Edenham Comprehensive

Tyler's lying sprawled across his bed, his mouth open and a pillow clutched to his chest, when his phone rings, harsh and stringent and ringing through his ears. He wakes with a jolt, blinking rapidly as he regains consciousness, and pulls his knees into his chest as he sits up, the blankets bunched around his ankles. Scrabbling around on the bedside table, he locates his phone and puts it to his ear, grunting something that vaguely translates as 'Why the hell have you woken me up at this ungodly hour, peasant?'

“Terribly sorry to wake you, Tyler, but it's an emergency.” The other voice is shaky and nervous and a little bit terrified. Tyler vaguely recognises it, and manages to place it as the guy from the stall. Aaron, he thinks his name is, or maybe Alex... no, wait, it's Andy, definitely Andy. Tyler glances at the clock on the wall and sags. Just after six o'clock in the morning. It's really far too early for him to remember his own name, let alone anyone else's.

“What is it?” he barks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand.

“The, uh, the stock hasn't, um, it hasn't arrived yet,” the other boy stammers, the words tripping out of his mouth. “It should've been here half an hour ago but there's no sign of it and I've tried calling the supplier but he's not answering.”

Tyler breathes in deeply, holds the air in his lungs for a few seconds and then breathes it back out again. “Andy,” he starts, his teeth gritted together, “it's just gone six in the morning. Couldn't this have waited another hour or so?”

“I- I thought you'd want to know,” Andy says, the quiver of his voice betraying his anxiety. Tyler's confused, honestly he is. He isn't thatscary, surely. What's he going to do, kill him?

“Right, well, thanks, I suppose,” he mutters, pressing the end call button without further ado. He calls up his contact list, finds the number for thr supplier and hits the call button, his lips set in a small, thin line.

“Hello?” The man sounds grumpy and barely awake, but Tyler can't bring himself to care. If he has to be up this early then so should the cause of the goddamn problem.

“It's Tyler,” the boy says abruptly. “The goods haven't arrived yet. Care to explain why?”

“What goods? You cancelled the order, and every order for the rest of the month.”

Tyler lurches forward, his grip on the phone tightening until his knuckles turn white. “What?” he says, very quietly, very slowly.

“You said you didn't want it any more. I've got an email from you right here,” the supplier informs him, his voice inflecting with confusion.

“I didn't email you,” Tyler enunciates. “I don't know what's going on here but I did not cancel those orders. You must have screwed something up your end.” He can almost feel the other man bristling down the phone, but Tyler's too tired and pissed off to give a shit about politeness right now. “I expect the goods to be ready and waiting for me tomorrow morning at the usual time and place. Understood?”

The man almost tells him where to shove it. He's been wanting to put this over-confident sixteen-year-old boy in his place since he started dealing for him. For God's sake, he's more than half his age! A kid!

But kid or no kid, Tyler has money that he really kind of needs and he can’t afford to lose any more customers. So he just grits his teeth and forces out a reluctant, “Yes,” before hanging up the phone on the irritating brat.

The irritating brat tosses his mobile aside, barely acknowledging the light flump it makes as it lands on his bed. His mouth stretching into a yawn, Tyler covers his face, wanting nothing more to crawl into bed and never come out of it again. But there's a mess that needs to be cleaned up and a school that needs to be run and really, he's always been far too proud to cower from the world and its many problems.

So that's why, blinking the last dregs of sleep from his eyes, he drags himself out of bed and flounces into the bathroom, stifling a yawn as he shuts the door behind him. After a quick shower, he returns to his room to towel his hair dry and throw on his uniform. He's just adjusting his tie when his dad pokes his head around the door, a timid little smile on his lips.

Tyler gives one final vicious tug on his tie, securing it at his throat, and composes his face into a perfectly blank expression. “What is it, Dad?” he asks flatly, his eyes fixed on the wall behind his father's head.

“It's your sister,” he replies slowly, and Tyler has to bite back a bitter laugh. Of courseit's Izzy. “She's not doing too good. Your mum just called and said she had a rough night, didn't sleep well.”

“And?” Tyler arches an eyebrow, trying for flippant but missing by a few hundred miles. “She always has rough nights.”

