Saving Tobuscus' London Riot

Here's something a little different. I thought I'd do a very small 'alternative history' - where things go differently. You're probably familiar with the term in respect to things like 'what if the Nazis won WWII' or 'what if we still used airships' but here's something rather smaller-scale. The basic premise is that yesterday's meetup with Toby Turner in London got rather out of hand: a meetup that was meant to last around 2 hours ended in just 20 or so minutes with the internet celebrity retreating to a taxi. This was following a chaotic crush with around 2,000 people present. I was at the event and enjoyed it, but I appreciate it could certainly have gone better, and avoided the internet backlash that it has been receiving this morning. So the simple question is: how could it have been improved?

In order to put the various videos you can find of the event in context, I'll do a rough timeline (all times are approximate):

4:00 - Toby's predicted arrival time

4:40 - Toby arrives from the northeast of the Albert Memorial. The majority of fans are on the south side, facing towards the Royal Albert Hall. Toby is Lazyvlogging as he enters on his heelies; my friends and I run along beside him.

4:41 - The majority of the crowd rushes to the east side of the Memorial, pressing Toby against the rope fence of the East Albert Lawn. Over the next few minutes a combination of Toby moving and the crowd's inertia pushes Toby against eastern fence of the Memorial - this is where the vlog he uploaded was filmed at.

4:45 - Toby climbs over the fence of the Memorial, allegedly injuring himself on the spikes, but meets mass audience applause. A few people then climb over too.

4:48 - Toby exits via the northern side of the Memorial. As I passed by I saw at least two people who had caught their shoes on the spikes and fall over onto the Memorial steps.

4:50 - The crowd's inertia pushes Toby past the northeast corner of the Memorial. At this point he is still taking part in pictures being taken.

4:51 - Toby manages to push out of the crowd and runs east, along the East Albert Lawn, followed by the crowd; I manage to shake his hand at around about this point.

4:55 - Toby leaves Hyde Park and gets into a taxi.

5:00 - The first police units arrive; some people are already leaving while others remain talking to YouTubers Seth and Syndicate.

Clearly, this is far from an ideal course of events. Being at the event itself, my immediate reaction to Toby's problem was that he lacked any tough guys to try and form a perimeter around him (no way was simple human restraint going to manage - we were hyped up and in full-on herd mentality mode). Had Toby had some form of security with him then the event would likely have been a little more contained and he would've had a little more personal space. Then again, even a few big guys wouldn't be enough against the 2,000 excited fans that were there. More importantly, in terms of alternative history, it wasn't in character for him to bring security. So in order to still create a successful event without indulging in unusual twists of character, we'll have to consider alternative routes.

 Toby's original route

One of the other obvious problems was that despite being the focus of the crowd's adoration, Toby lacked the force of character or physical presence to stand up for himself against the herd mentality. (He's about 5'10, if you're wondering.) Being at the centre of a very noisy crowd he could barely even make himself heard, as various videos will testify. However, there was a solution to this problem.

While my friends and I were waiting amongst the crowd, there was one particularly vocal group who were leading chants and songs and, crucially, had a megaphone. The issue is that Toby arrived from the northeast, and the last time I saw this group (about a minute or two before Toby arrived) they were standing on a podium southwest of the Memorial. They would probably have been among the last people to arrive in the crowd.

Now, as these people were attention-seekers, it's unlikely that they would have moved to the quiet and uncrowded northeastern side of the Memorial, where only a few people (myself included) were standing when Toby arrived. So in order to grant Toby this key group of people, he would need to come into contact with them. But this isn't hard: all we need to do is to have Toby Turner enter from the west, rather than the northeast, and so come into contact with the megaphone-carrier sooner.

What effect would this have?

Well, if we assume Toby turns up roundabout the same time - for all we know his taxi dropped him off elsewhere, or he got off at a different tube station - and he arrives via the west, he will immediately come into contact with a much, much larger crowd. This could mean, though, that he is in even greater risk of physical harm in a 'crush'. While the megaphone will be closer to him, it still may not percolate through the crowd and reach him. So we will have to ensure that the crowd exercises restraint straight away. Fortunately, Toby provided for exactly that solution at the time.

The initial crush, featuring silly string and derp faces

Toby arrived with heelies, but stumbled as he stopped his 'glide' in. Now, let's say that by being distracted - indeed, shocked - by the size of the crowd, Toby fully trips up this time as he rolls in on his heelies, while the crowd approaches. So rather than people rushing to hug Toby, the first people to arrive are helping him up. Depending on how he hits the floor - be it on his front or on his back (heelies are notorious for making you slip over backwards and hit the back of your head) - Toby could be disoriented for a short while. The first to arrive would therefore have more incentive to look out for and look after him straight away. As Toby is helped to his feet, a small core of the crowd is immediately telling the others to 'back off' and 'give him space'. Backed up by a small group of people, Toby would have at least a few looking out for him and so the initial crush would be mitigated.

However, as he fell, we'll assume that Toby dropped his phone with which he was vlogging (he was filming while he rode in yesterday). While most of the initial wave to reach Toby are looking out for him, a few are going on pure adrenaline, and one joker thinks it's a good idea to pick up Toby's phone - still recording - and film himself on it. Only a few seconds later, though, someone else gets hold of it, and suddenly the phone has a life of its own as it is passed through the crowd. We'll assume, for the sake of fun, that it survives more or less intact. The result is Toby gets perhaps one of his greatest audience-interaction vlogs ever.

