Faye Meredith - Becoming Edward

by Faye Meredith

  ‘Yep, let’s go find her.’ Ginster and Lynn moved slower than a glacier through the mass of bodies that was reluctant to part, despite the many ‘excuse me’s’ they offered.

  ‘Look, there’s Matt and Cassie,’ said Lynn. ‘They look like they’re getting on well.’

  ‘That’s the understatement of the year,’ said Ginster. ‘Forget Matt and Cassie, we’ll have to start calling them Massie or something.’

  Lynnlaughed, Ginster could see her mind working.

  ‘Yeah, or what about Catt,’ she said. ‘Oh, that doesn’t work.’

  ‘No, but it is funny,’ said Ginster.

  Matt and Cassie were standing closer together than Siamese twins, grinning at each other like their mouths would split.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lynn looking at all the people blocking their way. ‘I think we can get to them before closing time,’ she added.

  When Lynn and Ginster finally made it to Cassie and Matt, they were millimetres away from snogging. Ginster enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of interrupting them at the crucial moment.

  ‘Hi guys,’ he said.

  Ginster’s greeting was a bucket of cold water over Matt.

  ‘Hi,’ said Matt, without any emotion.

  ‘Hey, Ginster. Hi, Lynn,’ said Cassie. Her tone was more forgiving. She was clearly in a happy place. ‘What are you two up to?’

  ‘I think we’re going to head off,’ said Ginster.

  ‘Come on, stay for a few more. It’s Rachel’s birthday.’ Cassie was just about to persuade them to stay when Matt whispered in her ear. Cassie smiled wickedly.

  ‘Actually, I think we might make a move too,’ said Cassie. She looked back at Matt and giggled.

  ‘We were going to find Rachel first and say goodbye,’ said Lynn.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Cassie. ‘She went outside with Lewis.’

  The four of them headed towards the door. Progress was a little more successful with Cassie leading the way. She seemed to be on some sort of mission, no doubt inspired by whatever Matt had said to her.

  ‘Come on, make a space, people,’ Cassie shouted. ‘I’ve got mischief to make.’

  The crowd gradually parted and the small group made it to the door. Olivia was standing nearby chatting with some girls who looked at Cassie with bitchy green eyes when they saw her with Matt.

  ‘We’re all going,’ said Cassie.

  ‘Are you staying or do you want to leave with us?’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough too,’ said Olivia. ‘I need to find my brother to see if I can get a lift home.’

  ‘Cool, we’re going to find him and Rachel. I think they’re in the park.’

  ‘What are they doing in the park?’

  ‘Who knows? Probably something naughty,’ Cassie said, winking at Matt.

  As the six of them crossed the road in the mist and walked across the damp grass, they could see Rachel and Lewis standing in front of a crowd of people, which had fanned out around them. Somebody was shouting. The mist muffled what they said but it didn’t sound good. Ginster knew he was afraid because he felt hungry.

  *

  Cassie caught the fear as soon as she recognised the voice screeching through the cloudy air.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘It’s Kat.’

  ‘Who’s Kat?’ asked Matt.

  ‘She’s trouble, that’s who she is,’ said Cassie.

  They all saw the demented shape of Kat who was spitting all manner of obscenities at Lewis and Rachel. She had clearly been binge drinking on something cheap from a supermarket. Behind her stood the menacing silhouettes of Shaun and Andy Sherwood. The rest of the mob must have been her extended family of cousins and second cousins. They would follow Kat anywhere if there was the remotest possibility of a one-sided fight.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Cassie.

  Rachel was about to answer when Kat interrupted.

  ‘Look, it’s Cassie and her geeks,’ said Kat, looking mostly in the direction of Ginster and Lynn.

  ‘Hi, Kat. What are you doing here?’ Cassie tried to be as nice as possible.

  ‘Don’t try to sweet talk me. You’re all going to get your heads kicked in.’

  ‘Kat, you’re drunk,’ said Rachel. ‘Go home and we’ll sort this out on Monday.’

