Read Online The Death House by Sarah Pinborough - Free Book Online Page B

table. It’s as if the whole room lets out a sigh.
    ‘Why didn’t he do anything?’ Louis frowns.
    ‘Tom’s not the only one with a crush on the new girl,’ I say, and Tom flashes me a glare as Will giggles. My appetite’s gone and I feel unsettled again. The packs are changing. Ashley has his little God Squad now. Even if it’s doomed to failure and will only alienate him further, it’s still creating waves. It’s not just Clara who’s shifting the silt. I want things to stay the same. When things stay the same, you can’t feel time moving forward.
    ‘Fuck ’em,’ I say. ‘Better to have him over there than here with us being all holier-than-thou. Maybe he can move into Jake’s dorm, too.’
    ‘Oh, man, just imagine it.’ Will grins, his face alight with mischief. ‘All that praying.’ Sometimes I wish I was Will’s age. Too young to really get any of this.
     
    It’s colder today and the teacher waiting for us at the front of the class is wearing a thick wool jumper. He looks tired, and I wonder if they had to get up in the night to help with the truck, too. As we file in and take our seats, Will pauses at the back and puts something carefully on top of the radiator.
    ‘Drying my conkers out,’ he says when he sees us all staring at him. ‘Makes them harder.’
    ‘You didn’t tell me about that.’ Louis looks hurt.
    ‘I forgot. But now you know – drying them out makes them harder.’
    Louis immediately pulls two out of his pocket and puts them at the other end of the radiator.
    Will grins at him. ‘You still won’t beat me.’
    ‘Take your seats, boys,’ the teacher says. ‘Comprehension this morning, please.’ He sits down and watches as we pull exercise books and textbooks out of our desks, and then his gaze drifts towards the window. He’ll sit like that for a while and then make a half-hearted effort to come round and check on what we’re doing. I’m not even sure he’s a real teacher. Surely a real teacher would give it a proper go. We settle down quickly into quiet and all I can hear are shuffles and scratches of pens writing on paper. I doodle on the back cover of my book for a while and realise I’m drawing waves and the sea, and start thinking about later. Will we really do it? What if we get caught? Maybe she’ll have changed her mind by the end of the day. I can’t decide whether I want that or not.
    ‘Get on with the work, please.’
    He’s staring at me.
    ‘Sorry.’ I drop my head and stare at the extract and questions in front of me. Piggy is not having a good day in Lord of the Flies .
    After the first hour, the teacher drags himself out of his chair and starts his rounds. As he leans over me, his jumper smells of cigarette smoke doused with aftershave. He’s old. Well older than I’ll ever be, his short beard almost grey with rough patches of skin showing through the gaps. Over forty, that’s for sure. He nods and then moves on, doing the minimum to disguise how pointless all this is.
    ‘Are you going to sit with Joe every mealtime?’ Louis asks Ashley at the end of the first two hours, when the teachers swap rooms and we have our pointless ten-minute break. ‘Why would you do that? He’s sick.’
    Ashley doesn’t even look over. ‘I will no longer pass by on the other side of the road.’ Even the way he speaks irritates me. His voice always sounds like a whine coming from somewhere behind his nose.
    Will looks at me, baffled. ‘What does that even mean?’
    ‘Bible shit,’ Louis says. ‘He’s just being mental.’
    ‘No one should be afraid alone,’ Ashley says as he opens his maths book.
    I want to punch him for his stupidity. Everyone is afraid alone. If it wouldn’t break our run with no losses, I’d wish that he would go next. I really, really would.
     
    I sleep in the afternoon as usual, happy to keep my routine and stay out of the way of the others. I don’t think about Clara or the night before or the night to come, but instead try