"Smith, Guy N - The Lurkers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

He went inside, consulted the'dog-eared telephone directory and dialled the number of the village police station.

6

Gavin had been dreading morning playtime throughout the preceding lesson. Mr Hughes didn't make him feel any easier; it was almost as though he had singled him out with his bad tempered baleful glare time after time. Mark and Jon Wilson were sitting at the back of the classroom. Gavin heard them sniggering together, bringing a feeling like an acute bout of colic to the pit of his stomach. It was ail Dad's fault; he ought not to have gone and complained to the headmaster. In a way it was as if Mr Hughes and the Wilson brothers had joined forces to make life uncomfortable for the helpless outsider.

'Right, that'll do for now,' Hughes grunted. He fixed his gaze on Gavin again and picked up his pipe from the desk. 'Playtime, lads. Out you all go. I don't want anybody hanging behind in the classroom.'

A sudden rush for the door, boys and girls eager to shake off the boredom of forty minutes of mathematics, chattering amongst themselves. The Wilsons were first out, not even glancing back, an urgency about their movements.

'You, too, boy.' The headmaster regarded Gavin steadily. 'You heard what I said. Fresh air is what you need to get rid of that pallid complexion of yours.' An insult that was meant to hurt: You don't fit in here but you'll damned well do what everybody else does, like it or not.

Gavin nodded, his lower lip trembling. But he wasn't going to give the schoolmaster the satisfaction of seeing him cry.

It was damp and foggy outside in the playground. Gavin stood on the edge of the concrete compound. He saw a group of children playing football with a sagging, partially deflated old ball, trying to kick it between the stanchions of a rusty climbing frame. Some younger ones were playing tag, squealing and shouting.

He had a feeling of not being wanted, of a general unwillingness to allow him to join in, to mix with them. It had never been like this at Perrycroft; everybody played with everybody else. Sometimes you quarrelled but it was never over anything very important and was usually forgotten when the bell went for lessons.

'Well, if it isn't the English creep!'

He stiffened as he recognised one of the Wilsons' voices behind him. He didn't know which one - they both sounded the same. He wondered whether to run back into the classroom but decided against it. Mr Hughes was still in there marking homework. He'd be angry and send him straight back outside. It was no good running when there was nowhere to run to.

'You haven't forgotten what we said on Friday, have you?' They were edging forward, one on either side of him. 'We told you what we do to the English bastards!'

Suddenly both Gavin's wrists were seized and pulled behind his back, so that he let out a cry of pain. Leering juvenile faces were thrust close to his own, twin expressions of hate that went far beyond their years.

'You English have no right here,' Jon Wilson spat. 'My dad says so. He says we oughta beat the living daylights outa you foreigners^

'Yeah,' Mark agreed. 'And we always do what our dad says, don't we Jon? Else he beats the living daylights outa us. So we gotta do it whether we likes it or not. But we likes it.'

They pulled him back and shoved him hard up against the wall of the school building, then banged his head against the rough stone, so that there was a momentary blaze of blinding lights before his eyes. He cried out.

'Knock 'is bloody teeth out, Jon. Black 'is eyes!'

'Hold it!' Jon caught his brother's arm. 'You know what our dad says: you don't leave no marks on anybody, else they can get you for it. Hit 'im in the guts, it don't bruise there.'

Gavin doubled up and would have fallen had they not been holding him. Hard short jabs seemed to explode his abdomen, making him gasp for breath. He was not able even to cry out with pain, but seemed to deflate like the old football the children were still kicking about.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. No more than half a dozen below-the-belt punches, and then his attackers released their hold on him and stood back as he slumped to the ground clutching at his stomach - trying to breathe, retching, groaning, writhing like a worm that has been speared by a gardener's fork. Even the tears wouldn't come. A terrible fear that they had injured him permanently, that he'd never walk again, flooded his mind. He looked up and saw their leering faces through a blur, like a reflection in a pool distorted by ripples.

'That's for what your dad did to our Dai,' Jon Wilson spat. 'And it's a warning about what'll happen to your pa and maybe your ma too if they don't get their stinking English hides out of Hodre. You tell 'em, and don't forget we didn't do nothin' to you. These other kids'll swear blind we never touched you. Get it?'

Gavin nodded; he didn't mean to but somehow his head bobbed up and down. A sudden surge of pain made him almost black out, and when he looked up again they'd gone to join the others in kicking the old football. Everybody was totally oblivious to his suffering.

Gavin got to his knees and dusted himself down. He knew he could cry now, but he forced himself to hold the tears back. He straightened up, then doubled over again clutching at his stomach; it was as if a car had run over him and squashed his intestines into a flat mulch. Dizzily he held on to the wall, half afraid that the twin bullies might come back and start on him again.

He thought about going back inside and reporting the incident to Mr Hughes. That meant the schoolmaster would have to take some action. Or would he? Just a bit of a scuffle, boy. They haven't hurt you; goodness, you haven't even got any bruises!

Gavin knew his mother was terrified too. Afraid of Hodre and something that neither of them understood. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The pain in his stomach was receding; it was a dull ache now, like wind that couldn't escape.