  ‘You don’t get to make the rules, I do. I invited you and him to my birthday,’ Kat said pointing at Rachel and Lewis. ‘First you snub me and then you have your own birthday without inviting me. How rude is that? Whacha trying to say? Are you disrespecting me?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Come on, we should all leave now,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Shut up, blondie, you ain’t going anywhere until these two confess they’ve been slagging me off. Then all these fine people behind me are going to mash you up.’ Kat giggled.

  ‘I’m not frightened,’ Lewis calmly stated. ‘Give it a go if you like.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Lewis,’ said Rachel. ‘These people are dangerous.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Lewis, get real.’ Olivia shook her head in exasperation. ‘You haven’t got superpowers. This isn’t Twilight.’

  ‘I was just thinking, actually it is,’ said Lewis. ‘This is just like the end of Breaking Dawn, you know, with the stand off against the Volturi.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Lewis,’ Rachel and Olivia said in unison.

  Lewis wasn’t listening. He clenched his fists and stared at Andy and Shaun Sherwood. Without warning Lewis ran towards them. By the surprise on their faces, they weren’t expecting it. Normally they were the ones who started fights, not their intended victims. This caught them off guard. Lewis screamed like a banshee as he sprinted towards them. He leapt in the air and planted a foot into Andy’s chest. It sent him flying back onto the grass, temporarily winding him.

  Lewis’ small victory was short lived. He spun around just as Shaun swung a perfect right hook onto Lewis’ cheek. The force of it knocked him sideways. It was quickly followed up by a left hook, which caught Lewis’ other cheek. Andy Sherwood quickly recovered and grabbed Lewis around the neck so his brother could use him as a punch bag. Just then Matt ran in from out of nowhere and barged Andy sideways making him lose his grip on Lewis. This distracted Shaun momentarily and Lewis thumped him hard in the mouth.

  ‘Get the rest of them,’ shouted Kat. Her small army moved in on Rachel and her friends.

  ‘Er, guys,’ said Olivia, ‘I don’t know how to fight.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Cassie, ‘we do.’ Cassie felt a powerful arm fold itself around her neck and pull her back. Shock paralysed her body for a second until she remembered what to do. She cocked her head to one side so she could see her assailant’s foot. He was wearing a thin canvas baseball boots. Big mistake. Cassie raised her right leg and drove her stiletto heel down hard just above his toes. The arm around her neck went limp and there was a scream of pain from behind her. Her attacker would be out of the fight for now.

  Cassie saw Rachel grabbed by a large muscular boy with floppy hair who she recognised from school. She was about to run in and help when Rachel reached behind with both hands and secured two large clumps of his hair. She wrenched his head forward while snapping her head back. Rachel’s skull drove into the boy’s soft face. The boy screamed, clutching his bloody nose as he disappeared into the mist.

  Three girls ran at Lynn, and Cassie feared the worse. Her long skinny body looked clumsy and breakable. One girl swung a punch at her. Lynn caught it easily and twisted her body so the girl flew up in the air and over her shoulder. She then flung the two remaining girls in different directions as if she were flicking tiddly winks. One landed on her back and got up and ran off, while the other was sent head first into a park bench. Cassie looked at Lynn with surprise.

  ‘Junior Judo Club,’ Lynn said.

  Ginster stood with Olivia in an attempt to look like he was doing something useful. I
t was only a matter of time before he was sucked into the mass brawl. With his lifestyle choices, he would be as useful as a blow-up dart board.

  ‘Back in a second,’ he said. Ginster ran off towards the taxi rank.

  Olivia saw him and put two and two together.

  ‘Ginster you coward, don’t leave me,’ she said.

  Ginster decided to put all those years of video gaming experience to good use. There were three things you could do when you were outnumbered: run, hide or find weapons. Ginster had no intention of running or hiding - it was the road works just before the taxi rank that interested him. Around the freshly dug hole were five metal road pins holding up a length of saggy caution tape. Each road pin was about a metre and a half long and made of thick rusty steel with a sharp point on one end and a hook on the other. Ginster circled the hole once without stopping, gathering the road pins as he went. One of them wouldn’t come out so he made do with four. Then he headed straight back to the fight. On his way he shoved a road pin in Lewis’ hand and another in Matt’s. Rachel and Cassie were handed the other two. Lynn had to make do without, but seeing he’d just discovered she was some sort of invincible Amazonian warrior, he figured she’d be okay.

