The Deviants

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Uh, cos I’ve met him? And cos he’s a dick?’ he said, stopping at the lights.

‘He’s not a dick.’

‘He’s posh.’

‘So are you when you’re not trying to sound like your dad.’

‘I am not!’

‘You so are, Max.’

‘Am not.’

‘So are.’

He stopped talking for at least a mile. Only when we came to the hospital roundabout just down the slope from my road did he open his mouth again.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my cock, is there?’

‘Where did that come from?’ I said, washed hot and cold with embarrassment.

‘I was just thinking about last night at Greenland. You would tell me if that was the problem, wouldn’t you? With us, I mean.’

I couldn’t help laughing, and the ice between us broke and melted away. He’d obviously been stewing on this all night.

‘The only thing wrong with you is you picked the wrong girlfriend.’

‘Never.’

I clicked off my seat belt and leaned across to kiss him back. ‘Thank you for picking me up. And for last night.’ I kissed him again. ‘And my card.’ And again. ‘And my necklace.’

He started doing Round and Round the Garden… on my neck with his fingertip and I cringed, remembering I wasn’t wearing it. ‘That tickles.’

‘Where is it?’ he said, looking at my neck where a pool of sweat had collected.

‘Where’s what?’

‘Your teddy necklace?’

‘Oh I can’t wear it for training cos it keeps hitting me in the face,’ I gabbled.’ I couldn’t actually remember taking it off.

‘What are you doing later? Do you wanna go into town or something? Or we could, I don’t know… Oh. You’ve got a visitor.’

I followed his eye line along the garden path towards our bungalow, where a figure sat crumpled in my doorway.

‘It’s Corey!’ I yanked open the car door and slammed it behind me, running up the path. ‘Corey? Are you OK?’

‘Ella?’ said Corey, un-crumpling. He was all bleary-eyed, and he had a noticeable scab on his eyebrow and a yellowing bruise on his chin. Old wounds.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

Another car door slammed and Max ran up the steps, two at a time. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m still trying to find out,’ I said. Corey was getting to his feet, adjusting his glasses with one hand and clutching his skateboard with the other. ‘Why are you on my doorstep?’

‘No one answered.’

‘My dad’s gone to Manchester to do a book signing and see my brother. He’s just had a baby. What’s happened? Is something wrong?’

‘Ells,’ said Max, folding his arms across his chest and nodding. I followed his eye line towards the bottom of the road. A figure stood beneath a lamp post opposite Corey’s grandparents’ house; a stocky figure with a shaved head, wearing a rugby top and jeans.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I said, getting out my key and ushering both boys through the front door, keeping one eye on the distant stranger.

Me and Max had grown up with Corey Malinowski (his full name was Corneliusz, but we’d never called him that). We’d spent the summers together, us and him and Fallon and Zane. He’d gone to Brynstan Academy too, but he’d mostly been one of the school loners – he had a mild form of cerebral palsy, a hearing aid and two dead parents, so he was pretty much begging to be an outcast. But to us, he’d been vital. He was the reader of books, the architect of dens, darer of dares, encyclopedia of Harry Potter trivia (seriously, down to page numbers), and the only one who could get a fire going using just sticks. To the other kids, he was that skinny weirdo with the limp; to us, he was a genius.

He took off his tatty Converse by the pillar in our lounge and padded into the kitchen, standing in front of our French windows like they opened onto a long dark tunnel.

‘He’s gone,’ he said, turning to me.

I knew his granddad had a bad heart. ‘Oh, Corey, I’m sorry. Are you OK? How’s your nan coping?’

‘No, no,’ he said, correcting me. ‘Granddad and Nan are on their cruise to the Rhineland. For their anniversary.’ His voice was shaky, and before each sentence, he would sort of rev up to get going. I’d forgotten he did that. ‘No, it’s Mort.’

His cat! Phew. ‘What’s happened to him?’

Corey sat down on one of the heavy pine chairs at the breakfast table. I got some Diet Cokes from the fridge. Max shook his head when I offered him one and leaned against the wall, taking a roll-up out of his tobacco pouch.

‘Patio,’ I said, ordering him towards the French windows. ‘Go on, Corey.’

‘I was outside on my skateboard yesterday, and Mort got in my way.’

‘And you… ran him over?’

‘No,’ he said, his eyes creasing up. A single tear fell. ‘I put him on my board. I was gonna Instagram it.’

