Grass Read online

  But it was too late to go back for Sean. I couldn’t wait. He’d understand.

  I reached out and lifted the floorboard free.

  g

  3

  I thought at first there were snakes under there. Long, thin, silver-grey snakes, lying straight and flat, sleeping under the floorboards side by side. The torchlight seemed to dance over them. I held my breath, too scared to reach out and touch them. Hey, I’d seen too many Alien movies to trust anything long and thin and sinister in a dark place.

  At any moment they might come alive, fold themselves out from under the floor, rise above me with dripping jaws – and strike!

  It seemed so real, I moved back.

  But everything stayed still. I realised I was sucking on my Mint Imperial like mad. I waited a moment, knew I had to find out what I was looking at. I held the torch closer and saw then that there were no snakes. No alien monsters. These were something much more menacing.

  Guns.

  All kinds of guns. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, machine guns. Ammunition too.

  A whole stash of guns.

  It wasn’t rocket science to figure out what I had stumbled across. And with the realisation, everything became clear. Why there had been no vandals in this building.

  No one would dare.

  Once we’d come over that railway bridge, we had stepped into Nelis territory.

  This was Nelis’s stash of guns. Had to be. And I had found them.

  I almost yelled out for Sean then. This was the biggest thing we’d ever found. Tell the police about this and we would be heroes . . .

  A picture flashed into my mind.

  SHARKEY IS A GRASS

  If Nelis ever found out it was us who had grassed on him, we would be dead men.

  But something else stopped me calling for my pal. Because maybe someone other than Sean was out there. Nelis wouldn’t have left this place unguarded. Someone had to be out there. One of Nelis’s hard men. And he had seen everything. Had watched me sneaking inside the building. Knew I was here. Maybe he had already warned Nelis, and him and more of his thugs were heading my way. I pushed the floorboard back in place, silently, covering the guns again. The torch was shaking in my hand.

  I tried to think calmly. If someone had been left guarding these guns it was obviously someone not too bright, or they would have stopped me coming anywhere near here in the first place. So maybe he hadn’t seen me slipping inside. Perhaps this watchman had paid a visit to a girlfriend nearby, or he’d sneaked off for a takeaway curry. He’d be back any second.

  But it was more than the fear of any guard outside that stopped me calling out for Sean. I had found the guns. Just me – I was the only one who knew about them. If someone caught me, I’d be in danger.

  If I called Sean in here – he would know too – then he’d also be in danger.

  Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. This was a need-to-know situation. And Sean didn’t need to know this.

  Couldn’t do that to my mate.

  I edged back, still kneeling on the floor. My eyes never left that loose plank of wood. Almost as if I was scared the guns would come out by themselves. I heard it in my imagination. Rifles cocking, machine guns rat-a-tatting in the silence. And all of them aimed at me.

  It was then I got to my feet, began to back my way through into the kitchen. Only at the door did I turn and then in my hurry to get out of that place, I tripped and fell face down, cracking my nose on something hard on the floor. My nose began to bleed but I was up and running in an instant. My instinct telling me to get out of there as quickly as I could.

  I was breathing hard as I squeezed back through the steel panel, sure a line of Nelis’s men would be out there, waiting for me.

  Was this how a soldier felt escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp?

  But there was no line of angry men.

  There was only Sean standing further along the terrace, looking in the opposite direction, waiting for me.

  He didn’t see where I’d come from. He swivelled round when he heard my stumbling footsteps behind him.

  Sean called out to me.

  ‘Where did you get to? Did you get in?’

  I didn’t stop hurrying away from there, pulling him on as I spoke. ‘Naw, couldn’t find a way. Did you?’

  ‘Naw. Sealed up tight.’ He saw the blood streaming from my nose then. ‘Hey, what happened?’

  ‘I fell.’ I pulled him on.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ He glanced back at the building. ‘Did you see something there?’

  ‘Naw. It was just smelly and then I fell . . .’ I just wanted to get him, both of us, as far away from here as I could. ‘I don’t feel good. I want to go home.’

  Instantly, Sean forgot about the building, good mate that he was. He called out into the night.

  ‘Man down. Wounded officer losing blood. Paramedics over here.’

  Normally I would have laughed. But now I didn’t want to waste the time. And I was afraid too, that someone might hear his shout. I didn’t laugh with him.

  He looked at me, and just for a split second I could see suspicion cloud his face. I wasn’t telling him everything, and he knew it.

  I changed the subject. ‘Do you think I’ve broke my nose?’

  He grinned. ‘Well, if you have it’s bound to be an improvement. You’ve got a conk like a big potato. Maybe you’ll be better-looking after this.’

  We decided it would be just as easy going back to my house. And this wounded soldier wanted home. The bleeding had stopped by the time we got there, and my dad ran Sean back home. His dark mood had lifted. My dad never stayed down for long. But I went to bed almost as soon as they’d driven off.

  All I feared was that someone had seen me, clocked me, recognised me. Knew what I had found.

  Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing.

