‘How did you do that?’ he asked.
‘Never mind.’ Ari started walking again. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Let’s assess the situation, shall we? Your mum was feeling low ten minutes ago, but I’d say she’s feeling pretty bloody happy now. So that’s got her moving in the right direction. But you, you’re miserable, because your girlfriend isn’t talking to you and you can’t take her to the ball.’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ snapped Will. ‘And Terry isn’t speaking to me either, or his girlfriend Asha.’
‘Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I’ll sort it. We’ll have to do a mass memory wipe and they’ll be back up to speed tomorrow. Then you’ll just have to ask this Sophie out again.’ He gave Will a leery wink. ‘Don’t worry, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!’
‘But what if she remembers me not asking her the first time?’
‘She won’t,’ Ari assured him.
‘And what am I supposed to do about Lou? He said he’d hurt her and after speaking to him, I know he’d do it.’
Ari paused for a moment and put his hands on Will’s shoulders. ‘Listen Will, you’re not to let him stop you from doing anything. That’s what he wants. He wants your dad’s soul and that’s how he plans to get it, by making you and your mum miserable. He’s good at it, we’ve seen him do it thousands of times. But we’re not going to let him have his way this time, are we?’
Will shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘If it means Sophie is going to be in danger, then . . .’
‘Will, trust us. We know what we’re doing. We’re not going to let anything happen to Sophie. And you have to try your best to go on doing exactly what you want to do. That’s what will make you happy and that’s what will raise your dad up from the depths. He’s already calmed down considerably since I pulled that stunt with Jake. You just leave Lou to us. From now on, there’ll be a Watcher assigned to keep an eye on you, day and night. And not just you. There’ll be somebody watching your mum, Jake, Terry . . .’
‘And Sophie?’
‘Yeah, her too. Blimey, she obviously means a lot to you.’
Will could feel his face colouring up. ‘It’s just . . . she . . . well she’s kind of . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘Oh yeah, what about Spot?’
‘What about him?’
‘Lou threatened him. He had his hands around his neck and everything.’
Ari scowled. ‘I’ll put Wormy on that one,’ he said. ‘Minding dogs is just about his level . . . oh, that reminds me.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little round glass object, which he handed to Will. ‘Reg made this for you.’
Will examined it, puzzled. It looked like some kind of primitive compass or clock. It had a round white glass-covered face, with a curved line running from left to right. On the left end of the line there was a red spot, at the other end a green one. There was a little metal needle that obviously swung from left to right along the curved line. It was currently fixed around the midway point.
‘What is this?’ asked Will.
‘Reg calls it a soul-meter,’ said Ari, rather sheepishly. ‘It shows your dad’s current condition.’
‘You what?’ Will stared at him. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, I’m deadly serious. Reg figured it would be useful for you to see at a glance what progress was being made. When I came in here, that needle was right down near the red.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘If it had actually gone into the red, we’d have lost him. So, keep it with you at all times and check it regularly.’
Will frowned. ‘What kind of batteries does it take?’ he asked.
Ari laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that. Only Reg knows how that thing works. He did try to explain it to me, but I fell asleep.’
Ari started walking again. ‘Don’t come outside with me,’ he said. ‘I want you to go back to the ward now. If anyone asks you questions about me, you don’t know anything, ok?’
‘Ok, but listen. When will I see you next?’
‘Soon. And remember, you don’t give Lou or his people an inch, d’you hear me? If you let him bully you, make you feel bad, you’ll increase his chances of winning. We don’t want that, do we?’
‘No,’ said Will. ‘Of course not. But . . .’
‘No buts. If we’re going to beat him, you’ve got to do exactly what your heart tells you to do. Fact.’
They turned the last corner and emerged into the main reception where a major commotion was going on. The two security guards were on the floor, wrestling with a big, tough-looking man in a leather jacket. He clearly objected to being treated in such a manner and was struggling to escape. Crowds of appalled people stood around watching the spectacle.
Ari shook his head. ‘Disgraceful behaviour,’ he announced. ‘Honestly, what’s the world coming to?’
He gave Will a last wink and headed for the revolving doors. Will watched him step out into the night and walk slowly across the car park, his hands in his pockets.
Will looked again at the soul-meter. The needle seemed to have moved a tiny amount closer to the green. He sighed. He wasn’t sure if having this gadget was a good thing or not. Maybe it was better not to know how Dad was doing.
But he slipped the gadget into his pocket and retraced his steps to Accident & Emergency.
NINETEEN
Will and Mum took a taxi home around midnight after spending a couple of hours trying to explain to Doctor Williams and his staff exactly what had happened.
All Mum could say was that ‘Doctor Foster’, a ‘specialist’, had laid his hands on Jake and effected a miracle cure. When asked for a description of the man, she could only tell them that he appeared to be what some people called a ‘hunchback’. Needless to say, nobody knew of a Doctor Foster in this hospital or any other, for that matter, and nobody could explain how a man who had apparently been in a deep and extremely critical coma, had suddenly woken up with nothing more serious than a bad headache.
