In the Bike Sheds: A Short Story by David Mitchell

Heather O'Dowd you dozy idiot! Turning into Sycamore Glade I remember the ball on the roof and stop. The traffic, midges and hosepipes carry on. That last volley before Miss Ferris arrived – I skied it, and the ball went waaaaaay over the fence, bounced once on the narrow car-park between the court and our school Science Block, and on the rebound just landed on the flat roof. I meant to get it back after tennis practice, but we got talking about how the bad of German teacher's Mrs Weinstock's bag was stolen from school (we were kept behind 20 minutes after the last bell but no one owned up) and the ball slipped my mind. So what do I do? On one hand it's only a tennis ball, but on the other hand it's one of six Slazenger Courtmasters Mum got me when she last went to London 'cause the shop lady said they use them at Wimbledon. Mum's the sort of mum who counts things, and she always know when I'm lying, and it'll be Money-doesn't-grow-on-trees-you-know-Young-Lady and, all in all, it's easier just to walk back to school and get the damn thing back. Only five minutes there and five minutes back and it's not dark yet. 

  

 

Climbing on to the Science Block roof looked easy when Kevin Vicars did it. Duck through the brick archway into the side yard; go into the bike sheds; clamber onto the roof at the end (I graze my elbow but I'm up) and then swing up onto the flat roof above the locker rooms. Now I'm one storey high. Windmill Hill's covered in bendy rows of new houses and the streetlights flicker on as I watch. Just the tops of the Blue Star Cement chimneys are visible over the hill. Across the roof there's a ladder bolted to the wall (a sign says TECHNICAL ACCESS ONLY). I climb up it. Two storeys up suddenly feels like four or six. My tennis ball's over there, rolled to the far edge overlooking the Square, but as I get near to the edge the big yawning drop makes me sway back. To get my ball, then, I shuffle forwards on my hands and knees. The roofing stuff 's gravelly on my skin. Just as I'm reaching out to get the ball, I notice a kid, in the tree, in the Square. He's out on the end of a high branch, sticking out, at about the same height I'm at. If he looks my way, he'll see me. I flatten myself.  

 

There's quick urgent voices in the Square below. 

"Okay, Jackson," the boy hisses down, "It's untangled." 

It's Stuart Tudor, a fifth year. Below, I make out... 

Three or four kids: Keith Jackson, same class as Tudor... 

Who's that? T-shirt, cap half-hiding her face. I can't see. 

Then she says, "Right, Tudor: pull." It's Maria Brubeck. 

Then that tall kid's Ray Coster, Maria Brubeck's boyfriend. 

What's he doing here? Ray Coster left school last year. 

And behind Maria Brubeck is her sister, Grace. 

Now I know I'm seeing something I shouldn't be seeing.  

 

Grace Brubeck's one of those kids who isn't really a kid. She gets kids to do things for her – including 'borrowing' change from first years – but when her servants get caught they never grass on her. This fifth year Vicky Horrox – your common garden bully – laid into Grace Brubeck behind the tuck shop a few weeks ago. I saw everything. Vicky Horrox started it with the whole hair-grabbing-and-kicking stuff and some boys began laughing but then Grace Brubeck gripped Vicky Horrox's hand and bent it back until Vicky Horrox was whimpering in the dirt. Really, like a half-run-over dog. The boys shut up.

 

Grace Brubeck told Vicky Horrox to give her a number from one to five, and increased the pressure until Vicky Horrox gasped 'Three!' and that's how many of Vicky Horrox's fingers Grace Brubeck broke. I heard them snap, I think. What kind of 14-year-old can do that? She had this smile on her face I'll never forget. Then Mr Truman arrived and Grace Brubeck sobbed into his chest, saying how she never wanted to hurt Vicky Horrox, but how Vicky Horrox had threatened to 'rub out her face', and her self-defence class stuff just "took over, Sir". Later, Mr Truman asked the boys if that was true and the boys must have said it was, 'cause on the Monday we'd learned that Vicky Horrox had been expelled.  Other people are pieces in a game, to Grace Brubeck. So I stay dead still, dead flat and dead quiet...  

