Chapter Text
“Hey Howell.”
Don’t turn around, Dan thinks as he makes his way to his last class of the day. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
“What, are you deaf as well as dumb?”
Dan walks faster.
“Ooh, someone’s in a hurry.”
“Probably wants to get to class early so he can suck up to the teacher. Only way he’ll be passing any classes around here.”
“Don’tcha mean so he can suck off the teacher?”
“Same difference, in his case.”
Laughter echoes behind him as he reaches the bottom of the main stairwell. His legs shake with barely-concealed rage as he begins climbing it to reach his chemistry class on the upper floor, two sets of heavy footsteps following close behind. He is one step from the top when a meaty hand reaches around and slaps the textbooks out of his arms. They fall to his feet and go tumbling down the stairs, much to the amusement of the two boys behind him.
Dan whirls around, skin on fire, blood pumping in his ears. Harvey Crenshaw stares back at him, clearly delighted, grinning his gap-toothed grin.
“Drop something, didja Howell?” Crenshaw asks innocently. Behind him, Jason Trainor cackles and snorts.
Dan opens his mouth to reply, hesitates, closes it and purses his lips. With a deep breath through his nose, he marches down the stairs to get his books.
“Toldja he don’t talk,” Crenshaw stage whispers after him.
“Girl in my history class said she heard him talk when he first got here,” Trainor replies. “Said he’s all high-pitched and posh like a girl who’s gone to finishing school.”
“That’s just the way they talk. Easiest way to tell a fag. They all sound alike.”
In addition to the chemistry and French textbooks with their pages splayed, dozens of loose pieces of paper are scattered on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. To be fair, Dan is partially at fault for always stuffing his homework and old tests between the pages of his books rather than putting them safely in a binder, but his chemistry assignment is due in a few minutes and is somewhere amongst the rubble, so it’s a bit late to chastise himself for not having his life in order.
The tardy bell rings when only half of his possessions have been collected. He finds another smattering of papers near a trophy case, crams them in his backpack, and sprints back up the stairs, praying that the homework he needs isn’t still on the floor.
He bursts into the classroom when Mr Leckie is telling the students to pass their homework to the front. All eyes shift to him. At the back of the room, Crenshaw and Trainor titter.
Mr Leckie crosses his arms and raises a thin, grey eyebrow. “Nice of you to join us, Mr Howell. I presume you have your homework?”
Dan gulps as he hurriedly unzips his bag, trying to ignore the way he can feel Mr Leckie’s eyes on the crumpled contents. He finds homework and old tests for almost every class. Except chemistry.
“I—” Dan’s voice comes out as a squeak, having gone unused all day. Murmurs of “He can talk?” and “I told you so” surface from his classmates, but he does his best to ignore those too. He clears his throat and tries again. “I did do it.”
“I did do it,” mimics a falsely-high voice from the back of the room.
Something in Dan snaps.
“Fuck off, Crenshaw.”
Crenshaw responds with an exaggerated guffaw. “What’d you just say?”
“Boys,” Mr Leckie warns.
“I said,” Dan says, voice growing in volume, taking a few strides towards Crenshaw’s desk. He vaguely registers his teacher’s voice behind him telling him to stop. He ignores it. “Fuck. Off. Are you deaf as well as a total bloody moron?”
Dan thinks he sees the amusement in Crenshaw’s eyes flicker to hatred, but then the grin is back, devilish as ever. “Always knew you had a mouth on you. Know what they say about the quiet ones.”
For a moment, Dan considers punching Crenshaw right in his bulbous nose. As his fingers curl into fists, he weighs the pros and cons of doing something that could very well get him expelled less than three weeks after enrolling. On the one hand, his mother warned him that he had better behave himself at this school, as there are only two schools within biking distance of their house and Dan has already been kicked out of the other. On the other hand, Crenshaw’s nose would probably make a very satisfying cracking noise if Dan were to hit it just right.
Before he can decide what to do, he feels a presence behind him.
“Mr Howell.”
Dan turns around slowly, lifting his head to meet his teacher’s stern gaze. His anger suddenly dissipates, replaced by a sick feeling in his stomach. “Headmistress’s office?”
Mr Leckie nods, holding out a slip of paper.
