The Medusa Project: The Rescue

  Nico sucked in his breath. ‘That doesn’t look like the young people doing their chores, does it?’

  I shook my head, frowning.

  We watched for a moment longer. As they reached the edge of the toilets in the centre of the courtyard, Tattoo Man struck another member of the group, a skinny girl with long dark hair. The girl fell to the ground. The man pointed to her trailing shoe lace and the girl knelt, meekly, to tie it.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Nico breathed. ‘What the hell is this place?’

  I glanced back into the camp lobby. The front door was still firmly shut. I caught the echo of Geri’s high tinkly laugh in the distance. She and Fernandez must still be talking.

  I took a deep breath and joined Nico by the window. From here I could see the whole courtyard. It was paved with large stone slabs and flanked on one side by what looked like a barn and on the other by a white building similar in style to the main house. Apart from the toilets in the centre, the courtyard was empty.

  As we watched, Tattoo Man and the other kids vanished round the side of the toilets, leaving the skinny dark-haired girl in plain view, still struggling with her shoelace.

  Nico darted down the corridor to the door that led onto the courtyard. He yanked on the handle. Locked. He raised his hand in the gesture he uses to perform telekinesis.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said, appalled.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, urgently. ‘If what we’ve just seen is typical of what goes on in this camp, then we need to find out and tell Geri before she leaves.’ He twisted his hand. There was a click as the lock undid and the door sprang ajar. I stared, impressed in spite of myself. I’d never tell him this, but Nico’s telekinetic skills are pretty amazing to watch.

  Nico pushed the door open and stepped into the courtyard.

  I hesitated for a second, then followed. Nico was right, we had to find out what we were letting ourselves in for.

  The heat hit me hard. Even in the shade of the courtyard it was like stepping into an oven. I glanced round as we crept across the paving stones. No one at the windows. At least we wouldn’t be spotted from inside the house.

  Nico had already reached the girl. She jumped as he touched her shoulder. He said something in a low voice while I ran past and peered round the side of the hut.

  The other kids and Tattoo Man were gathered next to a ramshackle old VW bus, parked in the shade of a single tree. Next to the bus was a huge wooden well, with a fenced area beyond. This area was strikingly lush and green compared to the arid desert all around us. Tattoo Man was talking in Spanish. His speech was too rapid for me to catch any of the words, but he was clearly barking out orders.

  I turned back to Nico and the girl.

  ‘Que?’ she was whispering. ‘Quien eres?’

  Nico turned to me. ‘I don’t understand what she’s saying,’ he whispered.

  I barely heard him. I was staring, transfixed, at the girl. I wasn’t looking into her eyes – that would have meant automatically mindreading her – but I’d already seen they were beautiful: a sea-green colour that stood out against her tanned skin. And it wasn’t just her eyes. She was beautiful. About my age, with a worried, oval face, a long nose and silky dark hair that curled onto her shoulders.

  ‘Ed,’ Nico hissed.

  ‘She asked who we were,’ I explained.

  ‘Ed,’ I said to the girl. ‘Me llamo Ed. Este es Nico. Y tu? Como te llamas?’

  The girl was trying to look into my eyes, but I kept my gaze averted.

  ‘Luz,’ she whispered. ‘Me llamo Luz. You . . . Eds, English . . . please, help . . .’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Nico hissed beside us.

  ‘Just our names,’ I said. ‘She’s called Luz.’

  ‘Loos?’ Nico said.

  ‘Luz, donde estas?’ Tattoo Man shouted from round the corner.

  Luz froze. Nico grabbed my arm with one hand and Luz’s with the other and dragged us into the WC marked Senors – the men’s toilet.

  We stood in the narrow, dimly lit corridor. A stench drifted out from the toilets.

  ‘Ask her what the hell’s going on here,’ Nico demanded.

  A second later, a shadow fell across the doorway. I held my breath and pressed my back against the cool concrete wall.

  ‘LUZ, ven aqui!’ It was the man, even angrier than before. He swore in Spanish, then said something I just about understood about there not being time for a toilet break.

  He thought Luz was in the ladies’ toilet next to this one.

