The Count of Eleven by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online

mean, to throw away after class, only Jackie said “What have you got in your desk?” so loud that Mrs. Sinclair saw it and got in a dead bad eggy. And when Miss Miles had us talking about whether people should all be equal Jackie said nobody should be allowed to go on holiday during term time, and guess who she meant.”
    “You can help make her jealous.” Jody jumped up and grabbed a parcel from among the tangle of soft toys under the Madonna poster. She bounced next to Laura on the bed while Laura unwrapped the parcel. “It’s sort of a souvenir in advance.”
    It was a yellow T-shirt which announced I’VE BEEN TO
    KNOSSOS. “I know you haven’t yet,” Jody said, ‘but you will have been soon, won’t you?”
    “Thanks, Jody.” Laura pulled off the T-shirt she was wearing and smoothed the new one down over her trainer bra. “Now it really feels like I’ll be going.”
    “You can borrow my guidebook.” Jody arched her back and pressed her hands against the wall behind the bed, and sighed. “What shall we do now?” she said as she heard her father trudging to the bathroom. ‘I wish we could play a tape.”
    “Don’t strain your ears on my account,” he responded. “I should be up by now. I’ve been dreaming long enough.”
    “We’d rather have you oversleep than getting an ulcer,” Jody’s mother called.
    “Better an ulcer than a pauper’s grave,” he said, and pulled the chain.
    Jody squashed her face up like a boxer’s and mimed fighting with her fists, and Laura giggled. “Wasn’t it much of a holiday for them?”
    “Only because we were doing something they can claim off their tax. We had fun, but they’re not a laugh like your dad. They were nearly shouting on the plane because I told them his puzzle about the men in the restaurant.”
    “Have you worked it out yet?”
    “I think I nearly did. Tell me it again.”
    “Three men are in a restaurant and the bill comes to thirty-three pounds. They each pay eleven and then the waiter realises he’s charged them too much and the bill is only twenty-eight. So they tell him to keep two for himself and give them a pound each, which means they each pay ten, right? Three tens are thirty, and the waiter keeps two, but who gets the pound that’s left over?”
    The restaurant. No, the waiter. I give up. What’s the answer?”
    “I did work it out, but I’ve forgotten.”
    “You’re no use then, are you? Tell me another,” Jody said, immediately adding “No, don’t. Do you want to hear my tape from Greece?”
    “I’d love to,” Laura said, and claimed one of Jody’s pillows for a back-rest against the wall. The music sounded bright and lazy as waves on a sea beneath the Mediterranean sun, and when she closed her eyes she could imagine herself sitting under a palm tree on the beach pictured on the card Jody had sent her from Crete. By the time Jody turned the tape over, Laura could feel the heat of the sun on her face.
    Lunch was Greek too: salad with cheese in it, flat oval loaves, a vegetarian dip the colour of fudge. Jody and her parents gave Laura a tour of the islands while they ate, so that by the time Jody took her upstairs again she felt as if she’d almost been where she was dreaming of. The music seemed to intensify the sunlight which was reaching into Jody’s room, and Laura could imagine that the sound of fire engines was part of her daydream. Their wailing faded, and she was listening to another dance when Jody’s father came into the room. “Laura, is your dad at work today?”
    “All day, every day,” Laura said, feeling like a commercial, ‘if you want to borrow’ the phrase eluded her for a moment ‘films that won’t insult your intelligence.”
    “Mine could do with a bit of insulting by the time I finish work. I was going to say that if he wasn’t there you might have wanted to let him know there’s a fire somewhere up by the shop.”
    Jody dropped the high-school soap novel she was reading. “Let’s