could hear. There was a voice, raised and sharp. Nena. Gabriela’s voice replied, calm and cool. They were arguing about something.

I pressed my face against the mosquito screen, my nose flattened against the mesh, trying to make out what she was saying.

Nena’s voice kept on, slightly hysterical, high and insistent. Gabriela answered back, her replies cold and low, unfazed.

A door banged shut within.

Then silence.

I pressed my ear against the mosquito screen, cursing the curtains that prevented me from seeing
what was going on inside. Had they left the room?

Suddenly the curtains opened wide.

I was so shocked I didn’t even try to move away.

There was a flicker of surprise in Gabriela’s eyes. But only a flicker.

She stared down at me coolly as I finally stumbled backwards from the window. I forced myself to glare at her, pretending a courage that I hoped would harden into some semblance of real nerve.

But my defiance shrivelled in her unblinking stare. My muscles tensed into knots.
Run, Nardo
, they said.
RUN!

But I couldn’t move.

Her gaze locked me in a thrall. I couldn’t look away.

‘Gabriela, did I hear you open the curtains?’ Nena’s voice was muffled. She was elsewhere, in another room. ‘How many times have I told you to keep those curtains shut?’

A smile played on her lips.
Run, run
, my body screamed. But still I couldn’t move. It was as if my feet had suddenly grown long roots that tethered me to the ground under her window.

‘
Putris!
’ Her mother’s harsh voice rang from the next room. ‘I said shut those curtains!’

‘Yes, Mother.’

But instead of drawing the curtains shut, Gabriela pushed the mosquito screens wide open and reached out. Before I could move away, she grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me over the low sill into the room.

I struggled, but she was stronger and bigger than me. She flung me to the floor, and as I knelt there, dazed, she quickly shut the screens and drew the curtains. Then she held me by the shoulders, a malicious smile on her face.

‘Let me go!’ I whispered.

Gabriela shoved me so hard that I tumbled backwards onto the floor. When I tried to get up, she slapped me on the cheek, contempt etched on her face. ‘Stupid boy!’

She was whispering, which was a small comfort. She clearly had no intention of alerting her mother.

There was a thick odour.

Perfume?

No, incense.

An elaborately carved altar leaned against one wall, with fat candles burning on either side of a massive statue of Christ with one hand outstretched, on his bosom a heart wrapped in thorns. This Christ did not wear the tragic expression so customary of the
statues that lined the walls of any parish church. This was an angry Christ – his eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, a snarl twisting the aquiline nose and a sneer curling his lips. The cold blue glass eyes embedded in the plaster face gleamed.

Hanging from the ceiling and along the walls were braids of garlic and all manner of herbs. There were whips woven from abaca and jars filled with multi-coloured powders, seeds and liquids.

A cold finger traced a path down the back of my neck.

These were the tools in trade of a witch.

‘Yes, Bernardo, as you can see you’re in big trouble.’ Gabriela simpered.

Frantically I looked around for a way out. As if she could read my mind, Gabriela let go of my arm and closed the window latch.

Trapped! I edged away from Gabriela, who loomed over me like an evil shadow.

‘Did you want those shells back?’ She continued to advance as I backed away.

‘Let me out of here.’

‘I thought I fancied them but then I realized that I didn’t.’

‘Please.’ My head bumped on the edge of a table
and I realized that I had backed into the altar. The angry Christ scowled at me from above.

‘I threw them away!’

She threw them away? I should have exploded with anger but I was too terrified.

In the distance, I heard a sharp yelp.

‘Bernardo, Bernardo. I wonder why you have come.’ She clenched her fists and, without warning, drew back an arm to hit me.

I cowered and shut my eyes, raising my arms to block her blows. But they never came.

‘Ah, maybe you’re here to make a wish? Is that it?’