9. Starling
CHAPTER NINE
STARLING
In the Victorian times, body snatching was common. People would dig up freshly buried corpses and sell them to anatomists. This could gain them a reasonable income, so some took it one step further by creating those fresh corpses themselves. Supply needed, demand met.
Pretty smart, when you think about it.
After that night with the policeman, everything changed.
There’s no question anymore about whether we’re doing this; it’s a question of how many times a week.
Supply needed, demand met.
No one has suspected a thing so far. I had a close shave once when I came back to find Dad already awake and making himself a cup of coffee, but thankfully he didn’t hear me come in and I was able to grab a dressing gown slung over the back of the sofa, kick my shoes off, and pretend I’d woken up too.
Quite often, Arthur’s light is on under his bedroom door when I pad across the hall, and I hear the faint noise of computer games.
I won’t tell Mum and Dad. I wonder if he’s ever heard me roaming around and has kept quiet too.
Tonight, Cuckoo is cryptic. We are meeting at the park, her message says, but we’re not staying there for long.
Cuckoo:
Wear all black as usual, someone bring torches
And wear a mask
My mask is as black as my outfit, black fabric that holds tight across my nose and mouth.
I’m in black skinny jeans, my favorite black boots, and a thin black jumper because even though it’s summer, the nights get surprisingly cold.
I check myself in the mirror, exasperated with my freckles and generally ruddy complexion, apply some kohl around my eyes, and tiptoe from my bedroom, closing the door behind me very slowly.
Sure enough, Arthur’s light is still on, but I creep past without a problem.
Our dogs, thankfully, sleep in Mum and Dad’s room and haven’t once reacted to the sound of me on the stairs or leaving via the back door.
My heart still thuds, though, every time I do it, waiting for a wrong move to ruin everything.
Not tonight. I lock the door behind me, scale the garden wall (uncomfortably in my jeans), and then I’m gone, hurrying down dark streets with only my shadow for company. My keys stay in my palm, jagged edges out and ready. It pays to be prepared.
I’m so set on getting to the park I barely take in my surroundings, tripping over something left behind on the pavement.
It scatters loudly across the ground, so loudly I’m sure one of the houses nearby will have its occupants come and investigate.
I curse under my breath, ankle aching from the sudden twist, and reach down for the offending object.
It’s a spray can. I pick it up, shake it. It rattles, over half full.
We could have a lot of fun with this.
These are the exact words Goldie says when we’re all together at the oak tree and I show them it.
Taller than us, when Goldie holds the spray can aloft we stare at it like it’s a beacon.
Wren has a black fabric mask too, but Cuckoo and Crow are wearing the disposable blue ones and they’re rather noticeable.
Goldie, maybe realizing this, has gone without one at all, zipping her hoodie up so that it covers her mouth, chewing on the end of the zip.
Wren says nothing about when we previously teased her for bothering to wear the one she has on now, but then I think we all know this is more about hiding our faces than anything else.
“Cuckoo?” Crow says. “Does a spray can fit within your mysterious plans for tonight?”
She grins, revealing the dimples in her cheeks. “They’ve made them even better. Follow me.”
Which we do automatically. Before Cuckoo, I’d have said Crow was the one who took charge.
It should have been Goldie, but she’s so laid-back she’s practically horizontal.
Cuckoo joined our group and took over with ease, like she was always meant to be a part of us.
And honestly, it works. Goldie is too relaxed, Crow is too serious, Wren is too soft, and I always manage to say or do the wrong thing.
My idea of a fun night is cozying up in a chair reading books about murderous men; most would not agree.
We cut across the park, our phones lighting the way, then head down suburban streets.
Houses and cars in a standstill, hedges untrimmed, posters in windows with rainbows on them.
This is a nice area, the kind where if a crime was committed, the neighbors would come on television and say: Things like that don’t happen here.
We walk by a particularly ostentatious front garden, filled with flowers, an expensive car in the driveway. Cuckoo reaches out, hand skimming the bushes and flowers as she passes, and then at the last moment she pulls a flower loose, spoiling the perfect pattern, claiming it as her own.
“Cuckoo,” Crow says. “Why did you do that?”
She shrugs. “Why not? What’s one flower in their immaculate garden?”
But it’s not immaculate anymore: The line is broken, the flowers uneven. Whoever is sleeping in the house right now, curtains drawn, believing themselves safe and undisturbed, will wake tomorrow and know that someone was here.
And isn’t that powerful?
I snatch my own flower from the center of the row of them.
I pick one petal, and let it fall to the pavement.
The wind will probably steal it away before the homeowner can see, but for a moment there it is: a red petal on the ground, like a spot of blood.
