But of course it was not quite as easy as that, because Tyke had no intention of letting go. Francis in his power might be an asset, but Francis loose was dangerous. He knew far too much. So when he did not turn up on Sunday afternoon, Tyke wanted to know why.
“Hi, you, come behind the gym,” he ordered on Monday morning and stalked ahead with the younger boy trotting behind. When they got there, Tyke turned and seized Francis’s wrists rather painfully and glared down at him. He noticed that the answering look of adoration was no longer there.
“How come you weren’t there last night?” he demanded.
“My dad wouldn’t let me,” lied Francis, but then he realized that excuse would not do every week, so he blurted out, “You know, Tyke—I mean, Isaacs—I don’t want to bash up any more phone booths. When Ram’s house caught on fire, Tara, his little sister, got trapped upstairs, and I couldn’t phone ’cause it was bashed up. I had to run home, and the fire engine didn’t come for ages, and Tara nearly died. You wouldn’t like your little sister to die, would you, ’cause the phone booth was bashed up?”
Tyke, being the only child of a broken marriage, shrugged his shoulders, but he had the sense to realize that he had gone too fast. If he wanted to make this boy like himself, he would have to go more gently. He spoke quite kindly.
“Right,” he said. “No more phone booths! You come along next Sunday, and we’ll have some nice quiet fun, just the four of us. And if you tell—”
“I’ll never tell, Tyke—I mean, Isaacs—cross my heart, I’ll never tell anyone.”
Tyke narrowed his eyes and repeated his threats in a low voice, and Francis nodded and ran off. But the child had changed, and Tyke felt a queer sense of loss. He smoked a cigarette, and when Spotty came to join him, he told him to get out because he was sick to death of him.
But Francis was happy, happier than he had been for a long time. Tara had not died. She had probably been cuddled down so far under the bedclothes that she had been able to survive, and she had come out of the hospital on Saturday none the worse for her adventure. Ram’s cuts were healing, and he and his parents had come for a meal, and Dad had been quite nice to them and had driven them all to the Immigrant Center where they were to stay until the city renovated their front room. Fortunately the actual fire had gone no farther. The sofa had smoldered for a long time before catching fire.
Francis had even been praised and thanked for fetching the ladder, which he did not deserve in the least, and he felt closer to his mother than he had for a long time. Since that night in the kitchen he had really tried to be helpful and had almost decided to write Tyke a note saying he was not allowed out after dark anymore, when something happened to upset everything again.
It was a cold, wet Saturday morning, and Mum had persuaded Dad to take her shopping, and Francis and the girls had spent a fairly peaceful morning indoors, playing and watching television. Wendy and Debby cleaned out their dolls’ house, and Francis was drawing. He had a whole folder of drawings, done mostly with felt tips, of football games, armies, planes, and dinosaurs, but he had never shown them to anyone. He suddenly thought his mother might like to see them, and he decided to spread them all out on the kitchen table, like an art exhibition, and show them to her when she came in.
But his parents were very late, and when they walked in the back door, it was clear that Dad was in a raging temper and Mum was crying. Dad took one look at the kitchen table.
“What on earth is all that trash doing on the table?” he barked. “Let’s have some lunch. You could have set the table, couldn’t you, Francis, instead of making all that mess?”
Francis went very red and dug in his heels. “It isn’t trash,” he said obstinately. “It’s my pictures. I put ’em there to show ’em to Mum.”
He turned eagerly to his mother, but she was not looking. “Just do what your dad tells you,” she said wearily. “Must you start arguing the moment we get into the house?” She went up to her room and slammed the door, and they had to have lunch without her, Dad muttering angrily all the time, Wendy frightened, sulky, and inclined to pinch, and Debby crying for Mummy. There was really nothing to do but to join the gang again.
It was not at all difficult to slip out on Sunday, and nothing much happened. They sat in the cold, dreary little shed, telling jokes that Francis did not entirely understand, and drank from a black bottle. But they would not give Francis any. “It would go to your head, see,” said Tyke, “and you’d spit everything out. Besides, you’d stink.”
Not till after sunset, when the light had been lit, did the real quiet fun begin. Sharp knives were passed round, and Francis was told to run to the end of the street again. There was a car parked halfway up.
“But you’re not going to bash up the phone booth, are you?” asked Francis anxiously. “They’ve fixed it again.”
“No, no, no, nothing like that,” soothed Tyke, and Spotty laughed gleefully. “I told you, just a little bit of fun. You do what you’re told, and we’ll give you a knife next time and let you run with us. Bonkers can stand on guard.”
Francis reached his sentry post and peeped to right and left, but all was quiet. He stepped under the lamp and waved, and the three boys set off as though running a race. Only when they reached the car did they pause, lift their knives and systematically pierce each tire. Then they sped on to separate at the T-junction.
