'8'

CHAPTER 1

The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. Overhead gulls squabbled noisily over scraps they’d scavenged from passing tourists. Surf lapped up onto the beach and fell back into the sea leaving a line of salt on the firm, wet sand.

The boy and girl sat looking out to the horizon. Cooling water flowed over their hot bare feet. The boy couldn’t remember ever feeling this happy. He looked across to the girl. She was pretty. Her shoulder length blond hair fluttered in the gentle breeze. She had the most amazing blue eyes. He looked deep within them - 28796! That made the boy smile.

‘This must be what love feels like!’ thought the boy.

‘Mitch your breakfast’s ready!’ squawked one of the gulls from overhead.

‘Wow!’ said the boy. ‘Did you hear that Tara? That bird just spoke!’

‘Amazing!’ agreed Tara.

‘It’s getting cold!’ said the gull.

‘It’s a dream isn’t it?’ said Mitch.

‘Fraid so!’ said Tara blowing him a kiss before vanishing.

Mitch opened his eyes. ‘Perfect!’ he muttered.

CHAPTER 2

Erasmus Hnefatafl’s sad brown eyes gazed at the television screen from beneath a pair of bushy grey eyebrows. A pile of assignments sat on the coffee table beside his chair. He’d marked about half of them before losing the will to live. He’d get up early the following morning to mark the rest.

The news was on. He stroked his unkempt beard, periodically shaking his head in dismay at what he saw. The news was about the only thing he ever watched and by the end of it he always wondered why he’d bothered. Melting polar ice caps, holes in the ozone layer, disappearing rainforests, floods, wars, suicide bombers, famine, kidnappings, murder – the list of disasters and atrocities were shuffled like a pack of cards and each night a slightly different hand was dealt to the sombre looking newsreader to present.

He comforted himself by mopping up the remains of his lamb madras with a Peshwari naan bread and savoured every last mouth wateringly spicy morsel, before washing it down with a diet cola. Mr Hnefatafl loved food. Anyone could see that. His favourite was curry and his absolute favourite was lamb madras. He’d travelled far and wide and for him nothing, but nothing compared to the joy of a good lamb madras.

The sombre looking newsreader had finished and a smartly dressed young woman was now presenting the weather forecast. The band of high pressure was not moving, which meant that the good weather that they had been experiencing over the past few days was set to continue. The long term forecast was good apparently. Mr Hnefatafl wasn’t so sure.

He switched the television off and stacked the dirty plates in the sink along with the dirty plates from the night before and the night before that. Once he’d run out of crockery and cutlery, he’d wash the lot.

He went upstairs and cleaned his teeth and his mind drifted as he brushed the minty foam around his mouth. After all these years the human race was still an enigma to him. How could a species that was at the top of the evolutionary tree and undoubtedly intelligent keep making the same mistakes time and again. Why didn’t they look back and learn the lessons of history. Surely that was the point of history. It was the reason he’d always loved it and why he’d decided to teach it. Maybe he’d been wasting his time.

And yet just giving up on the human race didn’t seem right to him either. Although the news always filled him with dread, what he saw day to day was often so very different. He saw kindness, friendship, love, creativity, ingenuity – attributes that were to be admired and nurtured. Humans had promise! Take something as insignificant as the lamb madras he’d just eaten. Someone got up one day and created that dish and it was wonderful. In fact it could be the most wonderful tasting dish in the whole universe and it was a human creation. There was wonder in much of what they could achieve. If only they could do it without leaving this trail of devastation behind them which he had to witness every evening. He finished cleaning his teeth and wiped his mouth on a grubby hand towel that was hanging next to the sink. He sniffed it. ‘This could probably do with a wash!’ he thought as he hung it back on the rail.

Mr Hnefatafl padded across the landing and climbed into bed. He had a restless night’s sleep.

CHAPTER 3

Mitch stared at the ceiling, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He usually couldn’t remember his dreams, but as he’d been woken in the middle of his last one it was there, like a movie in his head and he replayed it.

He’d loved Tara Jenkins from afar for over a year now without having the courage to do anything about it. Recently he’d been thinking a lot more seriously about asking her out on a date, but the time just never seemed to be right and he’d always chickened out.

28796! Seeing the numbers was one thing but seeing them in his dreams, that was a first. He knew he had to find out if he was right. He knew he had to look deep into Tara Jenkins’ eyes today. The prospect both scared and excited him as he thought about how to do it. Giz would help. Giz always helped.

