Free Jack Tumor by Anthony McGowan Page A

groove.
    Instantly Mordred froze, and the noise of the crunching glasses even penetrated the mind of the mob, and a silence fell.
    â€œWhat was that? You, boy!”
    I wasn’t really in charge of any of this. I should have been crapping myself, but all I felt was mildly perturbed, but also interested about what would happen. It was as if I was a spectator on my own life.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry, sir,” I said dreamily. “I was trying to help . . . with your glasses, and I . . . I seem to have stepped on them.”
    â€œGive them here.” He held out his hand. There was the tiniest hint of a tremble.
    I stooped, scooped up the broken bits, and passed them to him. Mordred tried to fit the mangled specs on his face. It was a pleasingly
Lord of the Flies
moment.
    I guess that Mordred felt that his authority had been diluted, or else he’d surely have dragged me back into school where he could devise some form of torture for me, but all he said then was, “My office. Tomorrow morning.”
    There was something deeply wonderful about his helplessness. Like I said, this wasn’t a nice man, or a well-meaning one, or even a rough diamond.
    â€œSir,” I said, noncommittally.
    He peered through the cracked lenses. He was probably seeing about seven of me. I, on the other hand, was seeing him with a weird clarity. I could see the dry skin on his thin lips. I could see his tiny white teeth, like the ones you see when there’s awhole fish, head and all, in the fish bit of the supermarket. I could see the dimple on top of his baldy head. It looked like someone had dropped a ball bearing on him from an upstairs window. I could see the signet ring on his little finger, and I could see two black hairs peeping out from the space between the buttons of his crisp white shirt.
    â€œName, boy.”
    â€œNess, sir.”
    He changed the angle of his head, trying to see me through a bigger segment of the broken lens.
    â€œInitials.”
    â€œA. P., sir.”
    â€œRemember then, my office, before registration.”
    The threat was there, but it was a feeble one. The roar of a toothless lion, a eunuch’s come-hither. And by now one or two of the bright sparks had got my little joke, which isn’t surprising as it was as old as language itself.
    Mordred had begun to walk primly back towards the school when the first voice shouted out: “Mordred wants to see A. P. Ness.”
    â€œAnother one. He can’t get enough of them.”
    By the time he’d spun back, the crowd had started to scatter. His mouth opened. A kind of high-pitched wail came out.
Aieeeeaillah!
Something like that. More despair than rage. Oh, it was good, it was very,
very
good.
    I ran too. There were bodies around me, and my back was clapped, and my hair was ruffled, and voices said “nice one” and “genius” and other things I never expected to hear. And then I stopped and there was a little group around me, and Gonad was there, puffed and flushed and happy.
    But someone else too.
    It was Uma Upshaw. The love of Smurf’s life.
    â€œThat was good,” she said. “Really good.”
    I hadn’t noticed her before in the crowd.
    YOU’RE IN, OLD SON .
    â€œAh, it was nothing.”
    I was worried I was going to blush. Blushing would probably have been bad.
    I’M WORKING HERE FOR YOU, BOY, said Jack, straining. GOT A GRIP ON THOSE FACIAL ARTERIES, HOLDING BACK THE BLOOD. TEAMWORK .
    â€œSomething,” said Uma.
    â€œOkay. Maybe something.”
    She was smiling at me. Right at me. I thought of Smurf. I tried not to think of Smurf. I succeeded.
    And then she walked away with a couple of her handmaid-ens. After a few steps she half turned, and smiled again. I went weak at the knees. Going weak at the knees is one of those clichés based on the truth—it’s exactly what happens to you. But this time there was more—hell, I went weak at