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1.
The rain hammers against the roof of the treehouse. Paddy Finnis pulls his legs up and shuffles back until his spine meets the rough wooden wall. There is only one window, or rather, a gap in the wood big enough to be classed as a window. It once had a small sheet of see-through plastic nailed over it to protect the floor from the elements but it has long since torn and flown away. Now, a small puddle starts to form under the window and Paddy finds he only has limited space on either side of the window and door in which to keep dry.
No matter. The roof is solid and trustworthy. It will hold. The floor too is dependable. Paddy can still remember his father dutifully collecting piles of old wooden pallets all those years ago. The resulting treehouse was not quite the grand affair eight-year-old Paddy had envisioned but he had been happy and grateful just the same. Beyond the door, the rope ladder whips back and forth in the wind and he wonders if a storm is coming. He smiles to himself, imagining how that will affect the May Day celebrations that he won’t be going to, but he is sure the mayor will have a solution up her capable sleeve.
From his position, Paddy can see the thin stretch of garden which leads up to the conservatory. He can see his father’s rickety deckchairs and array of houseplants on the windowsills. He can just about see the blue wooden door that leads into the shop. To the right is a striped curtain and behind that, the narrow, dark stairs that lead up to the cluttered two bedroomed flat.
His eyes drift up to the windows – the long bay is his father’s room, on the opposite side is the lounge and to the left is the kitchen, both with views of Black Hare Road. Higher still, is Paddy’s room, the loft room, smaller, darker, colder but with a window on each side which gives him an almost aerial view of the whole town.
Both are perfect for stargazing and he moves his Meade LX200 telescope from one side to the other on a daily basis. Out in the treehouse he keeps his smaller Celestron Firstscope.
Paddy scowls at the weather. Yesterday had been so beautiful; one of those days when you feel good to be alive and grateful to live in such a beautiful place. But the weather in Black Hare Valley twists and turns like a restless soul and today the sky is a sulky grey and the clouds are black and billowing, throwing out rain as if in a temper. Paddy can hear cars splashing through puddles on the road and imagines folk dashing about under umbrellas. It is quite amusing however that the weather chose to be vile on May Day.
Paddy and his father had already opted to boycott what they consider to be an outdated tradition. His father refuses to bow down to the shop being closed for the day and they both think sitting a pretty young girl on a throne and pulling her through town is a bit old-fashioned, to say the least. Willow, of course, has far stronger things to say about the May Queen and Paddy hopes she turns up after working the morning shift in her parent’s gift shop. Paddy knows she detests the rain but she detests the May Queen tradition even more and he’ll enjoy hearing her rant about it.
He wants to do something in the meantime though – not just sit it out and wait for school to come crawling after him. He feels the first flutter of dread in his belly and resents it and the bullies that usually cause it; Steven, Dominic and Jesse. Thinking about Jesse, Paddy’s lower lip juts out as it tends to do when he is mulling something over.
There has been a change in Jesse Archer recently and at first, Paddy didn’t know whether to trust it or not. Willow doesn’t, that’s for sure. She still thinks his sudden and awkward attempts at friendship are part of a nasty plot; that he intends to make Paddy think they’re friends and then humiliate him at school. She could be right. She probably is right. Why would someone tough and cool like Jesse Archer ever want to be friends with someone like him?
As Mr Bishop had so unkindly pointed out on that hideous day six weeks ago, the two boys were polar opposites. Prey and predator, he had called them, right in front of an assembly of children. Paddy’s cheeks burn with shame at the memory and his small hands clench into fists on his lap.
The townsfolk always sing the praises of Mr Bishop but Paddy knows he is just another vile bully. Maybe the worst of them all. He sneers at children, looks down on them distastefully, wrinkles his nose at them as if they all give off an offensive smell. It was worse when I was at school, Paddy’s father likes to remind him, we were caned for giggling or not standing up straight enough! You kids don’t know how lucky you are.
Paddy is not sure about that but he rarely argues with his father, who has an eternal sleepiness about him that makes Paddy fear he is perpetually slipping away.
It hadn’t been Paddy’s fault that day, but it hadn’t exactly been Jesse’s either. That’s what Paddy can’t stop thinking about. If it is all a nasty plan to humiliate him, Paddy will be impressed because as Mr Bishop unhelpfully pointed out, Jesse Archer is not an obvious strategist or intellectual.
‘An animal,’ Mr Bishop had called him. ‘A predator of brute force hunting in a pack. Seeking out the physically weak and picking them off.’