His dad gives a tight, pained smile, the one that says 'I'm trying my hardest to be patient with you but really you're being utterly unreasonable'. Tyler's more than used to it by now. “Your mum found a new miracle treatment online the other day. She really thinks this one'll work, it's got scientific proof and everything-”

“Dad,” Tyler says, his voice more gentle than the man deserves, “you know it's more than likely just a scam.”

“Yeah.” His father coughs, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “But you know what your mother's like when she gets something into her head.”

Tyler looks up at him then, notices the weak attempt at a smile, the deep-set wrinkles forming around his eyes and mouth and the dark circles around his hollow eyes, and he wonders just when it was his dad got so old. He swallows, once, and closes his eyes.

“Okay, Dad,” he says, a note of finality in his voice. “I'll see what I can do.”

He doesn't open his eyes, doesn't want to see the look of gratitude on his father's face, plastered thinly over the fear and suspicion. They asked him once, just once, why he always had so much money, where all his savings came from because they sure as hell didn't come from them.

“I'm running a secret criminal organisation which exploits my classmates for their greed and stupidity,” he replied, truthfully.

They never brought it up again.

(It wasn't his fault they didn't believe him.)

There's a soft click which signals his door being shut and at the sound, Tyler opens his eyes, his lashes fluttering as he blinks repeatedly. For a few moments, he simply stares at the space his father occupied just seconds ago and then he bends down, picks up his bag and trudges out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

***

Fifteen minutes later, Tyler's getting off the bus on the high street just up from Edenham. He heads straight for Barclays, groaning when he catches sight of the queue for the cash machine. With a huff, he joins the end, clunking his bag against his leg for want of something to do, glaring daggers at the woman standing in front of him who mutters something disparaging about 'young people today'. After what feels like forever, the man at the front leaves, but the rest of the queue moves in pretty much the same vein.

An eternity later, Tyler's standing in front of the machine, stabbing in his PIN number with a vicious finger. He presses the button to withdraw cash, deliberates between twenty and fifty quid and decides on the latter since the feel of money lining his pockets always makes him feel better.

Seconds later, his jaw drops.

You cannot withdraw this amount, the screen informs him, smugly. You have insufficient funds.

“This is not my day,” he growls, stabbing the button to eject his card and removing it from the slot. There must have been a cock up in the bank somewhere; he'll go back and yell at them later. For now, he needs to get to school and sort out the stall.

He stomps off down the road, his mood growing darker with every step he takes. And just when he's certain his day cannot possibly get any worse, he walks through the school gates and promptly grinds to a halt.

At least three hundred people are clustered around the tree stump, joined together by their linked arms. Another couple of hundred form an unbroken line behind them across the entire width of the playground, holding placards. They vary in their content, but nearly all of them feature a critical comment about Tyler and his leadership, coupled with a particularly unflattering drawing of the man himself. A couple of prime examples of their eloquence are 'TYLER SUCKS' and 'DOWN WITH OPRESSION (which is missing a 'p', Tyler notes with some distaste), UP WITH FREEDOM'. On his throne, poised like some kind of crime-fighting team from a television show he can't remember the name of right now, are Casey, Reuben and Georgia.

Tyler's mouth opens, tries to form words, shuts again.

From her position on the stump, Georgia giggles. Casey affords her a disapproving glance; Reuben only bites back a grin.

“What's going on?” Tyler manages, his voice still carrying easily over the students' heads to the three people his question is directed at.

“We're staging a protest,” Georgia calls back, the smirk audible in her voice. “Against the system and everything you stand for.”

Tyler's eyes narrow, and he steps forward towards them. Instantly, the people in front of the throne move to block him, and he growls. He tries to approach from a different angle but the same happens again.

“Screw it,” he mutters. “I haven't got time for this.”

And as he stomps off in the direction of the stall - blocked, conveniently, by the long line of people - he can't help but think they picked a mighty fine day to stage this revolution of theirs. Typical, he thinks. It's just bloody typical that it would all happen on the same day.

He approaches the weediest looking kid in the line - a Year Seven, by the looks of it, most definitely a Grade 3 - and bestows upon her the most withering glare he can muster.

The girl visibly cowers.