Dan’s shoulders droop. He takes the paper and drags his feet towards the classroom door, sparing one last glare at Crenshaw and Trainor, who are snickering again. Everyone else is just staring—some in amusement, some in shock.
“And yes,” Dan announces before he leaves the room, figuring he can’t make things much worse, “I can talk.”
❁❁❁
Headmistress Donna Ellington is a terrifyingly thin woman with equally terrifying icy green eyes, the kind that might be pretty if they weren’t shrouded in clumpy mascara and constantly boring into your soul. Right now, they’re peering over the top of her sharp-edged glasses while the target of her gaze tries not to squirm in his seat.
“Do you know why you’re here?” she asks, voice calm and even, carrying the posh accent of a wealthy upbringing and the slight rasp of a closet smoker. Dan strains his ears for any hint of emotion, good or bad, but finds none.
Dan shrugs and tries to look remorseful. The question is a trap with which he is all too familiar. If he tells her everything that happened, he runs the risk of confessing more than he is actually in trouble for. Say only a little bit, and he’ll likely be prompted with “And…?” until he has said it all anyway. Remain in stoic silence, and he’ll be accused of disrespect. Best to act like he’s just too ashamed to speak.
Ellington must be familiar with this routine as well, because not an ounce of pity permeates her stony expression. “No?”
The end of the word lilts like a question, but Dan is pretty sure it’s rhetorical. He keeps his head bowed.
“You can play the silent game all day if you wish, but I would appreciate it if you would look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
Dan lifts his head, but he still can’t bring himself to maintain eye contact. He settles on studying her salt-and-pepper hair, which is pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head.
“Thank you. Now, you and I both know why you’re here, so let’s get on with it, shall we? Coming to class late without your homework and being generally disruptive are bad enough, but this school will not tolerate disrespect. You said extremely rude things to a fellow classmate, and, possibly worse, you ignored your teacher when he asked you to stop.”
Dan nods. He knows that he could explain the situation, tell her what happened on the way to class, but with no teachers around to witness the incident, it would likely do no good. Plus, if word got back to Crenshaw and Trainor that Dan ratted them out, his life could get much, much worse.
“That being said,” she continues, “I understand that you and your family have been through a difficult time lately and that enrolling in a new school in the middle of the year can be difficult on its own.”
Now this, Dan didn’t expect. “Does that mean no detention?”
“No detention,” the headmistress confirms, and Dan can’t believe his ears. “You will receive two days out-of-school suspension instead.”
Oh.
“Starting tomorrow, you are not allowed on school premises for the remainder of the week. You will not be permitted to make up any work that you miss in your absence. Am I understood?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” She glances at her watch and then back up again. “As the school day is almost over, I see no point in you returning to class today. Assuming you have a way to get home?”
“I have my bike.”
The headmistress nods. “Very well. You are dismissed.”
Dan doesn’t need to be told twice. He scurries out of his chair and towards the exit as quickly as he can without being overtly rude, but before he can open the door, he hears, “One more thing, Daniel.”
“It’s Dan.” Dan doesn’t know why he says it. Perhaps he’s surprised that someone at the school finally called him by his first name. Perhaps he just has a death wish.
Headmistress Ellington doesn’t seem perturbed by his correction though. In fact, if Dan didn’t know better, he might think he sees a glimmer of humour pass through her eyes, just for a second. “Dan. I want you to look at this suspension not just as a punishment but as an opportunity.”
He waits for her to elaborate on what exactly this opportunity is, but she doesn’t.
“Your punishment could have been much, much worse,” she continues, almost to herself. She lowers her eyes to the paperwork on her desk and shoos him with her hand. “Don’t expect me to be so lenient next time.”
The school day doesn’t end for another twenty-six minutes, but Dan hears laughter as he steps into the bitter autumn air.
“Reckon he’ll cry?” a voice he recognises as Jason Trainor’s asks.
“Probably. Didja see his face when he left? Besides, people say Aunty Donna is one scary bitch when you’re in trouble with her. Not that I’d know. No teacher in their right mind would send me to her office.”