I bit both my cheeks to stop the laugh. Corey was always doing things like this. His nan sometimes saw my dad – they both did the sugar-craft class at the community centre – and she told him how much Corey got on her nerves with his ‘experiments’. Putting foil in the microwave, just to see. Trying to drive his granddad’s car out the garage, just to see. Asking out a supply teacher, just to see. Nothing ever ended well.

Max poked his head through the gap in the French windows. ‘Did I just hear right? You put your cat on your skateboard?’

I threw Max a death stare and turned back to Corey.

‘OK, so you put him on your board. Then what?’

‘The board went too fast. He got to the bottom of the close where there’s that hilly bit and then the kerb. And it flipped him up and he crashed into the wall.’

I felt bad for Corey, but not for Voldemort. I couldn’t stand that cat. It was always wailing outside our French windows, waiting for my dad to make a fuss of it. He even bought tuna for it – from the Finest range. I didn’t really like animals, anyway, and cats were the worst of all. And Mort was the worst of all cats. He hated me. His yellow eyes were full of it, like it was thinking, I know your secret.

‘Right. Well, we better go and scrape him up then. I’ll help you bury him.’

Corey pulled back, wiping his nose on his jumper sleeve. ‘No, he’s not dead,’ he said. ‘He got up straight away and ran off. I haven’t seen him since. But he could be injured, Ella. Dying somewhere. We need to look for him.’

‘Why didn’t you start looking?’ said Max, poking his head through again. ‘Why wait for Ella?’

Corey didn’t respond to that. ‘Can you help me, Ella? Please? I don’t know where to start. What if Zane’s found him? He might do something to him.’

Then I knew for sure who the figure was, standing under the lamp post. It had been Zane. I’d seen him a few times in our road, or thought I’d seen him. He didn’t live round here, though. He lived on the seafront.

‘OK, Corey, let’s get looking. We’ll find Mort, I promise.’

Corey leaned in for a hug. ‘I knew you’d help me,’ he said.

‘Max’ll help too,’ I said. ‘Won’t you, Max?’

Max rolled his eyes, but flicked his fag butt outside onto the flagstones. At once, I barged past him and went to stamp it out, just in case the world burned down.

‘Why did you feel like you had to help?’

5

An Old Friend One month earlier – 9 July

Corey’d had a crap life. Not only had he been born with a disability but his junkie dad died of an overdose when Corey was months old; his junkie mum killing herself a year later. He’d got lucky with his grandparents. They took him in, wrapped him in home knits, organised physio and speech therapists and treated him like a little prince. But at school, he was one of the loners; one of ‘those’ kids with an aura of stay-away about them. The last few years had leached something out of him. He looked like Kurt Cobain gone wrong, with his shaggy, dirty-blond hair, baggy jeans and cardigans. He had this low, almost apologetic voice. We’d barely spoken in months.

I still saw him around town, though; a headphone zombie skulking in doorways, sitting on walls eating pasties from a Greggs bag, or in the churchyard, reading comics and fantasy novels. He worked at the computer shop in town, had about six Twitter followers and idolized his cat, Mort. All his Instagram posts were pictures of Mort reaching up to paw at a toy mouse or wearing a little sombrero next to a stand-and-stuff taco.

Everyone knew what Zane was like with Corey. We’d seen the spit glistening in his hair, the bend in his glasses. I was afraid Zane had done something to Mort. And it would be my fault if he had. Our last day of school, I’d been in the girls’ changing rooms when I heard noises outside:

‘Please, please don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t, I swear, I promise. No! Pleeeeease!’

‘Go on, have it!’

Cough Cough. Nggghhhhhhhhh.

‘Do it!’ A burst of laughter.

Cough. Aaaarggghhh. Nggghhh.

It was coming from outside, by the wheelie bins, so I stood up on the bench and peeked through the top-opening window. There were three of them around Corey, who was on the ground, curled up like one of those little cellophane fish you get in Christmas crackers. His cries echoed off the bins – muffled, because he had a banana skin in his mouth. Zane Walker kicked him in the stomach. Then the other two joined in, and I felt every kick like it was ricocheting back onto me. A fire started to glow in my belly.

‘Streak of piss. You wet your pants yet? Let’s have a look,’ came Zane’s unmistakable Essex twang. One of his mates yanked down Corey’s trousers.