“Get out of my way,” Tyler says, his voice dangerously low, “now.”

To her credit, she stands her ground, though she looks very much like she wants to run and hide and never look back. Tyler snorts, shaking his head at her stupidity, and shoves her aside before stomps through the gap in the human fence.

And then he stops, right in the middle of the playground, his forehead creased with confusion.

The stall's vanished. The space of concrete it previously occupied is completely and utterly empty, with not even a lone crisp wrapper or a leftover cardboard box to betray the fact that it ever existed in the first place.

Tyler spins on his heel and storms back through the line of people as the pieces start to slot together in his mind. It's so obviousto him now that he can't believehe didn't see it earlier, or that he let himself fall into such an obvious trap.

Reuben jumps down from the tree stump, followed shortly by Casey and Georgia. He has the gall to smirkat him with that look in his eyes like he knows everything and Tyler is just a tiny, tiny speck on his peripheral vision and oh, how the tables have turned.

“Problem?” Reuben says innocently, rubbing his hands together with ill-disguised glee.

“You know damn well there's a problem,” Tyler snarls, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “I want my stock back, whatever you've done with it. And the stall. And the money in my account.”

Reuben holds up his hands, shaking his head with fake pity. “Sorry, man, I don't know what you're on about.”

“Yes, you do.” And Tyler hates Reuben for making him like this, for taking away his dignity and reducing him to a whiny schoolboy begging for his toys back. “Give it all back, right now.”

“It's a tricky situation you've got yourself into, isn't it?” Reuben's eyes practically gleam as he smirks at him. I've got you right where I want you, they proclaim, and you have no idea how good that feels. “I mean, no stock means no money and no means of controlling your little minions. What are you going to do now?”

With a snarl, Tyler lunges towards the other boy but he hasn't taken two steps before two big, burly Year Tens are grabbing him by his arms and pulling him back. Tyler struggles in their grip for a few seconds before going limp, realising the futility of the situation. Where are his goons - friends, he reminds himself for the umpteenth time - when he needs them?

“Let him go,” Casey says evenly, speaking for the first time. The boys holding him obey, albeit reluctantly, and Tyler staggers forward, dusting himself down with a huff. She bites her lip and for a moment she almost looks sorry for him, but she looks away quickly before he can be certain.

“I'm still your leader,” Tyler says, a trace of desperation weaving into his tone. “I'm still king.”

Georgia snorts. “Some king you are. Look around, Tyler. We've got half the school on our side and pretty soon, no one's going to want to follow you any more.”

“I'm still king,” he repeats, but this time even he can hear how empty his words sound.

Casey steps towards him but Reuben catches her by the arm and holds her back, whispering something in her ear. Biting her lip, she nods, not taking her eyes off Tyler.

“You could give up now,” she says, quietly, and her eyes plead with him to just say yes. “Stand down and we'll stop. We can resolve this quietly and amicably and no one has to get hurt.”

Tyler raises his eyes from the ground inch by inch until they're resting on his ex-girlfriend's face. “Never,” he whispers, somewhat gratified by the way she flinches in response. Really, though, she shouldn't have expected anything else. Like Tyler Westwood would ever concede defeat.

“Fine,” Reuben replies, clearly bored. “If you want to do things the hard way, that's fine by us. Either way, we're going to win. You know we will.”

The bell for registration rings and just like that, the hordes of people converge on the school, squeezing through the doors until the only ones left are the golden trio. Georgia shakes her head at him before striding off, not even glancing back in his direction. Reuben gives him a condescending pat on the back as he passes him and heads after her.

Casey stands there in front of him for a few moments more, her expression unreadable. Tyler meets her gaze unflinchingly, and something wordless passes between them.

“I'm sorry,” she says eventually, and after everything Tyler ought not to believe her. He ought to feel cheated, betrayed, but the only emotion he can decipher is a cold, bitter acceptance. This is happening, and the only thing he can do is fight back as best he can.

She steps towards him and for a moment, she looks like she might lean forward the few extra centimetres and hug him but then Reuben calls, “Casey, come on! We're going to be late for registration!”

Checking herself, Casey hurries past him, leaving Tyler alone in the middle of his cold, abandoned concrete kingdom.