The Knife That Killed Me by Anthony McGowan Read Free Book Online Page A

about standing up to them.
    Except Roth
was
there. I saw him when we got closer. There were steep banks down to the water, so he’d been hidden from where I was. He had his back to us, and he was sitting on a coat—not his, he was wearing a leather jacket, soit must have belonged to Bates or Miller. I’m not really into fashion, but I could tell that Roth’s jacket wasn’t that cool. Wasn’t cool at all, really. It looked tough, though. I mean, tough like an armadillo skin.
    “Got him, Roth,” said Miller. “He come out late. Been hiding somewhere. Little poof.”
    “I wasn’t hiding,” I said. Then Bates twisted the arm he was holding behind my back. It hurt. But I didn’t cry out. It would take more than that to make me cry out.
    But I was afraid. If it had just been Miller and Bates I would have known what was in store for me. Like I said, they’d have pushed me in the water. Chucked bricks at me to keep me there for a bit. Then they’d have run off laughing at the great joke of it all. I could endure that. I’d endured worse. But with Roth you just didn’t know, and I felt my guts turn soft inside me.
    He turned round to look over his shoulder. He was so massive the movement was awkward, as if the muscles got in the way.
    “What you playing at?”
    I thought he was talking to me, and I was trying to think of an answer when Miller said, “Nothing, just like you said, asked him to—”
    “Dunt look to me like you asked him. Looks like you told him.”
    “Yeah, we told him but—”
    “Let him go.”
    He was facing forward again now, looking at the water’s bubbling brown scum.
    “Come here.”
    A hand at my back pushed me hard.
    “Have a sit down.”
    The grass was wet. There was no question of sharing the coat. I felt the wetness seep through my trousers.
    “Sorry about them nutters. I just said ask you to come along for a little chat.”
    “It’s all right. They don’t bother me.”
    He turned toward me, giving me a full, black-eyed stare. “Maybe they should.”
    Was that a threat? Or was he saying I should stand up to them more? Up to his own henchmen?
    I shrugged. This was getting weirder. What did he want with me? Part of me still thought that this was a setup, that any second he was going to join in with Miller and Bates and chuck me in the water, or maybe just smash my face in. Then I saw that Miller and Bates had wandered off along the bank. There was a narrow path—not planned, just made by thousands of kids’ feet. Miller had a long stick and was jabbing it into the mud at the bottom of the beck, stirring up old filth. Clouds of the greenish muck floated, billowing down to where we were sitting, bringing a stink like some foul mix of eggs and shit.
    “I wonder about them two,” Roth said, in a friendly, confiding sort of way.
    “You’re right to,” I replied.
    Roth chuckled. “I couldn’t trust them with anything important. Couldn’t trust them to tell me what they had for breakfast unless they were still eating it.”
    That made me laugh. I felt myself getting sucked into something. Something over my head.
    “And the thing is,” he said, turning those black eyes on me once more, “I’ve got a little job I need doing.”
    “A job?” I smiled weakly.
    “Yeah, nothing much. A little delivery.”
    “What is it?”
    “Don’t panic.” Roth slapped me on the back. “Not heavy. Just stick it in your bag.”
    It was then that I noticed for the first time that there was a parcel on the ground next to Roth. It was the size of a shoe box, wrapped in brown paper and then covered all over again in Scotch tape. There was something slightly insane about the Scotch tape. It was everywhere, wrapped round and round the package like bandages round a mummy.
    “I’m not sure I can—”
    “Look, here’s something to make it worth your while.”
    He felt in his pocket and held out a tenner. I didn’t reach out to take it from his hand. The thing with Roth was that when he was