  Now they were armed with sharp instruments, nobody came near them. The fighting stopped but Kat and her crew weren’t about to give up that easily. They formed a circle around the small group of friends and stared at them, waiting for a weak spot in their defences.

  ‘Why don’t you lot just piss off home,’ shouted Rachel.

  Lewis touched her arm, signalling her to be quiet. He stepped forward and Kat’s mob inched back.

  ‘Believe me, I don’t want to do this,’ said Lewis. His voice was calm, but there was a tsunami of rage building behind it. ‘One of you is going to lose an eye and it won’t be my fault, it’ll be self-defence.’

  This made Rachel worry. It was no longer fisticuffs in a park. Someone could get properly hurt. Lewis edged forward holding his steel road pin like a sword. Blood dripped from his split lip, and with his yellow eyes and pale skin he looked every bit like a supernatural killer. Several of Kat’s foot soldiers retreated a little further back.

  ‘Come on then, who’s feeling brave? You two seem to be the tough guys,’ Lewis said pointing the end of the pin towards Shaun and Andy Sherwood. ‘Not so tough now, are you? Won’t look so hard with this sticking out of your chest.’

  ‘Stop it, Lewis,’ Rachel said. ‘You could kill someone with that.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ he replied.

  ‘Look, this has gone far enough,’ Rachel yelled. ‘Just leave now, all of you.’

  ‘We ain’t going anywhere,’ said Kat ‘We’ll wait here all night if we have to.’

  ‘Then you’re all going to get seriously hurt,’ said Lewis. He tossed the road pin up in the air and caught it by its shaft like it was a short spear. ‘I’ll shove this through all of you if I have to.’

  ‘He will, as well,’ said Olivia.

  Rachel didn’t need any more persuading. She could see how this was going to end and ran in front of Lewis to block him from launching the metal spike.

  ‘Lewis put that down,’ she said, throwing her own spike on the floor.

  ‘Get out of the way, Rachel,’ he said.

  ‘No, put it down.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Please, Lewis, do it for me.’ Rachel said, holding her hands up to his chest.

  ‘Ah, how sweet,’ said Kat.

  ‘These inbreds came here to hurt us,’ Lewis replied, ‘and you just want to roll over and let them.’

  ‘Course not, but I don’t want to see your name on the news because you’ve stabbed someone.’

  Lewis stood there and didn’t take his livid eyes off Andy and Shaun who didn’t look quite as confident as they did before the fight started. It was a Mexican stand off. Each side was equally matched: Kat had the numbers, but Lewis and the others had weapons. Whatever happened, someone was going to get tucked up in a hospital bed tonight.

  *

  Clive and his new hair style had been trawling around Le Bateau in search of anyone he knew. The place was still a traffic jam of people, and progress through it was slow. It seemed like everyone he knew had gone, although he couldn’t be sure. It took so long to get anywhere it was quite possible that while he made his way to one side they could all be on the other. He finally made it to the front of Le Bateau where the sheer numbers of people and their hot breath had blurred the windows with condensation. Like a child Clive rubbed a little spy hole in the glass and looked through it.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ he said.

  Chapter 20

  *

  Without any consideration for those around him, Clive pushed his way to the door and out into the street. He crossed the road and ran into the park where he could see a large group of people fighting. It was hard to recognise anyone but he knew the unmistakable outline of Ginster. He seemed to be handing out long sticks.

  As he got closer, it looked like a stalemate had occurred. Lewis stood with one of the sticks, holding it above his head like a javelin, while Rachel held both hands up to his chest trying to push him back. But he wasn’t moving.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Clive shouted.

  ‘Stay out of this, Clive. It’s got nothing to do with you.’ said Andy.

  ‘S’right,’ said Shaun.

  ‘These are my friends. Why are you doing this?’ Clive asked.

  A teenage boy with a skinhead haircut ran up behind Clive and hit him in the back.

  Clive groaned.

  ‘Oi, stop that,’ shouted Andy. ‘Clive’s one of us.’

  Clive managed to stagger to his feet.

  ‘Andy, Shaun, why are you trying to beat my friends up?’

  ‘Because they’ve been slagging me off,’ Kat snarled. ‘Especially Count Knobhead over there.’