Without any more thinking, I grabbed a hockey stick from the pegs, ran to the fire exit and banged down on the bar, bursting through into the open air.

‘Get off him!’ I yelled, gripping the stick with both hands to stop them shaking.

Corey squirmed away to yank up his trousers as the other boys turned to me. Three pigs – Zane Walker, Danny Leech and Andrew Tanner. Danny Leech did rugby and was a good shot-putter. He was also a wuss. He ran off straightaway, sunshine bouncing off his highlights.

Andy Tanner’s mum was a receptionist at our GP surgery. I also happened to know her pet name for him; I’d heard her call him once.

‘Run along, Piglet. Unless you want me to call Mummy and rat you out?’

Tanner went violently puce in both cheeks, gobbing on Corey’s hair as a parting shot. ‘Hit me up when you’re done, Walks. See you in town.’ They fist-bumped and Piglet swaggered off, giving me a finger on each hand as he went.

And then there was Zane.

He was a big guy these days; all hench and shaven-headed with a scowl in his eyes that could shatter glass. But I knew all his weak points. Fear of horror stories, horror movies, bees. Fear of being fat. But he wasn’t afraid of me. He’d taken me out in our judo bouts on Max’s living room carpet a million times. And he was a superstar fly-half on the rugby team now. He looked me up, then down, and laughed. ‘What do you care, Estella?’

The fury took over, and I ran forward, ramming my whole body into him until his back hit the wall. I was strong, but I couldn’t hold him – he laughed, grabbing the stick and throwing it to the ground. Then he got right up in my face, so I could smell the Germolene on his zit scabs. Rage ran through my body like a bush fire. I got my stance, levelled my fists and swung my right arm back into a punch that I could hear sweeping the air. But I missed.

‘Ha! Try again, babe. You got a good action there.’

To my horror, I found myself doing the exact same thing.

‘You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,’ he said, killing himself laughing.

It was then that I saw the kitchen slop bucket by one of the bins.

‘And you’re lucky these are today’s leftovers.’ In one movement, I lunged across for the bucket and launched the contents straight over his head. In seconds, Zane was covered in a chunky, vomity goo of custard, mince, mash, soggy bread, chips, rice pudding, pasta and peas. The raging fire inside me fizzled into joy like popping candy.

‘Oh, you are DEAD,’ the Abominable Lunch Man roared, lunging after me. By the grace of God – and the vomity goo – he slipped as he came, landing hard on his backside.

‘Quick, come on!’ I said, grabbing the hockey stick and practically dragging Corey back through the fire exit before Zane dived after us.

We headed for the girls’ toilets, cuss words peppering the air behind us.

‘You’re dead! Both of you. Deceased!’

I locked the bathroom door behind us, barricading it with the hockey stick, then parked a shivering Corey on a toilet, his glasses hanging on his ear by one bent arm.

Within seconds, Zane was banging and kicking the door from the other side.

‘Get out here, bitch!’ Bang bang bang. ‘I’m gonna kill you!’

The door pulsed and rattled but I tried to take no notice, although really I was petrified. ‘He’ll go away in a minute.’

I grabbed the roll of loo paper from the cistern behind Corey and wound it around and around my hand, then rinsed it under the cold tap.

Bang bang bang. ‘I’ll have you, bitch, I’ll kill the pair of you! Get out here now!’

I crouched down beside Corey and inspected his face. Blood ran from his mouth.

‘Don’t worry, he won’t get in,’ I told him, dabbing with shaky hands. ‘Do you remember when he wet his pants in the middle of our Nativity? And that picnic, when he got stung by the bee? And Jessica telling us horror stories on sleepovers – Zane was the worst wuss. They had to call his mum once!’

Bang bang BANG BANG BANG. Corey winced.

‘Jessica told the best stories.’ He bowed his head. ‘The one about the Witch’s Pool was my favourite. Remember when she told that on Halloween night? I go through the graveyard and sit beside her sometimes. Stupid.’

‘It’s not stupid, Corey. I’ve done that too,’ I said. ‘I always felt like she was my sister as well as Max’s. I wished she was. Instead I’ve got two great big brothers who still think it’s funny to fart on my head.’

Corey smiled.

‘Oh, you think that’s funny, do you? Olly once put blue food colouring on my toothbrush. I had blue teeth all day. My mum went mental.’

