perfect moment that couldn’t have happened without it.
‘Okay,’ said Safa, finally pulling her hands away. ‘So when I invited you to the Lonely People meeting today I kind of forgot they might not be able to see us any more. But we should totally go. There’s still loads you don’t know.’
Kat nodded. Right then she probably would have followed Safa anywhere.
8
The Lonely People
(Are Getting Lonelier)
It was easy enough for Wesley to hang back in the classroom and wait for everybody else to leave before he made for the stairs that would take him into the bowels of the building. The door to the drama rehearsal room was ajar, and no sound came from inside. Wesley hesitated, unable to shake the feeling that he was an intruder about to stumble onto some secret world where he didn’t belong, and then pushed the door open.
It was little more than a cellar, windowless and painted black, a rack of mostly burnt-out lights screwed into the ceiling. A half-moon of plastic chairs faced the door, occupied by three kids spaced apart from each other as if they were strangers. They watched him wide-eyed as if this was some kind of raid.
‘Hey,’ said Wesley. ‘Is this the, uh, Lonely People?’
He felt so stupid using that name – it was like calling a group the Lone Wolves. Still, it seemed to make them all relax a little.
‘That’s us,’ said a frizzy-haired younger girl Wesley didn’t know.
Two seats to her right was a Korean boy he recognised from the year below, wearing a black beanie hat with his school uniform, rashes of spots across his cheeks. To her left was a smaller boy, maybe year seven or eight, wearing an oversized blazer, milk-white skin now flushing red as he scowled at the floor.
Wesley wondered if he should have stayed outside, tried to catch Kat before she made it into the room. Too late now. ‘I saw an email about your meeting . . .’
‘A new member,’ said the smaller boy. ‘Nice of Safa to let us know.’
‘Who’s Safa?’ Wesley said to the girl.
She narrowed her eyes at that. ‘I’m Aoife.’
The boy in the hat introduced himself as Jae, while the other refused to even look at him.
‘He’s Robbie,’ said Aoife, earning herself a scowl. ‘Safa’s sort of our leader, I guess.’
‘Leader in what?’
Robbie glared at him like it was a stupid question. ‘In trying to achieve the fade.’ Then he turned to the others. ‘We should get started.’
‘Do we have to, if Safa’s not here?’ said Jae.
Aoife glanced self-consciously at Wesley. ‘And with him here.’
‘If Safa has succeeded it shows we’re doing something right!’ Robbie waved them to their feet, and then flashed challenging eyes at Wesley. ‘You’re here to learn, aren’t you?
Wesley nodded, while making sure nothing was blocking his way to the door if they tried anything weird.
‘Stay there and watch.’
They each moved into a separate corner of the room and pressed their faces to the wall, let their arms hang limp at their sides. ‘Repeat after me,’ said Robbie, voice shaking. Undoubtedly he was taking up the absent Safa’s usual role. ‘We do not belong.’
From their separate corners, the others echoed, ‘We do not belong.’
‘We are not safe as we are.’
‘We are not safe.’
Robbie was growing in confidence now, his voice bounding around the room. ‘We will walk in somebody else’s skin.’
‘We will walk in somebody else’s skin.’
‘We must escape ourselves.’
‘We must escape.’
They chanted this line together three times over. Wesley had to fight his own urge to escape. They had crossed the line from weirdness into cult-like fervour.
Robbie’s voice reached a crescendo. ‘We are nothing!’
‘WE ARE NOTHING.’
There was a long silence, the atmosphere in the room growing thick, before they each turned away from the wall and took a breath.
‘Very good,’ said Aoife, smiling shyly. ‘Now we can have some snacks.’
Kat had arrived in time to see the end of the ritual, and if Safa hadn’t been blocking the doorway she probably would have turned straight around and left.
‘The prayer was my idea,’ said Safa. ‘I thought it might get them in the right mindset.’
‘The mindset of deranged cultists?’
‘Would cultists put on such a marvellous spread?’
The members of the Lonely People pulled half-packets of biscuits and flattened bags of crisps from their pockets. Jae even contributed some cold chicken nuggets.
‘They’ve been in my bag all day but they’re probably fine,’ he said.
Occupying a seat at the centre of the feast was Wesley, and it had to be more than the prospect of food