Free The Lewis Man by Peter May Page B

that Alex Curry was the ringleader, bating and taunting, encouraging the others. Everyone knew Peter wasn’t quite the full shilling, and without me to stand up for him he was an easy target.
    Of course, I was no physical match for Alex Curry, but I had the mental strength to stand up to anyone when it came to Peter. I had promised my mother, and I wasn’t about to renege on that.
    I stood up immediately. ‘Oi!’ I almost shouted, and immediately everyone went quiet. The bottle-throwing stopped, and one or two voices shushed me in the still night air. ‘Fucking leave off,’ I said, sounding much braver than I felt.
    ‘You and whose army’s going to make me?’
    ‘I don’t need an army to kick your arse, Curry.’
    I know whose arse would have got kicked that night if fate hadn’t intervened. Before Curry could respond, Peter lunged at him to grab his beer, and the bottle spun away through the air, knocked from the bigger boy’s grasp.
    The silence of the night was shattered as the bottle broke through the glass of the skylight then fell through a moment of stillness to an explosion of glass and foam as it landed in the hall below. More glass showered down after it. It sounded as if a bomb had gone off.
    ‘Holy Mary, mother of God’ I heard Catherine whisper, and then everyone was up and running, shadows darting east and west across the roof in a panic, food and beer abandoned in haste and fear.
    Bodies crammed together in the darkness of the stairwell, shoving and jostling in a rush to get down to the landing. Like rats we poured through the door of the dorm and fanned out towards our beds.
    By the time the doors flew open and the lights came on, everyone was curled up beneath the sheets pretending to be asleep. Mr Anderson, of course, wasn’t fooled. He stood there, almost purple in the face, black eyes blazing. His voice, by comparison, was almost calm, controlled, and all the more intimidating because of it.
    But it took him a moment or two to speak. He waited until pretend sleepy faces had emerged from their blankets, heads lifting from pillows, shoulders raised on crooked elbows.
    ‘I know, of course, that not all of you will have been involved, and so I appeal to those of you who were not to speak up now, unless you want to share in the punishment of the others.’
    The janitor appeared at his shoulder, still in his dressing gown and slippers, hair tousled. Of all the staff, he was the one who treated the kids the best. But tonight his face was sickly pale, trepidation in darting brown eyes. Mr Anderson leaned towards him as he whispered words too fast and soft for us to hear.
    Mr Anderson nodded, and as the janitor retreated said, ‘Food and alcohol on the roof. You stupid boys! An absolute recipe for disaster. Come on! Hands up those of you who weren’t there.’ He folded his arms and waited. After just a few moments, hesitant hands lifted themselves into the air, identifying by omission those of us who were guilty. Mr Anderson shook his head grimly. ‘And who was responsible for providing the alcohol?’
    Dead silence this time.
    ‘Come on!’ His voice boomed now into the night. ‘If you don’t all wish to suffer the same punishment, the innocent had better give up the guilty.’
    A lad called Tommy Jack, who must have been one of the youngest at The Dean, said, ‘Please, sir, it was Alex Curry.’ You could have heard a pin drop in England.
    Mr Anderson’s eyes flickered towards the defiant Alex Curry, who was sitting up now in his bed, leaning his forearms on his knees. ‘So what are you going to do, Anderson? Belt me? Just fucking try it.’
    A mean little smile crept across Mr Anderson’s lips. ‘You’ll see,’ was all he said. And he turned towards little Tommy, with the acid of contempt in his voice. ‘I don’t admire boys who clype on their friends. I’m sure that’s a lesson you will have learned before this night is out.’
    He flicked out the lights and pulled the doors