Giants and Ogres Read online

  That had worked until Cresser noticed him.

  “Whatya up to, Danny?” Cresser would call out, cronies at his side. “Pickin’ your zits again? Want a hand?” A half-empty can usually followed, spraying Daniel’s jacket with flat coke. Or a stone, or a handful of soil. A schoolbook and once a brick, which left his arm bruised for days. Fell over, he told his mother when she saw him wincing.

  Daniel’s mother said that Cresser had “anger issues” and “personal problems.” But Daniel’s mother worked all hours, keeping the family fed and clothed. She was guessing. Daniel had known kids who were bullied and lashed out in return. He’d known other kids whose parents fought a lot of the time or whose parents were separated like his. He could cope with them.

  Cresser was bad in the head, plain nasty. He always had been. He liked what he did, and he spread his nastiness, infecting weaker kids, drawing them into his circle.

  It didn’t get any better. Mrs Carlito took one afternoon off to speak to the teachers and almost lost her position at the mini-mart, spent an hour talking to Daniel about Cresser, bullying, and how to get on with others and was late for her cleaning job. He stopped mentioning it to her.

  Fridays were particularly bad. On Fridays, Cresser would taunt Daniel with what might happen over the weekend.

  “Ought to look out for that mutt of your sisters,” he’d say. “Lot of gangs round here, they take dogs and make ’em fight together.”

  Or “Thought I might hang out on your turf Sat’day, Danny. I seen which is your window, got me a BB gun now.”

  It left Daniel waiting and worrying.

  On the Friday before the summer break, the wait was over. Cresser was there for him outside school, a few younger kids at his back. He had a corroded length of iron in his hand, twisted from the railings.

  “Found this, Danny. Thought we’d hang out by the old flats, hit stones. Wanna come?”

  Daniel put his head down and tried to walk past. Cresser tripped him and Daniel fell, tearing one knee of his trousers.

  “Thought you would.”

  They dragged him up and along the pavement. An old man walking by opened his mouth to speak, looked at Cresser, and carried on past in silence. Daniel wanted to shout out but couldn’t do it. If he struggled, yelled, it would get worse. Maybe he could take a few more bruises and get it over with. Cresser would get sick of the game eventually, move on to someone else.

  The area around Rowan Rise was wildly overgrown, a mass of dog-roses and other thorny bushes thick with litter—torn newspaper, cans and bottles, wet plastic bags that might have something unpleasant in them. Every flat was boarded up except one.

  “So, wanna meet the ogre?” Cresser smacked the railing into the palm of his other hand, releasing flakes of rust. The smaller kids sniggered, urging Cresser on.

  “Do him, Cresser.”

  “Yeah, smack him one, right here.”

  Cresser stood up straight, flexed his broad shoulders. He was heading for six foot tall, even at fifteen, and bulking up nicely. For him.

  “Naah, I think he’s gonna show us how tough he is. Go on, Danny. Get in there.”

  It wasn’t a choice. Daniel’s knee hurt, and the gang waited for him. Running was right out. He stumbled towards the ogre’s door. The uneven brick path didn’t help, choked with thistles and other weeds so that the bricks had lifted here and there, almost tripping him again.

  The plastic “7” hung on its side, one screw missing. Daniel had to step round the door, which hung at a slant, stained and peeling. It had been green once. His sister had been right about the smell. Rotting food and a sickly undertone of meat gone bad. Sweat and urine as well.

  He tried not to gag as he edged into the debris-strewn front room. He could see the remains of a sofa in the gloom and a ripped open armchair, its springs hanging down to the remains of a carpet. There was no way of telling what colour it might have been. A television lay on its side in one corner, shattered. Torn curtains let in enough light to see, but behind the TV was another doorway, the darkness beyond that impenetrable.

  He should have said hello, called out and asked if he could come in. He didn’t. The fall, the whole thing with Cresser and now this … Daniel felt his chest tighten, his stomach turn inside him. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

  “Nnngh.” A deep sound, a voice of sorts, from the other room. Louder to him than the jeering outside, as Cresser yelled to see if he’d had enough yet, if he’d met the ogre.

