Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,93

my whole life.

“OK, let’s do it.”

Karen gave my arm a squeeze. “Good girl,” she said. I think she honestly felt I was coming clean. She’d never believed me, and she was pleased now that I was owning up.

We walked out of the vestry and into the abbey. Well, there were way more than fifty people there now. It looked like there were hundreds milling around, all keeping near to the vestry door. As soon as I appeared, the noise level rose, and people started moving toward me. Karen steered me through them toward the front of the abbey, where Anne was standing with Stephen, the rector.

“Jem wants to make a statement,” Karen told them. “Where’s the best place?”

“Well—” Stephen started to say, when the pushy agent guy elbowed his way to the front and butted in.

“I’d totally advise against a general statement. We need careful media handling with a story like this. You’re much better with some specifically negotiated one-to-ones. Come on, let’s get you back to the vestry.”

He put his hand on my arm. I tried to shrug him off, but his grip was pretty viselike.

“Get off me!” I yelled. “I don’t belong to you, and I’m not going to do a deal with you.”

He looked genuinely shocked, and puzzled, like he didn’t understand what I was saying.

“Weren’t you listening to me in there?” he asked.

“Yeah, I was listening. But you weren’t. You never let me get a word in edgewise. I’m not interested. Now get your hand off me, or I’ll bite it.”

He removed his hand, but he didn’t back off. Instead, he leaned in close to me.

“I can’t believe someone would waste such an opportunity. You’re either very naïve or very stupid.” His voice was pitched low now, but Karen and the others had heard him.

“She’s neither,” said Karen firmly. “She’s her own person, and she’s made her own decision. Now I’d like you to leave her alone.”

Vic did move away then, but he didn’t leave the abbey, he stayed at the back of the crowd, watching.

“You’ve got something to say, have you?” Stephen was asking.

“Yes. I think it’s time…time I stopped wasting everyone else’s time.”

Anne glanced worriedly at Karen, but Stephen nodded and looked relieved.

“Good. I’m glad. This farrago has gone on long enough. You can speak from here.” There was a slight step up into the part where the choir sat, but it only brought me to the head height of most of the crowd.

I looked up at the pulpit. “What about up there? There’s a microphone, too.”

He went redder in the face.

“That would be completely inappropriate…,” he started to bluster, then thought better of it. “Oh, very well, if it gets it over with….”

He led me up some steps and suddenly I was there, in the dark wooden pulpit of Bath Abbey. He switched on the microphone and introduced me, his voice booming out across the pews.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please find a seat. Our young…guest…here at the abbey has a few words to say to you.” He spread out his arm, inviting me to step forward and speak, and then retreated down the stairs.

A hush fell over the crowd.

I made the mistake of looking down. A sea of faces met me — a sea of numbers. I had nothing prepared: no clever words, no speech, no beginning, middle, or end. And one thing to tell them: a barefaced lie.

I took a couple of deep breaths.

“Hello,” I said, “I’m Jem. But you know that, that’s why you’re here.” No reaction. I swallowed hard and continued. “At least I don’t really know why you’re here. I’m just a kid, the same kid I was a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, when no one wanted to know me. I suppose what’s different is that I’ve been saying stuff about knowing when people are going to die. And I suppose you’re here because you think that I might tell you. But I’ve got to tell you…I’ve got to tell you…that it’s all a lie. I made it up.”

There was a collective gasp.

“Attention-seeking, that’s all. Boy, did that work. I’m sorry. I’m a fake. You’ve been scammed. You can all go home now — there’s nothing to see here.”

I turned to make my way down the stairs. People were starting to call out — it wasn’t what they’d wanted to hear. There were angry shouts, but also, rising above the other noise, a scream of genuine anguish — a terrible noise. I turned back and scanned