‘BANG!’
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PART THREE
David
The match fizzles out as soon as it hits the ground.
I just stand there and stare at it.
Everyone does, too shocked to move or say anything, trying to work out what on earth just happened. Everyone except Wood. He must have run off, cos when I look up he’s not there any more. No one’s stopped him. He’s gone, as quick as he came.
Knaggs lies there on the ground, in the puddle of petrol or whatever it is. He’s shaking. He looks absolutely terrified. I’m not surprised. I am too.
Because I’m his best friend, I should be the one that goes and helps him up. I should probably run after Wood and fight him for Knaggs. It’s the kid rules: you stand up for your mates. No matter how much of a pebblehead they’ve been, no matter how much you realise you don’t like them. But fuck the rules. I’m not going to go and pick Knaggs up and see if he’s OK. I let someone else go over instead. Mikey and George.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Zoë. She walks closer. She stands near me. She looks over at Knaggs. I wonder if she saw what happened, saw what Wood did? She stares at Knaggs like he’s nothing, like he’s worse than a piece of shit that she’s found on the bottom of her shoe. Then she storms off. I think about going after her. But before I can make my mind up, she’s out of sight. I turn back, stare at Knaggs.
Knaggs stares back. Not just at me, but at everyone who’s gawping at him. He’s stopped shaking now. He doesn’t look scared any more, just really angry and embarrassed. ‘What you looking at?’ he shouts.
Most people move away from him, chatting and laughing. But I just stand there. And Knaggs walks over, towards me.
‘Shit!’ he says. ‘What was all that about?’
I shake my head. ‘Dunno,’ I say. ‘You all right?’
He looks down at his soaked trousers and trainers. ‘Jesus!’
‘You all right?’
‘You can be my witness,’ he says. ‘You saw all that, didn’t you?’
I nod.
‘I’m gonna get that psycho put in prison for this! He tried to kill me!’
I look blankly back at Knaggs. I’m still trying to work out what happened. It can’t have been petrol in the can. Otherwise it would have gone straight up. Knaggs should be dead. Wood was just trying to put the shits up Knaggs. I smile to myself. Just for a second.
‘Come on,’ Knaggs says. ‘Let’s go and see Mr Moore. We’ll finally get the cheese-puff boy thrown out of school for this.’ He starts walking towards the school, but I don’t follow him. After a few steps, he stops and looks round at me. ‘What you doing, Davey-boy?’ he says. ‘You saw it. He’s dangerous! Come on, you’re my star witness.’
I stare at him. It’s my duty as his best friend to lie for him, to cover his back, like I did before. But I can’t do it. Not again. I shake my head.
‘I didn’t see anything, Knaggs,’ I say.
Knaggs looks at me, half confused, half annoyed. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ I say. ‘Apart from Wood splashing a bit of water on you. And you getting all hysterical. That’s all I saw.’
Knaggs walks straight up to me, gets right in my face. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing to tell Mr Moore. You got scared by a bit of water and acted like a pebblehead. The end.’
I walk away from him. My heart’s beating like mental. I can’t believe I just said that.
‘You’re a twat, David,’ Knaggs shouts after me. ‘Find yourself a new friend.’
But I just keep walking. I want to find Zoë.
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Zoë
I’m walking away from the playground towards the skanky mobile classrooms. I’m glad Gary’s OK, I’m glad he’s alive, I’m glad he came back. But what just happened? That was scary. Maybe I should have gone after him. Maybe I should have made sure that he didn’t do anything stupid to himself. Or to anyone else. I definitely don’t think he knows what he’s doing any more.
‘Zoë!’ a voice calls from behind me.
I turn. It’s David – one of Knaggs’s mates. I stop walking. ‘What?’ I say angrily. ‘What do you want?’
