Itch

by Simon Mayo

  Reluctantly he closed the documents and contacts and deleted the email he had composed.

  ‘Can’t be seen, can’t be noticed,’ he muttered again.

  He found a pen in the briefcase, and had started to draw a diagram he had found online, when one of the drinking party at the end of the carriage kicked at their table, causing many cans of drink to tip over. The beer poured onto the floor and over the trousers of a man called Kevin. Itch knew this from the laughter that came from the other two and their shouted comments of ‘Kevin’s wet himself!’ and ‘Look at baby Kevin, he needs his nappy changed!’ Kevin, a tall red-haired guy in a checked shirt, punched his two friends in the face. The punches weren’t hard but, in combination with the lager, proved very effective. The pair slumped to the floor, momentarily concussed. When they came to, both had bloody noses and started yelling. As Kevin shouted back and the girl kicked out a bulb, causing all the lights in the carriage to blow, Itch knew he had to act. If they, or one of the other passengers, pulled the emergency cord or attracted the guard, his plan was in trouble again.

  ‘Can’t be seen, can’t be noticed.’

  His instinct was to reach for his rucksack, but of course his collection was now with Jack in the canvas bag. Wherever she was. Wherever it was. If he tried to walk past them, through to the next carriage, he risked provoking Kevin and his drunken friends. He needed them out of here …

  And then Itch gave a little smile.

  His rucksack could help after all. He hadn’t removed quite everything. He reached for the front pocket and undid the flap. Inside were three small tubes he had acquired at the same time as the xenon. When a store is closing down, they want to sell everything, quickly. Jeans, shoes, chemicals – same rules apply. They also make fewer checks on the buyers, so Itch’s story about being a researcher was taken at face value. That is how Itchingham Lofte, aged fourteen, had come to own a selection of stink bombs. He now only had three left, one each of three different kinds.

  These weren’t the usual small phials of hydrogen sulphide that you find in joke shops. One was labelled WHO ME, another SBM, and the last, PARKIA SPECIOSA. All three caused a stench, but the first two were US government issue and particularly extreme.

  ‘WHO ME’ was the name given to a top-secret Second World War stench weapon. When used, it smelled of human waste but suffered from the weakness, so Itch had read, that the user of it ended up smelling as bad as the victim.

  SBM stood for ‘Standard Bathroom Malodour’, and was a slightly more efficient version of WHO ME but smelled the same. Itch and his family had found this out the hard way.

  The third tube – the one labelled PARKIA SPECIOSA – contained dried green pods. Their Latin name was rarely used; most people called them ‘stinky beans’. Itch had been told that they were edible, but he wasn’t interested in the culinary uses. When you stamped on the pods they released a powerful gassy smell. He had tried this back in Chloe’s bedroom when he had first received the shipment. The stink was repulsive, and his sister had shouted at him for a long time. The train compartment was enclosed enough for them to work again, he concluded, and reached for the grey metal tube.

  The drunken shouts were getting louder, and Kevin aimed another swipe at his friend, but only succeeding in smashing another light fitting. Itch had to move swiftly. He thought of the mainline map again: two tunnels had been marked, the first going under the M23 and the second labelled as the Balcombe tunnel. Hadn’t they gone through one tunnel? Itch thought they had – in which case the second was due soon. He sat back and watched Kevin and friends push each other around. The girl had had enough and slumped onto her seat, but the men were still fighting when the carriage went black. With the lights out, they collapsed onto their seats. Itch grabbed the phial and poured all the beans into his hand. Feeling his way along the carriage, he counted eight seats and stopped. He bent down and placed the beans on the floor, then stamped hard. The dried pods crunched under his feet.

  ‘Parkia speciosa,’ he muttered, grinning, and felt his way back to his seat. The methane stink hit him before he got there, and he covered his nose and mouth with his hand. It was as if the carriage had been sprayed with rotting cabbage. Itch gagged, coughed and laughed all at the same time. As he sat down, the train left the tunnel and light flooded the carriage. Kevin and his friends had all started coughing and retching. Looking at each other in horror, they started blaming each other for causing the smell. Just when it looked as though they were about to start another fight, Kevin stormed out of the carriage, a handkerchief over his face, and the other two followed him.

