Free Clay by David Almond Page B

pointed at me.
    “He’s his mate. I seen him, talking to him.”
    “Aye,” said Geordie. “But—”
    Mouldy thumped the grave again.
    “Shuddup! I seen him. And I seen lovey-dovey stuff and whispering stuff.”
    “Lovey-dovey?” said Skinner.
    “I seen the new sod kissing this sod.”
    “Kissing?” said Skinner.
    “Aye. There was a bint there. She seen it as well.” Mouldy kept his eyes on me. “Say I’m a liar,” he said.
    I said nothing. He shaped a fist, pretended to go for me, grinned again when Poke caught his arm.
    “It’s a truce, Mouldy,” said Skinner.
    “Liars cannot make truces,” said Mouldy. He shaped his fist again. “You’re a lying Catholic Felling bastard,” he said. He blinked. He looked at each of us in turn. “What you going to say to that?” he said.
    None of us spoke. High above, beyond the trees, above the church, great streaks of red had appeared in the sky.
    “OK, then,” Mouldy said. “I’ll do the lying bastard now.”
    “Don’t,” I whispered.
    I backed away from the grave.
    “Geordie,” I said.
    “There’s a truce,” said Geordie, but Mouldy just spat at him, a gobful straight into his face.
    I ran. Mouldy came after me. He kicked my feet away. I crashed to the ground. He stamped on my head and my ribs and my back. Everything was black and starry till the others were pulling him away. I curled up against a gravestone.
For they are like unto the angels,
it said.
    “Davie, run!” said Geordie.
    “Run!” said Skinner.
    And I picked myself up and belted out of the graveyard and onto Watermill Lane and kept running till I saw the dark figure waiting. Stephen Rose, leaning against a tree. I slowed, stopped.
    “Davie,” he said.
    I looked behind. Nothing.
    “It’s all right, Davie. There’s nowt there.”
    His voice softened.
    “Relax, Davie.”

eleven
    Home was a hundred yards away. Lights burned in the windows. I wanted Dad to come out, or Mam. I wanted them to yell out into the street and send Stephen running back to Crazy Mary’s. But they didn’t come out. Nothing moved. The darkness deepened. Stephen breathed his calming words. He passed his hand before my eyes. And I did relax. And I thought of the angel that had cast Stephen down and raised him up, and I thought of the power that I had seen flowing from him and I told myself that Stephen Rose was something strange and new, something that had been sent to me, something that stood before me as I grew from being a boy into a man. I couldn’t turn away. So I said to him,
    “What you after, Stephen?”
    He shrugged.
    “Just a word or two.”
    I looked towards the Sacred Heart medallion silhouetted in our door.
Deliver me from evil,
I said inside.
    He touched the weal on my cheek.
    “Mouldy did it?” he said.
    “Aye.”
    “He’d be better off dead, eh?”
    I didn’t answer. He laughed softly.
    “He would,” he said. “We all know that. Just imagine. No Mouldy. No monster.”
    “He’ll be a slob soon enough,” I said. “Just got to keep out of his way till then.”
    He laughed.
    “You’re not doing very well so far.”
    I laughed with him.
    “Just imagine if it happened, Davie. Just imagine you’re fast asleep in bed and you wake up and it’s a sunny ordinary morning and your mam says to you, ‘Did you hear that Martin Mould is dead?’”
    He grinned.
    “It’d be something to celebrate, eh? ‘Martin Mould is dead!’ Go on, admit it. Aye?”
    I shrugged.
    “Aye,” I said.
    “Good. Now listen. My angel came again.”
    “Your angel?”
    “The one I told you about. Surely you’ve not forgotten her? Anyway, she talked about you. She told me you could help me in my work.”
    “An
angel
? Stephen, man. It’s just barmy.”
    “I know. It’s mental, it’s barmy, but it’s true. And isn’t it what they tell you in church? We are not alone. There’s precious beings all around us. So why should you be surprised?”
    I looked up past the streetlights towards the