 

 

...Stuart Tudor shuffles back along his tree branch, and something starts to rise up from the ground where Maria Brubeck and Keith Jackson are lifting up this stiff, woman's body with a rope around her neck. It's just as well for me the shock of it's drained all the air out of my chest, or I might've shrieked. Stuart Tudor's spooling in the rope up the tree, and the body jerks upwards. Now I realise it's a shop dummy, wearing a grey wig, brown boots and a poncho thing. But the relief drains away again: slung across around the dummy's shoulder is Mrs Weinstock's bag – the one that was nicked. It's got big gold daisies on. 

 

This dummy's our German teacher – there's even a swastika on both cheeks.  

Ray Coster laughs. "The only good Kraut's a dead Kraut." 

"Okay, Tudor," says Maria Brubeck. "Tie her there." 

Stuart Tudor obeys, and knots the rope tight. 

Mrs Weinstock dangles, about 20 feet up. 

"She'll be there 'til noon tomorrow, I reckon," says Keith Jackson. 

"The caretaker's ladder's not this high," agrees Stuart Tudor. 

"They'll have to call in the fire brigade," says Ray Coster. 

Maria Brubeck says, "That'll teach her to give me detention." 

Grace Brubeck says, "She's beautiful. She's a work of art." 

Keith Jackson's sniggering, in case he's supposed to. 

Mrs Weinstock swings my way, and watches me. 

She's got eye-shadow. Her swastikas are lipstick red. 

 

It's the sickest joke. Mrs Weinstock isn't my favourite teacher, but nobody deserves this. Stuart Tudor dangles from the bottom branch and Ray Coster and Keith Jackson lower him the rest of the way. Best thing for me is to go home and forget I saw this. I won't even tell Eileen or Kat. Maybe I could get away with a migraine tomorrow. There's going to be a hell of a lot of trouble at Windmill Hill Comprehensive School. 

  

But just as I drop into the bike shed I hear this cold voice saying, "If it isn't an O'Dowd cousin." Grace Brubeck's hard face is blocking my way out and I feel everything draining out of me. The others are behind her. No point running, no point fighting. "They're all in Slant's class, in the third year. Which O'Dowd is this O'Dowd, Tudor?"  

"Heather O'Dowd," comes the answer. 

"Well well well," says Maria Brubeck. "Well well well." 

"I didn't see anything," my throat hurts. "Not a thing." 

Ray Coster's half-hanging off the bike-sheds, like a slouched human Y. "O'Dowd? Oirish name? From Oireland? There's a Johnboy O'Dowd who runs The Admiral Byng." 

"Poor relative," says Grace Brubeck. "This one lives up on Sycamore Avenue in a frightfully nice house. Her other uncle, Uncle Mick owes money to Toad, if you listen to rumours. He's a crap gambler."  

It's appalling that she knows so much about us.  

"'Uncle Mick the Irishman'?"snorts Ray Coster. "Sounds like the first line of a joke. This one, in fact: Uncle Mick, Mr Singh and Frau Weinstock jumped off a ten-storey block of flats. Who hit the ground first?" Ray Coster lights a cigarette.  

"I dunno, Ray," says Stuart Tudor. "Who?"

Ray Coster's cigarette glows orange. "Who gives a toss?" 

When the boys realise that's the joke, they snigger. 

The Brubeck sisters are watching my reaction closely. 

"So," says Maria Brubeck. "Why were you doing spying?" 

I try to think of an answer but I can't think of anything. 

"Don't make my sister wait," Grace Brubeck warns me. 

"Just," my voice is shaky, "just getting my tennis ball." 

Ray Coster's oil-stained hand takes my Slazenger Courtmaster. 

A butterfly knife shoots out with a click. 

The blade gouges my Slazenger Deluxe II into a boingy spiral. 

