Joe Knight Series - Books 1-3

5. Sorry Face

5

SORRY FACE

I raced home after school that afternoon. Dad was in the kitchen, asking the cat’s opinion on a tricky chapter, but the cat was noncommittal.

“Good day at school, Joe?”

That stupid question again. I should have had the answer tattooed on my forehead. There are no good days at Greenfields High, Bullies’ Delight.

Yet hadn’t it been a good day? It had been a day without Sirgiman, after all. And what if there were more of them to come? Didn’t teachers get fired for skiving?

“Cat got your tongue?”

I looked at Dad, then at the cat. They both seemed to be awaiting an answer. “I think my original question was, Good day at school?”

“Oh, right. Yes, not bad,” I said. “Could have been worse, I suppose.”

Doozy appeared satisfied with my answer and lay down on the kitchen table. Dad asked if I had any homework. “I thought I’d practice first,” I said.

“Good lad. Want a drink?”

“I need to get cracking.”

Dad was impressed, while Doozy had already fallen asleep. I couldn’t blame him for trying to get in a few minutes shut-eye before Dad started asking his opinion again on that troublesome chapter.

Sitting at the piano, I placed a hand on the lid and then stopped. A nervous feeling settled over me. What if all of that stuff last night had been a daydream and nothing more? What if I’d somehow already known about Sirgiman having three children and a loud wife? What if I’d heard rumours about him skiving off to watch England play football and my imagination had done the rest?

What if I lifted up the lid now, played the rhythm, and nothing happened?

Even if Sirgiman had been skiving, I couldn’t prove it. Nothing would come of it. Sirgiman would be there tomorrow, and the next day, and every day until it was finally time for me to leave Greenfields. But that was years away, a life sentence. How would I survive?

Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe there was a showdown coming. And only one of us would still be standing at the end of it.

I was getting carried away. On the other hand, what if there really was something happening? Something, for want of a better word, magical going on? No, I was being ridiculous. Those kinds of things only happened in Dad’s stories. The cat might believe them, but not sane and rational human beings.

My stomach was rolling. I felt sick. If Ma Apples was a witch passing on magic spells, where would it lead? No good could come of dabbling in magic, I knew that.

Didn’t I? The answer was obvious. I must never play that rhythm again. Never visit Ma Apples again. Better to endure years of Sirgiman than become involved with a witch and end up going to hell.

Or being cooked alive in an oven.

I lifted the lid. Curiosity, according to legend, had killed the cat. But didn’t cats have nine lives? How did it work with thirteen-year-old boys?

Dad walked into the room. “I can’t hear much practice.”

“I -”

“You look as white as a sheet, Joe. You haven’t seen a ghost, have you?”

He started laughing, and I did my best to laugh along. Then I closed the lid. “I need to get my homework done. I’ll practice later.”

When Mum came home, she looked in on me and seemed surprised to see me working. “Are they giving away prizes?” she asked.

Fat chance of that, I thought.

For once I didn’t rush my homework, instead making what Mum would call a ‘thorough job’. It was quite therapeutic, taking my mind off other things. When I’d finished it was time for our evening meal, and after that I did some reading for English. Shakespeare had never seemed so interesting.

I was within an hour of bedtime when Mum asked if I was feeling alright. I put my book down. “Mum, where did you get that old piano?”

“You shouldn’t ask questions like that, Joe.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because.”

“Because what?”

“Just, well, because. It’s like asking how much a present costs.”

I couldn’t quite see the logic, but it was the kind of thing parents said. And anyway, what answer was I expecting? Oh, we found it in a shop specialising in haunted/magical musical instruments?

“What about my piano teacher?”

“What a lot of questions. Is something the matter, Joe?”

“Should there be?”

“Don’t you like Miss Applemore?”

Miss Applemore didn’t sound half as weird as ‘Ma Apples’, and I suddenly felt stupid for letting my imagination drift into a world of magic and witches. “I think I’ll have a quick practice on my piano before bedtime.”

“What a perfect child,” said Mum. “Maths, reading and piano practice all in a single evening and without any argument. What did we do to deserve you?”

I had no idea. It was beyond me.

I lifted up the lid. In the name of scientific experimentation, and nothing else, I resolved to tap out Ping pong in a bottle Martha Apples and be done with. I played it, keeping the rhythm and the tempo steady.

Nothing happened. And why should it? Things like that didn’t happen. Coincidences happened, happened all the time. Falling asleep and daydreaming, those things happened too. I played it again. Just to prove the point.

To tell the truth I was torn between disappointment and relief. I’d wanted something to happen but at the same time I was worried about how I might handle it if it did. I was about to get up from the piano when I decided to play it one final time, in the interests of science, naturally.

I was no more than a few bars in when I saw him. Sirgiman. Clear as day.

Except it wasn’t day. It was dark and he was drunk.

On a dimly lit train in a compartment full of England fans singing their heads off, Sirgiman was clutching a can of lager, telling his troubles to another drunk in cap and scarf sitting next to him. “If it wasn’t for football I think I’d probably kill myself,” he said. “I mean to say, what have I got, really?”