  When their arguing and fighting faded into the general, gentle clackety-rattle of the wheels on the track, Itch returned to planning what he needed to do on arrival in Brighton. As he sat alone in the carriage – and the smell of the stinky beans meant he was likely to remain that way – the enormity of what he was planning was beginning to dawn on him.

  He was staking everything on a Watkins story. His geography teacher had told many tales about the schools he had taught in, but one in particular had stuck in Itch’s mind. It was an astonishing account of bravery, determination and tragedy. He hoped it was true; he really needed it to be true. A teacher wouldn’t exaggerate to make a good story, surely? If Watkins had made up any of his tale, then Itch would be wasting his time. He needed every fact to be exactly as Watkins had described it. He wished he could ring him up and ask him, but that was impossible. The plan would have to remain a secret; Itch was the only one who could ever know about it.

  He consulted the online bus timetable. He was tempted to take a taxi – he still had plenty of Flowerdew’s money to spend, after all – but the bus would, he thought, be more anonymous. They appeared to be regular and left from outside the station, so that clinched it. If the timetable was accurate, he could be at his final destination within the hour …

  His nerves jangled as he wondered again if he was up to the task. His sickness would get worse all the time, so he had to move fast. It seemed to come on in waves, with the gaps between the nausea becoming shorter and the convulsions more violent. He closed his eyes and wondered how long he had before his strength left him completely.

  The train was slowing down as it approached the outskirts of Brighton, and he closed the laptop and considered its weight. Did he need it any more? He knew what he had to do and where he had to do it – the task would require all his strength, and Flowerdew’s briefcase would only be in the way. He would have loved to hand the computer, with all its incriminating evidence, to a prosecuting lawyer, but that wasn’t about to happen. So if he didn’t need it but had to make sure that it didn’t fall into the wrong hands, he had only one option.

  He removed the money from the briefcase and shoved it in his back pocket. He knew he was alone in the carriage, but with one final check anyway, he walked to the train window. He pulled it down as far as he could, and leaned out. They were still travelling at what Itch guessed was around forty mph, processing through the neat gardens and allotments that often backed onto rail tracks. He couldn’t see anyone watching the train – and no one was leaning out of it, either. Picking up the laptop with both hands, he held it out of the window. He hesitated, knowing that throwing things out of trains was stupid, dangerous and, more to the point, likely to draw attention to yourself. But he needed the laptop destroyed, so he threw it out as far as he could, back along the tracks. It flipped, opened and spun in a low arc before hitting the concrete at the side of the cutting and bursting open. Itch just had time to see the battery fly out and the screen shatter before they turned a corner and it disappeared from view. The briefcase followed, landing amongst tall weeds, rubbish and shrubs at the side of the track.

  He returned to his seat as the brakes squeaked and the train slowed and then stopped. This was it, then. He picked up his rucksack, feeling the rocks shift again, and hoisted it onto his back. He stood as straight as he could and waited by the door, feeling like a skydiver waiting for the green
light before a jump into the unknown.

  27

  THE 22 BUS weaved its way around the roads of Brighton’s town centre, and then headed east towards the open country of the South Downs. The afternoon sun felt hot through the filthy windows, and the air in the bus smelled of sweat and sun cream, sand on the floor showing where many of the previous passengers had spent the day.

  Itch’s insides were churning with a mixture of terror, nervous energy and radiation-induced nausea. He was sweating profusely, but so was everyone else on the bus. He had tucked himself away at the back and avoided eye contact.

  Can’t be seen, can’t be noticed.

