Face (13 page)

“Dollar would neve
r agree to that.” I say

He’s doing one
of his more soulful gazes, but we don’t connect. I don’t get the same tug when he’s trapped in a photo. Story is leaning over, watching me watching Dollar.

             
“So, what’s the verdict?” Story says.

I’ve found
a more likely candidate: in this second image, the trademark intimacy is gone from his smile, although his lips retain their fullness. It’s still recognisably Dollar, but colder, and closed down. His cheeks are hollowed out, his nose sharper, a loss of perfection. It’s a cruel face. Plus it’s all going on behind the eyes: they are shrunken and positively glint with menace. His head is shaved. It’s the kind of Natural we have all come across before; the type of face you see on TV and you know, before they’ve even spoken, that you’ve met the baddie.

             
“This one is the internationally recognised actor-plays-psycho face.” I say. “Bet they’ll use that. It gives me a familiar feeling, do you know what I mean? He’s still sexy.”

“You need help.” Story says,
and pats my back. “Seriously. That’s a crazed psychopath.”

“Yeah, but
Dollar’s still there, isn’t he?”

I
tilt the screen at her, but Story’s SwimmingPool eyes remain unconvinced.

“I reckon the film company should look into his real ancestor
s, and turn him into the genuine article- the Natural in his genes. I’d like to see that.” Day says.

“People have got to want to pay to see him
on the big screen,” Seven mutters. “And now ...it’s time to ask the lady of influence in his life...”

I
assume she is referring to me and go to respond, but Seven has changed her phone display to Share, and Merlot’s latest advert fills the centre of our circle. Seven swivels her phone on the floor and Merlot’s image bobs and rotates, stopping in the air to face me.

“C
heck her out.” Seven says

“Poor thing
.” Story says, heaving a sigh.

T
he new down-turned mouth. I let the gut tug wash over me this time; Merlot always does what she claims on the box. The mood in my bedroom turns suddenly sombre.

“
Cheer up!” Seven addresses me through Merlot. “You know Dollar will be back to his normal, gorgeous self by the premiere, he’s got to shoot the next Rex Rayne.”

It occurs to me
far too late that Mum and bump are resting down the hall and Seven does not do subdued. I get up to shut my bedroom door and when I turn back, Merlot has made her graceful exit and Day has taken over, with a dramatically protruding bottom lip and pleading eyes. Story and I crease up laughing. Day’s protruding bottom lip quivers, he releases a strangled sob.

             
              “It would so work on your mum.” Seven says.

Day
forms the face of innocence that usually proceeds a wind-up.

“
PsychoDollar though? What do you think? That face could be a bad business decision...like the music career.”

Day s
muggles me a look. I won’t dignify him with a response.

“The lyri
cs weren’t that bad.” That just slipped out.

“Only you would know. Only you g
ot beyond the vocals.”

Day is rummaging thro
ugh my clothes recycling pile, he grasps the Careworn black fedora.

“What do you think?”

He’s got in on at a jaunty angle. Cliff wore it pulled low.
People need to see my eyes.

“Cross-dresser!
I knew there was a reason you hang out with girls.” I declare.

Seven opens my wardrobe, s
tarts flipping through. Locates my dress of the moment.

“Want to slip this on?” She pulls it off the han
ger, tosses it over Day’s head. “See how it feels?”

“Hey! That’s quite enough ladies.” Day emerges. “Actually, this f
eels lovely...” he’s stroking the antique gold fabric over his cheek.

“Speaking of freaks, True has acquired a stalker.”

Seven
sits like she just delivered a punch-line to the room- notably not me. I’m deciding what’s the bare minimum I can get away with explaining, when she begins for me:

“It’s t
he new boy, he’s a Natural. He followed her up the High Street and sent her some creepy pictures of himself.”

The room erupts into excitement.

“Wait, wait, it wasn’t like that!
He saw me going into the Health Centre. No, before that, he spoke to me in the Library because he needed help with the AGs. But he wouldn’t switch on his avatar.”

             
“Hang on. Is this the one who turned up in class as Dollar?” Day says.

             
“Keep up.” Seven says.

             
“Yeah. His name is Cliff.” I say.

             
“So what happened in the Library?” Story says.

             
“Nothing. I helped him and he went away.”

             
“But he actually refused to show his avatar?” Story says. “That’s scary.”

Seven
has gone all upright, giving me the gaze of My Protector, the one who was right all along.

             
“Then I was in the Health Centre, and he sent me these three images, basically saying, I look like one of these people and now I’ve shown myself, can we be friends?”

“..A
nd he was
outside the whole time
.” Seven adds.

Story’s Swim
mingPool eyes serve only to increase my sense of losing control.

             
“Not only that, but one of the pictures was a Natural.” Seven says, rocking on my chair in triumph. You’d have thought the whole thing happened to her.

             
“Was it really gross?” Story says.

             
“It was an ancient 2D picture of some older guy- definitely not Cliff.”