"So," says Maria Brubeck. "What did you see from the roof?" 

I'm supposed to say Nothing. That's a pathetic surrender. 

But if I say what I saw, all defiant? Remember Vicky Horrox. 

So I ask, "What's Mrs Weinstock done to deserve that?"

"'Done'?" Ray Coster blows smoke in my face. "She's a fricking Kraut! That's what she's 'done'." He's so close in this gloom I can smell his sweat and his bomber jacket and I'm afraid in ways I've never been afraid before.  

Keith Jackson's sniggering, in case he's supposed to. 

"Try again," says Maria Brubeck. "What did you see?" 

Tell them "Nothing", I tell myself, and they might let you go. 

Tell them "Nothing", I tell myself, and they own you for good. 

If only you'd left the ball, I think, if only if only if only. 

 

"Please, Mr Truman," Grace Brubeck acts the nervous schoolgirl, "Sorry to disturb you, but at assembly you said that anyone who had any information about... about what was hanging in the Square this morning could come straight to you. Well, Sir, I... I... this is very hard, because it looks like I'm snitching on a schoolmate, but when I think how upsetting it must be for Mrs Weinstock... well. Here goes. Yesterday evening at about some friends and I were practising our frisbee down on the playing field by school. A frisbee's one of those plastic UFO things you throw, Sir, it's a new craze, and brilliant exercise. Anyway, Sir, I did a big throw, and the frisbee sailed right up over the fence, and onto the flat roof of the science block by the woodwork shop. I know I shouldn't have, but it's my sister's frisbee, and I'd promised not to lose it, and – well, Sir, to get to the point, I climbed onto the roof, and while I was up there, down in the Square, I saw... I saw... I saw Heather O'Dowd" (a hole opens up inside me) "with a couple of much older boys, Sir – I didn't recognise them, but they sounded Irish – and they were hoisting up that hideous mock-up of Mrs Weinstock on the tree. I... I just didn't have the bottle to confront them... And I was too afraid about what they'd do to me, if I reported it... I still am afraid, Sir, but like you say, sometimes you have to stand up for what's right. So there. Now you know."  

 

I'd say He'd never believe you but we'd know it wouldn't be true. 

Ray Coster goes tut-tut-tut. "No smoke without fire." 

"What deep, deep shit you'd be in," says Maria Brubeck. 

"And your dad – Mr Trade Union," says Grace. "The shame!" 

"Might even cost him his job,"warns Maria Brubeck. 

The moon's a dirty 10 pence, above their heads. 

"Snitch on us," says Grace, "all the O'Dowds'll pay." 

"I won't," I blurt, wishing I hadn't. "I won't say anything." 

"Swear it," says Maria Brubeck. "On your mother's grave." 

The words are out. "I swear on my mother's grave." 

"Now," says Grace. "Swear it on the Pope's grave." 

Ray Coster guffaws. "What's the Pope got to do to it?" 

"Heather O'Dowd's a good Catholic girl," says Grace. 

"Holy Communion," says Maria Brubeck. "The works." 

This is worse, something warns me, than licking their shoes. 

Then Grace says, "Give me a number from one to five," so softly. 

I blurt, "I swear on the Pope's grave I didn't see anything." 

A dog that'd been going mental suddenly falls quiet. 

"Good," says Maria, "and when you're next at church, ask God to make sure nobody else snitches on us. Because we'll assume it was you." 

"I like your wristband, Heather O'Dowd," says Grace Brubeck. 

I mumble "It's just a friendship band." Eileen and Kat made it me. 

"We're friends now. Aren't we, Heather O'Dowd?" 

The battle has already been lost, I now realise. 

Grace slips it onto her wrist. "Just to seal our deal." 

Maria Brubeck says, "An old-fashioned, happy ending." 

They walk off, unsuspiciously, all in different directions. 

Coward, hums the warm and soupy dusk, coward, coward. 

Somewhere not far, Mrs Weinstock's having a quiet night in.