  I vowed that from now on me and Sean would stop investigating the old houses. We’d find something safer to do – like wrestling alligators.

  g

  4

  The fear had left me by the time I woke up next morning. The sun was shining and a frosty mist hung over the river. Now, in the light of day, last night seemed more like an adventure.

  Finding those guns in the dark, stumbling out of there expecting any second that Nelis and all his henchmen would leap out of the shadows and grab me – you know what it reminded me of? Like when you watch a film through your fingers the first time, because you’re so scared the good guy is about to die horribly and then he doesn’t. So the next time you watch it you can really enjoy it, knowing he’s going to be safe. It was exactly like that. I watched the re-runs of my adventure over and over and it got more exciting every time.

  But share it with Sean?

  No way. It was still too dangerous to share with anyone.

  He was waiting for me at the school gates. He looked disappointed to see me.

  ‘I was expecting you to have your nose spread all over your face,’ was the first thing he said. ‘Or at least be attached to a blood-transfusion drip.’ He said it as if I had let him down badly.

  I popped one of my mints in my mouth. ‘My mum says I acted like a drama queen. There wasn’t that much blood.’

  ‘Overacted, I’d say.’

  I longed to tell him then about the guns. It was the perfect moment to share that sinister knowledge with him. Here in the playground, waiting for the bell to ring. What harm would it really do, I asked myself?

  But the words wouldn’t come.

  Too much knowledge – that’s what stopped me. He could be in danger if he knew.

  I was in danger.

  My eyes glazed over – I went into dream mode – the hairs on the back of my head stood on end.

  I w
as in danger. Maybe even now someone was watching me.

  And for a moment it wasn’t a bright sunny morning any more. There was darkness all around me. My mood changed. I was afraid.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ Sean was shaking me. ‘Hello! Is anybody there? Can you get dementia at your age? You just switched off there, pal.’

  The sun came out. No need for me to be afraid. No one had seen me last night. We’d never go back there again. I would make like it never happened. Push it to the back of my crowded mind.

  There were other more important things to think about anyway. Like the final of the school football tournament, and the new Zombie game that Sean had.

  ‘It was my granny’s,’ Sean told me at break time. ‘She’s says it’s the best ever.’

  Sean always got the creepiest games and the best horror DVDs from his granny.

  ‘Your granny’s weird, Sean. Do you know that?’

  He only nodded. ‘I know,’ he said, dead chuffed. ‘You can come at the weekend and play it.’

  I hardly heard him. Veronika Kuschinska walked past just then. Veronika is one of the Polish girls who has recently come to our school. Long blonde hair and beautiful white teeth. (Her dad’s a dentist.) Not that I notice her much.

  Sean nudged me. ‘Looking at Veronika again, are you?’

  ‘Veronika who?’ I said.

  Sean started to laugh. ‘Veronika who! You can’t keep your eyes off her in class. Talk to her. Who knows? She might not be right in the head. She might like you.’

  ‘I’m not interested in her,’ I said firmly. And it was the truth. Why would I be interested in a girl, even with long blonde hair and green eyes and perfect white teeth?

  Two days later there was a shooting in the town. It was on the estate where I’d found the guns. Nelis territory. A drive-by shooting, a boy badly injured. My first thought when I heard about it was: had someone used one of the guns I’d found? Would it not have happened if I’d told the police about them?

  The shooting was all the talk of the town. It sent my dad into fighting mode. ‘More shootings! Here in our town! This place is getting worse.’ He pulled David on to his knee, as if he could protect him better if he was close. ‘One of our boys could have been caught up in that. Totally innocent, walking by, caught in the crossfire. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He looked at Mum. ‘I think it’s time we started thinking of moving somewhere else.’

  I knew he was only saying that. We couldn’t get out of this town no matter how bad it was. Dad didn’t have a job, and where would we get another house? Added to that, my dad loved this town. Leave the town with the best football team in the world? I don’t think so.

  My mum tried to calm him down as she always did. ‘Oh, come on, Dave. You’re talking as if we were living in war-torn Baghdad. This is a great place to live, and most of the people in this town always obey the law. We do.’

  ‘You don’t,’ I reminded her. ‘You nick surgical gloves from the hospital all the time.’

  Behind my dad’s back she waved a fist at me. I grinned. Dad was always going on about that. My dad refused to do anything underhand.

  ‘That’s not really stealing,’ my mum said. ‘It’s only a few pairs of surgical gloves. Kept under the sink . . . for medical emergencies.’ She glared at me.

  ‘It starts with the little things,’ Dad said. ‘That’s how it always starts.’

  ‘I’m not goin’ to start shooting people because I take a couple of pairs of gloves out of the hospital.’

  My dad thought it was wrong anyway. Any kind of stealing was still stealing, he said.

  My mum decided it was safer talking about the shooting. ‘Anyway, we keep our boys away from any trouble, Dave. We drop them off. We pick them up. We look after them.’

  And that was true. A lot of the boys my age ran wild on the estates. No one at home to care for them – either not giving a monkey’s where they were, or out clubbing themselves. I was lucky. I knew there was always someone here for me.

  There always would be.

  g

  5

  I didn’t get to play in the final of the football tournament after all. Total rubbish of course, leaving me on the substitute bench. I could have been man of the match. And it was all down to the Bissett Boys.