Dan ducks behind a tree, digging his fingers into the bark to keep himself from jumping out and giving Harvey Crenshaw the bloody nose he deserves. He should have guessed the bastard was related to the headmistress. No wonder he acts like such an entitled prick. He could probably beat Dan up in front of the whole school and still get away scot-free.
It isn’t fair.
“Well they still might send me if we’re not back in class soon. Leckie might be a wanker, but he’ll still know eight minutes is too long for two students to use the toilet.”
“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m done.”
Dan remains perfectly still, listening to the leaves crunch under the other boys’ feet until he hears the school doors open and close behind them. He peeks around the tree slowly, making sure they are really gone before sprinting to the bike rack, which now reeks of weed. He unchains his bike as quickly as he can, hops on, and sets off for home.
Normally, it takes Dan almost twenty minutes to bike from the school in Earley to his house in Sonning, a fact that he complains about to his mother any chance he gets. (He wishes she’d stop reminding him that it’s his own fault he can’t still go to the only secondary school in his own parish).
Dan doesn’t know it yet, but today is anything but normal.
The day’s events have him so mad that five minutes pass before he realises that something is wrong. He pushes on, ignoring the way the wheels of his bike wobble more and more violently with every passing second. He almost makes it to the sign welcoming him to Sonning when he hears a metallic sort of groan and finds himself toppling over his handlebars towards the pavement.
❁❁❁
Blue.
That’s the first thing Dan thinks when he comes to his senses. He opens his eyes and blinks up at the grey sky, turns his head to the left and squints at the brown-green grass set ablaze with fallen leaves. On his right, his crimson bicycle lies mangled on the pavement, the cracked black of the empty road just beyond. Dandelions and golden flowers line the road’s edge. Nowhere can he find the flash of blue that he’s sure he saw right before he passed out.
He sits up carefully and rubs his head, surprised when he can’t find a bump. In fact, for having fallen hard enough to knock him unconscious, his head hurts surprisingly little. There’s only a dull ache and slight tenderness at the back of his skull, as though he hit it days ago instead of minutes. He pushes himself to his feet, hoping that this isn’t one of those cases where internal swelling will kill him in his sleep.
It’s fortunate, he supposes, that he somehow managed to fall to the left, landing on grass instead of pavement or asphalt. Though he could have sworn he remembers falling forward, not sideways.
His bike wasn’t so lucky.
The scratched paint is the least of its problems. The frame is dented in multiple places and bent in the middle, and the front wheel lies several feet away from the bike itself. He checks the back wheel, finding it loose to the point of nearly falling off as well, and suddenly realises that Crenshaw and Trainor may have had reasons other than getting high for skipping class that afternoon.
“Fuckers,” Dan mutters as he bends down to tighten the loose bolt as best he can with his fingers. When he’s done, he gets to work scouring the grass for the one that fell off the front.
He can’t find it anywhere.
Ten minutes and two cars pass by before he gives up. He gets to his feet, brushing dirt off his knees and praying that the people who drove by weren’t from his school, though he knows he has bigger things to worry about.
Namely, the fact that his mum is going to kill him.
As if getting suspended wasn’t bad enough. When she sees the condition of his practically new, way-too-expensive bike, he’s done for.
Unless…
Mrs Howell has been working late recently—even later than she used to. She often doesn’t get home until Dan has already scrounged around the fridge for dinner, by which point she is so exhausted that she usually drags herself to bed early without having anything to eat. Dan knows she’s sharp enough to notice a nearly-destroyed bike sitting in the garage, but maybe if there wasn’t any bike at all…
It’s his only hope. Besides, he really doesn’t feel like dragging a one-wheeled bike home today. Pushing away his fear that it could be stolen in his absence, he makes up his mind to leave his bike here overnight and retrieve it in the morning after his mother leaves for work.
He just wishes there was somewhere to chain it up. He looks around for a good tree, but all the ones he finds are either too thick for his bike lock to go around or too flimsy to do any good. He examines the Sonning sign, but it’s nothing more than a brick rectangle, its bottom flush against the ground from every angle.
Finally, his eye catches on an overgrown hedge maybe eight meters back from the road. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it before; it must be twice as tall as Dan himself, and its glossy green leaves seem to stand out proudly against the warm, muted colors of autumn. Picking up the bike and the detached wheel, he makes his way towards it. If he can’t secure his most expensive possession, he thinks, he can at least hide it. He shoves the front of his bike into the tangle of leaves.