He looks down at the ground. He looks uncomfortable. Maybe he’s not just gonna take the mickey. ‘Can I talk to you?’ he says quietly. And he looks up at me. He looks upset. I keep expecting him to smirk, like Knaggs would. But he doesn’t. He keeps looking at me, like a scared little kid or something.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether to trust him. This could all be part of a wind-up. But then what do I have to lose? Things can’t get much worse than they already are. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Why not?’
‘Not here,’ he says. ‘Somewhere quiet. Come on – there are some benches near the field.’
So I follow him, past the mobile classrooms, past the music block, to the benches near the field. We sit down next to each other. He doesn’t look at me. He’s gone really pale. He looks like I feel.
‘So what is it?’ I say.
‘It’s Knaggs,’ David says. ‘And Wood.’
‘Right,’ I say. I look out across the field. ‘Look, can you just give Gary a break? I know what he did was stupid, but, you know, he’s going through a bad time . . .’
‘I know,’ David says. ‘That’s why I needed to talk to you.’
I look at David. He’s nervous. ‘What do you mean?’ I say.
He takes a deep breath. ‘I have to help him,’ he says. ‘Gary, I mean.’
I still expect him to smirk, for this to be a joke. But he sits there, looking down at his feet as he taps them on the ground.
‘Are you serious?’
He nods his head.
‘But I thought Paul Knaggs was your best friend,’ I say.
David looks at me. ‘He was,’ he says.
And I think he’s being serious. ‘There’s not much we can do now, though. Is there?’ I say. ‘It’s already gone way too far.’
‘I know,’ David says. ‘But I have to do something. This is my fault.’
I shake my head. ‘He’s gonna get chucked out of school for good, isn’t he? For bringing a petrol can and some matches into school and threatening someone. That’s serious. They could bring the police in for that.’
David sighs. He stops tapping his feet. ‘Knaggs has gone to see Mr Moore,’ he says.
I shake my head. That’s it. Gary’s gone. He’s completely messed it up for himself. He’ll get chucked out of school. Maybe that’s what he wanted.
‘Will you come with me and see Mr Moore? I want to tell him what’s been going on. I want to tell him all the stuff that Knaggs has done.’
I look up at him. He really does seem upset. But I’m still not sure if I can trust him. I half expect Paul Knaggs to jump out and laugh at me for believing this. ‘Do you mean it? You’re gonna grass on Knaggs?’
David takes a deep breath. ‘I have to,’ he says. He stands up. ‘Please.’
I get up as well. ‘Come on, then.’
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Gary
I walk out of Wendham, to the field, get back in the tractor and drive out of there as quickly as I can. I’m shaking. I feel sick. What I just did was sick. I can’t believe that I did it. I went too far. They all thought I was mad before – now they’re gonna know it. They’ll lock me up and throw away the key. Knaggs thought he was gonna die, thought that there was petrol or something in the can. I could see it in his eyes. Fear. He was almost crying. And I made him feel like that. It was me. I’m sick. Messed up in the head. Wrong.
Knaggs will be in with Mr Moore now. They’ll be fussing over him and he’ll be pretending to be a poor innocent little boy, pretending like butter wouldn’t melt in his mou
th. And he’ll have all his bloody mates backing him up, saying what a psycho I am. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have just kept running, as far away from this place as I can get.
I have to stop a few times on the road back to Wallingham to let cars past. They all look at me funny. They can probably see I’m not old enough to be driving a tractor. But I don’t really care any more. They can phone the cops for all I care. They’ll already be after me for what I’ve just done. And for stealing the tractor in the first place. Doesn’t make any difference what I do now. I can’t get into any more trouble than I’m already in.
After a while, I get close to Wallingham. I take a left to go around the outside of the village. God knows how I’ve managed to get all the way back here. I must have put my foot on the accelerator and changed gears and all that, but I don’t remember doing it.
Before long, I can see Henry’s farmhouse. There’s still police tape around it. I drive straight past it and then take a right at the crossroads, keep going till I get to the gate I busted through yesterday and into the field. I take the tractor back into the farmyard, park it up in the barn, where it was before. As though nothing’s happened, as though it’s been here all along. I switch the engine off, but I don’t get out of the tractor. I just sit there, staring. And everything rushes through my head – millions of thoughts and feelings and voices. I can’t stop them.
