‘Good God in heaven, Charlie.’ Mercy Lewis’s mouth nearly hit the deck of the bus. Her hand rose up to the gap she’d left. ‘Don’t tell me that was Max and Bones as well?’
Mum didn’t let me stay at home on the Wednesday – and, as much as I didn’t have the stomach for it, it was back to school. By the Wednesday morning the shiner had gone down a bit, yet it was still eye-catching.
‘No, Mercy, it wasn’t Max and Bones.’
‘Did someone smack you?’
‘No.’
‘It looks as if someone smacked you, Charlie.’
‘No one smacked me, Mercy. I slipped in my shed and fell into a table. No big deal,’ I said.
‘You slipped in your shed?’
‘Crazy, isn’t it?’
‘Who slips in a shed?’ I could tell that she wasn’t buying it.
‘Well, me for a start. Totally stupid thing to do, eh?’
‘Very.’
‘Is it really noticeable?’ I asked.
‘Is that a trick question, Charlie?’
‘No, I was just –’
‘How’s Pav?’
I was glad of the deflection. But I couldn’t tell her the truth – that Pav was broken and desperate to escape our horrible town.
‘Still majorly peed off about what happened to him.’
‘I’d say he is.’
‘And he’s still a bit battered and bruised.’
‘Poor thing,’ she said.
‘I can’t believe those two eejits got away with it.’
‘Don’t worry, Mercy. They didn’t,’ I said.
This was a case of the tongue wagging before the brain engaged. Of course Mercy picked up on my big-mouth moment.
‘What do you mean?’ She sat herself upright in her seat. ‘Has something happened to them? Did they get suspended or anything like that? I haven’t seen them in school.’
‘No … I mean … they probably won’t get away with it. I think Pav’s parents have been on to the school and they’ve said that they’re going to do something about it,’ I lied.
‘I bet the school’ll probably side with Max and Bones,’ Mercy said.
‘You think?’
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. Is it?’
‘Two reasons why …’
‘Which are?’
‘One, Pav is Old Country, and two, his mum and dad are Old Country,’ Mercy said.
I looked at the rubble outside the window. ‘Yeah, you might be right.’
‘People here are beginning to really hate Old Country folk, Charlie.’
‘You think?’ I said.
‘Haven’t you noticed?’
‘It’s hard not to notice, Mercy.’
‘And what about you?’ she asked.
‘What about me?’
‘Do you hate them?’
‘Old Country people?’
‘Yes. Do you hate them, Charlie?’
It was an important question. A vital one. I thought hard about it. In the depths of my innards I had good cause to hate them. Mum and Dad had good cause too. Even Max and Bones had cause. The blasted buildings that surrounded us had their cause too. Time to play the cards close to my chest.
‘Do you hate them, Mercy?’ I asked.
‘Ah, I see what you’re doing, Charlie Law. Answering a question with a question. Very clever. Very clever indeed.’
‘Well, do you?’ I asked.
Mercy turned away to gaze out of her window. Thinking time.
‘It’s complicated, Charlie. But the short answer is, no, I don’t. I think it’s counterproductive to hate. It blurs the real issues and distorts an understanding of the possibility of progress.’ Last year Mercy was in the school debating team. She was its youngest member. Always a straight-A student. Some of us needed to scrap like dogs to get As, but for others, like Mercy Lewis, it was a breeze.
‘Which are?’ I asked.
‘Which are what?’
‘The real issues?’
‘Well, people have got to ask themselves if the life they had under the Regime was better for them than the one they could have in the future under Old Country rule. Say, in five years’ time.’
‘Look around you, Mercy. What do you think?’
‘Yes, Charlie, but one day all this rubble will be swept away to reveal some kind of future. What future did we have under the old Regime? Tell me that, eh?’
‘You call this a future?’ I said, pointing out at the piles of brick hills.
‘Sometimes you have to take major steps backwards in order to take a giant leap forward.’
‘This is a leap forward for you, Mercy? This is progress?’
Mercy placed her bag on her lap, slapped her two hands on it and shook her head as if she was disappointed in me.
‘Charlie,’ she said, in her teacher voice. This was a girl destined for a job that required tons of speaking.
‘Mercy.’
‘What are we doing?’
‘When?’
‘Now, what are we doing now?’
‘Erm … talking?’
‘Exactly, Charlie.’
‘And?’
‘And what are we talking about?’
‘Life. Old Country haters. Pav. Max and Bones. I don’t know. You tell me, Mercy. What are we talking about?’
‘We’re talking about politics.’
‘Oh, is that what you call it?’
‘We’re basically talking about understanding our life, our surroundings, our environment.’ She indicated towards the world outside the window. ‘And what our place in all this means to us.’
‘Are we?’
‘Yes, we are.’
‘OK, I’ll take your word for it then.’
She slapped her two hands down on the bag.
‘And where are we?’ she said.
‘Eh, hello, we’re on the school bus. At least I think we are.’
‘Right. So here we are on the school bus, which is a public place, right?’
‘Right.’
‘And we’re having a chat about politics and other stuff, agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ I said.
‘Let me ask you something then, Charlie,’ she said.
‘Go ahead, Mercy.’
‘Could we ever do that under the old Regime?’ I tightened my lips. ‘Think about it, could we? It was only a few months ago. Could we sit on a bus and chat openly about how good or bad life was?’
‘I guess not, no.’
‘No guessing required. We categorically couldn’t.’
‘OK, we couldn’t then.’
‘And why was that?’
‘Too dangerous, maybe,’ I said.
‘Far too dangerous, Charlie. Far too dangerous. For you. For your parents. For people who knew you. Everyone was scared out of their wits to open their mouth in case someone’s lugs heard something they didn’t like and ran off to blabber it to the Regime or their Rascal lackeys. We spent our time in silence or looking over our shoulders.’
‘I know, Mercy. I was there.’
‘Yes, you were there, you experienced it. You lived it.’
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘But now look at us sitting here chatting about things we actually decided to chat about. It’s great, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, terrific,’ I said.
Sorry, Mercy, but I don’t remember ever getting a black eye from the Regime or any Rascal, or being gubbed in the stomach for the deadly crime of WALKING. I don’t remember that bit at all. She didn’t need to know any of this.
‘So there you have it.’ Mercy rested her hands on her bag like she was a hotshot lawyer (she probably would be one day … maybe we could be partners). Case closed.
‘There you have what?’ I said.
‘Progress.’
‘Progress?’
‘We are the embodiment of Little Town’s progression in action, Charlie.’
For the rest of the journey I thought about what Mercy had said. I tried to see her point of view, I really did. It seemed like she was beginning to enjoy our new Old Country existence. Maybe I was down to shoot the wrong person? Erin F would’ve had a fit if she’d been part of this chat.
When the bus pulled into school Mercy turned to me and said, ‘Have a nice day, Charlie, and do tell Pav that I said hello and that I’m thinking about him.’
‘Will do, Mercy. Will do.’
‘I really am, you know,’ she said, then disappeared into the crowd.
Ever since Pav got done for, it seemed that folk were dropping off the face of the earth.
Pav had holed himself up and hadn’t returned to school. And after our chat the day of The Big Man’s plan, I doubted he would ever return.
Erin F hadn’t been to school for almost a week. To say I was worried was an understatement. My body shuddered at the thought of her being face down in a ditch somewhere. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. What’s new?
Max and Bones hadn’t been to school since using Pav as a human trampoline. I didn’t want to think about how Norman or The Big Man had sorted them.
Then Norman hadn’t surfaced for days. I really feared for Norman. The Big Man now considered him to be a rat. I feared big time for him.