It stops with a clang.
“What the hell?” Dan mumbles. He drops the bike and reaches out with both hands to part the hedge. Only it isn’t a hedge at all, he now realises, but a chain-link fence covered in ivy so dense and overgrown that it must not have been tended in decades. It’s what lies beyond the fence, however, that makes him gasp.
Through the rusty wires, Dan is met with a shock of colour. Where the grass is dull and dying on Dan’s side of the fence, it is tall and bright on the other. Flowers of nearly every colour sprout in it, numerous enough that they almost overwhelm the green. A cobbled path cuts through them, following the curve of the land and disappearing behind a gentle hill, on top of which stands an enormous oak tree. The other end of the path winds around a pond that is more cattails and lily pads than water before branching off in multiple directions.
Forgetting about his predicament, Dan starts walking the length of the fence, running his hands across the leaves and trying to find an entrance. He has been walking for a full minute when something flies over the fence and lands at his feet.
Dan stops. In the grass in front of him, seemingly looking straight at him, is a tiny bird with feathers the most shocking shade of blue Dan has ever seen. Dan stares at it, wondering if it is the blue thing he saw before he passed out.
The bird cocks its head to the side.
“Erm,” Dan says, feeling as though the bird is waiting for him to do something, though he can’t quite say why. “Hi.”
The bird turns around immediately. Dan sighs, thinking he has scared it away, but then it just hops a few steps forward, turns back around, and stares at him.
Dan takes a cautious step towards it. The bird turns and starts hopping again. Dan follows it along the fence, sure that it will fly off at any moment but continuing forward all the same. After several minutes, it comes to a stop and turns to face him again.
“What now?” Dan asks, and then he shakes his head. “I’m talking to a bird,” he says, running a palm over his face. “I followed a bird, and now I’m asking it for instruction.” He must have hit his head harder than he originally thought.
The bird blinks. Dan didn’t even know that birds could blink until now. He shakes his head again and turns to leave, mumbling to himself about the long nap he’s going to take as soon as he gets home.
The bird starts chirping loudly.
Dan turns around to look at it. It stops chirping. He starts walking away, and it starts chirping again.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he says. He turns a final time and stomps towards the bird. “What? What do you want?”
The bird chirps once more before lifting itself off the ground and soaring over the fence. Dan thinks he has finally scared it off, but before he can leave, the bird returns, fluttering near his head and chirping incessantly.
“Well I can’t very well fly over it, can I?” Dan tells the bird, but it doesn’t seem to care. It darts back and forth over the fence before finally staying on the other side, though Dan can still hear it chirping. He parts the leaves where he thinks the sound is coming from and, sure enough, sees the bird directly on the other side. But that’s not all he sees. On his side of the fence, mere centimeters from his hand, is a latch. It makes a screeching sound as Dan lifts it, as though it hasn’t been used in years. He laces his fingers through the wires and pulls. With a great deal of effort, he manages to open the stiff gate.
“Thanks,” he tells the bird, who then flies away as though its job is done.
The garden is even more breathtaking from the inside. And that’s what it is, Dan can now tell: a garden scattered with mossy wooden boxes that probably once acted as raised beds but are now full of wildflowers and weeds that tangle in with the rest. There’s a sense of warmth here despite the fact that it’s October, and Dan has the strangest urge to strip off his school uniform and jump into the pond for a leisurely afternoon swim, then maybe lie in the dappled sunlight under the great oak, breathing in the fresh air he didn’t know he was deprived of until this moment.
Before he can drink it all in, his phone vibrates in his pocket.
He takes it out with fumbling fingers, squinting at the screen in the sunlight that seems to have chosen this particular moment to appear from behind a cloud.
The school called. Coming home early…we need to talk. –Mum
Yep. He’s screwed.
Dan sighs and shoves his phone into his pocket. He jogs back to where he left his bike, grabbing both it and the front wheel before returning to the garden. He throws his possessions inside without a second thought, closes the gate behind them, and starts for his house, hoping beyond hope that he can make it there before his mother does.