Big Man Read online

  Max doubted it as he hauled himself out of the van and dropped to the pavement. Aidan was a coward. But Jazz and Tom, not so much. Tom especially. And after Friday afternoon, Max was dreading seeing them.

  Only…he didn’t.

  They usually waited by his locker for him in the mornings, but there was nobody there. He gathered his books hastily and cleared off, but when he lumbered into his form room for registration, there was no brooding scowl in the back row, flicking pen lids at the girls. Tom wasn’t in.

  Max began to feel sick. Had Tom been suspended? Or even expelled? He couldn’t believe expelled. They hadn’t expelled him for pushing Andy Simmons down the stairs at Christmas and breaking both his legs. But if he’d been suspended, then Jazz and Aidan were going to be furious. Tom was their favourite tool for beating up younger kids. He took all the flak from the school because he didn’t give a shit, whereas Aidan’s mum would leather him if he was suspended, and Jazz was too slippery to get blamed for anything. So if Tom had been suspended, then Max was so, so dead.

  Not that his form room offered any protection. Nobody really talked to Max unless they had to—he was marked out by Jazz, like some kind of social leper. It was a dumb idea to be willing to socialise with somebody Jazz didn’t like. The only upside of form room was that Jazz and Aidan were the year above and therefore not in it.

  But Tom should have been.

  Max twitched all the way through registration, eyes constantly flicking to the door, hoping for Tom to show up late. When he didn’t, and the bell for first lessons rang, Max seized his bag and books with aggressive fervour. He had to get to his next class before Jazz and Aidan got to him.

  Unfortunately, this school wasn’t built for that.

  Max had been through three schools since he was eleven, all because of bullying. And this one was not built for avoiding people—it was just one big building, with wide corridors and no back routes. There was only one way to get anywhere, and so it was speed, not stealth, that would let Max avoid anyone. But Max was too fat to be fast.

  So he wasn’t that surprised when, halfway between form room and his next class, a hand clamped down on his shoulder and drove him into a bank of lockers with a loud clang. He screwed up his face, held on to his books, and flinched back from Jazz’s hot breath on his face.

  “Why’re you here, then?”

  “History,” Max squeaked.

  “Oh right, yeah. ’Cause only, they were carrying on like Tom had done you in, and now you’re swanning around here just fine.”

  Max wanted—desperately and stupidly—to point out the enormous bruise still swelling up his eye, and that it hurt to chew on one side. But he wasn’t actually stupid, so he shrugged and edged towards the stairs.

  “I have to get to History, Jazz…”

  “Oh yeah?” Jazz’s hand came up to casually flip Max’s books out of his arms and onto the floor. They clattered around, one skidding off under the door to the girls’ toilets, and Aidan cackled.

  “Well, go and get it, Maximus Arse-us.”

  Max stooped to hastily gather what he could, before Jazz’s shoe hit him square in the backside and propelled him—head first, again—into the toilets after the book.

  “Hey! Get out!” a girl screeched, and Max seized the book and scrambled back out, face burning and sore, and stomach rolling in humiliation.

  By the time he staggered to his feet, though, Jazz and Aidan had gone.

  But Max knew the angry warning for what it was.

  TOM HAD BEEN suspended, and Max was going to die.

  The warning had been fairly clear, but it became downright obvious in his first lesson of the day, when Mrs Pellow simply bypassed Tom’s name in the register like he didn’t exist, like she knew he wouldn’t be there, and why. Max sank a little lower in his seat when she did, and mentally wrote his last will and testament. Dead. So dead. When Tom Fallowfield came back to school, he and Jazz and Aidan were going to haul Max off into the toilets on the top floor that nobody used, and probably just kick him to death.

  “All right, then,” Mrs Pellow said, closing her folder and beaming around the room genially. She was in her forties, with floaty dark hair and glasses that magnified her eyes until every individual lash could be seen from the back of the classroom. “Today is for independent study on your chosen projects, as I told you last week. So I hope everyone’s brought their research plans, notes, and a book or two to work from? I’ll be coming round and talking to each of you in turn.”