The man either didn’t know the answer or else didn’t care. He kept looking out through the train window at the darkness surrounding the speeding train, while Sirgiman droned on.

“I mean to say, I have a wife who never stops shopping, and when she isn’t shopping, she’s talking on the phone or yelling at the kids, or at me. And what did I do to deserve kids like those animals? I tell you, you need an army, a navy and the b****y air force to keep those devils in check.

“At school at least you’ve got the structure of the establishment behind you. You can humiliate the little creeps to your heart’s content so long as you’ve got a half-decent headmaster to back you up. You can’t go wrong. And our Head, well, you’ve never known one like him. They need more like that one. He’s keen as mustard. He’d shake up this country. He’s got some ideas alright.

“Took a shine to me, soon as he found out I couldn’t abide dreamers. Said there’d be no place in his school for them, and he wasn’t kidding. I think he hates them even more than I do. He’s getting rid of all the dead weight but he won’t get rid of me. Kindred spirits we are. Said this school was just what he’d been looking for. Said it was like coming home. Talking of home - I mean the head at home - the wife, in other words - now there’s a different kettle of fish. She wouldn’t back me up if I tripled my wages and gave it all to her in a silk purse!”

Sirgiman took a long swig from his can and joined the man next to him in staring out at the dark landscape through which the train was charging.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought to check on the result of the football match. It was hard to tell from the scene in the train whether England had won or lost. The rest of the carriage was singing happily enough, but Sirgiman hardly sounded like a man with anything to celebrate.

“And to top it all, there’s a string of birthdays coming up, just to rub my nose in it. Four of them in a month! The wife wants a new kitchen and kids these days don’t do jigsaws! I tell you, don’t even use the word ‘birthday’ around me.”

The singing was getting louder and the man in the cap and scarf had turned away from the window to join in the drunken chorus. Everyone but Sirgiman was singing. He looked even more miserable than he did at school. At school there was always an evil twinkle in his eye, a sign I had always taken to mean that he secretly took great delight in being miserable. He certainly took great delight in making the lives of his pupils miserable, particularly when their names happened to start with Joe and end with Knight.

His face was still fastened to the can of beer, and growing darker by the minute.

“What might have been,” he said to his reflection. “Born on the greatest day the world has ever seen. That summer. 1966, lifting the World Cup at Wembley. Named after Sir Alf Ramsey himself and where has it all got me?”

But nobody on the train was listening. They were too busy singing.

Sirgiman stopped talking. He was staring through his reflection like he was looking into another world. Right into my eyes.

I could hear music, but not the awful, tuneless racket that was going on inside that carriage. A single note played on a piano was bringing me back into the front room, and the train speeding Sirgiman back to Greenfields via his own insane family, dissolved with its cargo of singing drunks.

I put down the lid. If Sirgiman found out he was being spied on, he’d share out my insides as souvenirs. Yet I hadn’t done anything wrong. Sirgiman was the one bunking off school. And now I knew his secret.

Maybe I could use it to my advantage.

I got up from the piano and turned around to see Dad looking straight at me. I prayed that I hadn’t been speaking my thoughts out loud.

“Everything okay, Joe?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“No reason. It’s just that I think you need reminding of something.”

“What’s that?”

“I think you’ll find there’s more than one note on that piano.”

“You’ve said that already.”

“And I’ll keep on saying it.”

Mum walked in. “Joe, oh my goodness, what a sorry face.”

Dad’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Is it time, son?”

“What are you talking about, Dad?”

“Is it time to pass on the mantle?”

Mum muttered something and shook her head. She knew it. I knew it. There was no stopping Dad now.

“That’s what they called me at school, son: The Knight of the Sorry Face. We were studying Don Quixote. Now there was a dreamer! Kneel down, Joe.”

I knelt down. Anything to shut this lunatic up. He disappeared into the lounge and came back a moment later with a rolled up newspaper.

“With this trusty sword that has served me through many a legendary adventure, rescuing damsels from fire-breathing dragons-”

“Jeff! It’s bedtime.”

“Nearly done,” said Dad, placing his imaginary sword across each of my shoulders in turn before resting it finally on my head. “Arise, Sir Sorry Face.” I stood up. “The mantle has passed. Wherever there is a monster to be defeated, look no further than Sir Sorry Face the Younger. Royal righter of wrongs, and curer of injustice the world over. He who will venture into the haunted forest and slay the evil-”

“Jeff! It’s school tomorrow. Enough.”

The morning brought a renewed sense of purpose. I knew Sirgiman’s secret. But what if he took another day off to recover from his hangover - could I wait that long? For once I wanted him in school. There was a conversation waiting that might turn out to be a life changer.

Sirgiman didn’t disappoint me. He looked rough but he was there at the front of the class, sitting at his desk when I walked in. There was no twinkle of s******c delight in his eyes that morning, and the skin around them seemed pale and filled with more lines than the old men who fell asleep in the park clutching cans and bottles.

