Ghost MacIndoe. Jonathan Buckley

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       9. Praa

      They were standing at the end of a gravel driveway that ran between high walls of fresh brick. ‘There’s a five-a-side pitch out the back,’ John Halloran said to Alexander, looking avariciously at the long clapboard hut that stood at the end of the driveway. ‘They play football after every session,’ he went on. ‘Sometimes they do a manhunt round the streets. You get a five-minute start and you have to make chalk marks on the walls as you go, and the rest of them come after you.’

      ‘It looks like an army camp,’ Alexander observed. The severed neck of a milk bottle, like a crown of jagged glass, lay on the kerbstone. This detail Alexander would always remember, and that John kicked it away to make him listen.

      ‘It’s not like the army at all. You’re not going to end up dead, for one thing, and you don’t have to sign up if you don’t want to. Come on, Al. Don’t be wet. If we don’t like it we won’t join.’

      ‘We don’t have to join right away?’

      ‘Definitely don’t. You can muck around for months before making your mind up. That’s what Pete did.’

      ‘You sure?’ asked Alexander, and he took a few steps up the drive, as if a nearer view of the building might dissipate his doubts. The hut occupied its quiet yard like a boat in a backwater dock. There was something appealing about its solitariness, and about the fleur-de-lys badge that gleamed on the door like an occult symbol.

      ‘It’ll be a giggle,’ John urged. ‘Give it a go, Al.’

      So that evening they were collected from John Halloran’s house by Peter Nichols, who was standing stiffly on the path when they opened the door, his arms straight against his sides. ‘At ease,’ John shouted, but their classmate’s punctilious expression did not change.

      Placing first one foot and then the other on the doorstep, Peter Nichols corrected the garters of his thick grey socks, and then he tapped the peak of his cap, to make the point that his uniform was the token of his seniority. ‘You’d better button your shirt up,’ he told John.

      ‘You’re kidding,’ John replied.

      ‘No,’ said Peter Nichols.

      ‘But it’s not school.’

      ‘It’s not school, but if you’re not smart you won’t go far,’ Peter Nichols told them. ‘Better get used to it now,’ he said, and he escorted them to the scout hut at a quick march, barely speaking to them.

      When they entered the hut Peter Nichols crossed the floor to talk to a group of uniformed boys at the back of the room. Some of the boys Alexander recognised from school, but none of them took any notice of him or John. All were behaving like Peter Nichols, as if to make it clear that this place was governed by rules that superseded mere friendship. One boy even shook hands with Peter and folded his arms across his chest to listen to him, like a middle-aged man at a business meeting.

      ‘Grim,’ John commented. ‘This is very grim. Not what I expected, I’ll admit.’ His doleful gaze moved down the rows of pennants and flags that were pinned to the rafters. At the end of the hall, under a large photograph of the king, one of the senior scouts was energetically buffing his shoes with a duster. ‘We’ve come to a Nuremberg rally, mate,’ said John.

      The scout master, Mr Gardiner, introduced himself to them. His shorts were as wide as a skirt and his whiskerless white skin was as delicate as Mrs Beckwith’s. ‘Peter told me about you,’ he said, looking at them as though they were items in an auction room. ‘So what has kindled your interest in scouting?’ he asked, with a whimsical lilt to his voice.

      ‘All the things that Peter has told us, sir,’ John replied. ‘Making ourselves better members of society, helping each other, that kind of thing.’

      Mr Gardiner made a concurring squint. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what it’s about. And you think it’s the kind of thing for you, do you?’

      ‘We think so, sir,’ said John.

      ‘Jolly good. Jolly good,’ said Mr Gardiner, and he checked the time on his wristwatch. ‘You two can join Peewit patrol for now. Peter will show you what to do.’

      ‘Peewit patrol, eh?’ John remarked to Peter Nichols once Mr Gardiner had left them.

      ‘Yes. That’s my patrol,’ Peter Nichols replied.

      ‘That’s nice.’

      ‘What’s nice?’

      ‘Peewit patrol.’

      ‘What do you mean, it’s nice?’

      ‘It’s a nice name.’

      ‘It’s not meant to be nice,’ said Peter Nichols primly.

      ‘No, but it’s nice anyway. Nice sound to it. Peter’s Peewit patrol.’ John scowled at the floorboards and then at Alexander. ‘But what’s a peewit when it’s at home?’

      ‘Search me,’ said Alexander.

      ‘Another name for the lapwing,’ Peter Nichols interrupted.

      ‘Lapwing?’

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