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David
I look at Zoë. She looks back at me. She smiles. She looks about as nervous as I am.
I feel dizzy and sick. Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do. The kid rules are there for a reason – they must be. You should never grass on your mates. Maybe I should say nothing, do nothing, and just make sure that I stay well away from Knaggs from now on.
We keep walking through the corridor. There’s hardly anyone inside, cos the bell still hasn’t gone, just a few teachers rushing about, carrying piles of photocopying and stuff.
We stop outside the glass door of the school office. Zoë knocks on the door. Mrs Wilson, Mr Moore’s secretary, calls us in. Zoë opens the door and we walk up to Mrs Wilson’s desk.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘What can I do for you?’
I look at Zoë. I don’t want to be the one to speak.
‘We need to see Mr Moore,’ she says. ‘Urgently.’
Mrs Wilson makes a face, raises her eyebrows. ‘He’s in a meeting with another student at the moment,’ she says. ‘He can’t be disturbed. Could you come back later, or would you like me to give him a message?’
Zoë looks really worried. She leans towards the desk a little. ‘It’s really important,’ she says. ‘I need to see him. It’s about what happened in the playground earlier. It’s about Paul Knaggs and Gary Wood.’
‘Oh, I see,’ says Mrs Wilson. ‘Right. If you have a seat on the green chairs over there, I’ll let him know that you’re here.’
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Gary
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, on this tractor, in this barn. But it must be ages. I jump down from the tractor and walk out of Henry’s poxy barn, back out into the field. I walk straight across it, kicking the long grass, stamping it down, all the way across to the gate. It isn’t as busted as I thought it’d be after I smashed through it. It’s come off its hinges and it’s a tiny bit dented. Chain’s broken as well. But nothing that can’t be fixed.
I walk past the fence and out on to the road. I cross the road and go up on to the verge on the other side. I climb the fence and look into the field. It’s Michael Yaxton’s field. He’s a miserable old man. All he grows is oilseed rape. It bloody stinks. I jump over his fence and walk along the tractor tracks at the edge of the field. Right at the end of Yaxton’s field, there’s another fence. I climb over it and I’m on to the track that runs down to the back of our shitty house. I walk down the track as far as our back garden. Have a look around. No one’s watching. I know what I’ve got to do, what I have to get. And I don’t have to go into the house to get it. Only into the shed in the garden. Which is just as well, cos I reckon if I did go into the house, I’d get an earful, a load of grief and a load of questions. And I don’t need that. So I squeeze through the hedge quietly, keeping my eyes on the back of the house, making sure that no one sees me. I walk over to the shed, open the door and I’m in.
The shed’s a mess. It’s where Dad keeps all his rubbish. His tools, his beer, his porno mags. And his gun. Stupid idiot don’t even have a lock on it. The cops would have him for that if they ever found out.
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David
We sit on the green chairs for ages. I feel sick with guilt and nerves. Not just about what I’m gonna say and what’s happened, but also because of what people will think if they see me waiting to see Mr Moore. They’ll know I’m about to grass on my best mate. My old best mate, anyway. Cos that’s what’s happening here. I might as well be signing my own death warrant. Once I do this, my life in this school will be over. Knaggs will see to that. I’ll be sat with the pebbleheads in lessons. And in the dinner hall. I’ll have to sit near the front of the school bus. I’ll even have to change where I hang my stuff up in the changing rooms. Cos once this is done, I’ll be a nobody.
The bell for the start of school goes while me and Zoë are sitting on the green chairs. We’re missing registration. I’d much rather be there right now, answering my name, than here. But this is my choice. This is what I have to do.
We don’t say a word to each other, Zoë and me. Mrs Wilson sits at her desk and answers the phone, takes some messages, makes some phone calls, looks at her computer. Above her head, on the wall, there’s a clock. It’s five past nine now. Feels like we’ve been sitting here for ages. Quarter of an hour.
