Drew says, “So, what is there to do around here?”
“Not much,” says John. He doesn’t bother to sound matey.
“Do you want to come to our house after school? There’ll be no grown-ups home.”
John says, “Nah.”
“Oh, do,” says Drew and John shrugs and says OK, to make him go away. He supposes it beats going home to his mother, her slow sorrow. He is tired, these days. Maybe that’s why people believe him, when he says he’s older.
* * *
Daisy is waiting outside the school gates. She walks alongside them in silence. Her hair falls over one eye in a white-gold sheaf. Drew says, “Where’s the nearest place to buy beer?”
“There’s the off-licence on the corner,” John says. “But they ask for ID.”
“Don’t worry,” Drew says.
John supposes Drew has a fake ID. The twins have money, that’s obvious. He can pay for the good kind.
“I’ll pay,” Drew says, as if tracking John’s thoughts. “Daisy and I will. We don’t mind.”
John stops in the little cobbled alley by the off-licence. “OK,” he says. “Here you go.”
“I’m not going in,” Drew says. “You are.”
John feels a spurt of irritation. “I can’t,” he says. “They know me and my mum. I thought you had an ID or something.”
“No.”
“Waste of time,” John says and walks away.
“Wait.” A soft, pale hand on his arm. Daisy smells like her brother but sweeter, like apple juice. “Please,” she says. “We have an idea.”
John stops. Her hand feels like it’s sinking into his flesh, but not in a gross way.
“I know a trick you can use,” Drew says. “It’s like… hypnotism or something. It’s that same guy who hypnotised the entire football stadium. Did you see that on TV?”
John is interested, in spite of himself. He did see the man hypnotising the football stadium full of people. It was cool. He likes magic and all that stuff.
“All you have to do is lean in close, and say a word, and the other person will do whatever you want them to do.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I know it sounds mad,” Drew says. “But it works, I swear.”
“What’s the word?”
Drew whispers in his ear. Afterwards John can’t call the word to mind. It sounds something like anuśru, or anushru, but not really. It sounds like stone grating on stone, bones calcifying deep beneath the earth.
* * *
The door gives with a cheerful tinkle. Inside, the shop smells mineral and cool, like glass bottles or maybe coins. John’s palms start sweating. His skin crawls with shock as he sees that it isn’t the old man behind the counter; it’s his wife. She is knitting and the sound of her needles seems to echo his speeding heart. Click, click, click. Mrs Berry has this way of looking at you, just like she is doing now, over the rim of her glasses.
He goes to the fridge anyway. The cans are blue and gold, so cold that they stick to his palm. The colours make him think of Daisy. He takes out a six-pack of something. It could be beer, cider. His eyes won’t make sense of the label. His fingers aren’t steady and he drops the cans onto the counter with a sharp sound. Mrs Berry looks at him.
“Proof of age, please,” she says gently. She’s not angry, it’s worse than that. John sees that she pities him, she is thinking of Alice and how sad it all is. His heart feels like a balloon that’s been blown up too much and has reached breaking point.
He leans in close to her. The word drops from his mouth like a stone. Mrs Berry blinks and says, “Are you all right, John?”
He says the word again, panicking, and she takes the beer away from him. “I’ll put this back in the fridge,” she says. “You get home.” She puts her hand on his, briefly. “I know you’re having a rough time. It will pass, I promise. You’ve got to try and be a help to your mum, now.”
Outside, John finds that he is trembling with rage. He runs to the alley where he left the twins. He seizes Drew and shoves him against the brick wall.
“You were making fun of me,” he says, breathing hard. “The word didn’t work.”
Drew gives a shout of mingled surprise and laughter. “Of course it didn’t work,” he says. “What did you think? Honestly.”
John stares at him for a moment. A feeling bubbles up inside him. It bursts out and he realises he is laughing too. How could he have believed that there was a magic word that made people do what you wanted? Honestly, it is pretty funny.
“Let’s go to your house,” he says.
The smile spreads slowly over Daisy’s face like sunrise.
* * *
Daisy and Drew’s house is in the new development on the other side of town. They walk there slowly, talking.
“You have a sister, John?” asks Daisy.
“A twin,” John says. He doesn’t feel like getting into the Alice thing right now. “She goes to a different school.”
Where Drew and Daisy live, all the houses look the same. They are big and clean and anonymous. They don’t have the pressing weight of sadness on them, because nothing has happened there yet. John wishes he and his mum lived here, and not in the small grey terrace filled with memories of loss. He worries about his mum. At least John gets to go to school during the day. She just sits.
They stop outside a white house, which looks just like the adjacent white houses, and all the other houses in the close. Drew opens the gate and they go up the garden path, which is so new that the crystals in the paving still sparkle in the afternoon sun.
Inside the front door is a large table, piled a foot deep in letters and bills.
“Woah,” John says.
“The previous owners,” says Daisy, drawing him on. “They didn’t leave a forwarding address. I suppose we should just throw it all away.”
The living room is like a large, cool cave, what his mum would call open plan. Everything is either white or shining. Daisy puts on music, which comes out of hidden speakers in the walls. Drew hands John a drink in a real martini glass, just like James Bond. The first swallow burns his throat, but after that everything starts to feel wonderful.
“Let’s have a party,” Drew says.
“Oh, do let’s!” says Daisy.
John laughs, because sure, why not? A party, out of nowhere.
“Won’t your mum and dad mind?”
“Hester is out,” Daisy says. “But she won’t mind, anyway.”
Drew takes out his phone and starts calling. In what seems like minutes, the doorbell rings and there are kids outside. John doesn’t know any of them. They must be from other schools. It happens again, and again, and soon the white living room is filled with teenagers. Everyone’s teeth seem really white, and the girls’ clothes are amazing: dresses that seem ready to float off like clouds, flower crowns and bare feet.
John finds himself talking to an earnest boy wearing black, named Edmond. He has glasses and his dark hair is long, combed over one side of his face. Even so, John glimpses the scar beneath. It is long and vicious.
“How did you get that?” he asks. He knows that personal questions are rude but he feels so close to Edmond with his nervous eyes and sweet face.