  ‘No we haven’t,’ Rachel pleaded.

  Clive ignored Kat and spoke to Andy and Shaun - that was where the real power lay.

  ‘Look, I know these people,’ he said. ‘They’d never do that. Lewis doesn’t even know Kat, so how could he slag her off?’ Clive was aware he was helping Lewis again – it was getting to be a habit. But it wasn’t Lewis he was doing this for. He realised he wanted to look good in front of Olivia, and that was what was motivating him. Trying to protect her brother, no matter how annoyed she was at him, would certainly look endearing. Of course, he didn’t want to see his friends get taken apart by the Sherwoods either, but he doubted if he would have shown this much bravery if it was just for them.

  ‘You calling me a liar,’ said Kat.

  Clive felt the moist alcohol on her breath.

  ‘I don’t know how you can say that,’ said Clive. ‘I stuck up for you when Seth was slagging you off, didn’t I?’ Kat eyed Clive suspiciously. He could see the devious little cogs in her mind working overtime. She went strangely silent. Clive looked directly at her. ‘Didn’t I?’ Clive repeated the question.

  Even Kat in her inebriated state could sense Clive was laying a trap for her. She had to say yes, otherwise it would destroy her story. Everyone would know she had made it up and she would lose respect - something that Kat feared worse than physical pain. She was forced to agree with him.

  ‘Yes, but what’s your point?’ Kat asked.

  ‘Well if he was slagging you off,’ Clive said pointing at Lewis, ‘I’d be right behind you, wouldn’t I? Course I would. If I’m prepared to take on someone like Seth I wouldn’t be worried about Lewis would I?’ Clive was talking to Kat but his words were aimed at Andy and Shaun. This was a logic they would understand. It was a kind of warped code of violence that had to be followed to the end: treat everyone who wrongs you with same level of aggression, otherwise you look weak. ‘I know he hasn’t slagged you off, because he doesn’t even know you. Lewis, have you met Kat before?’

  ‘No,’ said Lewis.

  ‘So why would he slag off someone he doesn
’t even know?’

  ‘Everyone knows me,’ Kat said. ‘I’m important.’

  ‘That’s right, you’re famous around here,’ Clive said, hoping to appeal to her ego. ‘Why do you think I stuck up for you? Nobody slags you off in this town. It’s just, on this occasion you’ve got the wrong guy, that’s all.’ Clive had to finish this quick. The adrenalin providing the courage for his brave little outburst was running out. He decided to use what little he had left to try and convince Andy and Shaun. He moved towards them so he could speak quietly without anyone overhearing. ‘You said I was part of your family because I stuck up for Kat, and family trust each other.’

  ‘S’right,’ said Shaun.

  ‘You have to believe me,’ Clive continued. ‘Lewis has nothing to do with this. Besides, look at the guy. He thinks he’s a vampire. Do you think he really mixes in the same circles as Kat, he’s more of a special needs case.’

  A half-hearted smirk broke across Andy’s face. However, it wasn’t Clive’s humour that made him smile, there was fear in his eyes. This hadn’t been a one-sided fight and Lewis was a lot tougher than they had expected. Plus, he looked like a mad man and nutters were the worst people to face. They were unpredictable and worse still, they didn’t have any fear. Andy could see that Lewis had every intention of using that steel pin if anyone came close to him or his friends.

  ‘He put up a good fight,’ said Andy.

  ‘The undead usually do.’ Clive replied.

  Andy’s smile got a tiny bit wider. He thought for a minute and looked across at Kat, then he looked at Lewis, and then he turned his attention to Clive once more.

  ‘Okay, we’re done here,’ Andy said to Clive. Then he spoke to the rest of the crowd ‘All right everyone, leave them alone, they’ve had enough.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ shouted Kat as she ran up to Andy and Shaun. ‘We’ve only just started.’

  ‘I said they’ve had enough,’ Andy replied.

  ‘I want you to fight him, you coward,’ Kat shouted.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ Andy replied through tight lips. Andy and Shaun turned and joined the rest of the group who were moving out of the park. Kat stood there in confusion, having lost her army. Rachel and the others stared at her. She was a pathetic sight, like a spoilt little brat who hadn’t got her own way.