Edenham Comprehensive

The mid-week assembly is never anything special, or particularly interesting. It usually consists of the headteacher, Mr. Prescott, a bumbling old man with all the competence of a pubescent ape, rambling on about something or other that no one really cares about. This time it’s exams, with a special lecture for the Year Elevens since they’ll be doing their mocks at the end of the term.

So it’s not exactly surprising that three minutes into it, Reuben’s half-asleep, leaning way back in his chair with his eyes closed. It’s normal for him, and Casey has resigned herself to being responsible for ensuring he doesn’t get caught doing it. That usually means she gets to elbow him in the ribs, hard, if any teachers happen to look their way, and she does like to abuse her position in order to get some satisfaction from the mediocrity of assembly.

“Ow!” Reuben glares at her, massaging his ribs after her fourth assault of the morning. “You’re just doing this to piss me off, aren’t you?”

“Did it really take you this long to figure it out?” Casey whispers back, but her good-natured smile softens the blows and he could almost believe that her abuse of him is affectionate.

Almost.

Shaking his head, he leans back in his chair to close his eyes and try to sleep for the last few minutes of assembly. He yawns, trying to block out Mr. Prescott’s words, but then he jolts awake when he realises what he’s saying.

“We regret to announce that four of our Year Eleven pupils were mugged last night in the park next door to school. Martin Armstrong and Dean Sullivan of 11G and 11S respectively are currently in hospital recovering from their injuries. The police aren’t sure who the offenders are, but they are more than likely the teenage yobs who’ve been skulking the area recently. We would like to remind all pupils how dangerous the park is, especially at night, and would request that you all steer clear of it after school has finished.”

Reuben gapes.

Casey glances at him nervously, then back to the stage. The knowledge sits heavy on their shoulders, but so does the guilt. They know, almost instinctively, what last night was about. And they know that, however indirectly, they are to blame.

He says it first, the one word the two of them have both been thinking: “Tyler.”

She just nods dumbly. Assembly finishes pretty quickly after that; Mr. Prescott drones on for a bit more about safety hazards and then dismisses them, looking almost fearful as he sends his pupils out into the world.

Reuben jumps up out of his seat and strides out the door, his eyes narrowed to slits and his fists curled at his sides. Muttering, Casey hurries after him, praying he won’t do anything stupid.

Like that, she thinks despairingly as Reuben storms up to Tyler, who’s with Nicole and a few other Grade 1s, and taps him on the shoulder. Tyler turns around and Reuben raises his fist but Casey’s there, holding him back, whispering to him that it’s not worth it, it’s so not worth it and slowly, she feels him relaxing in her grip.

Tyler looks as imposing ever, maybe more so, what with the faded purple bruise over his eye and the scratches and cuts cross-hatching his face. He raises a casual eyebrow and says, “I suppose you want to confront me to defend the honour of your pathetic friends. Am I right?”

Reuben hisses. He can’t quite formulate a response just yet; in fact, he’s still having trouble remembering how to breathe. Only Casey’s hand curled around his upper arm is stopping him from ripping that monster into shreds.

“Well you’re in the wrong place because I had nothing to do with it,” Tyler continues. “Like Mr. Prescott said, it was probably petty criminals who needed a bit of cash.”

“You lying bastard.” Reuben spits on the floor between them, but the other boy doesn’t even flinch.

Casey frowns, confusion set into the deep line between her eyebrows. “Reuben, he isn’t- he isn’t lying.”

Reuben doesn’t even look at her; he’s too busy glaring at Tyler to pay attention to anyone else. “Of course he is. He might not have beat them up personally but he gave the order and it’s because of him that Marty and Dean are lying in a hospital right now.”

But Casey’s known Tyler for the best part of ten years and she’s developed a sort of intuition which enables her to tell when he’s lying. Right now, he isn’t. In all honesty, Tyler doesn’t lie all that often. He manipulates the truth until it’s a twisted, barely recognisable mockery of it, but the truth is still there, buried under the surface. He’s not lying. He’s just not telling the truth.

