Mouse looked at him. ‘I thought your dad didn’t approve of laying low.’
‘Or choices for that matter,’ said Del.
‘Yeah, well, normally no, but he felt I deserved some downtime since I passed my French exam and rescued those Wichitino kids from the forest fire.’
‘Quite the little hero,’ said Del, ‘did you get a medal?’
‘No, but my dad got me a bell for my bicycle,’ said Clancy. ‘He even had it engraved.’
‘Boy, he must have been really proud!’ she said. ‘What do you think he would have given you if you had saved a bunch of puppies as well as just those kids?’
‘Probably one of those little windmill things that you can attach to the handle bars,’ said Clancy.
‘Hey, you never said what you were doing out there in the first place,’ said Mouse.
Clancy was knocked off his guard for only a second before he came back with a convincing enough answer. ‘Ah, it was just a coincidence really. I was mad at my dad and so I biked out to Little Bear Mountain, I was going to camp out, get some space to myself – I have five sisters, you know what I’m saying, but then the fire hit.’ It was part of the truth but not the whole truth, yet they all swallowed it, because why not?
Ruby and Elliot arrived, sat down and the six of them chatted on about vacations and heat-waves and anything else that came up.
‘So we should check out some of these film festival movies, huh?’ said Ruby.
‘Yeah,’ said Clancy. ‘I wanna see the Claw again, I mean it’s a classic, right.’
‘I think it’s lame,’ said Elliot. ‘The Sea of Fish Devils is the one to catch.’
‘Are you crazy, man?’ said Del.
This was a conversation they’d all had over and over since the Twinford Film Festival programme had been announced. In fact, they were still in this exact same conversation as they approached the school gates at the end of the day when something quite unexpected happened. Elliot watched Clancy Crew’s face change from relaxed and kind of cheery to a mask of something approaching horror. He followed his friend’s gaze and instantly knew what the problem was. His eyes flicked back from the object of Clancy’s concern to Clancy. Neither of them said anything and no one else saw, not even Ruby who was busy rootling in her satchel.
‘You know what guys,’ said Clancy, ‘go ahead without me, I think I must have left my table-tennis bat in my locker.’
‘You’re holding it duhbrain,’ said Del.
‘Ah, no, not this one, my good one, I mean I thought I had picked up my good one but this is not it.’ Clancy was beginning to sweat. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he called as he ran back towards the school.
‘That is one seriously mixed-up kid,’ said Del.
Ruby registered precisely none of this; she was far more concerned about making it back to Spectrum so she could test out her new theory.
WHEN CLANCY FINALLY DARED TO WALK OUT OF THE TWINFORD JUNIOR HIGH GATES, everyone had long gone. He took the bus back home and went straight up to his room. He sat down on his bed and took a deep, deep breath. What are you going to do about this Clance?
He jumped when the phone rang. ‘Hullo Elliot.’ He knew it had to be Elliot, he had probably rung about twenty-five times already.
‘Hey, howdya know it was me?’
‘Probability.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Elliot, ‘I mean this is bad, man.’
‘Do you want to meet?’ asked Clancy, ‘I think I need to get some air.’
Clancy and Elliot had arranged to meet at the Donut, mainly because Elliot felt safe there. Marla did not allow brawling or customers beating other customers to a pulp, not in her premises and the Gorilla had been told to take a walk. As fearful as he was about being caught in someone else’s punch-up, Elliot was very interested to talk about it.
‘So, have you seen the kid again?’ said Elliot, leaning forward, talking in a hushed voice.
‘Do I look like I have?’ said Clancy, pointing at his face.
‘That’s good,’ said Elliot. ‘What did he look like anyway? I didn’t get a good chance to see.’
‘Ugly,’ said Clancy. ‘Nasty eyes, you know, unpleasant.’
‘Probably one of those kids that’s got no friends, you know.’
‘Even Bugwart has friends,’ said Clancy.
‘Yeah but she’s got a sort of charisma; this guy sounds like a loser,’ suggested Elliot.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Clancy, ‘no charisma that I could detect, but he sure looked like he had plenty of friends hanging around.’
‘That’s not good; if he has friends at Junior High then I expect you will run into him again, huh?’ said Elliot.
Clancy looked at him with exasperation. ‘Would you stop sounding so thrilled about it?’
‘Sorry,’ said Elliot. ‘You think he’s gonna hound you for the rest of your school days?’
Clancy took a deep breath in an effort to keep his cool. ‘Look, I don’t think he’s even realised I’m at Twinford Junior High and since he isn’t even attending Twinford, then if I’m lucky he won’t notice me before graduation. I mean, we only met for like a second. He’s not gonna remember me.’
‘Some hope,’ said Elliot, ‘a kid like that sets his sights on you, you are done for.’
‘That’s helpful,’ said Clancy. ‘I am feeling a whole lot better after this little chat.’
‘You got a way of preventing yourself from being socked in the nose?’
‘Yeah, I’m gonna avoid him,’ said Clancy.
‘And how do you plan to do that?’ asked Elliot.
‘I’m gonna try that technique – the one that magician whats-his-name was talking about.’
‘Which one?’ asked Elliot.
‘Thingy on Channel Z, with the hands that look like they belong to someone else.’
‘The magician guy person?’ said Elliot. ‘Darnley Rex?’
‘Yeah, that guy,’ agreed Clancy, ‘so he was talking about invisibility and—’
‘You’re gonna make yourself invisible?’ interrupted Elliot, ‘by magic?’
Clancy rolled his eyes. ‘Are you nuts? Of course not by magic, I’m talking about the illusion of invisibility.’
‘Well good luck with that.’ Elliot started to laugh.
Clancy rolled his eyes again. ‘You don’t sound like you have a lot of confidence in me.’
‘Oh, I do,’ Elliot laughed. ‘It’s just, say. . .’ He was beginning to lose it now. ‘It’s just, I mean I hate to be a downer here Clancy and throw eggs on your parade or whatever, but what if the kid sees right through your brilliant illusion?’
‘Then I guess I get socked in the nose.’
Elliot nodded. ‘So long as we’re clear.’ He continued to laugh so much that he fell off his chair, which caught