Campion's Choice

The next morning, when he came down into the kitchen, the phone was sitting on the top of Jack’s rucksack.

Good. He would go to school, smile at everyone and then, at the end of the day he would take the picture that was going to solve all his problems. He hadn’t felt this happy in months.

There was no time for breakfast but this morning that wasn’t a problem. He was too excited to eat. What was it Clamp had said? All was well with the world. It certainly was.

Olga was by the front doorway, struggling to strap Lettie into her buggy and when she finished they all walked down the garden path together. Jack, feeling kindness to everyone living soul on the planet, patted his sister on the head affectionately. That caused howls of protest.

‘Charming.’

He stepped away from the buggy as Lettie swung out, looking for someone to slap.

‘All this fuss over some silly star!’ Olga muttered, manoeuvring the buggy onto the pavement.

‘What star?’ Jack asked.

‘It is on the news. You not see? Everyone wonder, what is thing in the sky? It is big mystery. Is it new planet? Is it comet? Is it sign from God?’

Olga said all this in her heavily accented English.

When they turned to walk down Fen Street Jack saw a line of police cars in front of Mister Phillips house. They had roped the place off with yellow ‘POLICE ALERT’ tapes. A memory of flashing lights in the night came flooding back.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked Olga.

‘You have not heard? It is like you live in a dream. There was, how you say, a drive by shooting. Mister Phillips, he is in hospital. Nearly dead. Very bad shot in the arm. He was shot in the early evening. No witnesses. He nearly died. You know Mister Phillips? He writes all the crime books? Maybe someone, some gang man, want him dead?’

‘Morning, Miss,’ a voice said.

Jack watched as a policeman approaching them with a clipboard.

‘Can I ask you a few questions, madam? Won’t keep you long. Just trying to find out if you, or your lovely family here, saw anything suspicious last night, in the early evening?’

The policeman smiled.

‘These are not my children,’ Olga objected.

As Jack watched Mister Philip’s house he saw a thin woman striding down the driveway. He grabbed the policeman’s arm.

‘I saw something last night. Maybe I’m a witness. I was outside the house. I saw someone suspicious. I saw her. Yesterday. She was with a curly haired boy. They both were shouting and then they drove off like maniacs.’

‘Her?’ the policeman asked. He waved his clipboard in the general direction of the thin woman and added, ‘You saw Inspector Criel?’

‘Inspector Criel?’

‘Are you telling me, sonny, you saw the Inspector, who is in charge of this investigation, at the scene of the crime yesterday?’

‘Yeah. In fact. I have a picture of her on my phone.’

Jack started to rummage in his rucksack.

The policeman turned to wink at Olga and said, ‘your son’s got a bit of an over active imagination, Miss.’

‘I say before, he is not my son,’ Olga said firmly.

‘Listen sonny. Put your phone away. All right? Wasting police time is a serious offence.’ The policeman turned his back and headed over to Mister Phillips’ house.

Lettie made a gurgling noise that sounded like laughter.

‘I do have a picture,’ Jack squawked.

‘Come along. There is no time for silliness now. We will be late. Murders and strange stars in the sky. What is this world coming to?’ Olga grumbled. Head down, she hurried along, past the television camera crew. It was all Jack could do to keep up with her.

Olga was taking Lettie to the park and, after waving goodbye to them, Jack turned into the road in front of his school. He carried Tia’s present, the tiny silver blade, in his trouser pocket and suddenly thought, why not wear it? So what if he got told off, or even chucked out of school? Soon his family would be rich and he could do whatever he wanted. He could go to Kester, like Gidean. He could swank around in a stripy jacket and a straw boater.

He took out the tiny knife and held it against his sweatshirt top. The thin strip of silver was completely hidden by the school badge. You’d need an eagle eye to spot it.

Jack had always thought that the school badge was creepy. It was a picture of two kids, the ‘Golden Children’, who were mentioned in a seven hundred year old village legend. A boy and a girl, with bright yellow skin, were found in the woods outside the village in 1348. They spoke a strange language. No one could understand what they were saying so the villagers decided that the children were evil and drowned them in a well in the churchyard. Years later, flowers began appearing around the well and the place became a shrine. It was claimed that all the people who prayed there were cured of leprosy.

On the crest the two kids were holding hands and smiling. That was the bit Jack found creepy.

Tia met him at the school gates.

‘We need to talk,’ she said and grabbed his hand. Jack tried to pull free but she held tight and her little posse of followers started to snigger.

‘Beat it,’ Tia ordered. The band of friends, looking hurt, wandered over to the other side of the school entrance.

‘Some weirdo creep was hanging around outside my house last night!’ she hissed.

Jack immediately thought of Elvis.

‘Was it a young bloke, wearing a parka, riding a moped? He can’t tell the difference between boys and girls?’

Tia shook her head.

‘No. It was a woman. She was thin with a pointy nose and pulled back hair. She was there a couple of times. It was really disturbing. I think she was taking pictures of our house.’

As the words sank in a cold finger of fear touched Jack’s heart.

‘Was she wearing a shiny blue suit?’

‘Yes.’ Tia nervously looked around the playground as if expecting to see a slim, sinister female.

