The Red Road (35 page)

“Are you going to have a beer when
we get to the pub, Rob? Or isn’t it sweet enough for your taste?”
Marvin then chuckled.

“Fuck off, Marv,” Rob glared.

“Yeah, leave him alone, Marvin,”
Rory chuckled. “It’s not his fault that he can’t handle beer
and prefers girly cider, instead.”

“But seriously, what will you guys
do if the school does have to shut down?” I asked. “They’ve not
found out who’s done it yet, the security group are still here, and
they’re still locking the place up tight every night. Remember all
the stuff that Mr Somers told me – Benny is having daily meetings
with the police and the school regulators to keep the place open.
That’s why he’s constantly so pissed off these days. If they
close the school, then you’ll have to do your A-Levels someplace
else.”

“Have they actually been reported
as murders yet?” Rob said.

“It’s been in some of the
newspapers, yes,” Rory said. “The latest one was in the
Today
.
They got it wrong, though – they said that it was three first years
who had their throats cut.”

“That’s not good,” Marvin
said. “Can they print stuff like that?”

“The press can do whatever they
like,” Rory shrugged.

“Okay, so what will you do if St
Christopher’s closes at the end of term?” I was still curious to
know.

“I ... don’t know,” Rory said,
looking to Rob and Marvin. “I guess I would just go to another
school.”

“I’d probably do what you and
Baz are going to do and go to a sixth form college,” Marvin said.

“Rob?” I asked, looking at him.
“I think there is still time to apply for Baconsdale Sixth Form
College.”

“Sure, but I actually like it
here,” Rob said. “Ignoring all the stuff that’s gone on
recently, there’s not much wrong with it. It’s a good school,
Joe; you get good education here. Sure, it could be better, but there
are worse places you could go. You have no idea if BSFC is any good,
either. It could be really crap, and then you’ll screw up your
chances of getting into a good university. Remember that the
admissions offices at the universities look at the schools you’ve
been to and take them into consideration. You might not have
brilliant grades, but when they see you’ve come from St
Christopher’s you’ll stand a much better chance.”

Marvin started laughing. “That is
utter
bollocks, Rob! I can’t believe you actually think
that’s true!”

“No, it’s true,” Rob said.

“No, it’s not,” Rory said.
“The school only say that to keep you here. The university couldn’t
give a shit where you come from, so long as you have the grades they
want. The only places where it makes a difference is Oxford and
Cambridge. The rest don’t care.”

“Really?” Rob looked a little
dumbstruck.

“Yes!” Rory and Marvin chorused.

“My God, you’re gullible,”
Rory added with a smirk.

“Right, let’s try this one,”
Marvin then suggested, as we approached a pub known as ‘The
Peahen’. It being a hot summer day, the door was open to let some
air in and create ventilation. The windows themselves were dark,
making it hard to see who was inside.

“I don’t think we’ve gone far
enough,” I said. “If a teacher comes looking, then this is the
first place he’s going to check.”

“Don’t worry,” Marvin said
confidently, fishing out his fake ID. “We’ll just sit in the
corner. We’ll just have one and not stay too long. Agreed?”

“Okay,” Rob, Rory and I nodded.

We stepped in, my eyes darting over
the patrons as we did so, my heart and legs both stopping as I
spotted Mr Finn, Mr Carter, and Mr Summers seated around a table,
each enjoying a pint of beer. Their eyes met ours.

“Go back to the stadium, boys,”
Mr Finn said before the other two teachers could say anything. His
words were warm and kind, yet possessing an edge that suggested he
didn’t want to have to warn us again.

We heeded his words immediately.

~ ~ ~

I was enjoying a Lion Bar while
playing
Mega Man II
on my Game Boy. I was finding the game
particularly frustrating and difficult tonight. I had bought the game
during my four days off at home, the same day I went to the cinema
with Rob. I was starting to regret the purchase, and I was wondering
if maybe I should have bought something else.

“Joe? Joe Crosthwaite?”

A first
year boy had come into my dorm after knocking gingerly at the door.
He was likely bothered about coming face to face with the second
years, in case they decided to knock him about for trespassing in
their domain.