  He turned towards the window, wondering if ….

  The impact on the side of his head was astonishingly painful, as if a baseball bat had been swung at his skull. Daniel took one choking breath and blacked out as he fell.

  Shadows, some caused by the pain in his head, some by the massive figure that stood over him.

  “Bad.” A finger, with greyish skin and a long, cracked nail at the end, more like a crocodile’s claw—he’d seen them at the zoo—pointed in his face.

  Daniel scuffled back against the wall, pressing himself to it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He cowered, wondering if there would be another blow. There usually was with Cresser, but this was someone—something—else.

  He’d never needed to come to Rowan Rise before. Kids threw stones through any remaining windows on the first floor, sprayed tags on the outside walls. He knew that, but he’d never been part of it. He’d assumed that “that guy” was just another pensioner, trapped in trashy housing. The name the kids used meant very little to him. Maybe the guy was bad-tempered, a bully like Cresser? He knew that there was no such thing as an actual ogre.

  Was there?

  It smelled of meat and wet dogs, and it was big enough to block out most of the feeble light from the window. If it was a man, it had abandoned any pretence at looking like one. There were clothes, of sorts, but they were mostly rags around its waist. Wiry hairs covered its huge chest and shoulders, matted into the tangle of greyer strands hanging from an almost bald head, small in comparison to the body.

  “Please, don’t hit me again.”

  “Bad.” it said again, but less harshly.

  “I was … I was made to come in here, honest.” Daniel waved one hand towards the world outside. “They made me, Cresser and that lot. I didn’t want to.”

  “Ngh.” The thing stepped back, less threatening.

  “I’m called Daniel, uh … Danny.”

  If there was any way he could get out of this, it would be through talking. His head hurt, his leg hurt, and this thing would catch him well before he reached the door.

  The ogre appeared to consider this. He could see that it had two eyes, a nose, a mouth, but everything was exaggerated. It had lips like mottled sausages, the sort you threw in the bin, drawn back from teeth the colour of wet sand; the nose was pitted and flattened, too large for the face.

  It picked up a framed photograph from a collapsing sideboard. He hadn’t noticed the picture before. A cheap gilt frame, ridiculously small in those great thick fingers.

  “Is that you? In the picture.”

  But it wasn’t. He could make out the features of a woman, a thin old woman with blue-rinsed hair like Mrs. Chester down Daniel’s street. The ogre threw the photo into the room behind it, a clatter as the frame hit something hard.

  “Nuh. Gone, her.”

  “Oh.” He tried to stand up, managed to prop himself on his feet, still shaky. “What’s your name, uh, sir?”

  “Nuh name,” it grunted. “Furget. Hungery.”

  “They … they call you The Ogre.” It came out, though he hadn’t meant it to.

  “Wass that?”

  “An ogre? It’s, I dunno, a sort of monster. Eats people.”

  There was a sort of surprise on the flat, pockmarked face. At least Daniel hoped it was surprise, not a sign that the thing was angry.

  “Dunt know peepul. Dunt know nuh one.”

  Daniel couldn’t detect any sadness or concern about this state of affairs, and he und
erstood, in a way. Some things were what they were.

  “Can I … can I stay in here, maybe for an hour or two? I won’t bother you.”

  How he could have bothered someone, something like this, escaped him, but it seemed worth saying.

  “Ngh.” Indifference. The creature turned and shambled into the deep gloom of the other room. After a while, he heard the sounds of gnawing, grinding, the wet noises of something eating in the dark. Daniel sat down again and hugged his knees to his chin. Another half hour and maybe Cresser would get sick of hanging around or assume that Daniel had found another way out.

  Daniel would be patient. He knew how to do that.

  Saturday was bliss in comparison to school—shopping for his mother, a couple of other errands, and a new detective book from the library. Sunday brought Cresser, kicking pebbles into Daniel’s front yard, waiting.

  Daniel had to take the garbage out, and the bins were right next to his tormentor. Esme was away at a friend’s, and his mother was in no mood for arguments.

  He hauled the bag out, keeping the bin between him and Cresser.

