Page 96 of Rat

“You were always an arsehole then?”

Sebastian chuckled. “Guess you could call me that. I call it being clever.”

“How modest.”

“I’d trick money out of them. Card games, magic stones—”

“Magic stones?”

“I’d claim that some pebble on the beach had special qualities.”

“And the kids believed that?”

Sebastian hummed. “I could be convincing, even back then. Every year I went to that pier, and for those two weeks, I felt powerful, I felt clever, I felt good.”

Rory lowered his head. “Why are you saying all this?”

“I don’t know. I want to go back there. I want to remember what that felt like.”

“But you are powerful, you are clever, and you are good.”

“I’m not, Rory. I had a plan, and it’s gone wrong, and I don’t feel powerful or clever, or good. I feel the opposite. I feel like a game’s been taken out of my hands. I feel like I’m losing, and I have no idea how to turn it around.”

Rory bit his lip. “You’ve still got time to turn it around, to win. It’s like chess; you could be down to your last piece, but it’s not over until it’s taken.”

“My last piece has already been taken. The board’s empty. My opponent just doesn’t realize it yet.”

17

“The last time Idid papier mâché was when I was ten,” Rory muttered.

Ollie snorted. “It’s better than being locked in your cell and doing nothing.”

“True. All I do is think about the mess of my life, and it’s depressing.”

“Well, you’re fun this morning…”

Mrs Mason clapped her hands for everyone’s attention, yet again no one listened, and it was the deep boom of the officer’s voice at the back of the room that shut them all up.

“Those that started last week, come and collect your balloons from the front.”

Ollie bolted out of his chair in a flash. He got his balloon, half covered in newspaper, and hurried back to his seat.

Ollie held it up to Rory. “I mean, you’ll need to blow up a bigger balloon than this one.”

“Why?” Rory asked.

“Your head’s massive.”

Rory elbowed Ollie’s side. “Arsehole. Surely there’s easier ways of making masks, you know…card and string.”

Ollie rolled his eyes as he took his seat. “Anyone can do that.”

“But slapping newspaper on a balloon is harder somehow?”

Ollie laughed. “It takes longer. Anything to eat away at time.”

“I guess…”

---