Feather Boy by Nicky Singer

Author:Nicky Singer [Nicky Singer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007381975
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2001-09-22T12:00:00+00:00

part two

The Coat of Feathers

11

I’d like to tell you that, after spending the night in Chance House, I was never frightened of anything – or anyone – again. Especially not Niker. But that wouldn’t be true. I think fear can become a habit. And I’d been afraid of Niker for so long, it had become as natural to me as breathing.

So when, the following morning, Niker and I stand on the concrete outside the kitchen of Chance House and he says, with his face very close to mine: “What happened in there was private. Just between the two of us. Understand?” I do understand. It isn’t a threat of the old sort – the one where the tile shard would have been in my throat. But it is, nevertheless, a threat, a statement about the fragility of our new relationship. The tile shard will remain in his pocket, but only if I play the game by his rules.

The first test of the new status quo comes at school on Monday morning.

“Well,” says Kate, “are there ducks or aren’t there ducks?”

Niker says: “There are ducks.”

And I add, without so much as a blink: “Mrs Sorrel mentioned the duck paper, when we were talking about home furnishings. The sort of things that were fashionable in her day compared with what we have now.” Then I smile a goofy smile.

Kate raises an eyebrow. She swings suspicious eyes from Niker’s face to mine.

Niker grins. Not a goofy grin. A huge, triumphant grin.

“Norbert!” Kate exclaims, exasperated.

And OK – it makes me miserable. But not that miserable. You see, deep down, I’m not sure that this is Norbert lying on the floor and allowing himself to be tramped on all over again. It occurs to me that maybe this is Robert speaking. Robert saying what he’s saying to protect the weaker party. And that weaker party is Niker.

Wesley overhears the conversation.

“You stayed in dat spooky, spooky place?” he says, incredulous.

“Got it in one, Weasel,” says Niker.

“And you didn’t go no stir-crazy scaredy-cat?”

“No,” Niker says, “I did not go no stir-crazy scaredy-cat. Generally speaking, I’m not the scaredy-cat type. Am I Norbert?”

“No,” I say.

Letting him get away with this is less forgivable. Because he was scared that night. Scared of the dark, scared of sleeping by himself, just plain scared. But if I challenge him, who would believe me? Certainly not Wesley. After a while, I barely believe myself. No matter how many times I go over it in my mind, I can’t identify the one moment where I can point the finger and say: “It was then, there, that’s when Niker freaked, lost it completely.” Because you see, when the batteries died, he could just have been angry with me, just as he could have been genuinely concerned about me sleeping alone. But if things shift in my mind, they don’t in Niker’s. He was right about the ducks. He was not scared. If you say things loud enough and long enough they take on a life of their own.

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