Kendall suffered from terrible asthma. Mr Botha, the PE teacher, was sceptical, but instead of phoning Kendall’s parents, he’d asked Justin, who had confirmed the story in glorious detail, adding that Kendall could very well die if made to run ten metres. So Kendall was excused from physical torture and spent the hour sitting on the grass reading a book while the other boys ran up and down the soccer field.
It was an overcast afternoon, and Kendall was reading a science-fiction novel while the rest of the boys were preparing to sprint. He couldn’t see the point of running as fast as you could to one end of the field and back again. He figured you could get the same amount of exercise from a well-paced long-distance run. There was something brutal about twenty boys pelting across a field as fast as they could to outrun each other.
It had started to drizzle, so Kendall placed Escape to the End of the World inside his blazer pocket and watched the proceedings. Craig was standing close to David and some other boys. Kendall’s stomach clenched whenever he saw the stocky form of David, and he tried not to look at him, focusing instead on Craig. It was easy to distinguish Craig from the rest of the group because of his pale skin and dark hair – something else the other boys didn’t miss.
Mr Botha blew on his whistle and the boys lined up. Craig looked ahead with the determination of a trained athlete. Some of the other boys were laughing and changing places, and Kendall had a nasty feeling he knew what was going to happen next.
With the second whistle they were off, Craig out in front, moving like a bat out of hell. Whatever the boys had been planning, they were out of luck; Craig was too fast.
The runners reached the end of the field, and Mr Botha blew his whistle. Kendall saw it happening as if in slow motion. As Craig was bolting back towards the starting line, Jonathan Bailey, a large teenage tree trunk with hair, had hung back and pretended to stumble. Craig tripped over his legs and flew through the air to land on his face with a sickening scrunch.
Kendall heard the cacophony of catcalls as the boys hooted with laughter. He stood up slowly, debating whether he should rush over to his friend’s aid, his heart thumping in his chest. He found himself playing the various scenarios in his head, his eyes glued to the stricken form of his friend on the grass. He willed his legs to move, but he saw David standing a few metres away, laughing. Kendall realised that he was frozen to the spot.
Mr Botha’s voice could be heard above the din, ordering the boys to return to the changing room. Kendall waited as the teacher bent over the stricken boy.
“Be okay, please,” Kendall said softly.
He saw Craig rise to his knees, and breathed a sigh of relief. Kendall waited for Craig on the wooden bench outside the nurse’s office. He looked at the window and watched the rain fall in a continuous downpour, wishing that it had come sooner that day so PE could have been cancelled. He was still angry with himself for not rushing to help Craig on the field. Stupid, stupid, said the thoughts in his head. Coward.
The door to the nurse’s office opened and Craig stepped out, looking murderous. The left side of his face was scraped and raw. The nurse had dabbed it with mercurochrome, making it appear even redder. His lip was swollen too. He sat down next to Kendall on the bunk.
“You okay?” Kendall asked.
Craig sneered and shook his head. “You know what Botha said in his report?”
“What?”
“Slippery grass. The bastard.”
“That’s not what happened,” Kendall said angrily. “I was there, I saw Jonathan trip you.”
Craig shook his head. “Slippery grass. Is he blind? I can run faster than any of those guys, so why does he stick up for them?”
“Because they’re all on his rugby team,” Kendall hazarded a guess.
“I hate this place.”
They stared at the rain for a while longer.
Kendall bit his lip and shot a sideways glance at Craig, who was glowering. “You’re not mad at me, are you? For not helping you. I feel really bad.”
“No, Kendall. Don’t be silly. We’re best mates, remember.”
Kendall nodded, but he still didn’t feel better.
“One day David and Jonathan and those guys will be very sorry they picked on me. I’m not the guy to get on the wrong side of.”
Kendall felt a chill ran through him. He didn’t think it was the cold weather.
School killing
There had been a school killing in America that week. The news headlines had the story of three schoolboys in Massachusetts who opened fire on their fellow students.
Craig had been following the story religiously, pasting the newspaper cuttings in his journal that he carried around with him.
He and Kendall were reading the latest article at the back of the science class under the guise of studying a formula in their textbook.
“The latest death count is thirty-six,” Craig read. “Does it say what guns they used?”
“Semiautomatic,” Kendall replied. His mother had mentioned it that morning. He had been trying to keep up to date with the story to be on a par with Craig. His mother, an avid TV viewer, was his best source of information.
“No way. How did they get hold of those?”
“No idea.”
“The media are blaming our music for the attacks. Idiots!” Craig giggled. “They get it wrong every time.”
Kendall remembered the subheading of a story in the previous day’s paper: Kid killer’s home a haven of heavy metal.
“Don’t they get it?” said Craig, pointing to the students in the class. “They are causing school killings – not music or games or any of that crap! Man, if I didn’t have music to go home to after dealing with these psychos day in and day out, I don’t know what I’d do. Music is the only thing that gets me up in the morning, man. These people are soul destroyers.”
“Life’s little darlings,” replied Kendall bitterly.
“More like hell’s little darlings,” Craig scowled. “They think they can get away with anything. This lot deserve what’s coming to them.” He clenched his fists, a faraway look in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” Kendall asked slowly.
“Well, what about us, what about here? Nobody in South Africa has done anything like this before. Why can’t we teach them a real lesson for a change? We get put down every day of our lives, and they don’t even give us a second thought when they go home. Let’s fight back for a change.” Craig’s eyes were alight.
“What?” Kendall asked. “That’s crazy. We can’t get guns or stuff that those guys in America have.” He wanted to change the subject, but Craig’s eyes were on fire. Craig had light blue eyes, the iciest blue Kendall had ever seen on a person. He often wondered what had happened to Craig at his previous school that had been so bad and caused the light to go out in his eyes. Craig never spoke
