Thunderbolt by Wilbur Smith (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

and no fancy background of flags or banners or whatever, just Barrel-man with a mobile phone. He knew enough to move me to the other side of the courtyard, and therefore avoid capturing me as a silhouette, though.

The pirates wanted to send a message – pay up, or you won’t see them again – to our parents with these snapshots and mini-films. Our task was to make the message mean something else. I was confident I could convey what I wanted to Mum. The first thing I did was grip both sides of the paper with tightly clenched fists. To Barrel-man, behind his smartphone, it probably looked like I was gripping the paper so tightly out of fear, but I reckoned Mum would pick up on the signal.

After my brother Mark died, whenever she’s wanted to reassure me without speaking out loud, she’s squeezed her hands into two fists held just in front of her and added a quick smile-wink. I couldn’t exactly time the wink, but narrowed one eye, and it was no problem to smile. I clenched that paper tight and gave the little lens on the back of the phone my cheesiest grin.

Barrel-man dropped the phone a few inches, looked over the top of it at me, and spat something at Mo.

‘He’s asking why you’re smiling,’ the boy said.

Without dropping my ridiculous grin, I told Mo to explain that ever since I was a small boy I’d smiled when nervous.

‘He says don’t be nervous or he’ll give you something to be nervous about,’ Mo reported after another exchange with the pirate.

I shook my head, as if trying to dislodge the smile, but made sure it was still in place when I looked back up. ‘I can’t help it,’ I managed to say through the letterbox slit of my fixed grin.

Mo said something else to Barrel-man. I don’t know what it was but it made the pirate’s muscled shoulders shake with laughter. Out of the side of his mouth he spat a reply to Mo.

‘He agrees: you look like you’ve wet your trousers,’ Mo relayed.

Still smiling, I said, ‘Whatever.’ With the grin still in place, I hardened my one-eyed stare. Mum would get it.

Barrel-man, his thumb stabbing at the phone screen, had obviously switched to video mode now, since he gave Mo an order which the boy passed on as, ‘He wants you to tell your parents we’re treating you well but you’re frightened of what we’ll do if the money doesn’t come through.’

I’d thought about this too. Still looking way more amused than afraid, I drawled, in the most sarcastic voice I could manage, ‘Mum, these muppets are treating us super-nicely, but they’re really, really frightening, obvs, and I’m totally scared of what will happen if you don’t do exactly what they say, etc.’

When I use that tone of voice at home it drives Mum mad, but I knew it was my best means of reassuring her now: it’s me at my most infuriatingly cocky, not remotely worried, never mind scared. I even risked a proper wink at the camera on the word ‘etc.’

Barrel-man let that pass too. Perhaps he was focusing on the miniature version of me displayed on the phone screen rather than the real thing, and missed the wink; I don’t know or care. As he lowered the phone I shot a sideways glance at Mo. He was staring at me with his mouth open a fraction.

‘What?’ I said.

Mo didn’t say anything. I realised I was smiling with my eyes as well as my mouth now. He definitely got the sarcasm intended for Mum, but mercifully it seemed he wasn’t about to point it out to Barrel-man. I softened towards him further. He seemed to be actually on our side for real. Why then wasn’t he smiling back? How could he be so obviously in on the joke and apparently unable to see the funny side of it?

It dawned on me slowly. Barrel-man and his co-pirates might not pick up on what I’d done immediately, but if the video was out there then somebody else would spot it in the end.

And who would the pirates blame then? Me, sure, but also Mo for not pointing out what I’d done. He could pretend he hadn’t cottoned on all he liked, but I knew they wouldn’t believe him because over the past few days I’d seen the way they treated him. Like scum on the one hand, but scum they couldn’t deny was useful: they knew he understood stuff they didn’t. The way Barrel-man had walloped him in the boat said it all: we’ll make use of your brain though we hate you for it. If they so much as suspected he’d let my sarcasm pass on purpose, they’d be harder on him than on me.

Mo was still staring at me, watching my expression change as I slowly realised what I’d done. It felt like the seconds after stubbing a toe, when I often want to kick whatever it was that I stubbed it on properly before the pain surges in. I wanted to apologise to Mo but instead I looked away from him.

28.

Mo was right in predicting the pirates would soon be moving us to a new location. Once Xander and Amelia had given their own little performances to Barrel-man – both of them reckoned they’d managed to pull off a bit of I’m-actually-OK insincerity – Flip-flops appeared in our little cell and said something to Mo which he translated as, ‘Time for a meeting with the boss.’

To begin with I thought he meant the pirate captain. But he didn’t. This boss character was nowhere nearby. To get to him we’d be making a journey by land. At least we’d have a chance to take a look at the scenery, I thought, but I was mistaken. Barrel-man appeared behind Flip-flops, a clutch of hessian bags in his sinewy hand. He tossed them down.

‘You have to put these on, like this,’ said Mo.