Of course, some people would be calling out on Toby's behalf 'where's my phone?'. Beyond a few revellers who may then start to sing 'where ma keys, where ma phone' in true Britain's Got Talent style, this will also encourage people to start spreading the news in the crowd, creating a mildly more subdued and responsible tone. I've no delusions that this will turn the crowd, which was primarily composed of excitable teens, into responsible people - not at all - but it will raise the percentage of those genuinely looking out for Toby, while giving him space at the same time.

Toby has also created another advantage for himself through entering from the west: he is now on South Carriage Drive, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the fence of the Memorial. This means that the people waiting on the steps have a good chance of getting a view of Toby, and while there will be pushing - which will be risky and unpleasant on the stairs - the desperation to see Toby will not be so much, since he will be more visible from the higher elevation at the top of the steps. The downside to all this means that I will be at the back of the crowd in this version of the event but Toby will be having a marginally safer time, which is what that matters.

Now, as Toby moves up the stairs past the southwest podium of the plaza surrounding the Albert Memorial, he should pass straight past the group with the megaphone. This group will immediately be leading cheers, but will almost inevitably pass on the megaphone to Toby. While it wasn't the loudest of megaphones at the time, it will give Toby exactly the authority he needs, and without having to distract himself by vlogging at the same time, he will be able to focus on what he's doing and where he's going and actually maintain some control. Meanwhile his calls will be passed on by those spread out through the crowd who, having asked once about Toby's phone, feel that it's a good idea to basically act as message-carriers and relay the calls for order they hear from the others in their 'relay chain' of messages.

The crowd that Toby will face when he arrives

Toby will still reach the fence of the Memorial this time round, only this time it will be the south face, having navigated through the crowd and up the stairs. I get the feeling that at this point a more significant crush will occur, the first such in this version of events. It's probable, therefore, that he will still climb over the fence and onto the steps leading up to the Memorial itself. Armed with the megaphone, though, he will now more effectively be able to tell people not to cross, and there will be a few people scattered throughout the crowd trying to back that up. A few will still jump over the fence, and a few may try to climb via the statue plinths on the four corners of the Memorial's fence to get in too. I like to think that in this course of events I will still be hanging onto the side of the 'Asia' plinth to get a good view of Toby, and perhaps not let some rabble-rousers through, which could well impact the course of events.

After this point, it's hard to say what will happen, as Toby now has control of the megaphone and can probably direct things as he actually wants to happen. I haven't been to - or seen - any other meetups of Toby's so I don't know what this would involve - singing? Chanting? General rambling? There'd certainly be a 'hello audience' in there. However, with Toby up there - plus a few of his self-appointed bodyguards - there will definitely be more structure to the event. Moreover, some people will fan outwards to get a better view of Toby on the Memorial stairs. No doubt that at some point Seth will join Toby, as will Syndicate, who had joined the event of his own accord. At this point, Toby can now safely talk with his audience, as well as do autographs and photographs while he is standing behind the fence.

I get the feeling that it will be a matter of time for Toby until the number of individuals crossing the fence turns into a general assumption, even amongst the more sensible members of the crowd, that crossing the fence is a good idea. I should point out that it wasn't: those spikes were sharp and dangerous. Since we're trying to create the most positive event we'll hope that Toby manages to shout down anyone trying to cross the fence with his megaphone and no more than a few actually try it, and as few as possible receive injuries from doing so.

The police, too, will probably eventually turn up, for the same reasons. It's possible an ambulance may turn up after an overly-worried audience member interprets Toby's initial tumble as requiring medical attention; if so, any accidents involving the fence spikes may just have the people there needed. The police will arrive around twenty minutes in, only this time, Toby's event is going well, and the police are more likely to simply, well, police, and arrest anyone who crosses the fence again. Again, we're assuming here that Toby has crossed back over the fence by 5pm; if he ends up getting arrested for trespassing in front of 2,000 fans, things will get horrifically ugly and the current shouting about the event being a 'riot' will pale in comparison to what could have happened.

Perhaps, as Toby crosses the fence again, he again takes a small tumble. This will reinforce those looking out for him but at the cost of making him look like a royally clumsy plonker. I'm sure that that's a reputation he can handle, though. With his 'escort' reinforced Toby can more-or-less safely move through the crowd, having photos taken, doing autographs, and so forth. If his phone has been returned he can now tweet and shout-out to audience members too, as well as continuing the vlog from his own point of view. He may end up bumping into one of the several people carrying a guitar; expect a rendition of the 'subscribe' song to follow. No doubt after some people meet him they will leave and the crowd will slim down, marginally, maybe by around a hundred or so.

Our final hurdle: overcoming this most undignified exit

When this will actually happen is unsure, and is also the difficult part: how will we avoid another stampede, as actually happened yesterday as the people chase Toby? I'm sure his designated bodyguards will tire of their responsibility and the control over Toby will lax. Then again, the initial peak of excitement may have passed and while the individual fans Toby meets will be excited from anticipation, the general mood will end up more relaxed. Moreover, some police may well end up hanging close by to Toby, ensuring that wild antics do not immediately follow. The crowd will also be a little more broken up if Seth and Syndicate are also present, each attracting a smaller sub-crowd of their own. Around an hour or so in people will probably be starting to leave in small numbers, and if Toby stays the whole two hours - leaving at 6:40 - then the crowd will be appreciably smaller and people will be sauntering off for dinner in one of the Kensington cafes. (They're mostly teenagers - do you really expect them to dine at anything more classy than a Subway?) I'd imagine the crowd could be as little as 'only' 1,000 or so by the time the event is over. This would then allow Toby to more calmly exit to a taxi, and while there will still be the same degree of crowding around his taxi as there was yesterday - and people running after it as it leaves - it will not be the result of Toby having been chased into retreat.