He was looking worse than I’d ever seen him. Wouldn’t that work in his favour, though, and make it look like he really had been ill? So ill, in fact, that he was barely fit to be in school even now? Sympathy in the staff room and sympathy from the head.

Still, I had no doubt that justice would prevail, and that looking like death wouldn’t save him. Not when they found out why he was looking so awful. Not when they found out what he was doing and where he was doing it when he should have been teaching.

I bided my time. With an ace up my sleeve, the art lay in the timing. I would wait for first break, hanging around the classroom until the others had cleared off. Then I would make my move.

It was hard keeping the smile off my face, and as well that Sirgiman was feeling ill, otherwise my cheerfulness would have been cause for suspicion. As it was, one or two of the kids were already giving me looks.

Then something happened.

I was watching Sirgiman, imagining what it would be like when I confronted him, when I heard a voice from behind me say, “You want to take some water with it next time, sir.”

“Who said that?” asked Sirgiman.

Had I said it? Had my dream become real, the words slipping out?

Todd Toshack stood up. “It’s what they say when somebody’s had too much to drink.”

Sirgiman looked too ill to be angry, and he waved at Todd to sit down. But Todd remained standing. “Oh, come on, sir. You must have been celebrating the football yesterday. I mean, how often do crappy old England win like that?”

“Very amusing,” said Sirgiman, not appearing the least amused.

There was a tension creeping around in the classroom, and a feeling in my stomach. What did Todd know?

The thought that Sirgiman’s secret might be known to Todd brought a fresh wave of panic. I wanted the knowledge for myself, to use it to my full advantage.

“Sir?”

“What!”

“If Wales beat the All Blacks 100-0 and I missed the game, I’d be drowning my sorrows.”

Todd was laughing like he’d heard the best joke ever. There were polite titters from a few of the others but it was tough work faking an enthusiastic response to material like that. Todd had his strengths, but he was not the wittiest of kids. He went on, “England put six past the world champs, and you’re too ill to watch!”

Todd was roaring, and I let out a few sniggers of my own. It was quite something seeing him stand up and make such a complete fool of himself. He clearly didn’t know Sirgiman’s secret. He didn’t know a thing. Did he really imagine Sirgiman at home, too ill to switch on the TV, then getting drunk because he’d missed the match? How could such an i***t be the least bit intimidating?

The answer hardly took a genius. Size and stupidity, a dangerous combination.

Sirgiman let Todd have his moment of self-ridicule while I watched the clock, counting down the minutes to break time.

After the bell sounded and the class had all but cleared, I feigned an interest in the contents of my desk drawer, and after that in the imaginary splinter in my left thumb, before sauntering up to Sirgiman’s desk.

He was scribbling something into a notebook, quickly closing it when he sensed my presence. “What is it, Knight?”

“I was just wondering if you had a nice time yesterday.”

“Is there a point to this because I’m not in the humour for any more stupidity today, understood?”

Standing in his grim shadow I felt my confidence draining. It would be sensible to leave the classroom before any damage was done.

I hesitated. As I did so, the anger appeared to accumulate in him like a chain reaction. “What the hell is it!” he thundered. I took a deep breath. “Knight! Do you hear me! I said–”

“I heard you, loud and clear. But I was wondering what you thought of the pies at Wembley stadium.”

“What?”

“Lucky for you, sir, feeling unwell yesterday, I mean, too unwell to come to work but well enough to travel down to London. Did you have a good time? It certainly looks like you did.”

I was on a roll. Sirgiman was speechless. He rubbed at his eyes as though checking that this was actually happening, and finding that it was real and that he was stuck with it, he quickly got up from his desk, walking over to the classroom door, and closing it. He lay back against it, blocking any possible exit. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, “but I warn you, you’re heading for some serious trouble.”

I shook my head. “I’d say that the boot was on the other foot.” It was one of Dad’s favourite expressions, and I thought it apt in the circumstances.

“What are you talking about, Knight?”

“I’d say that a teacher bunking off school to watch a match is asking for trouble.”

“Are you trying to threaten me, boy?”

I felt a surge of power. “Let’s put it this way, stay off my back and nobody need know our little secret.”

Sirgiman went from speechless rage to laughter before settling into a stare that I couldn’t get the measure of but didn’t like the look of.

“Blackmail?” he said. “Are you intending to blackmail me, Knight?”

The word slapped me in the face. Twice. He was moving towards me and I stepped back, all the power of a moment ago draining out of me.

“Do you know what happens to blackmailers?” Sirgiman’s grin widened. Children could disappear forever into a grin as wide and dark as that. “You know what this means, don’t you, Knight?”

I couldn’t look at him.

“First, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that the boot’s on the other foot. But as you’re fond of that type of expression I’ll explain what it does mean in just those terms. It means that the gloves are off. And in case you’re having difficulty understanding me, Dream Boy, that means that you’re going to be wishing that you’d never been born. See me at lunch break.”

Sirgiman’s dark grin had turned to midnight, and I shot past him and out through the door as fast as my rubber legs would carry me, hoping to find some air out there that I could still breathe.

Sorry Face had entered the dark forest. Slaying the beast that haunted the forest was going to be another matter.