Free The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce Page A

intermittent stabs between wind-chased clouds. The gymkhana ring was just two fields away. They ducked under the barbed-wire dividing the fields, crossing between the crimson-and-white and black-and-white painted poles of the show-jumps. Stepping around the ramshackle wooden toilets, they paused to squint through knot-holes large enough, it was remarked, to watch women taking a piss if the opportunity arose. Beyond that was the large timber pavilion, with its stainless-steel tea-urn and storage area to the rear. The pavilion backed on to marshy, soot-coloured ancient woods, a close-knit copse breathing odours of fungus and decomposed leaf into the Saturday afternoon sky.
    ‘And a big hand for Abigail,’ cheered Clive as they passed the empty commentary box, before drawing abreast of the pavilion.
    Forcing an entry was easy. Terry, standing on Sam’s shoulders, broke a pane of glass and reached in to release a small horizontally opening window. Scrambling inside, he opened a larger window at the side of the pavilion, through which the other two followed. Working on a scale of one to five, they had just agreed on some level-two vandalism before a Land-Rover sped through the open gate at the uppermost corner of the field. The vehicle revved its engine through the mud and bumped across the grass towards the pavilion.
    The boys froze. Then thawed, and there was an ecstatic scurrying as they buried themselves under the painted poles and simulated brick-blocks at the back of the storage area. They scrambled into holes only rats could have found. Thedust was still settling when the padlocked door was rattled from the other side. A heavy bolt shot back, and they heard a man’s deep voice. Sam’s range of vision was restricted to a pair of muddy green Wellingtons and the knees of corduroy trousers, followed by a pair of slender legs in jodhpurs and riding boots. A pile of sticks tied with cloth pennants tumbled to the ground. The two pairs of legs went out again but returned in the space of a few heartbeats. A pile of plastic hoops clattered to the floor. Sam’s glasses were hanging off his head, suspended by one ear.
    ‘Hello,’ said the man’s voice. ‘What’s this, then? I see it. They’ve broken the swining window.’
    ‘Did they get in?’ said a girl’s voice.
    ‘Look at that! Little swines! Wish I could catch ’em. I’d make ’em into pulp! I would! Make ’em into pulp!’
    There was the sound of the entry window being bumped shut. Then the heavy Wellingtons trooped out again, and there was a manly shout from outside. The jodhpurs and boots trotted after the Wellingtons. Then the riding boots came back in again, and the jodhpurs kneeled on the ground as a pile of numbered armbands with string-ties slithered to the floor. A girl not much older than Sam collected the armbands and shuffled them into a neat pile. She was wearing a baggy woollen jumper, threadbare at both elbows. Her long, dark hair was tied behind her head. She looked up and her slate-blue eyes locked with Sam’s.
    Sam was wedged behind a pole painted with black and white hoops. He knew that only the band of his eyes was visible. If he blinked, she would recognize what she was seeing, and if he closed his eyes he would give them all away. He tried to make himself black and white, to conjure a badger’s stripes across his face, feel himself as a piece of painted wood. The Tooth Fairy, he knew, could have accomplished such a trick. Still on her knees, the girl continued to stare back at him. In her eyes he identified both confusionand recognition. Sam felt an insect, perhaps a wood louse or a spider, crawl inside his collar and down his back.
    The driver of the Land-Rover sounded his horn. The girl scrambled to her feet and went out. The bolt shot in its cradle, and the sound was followed by the rattle of hasp and padlock. Then the Land-Rover moved off, the sound of its engine diminishing slowly.
    ‘Could be a trap,’ Sam warned the others in a