John the Revelator by Peter Murphy Read Free Book Online

talk.’
    â€˜
Cartooons,
’ the boy shouted.
    â€˜I’ll watch them with you later,’ Jamey said firmly. ‘I promise.’
    He shooed Ollie out onto the landing and shut the door.
    â€˜Jesus,’ I said. ‘What a live wire.’
    There was a knock on the door. Jamey opened it, and his brother stood there with sorrowful spaniel eyes.
    Jamey shook his head and grinned.
    â€˜You just don’t know when to quit, do you?’
    We went into Ollie’s room and sprawled among the heaped Beanie Babies and stuffed huskies and watched the cartoons on the portable television set, the boy hooting and clapping his hands. Jamey pulled a bag of appledrops from his pocket.
    â€˜Give Ollie one of these,’ he said. ‘He’ll be your friend for life.’
    I plucked out a sticky sweet and offered it to Ollie, who took it in his grubby fingers and mechanically popped it in his mouth, eyes glued to the screen. He laughed so hard at the sight of a school of dancing jellyfish that he started to wheeze and cough, then his eyes bulged and he clawed at his throat. I looked at Jamey, who was deeply absorbed in the cartoon.
    â€˜Jamey,’ I said, ‘is he having a fit or something?’
    He glanced at Ollie.
    â€˜Shit!’
    He grabbed his brother by the shoulders and began to shake him.
    â€˜He’s choking!’
    Ollie was making horrible gacking noises. Before I could think, I’d knocked Jamey aside and driven the heel of my hand under the boy’s breastbone, hard. Ollie pushed me off and tried to scramble away. I hit him again, harder this time, and an apple drop rocketed out of his mouth and smacked me in the forehead, and then he and Jamey were rolling around the floor laughing.
    â€˜Gotcha!’ Ollie shouted, whooping and slapping his leg. ‘Gotcha!’
    Warm relief flooded from the centre of my stomach and tingled outwards to my hands and feet. I should’ve been mad at them both, but I was just grateful that the drama was over.
    â€˜Sorry, man,’ Jamey said, his whole body quaking with laughter. ‘It’s Ollie’s party piece.’
    ***
    Siberia was our school nickname for Room 15, which wasn’t really a room but a shabby prefab in a state of disrepair bordering on collapse, so called because it was located so far from the main school building, and in the winter it was freezing. Only one of the radiators worked and there were holes punched clear through the walls in parts, leaking chalky innards.
    But now it was a Friday afternoon in early summer and everyone was restless, couldn’t concentrate with the novelty heat and the promise of holidays just beyond our grasp like an idea that won’t materialise. The classroom floor was strewn with an obstacle course of kitbags and big sprawgy feet, the air salt-and-vinegared with sweat. Last class English, Miss Ross the replacement teacher for Mrs Lynch, who was pregnant again.
    Miss Ross, first name Molly, very early twenties, was the closest thing to good-looking among the teachers, albeit with the faintest suggestion of whippet about the nose and mouth. An almost reverent silence descended when she turned to write on the blackboard in her immaculate script, a fairly nasty poem about some nymphette getting sexually assaulted by a dirty great swan. Her bum was truly mesmerising, packed into pants so tight you could almost make out the cleavage. Wedged into the desk in front of me, lanky Gabby Mahon tugged at the front of his pants and groaned like he’d eaten too many crab-apples.
    Miss Ross finished the poem with a flourish, placed her stick of chalk on the ledge and turned to face the class. The disappearance of her bottom was somewhat compensated for by her blouse being undone to the third.
    â€˜Now, boys,’ she said, clapping chalkdust from her palms, ‘I want you to take that down in your copies and learn the first two stanzas for Monday.’
    Gabby Mahon emitted