The route to success

So the overall result is that Tobuscus' London meetup is a much calmer and more placid event, relying on audience maturity - which could manifest under the right circumstances - and while it will still be wild and bubbling with excitement, with significant herd mentality, we won't have anywhere near the chaos that characterised yesterday's event. Of course, I personally would have been far away from Toby all the way through, and the chance of me shaking his hand would be significantly reduced. Moreover, I would've been late for my party that night, as a result of a longer event. But we wouldn't have an internet storm decrying the event as an 'embarrassment' and people saying they are 'disappointed to be British'. So while this may not be the most totally probable course of events - it's engineered to produce the most positive course of events, rather than the most realistic - it would certainly have resulted in a much more enjoyable and much less chaotic event.

But if Toby's looking for advice, then I'd say rely on bodyguards, because the luck I outlined here is nowhere near the guarantee of security a few tough guys offer.

Ex Nihilo

By Matthew Walpole

The man led the boy child through the drifting ash of a wasted world. Black, ashen snow stretched from horizon to horizon. Somewhere, the man said, there was a city.

They’d been walking forever. Forever under the scorched sky. Forever in the darkness; it was all the boy knew. He was born from the dust of a world he’d never know and dust he was; caught in a stray wind, drifting over the tundra. Soon the wind would weaken, let him fall...

                

The man stopped, bent on his stick, heaving each bitter breath. The boy looked back; he could still see the place they’d last had to stop. He touched the man’s arm.

                Let me help.

                The man grunted and the boy moved his hand to his backpack.

    I’ll carry some o’ the weight.

    The man brushed him off.

    I’m fine.

    The child’s eye’s glittered. You’re not.

    They dragged on in silence.

The horizon was lost in fog when the man next stopped: night was closing in. Nights here were darker than the starless wildernesses of outer space. Nights here were colder. The man stuck his stick in the snow like an explorer marking an alien landscape.

                We need shelter.

    The boy gazed up at the man. What’re we goin’t do?

    You tell me. Look around.

He looked: a desert, sketched in charcoal. Fog gathering. He began to cry.

                The man knelt and touched his fragile hand. It’s goin’t be okay.

                No.

    We’re goin’t get through this, together.

    The boy lifted his wretched eyes. There’s nothing but snow.

    Precisely.

    We’re goin’t bury ourselves?

            The man’s eyes twinkled with laughter.

    We’re goin’t build’n igloo.

    An ee-glow?

    I’ll show you.

               

                

The man knelt and pressed the snow.

     It’s gotta be made o’ the right stuff. Tha’s important.

     He turned to the boy.

     Strong foundations are essential. If the snow don’t hold together y’have no igloo. You with me?

     The boy nodded.

     Good.

The man drew a circle in the snow with his stick, marking the base of the dome; he then took a rusty carving knife from his backpack and gave it to the boy.

    What’s this for?

                You’ll see.                                     

                The man got down on his hands and knees and beckoned the boy to do the same.

                Now, cut deep - that’s it - now slice through, slowly!

                He guided the boy’s hand and together they created a large snow block.

                There y’see - soon you’ll be able t’do all this without me.

                The boy looked away.

    No I won’t. He couldn’t help a small smile twisting his lips. 

Block by block, they raised their structure from the snow. The boy suggested that they’d work quicker with individual roles. He became the wall-builder; the man - the block-cutter.

By the time the blocks stood at the boy’s chest the man was exhausted. He lay in the snow, his breath steaming and drifting with the wind. The boy stepped back from the wall and grinned.

     It’s good.

                The man nodded. Uh huh.

                The boy sat with him. 

                Who taught you?

                Mm?

                The boy gestured to their work.

                Oh. My dad.

                When?

                The man gazed into the dark emptiness.

                A long time ago.

                The boy gazed too.

                He laid his hand on the man’s.

    We’ll find it.

The man nodded and gripped his hand.

They sat like that in the silence.

The boy started and sprang to his feet: Com’on!

                Jus’ a moment.

                Now!

                He scooped a ball of snow and hurled it at the man.

                Hey!

               The boy’s glee echoed across the expanse as the man staggered to his feet and returned fire. They played. They played recklessly, urgently; until the thickening darkness could no longer be ignored. The man dropped a snowball from his readied hand and his glowing cheeks paled.

                We have to hurry.

Those last blocks nearly broke them. The man was trembling with exhaustion; the darkness was intense.

                So cold.

                He kept having to rest. The boy struggled on.

Eventually, there was only one block left to do: the block that sealed the dome. The man said: Mess up the final block an’ the whole igloo’ll collapse. He was securing it in the space above when his back gave. They were standing inside.

His scream ripped through the night. The boy screamed too, brittle with terror. The man’s frame buckled, the boy rushed over, helped him stand; helped sustain the roof: the blocks were sliding – all supported by that one point. The moment held, quivering: the man supporting the roof, the boy supporting the man. It held. The roof held. The pair collapsed. Their shelter held.

With the sunrise they crawled out and stood together, watching the horizon. The fog had cleared. They could see lights.

                What are they?

                It’s hard to tell.

                What d’you think?

                I think...buildings.

                Buildings?

                The man took his son’s hand.

                I’m goin’t need your help getting there.

                But what are they?

                Come on, I’ll show you.

