David, on instructions from his sister and her friend, went up to Simon in the changing room after games to ask him what Miss Shaw had said to him. David was afraid of Simon, but standing only in his underpants he did not appear too frightening.
‘Anna says to tell you,’ said David, boldly, ‘that if you drop us in it there’ll be mega-trouble, right? What happened?’
Simon did his best to ignore him. David was already dressed, his hair still wet and shiny from the shower. Simon had gone to the showers late, and found the water cold. He had rubbed the worst of the mud off with his towel.
‘You,’ said David. He was wearing shoes, and Simon was almost naked, so he felt pretty safe. ‘What did she say? Old Loo-roll?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Simon. He pulled his shirt up over his head, disappeared into it, tried to hide.
‘You didn’t say it was us, did you? You didn’t tell her any lies?’
‘I didn’t tell her nothing,’ replied the emerging head. ‘Leave me alone.’
The crowd in the changing room was thinning. Another lesson, soon.
‘You’d better not have done,’ David ended, lamely. ‘Anna said to tell you. If there’s any comeback, it’s the worse for you, okay? Okay?’
Over David’s shoulder, Simon saw Mr Kershaw bearing down on them. He began to jerk frantically at his trousers, trying to get them up his legs.
‘You!’ snapped the games master. ‘Why aren’t you dressed yet? Your hair’s dry. Have you had your shower?’
A smile came over David’s polished face as he walked away. It broadened as Mr Kershaw began to bellow.
‘Filthy! Your chest is filthy, your legs are filthy, your clothes are filthy! Give me that towel, boy!’
David heard a clattering noise, then a silence. The few other boys left in the changing room had gone as still as mice, in case it should be their turn next. The note of Mr Kershaw’s voice had changed.
‘What’s this, then? It came out of your towel. What is it, boy?’
David stopped, curious. Turning his head, he saw Mr Kershaw’s brilliant blue bottom sticking out from underneath a bench. Simon, beside the teacher, looked cold and anxious, clutching his towel to his chest.
‘It’s a kubutan, isn’t it?’ The games master was standing up, holding something that looked like a small black rod with a silver ring attached. ‘It’s a dangerous weapon, isn’t it?’
All eyes were fixed on him, and in an instant he became aware of it. He lifted back his head and roared.
‘You lot! Finish up and out of here! All of you! Or you’ll all be in for half an hour after school!’
They began to scurry, with David taking up the lead. A dangerous weapon! Simon Mason had a dangerous weapon! Wait till Anna and Rebekkah got to hear of this!
Simon, meanwhile, was answering Mr Kershaw’s question. As honestly as he could.
‘Please sir, I don’t know,’ he said.
The news that Simon was in some extra trouble was a balm to Anna and Rebekkah, although the ‘deadly weapon’ aspect did not impress them much.
‘What was it, exactly?’ Rebekkah asked. ‘It sounds mad to me.’
David was not sure.
‘Kershaw had it hidden in his hand,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want us all to know. But he was furious, there’s trouble brewing, honestly, big trouble.’
The three of them were in the playground. It was break. Although Anna would not have admitted it, they were skulking, keeping out of sight. They did not want to be observed by any of the teachers, Miss Shaw least of all.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘If Kershaw was giving him a rollicking, he can’t have told on us, can he? That’s one thing.’
‘He called it something,’ said David, suddenly. ‘A Rubik’s cube or something. A cubee-something.’
‘You’re a fool,’ Rebekkah snorted. She was smiling, though, she was not unfriendly. ‘A Rubik’s cube, I ask you!’
Anna’s face had clouded. She’d had a serious thought.
‘Whatever it was,’ she said, ‘it means that Simon Mason had a weapon, so we’re in the clear. He was going to attack us and we had to fight back. It was self-defence.’
‘He had a rock, as well,’ Rebekkah pointed out. ‘Even old Loo-roll Louise saw that.’
They started to move slowly across the tarmac of the playground. David’s face was scared.
‘But they couldn’t blame us anyway, could they?’ he said. ‘Not over Spassie Mason?’
It came to Anna that her brother must be right. No one would disbelieve them on the say-so of a nasty, dirty boy like that. She felt a stab of anger at him.
‘He’s a nuisance,’ she said. ‘He’s a rotten nuisance. Maybe we should complain about the deadly weapon. He’d have hurt us if he could have done. He could have hurt us badly.’
‘With his exploding Rubik’s cube,’ Rebekkah said, almost mockingly. Anna grinned.
‘Don’t knock it, kid,’ she said, in a TV American accent. ‘Even Loo-roll couldn’t back up a boy who carries weapons, could she?’
David, mooching to a lesson on his own, was comforted.
Louise, in fact, merely found the weapon story irritating.
Mr Kershaw told her about it - with an air of mystery and of triumph - as they walked back into school together at the end of the lunch break.
‘It was wrapped up in his kit,’ he said. ‘Amazing, really, that such a young kid should be carrying one. It’s a martial arts thing.’
‘What did you call it? A cubiton? What does it do, exactly?’
‘Kubutan,’ said Brian. ‘With a K. In the right hands it can knock you unconscious, so I’m told. Pressure points or something. I’m not into martial arts, I couldn’t tell you precisely how it works.’
‘Could Simon Mason?’
He was amused.
‘I wouldn’t think so for a moment. It actually looks like a keyring, although he didn’t have a key on it.’
‘So it’s hardly an offensive weapon, is it?’ She was exasperated. ‘Really, Brian, aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill over this? You didn’t even confiscate it, did you?’
A faint flush came to his freckled face.
‘I gave him a good verballing. I pinned his ears back. I thought that would be enough.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ said Louise, dryly. ‘Your shouts are famous, Brian.’
They walked in silence for a while. The trouble was, for Mr Kershaw, that she made him, often, feel a bit uncouth.
‘So how are you planning to punish him?’ he said, finally. ‘For the bullying? He needs a short, shorp shock, that boy. He could grow up into a thug.’
They were walking down the last stretch to the school. It was quiet, almost rural, with a few children scattered about, clean and peaceful in their uniforms. Hardly the sort of place for breeding thugs, she thought.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘The trouble is, I’m not convinced that he’s the one to blame. I can’t quite see him as a raging bully.’
‘But he had a lump of rock to chuck at them. He even had a kubutan, as it turns out.’
‘I know. And the lovely Anna Royle said he knocked her down, and kicked her. The trouble is, I’m not sure of the truth.’
They were almost at the school gates. Mr Kershaw stopped, looking at her curiously. She stopped with him.
‘The lovely Anna,’ he quoted. ‘Don’t you like her?’
She shrugged.
‘Doesn’t everybody? It doesn’t mean I have to believe every word she utters, does it? I’ve got a nagging doubt, that’s all.’
‘Without a shred of evidence. While on the other hand…’
Louise laughed at him. She headed briskly through the gates into the yard.
‘Even if Simon is a bully,’ she said, ‘I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. There wasn’t any harm done, whoever’s fault it was this morning. I’m going to see if he’ll respond to kindness. A surprise.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ she said.