  “What happened to you, Danny boy? Meet the ogre, did you?” The tall boy’s expression was one of amusement. It wouldn’t last.

  “No one there,” said Daniel. “Must … must have left or died or something.”

  “So you sat there all that time? Saw nothin’, found nothin’?”

  “Pretty much.” Daniel lifted up the heavy plastic bag, manoeuvring it to drop it in the bin. A second before he had it in the right place, Cresser kicked the bin over. The bag burst on the concrete, spilling garbage across the sidewalk, a tidal wave of waste stopping slightly short of Daniel’s feet.

  It was a moment to be angry, to let loose all his rage at Cresser’s bullying and strike back.

  Daniel was damaged enough from what had happened two days ago. Perhaps he would turn into a mad psychopath when he was thirty or something weird like that, he thought, squeezing his anger down inside him. If he made it that far. He bit the inside of his cheek, and began to pick things up.

  “Don’t believe you,” said Cresser, walking away.

  But it didn’t end there. Cresser seemed bugged by what had, or had not, happened in Flat 7—sly comments on the street, more threats, over the next few days. When Daniel saw Cresser and his “friends” walking down Main Street on Wednesday morning, he ran before they could spot him. He was not far from Rowan Rise at the time, and the thick bushes there were enough to keep him hidden.

  The place looked exactly the same, deserted. No movement at the only intact window; one pane cracked but still in place. It felt as if he’d had concussion and dreamed the whole thing up. There was no ogre in that flat.

  Daniel couldn’t stand up to Cresser, but he could be brave on his own. He was on his own a lot. He edged towards the building, making sure that Cresser’s lot were out of sight. Maybe he’d seen a tramp, got confused.

  He stepped past the broken door as quietly as he could. The stench was the same—he hadn’t dreamt that part. He listened.

  There was breathing—the choked snorts of something very large breathing.

  “Hello? Mr…. er, sir?”

  The blackness moved forward, becoming a dirty grey-brown mass that was exactly as he remembered it.

  “Hungery,” it said but made no further move towards him.

  Daniel felt in his pockets, came out with a bar of chocolate.

  “Here.”

  Thick nails crinkled the wrapper, took it from him. The whole bar went into that mouth, went down with a gulp, foil and all.

  “Any better?” asked Daniel.

  “Hungery.” The ogre looked at him, red-veined eyes trying to focus. “Thanck yu.”

  “It’s OK.”

  The fear had left him, though he had no idea why. If Cresser had turned up with his gang, he might have been wetting himself, but this thing, this ogre, didn’t scare him. It was big, and it was “hungery” as it kept saying. That was all.

  Daniel made himself smile and sat down in a shaft of light. He opened his backpack, handed his sandwich to the ogre. That disappeared just as quickly.

  “Alright if I stay here and read?”

  “Ngh,” said the ogre and slowly made its way back into the other room.

  Daniel took out his library book and began to read.

  For two weeks, Flat 7 became Daniel’s refuge. There was no noise apart from the ogre’s thick breathing, and the creature had no apparent interest in anything but food. It came more readily to see what Daniel had brought it as the days went by. The carcass of a roast chicken. Half a bag of raw, slightly green potatoes. A bag of sugar. Cereal. The ogre ate them all, but at the end of every visit, “hungery” was still there on the pungent air inside the flat.

  His little sister Esme had a load of idiotic stories about people befriending wild animals, monsters, even dragons. This was nothing like that. The flat smelled; the carpet was dirty. The ogre said and did virtually nothing. It was, however, a safe place away from kids like Cresser who were bored enough by the summer break to want a victim.

  He’d almost settled himself into this routine when the worst happened—an errand for his mother, picking up dry-cleaning. It meant a slow walk back home, the bags over his shoulder. Easy target.

  The gang was by the corner, Cresser punching another kid’s arm again and again as the others laughed. There were five of them this time, including Lucas ‘Lukey’ Santiago, who said that Daniel brought “his people” into shame by being so pathetic.

  “Whatcha got there, Daredevil Danny?” Lukey sniggered.

  “Dry cleaning,” said Daniel and kept going. He couldn’t run unless he abandoned the clothes, and he knew that they were his mother’s uniforms for work.