----

I'm delighted to present this piece of guest work from Matt Walpole - my old writing course buddy! Ah, good times. Matt informs me he's currently stuck with writer's block; luckily, positive comments, either left here or addressed to him, are the best cure for that!

That Time I Made A Hydrogen Bomb (In Year 9)

This is all a completely true, if somewhat embellished story, of an incident from year 9, written a week after the event in question...

By Jack Swan

I nearly realised every schoolboy’s dream. Yes, I detonated a bomb in school.

If you were a bored primary schoolboy then you probably will have felt the impulse to raze your school off the face of the earth with no lean amount of explosives. I know I did. I didn’t, however, expect to nearly fulfil that childhood fantasy whilst in a seemingly boring science lesson on a dreary Wednesday morning. “This has got to make a pop...” were my last words before I accidentally ignited a small hydrogen bomb. In the classroom.

I should point out something first: this isn’t the same kind of hydrogen bomb that is carried on suborbital missiles to bring about global apocalypse in World War Three. I’m afraid not; this is merely hydrogen released from magnesium in acid catching fire and causing an Earth-Shattering Kaboom in a chemistry jar. If you know about the Hindenburg disaster you’ll know what I’m on about, albeit on a smaller scale. Still, this was no piddly little pop. In fact, a piddly little pop is why it all happened in the first place.

My dictionary at home describes naivety as thus: “Having or expressing innocence and credulity; ingenuous.” I think that sums up the pre-doomsday atmosphere in my mind quite well. We had attempted to capture escaping hydrogen in a test tube, and ignite it with a splint. Hopefully you all know that causes a ‘pop’ sound, and that was what we were trying to achieve. But after two failed attempts and a sense of moderate annoyance we had heard nothing.

“Ah, not again!” I huffed, glaring through misty, smudged and painfully uncomfortable plastic science goggles at the silent test tube.

“Oh well,” Trevor replied, in his stereotypical might-be-interested, might-not-be attitude. We stood in silence for a few seconds. (I should explain at this point that a few seconds often is enough to formulate the best and worst ideas in the history of mankind. It was probably only a few seconds for George Bush to decide to run for president – and look what that led to. In this case, I had a similarly bad idea. Not that I knew it was bad, of course.)

“What if...?” I asked, moving my hand to take the lazily glowing splint from Trevor’s hand, “We put the splint directly to the pipe where the hydrogen is coming out?”

He looked at me.

I looked back.

He looked at me some more.

And spoke. “Go on then.”

So, shrugging, and expecting only a mildly loud pop, I put the lighted splint to the tube. It seemed simple at the time – I merely placed the splint at the throat of the pipe, and waited. I don’t know how long for, but it seemed an eternity. Then things went a bit faster.

A lot faster.

The resulting detonation caused windowpanes to shatter in Taiwanese suburbs and according to certain unsubstantiated sources the shockwave rounded the globe no less than twenty seven times. Some say it caused a minor earthquake near Inverness, and led to a temporary closure of Heathrow airport as a Boeing 747 coming into land was jarred off course, impacting into Terminal 2.

All I know is that I was standing there, now-extinguished splint held quivering between petrified fingers; I was a nervous, trembling wreck, juddering in much the same way as would an old oak tree vibrating as an army convoy roars past.

Oh, and the bung on the jar had flown off and hit Trevor between the eyes, blasting the goggles off his face.

Following the localised cataclysm a ghostly silence fell across the classroom. That or my eardrums had been pounded like I had had a front-row season pass at a twenty-four-hour heavy metal marathon. Or both. Either way, there was a deathly hush as a crescent of awestruck students formed around a startled Trevor and me.

The first thing my scrambled psyche latched onto after registering the blast was my science teacher rushing towards us. Though I had temporarily been reduced to the mental coordination of a disaffected bee after a debate on the ethics of stem cell research in Chinese there was still enough intact grey matter in my skull to recognise the shape of a hurrying teacher – and to associate that with the word ‘trouble’.

Mind still frazzled I tried to scramble together some sort of excuse. It was like trying to type a novel with your nose – exceedingly difficult, and you mostly end up with a jumble of gibberish. Bracing myself for a volley of “Why did you do that?!” and “Did you even think about what you were doing?!” and “Detention after school!” I slowly tilted my head towards my teacher, fearing the worst.

“Are you alright?” she asked, hurried and concerned. I burbled a still-shocked reply, partly acting, partly residual shock. “I should have warned people not to do that,” she continues.

Oh...

As the class slowly returned to their stations to continue the experiment as it was meant to be done my teacher continued her talk, as I superglued my mind back together. Apparently, what I had done was cause a feedback explosion, and the resulting blast went to where the magnesium was still dissolving and releasing hydrogen, causing the underwear-fouling explosion. We were ‘lucky’ that the blast had only caused the bung to smash Trevor in his forehead, or else the whole jar might have shattered, filling us with glass pellets. It could have been much worse. Allegedly.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I slinked out of the classroom to my guitar lesson. Treading carefully past the dust piles and rubble heaps caused by the explosion, and the brave men and women of the emergency services trying to keep order amidst the chaos I had created I kept a low profile, whilst bubbling with a volatile mix of fear and excitement. As per my expectations, I have now gathered the titles of ‘terrorist’, ‘evil genius’ and ‘mad scientist’ to my name; fortunately the latter two are what I’ve always wanted to be recognised as! Chemistry definitely isn’t boring any more. The best part is, the government  decided not to launch an enquiry into why a small tactical nuclear device had been detonated on the top floor of an otherwise innocuous state secondary school, so I don’t have to fill in reams of paperwork and risk a court trial and jail sentence! But one of the stranger things is, my e-mail inbox seems to be filled with messages coming from a Mr ‘Osama’ – does anyone know who he is?

