Skellig

Chapter 7

I LEANED OVER THE TEA CHESTS and shined the flashlight and there he was. He hadn’t moved. He opened his eyes and closed them again.

“You again,” he said, in his cracked, squeaky voice.

“What you doing there?” I whispered.

He sighed, like he was sick to death of everything.

“Nothing,” he squeaked. “Nothing, nothing, and nothing.”

I watched a spider scrambling across his face. He caught it in his fingers and popped it in his mouth.

“They’re coming to clear the rubbish out,” I said. “And the whole place could collapse.”

He sighed again.

“Got an aspirin?”

“An aspirin?”

“Never mind.”

His face was pale as dry plaster. His black suit hung like a sack on his thin bones.

My heart pounded. The dust was clogging my nostrils and throat. I chewed my lips and watched him.

“You’re not Ernie Myers, are you?” I said.

“That old coot? Coughing his guts and spewing everywhere?”

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“What do you want?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“You got an aspirin?”

“No.”

“Thanks very much.”

“What will you do?” I said. “They’ll clear the place out. It’ll all collapse. What’ll—”

“Nothing. Go away.”

I listened for noises from outside, for them calling me.

“You could come inside,” I said.

He laughed, but he didn’t smile.

“Go away,” he whispered.

He picked a bluebottle from the front of his suit and popped it in his mouth.

“Is there something I could bring you?” I said.

“An aspirin,” he squeaked.

“Something you’d like to eat?” I said.

“27 and 53.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go away. Go away.”

I backed away, out into the light. I brushed the dust and bluebottles and cobwebs off. I looked up and saw Dad through the frosted glass of the bathroom window. I could just hear him singing “The Black Hills of Dakota.”

“Are you the new boy here?” said somebody.

I turned round. There was a girl’s head sticking up over the top of the wall into the back lane.

“Are you the new boy?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“I’m Mina.”

I stared at her.

“Well?” she said.

“What?”

She clicked her tongue and shook her head and said in a bored-sounding singsong voice, “I’m Mina. You’re …”

“Michael,” I said.

“Good.”

Then she jumped back and I heard her land in the lane.

“Nice to meet you, Michael,” she said through the wall; then she ran away.