His mother called up again over his breakfast. There was agitation in her voice at the lack of activity coming from his room. Mitch reluctantly got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

Five minutes later he was washed and dressed with minty fresh breath. He checked his face for spots in his bedroom mirror and then (after making sure he was definitely alone) put on his new sunglasses. They were imitation Ray Ban Wayfarers, a design classic. He’d bought them off ebay. One day when he was rich and possibly even famous, he’d buy himself a proper pair. He turned his head to the left a little and then to the right, seeing how they looked from every angle. ‘Cool!’ he concluded and allowed himself a very un-cool little smile.

He looked in the mirror again. His hair was starting to look cool now too. Dark brown, almost shoulder length, like a skater boy which was the desired look. His mum was constantly nagging him to get it cut, but that wasn’t going to happen and the sooner she realised it, the better. Mitch would soon be fourteen, which in his opinion was plenty old enough to know how you wanted your hair. His mother disagreed and their verbal sparring on the subject had become increasingly frequent. She’d started on at him again last night. Mitch had pointed out that before too long he’d be old enough to buy cigarettes if he wanted. He wouldn’t, he knew that smoking was mental. On top of costing a small fortune, thirty years down the line he wasn’t going to be sucking oxygen through a mask, with his lungs riddled with cancer. He’d seen the adverts. He wasn’t stupid. He was just saying in a few years he could if he wanted to. The point was he wasn’t a little kid anymore, he was growing up and his mum needed to recognise that fact.

Mitch’s mum had thought about arguing that it would be over four years before Mitch could legally buy cigarettes over the counter and that that was hardly ‘before too long!’, but decided against it. She was tired and the tea still needed making and sometimes being the grown up meant keeping your mouth shut when you didn’t want too, because you knew it was probably for the best. Instead she satisfied herself by giving Mitch a look of exasperation and went hunting in the freezer for potato waffles.

Mitch looked at his battered old clock radio. The red LED was reading 08:05, but that was at least 10 minutes slow, maybe more. His mum called up the stairs yet again that breakfast was ready. She was close to snapping! Mitch checked himself one last time in the mirror, took the shades off and carefully put them in the inside breast pocket of his blazer. Then he grabbed his schoolbag and piled down the stairs two at a time.

Mitch’s mum and little sister Katie were having a row over breakfast. It was porridge and Katie didn’t want it. His mum was telling Katie how good it was for her without success. Apparently it was good for your cholesterol levels and helped you to poo. Katie said that cholesterol levels were things for overweight adults to worry about not underweight ten year olds and that poo was no subject for the breakfast table. Mitch smiled inwardly at what a smart arse his little sister was becoming.

His mum put some toast on for Katie and scraped the porridge into the bin. Mitch quite liked porridge and duly tucked into his bowl. It didn’t taste too bad and it filled him up, so he was fine with it. Cholesterol levels were something he’d never really thought about and he had no trouble whatsoever with the pooing thing, but maybe that was because he ate quite a bit of the stuff.

Katie was watching a kid’s programme on the telly which Mitch found irritating, so he put his ipod on and listened to some Led Zeppelin as he munched his way through breakfast. His mum tapped him on the shoulder and by the annoyed look on her face she’d obviously been trying to get his attention for some time.

‘Turn that bloody thing down!’ she scowled passing him his dinner money. Mitch reluctantly did as he was told. ‘Have you got everything?’

‘Mmn hmn’ Mitch nodded.

‘All your books?’

‘Yep’

‘Games kit?’

‘Yes mother!’ Mitch sighed.

‘OK you better get going’ she said kissing him on the top of his head. She fought the urge to get into another row over the state of his hair. ‘Be careful!’ she said.

‘Will do!’ replied Mitch putting his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. He picked up his school stuff and headed out the back door.

‘Love you!’ his mother called after him.

CHAPTER 4

Mr. Hnefatafl squeezed behind the steering wheel of his rather tired looking, powder blue Volvo S70. It was older than most of his students and considerably more reliable than most of them too. It seemed to him the sort of car a history teacher should drive. He started it up and the engine purred into life first time. The clock on the dashboard was reading ten past eight. He’d been up nearly three hours.

Unable to sleep, Mr. Hnefatafl had got up at five fifteen and marked the rest of the assignments. He’d finished by seven. He then ate a hearty breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs and bacon all washed down with an extremely strong cup of tea. Then he showered, dressed and collected his stuff together for the day.

The twenty minute drive to school was his time. Time when he could ponder the day ahead, sort out the things that were bothering him and develop strategies that would hopefully serve him well. He couldn’t do all that with one of those moronic breakfast DJs talking incessant rubbish, but neither did he like to do it alone. His favourite companion was Mr. Sinatra. He put the CD into the CD player and ‘My Way’ came crooning out of the speakers. Mr. Hnefatafl sang along:

"And now the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend I'll say it clear

I'll state my case of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full

I travelled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way"

It was one of his favourite songs and he knew all the words. Today they seemed more poignant than usual. By the