  Luz took a step towards the door. I grabbed her arm. I didn’t dare speak in case the man heard us. If I wanted to know what was going on here, I was going to have to mind-read. I pulled Luz round until she met my eyes.

  In a second I was inside her mind. People always freak when that happens the first time, and Luz was no exception. Her mind was jumping around, full of fear and confusion. Mind you, my own thoughts were jumping about just as badly.

  Hola, I stammered – not knowing what else to thought-speak. It’s okay. Who is that man?

  Que? Luz’s mind was still all over the place, her thought-speech tumbling out.

  How this? A single strand of thought stood out above the rest: We must quick . . . Eds, English . . . you just come in camp, no?

  Si. I tried to make my mind settle.

  This place no es good. Senor Fernandez es bad man. You go. Tell persons . . . help . . .

  Where are you going in the van?

  Que?

  Donde vas en el . . . el coche grande?

  Damn it, why did my Spanish have to desert me now?

  No se . . . I don’t know . . . Ed. Por favor. Ayudame.

  Ayudame. Help me. My stomach turned over.

  ‘Luz!’ The man outside sounded very close. ‘Are you in the men’s toilet?’ he said in Spanish.

  Need go, Luz’s thought-speech grew panicky. Help.

  ‘Ed, leave it,’ Nico hissed, right in my ear.

  I will help, I promise. I broke the connection.

  Luz burst through the door. We waited, holding our breath. I could hear the man yelling at her, then the slap of a hand, presumably making contact with Luz’s head. I raged silently at the thought of her being hurt.

  A few more seconds passed, then Nico peered out after her. ‘They’ve gone, come on,’ he said.

  He slipped outside and raced across the courtyard.

  I followed, more slowly, a large part of me wanting to find Luz. I could hear the bus revving up round the corner.

  What was happening to her? Where was she being taken?

  And then a large hand clamped down on my shoulder and Senor Fernandez’s heavy, nasal voice sounded in my ear.

  ‘Only in camp five minutes,’ he said, ‘and you, Ed, are already in the deepest of deep shits.’

  2: Punishment

  I was shaking as we walked inside. Fernadez took his hand off my shoulder only when we were back in the entrance area of the main building. Nico and the girls were standing round the long dining table at the back of the room. The girls were wide-eyed with shock. Nico’s expression was a mix of guilt and concern. Clearly he’d managed to make it inside without being spotted by Fernandez or any of his workers.

  ‘What were you doing outside?’ Fernandez demanded.

  ‘Where’s G— er, Ms Paterson?’ I said.

  ‘Gone.’ Fernandez glared at me. ‘I’ll ask you once more. What were you doing outside? How did you get outside?’

  I thought rapidly. ‘I needed to use the toilets in the courtyard,’ I said. ‘The door was open.’

  I stared at the floor. The tiles were set in an alternating pattern of creams and browns. Across the room I could see Ketty fidgeting from side to side. I looked up at her, hoping she wasn’t about to leap to my defence and get herself in trouble.

  ‘You disobeyed a direct order from me. At Camp Felicidad, that’s a punishable offence. Cause and effect. Simple.’

  ‘Ed must have really needed to pee,’ Ketty blurte
d out.

  I blushed.

  ‘You have to believe me,’ she went on. ‘Ed’s the last person who’d go off on his own for no good reason.’

  What was she saying? That I was easily led?

  ‘Actually he wasn’t on his own,’ Nico chipped in. ‘He was with me. We went outside together.’

  Oh God. In spite of the mess I was in with Fernandez I couldn’t help but feel annoyed with Nico. Couldn’t he see that admitting he’d been with me hardly backed up my story about needing the loo?

  Ketty flashed Nico an admiring glance. I supposed she was impressed by his loyalty. That made me feel even more annoyed.

  ‘Silence,’ Fernandez snapped. ‘So, there were two of you, equally desperate to use the facilities? I don’t think so. Now, tell me, what did you see?’

  I took a deep breath. Maybe the best thing was just to explain what we’d seen . . . ask Fernandez who the kids were. Nico was shaking his head at me. I avoided making eye contact with him. Aside from actually mind-reading the man – which would have given away the secret about our psychic abilities – putting Fernandez on the spot had to be the best way to get the truth.