Jake was somewhat bewildered but able to talk. His last conscious memory had been of him and Mum wandering about in Neston Hall. The next thing he’d known, he was waking up in bed with an odd man staring down at him and muttering something unintelligible in what sounded suspiciously like Latin. The only description he could offer was of a pair of burning, almost luminous eyes.
When it was Will’s turn to be questioned, he had simply stuck to the rather flimsy excuse that the excitement of the events had caused in him the need to answer an urgent call of nature. He had no idea where ‘Doctor Foster’ had gone after he’d left the ward because he’d been too busy trying to find a loo.
Doctor Williams clearly wasn’t convinced by this explanation because two of his staff had reported seeing Will leaving the ward with the mysterious white-coated visitor, but there were other more pressing matters to attend to. Back in reception, an extremely angry visitor was threatening to sue the hospital after being set upon by two security men who seemed to think he was some kind of criminal. Oddly, his attackers couldn’t remember why they’d done such a thing in the first place.
Eventually it was decided that Jake should be kept in a day or so for ‘observation’ and that Will and Mum could go home. Mum had a tearful goodbye hug with Jake, during which Will took a sly peek at his soul-meter, to see the needle had edged a couple more degrees towards the green. He slipped the gadget back into his pocket and solemnly shook hands with Jake, who apologised for causing so much fuss.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Will told him. ‘I’m just glad you’re ok.’
When Will and Mum went out to the car park to meet their taxi, Will caught a glimpse of a familiar hump-shouldered figure loitering in the shadows by the entrance. It was Mark, the big, heavyset Watcher he had been introduced to at their camp. He’d clearly been assigned to keep an eye on Jake, just in case Lou or any of his followers returned. Will made no sign of having recognised him. He got into the taxi and he and Mum drove home in silence.
Once back in the house, and
once they had calmed down Spot who was ecstatic with joy at their return, Mum had some questions of her own.
‘Will, what’s going on?’ she asked him, as she stood in the kitchen making cups of tea and sandwiches.
Will gave her what he hoped was a look of complete innocence. ‘What do you mean?’ he muttered.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean! Doctor Williams was right. You did leave the ward with that man. And now I come to think of it, he seemed to know you.’
Will tried not to look nervous. ‘Doctor Foster, you mean?’
‘Yes, Doctor bloody Foster, who went to Gloucester in a shower of rain! Come on Will, I’m not stupid!’
Will shook his head. ‘Mum, you know as much about him as I do.’
She clearly wasn’t convinced. ‘I’ve been thinking back,’ she said. ‘Obviously, I was distracted at the time . . . but I remember, he came into the room and you were walking behind him.’
‘Well, yeah, but that’s because he came up to me in the corridor and introduced himself.’
‘And what did he say to you?’
‘Er . . . he said, “Hello, I’m Doctor Foster and I’m going to have a look at Jake.”’
Mum glared at him. ‘That’s all?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Mum frowned. She went on with her sandwich making for a moment but then paused, knife poised over a slice of bread. ‘And there was that other fellow,’ she said.
‘What other fellow?’
‘The one out by the garages this morning. The greaser. He seemed to know you really well . . .’
‘Mum, I don’t know what you’re on about,’ insisted Will. ‘That was just some low-life, hanging around the estate. Look, the important thing is that Jake is ok, right? I mean, it could have turned out really bad. You heard what Doctor Williams said. He could have been asleep for years!’
His attempt to cloud the issue seemed to have worked, at least for the time being. Mum went back to her sandwiches and seemed to abandon her line of questioning.
They sat at the dining table and ate their supper. Mum glanced at her watch.
‘Imagine eating at this time of night.’ She said. ‘We’ll probably get indigestion. Perhaps you’d better take the day off school tomorrow.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I need to go in.’
The truth was, he was anxious to see Sophie again, but he couldn’t very well tell her that. ‘I’ve got a biology project to hand in.’
‘Well, you can hardly start work on that now,’ she told him.
‘Oh, there’s no need. It’s already . . . er . . . done.’
She gave him another suspicious look. ‘How could it be?’ she asked him quietly.
‘Because . . . er . . . I did it as soon as I got home. Yeah, before you called me from the hospital.’
She put down her sandwich and regarded him coolly. ‘Will Booth, I know you. You never, ever do your homework until the last possible moment.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve turned over a new leaf,’ he told her.
‘Well, where is the project?’ she asked him.
‘It er . . . it’s in the study,’ he told her. ‘By the printer.’ He realised that he hadn’t actually checked on it, but judging by recent experiences, that’s where it would be.
Mum got up from the table.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked her nervously.
‘To the study,’ she said. ‘To look at this project.’
‘I’ll fetch it for you,’ he said, getting up from his chair but she was already heading out of the room. Will followed her anxiously. In the study, there was one sheet of paper lying in the printer tray. It had one sentence written on it in fairly bold type.
Will, you need to load
more paper.
Mum looked at him. ‘Who’s this from?’ she asked.
Will stared at the printer for a moment in dismay. Then he slapped himself on the forehead. ‘It’s from me!’ he said. ‘It’s to remind me to print out my project for school. Only with all the stuff that happened, I forgot.’
