Sea Change Read Free Page A

because suddenly he was back in the corridor,
staring into his locker, the smell of floor polish and sweaty
clothes all around him.
    "Where you been
hiding then?" He would remember the exact sound of Parker's voice,
always.
    "Not hid well
enough though, has he." Stevens' excited whine, sucking up to
Parker as always, desperate to impress and keep on impressing and
flattering and wheedling in case the violence ever turned on him.
"What you hiding from, loser? How comes you’re not with your freak
friends?"
    John stared in
front of him, into his locker, the door still swinging to and fro
on its hinges. He thought of running, but then remembered that the
door at the end of the corridor was locked, and that the only way
out was through the swing doors. Parker and Stevens stood in the
way, and probably two or three more of Parker's little disciples,
the pilot fish swimming around the great white shark, looking for
scraps. John held on to his English book, stared at the red and
white pattern on the cover as if it was very important.
    "You've left
something in your locker, Johnny." Parker said.
    John shook his
head, made a vague gesture with his book, no thank you, this was
all he needed.
    "Oh, I think
you have. Can't you see it? It's at the back there." Sniggers. John
continued his stare at the grey metal. He knew what was coming.
After a while, nothing was new. The back of his locker was damaged,
the grey surface peeling away from the rusted metal underneath. On
the little shelf was a screwed up packet of Polos. I don't remember
bringing those in, John thought, I don't even really like Polos.
When did I bring those in? Then there were hands on him, and he was
being pushed face first into the locker, pushed hard into a gap
that was far too small for him, the sharp corners of the metal
pressing hard into his skin, the pain nothing compared to how he
felt inside, the feeling that this was all there was, this was all
that there would be, this was all that he was worth. But then,
something happened that made the hands release him. Something that
in the end, was far, far worse.
    When the
village was completely out of sight, hidden by the land that
swelled in great waves of rock, John decided to turn back. There
was still all the village to explore, and the morning was fast
disappearing. He followed the path back until it became the track
again, and then the track until it became the road again. This time
though, he turned off the road well before Laura's cottage, taking
the first turning that he passed.
    John found
himself in a world of twisting alleyways and towering walls, houses
leaning in towards each other as if they wanted to touch, steps up
and steps down, promising passageways leading to blank dead-ends.
There were strange baskets propped up outside some of the houses.
John thought that they were something to do with lobsters. Or was
it crabs? He wasn't sure. After a while, he was totally lost. He
enjoyed just walking, exploring, the sense of being alone despite
being in the middle of all of these houses.
    John looked at
his watch, and decided that he ought to head down towards the
harbour if he was going to find his way back to the shop for lunch.
A passage sloped up between two rows of cottages, and rather than
retrace his steps he headed along it, hoping that at some point it
would turn out on to one of the roads that led back down to the
sea.
    The passage
turned to the right, but ended at the back door of one of the
houses. He turned back, and as he did he thought that he saw
someone disappear around the bend of the alley. He wasn't sure, as
he had just seen it out of the corner of his eye, and the more that
he thought about it, the more that he thought that maybe it wasn't
a person after all, just a large dog.
    He wandered
back to where he had started, and looked both ways, but there was
nothing there but the empty alleyways, a couple of hanging baskets
swaying gently in the breeze. John looked up at the windows,
feeling as