Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

“Way-hay! Hanging Harry’s back!”

Kev laughed mockingly, and Liz joined in at his side, as they watched a boy coming into the room. The guy looked about my age, his skin young and pale and without the slightest bit of stubble. His long black hair appeared to have never seen a brush and was sticking up here there and everywhere. He looked like a rat, with his long face and a sharp nose wedged narrowly between burning black eyes, and he was so emaciated and small that I thought I could easily have snapped him in half.  But it was his neck that drew my attention- inflamed pink, dark red and violent-purple as it raised and dropped in gruesome crater ridges that circled his throat. Bony arms poked through a plain white t-shirt. Tracksuit bottoms on his stick-thin legs. He walked proudly past the trolley, his black eyes staring stoically ahead. When Kev repeated it again, “Eh! Hanging Harry!” he didn’t look back as he sat down at the table.

Kev’s eyes flashed. Liz guffawed next to him.

“How did your complaint go?” Kev goaded. Liz’s chins jiggled as she looked at Kev. The guy they had called Harry kept his back to them, and from where I was, I saw the left side of his face curl into a contemptuous sneer.

“Hey!” Kev called again with greater menace. “Do you want to know how the inspection went?”

“Ee don’t know ow’ it went. Arry down’t even know what day it iz.” Liz sniggered.

Harry still didn’t respond. They had given up by the time Sanders came back into the room.

Nina finished her food. She was still crying silently. She didn’t seem to notice or be aware of the bullying, and neither did anyone else. All eyes on the TV screen.

“Was the food good?” I asked her.

She nodded. Still she was trembling. But the pain in her eyes had softened a little. She stood up.

“Listen,” I said, “If you ever want to talk, I’m here, okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks very much.” Her mousy voice replied. “I’m just going to my room now.”

“Alright. Will you be okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Her eyes were downcast on the floor. I could relate to her so well. As she carried her tray to the stacking rack, there was something I thought of saying to her. I had an urge to call her back. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I let it slide as I watched her disappear around the corridor.

I had taken a few more spoons of porridge, and was looking out the window, when I sensed something, and turned to see Harry’s black eyes staring at me from the other side of the table that he’d moved to.

I glanced away, but when I looked back his ratty eyes were still surveying me. I got up and went to join his table, sitting on his opposite side a few chairs down. He flashed me a yellow-toothed grin, nodded once, and looked back at his food. Then he looked to the nurses, stood up, and took his tray, sliding along the wall into the spare seat opposite me.

“Allright?” he said, in such a broad accent that I knew he was Scottish straight away. “I’m Harry.”

Above his crazy, wide yellow grin, his eyes seemed almost like a demon-possessed child’s from a horror film. I couldn’t remember seeing black eyes before, had just read that many Russian people had them, and his were blacker than black. Below those eyes, and that narrow face and pointy chin, that scar was so terrible. I glanced away and tried not to look, but my mind kept being drawn back to it. It was the worst I’d ever seen, the crater ridges glistening in their purples and reds almost like they were an organism of themselves. There wasn’t a healthy bit of flesh there. It was brutal.

“I’m Aisha.” I said.

The black eyes burned with intensity. They looked at me strangely. “Where you from?”

“Irvine.” I said.

He laughed, a kind of joyful shriek. I turned round to see if anyone was looking, but no. “Irvine, eh? Unlucky you, haha! You don’t have much of an accent.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve been around. It’s watered down a lot. But neither do you.”

“Yeah, I’m from Inverness. There is no accent there really.” He shuffled around on his chair. His upper body was prepped like he was ready to pounce on prey, and he couldn’t seem to sit still. His eyes darted from side to side; taking in all of the room behind my head. He looked back at me then stretched across the table and leaned in, “Not taking your pills, are you?”

Alarm shot through my system. I glanced around, “Course I am. What makes you think that?”

He leaned back in his seat. “I’m not gonna tell anyone. I’m not either.” He shrugged and smiled.

“Oh, look, Arry’s got new a friend,- ginger-nut over there!” I heard Liz cry. Harry kept his eyes on me, but I turned to look at her smiling at Kev.

I turned back to Harry. “That’s out of order. Why are they picking on you?”

He picked up a piece of toast and chomped it in half. He kept his eyes on the table and me. “Ach,” he waved his hand, “It’s alright, I don’t mind it. I told them I was gonna put in a complaint to the inspector when he came, so they put me in solitary instead.”

“Hanging Harry, and Aisha alien-face.” I overheard Kev say, during a quieter part of Celebs on Ice.

Harry caught me looking at his neck. His black eyes and wide yellow smile beckoned me to ask him about it, but I never did. “I was pretending to be Spiderman.” he explained. “When I was seven. Got my neck caught and twisted in the rope though. My spidey senses weren’t