“Yes?” I said, looking around my
bookcase.

“Phone.”

Phone? Who could that be? My parents
were still away with work and, unlike quite a lot of other parents,
hadn’t come to Sports Day to watch me compete or take me back home
afterwards. Still, maybe they had called from abroad to see how I had
gotten on today.

I headed for the phone, seeing the
first year that had called me settling down on a sofa chair outside
the box. He had clearly been about to call someone when the phone had
rung for me. He was now going to have to wait about until I was
finished. I probably wouldn’t be making him wait all that long.

“Hello?” I said, picking up the
receiver.

“Hi, Joe. It’s Sam.”

“Sam! Oh my God! How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”
Sam said, chuckling. There was a slight delay on the line as we
spoke. Sam was obviously calling from America.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I
said, very glad to hear from him. “What’s been happening? How
come you’ve not been in touch?”

“Oh, I messed up,” Sam said. “I
was dialling the wrong number for the phone. I forgot that you have
to drop the zero when you’re calling from here. I was putting in
the four-four part, as well as the zero, and it was never
connecting.”

“Your parents didn’t know?”

“They did, but I didn’t tell
them for ages. I thought I’d just taken the number down wrong. I
tried changing it a few times, and it wouldn’t connect. I think I
gave you a wrong number, too. Didn’t you get the letter I sent you?
I put all the new details in there.”

I told him I hadn’t.

“Shit. It’s probably been lost
in the post,” Sam said.

“Hold on, I’ll get the details
off you now,” I said, opening the door of the box and asking the
first year to fetch me a pen and paper.

“What time is it there?” I asked
as I waited for the boy to return.

“It’s just after two. It’s
about nine there, right?”

“Eight,” I said.

“Ah, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t
want to call you too early or too late, since you might have been at
a cricket match or something.”

“You know I hate cricket,” I
said.

“Oh, yes,” Sam chuckled, “due
to not winning on your first go.”

“Ha!”

“What have you been doing?”

“We’ve just had Sports Day,” I
said.

“Oh ho?” Sam laughed. “Hurdles?”

“Nooooo,” I laughed. “I
volunteered for the four hundred metres.”

“You
volunteered
?” Sam
said, incredulously.

“Well, sure,” I said. “I
didn’t want to get lumbered with something crap. But Suzuki’s
okay, so he wouldn’t make me to anything bad, anyway. We actually
had quite a good team this year.”

“Did you win?”

“Came second to Enfield,” I
said. “There was only two points in it, too.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Sam had
never been one to be that bothered about sport. He tended to view
exercise as something necessary, but found team games tedious. He had
actually been one of the few that had enjoyed the runs along the Red
Road, as it was something he could do at his own pace (even if it did
stretch him quite a bit). He wasn’t even that bothered about
American football or baseball, something I had come to believe all
Americans supported fiercely. Each to their own, I suppose.

I told Sam about the rest of the
day, about what I had been up to since he had left, that the spring
holiday had only lasted a few days, and about how all my classes were
now over. I also let him in on various pieces of gossip circulating
the school, one of the key points being no further murders or other
incidents having since taken place. He was quite relieved to hear
that. I imagined that his parents would be, too.

“What are you doing over in Texas?
Are you doing your SATs?” I asked.

“I am!” Sam said
enthusiastically. “I’ve actually been lucky in that a lot of
stuff is quite similar – maths, English, science ... all those are
the same. The only major differences are history and geography, and
my US history is being treated as if I were still studying in England
and the rest is being covered under world history. The differences
aren’t as major as I thought they were going to be.”

“That’s good,” I said, pleased
to hear that the transition wasn’t causing him any grief. “Where
are you being taught?”

“At home. ‘Homeschooling’ they
call it. Just until I do these exams.”

“And you’re going to ... high
school next?” I wasn’t sure whether it was high school or college
that came next.

“High school, then college,” Sam
said. “You’re not staying there after you finish your GCSEs, are
you?”

“Huh?” I said. “How did you
know?”