Corey laughed properly at that, the sound taking me way back. It was only then I realised the banging outside had stopped. There were appalled voices outside. Teachers. Zane wasn’t about to admit a girl had thrown slops over him – he must have come up with an explanation for them. The voices died away into the distance.

‘See? Told you he’d go away,’ I said, holding the cold compress to Corey’s eyebrow.

‘I saw you at County Champs,’ he said. ‘You were amazing. Like Volcano Girl.’

‘That’s what they call me,’ I said, recalling the recent headline in the local paper.

‘No, the real Volcano Girl. She’s a superhero in one of my comics. She’s faster than Flash, and she’s got lava coming out of her heels.’

‘I’m not into comics.’ I dropped the wad of bloody paper and bundled up another one, ready to wet it.

Corey sucked his bottom lip, split where Zane had punched it. ‘I saw you erupt at your house, too. I was walking past and your lounge curtains were open. You were punching the pillar in your lounge.’

My cheeks burned. ‘You might have a scar. It’s going to look cool, though. Let’s check your vision. OK, how many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three.’

‘Er—’

‘How many were you holding up?’

‘Almost three.’

There was a depressed silence.

‘I’ve never seen him go at anyone like he does with you,’ I said, returning to the toilet cubicle with another batch of wet compresses. ‘You used to be such good mates.’

‘It’s because I know his secret. He thinks I’ll tell everyone. But I haven’t. I wouldn’t.’

‘What secret?’ My phone buzzed in my pocket. Without looking, I knew it was a text from Max.

Corey shrugged. ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell.’

Automatically, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the message.

Are you done with education yet? Fancy coming over to mine? The olds are out. We’ve got all afternoon. Maxxx

I turned off my phone and looked back at Corey. ‘School’s over now. I don’t have anywhere to be. So what’s Zane’s secret?’

‘Did he tell you Zane’s secret?’

6

An Adventure Beckons

No, he wouldn’t tell me. He’d sworn to Zane that he would keep his secret, and he wasn’t going to budge. That was the kind of boy Corey was. If not for his condition, he’d have been perfect for the SAS; no way was anything going to break him. He was a much better person than me.

Zane had gone by the time we trooped down the hill on our quest for Mort. Thank God. He’d always been a bit weird as a kid – he ate too much, swore too much, he insisted on always challenging us to duels or fights. He had this stupid habit of hiding our things and making us look for them and he was also the stopper of sneezes – surely the most evil of all vices. But at school, these things had been amplified. He swore at teachers, shagged around, picked fights with any ‘poof’ who dared to argue with him. Corey was exactly the kind of geek a brainless beefcake like Zane Walker grown up would bully, but I still didn’t understand why you’d pick on someone who’d been one of your best friends.

We looked everywhere for Mort – all the Rittmans’ businesses, the pubs, up and down the High Street, the bins in the alley at the back of the seafront hotels, Tesco car park, and finally the pier. Corey went inside the kiosk to ask the manager if he’d seen him – sometimes cats went there for fish scraps. It was starting to drizzle, and Max rubbed his hands up and down my arms. The breeze from the sea was a cold one, and my cheeks were getting sore with wind chill. Max must have been freezing too. He only had his Street Reaper sleeveless hoody on,

‘He’s a bloody nightmare, isn’t he?’ he said, teeth beginning to chatter.

‘Dressed in a daydream,’ I added, moving his hair from his eyes and cuddling him in close. He looked good today. He was wearing the basketball vest I’d bought him for his birthday, skinny jeans and his new Vans. ‘You saw Zane hanging around, didn’t you? Opposite Corey’s house?’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘I don’t want to leave him on his own today, Max. Just in case.’

Just then, Corey came out of the shop with a massive bag of sweets, crisps and cans.

‘For you guys,’ he said. ‘For helping me look for Mort.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But we should get back. Maybe Mort’s gone back to yours?’

Corey shook his head. ‘He won’t. He’s too scared.’ His face radiated terror. ‘Oh my God – what if Rosie’s got him?’

‘Why would she have him? She lives in the back of beyond. It’s a bit unlikely,’ I said, trying to head him off.

‘Ooh, I dunno,’ said Max, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘If a cat’s gone missing in suspicious circumstances, Roadkill Rosie’s got to be involved, hasn’t she? Old Witchy Woo herself.’