‘What’s the time?’ Jack asked.

‘What? I’m worried sick about being spied on and you want to know what the time is?’

‘I want to know if we’ve got time to go down to the computer room. It’ll be empty. I’ll show you something.’

‘Does this count as a date?’ Tia asked coyly.

‘No!’

She shrugged and flicked over a wrist to check her watch. They had at least fifteen minutes.

‘Ok. Let’s go.’

Jack turned and pushed at the school’s main double doors. When Tia looped her arm through his he stopped.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What?’

‘All this linking arms stuff?’

‘Just friends,’ she smiled and then twisted around to face him. For an awful moment he thought that, right here, in front of the whole school, she would lean in and kiss him. Instead she pinched the front of her sweatshirt and pulled her school badge forward, showing him that she was also wearing a tiny knife.

‘We’re blade brother and sister,’ she said, and, without releasing his arm, she pulled him through the doors, dragged him past the main reception desk and hustled him along the concrete corridor towards the deserted computer suite.

Once inside the computer room they found a corner where they could hide in one of the large, wooden cubicles.

‘These machines are useless. And the desks must be at least fifty years old. The school should junk the lot,’ Tia said. She pulled open a drawer and added, ‘There’s probably stuff in here from when Clamp was a boy!’

‘Stop messing around. We have to be quick.’

‘Well, what did you want to show me?’

‘Wait,’ Jack said. He took out the Dadster’s old phone, tapped on the blue icon and searched in the photos. There it was. The picture of the policewoman outside his house. But her face was blurry. No problem. He tapped it once to turn it into a movie. Nothing.

‘Did you see the stuff on the news about this purple light in the sky? No one knows what it is,’ Tia chatted happily and continued to rummage in the desk drawer. Jack ignored her.

Why wasn’t the Dadster’s App working? He tapped again. Still nothing. Jack’s head began to spin. What had gone wrong? Was all that stuff about looking backwards and forwards in time some kind of bizarre hallucination? Like that weird dream about the wolf’s paw? He began to think that he might be going mad.

Tia kept going on about the purple, mystery star and picking through bits of paper in the drawer but Jack concentrated. What was different today? What had changed? What was he doing wrong?

‘Oooh. Nice phone. Cool. Was that a birthday present?’ Tia said leaning in to look at the mobile.

‘It was my dad’s. It isn’t registered yet so I still have to use my old phone to make calls,’ Jack answered absentmindedly. Think! What was different? He shoved his hands in his pocket and looked up at the tiled ceiling. What was different?

Beneath the fingers of his right hand the ban liang felt cold and small. Jack grabbed it.

‘Yes!’ he said. He took the ban liang and held it against the back of the phone. Again it stuck to the case like a magnet. Relief flooded though his body.

‘Watch closely,’ he said and could hardly contain his excitement.

He tapped once on the photo of the thin woman standing in Fen Street next to the Jaguar. They waited. At last, just like the day before, the image juddered at first but then began to play like a film. Tia squeaked with recognition.

‘That’s her! That’s the woman.’

‘Her name’s Inspector Criel. She’s a cop.’

‘You took a video? That’s the same car that was parked in my road. Who is the kid with her? He looks about fifteen.’

Jack held down a finger to pause the film and they studied the screen. The curly haired young man leant against the roof of the car with one arm resting on the windscreen. Jack used his thumb and finger to zoom in on the figure.

‘Look. He’s got a tattoo on his hand. It’s a spider or something,’ Tia said.

Jack looked closely.

‘That’s not a spider. It’s a scorpion.’

‘I hate tattoos. Who lets a fifteen year old get a tattoo? That’s child abuse,’ Tia shuddered.

‘I don’t know who he is but he must be over eighteen. He drives the car. Maybe he’s another policeman?’ Jack said. He tapped the picture and they watched more of the film.

‘Well, the blonde boy wasn’t at my house. Just that woman. What was she doing at your house? She’s got a ..’ Tia fell silent. Jack stopped the film and glanced sideways into her startled face.

‘Is she holding a … ?’ Tia whispered. Jack hesitated before finally answering.

‘Yeah. She’s holding a gun.’

‘Why was she standing outside your house with a gun? Did …. she use it?’

A memory flashed back into Jack’s head: the two strange noises, the smack to his head, the deafness, the blood on his T-Shirt.

‘Maybe.’

He ran the film on. It clearly showed Inspector Criel lifting a gun and pointing it in his direction. He stopped the action just after the woman pulled the trigger.

Tia stood open mouthed.

‘She pointed that gun straight at the camera. She shot you!’ Tia squeaked.

‘That’s what it looks like,’ Jack agreed. His hand holding the phone shook slightly.

After a moment’s silence Tia spoke.

‘Who are these people? What do they want? Why is a police Inspector trying to kill you and spying on me? What’s that choirboy guy doing with her?’

Jack stared at the screen.

‘Questions, questions, questions,’ a strange, husky voice said quietly.

Tia swivelled on the spot and Jack panicked. He dropped the Dadster’s phone into the desk drawer and slammed it shut.