  There was a general rustling and rumbling of mild dissent, but no real protest. History was a popular subject, largely because of Mrs Pellow’s approach. Every term, she made them write an essay about anything they chose within the period of history the exam board were having them study, which this year was the Tudor period. Max had written an essay about developments in ballistics that made the British fleet more dangerous at sea.

  Max kind of liked history—he could study what he wanted as well as what the exam board insisted—but he kind of didn’t, too. Mrs Pellow wanted him to take the GCSE next year and the A-Level in sixth form. She said he had promise.

  Well, what use was promise? Promise wouldn’t get Jazz and his idiots off Max’s back. Promise wouldn’t get the Navy to accept a fat, useless lump in their ranks. Promise wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and Max found the way Mrs Pellow would smile hopefully at him and say—

  “Max, dear, how about you?”

  He jumped violently, nearly sending his pencil case right off the table. He caught it just in time, flushing dully as she chuckled and crouched by his seat with her clipboard and notes, ready for the project he…

  “Haven’t started,” he mumbled.

  She blinked owlishly behind her glasses. “I see. Well, do you have any ideas?”

  Max shrugged.

  “Your paper last term showed great promi—”

  “Yeah, well, promise isn’t going to get me anywhere, is it?”

  Mrs Pellow was very quiet for a minute before murmuring, “I heard what happened last week.”

  Max glanced inadvertently at Tom Fallowfield’s empty desk. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  Mrs Pellow hummed. “Do your essay, Max. And take the A-Level next year—it’ll be an easy grade for you, you’re very good at history when you put your mind to it—and don’t throw your future away because of boys like Tom.”

  Max bit his lip and stared down at his blank notebook.

  “S’nothing to do with Tom,” he said quietly. “There’s just no point in my A-Levels. I’m going to get an apprentice at Aunt Donna’s shop.”

  Mrs Pellow tutted and shook her head. “You’re better than that, Max,” she said. “You have real potential, you know. You just need to seize it.”

  Chapter Four

  THE HOUSE WAS empty when Max got home.

  It wasn’t too surprising. Aunt Donna worked the shop all week and wasn’t usually home until half five anyway (six if she took the bike) and Mum had a zero hours contract with a care home that was totally unpredictable. If they were out, they were out. And to an extent, Max preferred it that way. It gave him time to compose himself after school and not worry Mum.

  Max dropped his school bag on the hall floor and headed straight for the kitchen. He took a six-pack of Pepsi from the fridge and couple of packets of ginger biscuits from the snack drawer before heading upstairs to his room, deciding to forgo the TV and just put a movie on in his room or something.

  Max liked their new house. Well, it wasn’t new—it was Aunt Donna’s—but he and Mum had abandoned the flat and moved in two years ago. It was only three bedrooms, and one of them was actually the old airing cupboard after Aunt Donna had upgraded to a combi boiler and had had the massive hot water tank taken out. But it had a neat little garden out the back, and Max’s room at the front of the house had a sloping ceiling, perfect for hanging his little model ships from.

  And boy, did Max have a lot of model ships.

  He used
to make them—get those kits from toyshops and things—and sprawl out on the floor for days making tiny little replicas of the entire naval fleet, historic and modern. HMS Enterprise was cruising sedately towards his window, and HMS Bulwark was a blot of grey war machinery over his desk. By the door, he had older wooden ships from the Drake and Nelson eras, and he’d even mocked up a couple of models of his own when he was twelve, of the Acheron and Surprise from that Russell Crowe film. He had all the Patrick O’Brian books too. They were heavy going, but they were so cool with all the terminology and stuff. The guy had been a total naval history genius.

  Max wanted to be in the navy, see.

  Dad had been in the navy. And Grandpa Farrier too, so the sea was in Max’s blood, and he’d give anything to be able to follow them. Grandpa Farrier had been in the war and then come home after—sans his left foot after an accident at sea—to marry Grandma and have five sons. John, Max, Luke, Tom, and George. All five had, like Grandpa, gone into the navy.