And just why he wants me to do a scaled-up version of the blast underneath the Pentagon?

----

Apologies for the bit at the end making it a bit dated. Mr Bin Laden was still a big threat back when I wrote this, in early 2010! Also the descriptions are a bit heavy-handed - in my opinion - but I can't be asked to change it because I was very happy with how I wrote it at the time, and I guess it's got a certain charm about it. I hope you've enjoyed this (completely true) account of how I made a hydrogen bomb!

The Academy - pt. 2

Part one here: http://swanindustries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-academy.html

By Rachel Vaughan

Alric sat down at his large oak desk. The tattered curtains and drapes were still pulled open behind him, displaying the familiar silver iridescent moon. There was no sound in his office; even the crows that nested outside of his windows were sleeping through the darkness that seemed to stretch on for eternity. There was a warmth that filled the room, a homeliness that lined the shelves of his personal library of knick-knacks and books Alric had collected throughout his lifetime; it was here he spent most of his time, buried under his research and academy records, reading up on myths and legends and, most nights, sleeping hunched over his worn desk. Alric sighed deeply, tasting the musk of the air at the back of his throat and coughing to clear his airways.

There was a knock at his door, its gentleness and rhythm familiar and rehearsed. 

"Enter," he ordered wearily, wiping the tiredness from his eyes and putting his glasses back on. The heavy door opened. A well dressed, well known student walked in and bowed his head towards Alric. 

"Professor Stannis," he said. His clear, well-spoken words sounded crisp in Alric's groggy mind. It was Beau Adersen who stood before him - known by each and every male and female student at the academy. Alric rose out of his seat and gestured towards a high-back chair to the left of his desk. 
"Please, Mr Adersen, do sit." Beau smiled, his pale skin pulled taught over his high cheekbones and the royal blue in his eyes seeming glassy and doll-like. It was even clear to Alric why every female student at the academy wanted to date him, and every male student wanted to be him. Beau sat back in the chair, his long legs crossed and his left arm bent on the side of the chair to prop up his head. Brushing his milk white hair out of his face, he began to speak.

"I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, Professor, but it seems another problem has... risen."

Alric looked towards him, his body leaning forward, a puzzled expression on his face. "Eh? What sort of problem?"

"The girls’ dormitory. A friend of mine called on the maid. When she didn’t answer she grew worried. She let herself into her room and discovered her dead in her bed. The cause of death wasn’t noted, but my best guess is that-"

"That it was the same as all the others..." Alric whispered. Beau nodded his head in confirmation, fiddling with the cuffs of his blazer sleeves.

Both Alric and Beau were silent, with Alric looking down at his ringing hands and Beau staring intensely in his direction. This was the fifth death to rock the academy in almost six weeks. It was becoming almost routine to all of the students and staff to hear about them.

"I thought I’d alert you, Professor. The body hasn’t been touched."

"Okay; I’ll call for an ambulance to get here as soon as possible. Thank you, Beau, for alerting me on the matter."

Beau stood and smoothed down the crinkles in his linen shirt. He shook his head and ruffled his fingertips through his hair before placing his slender, bony hands into his uniform pockets. 

"I'll be going now, then."

Alric nodded smally. Beau turned on his heels and exited the room; Alric was left alone in his office. He pulled up his jacket sleeve to glance at the silver watch on his wrist. 04:35. With questions hurtling through his mind, he pulled out a stash of records from under his desk and sprawled them out on the wooden tabletop. He flicked through the old papers and scribblings until he came to a small post-it note with a phone number printed onto it. Picking it up, he rose to his feet and wandered to the window, pulling his mobile phone out of his blazer pocket with the opposite hand. He tapped in the phone number and waited while it rang. Alric pressed his forehead against the cold glass panes of the window, looking out into the night and listening to the echoing ring of the connecting line. After a while, a voice emerged from the opposite end.

"Stannis?" a quiet voice muttered. It was husky and deep. Alric’s eyes closed and his own voice became hushed, as if he wanted no one to overhear the conversation.

"Another attack. It’s becoming too frequent... this is not something we can handle without your help. Please, for the sake of the Academy’s wellbeing, send over your best."

With a click, the line fell dead and Alric was left watching the darkness dance around the Academy's campus. Another death was something he could no longer take lightly. For the wellbeing of his students and staff and as duty as headmaster, he would go to all lengths to control the matter.

Alric sat back down at his desk and watched as the time on his watch rolled onto 5am. He scratched at his head and realised he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. He sighed, slowly, and his finger nails dug into the oak on his desk, adding to the indents that had grown over the past 2 months. Rules needed to be obeyed at the Academy and an outbreak like this needed to be settled immediately. Pulling out a pen, Alric started to scribble down orders from to be put into action within the coming week. Old ways must be put back in place – the guardians must rise again.

-----

Part two of Rachel's story, as far as I'm aware there's still plenty more to go, so check back soon!

