I Can't See You

After considering different ways to get the article to Maya, he settled for the easiest.

  Which was simply to drop it on the floor in the book corner when nobody was looking and wait for someone else to find it, five minutes later. It was folded in half with MAYA written on the outside. When Kate picked it up she handed it straight over.

  “Brilliant,” said Maya. “Thanks, Oliver. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  “What about?”

  She waved it at him. “This thing about your dad. Just what I wanted.”

  “What thing? Let me see that.”

  As Oliver read, Reece watched his face, reflected in the window. Oliver was incredulous, and dismayed. Reece understood the incredulity; but not the dismay. There was nothing nasty in the article – quite the opposite. If anything, he’d gone a bit over the top about how wonderful Oliver’s father was.

  “What’s wrong?” said Maya. “I think it’s really good. Especially that bit about how it feels when you watch the news.”

  “But I didn’t...” Oliver stopped and drew a deep breath. “I didn’t write this,” he muttered.

  Maya looked sceptical. “Then who did? Your invisible twin? Or have you got a fan club?”

  “What?”

  Maya rolled her eyes. “It’s a bit late to change your mind about it now. I’m going to use it anyway.”

  “But you can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not by me!”

  “Then I’ll put it in the third person,” Maya said impatiently. “I’ll put Oliver feels proud yet anxious instead of I feel proud yet anxious.”

  Mission accomplished, Reece thought. Oliver looked as if his insides were tied in a tight, immovable knot. Invisible twin! That was a good one.

  Well, the invisible twin wasn’t done with Oliver yet.

  He was still watching Oliver, and learning. He knew about the chewing gum Oliver had stuck under the art table. He knew about the school scissors that he’d hoarded in his drawer, decent scissors always being in short supply.

  He knew that Oliver was secretly rather fond of his little sister Chloe, who was five and longed for a pet hamster. He knew that Oliver was reading up on Hamsters and Small Pets in the school library and had considered buying Jack’s hamster cage.

  He knew that Oliver was vain about his hair, and while unafraid of worms, was not keen on moths. He knew there was a mobile phone hidden in the depths of Oliver’s rucksack – although mobiles were forbidden in school – and that Oliver sometimes checked it when he thought that he was unobserved.

  But Oliver was never unobserved. Reece felt as if he was growing a thousand extra eyes all round his head, like the bees’ eyes with their myriad lenses which Miss Lewis had taught them about. He saw everything.

  In maths, he noticed Oliver copying off Joel again. Joel was too quick for him; finishing the row of sums, he turned the page.

  “Hang on. Wait for me!” hissed Oliver.

  “You’ll catch up,” Joel said carelessly. He wouldn’t turn the page back. He was getting a bit impatient of Oliver’s constant copying these days.

  Oliver looked across at Reece’s book instead. Reece curled his hand around it like a shield.

  Oliver looked at Kai’s. Kai let him copy, but Kai was worse at maths than Oliver was. Reece saw the mistakes growing on his page.

  And a whole page of copied wrong answers, he knew, was much more obvious to a teacher’s eye than a page of copied right ones. Kai and Oliver had twelve identical wrong answers. Miss Lewis would hit the roof.

  “Lunchtime,” said Miss Lewis. “Put your books on the pile for marking.”

  Reece glanced around. In the flurry to go for lunch, nobody was paying him any attention. So he swapped his book for Oliver’s on the pile and sat down again with Oliver’s book open in front of him.

  “Nearly finished,” he told Kate who was collecting pencils. It only took him half a minute to correct ten of the twelve wrong answers and slide the book back into the middle of the pile.

  That would be a nice surprise for Oliver, he thought. Or a surprise, certainly. Reece looked forward to seeing his confusion when the book got handed back.

  After lunch, however, it was not the maths books that got handed round, but sheets of thin white card.

  “We’re making invitations for your parents to the Open Day,” announced Miss Lewis, “in your best handwriting. Who needs two cards? Cody, Florence, Abby, Paula, Courtney, Jack, I know about. Anybody else?”

  What she meant was: whose parents are divorced? Or separated, or just living somewhere else? The numbers changed all the time, and Miss Lewis was not always kept informed.

  Max put his hand up and waved it, reluctantly.

  “I only need one now,” said Cody blithely. “My dad’s done a runner to Northampton.”

  “Give your second card to Oliver,” advised Miss Lewis. “I know his father’s still away. Or is he back in England now, Oliver?”

  Oliver paused. “He’s back in England now,” he muttered.

  “That’s excellent! It must be nice to have him home again.”

  “He’s at GCHQ,” said Joel. “Isn’t that right, Oliver?”

  “Um...yeah.”

  “Busy man!” Miss Lewis said. “Do you think he’ll make it to the Open Day, then, Oliver?”

  “Dunno,” said Oliver, almost inaudibly. “He’s. He’s pretty tied up right now.”

  “Well, that’s a shame,” said Miss Lewis, and she changed the subject.

  But Reece was instantly alert. He sensed that Oliver was worried. Something was up.

  The question was, what?

  Chapter Seven