Paddy shudders at the memory. It was actually Steven who had thrown the ball of wet tissues at his head but it was Jesse who had got the blame and wearily accepted it. But Mr Bishop was never one for missing an opportunity to teach. A kinder man may have sent both boys out of the hall or even to detention, but no, his eyes lighting up in glee, the headteacher had ordered Paddy and Jesse up onto the stage where he had been giving an assembly on his recent trip to Africa.
Mr Bishop went abroad twice a year and twice a year he gave endless and monotonous assemblies where the children were forced to endure slideshows in the name of education. He’d find a way to relate it to various topics they were studying but usually it was a tenuous link that none of them quite believed in.
On the screen behind them was a photograph of a lioness stalking a young, fragile gazelle. Mr Bishop kept a firm hand on each boy’s shoulder. He held assemblies alone – there were no other adults there to witness him describe Paddy as classic prey for bullies and brutes. Small, thin, weak, fragile, Paddy had felt his eyes burning into the floor as his head dropped lower and lower.
‘Probably born prematurely, poor eyesight. Quite probably uncoordinated and clumsy. Attracts the attention of the predator as an easy kill.’
Bishop had given Jesse’s shoulder a little shake. Paddy, risking a sideways glance, had seen the true fury on the other boy’s face. A knitted brow, flared nostrils, lips screwed up tight and pale as his body seemed to tremble with the effort to remain still under Bishop’s claw of a hand.
‘Predator. Survival of the fittest, you see. Taller, stronger, faster, braver. Brutish. Desperate to survive. Hunts in packs, exists in a hierarchal system. Must prove himself again and again.’
Paddy sits now staring at the puddle and still unable to quite believe the things Mr Bishop had said about them.
‘Of course, the gazelle has a choice. He can outwit the predator. Like Patrick Finnis here. A smart, quick, intellectual mind can sometimes outwit the plodding nature of a predator. But often not. It’s brute force and speed that wins.’
2
The stranger thing was the way Jesse Archer turned up at the bookshop the next day. Alone, not with his goons in tow. Paddy had been stacking books while his father answered a phone call behind the till.
Jesse Archer had slouched in, looked once at Paddy and then looked away. He had circled the shop twice – slowly, running his index finger along the spines of second hand books – pausing occasionally to pluck one out, read the back and slot it back in place.
Paddy had no idea what his game was. Stealing, probably, but he wasn’t in the mood for it. He sighed, put down the books and slipped through the maze of mismatched bookshelves to find Jesse in the far corner of the shop, perusing the books in the window display.
He looked over his shoulder at Paddy and said, ‘It’s trapped.’
‘What?’
On closer inspection, Paddy saw what Jesse was looking at. A Red Admiral butterfly was batting itself against the window in a frantic attempt to get out. Paddy put his hands in his pockets and came up bare.
‘Have you got a tissue or a handkerchief?’ he asked Jesse.
Jesse pulled a black and white bandanna out of his back pocket. Paddy recognised it – when they were a few years younger, Jesse and his gang had declared themselves outlaws. Cowboys. Jesse was at that point in his life totally in love with the fact his father had named his three sons after real life Wild West gunslingers.
He handed it to Paddy and Paddy leaned carefully over the books and used the cloth to gently scoop up the butterfly.
‘Out the back,’ he had said, thinking of the flowerbeds, and for some reason, Jesse Archer, notorious bully and good-for-nothing third son of drunken Nick Archer, followed him with a look of awe on his face.
Paddy walked to the back, through the dusty conservatory and out into the garden. The thin stretch was a colourful haven for pollinators – sunflowers, wildflowers, lavender, foxgloves, geraniums – the perfect place for a lonely butterfly.
He had crouched beside the lavender bush and unfolded the bandanna. Jesse had crouched too, and watched silently as the butterfly paused, flapped its wings twice then fluttered on to the bush.
‘Here.’ Paddy had returned the bandanna.
Jesse said, ‘Mr Bishop is a bastard. He’s wrong you know. He’s wrong about everything.’
It was the first time Paddy had considered that Jesse hadn’t just been angry up on that stage, but humiliated, just like him. It was the first time Paddy had considered that Jesse Archer had feelings of his own.
He’d nodded at the treehouse. ‘Want to come up?’
3
Now, Paddy hears a voice.
He scrambles forward and sticks out his head. His father is at the conservatory door, waving.
‘You’ve got a visitor!’
Paddy wonders if it’s Jesse. No, more likely it is Willow. He climbs down and dashes through the rain to follow his father through the shop. He looks around but can’t see Willow.
Instead, Jesse Archer is skulking in the shadows. He couldn’t look more suspicious if he tried. Paddy glances at his father who smiles and goes back to the book he is reading behind the counter.