When he turned around he saw Liam appear out of the shadows by the wall at the back of the classroom.

‘Don’t mind me. Nice place for a lovers’ tryst.’

Jack and Tia edged guiltily apart.

‘What are you doing here? This is private!’ Jack said angrily.

He was red-faced and tried to sound like he was in control. Tia smiled at him reached out and squeezed his hand.

Liam said simply, ‘Calm down. I was looking for you. I found you. I didn’t mean to butt in on your date.’

‘It’s not a date,’ Jack said through gritted teeth.

‘Fine. But the fact is I overheard what you were saying. You were talking about a thin woman in a suit, right? Well, last night, at about five o’clock, a woman like that was in a Jaguar, in our road. She left pretty quickly after my dad hit her.’

‘Your dad hit a woman?’ Tia squeaked.

‘It was just a slap. But if she’s a cop ….’ Liam’s voice trailed away nervously.

‘Your dad is in big trouble,’ Jack said simply.

Liam shook his head in disbelief just as the school bell began to ring.

‘What’s your mobile number? We need to meet up and talk.’

He took out a piece of paper. Jack scrawled out eleven numbers and handed the scrap back to Liam.

‘I’ll text you,’ Liam said and then ran off to try and make it to registration.

Jack and Tia hurried in the opposite direction.

When they reached their classroom he held open the door.

‘Ladies first.’

He stepped aside. His head was still spinning. When Mister Clamp shouted it took him completely by surprise.

‘Campion and Cole! Come in and sit down. Yet again you have the pleasure of my company.’

The giant teacher was already in the room, waiting impatiently to put ticks by names in a large blue registration book. Jack and Tia hurried to their desks, heads down, desperate to make sure Clamp kept the lid firmly on his little box of everyday insults.

‘Jemma,’ Clamp bellowed from the front of the classroom.

‘Here, sir,’ Jemma Adams said. Clamp droned on down the list.

Jack sat alone at the back of the class. He took out a pad and began to doodle lines across the page. He started to draw a plan to show what happened, in his street, the night before.

They (Criel and her curly haired accomplice) were standing in the road there and I was here, he thought. He put three X marks on his map. Now, Criel was facing me when she fired the gun and bullets go in a straight line.

So, if Criel was facing me when she fired, Jack thought and the bullet hit me … and then bounced off my head … well … then …. because the angle is equal and opposite .. ..

He drew two more lines to trace the path of an imaginary ricocheting bullet: the path of a bullet bouncing off his head.

The second line, the bouncing bullet line, pointed straight at the window of Mister Phillips’ house where Mister Phillips must have been sitting, happily minding his own business.

There was only one conclusion: Inspector Criel shot Mister Phillips with a bullet that bounced off Jack’s head.

Jack snorted out a nervous laugh, which he managed to hide from Clamp by pretending to have a red faced coughing fit.

He looked at his drawing. Yeah right. A bullet bounced off my head. Although, that would explain the ringing in my ears and the blood on my t-shirt. But where was the scar?

He put his hand in his pocket and felt the ban liang. He had to talk to Tia about these coins.

Looking across the room in her direction he realised she was waving a hand to catch his attention.

‘What?’ he hissed.

‘Has Liam texted you?’ she mimed back.

‘Not yet,’ Jack tried to mouth silently but Clamp must have spotted him.

‘Jack? Is something bothering you? Is it the new star that has mysteriously appeared in the heavens? Would you like to stand up and share, with the rest of the class, what you and your girlfriend are chatting about?’

‘HA HA HA HA HA HA HA,’ the class laughed loudly. It wasn’t a real laugh. It was the type of laugh you use when the teacher wants you to laugh.

‘Jack and Tia, see me at the end of registration. Oh, and before I forget to tell you, the computer rooms are out of bounds. They’re closed for the next two days for refurbishments.’

Clamp banged the blue register shut and took out some books to mark. Left to their own devices the class began to talk quietly, or check homework, or exchange gossip, or pass notes. Jack sat and thought. Maybe it made sense to hear Liam out. The whole Criel stuff was alarming. It was one thing to have a plan to save your family after school by taking a few pictures but that wouldn’t work if some psycho cop was hiding in the bushes with a gun waiting to blow your head off.

The Head of Year Eight came in to see Clamp just as Jack’s phone made a dull beep. The sound nearly stopped his heart. He risked looking up but luckily Clamp was still being distracted by the other teacher.

Carefully Jack dragged his old phone out from under his packed lunch. There, beneath the sticky tape, on the old phone’s screen, was a message from Liam that read, ‘When the woman was snooping by our house I looked inside her car. There was a file with our names on and a newspaper story about that elephant. Everything begins with the elephant.’

Jack texted back, ‘Why did your dad hit her?’

Liam replied, ‘because he’s stupid. Do you think she went to Clamp’s house? Or Gidean’s? Their names were on her list. We should talk to Gidean.’

Jack finished reading and began to type in a reply, ‘Not Gidean. I hope she shoots him.’

He glanced across the classroom. Gidean Saint-Georges was chatting happily with friends. Jack deleted the reply and instead typed, ‘Good idea. We should talk to Gidean.’