Crow shakes her head at me, disappointed, and Goldie and Wren say nothing.
Cuckoo, though, is triumphant. She grins, then tucks her flower behind her ear. It doesn’t quite work, the stem isn’t strong enough, and it droops precariously, ready to fall at any second. But she commits to it, so I do the same.
Cuckoo leads us through the underpass, and I finally realize where we’re going. I overtake, cresting round the hill and across the main road that used to be so busy, toward our school gates.
We haven’t been back since that last day when we discussed how to commit the perfect murder. It looks exactly the same, which brings a surprising wave of disappointment where I thought comfort might be.
“School?” I say. “What are we doing here?” The spray can is still in my hand, our flowers behind our ears still hanging on.
Cuckoo shrugs. “I was wrong. We’re not going to be back. Maybe not even for our results. We finished school on a random Friday and have nothing to show for it. I figured it was due a proper goodbye.”
“I could have met you here!” Goldie says, indicating her head behind us to where she lives. “I’ve gone on a walk for nothing.”
“Sorry.” Cuckoo grins. “Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“And we’re . . . going in?” I ask.
“We’re going in.”
Yes.
I can’t help but feel a flicker of alarm at how instant my approval is, at how much I want this.
But why not? Let’s see what else we can get away with.
“What about the cameras?” Wren asks.
“They’re not real,” Cuckoo says. “Miss White told me once. They’re a deterrent. The school doesn’t have the budget. And we’re not going to be breaking inside the building. Just on the grounds.”
“Let’s go,” Goldie says. “Before someone does see us lurking around the front gates.”
There is a lot of stumbling and helping each other over the gate, but eventually we make our way to our old haunt, where we’d always go during break and lunchtimes.
Far away from the patch of gravel the boys are allowed to play basketball on, or the fields where plastic bottles are kicked around in lieu of footballs (banned after the Year Sevens kept coming crying to their Head of Year that they were getting assaulted), and instead behind the Art Block, a Portakabin that was meant to be temporary and has been going for as long as we’ve been here.
No one is really meant to be around the back of it, out of sight of whichever poor teacher is on duty, but the one time we were caught, we were told that because we’re good, they’ll allow it.
I wonder what they’d say now.
Someone has dumped a load of old art supplies back here, an unsteady pile of broken paintbrushes, used-up cardboard, plywood, felt-tip pens with no lids, and even a chair with no legs.
But other than that, it’s the same, the emergency exit steps still free to be our seats.
And when we sit down, we even take our normal places, our own seating plan: me and Cuckoo on the top steps, Goldie and Crow in the middle, and Wren below.
“It’s like we never left,” I say.
“Imagine if this was all a dream,” Crow says. “We wake up tomorrow and there hasn’t been a lockdown and exams aren’t canceled.”
“Don’t scare me,” Goldie says. “I’ve forgotten almost everything.”
“Surely not!” Crow cries. “Not English, at least.”
“To be honest, it’s been a relief,” Goldie says. “I can focus on what’s important now.”
“How are exams not important?”
Cuckoo laughs. “God, listen to yourself, Crow.”
“We’ve missed out,” she says. “I can’t believe you’d be so calm about it. Everything we’ve learned and we haven’t put it to the test. It drives me crazy.”
“What drives me crazy is this limbo we’re in,” Goldie says.
“Actually,” Wren says. “I want to tell you guys something about that. When the lockdown ends—”
“When the lockdown ends, I’m going to be a journalist,” I say. “My university has a student paper. I’ll become the editor, start making a name for myself. It’ll be great.”
“There’s a Creative Writing Society at Durham,” Crow says. “I’m joining that for sure. I can write a book during university, no trouble.”
Cuckoo looks uncomfortable. Her flower is gone, I realize, almost certainly lost when we scaled the gate. I reach for my own, and that one is gone too, vanished unnoticed. “Maybe the lockdown won’t ever end. But that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? If we stayed doing this kind of stuff?”
“Are you kidding?” Crow says. “We can’t stay locked up forever. We have to be allowed a chance.”
“A chance at what?”
Goldie’s eyes glitter. “Hey, Starling, give me that can.”
I raise an eyebrow but comply. “What are you going to do?”
She scrambles to her feet, and to our amazement she takes the can and begins to graffiti the wall of the Portakabin.
The spray is bright red, the hissing sound as venomous as a snake.
Slowly, letters begin to take shape, better the more she writes.
When she is finished, she smirks, the pride in her face evident for us all to see.
generation left behind
Some of the spray paint has dripped, still wet, like the words are bleeding.