Turquoiselle, Tanith Lee [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

appearedE-bone was afraid of Heavy now and would not incriminate him. Cox, who hadstopped being sick, had been taken to lie down.

Andywondered if he could get the better of Heavy in a fight. Surely hecould? He could not picture, however, Heavy fighting him. Heavy’s plastickyskin was impervious. How ugly he was. So ugly it was not actually ugly, butsome other type of visual shock.

Andywas staring at Heavy. Andy moved his eyes away.

Asthey turned up Lodge Road, Heavy said, “What’s it mean, your name?”

Beyondthe traffic lights, Andy could see the off-licence on top of which was Sara’snew flat. This was far enough. He stopped, angled round and looked at Heavy.Andy thought, He’slike a punch-bag. If you hit him he would come back at you. Like hedid with Cox and E-bone. It was not a defence or a reflex, not anger, but abuilt-in mechanism.

“Look,man,” said Andy in a level grown-up voice he had heard his mother use, and someof the people with the social services, “I need to be on my own. All right?”

Heavylooked at him. Heavy’s round eyes were the colour of mud, or slime.

“Ihad an apple in my lunch,” said Heavy. “I like apples. Some people don’t likeapples, like in the By-bell.” (He meant Bible, Andy knew that from some classwhen they were being taught things from the Bible and Heavy pronounced it as hedid, and seemed unable to alter this, so the teacher gave up.) “That was why hegave it her.”

Perhaps,Andy thought, he could just take to his heels like last time. He would soonoutrun Heavy. But he heard himself reluctantly say, “Who did?” And did notknow why he had.

“Theserpan. He didn’t like apples so he gived his one to that woman in the garden.”(Oh. he meant Adam and Eve, What the teacher called a Parable, or something.Some senseless fairy tale–) “And she liked the apple, but she shared it withher boyfriend, because she liked him too and wanted he should have some. Andthen that other one came and he was angry. But the serpan was only not wantingto waste it and she was only being kind. My moth–ah told me. She tells mestuff.”

“Youare,” said Andy, slowly and precisely, “off your fucking nut. Now fuck off orjump under a car, whichever you’d like best.”

“I’dlike best,” said Heavy, with a sudden dreamy energy, “to fly–” And spreadingout his two bolsters of arms, he spun away, careering off along the pavement,laughing in a drainlike gurgling, and here and there jumping up the half footthat was all his bulk and discoordination seemed to allow.

Andytoo ran for it, the other way, dodging in behind the shops before Heavy couldthink better of flight and try to rejoin him.

She had mixedrace too, as E-Bone did, Sara, his mother. Sara’s father, for protection fromracial prejudice, had changed the family name to its anglicised version, Carver, which Andythen at birth received, as he was a bastard, (or born out-of-wedlock, as no oneany longer said... did they?) E-bone’s mum’s dad had not altered their familyname, and so E-bone received that, as he too was a bastard boow. Andy did notremember this name, though it had something to do with islands, he believed. E-bone’sproper first name was Ebony. His mother perhaps had been making some statement,rather an out-of-date one, if so. It might have been an OK name, but not whenyou were eleven. Nor, at any rate in England, would Andy’s real first name havebeen. Andreas. Which probably would get pronounced Anne-dria, or Andri-arse.Andy was the easier option.

E-bonemeanwhile had a dead father, maybe killed, or only dying young. And Andy had nofather, for that monstrous thing was gone from their lives too, Sara’s and his.Heavy’s mother (or moth-ah) was definitely dead. Some of them had been told thisearly on, by a teacher trying to protect Heavy from them. Yet, as Andy hadseen, he always referred to her in the present tense.

ButHeavy was mental. Went without saying. You could not look like that, and notbe.

“Theleaves that are left are leaving,” said Heavy.

“Youshouldn’t try,” said Heavy, “to lock the stable door after the horse has boltedit.”

Heavysaid, “That girl has a lake in her eyes.”

Heavysaid, “Look how the wind runs backward.”

Heavysaid, “A tortwas can’t change its shell.”

“Shilt,”said Heavy.

“Shit.”

“Shilt,”Heavy agreed.

Nothing wasspecial about Sackville, it was an ordinary secondary school. A modernish, many-celledglassy building, with yards outside and ‘playing’ fields, where organisedcompulsory unplayful games took place. Andy attended sometimes, and sometimesdid not, as before. As before also, if more lavishly and sharply, he waswarned, and told that his mother would be requested to explain his absences.Andy paid no true attention, simply politely nodded. The attempted control ofthe Young was already toughening, but stayed sporadic, and, initially, withoutfull back-up at Sucks. The teachers here seemed especially harassed andincompetent, at least to Andy.

ThatHeavy also appeared at Sackville-Sucks never suggested itself as an oddity.Heavy was, the general opinion had it, sub-basement-normal. But Sucks was notexactly an educational paradigm. It took what it was given, and tried todrone, yell, mock or coerce fragments of knowledge into it. And where presentedwith slippery and non-absorbent subjects such as Andy, at one extreme, and the ‘moronical’Heavy at the other, gave up. Only legal punishments were allocated – extrawork, enclosures, reviews, and tirades promising parent-victimisation in lieu ofpupil-torture. These were not absorbed, either, and rarely gone along with.

WhenAndy first noticed Heavy, slowly wandering over a games field where he had beentold to “Run, boy, for Christ’s sake –” Andy was not unduly astounded.

Heavy,by then, kept turning up in Andy’s vicinity. Most frequently since their lastdays at the primary.

Itwent without saying, Andy, back then, always attempted – and as a rulesucceeded in – getting away. This became a sort of tiresome game, pointless andstupid, for Andy. Just as were the organised rugger, cricket and footballlater, at Sucks. Yet Heavy still morphed into a fixture, meandering alongbehind Andy, or at his side, until sloughed. Oblivious to insult or the wavesof hatred Andy expelled in his direction: conceivably Heavy had becomeaccomplished at such a thickening of emotional skin. He took no notice of Andy’sgibes, though