The Knife That Killed Me Read Free Page A

They’d probably gone too far in some prank, and now they were staring vacantly into space, the way you do when you’re waiting to be punished.
    I felt a bit calmer now I’d got that filth out of my hair, and the rage and the disgust and the humiliation of the whole thing had eased up, the way a toothache sometimes goes away after a while. But, as I waited, other feelings floated to the surface. The unfairness of everything, of me being here, while Roth and his lot got away with it. And the fear of what Mordred was going to do. And what if I did get permanently expelled? Dad would kill me for definite. Except you can only die once, and that pleasure would wait for me at Temple Moor High School. Because the only place that would take you if you got expelled from our school was Temple Moor, and Temple Moor kids hated us because of the war that had been going on for years. And any of our kids who washed up at the Temple would get massacred. Every day.
    The bell went for the end of the lesson. It meant break was beginning, which meant that Mordred would be here to tear our heads off.
    I heard a clomping sound coming down the corridor. For a second I thought it was Mordred, but then I remembered that Mordred had little feet and took little steps and made a tippy-tap sound when he walked. I looked up and saw Mr. Boyle. His glasses were even more skewed than usual. Ithought he’d come to tell Mordred all about how bad I’d been. But he sort of loomed over me, breathing heavily, and then he took me by the shoulder and stood me up and pushed me in front of him back down the corridor.
    “Let’s have a talk,” he said. “In my room.”
    Back in the classroom he sat me down in front of him. Close up, his face, even in the place where his beard was supposed to be, seemed to have more skin than hair. He smelled a bit cheesy. Not terrible—you wouldn’t say he stank—but just not very fresh. I didn’t know if he was married, but I doubted it. He had the look of someone who lived alone and didn’t have anyone to tell them that they looked stupid or didn’t smell too fresh.
    “So, what was that all about?” he said. I was surprised by his tone—he sounded sad rather than angry.
    “What, sir?”
    “You know what I’m talking about, so don’t play the idiot. Look, Paul, you’re not the kind of kid who usually starts fights. And you’re not stupid—I know you’re not.”
    So there was a first time for everything.
    “I’m not brainy, sir.”
    “How do you know? As far as I can see you’ve never really tried.”
    I didn’t know what to say then, so I just looked down.
    “I’ve noticed you, Paul,” continued Mr. Boyle, “just sitting there. I don’t know how much you take in, but … what’s happened to your hair?”
    “Nothing, sir. I don’t know, sir.”
    “Is it mixed up with why you were shouting in class?”
    “Don’t know, sir.”
    “Don’t know much, do you, Paul?”
    “I told you I wasn’t brainy, sir.”
    Then I looked at Mr. Boyle, thinking he might be smiling. But he wasn’t. He still looked quite sad.
    “Can you play chess, Paul?” he said finally.
    “Don’t know, sir.”
    “Why not come to chess club to find out?”
    Mr. Boyle ran the chess club. It was full of geeks. The kind of kids who brought in thermos flasks of hot soup for their lunch.
    I looked up at his face, his wonky glasses, his sparse beard.
    “Yes, sir, I might, sir.”
    There was another pause.
    “Maybe see you there then?”
    “Yes, sir—just got to get something first.”

FIVE
    So I
went outside and sat by myself on one of the concrete benches. A cold wet wind blew straight off the gypsy field, slapping my face with its clammy hands. It was called the gypsy field because gypsies sometimes camped there, but they hadn’t been around for ages, maybe two years. Perhaps there weren’t any gypsies left. Just the cold wind, blowing over the grass and picking up the stink from the brown water of the beck.
    I wished