The Academy

By Rachel Vaughan

Feet stumbled across the carpeted corridor. Hands brushed against high panelled walls lined with brittle paned windows. The evening’s setting sun bore through the glass into Willow’s eyes, the beating rays pounding her head. The pain wouldn’t fade, nor would the sound of her own blood pumping through her ears. Her skin felt fiery, as did the never-ending hunger in her stomach that made her want to tear out her insides with her bare hands. Willow stumbled like a rag doll being thrown about like a child and fell; her weak body slammed into the doors of the girls’ dorm’s inhabitants as she searched manically for her most dire need. She could barely breathe from the desperation to end her hunger; no thoughts of normality could bring her back to reality. She was dangerous as she was, and no one else was safe; but after hearing rumours of a cold blooded killer prowling the campus of the academy, students tended to lock themselves away after what little day’s light had vanished. This, it seemed, did not faze Willow.

The maid’s quarters lay just ahead, down through the dimly lit corridor and seven doors from the nearest occupied dorm. It was quiet in the far ends of the girls’ dormitory; footsteps were barely audible and even the shrillest of screams were as quiet as muffled voices. Willow outstretched a pair of shaking hands, her nails digging into the thick wood of the door. Slowly, she pushed it open and stepped inside - longing for the sweet metallic liquid to pass her lips once again.

Blood lined the walls and saturated the bed sheets. It stained Willows face and covered her hands. It was thick and glossy, sticky but sweet: the very thing she craved the most. She felt replenished and satisfied, but at the back of her mind a screaming guilt forced her to set eyes upon the drained body that lay awkward and pale in front of her. Smothered in a pool of burgundy blood and bathed in the faint orange sunlight, it set the scene for the tormenting truth Willow would have to face. It was the look in the maid’s lifeless eyes that made her wince, the fact she had taken another life from this world and replaced it with a horrific death. She felt disgusted with herself and began to scrub at her hands and mouth with a cloth she had found lying over the back of a chair. Desperately she removed the blood smears, even cleaning up what was the maid’s body and placing her back into the bed where she had slept. She prettied her up, tucking her under covers before stashing the blood stained clothes and rags in a trunk to her side and fleeing from the iron scented room.

She didn’t look back when she ran. Her feet thudded hard against the floor as she rushed for the safety of her own dorm, longing to curl up in bed and sleep away the event that had occurred. She knew, though, that a peaceful sleep was the last thing she would receive - instead her dreams would be filled with the eyes and pleads of her victims, playing over and over until she would be forced to scream herself awake.

"Willow... You’re covered in blood. Are you hurt?" Annabel hushed panicked. She was a small girl with long dark hair, her nightwear much too big for her and hanging loosely off of her small frame. She rushed over to Willow, whose eyes were set wide open, with her jaw clenched tight and her hands shaking by her sides. She quickly tried to dart past Annabel and slip into her own bed to avoid questions, but as she attempted, Annabel's tiny but vice like hands gripped fiercely onto Willows wrists. It was no use trying to struggle out of it, Annabel was much too strong.

"Answer me, Willow. Why are you covered in blood?" Willow was silent; her body remained rigid and she didn’t as much as blink.

"Willow..." Annabel's voice sounded almost pleading. There was a strange look plastered onto her face, almost disgusted and pained. It was when she smothered her hand over her mouth and nose that Willow figured that the stench of the blood was making her feel weak.

"I'm fine." Willow finally replied with a smile. She tucked a strand of her bloodstained hair behind her ear and sat down on the edge of her bed. She slumped down onto the mattress, staring up to the thick, plum cotton canopy high above her head. The small dorm room was lit by a single candle set between both girls' beds; not much light emitted from the small dancing flame, but it was enough for Annabel to write by when the night grew darker.

Lying on her side, Willow watched as Annabel scribbled into a leather bound journal she kept under her pillow. It was old, the pages fading to a dirtied ivory and the leather cover fraying more and more with every touch. Annabel never told anyone what was written inside. She kept it to herself, her personal book of secrets that would most likely shock anyone who read them. Willow was curious about the journal; she wanted to know what her best friend had been writing for so many years in such secrecy. Sitting up in bed, she pressed on with the questions.

"Bel, what do you write in that journal of yours?" Annabel didn’t ever look up from writing.

"I don’t have to tell you. It’s private. Just like you never tell me why you come back covered in blood every fortnight. You worry me, Willow."

"That’s a different matter. Besides, I’m never injured."

"That may be so, but still, it’s strange. I’m starting to wonder if you’re the one going round killing off the staff..."

Willow went cold, her hands clenched so tight that her fingernails dug hard into her palms.

"But I guess it couldn’t be you, could it, you’re not clever enough to pull off something as big as that." Annabel smiled to herself and continued scribbling into her journal, half her face painted orange by the small flame that barely illuminated the dorm room.

Willow didn’t ask any more questions about the journal: it was obvious Bel wouldn’t utter a word about its content to her, close friend or not. Instead, Willow sprawled out over her bed, staring into the darkness and slowly remembering the look on the maid’s withered face as she drained the life out of her. She shut her eyes tight, but all that flooded into her mind were the gargled pleas for mercy and the feeling of weak, aged hands grasped around her wrists, slowly becoming weaker before falling limply by her sides.

----

Another piece of guest work for you, again from Rachel, and as far as I'm aware she's going to continue this one, so stay tuned! Remember to leave us comments and criticisms either on the blog, Facebook, or Twitter!

The photo comes from this blog, you may as well check it out too!

Of Mice And Men - year 9 homework

By Jack Swan

In the far distance the Sutter Buttes mountain range towered against the empty northern sky. The sandy crags jutted into the azure expanse, the blue hues made all the more vivid as the orange light of sunset streamed out from Lake County. The air was a stagnant pool, with just-too-much heat, just-too-many bugs, and humid to the point where it was hard to tell where sweat ended and the damp air started.