Since the day with the butterfly, Jesse Archer has wandered in alone at least once a week and on a few occasions, he and Paddy have ended up back in the treehouse together.
Jesse never asks. He never says hello. He just wanders around the shop until Paddy intervenes. His father, ever the optimist, thinks it’s a good sign. He sees it as hopeful and has reminded Paddy to never judge a book by its cover, or by the gossip spread by townsfolk. In response, Paddy reminded his father about Jesse’s behaviour; his reputation for a troublemaker and a bully is well known.
‘He’s a nightmare at school,’ Paddy said. ‘He trips people up, he disrupts classes, he throws things at people. You don’t want to run into him.’
Paddy’s father had smiled gently before telling him that sometimes people just need a chance to do the right thing and that maybe Jesse has never been given that chance. He knows about Jesse – his family, his brothers, his background – and being the kind and gentle man he is, he feels for him. Mr Finnis think bad apples can turn good. Paddy is not yet convinced, but he is curious enough to give Jesse a chance. He hates to admit it even to himself, but he has been enjoying the boy’s company.
There is something there, he has found himself thinking, there is something about him.
And here he is again.
And this time, he walks right up to Paddy, hands in pockets, soaked through, no coat, blood on his neck.
‘I need to talk to you.’
Paddy nods and leads the way back to the treehouse. Just as Paddy is climbing up after him, Jesse holds up a hand.
‘Is there any chance of a drink? Or something to eat?’
Paddy pauses. Jesse has never asked for anything before. But he does look hungry. And weary. Like something heavy is pushing down on him relentlessly. Paddy’s father has told him more than once that Jesse does not have the best home life and this makes Paddy feel sorry for him.
‘Okay. Hang on.’
Paddy scuttles off to the kitchen, retrieves two slices of apple cake, a big bag of salt and vinegar crisps and two cans of 7-Up from the fridge.
Back in the treehouse, Jesse is sitting against the wall and glaring hard at an undefinable point in the roof – a gap between slats and spongey green moss. He looks angry as he raises a middle finger.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Here.’ Paddy clambers up and passes the cake and crisps over.
For a while they sit in silence. Jesse eats and drinks with his eyes fixed on the same spot. Paddy watches him silently, uneasily. He still can’t read the boy. He doesn’t understand him at all. He’s not sure he’s safe with this boy and he knows that Jesse has stolen books from them, just as his father knows.
‘It’s all right, Paddy,’ he’d said when Paddy had voiced his suspicions. ‘Maybe he’s reading them.’
Paddy hopes so.
‘More like burning them,’ Willow had snapped, churlishly.
But Paddy remembers the look of gentle wonder on Jesse’s face when the butterfly flew away. Paddy remembers that Jesse was side-tracked by its futile attempt to escape via a hard glass window. Paddy hopes that Jesse is not faking it when he asks to look through the telescope, and that he means it when he quietly declares that one day he is going to get out of this town and make something of himself.
‘What is it?’ he asks Jesse now.
The boy looks at him with sharp dark eyes. Paddy looks back and he does not see a brute or a hooligan now. He sees intensity – something fierce, inquisitive and acutely alive.
‘I tried to burn down the school.’
Paddy, visibly shocked, asks, ‘What? Why?’
‘Why’d you think? So we don’t have to go back there ever again.’
‘Oh.’ A few beats later… ‘Wow.’
Jesse looks away and shrugs. ‘Didn’t work.’
‘That’s probably a good thing.’
Jesse looks back at him and seems about to say something. But a metallic clattering sound outside halts him and they both turn suddenly and suspiciously towards the noise. Paddy stares at the end of the garden where the metal bins sit and the old gate doesn’t quite close properly.
‘There’s someone there,’ he says in surprise.
4
Jesse moves fast. Shoving the food from his lap, he shoots past Paddy and practically leaps to the ground before rushing over to the gate.
It’s raining harder now. Paddy almost slips on the rope ladder on his way down and when he lands, his other foot loses grip on wet grass and he goes down on his backside. He clambers quickly to his feet and rushes up behind Jesse who is towering aggressively over a short chubby girl in a bright blue anorak.
‘Who are you? What the hell are you doing spying on us?’
The girl just stares in horror. Her mouth an ‘o’ shape, her hands clutching the camera around her neck.
‘Were you spying on us?’ Paddy demands. He is sure he has never seen her before, which is a rare thing in such a small town.
Jesse pulls her inside the gate and she squeaks in fright.
‘Who the hell are you?’
Suddenly, there is a crack in the sky above them. Lightning forks without warning and is promptly followed by a deafening boom of thunder. The air hisses with electricity.
