Free Shiver the Whole Night Through by Darragh McManus Page A

guy, the runner, stumbles across Harrington’s body around nine: mangled, unconscious but still alive, just about. According to the online rumour mill – everyone
swore
their information was good – he’d been attacked by something, a pack of dogs maybe. Torn apart. His handsome face shredded, innards half-spilled from his body. Harrington had since gone into a coma, caused by shock and blood loss. Doctors doing all they could, et cetera.
    I tried Podsy again and this time he answered: ‘Aidan. You heard about Harrington, obviously?’
    â€˜Yeah. Man, this is nuts. What did it? I know you asked your uncle.’
    â€˜I did. He says they
think
it was wild dogs. They’re not sure. Uncle Tim says it’s hard to tell because the wounds are so bad. The feckin’ guy was ripped to bits. Like, I don’t think there’s a lot of him left to examine, know what I mean?’
    â€˜God. I don’t even want to think about it.’
    Instead I thought about something else, as Podsy rambled on: Chris Harrington, and what an absolute prick he was to me. He’d been one of the prime movers in my four months of harassment. A smart mouth, always looking to make himself feel good at the expense of someone else, and for a while, I was that someone. Harrington was relentless and merciless. It was never physical with him, but any chance for a jibe or sneer, he took it.
    Harrington was a bully and a jerk. I hated him as much as any of the others. And the world would probably be a better place without him in it. But was I happy that he’d been seriously injured? I didn’t honestly know.
    Podsy’s voice shocked me back to reality, my ear honing in on one word: ‘Sláine.’
    My blood chilled. Did he know something? He couldn’t, but he’d said her name. I tried to play it cool, replying, ‘Sorry, what? Other phone went off there – I didn’t hear you properly.’
    â€˜I was saying first Sláine, now this. It’s shocking, really. Not a good time to be a kid in this town, Aidan! You better watch out, you might be next!’
    I knew he was fooling around to break the tension. I was about to say my goodbyes when Podsy spoke again, quieter: ‘I didn’t like what he did to you. Harrington – that wasn’t right, the way he treated you.’ Silence hung between us, thick and heavy. ‘I’m not saying he deserved it, but  …  ’ His voice trailed off.
    I said, ‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’
    â€˜Listen, I’ve to go. Mum’s calling me. I didn’t get the full story on Sláine from Tim yet, I’ll do it soon as I can.’
    â€˜All right. Talk to you at school, yeah?’
    â€˜Take it easy, man.’
    We hung up. I closed my laptop and then my eyes. One of my tormentors, a guy I’d wanted to batter with a hammer every time I saw his face, was now clinging on to life in the emergency ward. It didn’t really make me feel better, knowing that. But being brutally frank, it didn’t make me feel any worse either.
    School was ablaze again the next morning. Another weekend, another young person struck by disaster, this time in radically different circumstances. And this time, of course, not dead – yet. Harrington wasn’t our schoolmate any more, but everyone seemed pretty shook up. What had Podsy said: this was a bad time to be a kid and we should all watch our backs? I laughed uneasily to myself and tried to concentrate on what my teacher was saying.
    We were in History, studying the Great Famine with Mr Lee. Everyone knew the basics of the story: between about 1845 and 1852, a potato blight caused mass starvation and social breakdown throughout impoverished Ireland. An estimated million people died, another million emigrated. It was a catastrophe, a huge scar on the Irish psyche which remained to this day. The Famine was still remembered, commemorated, lamented.
    What I