I should really be reading my book club book but now Elvis is haunting me… Yesterday there he was playing in the background of the funfair on a seaside day out; 'That's hound dog," said my five year old confidently. (What am I doing to those poor children?) And today in a story I was reading to him the hero confuses the villains by picking up and wearing a stray Elvis face mask, so thought I'd better update quick. Thanks to everyone reading, watch out for chapter fourteen; it's a tissue alert.


Chapter 13

Thursday 23rd May

'I know I should be glad, why does it hurt so bad, how can you lose what you never had?'

"This one might be a bit different to Trinity School," Candy said as they climbed out of the cab.

"Is this really your old school?" Harry asked.

"No, but it could have been. My school was here. They've shut my school turned it into 5 smaller schools all on the same site. The police still have a strong presence outside at the end of the day but it's not quite the warzone that it was."

Harry shivered despite the warmth of the evening. How could going into a high school be compared to a warzone? This one was only ten blocks from the exclusive one the fortnight before. But the bright colours painted in the hallway did not disguise the stark contrast between this school and the private one. Instead of a cosy couch outside the headmaster's office, there were a number of metal chairs all Harry noted bolted securely to the floor. The corridors were all patrolled by security guards and the metal detector and scanner on the way in had seemed even more intrusive than the one at Heathrow. Harry looked round at the unfriendly and suspicious faces. This was not a place to inspire the young to love science; this was a place to inspire a child to do whatever it took to get out.

"How do you do it?" Harry asked Candy.

"Do what?"

"Get out of here alive?" Harry replied.

"You want me to do the talking?" she asked.

Harry nodded and shifted uneasily in his seat. He was literally ten blocks away from the last school, with the young people that smiled and held the door open for him. Frank McCourt High School might have had a lot of money thrown at it, but the fact remained that most of these students were still reading at a 3rd grade level. The neighbourhood didn't even seem that bad.

"Why are we here?" Harry asked as he settled into a seat at the front of a tutorial room. The fifteen or so students in the room looked like they were only there because they had to be there. It could have been the detention class for all he knew.

"Because one day there will be someone that needs us." Candy explained

"That one just looks like she'd need to access our free childcare for student's facility by next semester."

"Don't knock it Harry, she may be doing the best she can. Maybe she is the one we can help?"

"They need something more than us," Harry said nervously. He was usually aggravated by Candy's presence but tonight he couldn't be more glad that she was the one sat at the desk next to him. He needed her tonight; he was way out of his depth. Even so he couldn't help his thoughts being drawn to another warzone and the hope that his friends would also have someone with them who knew the system, would do the talking for them and knew how to get them out alive.

They shared a cab across town, after the seminar. It wasn't really in Harry's direction but he knew the subway from there and after all he had seen that evening, sharing a cab seemed the safest of all the options.

"Would you like to come up for coffee?" Candy asked as she paid the fare.

"I…err…I,"

"It's ok Harry, you don't have to be shy!" Candy insisted.

Harry looked at his watch and transferred his weight from one foot to the other.

"Look Candy, I've got a lot on my mind at the moment, it wouldn't be fair on you. I won't be good company, do you mind if I take a rain check?" There weren't many Americanisms that Harry enjoyed or used, but that was one that had got him out of trouble more than once. He looked up at his boss; she was obviously not used to being turned down.

"Suit yourself," she said and turned with a flounce to climb the steps to her building.

"Shit!" muttered Harry under his breath. He may have made it safely out of one warzone, but he had the uncomfortable feeling he had just walked straight into another.


How Can You Lose What You Never Had? Weisman & Wayne (Elvis)