Anna and Rebekkah had been caught out by Simon’s disappearing act before, and this time they were determined he would not get away with it. In the last five minutes of their last lesson they were bouncing up and down like yo-yos, looking through the windows, whispering to each other, exchanging anguished glances. Their teacher, Mr Bailey, told them off once or twice but not with any anger. In his eyes, Anna Royle could do no wrong.
When the buzzer clicked, then settled down to a sustained rasping, they shot out of their desks like rubber balls. Anna barged into another girl and knocked some books on to the floor.
‘Anna,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘Slow down. What’s got into you?’
‘Sorry, sir! Please, can we go, sir! It’s very important, honestly!’
She was not waiting for consent. She was edging for the front, pushing subtly, clawing people from her path.
‘Oh, go on, the pair of you,’ the teacher said. ‘You’re more like Visigoths than girls. Mind out, Danielle, you’ll be crushed to death!’
They burst through the class-room door like bullets from a machine-gun. But quick though they had been, some children had been quicker. The corridor was filling up, the noise of chattering was rising. Anna and Rebekkah ran, but they had to put their heads down and do some solid pushing to get through. And the small kids’ door, which Simon would have to use, was right down the other end.
‘Damn!’ panted Anna. ‘He’ll get away. Shift! You! Get out of it, can’t you!’
Rebekkah, beside her in the milling crowd, shoved a girl violently aside.
‘He’ll wait!’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t dare to run away, not after yesterday. He knows we’ll murder him!’
But Simon had not waited, nor was he waiting now. At the first click of the buzzer outside Mrs Earnshaw’s room, he had careered to the front. Mrs Earnshaw, who had still been teaching, had gasped in astonishment.
‘Simon!’
‘Stop him!’ squeaked David Royle.
‘Oyoyoyoyoy!’ roared almost everybody else.
Simon knew he was in trouble, and he also knew which sort he feared the most. Mrs Earnshaw might shout at him in the morning, Mrs Stacey might threaten him with all kinds of things, but neither of them would lay a finger on him. Anna Royle would, she’d smash his nose in, given half a chance. He wasn’t going to let her try, he couldn’t bear to. He ran.
Before he reached the door, David reared up before him, a look of martyred anguish on his face. He had to stop Simon, but knew he did not have the courage to do it properly. Simon, as he thundered past, recognised his fear. She’s told him not to let me escape, he thought – and he has. She’ll batter him as well, her own brother!
‘Simon!’ repeated Mrs Earnshaw. ‘Don’t you dare!’
Simon dared. He jerked the door open without another backward glance.
‘Oh, Miss!’ he heard David wail.
He went.
The corridor at their end of the school was empty still, so Simon made it to the exit in record time. He stared out across the playground and the playing fields, but saw no one close enough to threaten him. Before even his own class could get into the corridor he was through the swing doors and away. Three hundred metres or so to the main gate; then – he hoped – he would be safe.
He was about half-way when Anna and Rebekkah got clear into the yard and spotted him. For the moment they were both dismayed. He had his head down and he was moving very fast, like a small train. But they paused only for an instant, and their speed when they moved forward was increased by anger. Both of them, oddly, felt he had no right to run away from them at all.
There were spectators now. The children Anna and her friend had barged through knew that something must be going on, and they did not want to miss it. As the girls hared across the empty playing field they streamed after them, shouting. It was the noise that attracted the attention of some teachers, Louise among them. She glanced through her office window, saw the girls and their followers, and was just in time to spot a little boy running through the gates on to the road. A little boy who could only be Simon Mason…
Brian saw it too, from his position on the far side of the playing fields. A chase, a hunt, a long straggle of children spreading from the main school building. He blew a final whistle and waved the teams towards the changing rooms, then began to jog towards the action. He was still too far to work out who was chasing whom.
Anna and Rebekkah heard Miss Shaw shouting at them – she had a most distinctive hoot. Naturally, they ignored her, although Rebekkah did glance backwards. The deputy head was standing outside the double doors, legs apart, hand upraised. Some of the followers nearest her dropped out of the race.
‘Come on!’ yelled Anna, who had reached the gate. ‘We’ll say we didn’t hear her. We’re out of earshot! Where is he? There he is!’
Simon, unluckily, was still visible to them – just. Even as Anna pointed, he turned sharp right off the main road and disappeared. Another half a second and they would have missed him.
‘Where’s he gone?’ said Rebekkah.
She knew, they both did. The hill rose steeply to their right, above the trees and houses.
‘Chalkpit,’ said Anna, grimly. ‘He’s always in there, isn’t he? He was probably in there when we had that stupid trial.’
‘Crikey,’ said Rebekkah, ‘I never thought of that. You wouldn’t think he’d have the guts, would you?’
Although the chalkpit was a completely forbidden place, both of them had been in before, of course. At one time or another almost all the children of St Michael’s had risked it, usually to show how brave they were. It had been disused for several years, and the fences, and even the big front gates, had rotted slowly. According to tradition, some boys had been killed there once while bird-nesting, and Mrs Stacey issued grim warnings from time to time about dangerous tunnels and rusty old machinery. If anyone was caught trespassing, she said, the consequences would be dire.
