Free The Invisible Man from Salem by Christoffer Carlsson Page A

dick’s not about to report us is he? He never has, so why would he do it this time?’
    â€˜We’ve never taken his stuff before.’
    â€˜He’s never been this cheeky before.’
    â€˜Cunts,’ Vlad managed to force out.
    â€˜And he’s asking for it. He deserves to have it nicked.’
    I heard them pulling at his clothes. Once they’d taken the wallet, one of them kneed Vlad in the stomach while the other one looked around sheepishly. Vlad collapsed on the loading bay, and the two of them jumped smoothly to the ground, walking away with calm, deliberate strides.
    Next time he and Fred started on me, Vlad went completely white when I confronted him about it. I can’t remember what I said — maybe something about him being a pussy.
    Fred gave Vlad a look of complete surprise; in turn, Vlad just stared at me, blinked once, and started chasing me around the outskirts of Salem.
    THIS WAS YEARS AGO , but as Grim and I got off the bus and started walking up towards the school’s goods entrance it all came back to me. Vlad and Fred had turned eighteen and had both moved away from Salem. That happened to lots of them. They just disappeared.
    I tried to remember whether they’d got hold of me, the time I’d confronted Vlad and they’d started chasing me. That time merged with so many others. Maybe I got away that time; maybe not.
    â€˜You look thoughtful,’ Grim said, walking alongside me.
    â€˜I just remembered something.’
    â€˜Something bad?’
    â€˜Why do you ask?’
    He lowered his gaze and gave a quick nod.
    â€˜Your fists are clenched.’
    I didn’t look at them, straining to relax them instead.
    â€˜No they’re not.’
    He looked at my hands again, which were now exaggeratedly relaxed and floppy. We went over to the loading bay, and jumped up onto it. I leant against the bit of wall that Vlad had once been pinned against. We were waiting for Julia, who still had a while left at the middle school. I wondered how it was possible that I’d never seen her before. She’d started the year after me; we must have seen each other in the corridor. Julia Grimberg was the sort of person I should have noticed. Grim sat there swinging his legs. A click came from the big roller shutter to our left, and with a little creak it started to open. When it reached my thigh level it stopped, and out came Julia, in her light jeans and a black T-shirt with THE SMASHING PUMPKINS printed on it in soft yellow characters.
    â€˜You can just go round, you know,’ Grim said. ‘You don’t have to sneak out this way.’
    â€˜There’s a supervisor just round the corner. She would have seen me.’
    Julia sat down with Grim on the loading bay, and I sat next to her. I don’t think Grim thought it was weird, but I wasn’t sure. Her denim rubbed against mine. Grim pulled a big notebook out of his bag and flipped through to a blank page. As he was doing so, I saw that most of the pages were full of stuff that wasn’t schoolwork: sketches and little cartoons; some had so much scribbled text that I couldn’t decipher what they said.
    â€˜What’s this note about?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Julia said. ‘Something about me going away.’
    â€˜Are you going away?’ I asked.
    â€˜No, we’re going on a class team-building trip. If you can’t go, you need a note from your parents.’
    â€˜Can’t you ask them for one then?’
    She shook her head.
    â€˜Today’s the last day to hand the note in, and I forgot. Anyway, they would never agree to it.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    Julia looked at Grim, who didn’t say anything. He’d written a short note in handwriting that wasn’t his own. The only thing left was the signature. He flipped through to an earlier, full page in the notebook. It was covered with this one pattern, three columns of what must have been a