“I had a hunch,” Sam laughed.
“You never seemed all that bothered about graduating to the sixth
form and having your own room and that, so I thought that you might
be considering leaving.”

“You guessed right,” I said.

“Is anyone else leaving?”

“Baz,” I said.

“Oh, really? I thought he would
stay there until he finished the sixth form. Where are you planning
on going?”

“To a local sixth form college,
back home. As long as I get the grades and they let me in. I’ve
spoken to them briefly already, and they’ve given me a verbal offer
based on my mock results. What are you going to do when you finish
high school? Will you go to college there or come back to England?”

“I want to come back to England,”
Sam said with total determination. “I just have to convince my
folks that it’s safe for me to do so. They think that I’ll get
murdered if I come back.”

“Who you talking to, Sam?” I
then heard another voice say.

“Joe, one of my friends from St
Christopher’s,” Sam replied, slightly off the phone.

“Are you going to be long? I just
want to call the others about tonight.”

“Not much longer now I know I’ve
got the right number.”

“Cool.”

“Sorry, Joe, that was Cody,” Sam
said, returning to speaking to me. “He’s home for a bit and has a
couple of his army friends over.”

“No problem,” I said. “There’s
someone here waiting anxiously to get on the phone, too; one of the
first years whose parents didn’t come to Sports Day and so he’s
not been able to go home.”

“Maybe he’s been gated,” Sam
said.

“Perhaps,” I said, glancing out
of the box towards the boy. “He sure looks miserable enough.”

“Hey, maybe we should all try and
go to university in London?” Sam then suggested.

“That would be cool,” I said.
“Your parents might feel better about it, too, knowing there were
people there that you knew.”

“They probably would be. I’ll
suggest it to them. I’d better go, Joe. Cody is quite keen for me
to get off the phone.”

“Sure thing. Don’t be a
stranger,” I said.

“You have my number and address,
so you can call or write me, too.”

“Cool. Good to hear from you, Sam.
Thanks for calling.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“
S
o
you’re definitely leaving us?” Mr Finn wanted to know, at the
start of what would likely be my last session with him.

“I will be, yes,” I said.

“Well, that’s a shame.”

“Do you think the school will
still be open next term?” I asked.

“Well, I hope so,” Mr Finn said,
looking a little affronted by my somewhat direct question. “We have
to think about the pupils here, and I have to consider my own job.”

It was something that had completely
slipped my mind. I had never considered what the consequences of the
school shutting might have on the staff working there.

“Have you given any further
thought to what you want to do as a career?” Mr Finn asked. “You’re
still not keen on following in your parents’ footsteps and going
into pharmaceuticals?”

“No. I was thinking about
something to do with economics and finance. I got the idea from
Carson Young, who wants to go and work in the City.”

“I see,” Mr Finn began to smile.
“Fancies himself as a high-earning trader, who pulls in a few
million every year and lives around the Stockbroker Belt, eh?”

“Ha, yes,” I chuckled. “Exactly
that, in fact.”

“It’s hard work, Joe; I won’t
lie to you,” Mr Finn said. “There have been quite a few boys from
the school who have headed that way in the past, and very few of them
stayed the course. Many quit within the first two or three years. It’s
a lot to undertake when you’re fresh out of university.”

Exactly what my mother had said to
me. There would be a ring of truth there, for sure. “I’ll see how
it goes,” I said.

“Anything else you think you might
like to do? Let’s not assume that you will automatically find work
there. I’m not saying that you won’t, but you should at least
keep an open mind and explore as many options as you can.”

“I ... um ...” I wasn’t sure,
to be honest. Did anyone really know what they wanted to be when they
left school, or were careers something that most people just sort of
fell in to? Sure, when I was younger I had entertained dreams of
becoming a doctor, a vet, an astronaut, a fireman. Then, as I had
grown older, I had been forced to become a little more realistic and
appreciate that I couldn’t simply drive over to NASA and expect
them to pop me in a space shuttle and send me off to the moon, to
work on the base they were building there. The truth of the matter
was that I had never really had a clear idea of where I wanted to be
in the long term.