The shadows wandered lazily across the grass, strolling towards the banks of Sacramento River, and beyond it Yuba County and Nevada. A solitary breeze briefly swept through the evening, rippling the clear water of the river and sending a ripple of energy through a stout willow tree.

The movement caught George’s eye as he scanned out of the window. The air was marginally cooler inside the wooden walls of the homestead, walls that were obsessively covered with pictures and paintings. But of the paintings that made up the quilt of colour over the wood few could be sold at auction; most were childish scribbles and blobs of mismatched colour. Often they were crude interpretations of rabbits, more often than not smeared in vivid and shocking red. Each one held, in its bottom corner, a single word, each time written in huge spidery letters: Lennie.

“Mister Milton?”

George’s head snapped round to see a diminutive black woman in a sharp white dress step softly out of the adjacent room and gingerly shut the door behind her. Stroking his unshaven chin he walked up to her.

“How’s she doin’?”

“She... she ain’t good, sir. She’s weak, she’s got difficulty breathin’... I don’ think she’ll make it through the night.”

George paused, looking away from the nurse. He knew that this would come, but he had never thought about exactly what he’d do. Should he bring Lennie? No, Lennie wouldn’t understand, and besides, it would tear him apart to tell the whole truth. But he shouldn’t lie either.

“Can she talk?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“She won’t stop,” the nurse replied earnestly, “But that’s pretty much all she can do.”

Frowning, George pushed pass the nurse and crept into the tiny bedroom. A wave of perfume and septic washed over him as he stepped inside.

“Lennie?” came a meek, fragile voice.

“’Fraid not, Mrs Beech.” George stepped past a table with a cracked ceramic flowerpot teetering precariously atop it and round to look at Aunt Clara tucked tightly into a battered quilt covered in a faded flower motif. The old woman smiled weakly at him as he sat down on the bedside.

“That negro nurse is very nice,” she chirped in her incessantly positive tone. “Does whatever I ask, no questions, no delays. Always with a smile. Kinda like you, when you used to come round an’ play.” George smiled softly, both at Clara’s kindness and her chronic blindness of just how he had treated Lennie as a boy. 

“Which reminds me – you boys found work yet?”

“There’s a ranch down at the south of the county, got two places goin’. We got work cards; we’ll pick up the bus’n Yuba City tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Clara smiled. They sat in silence, each of them trying to stave off where the conversation would inevitably lead.

“Did... did the nurse say how I’m doin’?”

George turned away with a stifled sigh. He could lie slick and easy to employers, but it would be far more difficult to do it here. The words choked out of his mouth like sandpaper on his tongue.

“She said ya’ll be fine in a week, s’long as you stay in bed.”

Clara’s eyes sparkled, drilling into George. Her mouth twitched. “George Milton. Ya always were one fer tellin’ yer li’l stories. I can see it in yer eyes. What’s the truth?”

George paused again, his mind frantically pushing through a maze of emotion and indecision. When he finally wrenched the words out they caught on a heavy lump of emotion deep-seated in his throat. He finally blurted the words out, trying to get the ordeal through as fast as possible.

“The nurse says... she doesn’t think you’ll last. She thinks that you’ll be... be gone by the mornin’.”

Aunt Clara’s face barely fell. She simply looked away. Coughed. Her eyes glazed over; she fell utterly silent. When she came back from the catatonia she didn’t look directly at George, rather she gazed aimlessly through the dusty window. A bird swung across the distance farmland.

“Well,” she eventually whispered, “I knew it’d happen sometime.” She slowly twisted her head to look at George. “Where’s Lennie?”

In George’s mind an image was conjured up of the Lennie’s huge bulk lolloping curled over on the porch, ‘petting’ whatever unfortunate furry rodent he managed to snatch from the dusty floor next. The image segued into the same huge figure standing dumbstruck over Aunt Clara’s frail and decaying body, eyes streaming in pure unadulterated remorse.

“He’s out back,” George finally grunted.

“Would you be a dear an’ bring him in?” Clara smiled humbly. George wouldn’t have wanted to deal with the fallout of the situation, the endlessly repeated questions from Lennie – but he owed it to Clara to let her see her sole surviving relative one more time.

*

When they re-entered the room Clara was examining a faded photograph in a shimmering bronze frame. The glass was misty around the edges from hundreds of finger smudges. Clara looked up from the photo, clasped tightly in fingers as bony and jutting as Lennie’s handwriting, and coughed heavily.

“Hello Lennie,” she said warmly.

“Hi Aunt Clara,” he bubbled. The solemnity of the situation was lost on him.

“Pull up a chair, Lennie,” Clara wheezed. “You too, George.” As the chair legs screeched across the wooden floor she rolled over to face the two men. “You recognise this photo Lennie?”

Lennie leant over and squinted at it. “No, Aunt Clara. Who is it?”

“That’s you!” she beamed, pointing at the boy with the proportions of a seven-year-old and the thickset shape of someone twice their age. A man with a keen moustache and a Stetson hat stood above the boy, and a plain-featured woman rested blankly on a chair beside him, her hand on the young Lennie’s shoulder.

Clara admired the photo for another few seconds, a sense of melancholy drifting across her face. George huffed quietly as he remembered the hundreds of times Aunt Clara had told the short and sour story of how Lennie had ended up with his Aunt Clara, and instinctively scowled at the two adults on the photo.

“Lennie,” Clara eventually croaked as she laid the photo down, “I got something important to tell you.”

“I’m listening Aunt Clara. I always listening.”

