Something Quite Beautiful Read Online Free PDF Page A

the left and right, checking no guard was within earshot. ‘I expect he is one of the disappeared.’
    ‘The what?’ Keegan laughed at the kid who was, in his opinion, another nutter.
    ‘You can laugh, but I’ve been here since the beginning and I’m telling you, my friend, that for all her cool politeness and fancy shirts, Justice is a cold, cold bitch. I bet she told you you’d do twenty, but the truth is no-one here will do twenty, you’ll do forever, trust me. One bloke trashed a plant in the recreation area and got an extra five. I’m not lying, five years for a plant!’ he sucked his teeth, ‘but that’s not the real worry, it’s the ones that disappear you should be concerned about. She kills them or has them killed and there ain,t fuck-all you can do. She is the law in here, completely untouchable. She removes their file, bangs shut that drawer and it’s like they were never here; gone. I’m tellin’ you, man—’
    ‘I might be wrong, but isn’t that Henry, over there?’ Keegan used his spoon to point over the soothsayer’s shoulder. All three turned, and, sure enough, Henry, who looked a little worse for wear, unshaven and as if he had lost some of his sparkle, sidled onto an empty bench with this tray.
    ‘He’s not disappeared! Just a bit late for his dinner!’ Keegan chuckled.
    Bo shook his head, ‘He may have turned up and you can mock all you like, but when there is fuck-all between you and the nose of that Smith and Wesson, I bet you won’t find it quite so funny.’
    Keegan leant closer to Bo. ‘Here’s the thing, mate, there’s been rumours and hearsay at every children’s home and nick I’ve ever set foot in and it’s usually done to scare the new kids. But I ain’t a new kid and you ain’t scaring me or Binns, so fuck off.’
    Bo raised his palms. ‘I don’t want no trouble with you Keegan, not in here, but I’m telling you. I took the joinery class; I was there when they took delivery of a stack of rectangular, wooden boxes, they came in on a big truck. I couldn’t figure out what they were at first, but it soon became clear, they were coffin boxes,’ Bo’s hand shook as he pointed a finger towards Keegan, ‘and the worst thing about them boxes, is not how you end up in one, but the idea that no bastard would give a shit, no one at home would be told, no one would mourn you or miss you. You’d be shoved under the moor with the soil rattling against the lid and no one would even know let alone care. It’s not a good way to end your time.’
    The two men pushed their trays away as the troubled Bo wandered off; both had rather lost their appetites.
    ‘Actually,’ Warren coughed, ‘he did scare me a little bit.’
    Keegan laughed. ‘Well don’t ever tell him that!’
    ‘As if.’ Warren smiled. ‘Do you think its true, Keegan?’
    Keegan hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek. He placed his clasped hands on the table in front of him. ‘I dunno, mate, this whole place is fucked that’s for sure. And it shits me up because it’s not like anywhere else and so I don’t know what to expect. I’d heard something similar before I even got here. Apparently a couple of boys who were in rooms just down from me have gone, vanished and no one mentions them, like they were never here, as if they’re scared to mention them. It’s like no one is supposed to have realised, or remembered about them. It’s weird shit definitely. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not going to go around asking questions, I’m keeping my nose clean. I’ve been thinking about it and in twenty years I’ll be thirty-six, that ain’t too old, I’ll still have time to have a life. I can still get my car, cruise around, go down to the coast, hang out.’
    Warren nodded, his mum was thirty-six, it seemed old to him, too old to start a life, to catch up.
    ‘What classes are you taking?’
    Keegan shook his head. ‘Well, definitely not joinery, I don’t want to see those bloody