             
“Why send it then?” Day actually puts his phone down. “Sounds like he’s a right creep.” (I wish he’d take that black fedora off.)

             
“By the time I came out of the Health Centre he’d gone. That’s the end.”

             
“No- but then I messaged him saying
show your face right now
,” Seven continues at unnecessarily volume. “So he sent exactly the same three pictures to me, which were- listen to this:
an angry Natural
, a cartoon rabbit, and Dollar as Rex Rayne.”

             
“Delusions of grandeur?” Day shrugs. “He believes he actually is Dollar?” He looks to me for the final judgment.

             
“So, who thinks True should meet up with him- somewhere dark and deserted?” Seven opens her palms, appealing for a vote.

Ignoring the chorus of warnings, I jump up from the bed to fumble
frantically in the mountain of papers on my desk. The most important thing is that I locate the correct portrait.

             
“Here’s Cliff!” I announce.

I produce the cartoon
of ‘Repulsive Cliff’ in all its fiendish glory. The eyebrows are hilarious. The nose is worse than I remember. Everybody laughs.

             
“Don’t we look perfect together!”

I hold the picture
up next to my own face and let rip with the full Smile Blocker.

Seven takes a p
hoto with her phone.

Chapter Sixteen

The next time I see Cliff in person I am standing in the middle of a field and Cliff is bleeding. He doesn’t start out like this.

It’s Friday Sports,
the only lesson for which we are required to leave the house. A steady drizzle has started up, but it won’t be enough to call off our game of Rounders.

             
“So what’s it feel like?” Beijing says

Beijing
looks like everybody else when they ask; she is scowling slightly, a neat crease between the eyes.

             
“Like a hole in my face.” I reply, for the umpteenth time.

             
“Not that. The Smile Blocker.”

             
“Tiny tugs.”

             
“What, like all the time?”

             
“It’s just the polite smiles that stick.”

Her eyes are MonaLisa,
so last year, but they still work. It takes effort to look away.

             
“It can be kind of fun.” I add.

Beijing’s face does not agree; her face does not
‘get’ Maverick. Luckily it is time for the teams to swop over. My team has finished batting, so I seize the opportunity to do some seriously deep fielding and head off on my own. I’m getting as far away from home base as I can whilst still being seen to participate by MonkeyFace Adams, because I’ve answered enough questions out of concerned faces for a lifetime.

I’m
now approaching the former school buildings on the edge of the field, beyond the high fence. They are now an industrial park; a steady stream of self-drive white vans pass in and out of what used to be the main school entrance, where the gate still displays the St Luke’s Secondary School logo. Virtual School only retained the sports field, with the running track and a smaller side entrance, because you can’t get fit via avatar.

             
It’s a shock when Cliff strolls in dressed in his school Sports kit like the rest of us: long black shorts and a crisp white t-shirt displaying the school badge. So they actually made him turn up. His scarf and fedora set him apart. He pauses at the far edge of the field, glancing about. Searching for a familiar face perhaps, so I examine the grass. He sets off along the running track. He moves like a long distance runner, loose-limbed at a controlled pace, oblivious to the rest of us. Are we all to be circled by the new boy? Monkeyface Adams makes no move to call him back and force him into the group.

             
I hear the thwack of the rounders bat against the ball, and watch it whizz off in the opposite direction, so I am safe to keep a casual eye on Cliff as he rounds the corner into the back straight. Soon he will pass directly behind me. I am hard to miss, standing out here in the centre of the field on my own. If he’s planning to acknowledge me in any way, I’d rather he got it over with out here, than after the game. When I’m sure he’s not watching I edge a little closer to the track.

The fifth time he passes close behind me I get this urge to do a stupid wave. I
mean, hello? It’s just me here in a load of soggy grass, getting rained on. Boys are a different species! Real boys’ look far better in the Sports kit than their avatars do. Sometimes Seven, Story and I come here to check them out playing football after school. Seven rates them loudly. Monkeyface Adams obviously being your classic zero, your absolute base point, and Seven’s crush of the term scoring an eleven, or a twenty out of ten. She likes the ones with the brightest gazes that come her way, the latest features. I like the way they move, so differently from girls. Cliff would score well in that respect, from the neck down. I have been following his progress intensely since his arrival, playing the stalker. Let him see how that feels.

Come on Cliff, do something! I guess he’s decided to wait until the end of the lesson, so that if I blank him he can leave straight away. That’s what I would do if I were him. Everybody will be watching. Perhaps he’s still thinking of his opening line, something suitably clever. Here he comes again.

Another distant thwack, this one followed by intense pain across my right cheek, a cross between a punch and a slap. The ball drops heavily at my feet and I hunch over and clutch at my stinging face. Across the field, Dali and Beijing are hunched over too, with laughter. My face grows redder still. I dispose of the ball fast, hurling it with all my might. It loops and finishes up in a roll and I turn to see Cliff’s long tense back disappearing up the tracks, the knot at the back of his head. I know he saw that.