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After what felt like of an hour of solid walking Toby had found himself at the edge of Underwood quarry which sits on top the Lakemoor hills, four miles from Burndown School. The quarry had been disused for some years, but more recently had been used by an electronics firm in Silbey as a storage facility. The four sides of the quarry are sheer drops of 150 feet with a flat surface that is littered with storage cabins and old vans. Toby walked to the side of the quarry and without thinking scaled the seven foot fence that had been erected around the perimeter.
He sat on the grassy verge near the quarry edge looking down the vertical drop at the vans sat at the bottom, which reminding him of the toys he had when he was ten. He pulled down his collar, wincing as he felt the tenderness of his bruised jaw and neck. Wondering if Luke had followed him, he looked over his shoulder to see that no one was around, and all he had for company was a pigeon that was perched nearby looking at him quizzically.
'It's alright for you' said Toby in the direction of the pigeon, 'at least you can fly off anywhere you want', which it then proceeded to do, in a gracious swoop towards the bottom of the quarry and back up the opposite cliff, perching itself on top of it looking back at Toby. He was in awe of the freedom that birds had to go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
He then stood up feeling the light breeze hitting the back of his neck and thought about what he had left to live for.
He pulled out a pen and a scrap bit of paper from his pocket and wrote 'hate' and 'love' again on either side of the paper. Under 'hate' he wrote ' Mum, Carl, school, home, Dad, life' and then scrawled 'Luke' at the bottom. Underneath Luke's name he wrote, 'where are you? Why didn't you stick up for me?'. Under the love header he just wrote 'Mr Cooper' and then Sarah, followed by a question mark. She probably doesn't even like me in that way anyway he thought, and why would she?
He took a step closer the edge of the quarry looking across at Sibley and the villages beyond. The horizon was dotted with specks of brightness as people switched on their indoor lights. He thought about his dad for a moment. Fifteen years had gone by and he'd not even bothered to come back and see if he was ok. Toby wondered what he was doing now and whether he would care. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but all he could see was Sarah's face. What would she say to me right now if she was here he thought? Probably jump. Why would she care about me? I'm just a nobody.
Everything was completely silent as he closed his eyes tightly and allowed himself to fall forward in to the quarry. He could hear the air whooshing past his ears and was waiting for it all to be over, hoping that he wouldn't feel anything. A few seconds past and nothing had happened. Was that it? Was he dead? Is this what it feels like? Everything sounded deadly silent around him but he couldn't feel his body, in fact he couldn't move at all.
He decided to slowly open his eyes, not sure what he would see when he did. All he could see at first was a large expanse of red. Surely he must have survived and he was looking at a pool of his own blood he thought, but when his eyes cleared he realised he was looking straight down at the roof of one the red vans at the bottom of the quarry, which was six inches from the end of his nose. He tried to move his arms, but couldn't, nor could he move his legs. Frozen in terror he tried to shout for help, but no sound came out of his mouth.
Completely disorientated and confused he tried to lift his head to see what had happened to him, but he could only move his eyes to see the roof of the van. His mind was being hit by a multitude of thoughts: Why haven't I hit the ground? What the hell is keeping me in the air? Ever so slowly Toby felt himself move away from the van and start to rise back up the quarry. Still there was no sound from anywhere, not even the birds.
He tried to move his limbs but nothing would work. He tried to shout out but still silence. Now he has halfway up the quarry, and could see the sun setting on the horizon and various street lights starting to come on in Sibley, but the quarry was completely dark below him and the silence was deafening.
As he reached the top of the quarry he felt his body turn backwards towards the vertical position and watched the ground become closer and he was lowered back on the lane outside the perimeter fence, and crumpled to the ground in shock. Not believing what had just happened, Toby started to pat his legs, back and head to check if anything had been attached to him.
Stumbling to his feet Toby ran back towards the quarry edge to see if there was anything that he may have got caught on; a wire, some cabling maybe, but there was nothing. He stood staring in to the quarry for a few minutes trying to take in what had just happened. Suddenly Toby felt an overwhelming feeling of terror and had an urge to get away from the quarry fast, so he picked up his school bag and ran back to Wickerton as quick as he could.