Simon, who had long ago forgotten any fears about the place, was confident that Anna and Rebekkah would not follow him, even if they guessed he’d gone to ground. He wriggled in through his favourite hole and gazed at the high, white blank of the chalkface with a powerful feeling of relief. It was quiet, apart from the screaming of gulls, and it had an air of peacefulness that he loved. Slowly, the panic drained away from him.
But he was not fool enough to stay out in the open, for all that. He got his breath back a little, then ducked behind a low piece of broken wall from where he could watch the gates and acc road. It was with utter shock that he saw Anna and Rebekkah turn the corner and run – without the slightest hesitation – straight for the quarry entrance. For a moment he was frozen, then he turned and fled. He realised suddenly what he had done. He was in a lonely, isolated place, no one to help at all. If they caught him, he was done for.
At the gateway, the girls had stopped. To them, the chalkpit was not a place of peace and refuge, it was a dump. The bricks of the buildings were a dirty white from years of chalk-dust, with rusty stains all over them. There was a crane half on its side, its broken jib bent grotesquely across a railway truck. Between piles of rubble, scrubby grass grew in clumps. And going in spelled trouble.
‘Come on,’ said Rebekkah, who was feeling uncertain. ‘It’s not worth it, is it? We don’t even know if he went in there. Let’s go.’
Anna was scornful.
‘Where else did he get to? You’re chicken. No one’s going to find us, are they?’
‘Where’s David?’ asked Rebekkah illogically. ‘Didn’t we ought to wait for him?’
Anna ignored that. She shook the gates until rust fell.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘That chain’s completely rotten. One good push and it would just give way.’
‘Don’t! That’s trespassing! Oh Anna, don’t do that!’
But Anna did, and the big gates parted squeakily. She seized her friend by the sleeve and hauled her through.
‘You go that way, I’ll go over here! Look in all the sheds and things, he hasn’t had time to find a proper place. See that big iron thing up there? We’ll meet by that if we don’t find him.’
Rebekkah might have protested, but she did not get the chance. Anna ran off behind a spoil-heap of chalk, eager as a terrier. She paused for just a moment, then set off in her turn. Secretly, she rather hoped they would not find him. She smelled big trouble. Being best friends with Anna Royle, just sometimes, could be—
Then there was a shriek, and Rebekkah’s heart began to pound. It was Anna’s voice, alive with triumph.
‘Over here! Over here! Rebekkah!’
Her doubts forgotten, Rebekkah rushed towards the sound. Anna was on top of a pile of junk, pointing. About a hundred metres away, close under the vertical chalkface, was an old black metal structure, a gantry of some kind. Half-way up it, in full view, clung Simon.
‘Got him!’ yelled Anna. ‘Trapped like a rat! What a fool, what a total, raving idiot!’
‘Like a monkey up a pole!’ Rebekkah shouted. ‘You’re too clumsy for a monkey, Simple Simon! You’re going to fall and break your neck!’
As she shouted, Simon began to slip.
Back at the school, David had watched the pursuit of first Simon, then his sister and Rebekkah with growing worry. At first he had decided to stay inside, but a mass of pushing children had thrust him out into the yard. He had seen Miss Shaw set off, bellowing, he had seen Mrs Stacey come running out and talk to several other teachers. He had not seen Mr Kershaw, though, who was winging in from a different direction.
‘It’s your sister!’ someone told him, with excitement. ‘She’s going to get that Simon Mason! Aren’t you going to help?’
That was the problem. He did not want to, but he had to. Bad enough that he’d let Simon get away, there would be retribution for that, in plenty. But if he failed to turn up for the kill… The trouble was, the teachers. They were everywhere, trying to bring some order to the chaos, arguing and shouting at the kids. He’d have no chance running for the gate.
It occurred to David that if he did a wide detour, if he struck out away from the body of the crowd, he might make it to a smaller gateway along the wire fence. He might not even be noticed, if he was lucky. Because fear grew instantly, he began to move. He would not give himself time to change his mind.
He did quite well at first. No one seemed to notice him as he sneaked around a corner, no one yelled as he began to run. After about a hundred metres he felt a lift of exhilaration, and glanced back over his shoulder. There was no pursuit.
Then ahead of him, he saw Mr Kershaw’s tracksuit, violent, garish blue. He was running on a long diagonal, apparently to join Miss Shaw at the main gate. But as David spotted him he spotted David, and changed course slightly. David changed his own direction, to get clear, and the sports teacher curved round some more, to head him off. David, a lump of cold lead in his stomach, stopped altogether. He turned, as if to run the other way, then looked back. Mr Kershaw, fit and fast, bore down on him. David noticed how his trainers threw up small lumps of earth with the power in his legs.
‘David!’ Mr Kershaw’s voice was very sharp. He was not even panting. ‘Just where do you think you’re going to? What’s going on?’
It all came over him in a mighty rush. What little control he had was swamped entirely. He did not see his mother’s Volvo estate draw up outside the gates, he did not see Mrs Royle and Avril Tanner get out and slam the doors. His eyes were blurred, his shoulders shaking hopelessly.
He was dissolving into tears.