Clay by David Almond

reply. Mary sat dead still.
    “We’ll do it this weekend,” said Stephen.
    He grinned.
    “We’ll make a monster this weekend, Davie,” he said. “Tomorrow night. Right?”
    He held my face in his hands.
    “Right?” he said.
    “Right!”
    I glanced at Mary. What would she be making of our words?
    Stephen giggled.
    “Watch!” he said.
    He dropped his jeans. He stuck his bare backside towards Mary. She did nothing. He pulled his jeans up.
    “Have a go!” he said. “Go on! Drop your trousers and do it as well.”
    He laughed in my face.
    “It’s just a trick, man. Watch.”
    He stretched his hand to Mary’s face. He clicked his fingers.
    “Five, four, three, two, one,” he said. “Wake up, Mary.”
    Crazy Mary blinked and twitched.
    “Look,” said Stephen. “Somebody’s come calling on us, Aunty Mary.”
    Mary smiled.
    “It’s the good altar boy,” she said. “The lad with the lovely mam. Would you like some jam and bread, pet?” She shook her head. “Didn’t hear nobody come in, though.”
    “You dropped off, Aunty Mary,” said Stephen.
    “Aye,” she said. “I must have.”
    She stared at her nephew, then at me.
    “D’you think God protects us when we’re fast asleep?” she said.
    “Course he does,” said Stephen. “He looks down on each and every one of us and keeps us safe. That’s his job.”
    “My boy’s such a comfort to me,” said Mary.
    She got a knife and started sawing at a loaf of bread. She cut a couple of slices. She held them up to Heaven.
    “Everything on this earth is thine,” she said.
    Stephen groaned.
    “Ballocks,” he said. “Time to put her down again. Aunty Mary.” She turned. He passed his hand before her eyes.
    “Put the bread down,” he said.
    She put it down.
    “Sit down.”
    She sat down.
    “You will sleep now, Mary,” he said. “You will wake only when I tell you to.”
    Her eyes stayed open, but the light disappeared from them.
    Stephen grinned.
    “Just a trick,” he said. “Some’s much more susceptible than others. She’s a piece of cake.”
    He watched me.
    “I could teach you if you wanted me to,” he said. He stepped close, waved his hands, spoke in a put-on spooky voice.
    “Sleeeeep,” he said. “Sleeeeeeep.”
    He laughed. He flicked Mary’s nose.
    “Go on,” he said. “Do it, man.”
    “Leave her alone,” I said.
    “Leave her alone,” he echoed in a little childish voice. He came closer. “I could do it to you as well,” he said. “I could put you under just like that. I could make you think anything I wanted you to think.”
    We stared at each other. I clenched my fists, ready to battle again.
    “Mebbe I’ve already done it,” he said, “and you don’t know. Mebbe you’re sitting on a chair like Crazy is and you’re in a dream and you’re like putty in my hands. Sleeep. Sleeeeep.”
    I grabbed his collar.
    “Try it and I’ll kill you,” I said.
    He smiled.
    “Kill?” he said. “You think you’re the kind of kid that could kill, Davie?”
    “Aye,” I said. “Are you? What happened to your mam and dad?”
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “Dunno. Lots.”
    He spat on the floor.
    “I killed my dad, then I drove my mother mad,” he said. “Is that what you want to hear?”
    “Dunno.”
    “Dunno, dunno. Listen to you. Is that the way a killer talks?”
    I let him go. I started to turn away, but he caught my arm.
    “Don’t go, Davie,” he said.
    I tugged free.
    “I need you,” he said.
    I turned back, and we looked into each other’s eyes.
    “When I’m with you,” he said, “I know that I can be different. I know that I can be more than I am by myself.”
    I sighed. Maybe that was true. And maybe it was true for me as well. I felt that something had drawn us together, that somehow we were meant to be together. There was no going back to the life I’d had before. Not until I’d gone through what I had to go through with Stephen Rose.
    “So we’ll do it on Saturday,”