Tyler raises an eyebrow. “Why would I want them to be beaten to a pulp, eh? They’re Grade 2s. They’re nothing important.” Reuben bristles at this, and Casey’s grip on his arm tightens. “I’ve got nothing against them and they’ve got nothing against me.”

“But that’s not true, is it?” Casey says quietly.

Tyler’s eyes flick to Nicole for a fraction of a second, so quick they’d have missed it if they blinked, before he looks back at Casey. But it’s enough. Casey frowns, but she isn’t given much time to contemplate the implications of this before Tyler speaks.

“I don’t know what you mean.” His voice is careful, measured. To the untrained ear, he sounds completely innocent. But Casey knows him better than that.

“Yesterday,” she says, slowly. “They stood up for a Grade 3. Protected him. Went against every single rule there is and you couldn’t stand for that, could you?”

Tyler stiffens. “Lots of things happened yesterday. They won’t be happening again. I’m back now. Things are under control.”

Casey almost smiles. “Of course they are. You made sure it would be by scaring all the dissidents into silence. Marty and Dean and Raj and Sam would be legends for what they did yesterday because no one’s ever done anything like it before and odds are, no one ever will again. But two of them are in hospital and the other two are scared shitless and everyone else is just watching, petrified, waiting for what you’ll do next.”

Tyler’s silent. For once, he has nothing to say, no witty comebacks, no effortlessly humiliating put-downs. Just silence.

“And the rest of the school, the ones who don’t know any better,” Casey continues, her tone embittered by her quiet, growing anger, “go back to normal as if yesterday never even happened. You didn’t need to get rid of me and Reuben. That would’ve been too obvious. It might not have been you, it might have been one of your minions but either way, it was somehow connected to you. You had to send out a message, short and simple, to stop the revolution. With fear. With violence. With a demonstration of power.” She pauses, her eyes clear grey shards of ice-cold fury. “But I am telling you now it did not work. We will not be silenced. You mess with one of us and you mess with all of us. We will not give up; we’ll only work harder to stop you because every day, it becomes more evident that you are a force of vicious cruelty and this has to end. This oppression, it has to end.”

They’ve garnered quite a crowd, of curious onlookers or just people trying to get past to get back to their classrooms. Out of nowhere, someone cheers. Then another. Then another. In seconds, people from every year and every Grade are whooping and clapping and cheering and it’s chaos all over again and Casey thinks that maybe, just maybe, there might be hope for them after all.

“STOP.”

Tyler doesn’t even need to raise his voice. Slowly, the celebration is culled by sheer fear of what the king will do. He sweeps the congregation with his eyes and showers them with his cold gaze, putting out the flames of rebellion in one fell swoop. Hope withers and droops as quickly as it grew, but it’s not lost. It is never really lost.

With one last glare in Casey and Reuben’s direction, Tyler turns, grabs Nicole and strides away, the rest of his posse following behind him. The crowd slowly dissipates, and they’re left standing in the corridor alone.

Reuben glances down at Casey, his warm brown eyes filled with undisguised admiration. “How’d you do that?”

She frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

“How did you reduce Tyler to... well, to a gibbering wreck?”

“He was hardly gibbering,” she mutters, shifting from foot to foot. “He was more speechless than anything else.”

“Still.” Reuben offers her an approving grin. “I’ve never seen anyone render Tyler Westwood speechless before. How do you do it?”

“By not beating him up for a start.” She smiles, but there’s something sad in the gentle curve of her lips. “Violence doesn’t work on Tyler. He feeds off confrontation because it gives him power. You have to show him that you don’t care what he says or what he does. That you don’t care about him. That’s what he’s most afraid of, really. People not caring.” She bites her lip and glances down, toeing the ancient carpet at her feet. “He’s only ever wanted people to care.”