  ‘We saw some kids out the back, getting into a bus. I spoke to one of the girls. She said this, er . . . it’s not a good place, that the people here aren’t treated well.’

  Across the room, Nico groaned.

  ‘Well, she’s wrong,’ Fernandez snapped. He hesitated, as if trying to decide something. Then he smiled. ‘What you saw was a group of extremely violent young offenders. They were sent here by mistake. Somebody in the San Juan police department got their paperwork muddled up. They’re supposed to be in a juvenile detention centre.’

  ‘They didn’t look violent . . . and that doesn’t excuse how they were being treated,’I stammered.‘I saw the man they were with – he hit one girl just for having her shoelace undone.’

  Fernandez sighed. ‘I am sure it seemed disproportionate to you, and I can assure you there is no corporal punishment here in camp. However, a slap or two is sometimes needed with these violent children. It may, in fact, prevent worse violence. Anyway, I am sure that the man who hit this girl was just frustrated at being sent all the way out here for nothing. It has nothing to do with the camp or me.’

  I shook my head. I didn’t believe Luz was a violent criminal. And if she had nothing to do with Fernandez, how did she know his name?

  ‘But—’

  ‘Enough. This discussion is over. Each of you boys will receive a demerit for your disobedience. Cindy will be here in a second to show you what to do.’

  ‘What’s a demerit?’ Nico asked, but Fernandez was already halfway through the door.

  My guts twisted into a knot. We stood in silence for a second. I could feel the others’ eyes upon me.

  ‘What the hell happened out there?’ Dylan asked, accusingly.

  Nico shrugged. ‘No idea. The girl we saw only spoke Spanish – that’s when she was actually speaking. Ed mind-read her for ages.’

  ‘Did you, Ed?’ Ketty sounded surprised.

  I understood why. After all, I’ve gone on to Ketty more than anyone how much I hate my telepathy. Of course she’d be surprised at me using it. But with Luz I hadn’t really thought about it.

  The door slammed. I jumped. A small woman in a red tracksuit stood in the doorway. She had a thin face and narrow eyes – kind of mean-looking – with lips painted the same colour as her tracksuit. This must be Cindy.

  ‘Demerit time . . .’ the woman said, with an American accent. She pointed at me and Nico. ‘You two. Twenty-five laps round the field. Now.’

  A few minutes later we were out in the courtyard. The two buildings on either side of the main building were sprawling white squares. I hadn’t really looked at them before. Now I noticed several boys looking out of the building on the right.

  We walked round to where the bus had been earlier. The sun was low in the sky, the heat less intense. Beyond the complex the desert stretched away. Mountains stood, hazy, in the distance. Between us and the desert was the field. It was large and green, filled with rows of plants and earth beds.

  Nico stared at Cindy in horror. ‘You want us to run round that twenty-five times?’

  ‘Make it fifty,’ Cindy snapped. ‘And if you stop for a second it’ll be fifty more.’

  ‘But it’s still really hot,’ Nico argued.

  ‘You’re just not used to it.’ Cindy glanced at the setting sun.

  ‘But still . . . fifty laps?’ I said.

  ‘Go, before I make it a hundred.’

  Nico grabbed my arm. We jogged off. I still couldn’t take it in. Two days ago I’d had a life and a family and a school and a home.

  Now I had nothing. Tears welled in my eyes. I suddenly ached to speak to my dad and stepmum. My chinos were already sticking to me and we hadn’t even reached the field.

  As we began our first lap, Nico muttered, ‘Welcome to boot camp.’

  The laps took me nearly two hours to complete. I stopped once, just for a moment, but Cindy appeared from nowhere and yelled at me to ‘move your lazy ass’, though she did bring us a couple of water bottles a bit later.

  Nico’s slightly longer stride meant we hardly ever ran side by side. I didn’t mind. It was too tiring to talk while we were running anyway. At least someone was sharing this ordeal with me.

  The boys I’d noticed before, at the window of one of the buildings, disappeared. I thought I saw Ketty once, glancing out of one of the main building windows, but it was hard to be sure.

  The heat dropped off fast after about an hour, when the sun finally set. The only light illuminating the field came from inside the three camp buildings. The desert beyond was pitch-black – the darkening sky showing only the tiniest of crescent moons among a million stars.

