The Secret Prophecy by Herbie Brennan Page A

hugely irritating, but strangely, Em found it comforting. In the gloom, wrapped in heat and sounds, he began to drift. Fragments of dreams intruded on his waking consciousness. At one point he thought he saw the prophet Nostradamus, with his black beard and funny hat. At another he was back in the shelter dormitory watching a ratty little man drag a tattered canvas bag across the floor.
    He awoke to a riot.
    Victor was standing, minus his trousers, hurling abuse at a bullet-headed character with bulging muscles. The brute wore a T-shirt sporting one word: WINSTON . Several beds had been pushed aside, and the two antagonists were surrounded by a circle of excited men. “Fight!” shouted one of the men; and the word was taken up and transformed into a chant. “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
    Em pushed himself hurriedly out of bed. “Bloody know you did!” Victor shouted. “You knew where I kept it!”
    “Everybody knew where you kept it,” Winston said. “Now leave me alone before I break your face.”
    “What’s going on here?” Jeff was pushing through the crowd now.
    “Bastard took my stash,” Victor said without turning his head.
    To Em, “stash” meant “drugs”—he’d heard users at his school talk about their stashes—but by the look of Jeff’s expression, it had a different meaning here.
    “Never touched it,” Winston growled. “You probably gone and lost it.”
    “It’ll be under his bed,” Victor growled.
    “All right!” Winston said. “You look and then apologize.” He turned around and, without so much as a grunt, lifted his entire bed and held it clear of the floor. There was nothing underneath it.
    “Was it green?” Em asked. Faces turned toward him, and his heart started to pound again. “Was it a small, green, canvas bag?”
    Victor stared at him. “Yes, it was,” he said uneasily. “You saying you saw it?”
    Em looked at the ratty little man who was standing on the edge of the circle of onlookers a little to Winston’s right. “Here,” the man said at once, “what do you think you’re accusing me of?” He began to back away nervously.
    Em grabbed him. The man jerked free, ricocheted spectacularly off one of the onlookers, plunged over an empty bed, and scrambled gracelessly across the floor like an insect until another onlooker pressed down on him with a heavy boot.
    “Just hold him there a minute,” Jeff said. He dropped down to look under one of the beds, then drew out a green bag. “This it?” he asked Victor.
    “That’s it,” Victor told him grimly. He glanced at Winston and added sheepishly, “Sorry, big fellow.”
     
    “So, what was in it?” Em asked curiously the next morning. “Has to be something special for you to face a bloke as big as Winston.”
    Victor shrugged slightly. “I could have taken him. I’m tougher than I look.”
    They were sitting together at a table in the corner of the common room, sipping mugs of strong, sweet, milky tea. Nobody had had breakfast yet. According to Victor, volunteer ladies would turn up with bacon and eggs, but not before eight. The squabble with Winston and the ratty man’s subsequent eviction as the real culprit had woken everybody early. Now the common room was packed with anxiously hungry residents trying to fill up on liquids. Even the coffee machine was in use.
    “Yes, I know,” Em said diplomatically. “But what were you so worried about him stealing?” The bag was too small to hold much of anything; and given the circumstances, it was unlikely to contain wads of cash or pouches of diamonds. Em was betting on something of sentimental value, and he was curious. Whatever it was would tell him something about Victor, the old man who wouldn’t back down from a fight with somebody half his age.
    The bag in question was resting beside Victor’s foot. He hooked the strap with one finger and lifted it onto the table. “Want to see what’s in it? Are you sure? You may very well be disappointed.” He