'Oh my word, you look terrible!' said Margaret as Gordon Cooper walked in to the kitchen and slumped in to the chair with a worried look on his face. 'Did you manage to speak to Toby to find out what has been going on, love?'. She placed a cup of steaming tea in front of him.
'I didn't get a chance' sighed Gordon taking a sip, 'there was an issue in class today before we had a chance to start performances, that unpleasant boy Carl Lane said something that embarrassed Toby at the start of class, and the poor fellow looked completely vacant'. Margaret poured herself a tea, keeping her hair and earrings a safe distance from Gordon. 'Oh, the poor boy. That Carl sounds a really unsavoury chap, I hope you gave him a detention'.
'Of course. I hate bullying and won't tolerate it. I left the class to fetch the judges and when I came back in, Toby burst out through the door clearly upset and ran off down the corridor' said Gordon as he took off his tie, placing it on the table.
'I even went round to his house but he wasn't there, just who I presume, was his mother, who seemed to be worse for wear'.
Gordon took a large gulp of tea and wiped his brow with his tie. Margaret gave him a disgusted look.
'She told me Toby was out and then shut the door on me. I don't know what to do Margaret, I'm very worried about him; he didn't look at all right'.
Margaret sat down next to him and put a plate of freshly made brownies on the table.
'First you must eat something'.
They smelled delicious so Gordon took a bite and immediately felt a bit better.
'These are lovely dear; did you add your secret recipe to them?'.
'Funny you should mention that, I added a little bit of that spice you like, I hope you don't mind'.
A wave of burning wrapped Gordon up like a hot blanket as he slumped back in his chair. 'Try not to worry; he is a teenager so I'm quite sure he will be at school tomorrow morning and back to his normal self. If he's not then I will come with you to his house and see how he is'.
Gordon's eyes started to water as he stared up at the ceiling.
'Yeah, I think I may need a glass of water love'.
At 26 Greyson Avenue Luke was worried sick. He was angry at himself for not sticking up for Toby in class earlier. He wished that he had got up and punched Carl right in the face, that would make him think twice before starting on them again.
There was no one in at Toby's place, and nosy Sally from the post office hadn’t even seen him. He had searched the whole school to no avail, missing the last bus back to Wickerton. He even took a detour on the way home to some of their old hang-outs thinking he would be hiding there, but nothing.
'Dad, can we go for a drive around the village again please?'.
Luke's dad Giles was led on the sofa with a can of beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other.
'I'm not bloody going out again Luke, this is my third can. He'll come home soon enough if he's got any sense, especially in this cold'.
Outside it was pitch black and the temperature was nudging zero.
'Well, I'm going out again then' said Luke grabbing his coat.
'Whatever. Just lock the door when you come back' said Giles not taking his eyes off the bikini clad girls on the TV.
'Drunken asshole' muttered Luke under his breath as he slammed the front door behind him.
Luke had no idea where to look for Toby next.
He decided to take a walk one more time around the village, stopping off at the Anvil to see if any of the people outside smoking had seen him.
'You mean Lynne's boy?' slurred one local who was propped up against the pub door.
'Nope, not seen him, but I may be seeing his mum later though' winking at his mate next to him, they both burst in to laughter and hi-fived each other.
Luke tried not to imagine him doing sexual things with Toby's mum and carried on walking up the lane past the post office, towards the large oak tree at the end. Running out of ideas he sat there thinking about the possibility of never seeing Toby again.
Dragging himself up from the bottom of the tree he started to walk back to Greyson Avenue thoroughly fed up. As he was halfway home he spotted a tall figure running towards him, who looked suspiciously like Toby.
'Toby! Is that you?' shouted Luke.
Toby looked up briefly, but ignored him and quickly unlocked his front door shutting it behind him.
'Toby! Open up!' shouted Luke as he banged on the front door.
Toby didn't open the door; instead, he went up to his bedroom, closed the curtains and led on the bed hoping that he wouldn't wake up in the morning.