But a fast car was approaching. It swerved around the corner and jammed on its brakes to avoid hitting the three flying figures. They stood for a second, caught in the headlights, Bonkers still waving his knife. Then they took to their heels, leaving Francis paralyzed under the street lamp, unable to move for fear. It had never occurred to him that his stepfather might have a standing appointment with the fat, yellow-haired lady every Sunday night at seven thirty, but unfortunately, that was the case. He was out of the car in a second and seized Francis by the wrists almost as roughly as Tyke had done.
“So this is what you’re up to,” he said, pushing Francis into the car. “That boy had a knife. You tell me instantly what you are all doing.”
“Nuffing,” sniffed Francis. “I was just standing there and they ran past.”
“Rot!” said his stepfather. “Your sort doesn’t just stand there in the dark for nothing. Either you tell me or I shall report what I’ve seen to the police. They’ll make you talk fast enough. There was a phone booth wrecked here last week, and some windows broken in the next street. I suppose you know all about that too.”
But Francis, remembering Tyke’s threats, said nothing, and they sat in silence for some minutes, not far from the yellow-haired lady’s house. Then a door opened farther down the street. A man came out and jumped into the parked car. He pressed on his accelerator, and there was a strange, dragging sound. He stopped, got out, and examined his tires. Then he walked deliberately towards Dad’s car.
“All four tires punctured,” he said heavily. “You didn’t happen to see anyone, did you? I wasn’t long in the house, and they were all right when I arrived.”
“I nearly knocked over three boys,” said Dad, “and I believe this young stepson of mine knows something about it. One of ’em had a knife, and I’m going to get the police onto this because you aren’t the first. Just give me your name and address. There’s a garage just around the corner. I’m sorry about your tires.”
Dad was getting impatient and was probably anxious about keeping the yellow-haired girl waiting. He suddenly turned the car and drove back home at high speed. He pulled Francis out and pushed him into the kitchen.
“Out with some gang, slashing tires,” he shouted at his startled wife. “I’m going to get the police onto it tomorrow—I’m fed up with the whole business. Can’t you even look after your own kid?”
He was gone, roaring down the street again, and his mother sent Francis upstairs because she did not know what else to do. But later, when the girls were in bed, she came up and knelt down beside him.
“Francis, tell me what you’ve been doing!”
He longed to fling his arms around her neck and tell her everything, but he was too afraid of Tyke. Tyke was going to jump out from behind some bushes and beat him up if he told.
“I didn’t do nothing, honest, Mum. I just stood at the corner of the street, and they ran past me.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“I dunno. Three boys.”
“But what street, Francis?”
“The street where Ram lives. Dad came round the corner again.”
“The same street where you saw him last time?”
“Yep.”
“The same house?”
“I dunno. He saw me and stopped.”
“No one came out?”
“No. Mum, I didn’t do nothing wrong. I’m awfully hungry. Couldn’t I have some supper?”
She went away and came back with a supper tray. He sat up and ate a hearty meal, while she sat beside him, worrying. There was no doubt that he had turned into a shocking little liar, and she did not know whether to believe him or not.
A policewoman called next day, but she could not get anything out of him either. She asked him a lot of questions, while his dad sat listening, but he had a vague feeling that she liked him better than she did his stepfather.
“I was just standing, and they ran past me,” he kept repeating quite calmly. He was far more afraid of Tyke than he was of the policewoman.
“But what were you doing, just standing?” she asked.
“Just going for a little walk.”
“Where to?”
“Nowhere. Just playing round. They suddenly ran past me.”
“Where from?”
Francis hesitated and knew that she was watching him very carefully indeed.
“Up the road.”
“From the end of the road?”
“Yep—I think so. I dunno.”
The policewoman made a little note on her pad.
“What did they look like?”
“Big. One had a big black beard.”
“That’s a lie,” said his stepfather. “They were just a pack of kids, not more than fourteen or fifteen at the most.”
Francis fell silent. He had quite forgotten that his stepfather had seen them too.
“Well,” said the policewoman at last, turning away from Francis, “there’s nothing to prove that he was involved. He may be speaking the truth or he may not. But it’s up to you, Mr. West. Know what he’s doing all the time and keep him in after dark for his own sake as well as for other people’s. There’s a very rough gang about, and we’re on their tracks. Just see to it that he doesn’t get mixed up with them. He’s only ten; you should be able to control him.”
“That’s his mother’s job,” replied Dad angrily, and he repeated all that the policewoman had said to his wife, with a little more added on. She listened, deeply troubled, knowing that while she grieved and pined over her husband, unable to give her mind to anything else, something was going very wrong indeed with her young son.