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Chapter 2

Richard

His hands were slimy with a film of grease, his insides as hollow as the Tin Man in the ancient Wizard of Oz movie he’d seen as a kid. He wasn’t a kid now, though; he was a full-fledged teenager. Right?

He followed James dutifully through the kind of cold, overcast morning that was so common in September. The air was heavy with water; it was about to rain. Now and then, a little whirlwind of red and yellow leaves danced around them. They approached the school gates and made their way across the vast expanse of playground tarmac towards a Tudor building with orange brickwork and turrets like a miniature castle. Just inside the gates, a small group of boys and girls were chatting.

One of the boys called across. ‘Hey James, how ya been?’

‘All good, Andrew, and you?’

‘Good. Kinda excited to be back.’

‘Hey James, good to see you again,’ a dark-haired girl added.

James grinned at her and winked. The others looked at Richard, who’d lagged behind.

‘This your brother?’ Andrew asked.

‘Sure is.’

‘Hey, what’s your name, mate?’

‘His name is Hero.’

Richard stepped forward. ‘Stop calling me that. I’m not a hero.’

‘Come to save us all from Wellesworth hell? He looks more like a little hedgehog than a saviour, James.’ Andrew grinned wickedly and launched the group into a chant: ‘Hero, Hero, Hero.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ Richard muttered. He never should have let James put that stuff in his hair. I’m doomed. The kids’ll never let this go.

James just laughed as the school bell rang. ‘Have a good day, bruv, got to get to class—and so do you.’ He hurried away with the others.

Richard sighed and wandered in the same direction before spotting what appeared to be the main entrance: a huge oak door at the top of some concrete stairs. He entered between two long lines of hangers with what must have been hundreds of coats and bags dangling on them. To his right was a corridor filled with pupils, but he dared not enter. The teachers were knotting up around a doorway about halfway down. Eventually one of them broke away and came to where the students gathered. The students began pelting the teacher with questions, none of which made sense to Richard.

‘And you? What do you want?’

He snapped out of his trance. ‘I don’t know where to go. I-I’m new here.’

‘Well, what class are you in?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you have the letter that was sent to you about your first day here?’

He pulled out a letter from his bag and handed it over. It smelled a little like fresh sandwiches.

‘Ah, you’re in Mrs Shah’s class. That’s one of the temporary buildings. Go through there.’ He pointed to a set of double doors. ‘Continue down the steps, turn right at the opening, follow the building around, then keep going until you see the playing fields in front of you and the temporary buildings on the right. It’s the one straight ahead, right at the end, okay?’

‘Er, okay.’

‘Off you go, then.’ The teacher nodded.

He walked through the double doors, down the steps, and turned right. It had started raining. Plump drops lanced like ice spears against his cheeks. He had to close his eyes to avoid the pain. He would have to make a run for it. But by the time he turned the first corner around the building, he was already wheezing as if he were coming down with a full-on asthma attack.

He slowed to a trot, then a walk. The wax in his hair was melting down his forehead, and his soggy uniform drooped like the cheeks of a basset hound. His shirt was practically transparent.

The temporary building was full of students sitting at modern desks. Every face turned towards him as he stood panting just inside the door, fat droplets of rain dripping down the front of his face and off the end of his nose. A little laugh rippled around the class.

He surveyed the room for a spare seat. There was one at the very front next to one of the girls.

The girls.

He slid into the seat as unobtrusively as possible. His stomach tightened, and he swallowed hard. He avoided eye contact with his neighbours as he tried desperately to stifle the burning in his ears.

‘You’ll need one of these.’ Mrs Shah handed him a sheet of A4 paper with his schedule for the coming term. ‘We meet here once the bell goes at half past eight. Lessons start at nine o’clock. Do try to be on time.’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Sorry,’ he replied.

‘And maybe bring an umbrella next time.’

He smiled sheepishly, feeling more dry already under the heat of twenty-five sets of eyes and his own burning face.

The morning was a blur of different rooms and subjects and teachers. The teachers seemed to assume that he knew things he didn’t, but nothing had stumped him yet. Then came Latin. What a useless subject—an ancient language from Roman times that no one had used for centuries.

Richard hadn’t really noticed the two girls sitting in front of him until one of them turned around.

‘Hi, I’m Felicity, but you can call me Fi.’

The other girl also swung around. ‘I’m Angelina.’

‘Hi, er, Fi.’ This was intimidating. He’d never really talked with girls before.

‘You’re James Turner’s brother, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, how did you—’

She smiled. ‘You look a lot like him. Did I overhear him calling you Hero earlier, at the gates? That can’t be your real name.’

A raging fire consumed his face. ‘Oh God, all I did was save my dad’s coffee.’

They blinked at him, confused.