  He watched the neat houses passing by, their gardens full of playing children and smoky barbecues. That last family meal together seemed a thousand miles away and a million years ago. Itch screwed his attention back to what he had to do. He had been looking on the left side of the road as that was where all the buildings had been, but now, up on the right – the coastal side – he spotted what he had been looking for. It was a large old Victorian school building, a converted workhouse, its heavy, austere, square exterior looking more ramshackle and dilapidated the closer you got.

  Above the fence, a small sign read THE FITZHERBERT SCHOOL, with smaller writing underneath that Itch couldn’t make out. Twenty or more years ago, a young geologist called Mr John Watkins had taught there. Itch picked up his rucksack and pressed the ‘Stop’ button.

  He climbed down from the bus, crossed the road and stood looking at the Fitzherbert School. It was the sort of building that seemed designed to strike fear into the heart of any child who entered its doors. There was no decoration, no ornament – nothing to make any visitor or pupil smile. Even with happy modern teachers, whiteboards and computers, it would still feel like a prison.

  Itch leaned on the fence and studied it. A drive led from the main road to the large double doors. It appeared to have three floors, with big bay windows on the ground and sash windows on the upper floors. A more recent but just as rundown series of buildings extended away from what Itch assumed was a side entrance. Shutters and curtains covered all but the top windows. There were no parked cars and no signs of life.

  Itch looked around. The traffic continued to rush past – no one glanced at a boy with one foot on a school fence or noticed when he climbed up and over it.

  He stayed close to the hedge which marked the school’s boundary with the neighbouring scrubland – it seemed unwise to walk up the drive to the front door. As he walked around, he started to wonder if it actually still was a school. The paintwork on the windows had peeled and flaked away, exposing rotting wood and frames which looked as though they would cave in with the lightest gust of wind. Most of the bricks around the side and back were covered in a green fungus, and a darker mould spread from the ground up towards the windowsills. The back door was made of glass and rotten wood, but was held shut by a new brass padlock fixed across the frame. Next to it, a boxed window had one frame painted in whitewash and the other boarded up with wood. The school certainly seemed unloved and uncared for. Itch knew he needed to find the woodwork room – he just hoped there still was one.

  He walked over to the box window, its ledge level with his chest. The thin piece of board had been nailed across it and he pushed hard with both hands. The frame and board gave way, falling in and thudding onto what sounded like bare floorboards. Itch peered inside.

  It was a classroom – and clearly still in use. Posters of Roman soldiers and maps of ancient Rome filled one wall, while various punctuation guides decorated another. Six tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room, with the teacher’s desk immediately in front of the window. Glancing over his shoulder and swallowing hard, Itch removed the rucksack and swung it through the gap and into the classroom. He lowered it onto what he assumed was the teacher’s chair and then scrambled in after it.

  Easing himself down, he glanced around. It looked like weekend classrooms always do – everything neatly put away, trays of pens and pencils laid out in readiness for Monday.

  Itch had shouldered the rucksack and was making for the classroom door when, without warning, he vomited a stream of blood onto the floor. He fell to his knees, unable to stay upright, his whole body convulsed with the sickness. His head spinning with pain, his throat burning, he lay down on the floorboards and was sick again and again. Panic-stricken, his eyes wide in horror, he tried to get up, but his legs had stopped working. He edged his way over to one of the desks, lying up against it. He watched the bile and blood pool on the floor in front of him; then a great fog descended in front of his eyes.

  * * *

  It was the shaking that woke him up. His whole body was trembling. In the near-darkness of the room he couldn’t see where he was lying, but he could feel wood, hard against his ear. He was lying on his rucksack, which had slipped from his shoulder, forcing his head, pulsing with pain, against the table leg. His mouth was lined with dried blood and sick, and he spat what he could onto the floor. Gradually he shuffled away from the table and stopped, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness of the classroom. He was lying on his back a metre or so from the door, twilight illuminating the area of the room nearest the pushed-in window. Itch wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious, but it must have been several hours. He reckoned he must have passed out and then slept. His clothes stuck to him and his hair plastered his face.