But then Mr Moore’s office door opens. Knaggs steps out with Mr Moore.
‘Thanks for coming to see me, Paul,’ Mr Moore says. ‘Go to class now. I’ll find you if I need to talk to you again.’
Knaggs walks out. He looks up and he sees me sitting on the green chairs. And my heart starts racing, thumping against my chest. I can feel my cheeks going red. He looks straight back at me, daggers in his eyes. He knows why I’m here. I’ll be a dead man walking before I even get to class. If Mr Moore wasn’t here right now, Knaggs would go for me in a second. He walks across the room and opens the glass door. He turns and looks at me again and shakes his head. And then he leaves.
‘David, Zoë,’ says Mr Moore. ‘Come in.’
‘Sit down, please,’ Mr Moore says.
I sink into the soft chair but I sit up straight.
‘Are you all right, Zoë?’ says Mr Moore. ‘I had a phone call from the police yesterday.’
Zoë looks surprised. Her cheeks go red. ‘What? Really? Why?’ she says.
‘They told me that you and Gary Wood had found a body,’ says Mr Moore. He looks really serious. ‘It must be quite a shock to find someone like that. If you need to talk to anyone, just say.’
‘Oh,’ says Zoë. She sounds kind of relieved. ‘Yeah. No, I’m fine about that.’
‘Well, we’re here if you need to talk, Zoë, really we are,’ Mr Moore says. ‘Anyway, Mrs Wilson tells me that you two saw what happened in the playground this morning.’
I nod. So does Zoë.
Mr Moore sighs. He shifts in his chair, looks right at Zoë first, then at me. ‘I want you both to know that I’m taking this incident very seriously indeed. You need to realise that I can’t guarantee that anything you tell me will remain confidential. I don’t know where this matter will go just yet, but I may have to relay anything you tell me to the police. You understand that, don’t you?’
I nod.
‘The police?’ says Zoë. She looks angry. ‘Why are they involved?’
‘They aren’t,’ Mr Moore says. ‘Yet. But from what Paul Knaggs has said, this is a very serious matter. I wouldn’t be
at all surprised if the police did become involved.’
Zoë stares at Mr Moore angrily, like she’s gonna get up and storm out or something. I just look down at the floor. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, coming in here. There isn’t anything we can do. It’s too late – I’ve left it too late. Wood took it too far.
‘So, what did you see?’ Mr Moore says calmly.
Next to me, Zoë takes a deep breath. ‘We need to talk to you about Gary,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t his fault, what happened today . . .’
Mr Moore breathes in deeply through his nostrils. ‘I see,’ he says. ‘Go ahead then.’
Zoë looks across at me. I meet her eyes for a second or two, but then I have to look away, down at the floor. I have no idea what to say. There’s nothing that I can say. I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come in here. I can’t help.
Zoë looks back at Mr Moore. ‘Paul Knaggs has been bullying Gary, sir,’ she says. ‘Even I can see that, and I’ve only been here a week. He won’t leave him alone. Paul pushed him to do this.’
Mr Moore raises an eyebrow. ‘Really? How?’
Zoë looks at me again. But I have nothing to say. I look away, at my shoes. I wipe my clammy hands on my trousers.
‘He does it all the time. On the bus. In lessons. In Wallingham,’ Zoë says.
‘How? How does he bully Gary?’ Mr Moore says.
I’m not sure he believes her.
Zoë sighs. ‘He just says things all the time. He calls him “Farmer Boy” and “the cheese-puff boy”. The other day he told everyone that Gary had murdered a tramp, after . . .’ Zoë’s voice trails off.
Mr Moore nods. ‘I see,’ he says. He picks up his notebook from the table and writes something down.
‘And he said this stuff about how he wants Gary to be dead,’ Zoë says.
Mr Moore puts his notebook down. He leans forward. ‘Really?’
Inside My Head Page 17
