Demons by Bill Nagelkerke Read Free Book Online

disbelief.
‘And you said . . .?’
    ‘ I said yes.’
    ‘ He’s not worth it,’ said
Jo.
    ‘ Why not?’
    Michelle and Jo looked at one another
deciding whether or not to tell me. ‘You say,’ said Jo.
    ‘ Come on, spill the beans,’
I said to them.
    ‘ Well,’ said Michelle, ‘we
heard him talking to
    Anita and he said to her,
“I’m going to ask Andrea out but if you ask me I’ll say yes to you
instead”.’
    Anita had obviously declined this
invitation.
    ‘ He’s a slime ball,’ said
Jo. ‘No mistake.’
    ‘ It’s too late,’ I said.
‘I’ve already said yes.’
    ‘ Well, you’ve been warmed,’
said Michelle.
     
    Dad dropped me off at
school where I met Robbie, as agreed, outside our classroom. He was
swigging from a can.
    ‘ This event is supposed to
be alcohol free,’ I said.
    ‘ It is,’ said Robbie,
tossing the empty can under a bench. ‘Inside. Come on
gal.’
    Gal! Great start, not!
    We walked over to the
school hall - me full of
    regrets - as if we’d
arrived together under our own steam. As none of us were anywhere
old enough to have driver’s licences yet I don’t know who Robbie
was so keen to impress. Himself perhaps?
    Electronic music pulsated
from inside the hall, a steady and danceable beat with repeating
riffs that seemed to loop back into themselves and then explode
with a kind of soft grenade sound, something like a muffled sonic
boom. So different from the Irish music Dad played endlessly at
home, not to mention the trad Catholic songs which were Gran’s
speciality (although she hadn’t requested them at her own funeral).
Their oh-so-familiar tunes, like the family rosary of years ago,
had stitched themselves into my brain even though no one sang them
at modern-day masses. Of course I knew there was other music but I
never seemed to feel a need to listen to it. My musical education,
as Michelle and Jo regularly pointed out to me, was sadly
lacking.
    ‘ Man,
listen to it!’ said Robbie. He seemed to have gone into some kind
of trance already, before we’d even started dancing. I didn’t like
this. I suddenly wanted to go home. Why had he asked me, I wondered. Had
Michelle and Jo overheard correctly after all?
    ‘ Gidday Rob,’ said several
people, who looked
    sideways at me as if I was
some sort of alien being. What was this
pinhead doing here I was certain they’d be
wondering. The dancing was soon in full swing. Robbie dragged me by
my arm into the middle of the floor.
    ‘ Hey, slow down caveman,’ I
said.
    If he heard, he took no notice. Instead he
issued instructions. ‘Let yourself go babe.’
    Not likely, I said to myself. Despite this,
it
    hadn’t taken me long to understand the
attractions of Trance. The music could infiltrate your head so it
was as if the pulse of the universe beat inside it and you were an
integral part of the world instead of just an onlooker. You were
the stars not just the astronomer peering at them through a
telescope. Praying an endless rosary, strangely, could be like this
I thought, although naturally I didn’t tell Robbie this oddball
fact. He wouldn’t have come even close to understanding what I was
on about.
    What he did still understand, despite being
transported by TranceSonic Boom, was that I was a girl and he
intended to take full advantage of that fact. Before too long, he
moved in close as we swayed, reaching behind me with his hands,
curving his sweaty palms round my bum and pressing his chest, and
his groin, hard into mine.
    ‘ Stop
it !’ I said.
    As I pushed him away, ungluing his hands
from
    my behind I couldn’t help but think, this is
a sort of sex with no emotion, no feeling, no love.
    He just grinned - leered was more the look -
and angled in for another landing. I shoved him again and this time
he stumbled backwards, bumping into a few other dancers. I didn’t
stay around for a third coming.
    Pushing myself through the throng, past
some
    teachers gas-bagging to each other alongside
the wall, I