Sea Change Read Online Free PDF Page B

at them all. Then he
turned his stare onto John. He was not pleading, was not begging
for help, did not even look scared. Instead, he just gave John the
stare. The same stare he gave everyone. The same stare that
everyone hated. The same stare that got him into situations like
the one that he was now in.
    It drilled to
the core of John and said: I know you. Said: I know what you are
going to do now. Said: I know everything. Said: I don't care.
    John hesitated
by the door, forgotten as a different drama was played out. Stevens
turned and half-saw him there, said, "Hey", as if to attract the
attention of the others, but they were moving in on Alex now, a
circle tightening, constricting, fists twitching, and Alex's body
cowered but his eyes still stared. Stevens gave John an
unmistakable look: we'll have you for afters, and John thought we
don't even need words any more, only glances and stares, and then
his nerve broke and he crashed through the door and out into the
gorgeous fresh air, so cool and clean. He ran around the old block,
over to the other side of the school, and straight into a figure
that bounced him off and said, "What the hell do you think you're
doing?"
    John stood,
chest heaving, staring at Mr. Allison. The man was shaped like a
barrel, taught geography and games, smelt of BO when the weather
got warm, and supposedly had been sent out of the army because he'd
had some kind of breakdown.
    "Well? It's not
a damn race track. If you put in as much effort on the sports field
you might not end up last all the time. Slow down boy, slow down.
Catch you running like that again and I'll have you doing laps of
the pitches for an hour after school, see how much you like running
then."
    I could tell
him, John thought. I could tell him and he would go over there and
stop it. But then what would follow would be as inevitable as the
sun rising. One of Parker's wannabe altar boys would see the
teacher coming and grab their chance to ingratiate themselves by
warning the others. The boys would stop whatever they were doing to
Alex, and by the time Allison walked in, there would be nothing but
studied nonchalance and the sound of Alex crying. Alex would not
tell the teacher what had happened. Others would stay silent out of
fear, but Alex would stay silent because he viewed the teachers in
the same way that he viewed Parker and his friends, the same way
that he viewed everyone. Parker would explain that Alex had fallen,
had an accident, and Allison would rant and rave and maybe get them
running cross-country until they were sick on their trainers, but
unable to prove anything, he would be powerless.
    And then they
would come looking for whoever had told the teacher. They would
take each moment of pain that they had experienced and pay it back
ten times over. It was inevitable. A fact of nature. How the world
worked. John knew that there was no escaping it.
    "You look like
a goldfish, boy, standing there, opening and closing your mouth.
Too much time in front of your X-Box, not enough time out
exercising. Got something to say boy, or are you just blowing
kisses?"
    John shook his
head, looked at the ground. Mr. Allison walked off, trailing a wave
of sweat behind him. In the locker corridor, things happened.
    John took the
long route around the back of the science block, and into his
classroom. No one stopped him on the way. After an hour of English,
he had two hours of biology. Alex was in the same biology set as
him, but he was not in the class. He was not in the class, he was
not in the school, for after Parker had finished with him, he had
picked himself up off the floor and walked away, out of the
corridor, out of the yard, out of the school altogether.
    If the old man
could bring Alex to him, John did not want to meet him. And if the
old man could do such things, John did not want to meet him again
either. He curled up under his duvet, and thought to himself over
and over again: he's just some weirdo out to frighten me,