  Towards the end of the run I lost count of my laps. Exhausted, I staggered round the field, somehow putting one foot in front of the other. It was all I could do not to cry. It had been a nightmareish few days – kidnapping, explosions, being told everyone thought we were dead . . . On top of all that drama and danger, this was just too much for me.

  Ahead of me, Nico stopped and left the field. He stood, clearly catching his breath, beside the well. Cindy appeared. She was talking as I ran past.

  ‘That’s fifty,’ she called out. ‘You can stop too, Ed.’

  I nodded, too tired to speak, and flopped to the ground beside Nico. It was hard and dusty. I had blisters on my feet and my legs ached. I lay back and closed my eyes. I could have slept then and there, but Cindy kicked my leg.

  ‘Up,’ she ordered. ‘You’ve missed supper, but Senor Fernandez says you can eat something in your room. Come with me.’

  I got up and limped after her across the yard.

  ‘Are you one of the teachers here?’ I said.

  ‘This is the last time I warn you, you have to ask permission to speak.’

  I glanced at Nico. He rolled his eyes.

  ‘Er . . . permission to speak?’ I stammered.

  ‘Granted.’

  I repeated my question.

  ‘I’m Cindy Collins,’ the woman said. ‘I’m in charge of the Day Schedule.’

  ‘Day Schedule?’ I echoed.

  ‘Up at 6 a.m. Chores until 8.30, then breakfast. Lessons. Lunch. Lessons. Chores. Supper. Chores. Lights out at 9 p.m.’

  Nico let out a low whistle.

  ‘That sounds . . . er, hard work,’ I said. Now I’d stopped running I realised just how sore my legs and feet were.

  ‘It is,’ Cindy snapped. ‘So you might as well get used to it.’

  She pointed at the door leading to the building on the left of the main house.

  ‘In there. The bedroom’s on your right. There’s a bathroom on the left. Don’t attempt to go in any of the storerooms or I’ll slap you with a demerit before you can say “broken toe”.’

  ‘What is a demerit exactly?’ I asked, but Cindy was already marching back to the main building.

>   Nico opened the door. ‘At least that frigging run’s over,’ he said.

  I followed him inside. Sounds were coming from the room on the right – the room I’d seen the boys looking out of.

  ‘This is where she said the bedroom was.’ I glanced at Nico.

  ‘How bad can it be?’ he asked.

  He opened the door and we walked through. The room was as plain as the girls’ accommodation we’d seen earlier, a far cry from the comfortable dorms at Fox Academy.

  Six beds stood against the walls – three along each side – with a small, bare locker beside each bed. Nothing on the plain white walls. A window, covered with a brown blind, was at the far end.

  And three boys. They stood in a row in front of the window, arms folded.

  None of them were smiling.

  3: Boot camp

  I stared at the three boys. Two of them were virtually identical – about the same age as me and Nico, with short blondish hair and hard eyes. They both wore combats and T-shirts. Nothing fancy, but a lot smarter than what we’d seen the line of kids wearing earlier. The third boy was smaller – maybe nine or ten, with a reddish tinge to his wavy hair, pale blue eyes and round glasses. His skinny legs stuck out like twigs from his shorts.

  ‘Hi.’ Nico smiled. ‘I’m Nico and this is Ed. Do any of you speak English?’

  ‘I am English.’ The smallest boy jutted his chin out. He sounded superior – his accent was very posh – but I sensed he was scared.

  ‘Hi,’ I said quickly. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tommy,’ the boy said.

  Silence. One of the blond boys prodded him. Tommy nodded.

  ‘These two are Mateo and Miguel. Twins. I call them Mat and Mig.’

  ‘Hola,’ I said. ‘Que tal?’

  ‘Bien.’ The slightly taller of the two boys had spoken. He had a pointier chin than his brother, and fuller lips. He launched into a rapid splurge of Spanish. I recognised only a few words.

  ‘Mas despacio,’ I interrupted. ‘Slower.’

  ‘Mig’s asking what you did to be sent here,’ Tommy explained. ‘He’s also saying that he and Mat are here ’cos they killed someone. But that’s bollocks, it’s me you want to watch out for.’