The Heat of the Sun

watching for masters, but no one really cared if we were caught.
    I found myself in Le Vol’s cubicle, where Le Vol, in his element, argued politics with a bellicose Elmsley and a lumbering fellow from Texas called Joe Boyd, who prodded the air with a
knobbly index finger. I only pretended to listen. From time to time others joined us, then drifted away, shaking their heads.
    One thing was odd. Sophie Tucker was silent. ‘Where’s Trouble?’ I heard it said, and ‘What can Trouble be up to?’ That he was up to something was clear. The
Townsend twins had also gone missing; so had Ralph Rex, Jr.
    The mystery would be explained, but not before a master came clumping up the stairs, yelled for order, and lights were extinguished at last.
    I had drifted asleep when a hand shook me. I sat up sharply. Above the cubicles, snow flurried against high windows, fracturing the light of a gibbous moon.
    Le Vol, eyes excited, held a finger to his lips. ‘Trouble’s sent word. Something’s up.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘Quick! Get dressed. We’re going. All of us.’
    He held out my trousers, coat, boots. Dazed, I pulled them over winter pyjamas. Icy gusts skirled between the cubicles. By the far wall a window yawned wide. Outside, a ladder stood against the
sill. In hushed eagerness, fellows clambered down into the snowy yard.
    Joe Boyd disappeared from view. Le Vol and I were the last ones left.
    ‘You go,’ I said. ‘I can’t – my leg.’
    ‘I’ll hold the ladder for you. Give me that.’ He grabbed my ashplant and tossed it from the window.
    From the ladder, he called back: ‘Now, follow, you hear?’
    ‘But you hate Trouble,’ I said.
    ‘Sharpless, this is rebellion – the Boston Tea Party!’
    Doubtfully, I watched as Le Vol descended. The ladder shook as I made my way after him, swinging out my damaged leg numbly between rungs. Snowflakes stung my face. I shouted to Le Vol to hold
the ladder steady.
    ‘Not so loud,’ he shouted back.
    When I reached the ground, Joe Boyd raced towards us. He had stolen the wheelbarrow from the gardener’s shed.
    ‘The cripple-carrier! In you get, Sharpless!’ he cried, and rammed the clumsy vehicle into my calves.
    With a gasp, I collapsed into its depths and we were off, charging across the fields and up the hill. Snow churned beneath the single wheel; several times the barrow lurched, and I almost found
myself pitched to the ground.
    Laughter sounded, and raised voices, before the graveyard came into view. Through barren trees appeared an orange incandescence, shivering and crackling against the night.
    We rounded a corner. Between tomb-slabs was a mighty bonfire, and circling it, uproarious, were perhaps forty fellows. All seemed ecstatic. I saw Elmsley, arm-wrestling with Hoppy Hopkins; the
Townsend twins; Earl Pritchard; Ralph Rex, Jr; Quibble and Kane – Quibble, in a cap with woolly earflaps, a drunken grin on his face; Kane, swaying dangerously, knife-nose red at the tip.
Cigarettes glowed in gloved hands; beer foamed from brown, glinting bottles; and on the other side of the fire Trouble had clambered up to the top of a vault and gazed down benevolently on the
revels he had commanded. Weirdly, he appeared to hover above the flames, and I found myself wondering if he was angel or demon.
    Somebody thrust a beer bottle into my hand. Le Vol had gone, vanishing into the crowd. A dog barked and the Townsend twins, tuneless in unison, caterwauled a song by Sophie Tucker.
    Then I saw the effigy hanging from the yew. A scarecrow draped in a school jacket, it swayed from a rope around its neck. I gasped, and did not think now that Trouble might be an angel.
    In the firelight, all of us were demonic.
    Elmsley appeared beside me. He was shorter than I, and his rodenty face nuzzled close to mine in a parody of affection. ‘The Billy Billicay Memorial Service!’ he cried. ‘The
scarecrow was my suggestion. But I don’t think it pays to stand out too much, do you?’
    ‘At Blaze, you mean?’ I said.
    ‘Let’s say someone might be in trouble soon – get it?’
    Turning, I saw a figure deep in shadow, withdrawn amongst the trees. It was Scranway, his overcoat shrouding him like a cloak. Unmoving, he held Hunter’s lead; it was as if, late as it
was, he had just happened to be taking his dog for a walk and paused, with idle interest, upon this unexpected scene.
    Blaze was bleak when term resumed, a place of clanking pipes, of overshoes in