‘He loves coffee. He knocked it off the table by accident this morning. I caught it and put it back, and he called me a hero.’

He could see their curiosity fading fast.

‘It was dumb.’

Fi shrugged apologetically. ‘Seems a bit over the top.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I think you’re going to have to get used to the name, though. It seems to have stuck. Anyway, Hero, has anyone taught you the facts of life?’

Surely she couldn’t mean—

The fire in his face raged even more fiercely. He had no idea what she was talking about. He studied the desk in front of him.

He was saved by the arrival of another new teacher, a tall grey-haired man wearing a dark suit. Hmm. Unusual for a teacher.

The teacher moved to the blackboard and cleared his throat. ‘Class . . .’

Fi gave Hero a final smile. ‘You’re cute.’ She looked at Angelina, giggled, then turned around to face the teacher.

‘Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Latin class. We work hard here, so let’s not waste any time. We’ll start with some basics.’ The teacher began to write.

amo: I love

amas: you love

amat: he, she, or it loves

amamus: we love

amatis: you love (plural)

amant: they love

He turned and surveyed the students with a grim but not entirely unfriendly smile. ‘Okay, repeat after me . . .’

The lesson seemed to go on for an eternity. The longer it went on, the more the teacher reminded Richard of his uncle, whom he hadn’t seen for many years now. The smells of the countryside filtered through to him from beyond the wall of boredom. He could almost smell tangy pine mixing with the sweet scent of sodden grass underfoot. He could almost hear the stream trickling beneath the wind-filled trees. He smiled at the thoughts of the happier times at Mum’s cottage in Devon, where he felt at home. Free. He saw Dad and Uncle—what was his name again?—whispering to each other in a way that reminded him of how he and James used to plot in ways that annoyed Mum.

He shook himself from his daydream and checked the clock. Only two minutes had passed. Two minutes of glorious freedom. How did teachers do that, make forty minutes last forever?

Finally the bell rang.

Deo gratias.

He stood up and pulled out his schedule: music in the main music room. The Latin teacher was already cleaning the blackboard.

‘Excuse me, sir?’ he asked.

‘Mm?’

‘Can you tell me where the main music room is, please?’

A hand landed softly on his elbow. ‘Come with me,’ Fi said. ‘I’m going there now.’

‘Great, thanks.’ He hoped his expression looked more like a casual smile than a panicked rictus.

She led him down the stairs, out of one of the many doors along the side of the school, and across the playground.

‘That’s the music block.’ She pointed at the building directly in front of them.

They marched towards it under an awkward silence.

‘So you know my brother?’ he finally asked.

‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘He’s just, I don’t know . . . Funny? Handsome? He’s Turner.’

‘If you say so.’ One for James.

‘You definitely follow in his footsteps,’ she added.

‘You think so?’

‘Of course.’

Their eyes met briefly.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.

They arrived at the music rooms, which were on the top floor of a two-storey block separated from the main school. The teaching room desks were arranged in a semicircle like an amphitheatre; in the centre, a small stage area, and in one corner, a grand piano.

Richard liked music all right, but he loved the piano, perhaps because there was one at home, which Mum had taught him to play from an early age, or perhaps because he’d listened to Mum and James playing so beautifully so many times. He loved the start of Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ and Ludovico Einaudi’s ‘Nuvole Bianche’, which Dad loved to listen to again and again. Sometimes Dad even teared up, much to the amusement of his sons.

‘What a sap,’ James would say. ‘Seriously though, he’s such a girl, isn’t he?’

Richard chuckled, then snapped back to the present as the teacher walked in.

‘So, music. Let’s learn some notes.’ The teacher’s manner was fast-paced and almost theatrical. ‘Well then, there’s A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.’

The class sat in compliant silence.

‘No?’ The teacher raised his eyebrows. ‘The best way to learn music—or indeed anything, in my opinion—is to do it. So whilst we will learn more about the theory and history of music in these classes, it’s important that you actually play, preferably with an instrument.’

‘Does a recorder count?’ someone asked.

A quiet laugh fluttered through the air.

‘Yes, Billy. In fact, the recorder can be a very charming instrument. Just ask the Pied Piper.’

Another nervous chuckle echoed around the room.

The teacher handed out a list of musical instruments they could learn to play. It seemed too good to be true: the school would provide specialist lessons for whichever instrument each student picked and even loan the instruments, if necessary.

‘I don’t even know what some of these things sound like,’ chortled the boy next to Richard, leaning close and flapping his paper. ‘Who’d want to spend time tootling around on a horn when we could be out on the practice fields?’

But Richard already knew what he wanted to learn. He imagined his fingers flying over the black-and-white keys, a prodigy leading the orchestra—a hero, even, painting a symphony of darkness and light. He bent over the selection sheet with a flush of pleasure and ticked the last box on the list: Piano.