The Brynstan-on-Sea grapevine had declared years ago that Rosie Hayes was a witch. Any animal that went missing, Rosie was the prime suspect. Sometimes we’d seen her as kids, hanging out at the farm with Fallon, but more often than not she’d be out in the tractor, or just going somewhere in the ‘Torture Truck’. People said worse about them now: Fallon had been expelled for sleeping with a teaching assistant, and people said now she was some kind of prostitute. Rosie was a gypsy, possibly even a serial killer. They stole cattle, had bats in their cellar, fed their pigs on human remains. There was talk of skulls in the freezer, body parts left out for the bin men, even an amputated you-know-what in the kettle on her stove. You know how people talk – rumours appear like cracks in egg shells and before long giant eagles have taken to the air.

Neil had done a lot to help spread those rumours.

‘I reckon Mort’ll be in a pie by now,’ said Max. ‘Ooh, I’ve got a hell of a peck on for Mort ’n’ chips. Remember Rosie’s suspicious stews? You never saw the same cat twice round their house. And the stories Jess used to tell us about Witch’s Pond?’

‘Stop winding him up,’ I said. ‘All that stuff about the cannibalism and the Witch’s Pool is crap. We know Rosie – at least, we used to.’

But Corey wasn’t laughing. ‘She might have picked him up, just by accident. She does that – we know she does. The farm was always crawling with stray cats when we used to go there. Could we go out and look? Just to see?’

‘No way!’ said Max, the smile wiped off his face. ‘My dad would never forgive me.’

Corey looked confused so I filled him in. ‘It was because of Rose that they recorded an open verdict at Jessica’s inquest. Rose insisted she saw her walk in front of the bus. On purpose,’ I added, quietly.

‘Stupid cow,’ Max grumbled. ‘Mum’ll go loopy if she knows we’ve even thought of going out there.’

‘It’s unlikely Rosie picked up Mort anyway,’ I told Corey. ‘I vote we go back to yours.’

‘No! Please, we have to try. Missing animals always end up there.’

‘Corey, come on, be logical. Rosie never comes into town any more.’

‘But we’ve tried everywhere else. Please?’ This time, he was brimming tears, his eyes all huge behind his glasses. Going to Whitehouse Farm meant nudging a hornets’ nest, as I knew perfectly well, but I couldn’t talk him out of it. He seemed desperate.

‘Fine, we’ll go out to Rosie’s,’ I sighed. Max made an outraged noise at once. ‘We won’t stay long. Your parents won’t ever know we were there. You can drive us, can’t you?’

‘Uh, no,’ he scoffed. ‘My car’s only two months old. Some of the roads out that way are just dirt tracks.’

‘There’s a bus to Cloud that stops twice a day at the bottom of our road,’ Corey said. ‘I’ve seen it on the timetable. There’s one at lunch and one back at teatime. I’ll pay.’

‘Damn right you will,’ said Max.

Just then, a car rolled along the seafront and came to a stop next to us. The driver’s window rolled down. It was Neil, in his glimmering midnight-blue Jaguar.

‘Alright, son?’ He beamed, showing teeth whiter than the seagull slime on his windscreen. He always looked uglier, each time I saw him, despite the amount of surgery he’d had to fix his nose. Max beamed back at him, loping over to the car and leaning against the door frame.

‘Alright, Dad? What time’s the guy coming to pick it up?’

A Renault Clio beeped behind. Lazily, Neil threw a rude hand gesture as it overtook, gunning its engine.

‘About six he said, give or take. Got a brand new Porsche coming in a couple of weeks.’ He was telling me, more than anyone else.

‘What are you going to do till then?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer. Max had told me.

‘Garage is providing a hire car. Mercedes Sport. Just to tide me over. You coming round to see the Porsche when it arrives? Jo’s going to do a lunch. Get all the family over.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, unenthusiastically. ‘That’ll be nice.’

‘Good. What you up to now, then?’

Max spun Neil a yarn about how we were all going into town to look at some new phone as Corey hung back with me and we wandered over to the sea wall to watch the tide vomiting up clumps of seaweed and lager cans, leaving a trail of foamy spit on the steps.

‘He hasn’t changed then,’ said Corey.

‘Nope.’ I smiled. ‘Still a knob head.’

‘Do they still live in that massive bungalow overlooking the bay? The one that backs onto the dunes with the big black gates…’

‘… and panoramic views of Brynstan Bay and outdoor pool and three en suites and gold taps. JoNeille.’