  I haven’t mentioned the Bissett Boys yet. They come from one of the worst families in the town and between you and me the two brothers only share a brain cell between them. But they never give me a minute’s peace. As soon as they catch sight of me, they’re on my tail, always chasing me. They used to come right up to the house, till one night my mum came out and gave them some serious verbal abuse. Since then they stay back from the house. Instead, they wait on corners for me. Why? It’s only because I don’t support Celtic . . . and I don’t support Rangers. That’s a good enough reason for them. I always do my best to avoid them – usually watch out for them. I take another road home. And normally even if they do see me, they don’t catch me. They’re rubbish at hiding and I can usually outrun them. But sometimes you just can’t avoid them. It’s like when you’re running across the park and you know there’s going to be a big soft dog turd there and you watch out for it, try to avoid it, but there’s always that one time when you step right in it. That’s what happened the night before the match. I turned a corner and there they were.

  I’m usually good at not getting caught. I’m a good runner and I’m wiry with it. I can slip in and out of places the Zombie Bissett brothers get stuck in.

  But that night I got caught. I slipped as I was hurtling round a corner, tried to get to my feet. Too late. They were both on me. One grabbed me by the collar, the other hauled me to my feet by the throat. It’s scary being caught by the Bissett Boys. They’re ugly and they’re stupid but they’ve got a punch like a hammer, and the last time they caught me I ended up with two black eyes.

  It’s easy to say fight back. But how do you fight back when they’re built like sumo wrestlers and there’s only one of me – a wee one of me?

  It’s easy to say tell on them. But remember:

  SHARKEY IS A GRASS

  You don’t grass here – on anybody.

  They began to drag me round the back of the shops – obviously didn’t want any witnesses – and I was having none of that. Back of the shops? Isolated? Anything could happen. And big Bernie Bissett was cracking his knuckles as if he meant business.

  ‘You are in for it noo, wee man,’ he kept saying. He was obviously the one using the brain cell tonight.

  He spoke like a real hard man, which as he had me by the throat at that point, he was. Hard as nails. If I disappeared round the back of those shops it was a foregone conclusion that I’d disappear for ever.

  So I lashed out with my foot. One sharp kick and I caught big Bernie right on the shin. It was tears-running-down-the-face time for him – running down the legs as well, I hoped. Bernie let out a scream like a lassie. He jumped and grabbed his leg – and fell over.

  Honestly, it would have been funny if I hadn’t been so scared. But I took the chance to jerk myself free of Bernie’s brother, Brian, who was holding my arms. Not quick enough, for Brian’s foot shot out and this time it was me who buckled in pain. But it didn’t stop me running. If I stumbled they’d get me. So I ran, pain searing through my leg. I bit my lip to keep from shouting. My leg had to be broken, I was sure of it. Let’s face it, no one can say my life isn’t exciting. It’s like living in a gangster movie sometimes.

  When I got home I had to hide the pain – and the massive bruise on my shin. Dad and Mum would want to know what happened and I couldn’t tell them, because Dad would want to do the right thing, go straight to the police, get them to warn the Bissett Boys off. Or maybe he’d go to the Bissett house, talk to their parents. Then, it would be the Bissetts who would get the police on u
s, for harassment probably. This family were in trouble so often they had their own personal lawyer.

  My dad was one of the good guys. Thought because he obeyed the rules, everybody else did too. Sometimes it was my dad who needed protecting.

  So I lied. I’d fallen, I told him.

  It was only next day when we were being picked for the team for the final that it really hit me. I couldn’t run as fast. I limped when I should have leaped, and I ended up as a last resort reserve.

  I told Sean what had happened of course. I told him everything – well, almost everything – and he understood. Still had to make a joke of it.

  ‘You must be kicking yourself, Leo old pal. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot, the Bissett Boys did that for you!’

  ‘I’d love to get them back for this,’ I told him.

  ‘Let’s see, Leo,’ Sean said thoughtfully, tapping his teeth with his finger. ‘Revenge on the Bissett Boys? Or staying alive? Difficult decision, eh?’

  And he was right. This was the real world, and Sean and I knew it. We were streetwise, me and Sean. I was annoyed that I’d missed playing in the final – but there was no good crying over it. These things happened. It was best just to get on with it. And to be truthful, I was more worried that the Bissett Boys would be determined to get back at me.

  g

  6

  I kept well out of the way of the Bissett Boys for the next couple of days.

  That was the easy bit. I usually knew how to avoid them, and I usually succeeded.

  But I had other things on my mind. My dad was going through a bad time. Another knock-back for a job. And this one he’d been certain he would get. I’d lost count of the interviews he’d gone for. But he’d been so sure he’d get this one. It was a job in a big electronics firm. He’d been for three interviews, and they had whittled it down to the last two candidates. My dad and some other guy. It would have got him back into electronics. Permanent job, good money, a pension. All he wanted. And when the envelope came through the door that morning, it was obvious he knew what it was. They would have phoned if he’d landed the job. I could see he wanted to just push it back through the letterbox again.