Jimmy Coates: Killer

Mr and Mrs Muzbeke looked at each other. The ping of the kettle broke the silence.

“You can sleep in the spare room,” sighed Felix’s mother. “I’ll fetch you some of Felix’s pyjamas. We’ll get this whole thing sorted out in the morning.”

Jimmy stood up from the table. He was exhausted. In the morning, when they found out his parents really were missing, they would have to believe him.

Then Jimmy remembered his sister.

“What about Georgie?” he said. “Call her school at nine o’clock and I bet you she won’t be there. I don’t think they’re after her too, but she ran off, and she’s going to try and help me.”

“Jimmy, go to bed,” said Felix’s mother. “Now.”

Felix’s father glanced up at the clock and groaned.

“I may as well get ready for work,” he said. “What a start to the day.”

Jimmy was upset. He knew he wasn’t exaggerating, or imagining it all. He just had to prove it. He stopped at the door and turned around. Suddenly he started opening all the kitchen drawers.

“What are you doing?” shrieked Felix’s mother. “Stop that. What are you looking for?”

It was too late. Jimmy had found a knife.

CHAPTER SIX – IN HIDING (#ulink_6071caff-932f-50cd-a703-700390d32a16)

FELIX MUZBEKE HATED getting up in the morning. In fact, there was only one thing that he hated more: waking up five minutes before the alarm went off. Those five valuable minutes of sleep were lost to him for ever, and not having those five minutes was going to make him tired all day. He knew trying to get back to sleep was pointless, so he thumped his hand down on the button that would stop the alarm going off and trudged to the bathroom as if going to his execution.

It was when he reached the bathroom that he heard the noise from downstairs again and realised it must have been what woke him up. Felix looked across at his parents’ bedroom door. It was ajar, which meant they were both up. He was ready to brush it off as a lively breakfast, but then he heard his mother shriek.

Felix knew that if there was something seriously wrong he probably couldn’t do anything to help, but nobody was ever more curious. A scream on a school morning was an unusual event. It would at least give him something to talk about at school. He trotted down the stairs and pushed open the kitchen door, then thought he must still be dreaming. “Oh, my God! Hi, Jimmy.”

His mother was sitting at the table with her face in her hands, quivering slightly. Felix’s father was just staring back at him with his mouth half open and his eyebrows frowning. But it was Jimmy who had surprised Felix. First of all, he wasn’t meant to be there. He also wasn’t meant to have a huge kitchen knife sticking out of his arm.

“Hi, Felix,” said Jimmy, happiness in his voice. He was genuinely delighted to see his friend. His left arm was stretched out on the kitchen table, his hand turned upwards. At his wrist, the knife stood up on its own, with about a centimetre of the blade sunk into Jimmy’s flesh. It rose like Excalibur and flashed in the grey morning light.

Felix’s mother emerged from behind her hands. “Stop that at once! Put that thing down!” she squealed. But Jimmy just smiled as calmly as he could.

“No, it’s OK, look,” he said. “It’s like I was saying…” and he curled the fingers of his right hand round the handle of the knife. Slowly he pulled the blade out of his wrist. “No blood. Told you.”

Felix came right up close.

“That is so cool. Can I have a go?” Felix reached out for the knife, but his mother pulled him away.

“No! That is very dangerous and you shouldn’t do it. Nor should you, Jimmy. Put the knife away.” Jimmy didn’t answer. He just held out his hand to Felix’s father.

“Jimmy,” said Mr Muzbeke, “is this a trick?”

“No.”

“And it did the same thing when you got glass in your wrist?”

“It was a big bit of glass from the window, and at first I didn’t even notice it was there. It didn’t hurt or anything.”

Just like before, there was no blood, no mess, and Jimmy didn’t feel any pain. Any normal person would be bleeding to death by now, but Jimmy just had a flap of skin. He could squeeze his little finger in and touch a deeper layer, which was slightly grey under the pink skin.

“What are you doing here, Jimmy? Are you coming to school with me?” Felix was a little disappointed about there not being an intruder or a major disaster for him to report on.

“Erm, I can’t come to school Felix, and you can’t tell anybody I’m here.”

“Can I tell them about your arm? Does it hurt?”

“No you can’t tell them, and no it doesn’t hurt.”

“How come you look so terrible?”

While Felix bolted his breakfast, Jimmy tried as best he could to explain everything that had happened to him. Felix’s parents kept interrupting, telling Felix to hurry up and telling Jimmy not to exaggerate. But even so, he began to feel that Mr and Mrs Muzbeke were starting to believe him. Felix was riveted.

“OK, listen, I won’t tell anybody you’re here, but when I get home from school we’re going to check out your superpowers,” said Felix. In a flash he was dressed and out of the door, sprinting up the road – very late.

“It doesn’t feel like having superpowers,” said Jimmy as the front door clicked shut. Felix’s mother put her hand on the back of Jimmy’s neck.

“Go and get some sleep. And don’t worry about your family. I’m sure they’re fine, wherever they are.”

Jimmy dropped his head and yawned. He was so tired he had stopped thinking straight a long time ago. He pictured the faces of his parents and his sister as he crawled up the stairs and into the unfamiliar bed. The spare room was too tidy, too clinical to be homely. It was obvious nobody stayed in there much.

The fact that it was light outside didn’t matter. Jimmy closed his eyes and let his body curl into a ball. He didn’t feel as excited about any of this as Felix obviously did. He certainly didn’t feel like a superhero. He felt awful.

“He makes bottle tops, for God’s sake. Who could possibly want to kidnap Ian Coates?” Felix’s mother was pacing the kitchen, trying hard to keep her voice down so as not to wake Jimmy.

“Jimmy thinks they’re after him. Have you phoned the house again?”

“Still no answer. But that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

“I don’t know.” Felix’s father rubbed his face with his hand, trying to banish the shock of a strange morning. He allowed himself a moment of self-pity. He worked so hard as it was, he didn’t need to be woken up extra early by a runaway child. He put the kettle on again and shook his head. His dark jowls jiggled as if they had just woken up. “What should we do?” he asked, finally.

“I’m phoning the police.” Olivia Muzbeke walked over to the phone on the wall and picked up the receiver. Her husband was there in a flash.

“You can’t do that,” he said, and put his hand across the phone.

“Leave me alone, I’m calling the police. If Jimmy is telling the truth and something has happened to the Coates, then the police need to know.”

“If Jimmy is telling the truth, then the police are also trying to catch him.” Felix’s mother knew her husband was right. She put down the phone.

“What if he’s done something wrong?” she said as she poured yet more tea.

“You know him better than I do. Has he ever been in trouble before?”

“No.”

“Has he ever done anything he shouldn’t have?”