Lone wolf, the expression coming into his head because that’s how he imagined him as he ran, a human finger on a trigger with a wolf’s face. But maybe there was more than one; a pack of the bastards.
He reached an oak, its bark covered in dense moss, surrounded by tall holly trees. He pressed himself between the oak and hollies. He couldn’t hear the footsteps, but maybe the snow was muffling his sounds.
Why would anyone do this? Madman, he’d thought earlier, lone wolf, but was that true? What if this was a terrorist attack? But why would terrorists attack this small, non-religious school in Somerset, miles from anywhere?
He saw the path that led to Junior School and ran along it, the snow heavier now. After a hundred yards it forked, the smaller fork leading to the pottery room.
As he raced towards the pottery room, sweat running down his face, he saw children through the windows, their small hands working with clay; one child looked out of the window, up at the snow.
Through the huge pottery-room windows Camille Giraud saw Matthew running – running – towards the pottery room and knew, a wire vibrating inside her, that something was terribly wrong. He came into the room, so much larger than everyone else, his hair and shoulders covered in snow, and he was out of breath.
He turned off the light, making the room abruptly dark. He whispered to her, ‘Code red,’ and then turned smiling to the children.
‘What are you making?’ He was still out of breath, his words sounding strange to her, but not to the children.
‘Acorns! Acorns!’ they all chanted, thrilled by his unexpected arrival.
‘Wonderful! We’ll make a display of them in Old School. Camille, you said there was a problem with a tap?’
They went into the tiny bathroom; her squashed up against the basin, him against the loo; children’s murmurs next door, a boy laughing; no one questioning their headmaster as impromptu plumber.
‘There’s a gunman in the woods,’ he said.
‘A gunman?’ She couldn’t take it in.
‘It’s too dangerous to evacuate them through the woods. Until the police arrive you need to keep them all here. Get them on the floor. Have you got a phone?’
‘Yes. What will you do?’
‘I think the gunman might have followed me. It might be me he’s after. I’m not sure. I think I make you a target.’
‘So, you need to leave.’
‘Yes.’
‘Be careful.’
She went back to join the children, Matthew behind her. He waved goodbye to the children, hesitated by the door for a few moments, and then slipped out.
Camille went to get her mobile out of her jacket pocket but there was only the keys to the minibus, a bag of Jelly Babies and a packet of Kleenex. The phone that she seldom used was in her handbag, which she’d left under the driver’s seat because she didn’t think she’d need it. Didn’t think about the phone. Should have thought. How could she have been so irresponsible? She hurried to the door to call to Matthew, but he was already out of sight.
The children’s heads were bent as they went back to their clay, their hair shiny despite the absence of the overhead lights; all oblivious as they made their acorns.
The dark trees outside the windows looked malevolent to Camille, hiding threat. The glass windows turned into weapons.
‘We’re going to make a house out of our tables,’ she said to them.
6.
9.01 a.m.
They arrived at Fulmar beach. Miss Kowalski’s phone made a cuckoo sound and Mr Lorrimer’s phone pinged – ping! ping! ping! – with messages. Miss Kowalski read her phone and did a little scream, then put her hand over her mouth like she could put the scream back in again and started crying and Mr Lorrimer said ‘Fucking hell’, and the children all laughed because it was such a bad word and if they laughed it would make it funny he’d used a bad word, but Basi just looked down at the beach which had snow footprints not sand footprints. Other teachers couldn’t get reception on their phones, so they all looked at Miss Kowalski’s and Mr Lorrimer’s phones, and Rafi did that too.
‘Everyone run under the cliffs as quick as you can!’ Mrs Cardswell shouted, like she’d got all excited about the game. ‘Each form will hide all together. My form with me, please!’ But the sea and the wind were too loud. So Mr Lorrimer, who had a big booming voice, shouted it too and they all ran under the cliffs, the teachers hurrying them along, like the teachers all really, really wanted to win.
The cliffs made a roof over them. The teachers emptied all the bin bags they’d been carrying and they had life jackets in them.
Basi was still looking down at their snow footprints because he didn’t want to look at the sea. But the sea was shouting at him:
Wa-Hush, Wa-Hush, Wa-Hush.
Wahush meant ‘monsters’ in Arabic; the sea was telling you that it had monsters inside it.
Miss Kowalski said, ‘We’ve got a big treat today. We are all going to go on a real lifeboat! And maybe a police boat too! And then the seekers will never find us!’
And everyone apart from Basi was laughing, because all the grown-ups were playing, the lifeboat people too, even though it was a little bit like cheating.
Rafi was holding a life jacket and he started putting it on Basi. It felt all rubbery and damp and he hated the smell and the cold heaviness.
‘Remember the piñata in Alexandria?’ Rafi said, because he could tell Basi didn’t like the life jacket and he wanted to make him smile. And it was really funny. There’d been a shop selling little life jackets for children and babies. An old man had said something to Rafi, but really quietly so Basi couldn’t hear. He thought what he’d said had made Rafi angry because Rafi got a stick from the back of the shop and hit a little life jacket and hit it and hit it. The shopkeeper got angry too and Basi started to cry, then Rafi said, ‘It’s a piñata, Little Monkey!’
‘Are there sweets inside?’
‘No, it’s a terrible piñata.’
And they’d laughed because it was funny Rafi thought a life jacket could be a piñata and because they’d been naughty and were afraid of the shopkeeper.
‘We ran so fast, didn’t we?’ Basi said.
‘Super-fast.’
When they’d got their breaths back they found another shop. Before they went in he told Rafi the old man had lied, life jackets are never piñatas, they never have sweets inside. It was the first time he could tell Rafi something important he didn’t already know. The shop had been selling balloons too, maybe that’s what had got Rafi muddled. Rafi looked at the life jackets in the next shop really carefully, but he didn’t hit any of them, and then he bought Basi a Yamaha one, which was red and grey and used up almost all their euros but it was the best kind you could get.
The school life jacket was yellow. Rafi pulled it up over his head, snagging it on his ears, and it hurt.
Rafi made sure Basi’s life jacket fitted properly and wouldn’t come off over his head. They were safe now under the cliffs, he was pretty certain of that. Nobody had followed them along the path, nobody had seen them. He’d done it. And boats would soon be coming.
He tried his phone again but there still wasn’t a signal. Miss Kowalski had shown Rafi her text messages when they’d got to the beach, like he was a member of staff too: code red; gunman in the woods; police car shot at.