  Cresser’s large frame blocked the sidewalk.

  “Ain’t seen you for a while.”

  “Been away.” He tried to edge around Cresser.

  “No he has not.” Lukey swaggered closer, a wiry boy with fake tattoos on his right arm. One of them spelled out “Saten Ruls,” showing Lukey’s academic level. “He’s been hiding out up at the flats. I seen him, couple of times.”

  Cresser frowned. “Don’t think you telled me the truth, didya, Danny? You find somethin’ in there?”

  Had he found something in Number 7? Yes, though he didn’t know what. He’d been in an ogre’s lair and had survived.

  He was sick of this.

  “Hit me,” he said to Cresser, putting the rustling plastic bags down on the sidewalk.

  “Uh?”

  “Hit me. You’re five inches taller than me, Cresser, a year older. You play football in the front row, and you get your kicks by beating up smaller kids who don’t have a chance. It’s pathetic.”

  Cresser gave a grunt and slammed his fist into Daniel’s belly, doubling him over. He managed to stay on his feet, despite the pain and the whumpf of air from his lungs.

  “That’s how tough Cresser is,” he gasped, staring round at the others. “Ever see him pick on anyone his own size, or his own age? Anyone who might fight back? Bet you haven’t.”

  Another blow to his belly, but Cresser’s face was flushed, and some of the gang looked confused.

  “You ain’t worth it,” said Cresser, turning away.

  Daniel drew in ragged breaths, his hands on his knees, trying not to collapse while the others were still there.

  “Better watch your back, Lukey,” Daniel said. “If he can’t get it from me, you’re the next smallest round here.”

  Santiago’s look of puzzlement, then his quick glance at Cresser, told Daniel that he’d sown the seeds. It was the best he could do, or was it?

  Cresser was muttering about going to the slot machines, but Daniel was hearing his own words again, in his head. He felt like he’d had a revelation. Anyone his own size …

  “You were right about that flat, Cresser,” he shouted after them. “There was plenty of stuff in there, but it’s not yours, so tough!”

>   Another seed sown, he hoped, as he picked up the dry-cleaning and limped home.

  Maybe he was learning.

  Cresser went out the same night, back to Rowan Rise. That flabby waste of space Danny Carlito had been inside, stayed in there. He’d even gone back. What had he found? And Cresser knew that he needed to teach one or two kids a lesson. He hadn’t liked it when Santiago had peeled away that afternoon, saying the slots were boring.

  What if there really was something worth stealing in the old flat? His uncle knew where to get rid of dodgy goods. And maybe he could work out how to close the front door properly. Locking one of his gang in there could be a laugh. Control was everything.

  “God, what a stink.” He held his sleeve to his nose and mouth as he went in. He could see nothing but rubbish in the front room.

  “Must be something in here,” he muttered as he stepped into the doorway of the second room. What had that Carlito kid been on about? You didn’t come here twice for a laugh.

  Maybe there was more in the back, less wrecked than this stuff. He shone his torch around. It was a good torch, with a bright, narrow beam. It spotlighted the face in the corner of the room, showing every hair and pore on the dirty skin, reflecting in the two blood-shot eyes—like an animal in headlights, but larger, thought Cresser. He was too stupid to be afraid.

  At first.

  He hefted the iron railing in his hand. He’d meant it for smashing any locks open, but it would do as extra protection as well. He took a step forward.

  “Whatya got in here, then? Silver, watches? Mattress full of cash?”

  The figure gave an incomprehensible grunt, but there was a tone to it. It sounded like a question. Cresser saw large nostrils flare, drawing in his scent even above the stench of the flat.

  “Nuh … Danny?” It lifted large hands, its eyes narrower. “Not Danny.”

  Cresser felt doubt somewhere in his belly, but he let it lie there.

  “Danny? That loser?” He laughed. “So you’re this ogre, are you?”

  “Hungery.”

  “Yeah, aren’t we all, pal.” The more he jeered, the braver he felt. “You live in this heap, do you? You’re only an old dosser, probably pisses himself all day.”