Paddy doesn’t think twice. He grabs Jesse’s hand and the girl’s and pulls them both towards the treehouse.
Jesse stands back, shaking now as heavy sheets of rain drum down on them, allowing the girl to scramble up first. He then gestures to Paddy, but it’s Paddy’s treehouse and he enjoys playing the host so he shakes his head and gives Jesse an urgent shove.
Jesse does not need to be asked twice. He hoists himself up after the girl and Paddy follows.
The three of them huddle together in the dry spot. The girl squeals when the sky booms again and Paddy puts out a hand to calm her.
‘It’s okay. Just thunder. I’m Paddy, by the way. I live here.’
‘Jaime,’ she replies, her voice a little high as her eyes shoot anxiously between him and Jesse. ‘And I wasn’t spying. Honest. Okay, I sort of was. But only because I’m a reporter you see, a journalist – okay, well not really, not yet, obviously, because I’m only fourteen right now but I want to be one day and so I’m sort of in training, you see? And anyway, sorry but I’m really not going to do anything with the photos anyway. I don’t even have a newspaper or anywhere to share them.’
She looks between their startled faces, smiling desperately, her shoulders bunched up to her neck.
‘You took photos?’ asks Paddy. ‘Of what?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Jesse demands again, glowering at her.
‘Jaime Perry,’ she says again, a little exasperated now. ‘We just moved in yesterday. I’m new.’
To this, Jesse groans. ‘Jesus fucking Christ, are you fucking mad? Why would anyone want to move here?’
‘My mum,’ she frowns, looking at Paddy as if hoping he will help her. ‘She and my step-dad, Mark.’
‘Aster?’ Paddy helps her out and nods at Jesse as if to reassure him. ‘It’s okay, my dad told me Mark Aster is back in town to take over the Hare and Hound since his old man passed away. Remember? He got married. This must be his step-daughter.’
Both boys stare at Jaime, looking her up and down. Paddy sees a kindly face framed by wet blonde air. Her cheeks are as round as her bright blue eyes and her mouth is one big smile. She looks like the sort of person who smiles at everything and everyone.
‘Jaime,’ she says again, in case they have forgotten.
‘Still doesn’t explain the creeping around and taking photos,’ Jesse growls at her.
She seems to shrink, wrapping her arms around her knees. ‘I told you. I’m a reporter.’
‘You’re fourteen.’
‘Yes, I know, I said one day. I mean, one day I will be.’ She shrugs hopefully at Paddy. ‘I’m practicing. Don’t you guys practice what you want to be when you grow up?’
The boys swap a look. Paddy thinks about his treehouse and wonders if Jesse is thinking about crime. Yeah, they both practice.
‘Okay,’ he says to Jaime. ‘We get you.’
‘I don’t,’ Jesse disagrees and is still glaring at her. ‘I want to know what was so interesting about us.’
‘You,’ she corrects him and then blushes a fierce red. Paddy smiles, feeling sorry for her. Jesse just looks angrier.
‘What about me?’
‘I mean, I followed you here. I saw you get arrested at the school and I saw that policeman just drop you off here after so I was curious. I mean, you have to be curious if you want to be a journalist, so I went around the back to see what I could see. I was chasing a story.’
‘Not creepy at all…’ Jesse mutters.
Paddy is enthralled. ‘You didn’t say you got caught!’
Jesse shifts uneasily. ‘Course I did. Everything always goes fucking wrong.’
Paddy exhales slowly. He looks between Jesse and the new girl.
‘And what? Mayfield just let you go?’
‘No damage done.’ Jesse looks away. ‘Me and Mayfield have an understanding. I just came to tell you that I tried, that’s all.’
‘Jesse, you’re crazy! You didn’t have to try and burn down the school for me. Or you!’
‘Is that why you got arrested?’ Jaime is all ears and her eyes are wide, the storm forgotten as she stares greedily at Jesse.
He gives her a long, measured look. ‘Yeah.’
She slaps a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God. This is so exciting. I am so glad I moved here!’
Jesse examines her carefully before shifting his gaze to Paddy, his eyebrows raised.
‘She won’t be for long…’
Thanks for reading!
Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of Chapter One – May Day. Please also let me know if you would prefer shorter chapters. They are quite long and I could split each in half. What do you think of the characters introduced so far??
NOTE: Please remember this is NOT the finished version of Black Hare Valley Book 1. This book has not been to my editor yet or even my beta readers. There will be typos, grammatical mistakes, and sentences that need rewriting.
COMING NEXT THURSDAY: Chapter Four “Willow Watches”
The Glorious Outsiders 