Part 26 (2/2)

'No,' said Kevin, looking her straight in the eye. 'But then, she never does. She doesn't take any interest, really. She certainly won't be worried about me.'

'Are you sure?'

'Positive.'

She examined him for a few seconds longer, then sighed. 'Well, whatever else you do, you'd better get out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia. Do either of you want a bath?'

Tess shook her head, but Kevin nodded eagerly. 'Yes, please. I can't remember the last time I had a bath!'

Tess cringed and her father looked astonished, but her mother laughed and gestured to Kevin to follow her up the stairs. She exchanged a complicitous smile with Tess over the bannisters which made her heart swell with pleasure. At least she had one ally in the house.

When she had towelled herself down and put on dry clothes, Tess sorted out a genderless tracksuit and left it outside the bathroom door. Then she went to help her mother, who was making up the bed in the spare room for Kevin.

'What about this sick friend of yours?' she said. 'You're being very mysterious about him.'

'Oh, there's nothing so mysterious, really.' As she spoke, Tess realised that despite their conspiratorial understanding of a few minutes before, they could never understand each other about some things. 'He's under a lot of stress,' she went on. 'His father died in an accident and he hasn't really got over the shock of it yet. He needs a lot of support.'

'You should have told me before,' said her mother. 'I'm all in favour of you being helpful like that. Perhaps I could help, too? Bake a cake or something? Would he like that?'

Tess fought back the deluge of ironic laughter that threatened to swamp her faculties. She pictured her mother walking into the vampire's lair, entirely unsuspecting, holding out a perfect specimen of her famous Lemon Drizzle.

'He might,' she said. 'We'll have to wait and see how things turn out.'

They finished making the bed, then her mother turned on the electric blanket and went back to her own room. On her way downstairs, Tess met her father coming up with two cups of cocoa.

'Oh, thanks, Dad.'

'For what? These are for your mother and I. It's late enough as it is, and I'm supposed to be at the office early in the morning.'

'Oh.'

'There's plenty of milk in the fridge if you and your boyfriend want to make some.'

'He's not my boyfriend!'

'Good.' Her father's face softened and he moved both slopping mugs into one hand and reached out with the other to muss up Tess's damp hair. 'But whoever he is, don't be staying up all night, you hear? I don't know about him, but you have to be on the school bus at half past eight.'

School past, school future; both of them seemed light years away. But she nodded at her father and made a show of looking at her watch.

'Don't worry, Dad. We won't be up much longer.'

'Goodnight, then.'

'Goodnight.'

Tess had made cocoa and a pile of sandwiches before Kevin eventually finished soaking in the bath and came down. He was a fresh, pink colour, and his hands and feet were wrinkled like prunes. Together they raided the cupboards for crisps, biscuits and fruit, then they brought the whole feast up to Tess's bedroom.

'You've redecorated,' said Kevin, looking around him.

'Last year.' Tess put down the tray and slotted an R.E.M. tape into the ca.s.sette deck. 'My dad wanted to cheer me up.'

'Cheer you up? Why?'

Tess blushed and turned away, not wanting to tell Kevin how upset she had been when she thought he was dead, and how strongly it had affected her life. The music began with a boom, and she grabbed for the volume control before it could wake her parents.

Kevin started into the sandwiches. Tess had made one with apricots and cashew nuts and put it on the top of the pile, and for a long time neither of them could do anything except laugh. When they finally recovered themselves, Kevin said, 'It's so good to be human again. You have no idea, Tess.'

'Really?' she said. 'I thought it was wonderful, being a phoenix.'

'It was, for a while. But it's like, what do you do once you're perfect? Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to strive for. Hardly living at all, really, is it?'

Tess shrugged. 'If you say so,' she said. 'But I'm still not sure how it happened, how you came to Switch back even though you're over fifteen.'

'I didn't get it to begin with, either, but I think I do, now. I think that I could only exist as a phoenix as long as Martin existed as a vampire. We counterbalanced each other in some way.

'That's right,' said Tess. 'Lizzie said something like that. I just didn't understand it at the time.'

'And it was you who changed us, Tess. By deciding that you wouldn't become like either of us.'

'But how do you know I decided that?'

'I could feel it. I was part of the fight, remember?'

'Does that mean that Martin isn't a vampire, then?' said Tess.

'I don't know,' said Kevin. 'That would be the proof of the theory, I suppose, if it did. But I certainly wouldn't like to bank on it.'

They both fell silent, contemplating what he had said. Then Kevin said, 'Who lives in the cage?'

'No one.' Tess explained about Algernon and the vampire's control of the rats. As she spoke, they both became aware of the black, empty gaze of the window, and Kevin got up to draw the curtains.

'Do you think he's out there?' said Tess.

Kevin thought for a minute, and there was no sound apart from the tinny beat of music being played more quietly than it was meant to be.

'I don't know,' he said, 'but I feel as though I ought to. There should be some way of knowing, shouldn't there? Not logically, perhaps, but instinctively.'

Tess sat still, trying to work out what she felt. 'There's some kind of danger out there in the dark,' she said.

'I know that. But there always has been, hasn't there? And there always will be-places where it's not safe to be. Trouble is, it's like traffic accidents; you never know until it's too late.'

The mention of accidents reminded Tess of what she and Martin had been talking about. 'The crazy thing is, I don't blame him for what he did. I mean, shutting himself off like that and becoming cold and mean.'

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