Like This, for Ever

23




‘COME ON, BOYS, watch your positions! Sam, who are you marking?’

Barney took a quick glance around. You did not want Mr Green yelling at you on the pitch unless it was something like ‘Well-played’ or ‘Nice work’. The ball went across the pitch towards the opposition’s number 8, who had a clear shot. Barney raced across, got to the ball first and cleared it.

‘Lovely, Barney,’ called a female voice. Barney turned to see his form teacher, Mrs Green, on the touchline, not too far away from his dad.

‘Well played, Barney,’ called Mr Green. ‘Now come on, keep the pressure on!’

Heading into the wind, Barney’s team followed the ball up the pitch. Huck Joesbury got possession and Barney dropped back, watching the patterns form again. When he was really in the zone, he could predict, sometimes two or three passes ahead, where the ball was going to go. This morning, though, he was having trouble focusing. The wind was a problem, for one thing. The pitch was surrounded by high lime trees and when the wind blew hard, the swaying and dancing patterns the branches made above his head were distracting.

Huck had lost the ball, it sailed away from him in a fountain of mud droplets and then went hurtling back down the pitch. Nobody was playing well today.

To make matters worse, Barney couldn’t stop thinking about the trip to Deptford Creek that night. The Creek was dangerous, especially for kids who didn’t understand about tides and who couldn’t stop themselves messing about. But he couldn’t pull out now. The others would be relying on him to find the murder sites, maybe even clues the police had overlooked, and he hadn’t even found the key to his granddad’s boat yet. His dad, normally rubbish at hiding things, had surprised him for once.

‘Barney, what planet are you on?’

And that was his second telling-off. He’d get dropped from the team if he wasn’t careful. The wind though! It found its way under shirts, up the legs of shorts, right through his ears and into his head. Broken twigs were scurrying across the pitch like small rodents, catching around studs, crackling underfoot.

One of the opposition’s better players, a small blond boy, was racing towards the goal. Sam, the right-back, ran to tackle him and got nutmegged. It was all up to Barney now. Over the blond boy’s shoulder Barney could see Huck’s dad, clutching a coffee cup from Costa. Barney wondered what he’d say if he found out that he, Barney, lived right next door to the woman whose flat he sat outside so often.

‘Barney, that’s yours! Oh boys, come on!’

Blondie had dodged to the right. A second later the ball was in the bottom left corner of the net.

‘Where was my defence?’ called the keeper, glaring at Barney as the whistle for half-time blew. They were one-nil down.

‘Why do you think Mrs Green comes to watch every week?’ said Sam, as he and Barney jogged back to join Mr Green and the other boys. ‘It’s not as though she has a kid on the team.’

‘We can pull it back, lads,’ said Mr Green, as Sam and Barney joined the others. ‘We had most of the possession. Have a drink, then we’ll have a chat.’

‘Well done, Barney,’ said Mrs Green, who was standing next to his dad now. ‘Will you hand the biscuits round?’

‘Other team first,’ reminded his dad, as Barney opened the tin. Double chocolate chip. His favourite. An adult hand reached over his shoulder and helped itself. Barney recognized Mr Green’s aftershave.

‘He’s doing well,’ he said to Barney’s dad, as the other hand patted Barney on the shoulder. ‘When he concentrates, his positioning is superb. We just need to work on his ball skills.’

His face glowing, Barney set off with the biscuit tin, just as Harvey came jogging over. He’d arrived late, hurrying up with his mum and brother just minutes before kick-off, and they’d had no chance to talk before the match.

‘Any of you see the news this morning?’ Harvey asked. Barney and Sam shook their heads.

‘This bloke was on, right? And he was saying whoever killed those boys, Joshua and Jason, drank their blood. It was a vampire.’

Sam looked startled, then laughed nervously. ‘There’s no such thing as vampires,’ he said.

The half-finished biscuit in Barney’s hand fell to the ground. He’d known, immediately, that the adults were different that morning. They’d leaned closer together when they spoke, lowered their voices, given odd, furtive glances around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. There’d been something discussed that morning that they hadn’t wanted the kids to know about. Saliva was building in his mouth.

‘Straight up, he was a proper doctor and everything,’ said Harvey. ‘He said it was a condition, I can’t remember what he called it, but Jorge seemed to know what he was talking about.’

‘Renfield,’ said Jorge, who’d approached the boys without them seeing him and who obviously had a match himself later because he, too, was wearing football kit. ‘People who have Renfield’s Syndrome are obsessed with blood. Angelina Jolie has it. Any biscuits going spare?’

Barney handed the tin to Jorge.

‘She does not!’ Sam was keen on Angelina.

‘She does, it was on Facebook this morning. People have known about it for years. When she was married to her last husband – not Brad Pitt, someone else – she used to carry his blood around her neck in a little bottle.’

‘And do what, take sips when she got a bit thirsty?’

Barney took a deep breath. If they didn’t stop talking about blood soon, he’d have to leave.

‘No, dorko. I don’t think she drank it. But it’s still well weird. Would you want to carry someone’s blood around your neck?’

‘What’s it called again?’ asked Sam.

‘Renfield’s Syndrome. It’s got something to do with a book about Dracula,’ said Jorge.

Barney swallowed hard. ‘My dad has a copy,’ he said. ‘It’s by a man called Bram Stoker. He caught me reading it once – I was just flicking through looking for the scary bits and he told me off. Said it was a work of great literature, not a manga comic.’

The others were all watching him, wanting more.

‘Well, it’s supposed to be the first vampire story,’ Barney said. ‘All the other stuff – you know, Twilight, First Blood, Buffy, those old films you see sometimes – they all started with Bram Stoker’s Dracula.’

‘So why’s it not called Dracula Syndrome?’ asked Sam.

‘Well, that would just sound stupid,’ said Jorge.

‘And it’s straight up? These kids had their blood drained out of them so someone could drink it?’

As Jorge shrugged, Barney turned away. The adults were all gathered in small groups, talking quietly; even his dad and Mrs Green seemed deep in conversation. Only Jorge and Harvey’s mum stood alone, wrapped in her cream padded jacket, her short blonde hair spiked upwards, ignoring the other adults. She was watching the children, her sons in particular. Barney caught her eye and looked down.

‘There’s something they didn’t want to tell us,’ he said. ‘They’re more worried now than they were before. I’m not sure they’re going to let us go out tonight.’

‘We can’t cancel now,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll never be able to set it up again. I’ve lost count of what parent thinks who’s where.’

‘And doing what,’ added Harvey.

‘With who,’ said Jorge. All three of them laughed. Barney didn’t quite manage to join in.

‘There’s us four, Lloyd and Hatty. Six of us. Can six sleep on your boat, Barney?’ Harvey asked.

‘We’ve got to get on it first,’ said Barney. ‘Boat windows are small. I’m not sure even Hatty will get through. I think we need a backup plan.’

‘The back-up plan is that we all come back to our house,’ said Jorge. ‘Mum’s working all night and Nan is always comatose by nine o’clock. We could have the entire football team sleeping over and she wouldn’t know.’

‘What if your mum comes home early?’

‘Barney Boy,’ said Jorge, giving him a pat on the shoulder, ‘sometimes you just got to wing it.’