Rhys Morgan and Jack Dawson are the last two boys on the school bus. Coming down the hill towards Wellthorpe, through heavy snow, the bus crashes into the river and the boys are suddenly in a different world, the world of the Icetower and its dark owner.
Release date:
August 1, 2000
Publisher:
Orion Children's Books
Print pages:
192
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Rhys Morgan smoothed a clear space in the misted bus window so he could see out more clearly. A dozen or so of his schoolmates
were piling out at the stop on the outskirts of town. Immediately they began scooping snow from the grass verge and launched
into a snowball fight.
Few of them were adequately dressed for the weather, their thin Adidas and Reebok jackets more fashion statements than protection against the elements. The day had begun warm and sunny but had turned cold
during the end-of-term assembly. They’d all sat fidgeting in the hall as the Head droned on about the spirit of Christmas,
wanting only to be released into the freedom of their holidays. By the time they’d got outside, the first flakes were already
falling. Now, less than half an hour later, the whole landscape of suburban housing was carpeted white.
Rhys’s heart lurched in his chest as a snowball thudded against his window. He burrowed into the warmth of the black Gore-Tex parka that had once been his father’s. It was several sizes too big for him but his mother had insisted he wear it since
his own winter jacket had gone missing after a Games lesson. Given the rapidly deteriorating conditions outside, he was beginning to appreciate her insistence.
The driver revved the engine, the door gave an asthmatic wheeze as it closed, and the bus trundled on again.
Rhys kept staring out at the flakes swirling down, wondering why they always looked grey against the sky but white against
everything else. Terry the driver was sucking on his teeth as he accelerated, trying to squeeze as much power as he could
out of the ancient engine before they began the steep climb out of Wellsthorpe.
At the back of the bus, Jack Dawson started singing, ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,’ in a weird falsetto voice that sounded
dead sinister.
Rhys didn’t look round. He and Jack were the last two passengers on the bus – always were. And this was the part of the journey
he’d come to dread because he never knew what to expect from Jack.
‘Pack it in!’ Terry yelled from the front. He changed down a gear as they began the ascent, the town already behind them,
gorse and bracken on either side now, clotted with snow.
To Rhys’s surprise, Jack obeyed without a word of sarcasm or complaint. If anything, the silence that followed was even worse
because Rhys didn’t know what Jack might be up to. The journey home from school seldom passed without him indulging in some
sort of mischief.
‘Hey, Morgan!’
The voice was still coming from the back seat. Rhys still didn’t look round.
‘Hey,’ it came again. ‘Morgan grinder! You alive down there?’
Rhys didn’t dignify this with any response. When he’d first come to the school in September Jack had been friendly towards him, but since half term things had changed. Now it was all snide nicknames – Morgan the Gorgon, Fried Rhys, even the tired old Taffy. Rhys didn’t know what he had done to provoke Jack’s change of attitude.
Abruptly, Jack slid into the seat beside him. Rhys had to make a studied effort to turn and look him in the face. Jack was
small, dark and wiry, with calculating eyes that always seemed to be probing you, looking for a weakness. He wore only his
black blazer and trousers – no jacket, gloves or scarf.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘not talking to me?’
‘What do you want, Jack?’
‘Lend us a fiver.’
This was said simply as a provocation, Rhys was sure. He sighed, though he could feel himself knotting up inside, wondering
what sort of wind-up Jack intended this time. Physically, Rhys was much bigger than Jack and in a straight fight might be
able to overwhelm him with sheer mass and muscle power. But Jack was a dominant character, always confident and cocky, so
that even the out-and-out bullies at school left him alone.
‘The thing is,’ Jack went on, ‘I need to buy me dad a Christmas present, and I’m brassic. How about a loan?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I haven’t got that kind of money.’
Jack just waited.
‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.’
‘Give?’ Jack pretended to look offended. ‘You think I wouldn’t pay you back? A loan is what I said. A loan. Got a different
meaning in Welsh, has it? Here in England, that means you give someone some money and they promise to pay it back.’
‘I know what it means,’ Rhys replied, feeling his face grow hot.
He and his mother had moved from Wales to Cumbria in the summer. For the first half of term, Jack had been one of the few
kids in school not to take the mickey out of his accent. In fact, now Rhys thought about it, Jack still didn’t like the other
kids making jokey remarks about his nationality. He was fine with Rhys when others were around, even protective of him as
the new boy. It was only when the two of them were alone together that the sarcasm started. It was the opposite of the usual
type of bullying. Bullies liked an audience, cronies to impress, whereas Jack had never tried to take advantage of him in
company. Rhys couldn’t fathom it at all.
‘You can’t be short of a few quid,’ Jack went on.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mum must be raking in the dosh.’
‘Teachers aren’t that well paid,’ Rhys retorted, although he knew there was no point in trying to argue with Jack when he
had no intention of being reasonable.
‘Better paid than schoolkeepers.’
This was said with undisguised bitterness. Jack’s father was the senior caretaker at Wellsthorpe High, where Rhys’s mother
also worked as an English teacher. It had never occurred to Rhys that Jack might resent what he saw as their difference in
status.
‘Is that it?’ Rhys said. ‘Is that why you’re always on my case these days? Because you think my mum has a posher job than
your dad.’
Jack looked at him as if startled by the very idea.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he insisted. ‘What are you on about?’
Throwing it back at him. Rhys said, ‘I’m trying to figure out why you’ve turned nasty.’
‘Nasty?’ Again, Jack made it sound like he didn’t know what Rhys meant. ‘Me, nasty? I’m as nice as pie.’
His grin looked more like a baring of teeth.
‘Yeah,’ Rhys replied. ‘Arsenic pie.’
It wasn’t a particularly witty response. Jack frowned, as though trying to work out a joke.
‘Fancy jacket,’ Jack said with reference to Rhys’s parka. ‘Plenty of room in there, by the looks of it. Got central heating
and a colour TV inside, have you?’
All week Rhys had had to endure jokes about the size of the parka.
‘It was my dad’s,’ he said simply.
Jack had obviously intended to take the mickey further, but at this he fell silent, simply staring at Rhys.
‘Look,’ Rhys said, ‘if you’ve decided you don’t like me, then fair enough. I can live with it. But why don’t you just stop
bothering me?’
Jack pretended to be surprised.
‘Like you?’ he echoed. ‘Of course I like you. You’re all right. You just get on my nerves, that’s all!’
Then he was up and away, scuttling down the aisle towards Terry.
Rhys settled back in his seat again, feeling as if he’d just survived an ordeal. Survived rather than triumphed, but at least
he hadn’t let Jack walk all over him.
Jack had crouched down next to the driver’s seat. He was talking and laughing with Terry, perhaps sharing a joke with him.
Rhys wondered if it was a joke at his own expense. No, he mustn’t get paranoid, though he was glad he couldn’t hear their
voices over the complaining roar of the bus’s engine as it neared the top of its steep climb.
Finally, they crested the hill, a thousand feet above Wellsthorpe. The wind was driving the snow almost horizontally across
the barren landscape of fells. Up here there was nothing except snow-cloaked heathery grass, no sign of civilization apart
from the diminishing thread of the road. The snow had started to stick and thicken on its surface, blurring its boundaries.
Terry actually braked as they dipped down again into a hollow. The windscreen wipers swayed to and fro with increasing effort,
casting aside a heavier burden of snow with every minute that passed.
Presently, Jack came back down the aisle and swung down beside him.
‘Terry’s getting worried,’ Jack said, though he sounded unconcerned himself. ‘He reckons we might have to bobsleigh down Serpent’s
Curve. Better get your crash helm. . .
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