  Uncle John was still in the navy, but nobody talked to him much because he was apparently a grumpy old fart, according to Mum. Uncle Max died before Max was even born, a climbing accident in the Alps while on shore leave. Luke was Max’s dad—Luke and Lucy Farrier, which Max privately thought was a bad joke—and Uncle Tom was his twin. Uncle Tom still sent Max presents for his birthday and Christmas, and Skyped them from Australia sometimes. He worked out there with the Australian coastguard. And Uncle George…well, supposedly Uncle George was the stereotypical sailor, with a girl in every port, so Max probably had five billion cousins dotted around the globe by now.

  But he didn’t remember Dad.

  Dad had died when Max was three. He’d collapsed ill on his ship and died about a fortnight later in Hong Kong from liver failure. Cancer. That was the dumbest part. He’d been in the navy; if he was supposed to die, it ought to have been drowning, really. But no: liver cancer. Max was three, Mum only eighteen and already widowed. Max barely remembered the funeral and didn’t remember the man they’d buried at all.

  It was cruel, in Max’s opinion. He looked up to a memory other people had told him about. He couldn’t even recall being upset about the loss. He’d been distraught when his grandfather died, but not his own father.

  Grandpa Farrier had been a replacement, for a while. There’d been long evenings making model boats with him, even though Max had to do all the work because Grandpa’s hands were arthritic and swollen. He took Max to see Grandma’s grave every Sunday and told stories about all the things Max’s dad and his uncles used to get up to, and how Grandma would wallop them with a big wooden spoon if they went too far. Grandpa used to take him to Portsmouth every month too, and whenever a big ship came in, he always dressed in his old uniform and all the people on the docks saluted him and made a fuss of Max like they were family or old friends. When Grandpa Farrier died, it was horrible. It was, Max imagined, like losing a father.

  And ever since, there’d been this big hole of failure in his chest. Grandpa had been in his fifties before he and Grandma even had Uncle John, so he was super old by the time Max was born. He hadn’t lived long enough to see Max go into the navy or even the cadets. Though maybe it was kinder that Grandpa had died before he could realise that Fatso Farrier was never going to join the navy.

  Now he knew better, Max reflected morosely as he tore open the second packet of biscuits and made a start on that too. He was the end of the Farrier naval history. Grandpa was gone. Max was a fat, useless lump, and the most he was ever going to get out of life was being a general dogsbody at Aunt Donna’s shop. He’d never get into the navy. He’d be lucky if he even got on a ferry for a trip to the Isle of Wight. His weight would probably sink the ship.

  “Fatso Farrier,” he told the first biscuit of the second packet and reached for the remote control.

  What did it matter anyway?

  AUNT DONNA GOT home at quarter to six, just as the movie was getting good, and frowned at Max from his bedroom doorway.

  “I see you’ve already eaten,” she said.

  Max shrugged, dislodging the empty biscuit wrappers. There were crumbs stuck in his school collar, and his stomach sloshed uneasily with the six cans of Pepsi he’d drunk. He felt sweaty and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t mean he wanted to move.

  “Get your kit, then.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got training at the gym in forty minutes,” Aunt Donna said.

  “But—”

  “We’ve discussed this.”

  Max sourly thought that Aunt Donna had discussed it, and he’d been strong-armed into doing what Aunt Donna wanted, but the raised eyebrow dared him to challenge her, and challenging Aunt Donna was about as stupid as challenging Jazz.

  So he heaved himself off the bed and started fumbling for his kit. Sixteen weeks wasn’t that long after all.

  Thing was, usually, Max quite liked Aunt Donna. She wasn’t really his aunt; she was Mum’s fiancée. She was scary sharp, really fierce, and the kind of strong personality that Mum—who was super soft and caved easily—needed when people were trying to take advantage. And when she’d come along, Mum had gotten happy again, for the first time since Dad died. And Max loved his mum, he really did, and he figured at the time that if having Aunt Donna around was the price to pay for Mum being happy again, then he’d put up with it.