  On the bus he’d wondered how long he had left. The obvious answer now was: not long. The gaps between his bouts of sickness were getting shorter – less than two hours between the Victoria Station one and here. How long before the next? Ninety minutes? An hour?

  He had to get up, he had to press on, and he certainly didn’t want to think about the implications of vomiting blood. Rolling over, he forced himself onto all fours and then, using one of the desks, dragged himself to his feet. But his head immediately swam with giddiness, and he sat down on the desk. Slowly his head cleared, and, with no adverse reaction this time, he stood up and walked slowly towards the door. He tried the light switch but nothing happened. Moving out into a pitch-black corridor, he groped his way along a wall till he found another switch – still nothing.

  ‘Great. Just great,’ he said aloud, his voice harsh and rattly. The school had no power. He was going to have to perform his miracle blind.

  Slowly he made out other doors – more classrooms, each as dark as the next. Knowing it was pointless, he still tried each light switch, but without success. Returning to the corridor, he felt his way along the wall towards a looming dark shape which cast a long wide shadow back towards Itch. As he got closer he saw that it was a vast staircase, which disappeared into the gloom of the first floor, a threadbare carpet reaching as far as a small landing. Thin beams of light seeped through a small window above the front door as Itch followed the curve of the bottom stair.

  Suddenly he jumped and called out in terror as a pale figure, arms outstretched, appeared beyond the staircase. It must have been at least two metres tall, and he suddenly realized that it was a statue. Feeling stupid, he edged closer. The Virgin Mary, he guessed, from the robes and the smile. Like the rest of the school, this Mary had seen better days. She had lost an ear, half of her nose and some fingers. The blue paint of her robes was chipped and flaking.

  ‘You look how I feel,’ he said to her.

  Itch was in the entrance hall: from here, corridors led off east and west as well as north and south. He knew which room he needed, but there was no helpful sign pointing him in the right direction. He decided to head towards the rambling extension that snaked its way into the grounds.

  He crossed the hall past the figure of Mary and into the dark corridor heading east. A handrail appeared, and gratefully he guided himself along. Eventually he came to where the main house finished and the extension began. Here the corridor zigzagged round to the left, and the rapidly disappearing light was countered by its larger windows. Itch saw a number of posters pinned to the wall – his he
art started to pound again. He could just make out the words: RULES OF THE WOODWORK AND METALWORK ROOMS, the first one was headed. STRICTLY NO RUNNING! said another. SCIENCE LAB SAFETY FIRST, ran the headline on the last one. This was it, then.

  ‘Done it!’ said Itch. ‘Now to find the well.’

  The story of the Woodingdean Well was one of John Watkins’s best. It was the kind of tale that pupils enjoyed because it always wasted half a lesson in the telling – maybe a whole lesson if questions were allowed. Itch had heard it within weeks of joining the Cornwall Academy, and then regularly since. He had recounted it to his father on one of his trips home and remembered the thrill of impressing him – not something that happened often.

  According to the story, underneath the woodwork room was a well. The school had been built as a workhouse for the poor of the area: ‘Like in Oliver Twist, where he asks for more,’ Watkins had explained. To ensure a fresh water supply, a well had been dug, sometime in the late 1850s. Water was not found where the miners had expected, so they had just kept going. Teams of diggers had operated in shifts, twenty-four hours a day, every day, for four years before water was struck. The depth reached – Itch remembered Watkins holding up both hands for total silence and dramatic effect – was an astonishing 1,285 feet. This made it the deepest hand-dug well in the world, as deep as the Empire State Building was tall.

  This fact always got the biggest gasp; even pupils who took no interest in anything sat up and took notice then. Itch remembered being amazed that it was possible to dig down so deep, and just for water! Not gold or silver, just water. He had drawn his own version of Watkins’s whiteboard illustration on his book covers: a vertical drop for 400 feet, then a horizontal line of thirty feet at sea-level, and then another drop to 1,285 feet. His teachers had told him to stop drawing lightning bolts everywhere, but he had explained that they weren’t lightning bolts – it was the Woodingdean Well.