“Lennie, I’m going away for a long time. A long... vacation. And it’s going to be very nice, so I might not be comin’ back.”

“Can I come with you?” Lennie asked. Clara chuckled weakly, dissolving into a hacking cough.

“I’m afraid not, Lennie. Not right now, at least. But hey, I’m sure that you’ll come an’ join me some time in the future. But until then I’m afraid you’ll have to be without me. I’m selling the house an’ most of my belongings, but I don’t think it’ll get much. But that doesn’t matter, dear, because I’m going to be very happy where I’m goin’.”

“Where are you going?” Lennie wondered. Aunt Clara raised a wizened hand and clasped Lennie’s paw as tight as possible.

“Far, far away, Lennie. Even I’m not sure jus’ where I’m goin’. But it’s gonna be very nice, and maybe a few years from now you can come along too.”

Lennie cocked his head sideways and blinked as the thought lumbered lazily across his mind.

“Who’s gonna look after me, Aunt Clara?”

Aunt Clara’s eyes shimmered again in their sunken pink pits. “I can’t think of nobody better than George.” 

The two turned their necks rigidly to face him.

Inside George’s spirit fell slightly. He was now custodian of Lennie by the irrefutable word of Aunt Clara. He didn’t let his face change even the slightest, though. “I’d be happy to,” he lied.

There was some truth in the statement. To be brutally honest he had been hoping that he could unload himself of the herculean burden of Lennie here, and disappear down into Sacramento or beyond. He liked Lennie. Most of the time. But the second Aunt Clara had suggested he take the leash of Lennie his mind conjured up a gallery of disasters created by Lennie.

But, again, Aunt Clara’s word – when it came to Lennie – was law.

“That’s good to hear,” she smiled. “I hear you’ve got yourselves work down on a ranch south of the county. I hope it goes well.”

“We got work?” Lennie frowned, brow plunging in concentration.

“Er, yeah,” George stammered for a pretext to try and protect Lennie from any more emotional burdens – and himself from any more physical ones. “We, ah, best get packing so we can set off for Yuba City early in the morning. Lennie, if you start packing some stuff...”

“Okay George. I’ll do that.”

Lennie reared up, head nearly scraping the dusty, cobwebbed ceiling. He pushed aware George as if he wasn’t there; brusquely dragging the door shut behind him his heavy footsteps stomped down the corridor.

“George, you’ll know he’ll try to put everythin’ under the sky in that suitcase.”

“That’s the point,” George snapped. Immediately he closed his eyes and dropped his tone. “Sorry, Mrs Beech. It’s just that...” he trailed off, the lump in his throat swelling back up again. His eyes began to sting. 

“Ah, jeez...” George sniffed.

He hadn’t felt like this in years.

“You been awful kind to me, Mrs Beech,” he finally spluttered, turning to look her in the eye. He tried to ignore the fact his eyes were flooding over like Imperial Valley back in 1905. “It’s gonna be god damn – sorry, awful hard to go on without ya. An’... an’... I wish I could repay ya for bein’ so kind to me all these years...” He trailed off into silence as he diverted his efforts in trying to hold back the storm of tears.

“George, George,” cooed Aunt Clara. She gave a frail grin. But it was the warmest grin George had ever seen. She laid her grass blade-thin fingers on George’s calloused and tough palm.

For the first time in years he really felt something there, as light as a feather yet as palpable as a block of wood.

“All you need to do is to make sure that Lennie is okay. Keep him out of trouble, and get him out of it if he is. Look after him.”

“I will, Mrs Beech.”

“George!” she intoned, her delicate grip tightening. “Promise me.”

George looked into her eyes one last time and saw the rawest sincerity he had ever seen in another human being ever. It rubbed over into him.

“I... I promise, Mrs Beech.”

“That’s good to hear,” she smiled tiredly, and fell back into the bed. In seconds she seemed to age, her face growing more haggard and tired. Another fit of coughing rolled through her, sending George wincing. As it finally cleared she turned to him once more and said, tiny and dying voice creeping through a throat layered with phlegm: “Now don’t let me keep you waiting. Send the nurse back in. She’ll take care of me. You two just pack up, pack up and go. You got jobs to do. I... I just got to wait for the good lord to find me.”

*

George and Lennie’s footsteps crunched rhythmically on the gravel of the long road leading to Yuba City. The pale blue sky had darkened from a rich Caribbean blue to a modest ocean sapphire spanning most of the sky, clashing only with a golden-red smear in the far west. A single star began to glimmer through the evening. Crickets chirped, leaves rustled, water sloshed onto the shore of the Sacramento River.

“George?”

He shut his eyes in a mix of resignation and preparedness. “Yes?”

“Why did we go now? It’s gettin’ cold.”

“Cause we gotta leave early in the morning tomorrow.”

“When’s Aunt Clara leaving for her vacation?”

George didn’t turn with Lennie to look at the two yellow-glowing windows imprinted upon the silhouette of the Sutter Buttes. He was already looking forward.

“George?”

He knew he would have to answer at some point.

“Soon, Lennie,” he grunted in reply, eyes locked to the horizon and the faint orange blur from Yuba City in the distance. He swallowed and spat, batting away a tiny insect with the back of his hand. Lennie, for the most part, stayed silent.

Behind them one of the lights winked out.

----

This is a good two or three years old now and I haven't really bothered to proofread before posting, but if you do have any comments and criticism I'd be happy to hear it!

PS - Year 9s - do not copy this, Mr Godfrey will recognise this and catch you out!