  But then Aunt Donna helped him build his models and bought him new kits and, one birthday, bought him a sailing experience out on the English Channel. It had cost loads, and Mum insisted he was too young to start sailing or anything, but Aunt Donna just laughed and said, “Oh, he’ll enjoy it, Lucy!” She turned out kind of cool, sometimes. So he did like Aunt Donna.

  Just…not when she was turning that scary super sharpness on him.

  She was like a bulldozer, and Max knew she wasn’t totally above actually carrying out her threat, so he brushed the crumbs off and reached for his gym kit. Mum had washed it Sunday night, telling Aunt Donna off the whole time for making Max go, and it still smelled of fabric softener. It would smell of stinking gym soon, Max thought as he stuffed it into his bag.

  Sweaty leather and cheap deodorant. He hated gym smells. He hated gyms in general—only the superfit went to gyms. Fat losers like Max weren’t welcome there. People laughed at him, like when Mum had tried to persuade him to go to a swimming club because it would help him with the navy ambitions if he was a strong swimmer. The other boys had made jokes about Moby Dick and the great white whale, and they, of course, were all ridiculously fit and swimming for various school teams. This boxing stupidity wasn’t going to be any different.

  Except, something in the back of Max’s head reminded him, it was just Lewis and Cian. Lewis wasn’t allowed to laugh at him—he was the instructor—and Cian just…hadn’t.

  Lewis had said, Max reflected as he slowly began to gather his kit, that Cian had seen her fair share of shitty kids too. God only knew why. She was tall and pretty and obviously had an attitude, but…she hadn’t talked much. Maybe she was socially awkward or something. Or maybe she was a pushover like Mum, or so prickly like Donna that she got people’s backs up.

  Max pondered it as he packed his kit bag and headed downstairs. Aunt Donna was standing in the narrow hall, sifting through the post with a bored air, and Max recalled her comment of having been bullied too. But now, nobody would have the balls to bully Aunt Donna. And Cian was a scary Muay Thai boxer fighter, so probably nobody’d bully her anymore. If Max got good at this Thai boxing thing, maybe he wouldn’t be bullied either.

  But Max’s sceptical side pointed out that just meant kids at school might not bully him. Kids at the gym itself…

  That was a different matter.

  Chapter Five

  THE GYM WAS busy this time.

  There were loads of kids just milling about in the foyer—boys and girls, a cluster of little five-year-olds in tiny boxing gloves, and a larger group in their early twenties. Max hunched his shoulders against the looks th
rown at him and had to barge his way through to the desk. Ears burning as he asked Cal where Lewis was, he was intensely grateful he’d changed at home.

  “Same as last time,” Cal said cheerily. “How’s Auntie Donna, eh?”

  “Fine,” Max threw over his shoulder, unwilling to stay and talk with the staring crowd, and burst through the mayhem into the corridor. He took a moment to quietly hate Aunt Donna for making him do this, before pushing open the door to the training room.

  It was empty. A single punching bag hung from a chain in the middle of the room, suspended from the exposed rafters. The radio on the windowsill was pumping out music again, and an open sports bag sat on the floor by the door with a towel and a three-quarters-full water bottle poking out of the top, but there was nobody around.

  Max shrugged, dropped his bag, toed off his shoes, and lumbered onto the mat. Might as well get this torture over with. With that grim thought in mind, he began to jog around the mats in laps, huffing as his chest and stomach bounced and crushed the air from his lungs, his joints and muscles squealing in protest after the harsh treatment they’d had on Sunday. He’d just get it over with, put up with it, and then the minute sixteen weeks was over, go back to his room and stay there.

  “You know,” a voice said, “you’re supposed to start with stretches.”

  Max’s face burned hot.

  “Um. Hi, Cian.”

  “Hey.”

  She was wearing a T-shirt today, those bra straps thankfully out of sight, but her bare feet were vulnerable and delicate as she padded across the mats. Max found himself staring at them. They were narrow, with high arches and tiny toes. He had a horrible, suicidal impulse to touch them.

  “You okay?”

  Max jumped. Cian was staring right back, eyebrow raised.

  “Um. Yes. Yes. Um.”

  “Um-yes-um. Is that Latin?”