He opened a cupboard, found a ream of paper, pulled out a stack of sheets and slipped them into the loading tray.
‘But I don’t understand. Why would you leave a reminder to yourself when you could just have loaded the paper in?’
‘Umm . . . because I didn’t think I had any paper. But I forgot there was this fresh pack in here.’
‘But didn’t you just tell me that you’d already printed−?’
Mum broke off in surprise as the printer leapt into life and started throwing out beautifully typed pages of text in virtual silence. ‘Gosh, I don’t remember it being as fast as this,’ she said.
‘Yeah, great isn’t it? New software,’ said Will. ‘Downloaded it from the . . . from a website. Don’t worry, it’s not dodgy or anything.’
Mum picked up the first sheet from the tray and read it aloud. ‘The miracle of photo-synthesis,’ she said. ‘Of all the processes employed by green plants in their fascinating struggle for survival, photo-synthesis is by far the most . . .’ She paused and looked at Will. ‘The most what?’ she said. ‘What comes next, Will?’
‘Search me,’ he said. ‘A lot has happened since I wrote that. Look, I’m not being funny, Mum, but I need to get some shut-eye. It’s really late.’ He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. He waved a hand at the computer. ‘You can leave that,’ he said. ‘They’ll switch it off when it’s finished.’
‘They?’
‘The . . . people who . . . make the software! It’s a
. . . special thing that’s built in to it. After five minutes, it switches the computer off. Clever, eh?’
‘Will, I’m not satisfied. There’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘Don’t be daft!’ He feigned an exaggerated yawn. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to . . . go to bed. So tired.’
He went out of the study, wondering if he might have to ask Ari for a bit of mind-wiping on his Mum. He took his sandwich upstairs to his room and finished it there.
He changed into his pyjamas and then, for some reason, went to take a look out of the window. He couldn’t see anybody out there, but Ari had promised him that somebody would be keeping an eye out for him, and after tonight’s experience, he had decided once and for all that he trusted Ari to keep his word.
He climbed into bed and just before he switched off the light, he took a peek at his soul-meter. As far as he could tell, the needle was right where it had been when he’d left the hospital.
Hang on in there, Dad, he thought.
Then he switched off the light and tried to get some sleep.
Next morning, as he stepped out of the front door, he couldn’t help but feel apprehensive. Ari had assured him that everything would be taken care of, but supposing he got on the bus and everybody still hated him? He didn’t know if he could handle that.
As he hurried along the street, he was aware of somebody following him but a sly glance over his shoulder reassured him that it was just Reg, strolling along, hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly to himself. Will refrained from acknowledging the Watcher. He just kept going.
He’d risen somewhat later than usual so this morning was almost an exact replay of yesterday. As he turned the corner onto the main road, there was the school bus pulling away from the stop. Once again he had to make a run for it and once again, against all the odds, the bus driver saw him and slowed to a stop to let him on.
‘Making a bit of a habit of this,’ he observed as Will went by.
He climbed the stairs with his heart in his mouth and emerged onto the top deck to a similar reception to the one he had received the day before. When he looked hopefully towards the back of the bus, there was Terry on the back seat and there were Sophie and Asha sitting right in front of him. Will approached them cautiously and to his relief, Terry greeted him with a warm smile.
‘Hi, mate. You only just made it,’ he observed as Will flopped dow
n beside him.
‘Yeah, just like yesterday,’ said Will.
Terry gave him a puzzled look. ‘Yesterday?’ he muttered, as though surprised to learn that there had actually been a yesterday. He had the vaguely befuddled look that he had displayed after the football match and Will realised that some serious mind-wiping must have taken place during the night. He felt kind of guilty about it but relieved, all at the same time. When Sophie and Asha turned to look at him with the same dreamy smiles on their faces, he began to think that everything was going to be ok.
‘We were just talking about the Halloween Ball,’ said Asha, brightly. ‘Can you believe that nobody has asked Sophie if she’d like to go?’
Will almost laughed out loud. Talk about laying it on with a trowel; it made yesterday’s treatment of the subject seem almost subtle. Once again, Will was on the spot. And once again, his mobile phone trilled at the sound of an incoming message. Fearfully, he excused himself and flipped the phone open. But the message made him sigh with relief.
Go on. Ask her.
Ari.
Will smiled. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and studied Sophie for a few moments.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Maybe . . . er . . . maybe you’d like to go with me?’
There was a silence. Sophie looked kind of startled, as though she hadn’t expected him to make such an offer. It occurred to Will, for the first time, that it was still possible she didn’t actually want to go to the ball with him. But happily, she smiled and nodded.
‘Yeah, that would be cool,’ she said.
Will resisted the impulse to punch a fist in the air and shout, ‘Yes!’ Instead, he glanced at Terry, who grinned at him and jabbed an elbow into his ribs.
‘Sorted!’ he said.
And indeed, it did seem to be. Will even took the opportunity to slip the soul-meter from his pocket on the pretence of getting something from his bag and take a sly look at it. The needle had nudged onwards a couple more clicks towards the green. He shoved it back into his pocket and turned to look at Terry but Terry was staring out of the back window with a look of displeasure on his face.
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