Maybe there were boys there who would have been more generous, but they were too nervous of Gavin Taylor and so Matt found himself virtually friendless. He hadn’t told Richard any of this. Matt had never been the sort of person to complain. When his parents had died, when he had been sent to live with Gwenda Davis, even when he had been working as a virtual slave at Hive Hall, he had tried to build a wall around himself. But each day was becoming harder to endure. He was certain that sooner or later, he would snap.
As usual, the bus dropped him off at half past eight. The day always began with an assembly in the chapel, a hymn sung tunelessly by six hundred and fifty schoolboys who were only half awake and a brief address from the headmaster or one of the teachers. Matt kept his head down. He thought about what he had said to Richard that morning. He really was determined to go. He’d had enough.
The first two lessons weren’t too bad. The maths and history teachers were young and sympathetic and didn’t allow the other boys in the class to pick on him. Matt spent morning break in the library, trying to catch up with his homework. After that he had forty-five minutes with the special needs teacher who was trying to help him with his spelling and grammar. But the last lesson before lunch was English and Mr King was in a bad mood.
“Freeman, will you please stand up!”
Matt got warily to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gavin nudge another boy and grin. He made sure his own face gave nothing away.
Mr King walked towards him. The English teacher was losing his hair. He combed the ginger strands from one side of his head to the other, but the curve of his skull still showed through. He was holding a dog-eared copy of Oliver Twist, the book they were reading in class. He also had a pile of exercise books.
“Did you read the chapters that I set you in Oliver Twist?” he asked.
“I tried to,” Matt said. He liked the characters in the story but he found some of the language old-fashioned and difficult to follow. Why did Charles Dickens have to use so much description?
“You tried to?” Mr King sneered at him. “I think what you mean is, you didn’t.”
“I did…” Matt began.
“Don’t interrupt me, Freeman. Your essay was the worst in the class. You scored a pathetic two out of twenty. You can’t even spell Fagin correctly! F-A-Y-G-I-N! There is no Y in Fagin, Freeman. If you’d read the chapters, you’d know that.”
Gavin giggled out loud and, despite himself, Matt felt his cheeks glowing red.
“You will read the chapters again and you will do the test again and in future, I’d prefer it if you didn’t lie to me. Now sit down.” He threw Matt’s exercise book onto the desk as if it were something he had found in the gutter.
The lesson dragged on until the lunchtime bell. There would be games that afternoon. Matt should have enjoyed that, as he was fit and fast on his feet. But he was never part of the team on the sports field either. They were playing cricket this term and Matt hadn’t been surprised when he had been sent to field at deep cover, as far away from everyone else as possible.
The school ate lunch in one of the modern buildings. There was a self-service buffet with a choice of hot or cold food and fifty long tables arranged in lines beneath a huge modern chandelier. The boys were allowed to sit where they wanted, but normally each year stuck together. The clatter of knives and forks and the clamour of so many voices echoed all around. Everyone ate at the same time and the huge glass windows seemed to trap the sound and bounce it back and forth.
Matt was hungry. He had been late for the school bus and hadn’t had time to buy anything at McDonald’s. And there hadn’t been much to eat in Richard’s flat the night before. The food was the one thing at Forrest Hill that he did like and he helped himself to a healthy lunch of ham, salad, ice cream and fruit juice. Carrying his tray, he looked for somewhere to sit. After five weeks at the school, he had lost hope of anyone inviting him to join them.
He saw an empty space and made for it. With the tray in front of him, he didn’t see the foot that was stretched out in his path. The next thing he knew, he had been tripped. Helplessly, he pitched forward. The tray, two plates, a glass, his knife, fork and spoon left his hands and hit the floor with a deafening crash. Matt followed them. Unable to stop himself, he fell on top of what was meant to be his lunch. The entire room fell silent. Even before he looked up, Matt knew that everyone was staring at him.
It hadn’t been Gavin Taylor who had tripped him up. It was one of his friends. But Matt had no doubt that it had been Gavin’s idea. He could see the other boy a few tables away, standing up with a glass in one hand, a stupid smile spreading across his face. Matt got to his knees. Ice cream was dripping from his shirt. He was surrounded by pieces of salad, kneeling in a puddle of fruit juice.
And then Gavin laughed.
It was a cue for the rest of the school to join in. It seemed to Matt that just about the entire room – the entire school – was laughing at him. He saw Mr O’Shaughnessy making his way towards him. Why did the assistant headmaster have to be on lunch duty that day?
“Why do you have to be so clumsy, Freeman?” The words seemed to be coming from a long way away. They echoed in Matt’s ears. “Are you all right?”
Matt looked up. Gavin was pointing at him. He could feel the anger coursing through him – and not just anger. Something else. He couldn’t have stopped it, even if he had tried to. It was as if he had become a channel. There were flames flowing through him. He could actually smell the burning.
The chandelier exploded.
It was an ugly thing, a tangle of steel arms and light bulbs that some architect must have thought would suit the room. And it was directly over Gavin Taylor. Now, as Matt stared, the bulbs shattered, one after another, each one bursting apart with the sound of a pistol shot. Glass showered down, smashing onto the tables. Gavin looked up and cried out as a piece of glass hit him in the face. More glass rained down on him. A few wisps of smoke rose to the ceiling. Nobody was laughing any more. The entire room was silent.
Then the glass that Gavin was holding exploded too. It simply blew itself apart in his hand. He screamed. His palm had been cut open. Gavin looked at Matt, then at his hand. His mouth opened but it seemed to take him for ever to find the words.
“It was him!” he shouted. “He did it!” His whole body was trembling.
The assistant headmaster stared helplessly. He looked bewildered, unsure what to do. This sort of thing had never happened before. It was beyond his experience.
“It was him!” Gavin insisted.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mr O’Shaughnessy said. “I saw what happened. Freeman was nowhere near you.”
Gavin Taylor had gone pale. It might have been the pain, the sight of his own blood welling out of the cut in his hand. But Matt knew that it was more than that. He was terrified.
Mr O’Shaughnessy tried to take charge. “Someone get the matron,” he snapped. “And we’d better clear the room. There’s glass everywhere…”
People were already moving. They didn’t know what had happened. They just wanted to get out of the dining hall before the whole ceiling came down. They had forgotten Matt for the moment but if any of them had looked for him they would have seen that he was no longer there.
A SECOND GATE
The streets were beginning to empty by the time Matt got home. These were the summer months and tourists were arriving every day. The queues round the Viking museum and the Minster were getting longer. The medieval walls were more crowded. Soon there would be more people visiting York than actually living there, or so it would seem. From city to tourist attraction, it was a process that was repeated every year.