The monster would heal her. Of course it would. Why else would it have come? There was no other explanation. It had come walking as a tree of healing, the same tree that made the medicine for his mother, so why else?
Please, Conor thought as he stared at his still full lunch tray. Please.
Two hands slapped down hard on either side of the tray from across the table, knocking Conor’s orange juice into his lap.
Conor stood up, though not quickly enough. His trousers were soaked in liquid, dripping down his legs.
“O’Malley’s wet himself!” Sully was already shouting, with Anton cracking up beside him.
“Here!” Anton said, flicking some of the puddle from the table at Conor. “You missed some!”
Harry stood between Anton and Sully, as ever, his arms crossed, staring.
Conor stared back.
Neither of them moved for so long that Sully and Anton quieted down. They started to look uncomfortable as the staring contest continued, wondering what Harry was going to do next.
Conor wondered, too.
“I think I’ve worked you out, O’Malley,” Harry finally said. “I think I know what it is you’re asking for.”
“You’re gonna get it now,” Sully said. He and Anton laughed, bumping fists.
Conor couldn’t see any teachers out of the corner of his eye, so he knew Harry had chosen a moment when they could bother him unseen.
Conor was on his own.
Harry stepped forward, still calmly.
“Here is the hardest hit of all, O’Malley,” Harry said. “Here is the very worst thing I can do to you.”
He held out his hand, as if asking for a handshake.
He was asking for a handshake.
Conor responded almost automatically, putting out his own hand and shaking Harry’s before he even thought about what he was doing. They shook hands like two businessmen at the end of a meeting.
“Goodbye, O’Malley,” Harry said, looking into Conor’s eyes. “I no longer see you.”
Then he let go of Conor’s hand, turned his back, and walked away. Anton and Sully looked even more confused, but after a second, they walked away, too.
None of them looked back at Conor.
There was a huge digital clock on the wall of the dining hall, bought sometime in the seventies as the latest in technology and never replaced, even though it was older than Conor’s mum. As Conor watched Harry walk away, walk away without looking back, walk away without doing anything, Harry moved past the digital clock.
Lunch started at 11.55 and ended at 12.40.
The clock currently read 12.06.
Harry’s words echoed in Conor’s head.
“I no longer see you.”
Harry kept walking away, keeping good on his promise.
“I no longer see you.”
The clock ticked over to 12.07.
It is time for the third tale, the monster said from behind him.
THE THIRD TALE
There was once an invisible man, the monster continued, though Conor kept his eyes firmly on Harry, who had grown tired of being unseen.
Conor set himself into a walk.
A walk after Harry.
It was not that he was actually invisible, the monster said, following Conor, the room volume dropping as they passed. It was that people had become used to not seeing him.
“Hey!” Conor called. Harry didn’t turn round. Neither did Sully nor Anton, though they were still sniggering as Conor picked up his pace.
And if no one sees you, the monster said, picking up its pace, too, are you really there at all?
“HEY!” Conor called loudly.
The dining hall had fallen silent now, as Conor and the monster moved faster after Harry.
Harry who had still not turned around.
Conor reached him and grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting him round. Harry pretended to question what had happened, looking hard at Sully, acting like he was the one who’d done it. “Quit messing about,” Harry said and turned away again.
Turned away from Conor.
And then one day the invisible man decided, the monster said, its voice ringing in Conor’s ears, I will make them see me.
“How?” Conor asked, breathing heavily again, not turning back to see the monster standing there, not looking at the reaction of the room to the huge monster now in their midst, though he was aware of nervous murmurs and a strange anticipation in the air. “How did the man do it?”
Conor could feel the monster close behind him, knew that it was kneeling, knew that it was putting its face up to his ear to whisper into it, to tell him the rest of the story.
He called, it said, for a monster.
And it reached a huge, monstrous hand past Conor and knocked Harry flying across the floor.
Trays clattered and people screamed as Harry tumbled past them. Anton and Sully looked aghast, first at Harry, then back at Conor.
Their faces changed as they saw him. Conor took another step towards them, feeling the monster towering behind him.
Anton and Sully turned and ran.
“What do you think you’re playing at, O’Malley?” Harry said as he pulled himself up from the floor, holding his forehead where he’d hit it as he fell. He took his hand away and a few people screamed as they saw blood.
Conor kept moving forward, people scrambling to get out of his way. The monster came with him, matching him step for step.
“You don’t see me?” Conor shouted as he came. “You don’t see me?”
“No, O’Malley!” Harry shouted back as he stood. “No, I don’t. No one here does!”
Conor stopped and looked around slowly. The whole room was watching them now, waiting to see what would happen.
Except when Conor turned to face them. Then they looked away, like it was too embarrassing or painful to actually look at him directly. Only Lily held his eyes for longer than a second, her face anxious and hurt.
“You think this scares me, O’Malley?” Harry said, touching the blood on his forehead. “You think I’m ever going to be afraid of you?”
Conor said nothing, just started moving forward again.
Harry took a step back.
“Conor O’Malley,” he said, his voice growing poisonous now. “Who everyone’s sorry for because of his mum. Who swans around school acting like he’s so different, like no one knows his suffering.”
Conor kept walking. He was almost there.
“Conor O’Malley who wants to be punished,” Harry said, still stepping back, his eyes on Conor’s. “Conor O’Malley who needs to be punished. And why is that, Conor O’Malley? What secrets do you hide that are so terrible?”