Like This, for Ever

15




‘BARNEY?’

The usual midday smells of congealing gravy and chemical sweeteners were seeping through the air-conditioning system when Mrs Green called Barney back. He stepped to one side and let the other children walk round him. ‘Push the door to,’ she told him, when the last curious face had disappeared.

Mrs Green was Barney’s form teacher. She’d joined the school just under a year ago when she and her husband had moved south to London. Mr Green worked at the school too. He was the games teacher and Barney’s favourite teacher ever. Not that Mrs Green was bad. She never lost her temper, but somehow always managed to keep control of the class. And she was tidy. The books on the shelves were always neat, arranged in alphabetical order, and she always cleaned the whiteboard completely after each lesson. As she walked towards him, she pushed chairs back under desks, neatening the rows.

‘You look tired,’ she said, when she’d reached him. ‘I thought you were going to drop off during science. Is everything OK?’

Barney nodded. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said, because that’s what you always said, even if it wasn’t. He hadn’t checked Facebook that morning, but he’d felt it, hanging over him, since he’d got up. Sooner or later he’d have to log back on and see what was waiting for him. Whether Peter Sweep had left him another message.

Mrs Green was giving him an Oh, really? look. ‘So those shadows under your eyes are just purple paint to make me feel sorry for you and give you less homework?’

‘Well, less homework would be good,’ he said, keeping a perfectly straight face. ‘Because actually, my dad woke me up last night with the washing machine.’

At that his teacher blinked hard in surprise, then half frowned, half smiled. It was a nice sort of look. Friendly but puzzled. Mrs Green had pale-red hair that she’d worn long until a couple of months ago and then cut in a more complicated style that flicked around her shoulders and chin. Barney decided Mrs Green looked quite nice for an older woman; when his mum came back, he hoped she would look a lot like that.

Jesus, he had no idea what his mum looked like!

‘Barney, what’s the matter? Look, sit down for a second.’

Mrs Green had pushed him gently into a chair and was at the back of the classroom, running the tap. Her heels clicked on the floor as she came back and she left a trail of splashes behind her. She’d overfilled the glass.

Concentrate on something. Don’t cry in front of a teacher.

‘What time did you go to bed last night, Barney?’ she asked him, in a low voice that told him she knew she was being nosy.

‘Half nine,’ he lied.

Mum would have light-brown hair, wouldn’t she, like him? His dad’s hair was grey, but he’d seen photographs in which it had been darker. And his dad was tall. So was he. Did that mean Mum was too? Jesus, tall with light-brown hair, was that all he had?

‘Barney, Barney, you’re going to hurt your hands.’

He was doing it again, that thing with his fingers, tracing a square pattern on the desk. He watched his hands jabbing and darting as though they belonged to someone else and then Mrs Green did something very odd. She reached out and stroked her own hands over his. Very lightly, first the left then the right, then the right and then the left again. Just like his dad did when he was trying to soothe him. Funnily, it worked better when Mrs Green did it. Must be her softer hands.

Barney felt himself calming down. It was OK, there’d be a photo of his mum somewhere at home, he just had to find it; finding things was what he did, and what did it matter what she looked like? It didn’t matter what mothers looked like, you just loved them anyway.

‘Feeling better?’

Barney nodded. He was.

‘Early night tonight?’

He nodded again.

‘Off you go, sweetheart.’

Mrs Green stood and pushed her chair back. As Barney walked past her she reached out a hand and stroked the top of his head. Teachers weren’t supposed to touch children. He could get her into trouble if he told on her. And he’d never heard her call another child ‘sweetheart’. He wouldn’t though, he decided, as he ran along the corridor to the playground. He quite liked the way Mrs Green’s soft hands had stroked over him.

‘Barney, over here!’ Harvey was by the playground equipment store with Sam. Harvey had been Barney’s best mate for as long as he could remember, but because Harvey was an August-born baby, whereas Barney’s birthday was in October, he’d always been in the year above Barney at school. The previous September, Harvey had started secondary school, but as the two schools shared the same site the two boys still saw each other most days. Harvey, loyal and independent-minded, refused to see a problem in being friends with someone still at primary school.

Children from the secondary school weren’t supposed to come into the primary school playground, and both boys were keeping an eye out for prowling teachers. Harvey turned to Sam, as Barney got close. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘tell him.’

‘These kids on Twitter were talking about how they were hanging out at Lewisham College the other night, near where Ryan Jackson’s body was found, and they saw his ghost,’ said Sam.

Barney screwed up his face the way his dad did a second before he’d say, ‘Barney, does my head look like it zips up the back?’

‘Straight up,’ insisted Sam. ‘He was as pale as anything and he had this long white thing on and he was clutching his throat and moaning.’

Barney shook his head. He liked a ghost story as much as the next guy, but come on!

‘We’re going up there tomorrow night,’ said Sam. ‘When it gets dark. See if he comes back.’

‘Knowing your luck, whoever bumped him off will come back,’ said Barney, and was suddenly conscious of Peter, crouching like a troll in the back of his mind. ‘And will your mum and dad really let you go down to Deptford Creek at night? I don’t think so somehow.’

‘Well, duh! We don’t tell ’em that. I’ll say I’m going to Lloyd’s and he’ll say he’s coming to mine. Jorge and Harvey are up for it.’

The expression on Harvey’s face said that, actually, that might be pushing it a bit.

‘It’ll work,’ said Sam, ‘because Lloyd can’t play football tomorrow morning, so none of our mums and dads will be able to talk to him about it.’

‘We’ll still need to keep them apart on Sunday morning,’ muttered Harvey.

‘You need to watch the tides there,’ said Barney. ‘The Creek fills up quickly. People have drowned in it who haven’t known what they’ve been doing.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Sam.

‘We’ve got a boat there,’ said Barney.

‘No shit?’

Barney nodded. ‘It was my granddad’s,’ he said. ‘He lived on it. Dad keeps saying he’s going to sell it, but he hasn’t yet. We go sometimes to check it’s OK.’

‘Is it locked up?’

Barney nodded. ‘And so’s the yard that you have to go through to get to the boats. I might be able to find the key though,’ he said.

‘Cool.’

‘Ryan’s body wasn’t found near the boat, though,’ said Barney. ‘So wouldn’t it be a bit pointless looking for ghosts there?’

‘Still be cool, though. I could bring some lager,’ said Sam.

‘So is your dad going to let you go to Deptford Creek at night?’ asked Harvey.

Barney thought about it. He’d always liked Granddad’s boat, always secretly wondered what it would be like to sleep on it. ‘I could tell him I’m going to Lloyd’s house,’ he said.