Futuretrack 5 Read Online Free Page B

college lobby, prompt on nine. Shaking with rage, jumping at shadows.
    Footsteps. Angry, sharp, limping footsteps coming up the parquet corridor. Major Arnold, deputy head. Limping from a wound he got in Northern Ireland, before the first psychopters finished off the IRA. Thin, upright, dark moustache, white streaks in his Brylcreamed hair. He had his hair cut weekly, short-back-and-sides, so the skin showed through pale, in contrast with his sunburned face. Very fit for his age; played squash. Even climbed the masts with us, chewing his moustache savagely with sweat running down his face. It cost him.
    A bitter man. Full of rage held down to heel like a snarling dog. Whether it was caused by the pain of his leg or something else, we never knew. We adored him, because when you asked him embarrassing questions, he always gave you straight answers. He might think for minutes on end, head bowed, till you thought he’d gone to sleep. Then he’d look up and give you the truth, like water spurting from a boiling kettle.
    “No, Kitson, the Battle of Belfast wasn’t a famous victory. The IRA stood no chance… nowhere left to hide, once the psychopters located them. We had fifty times their firepower. We stood well back and took no chances. We had two men slightly injured.”
    He was angry now. “Kitson! Come!” He started back up the corridor. Clumsy and skidding with fear, I fell in behind.
    “What happened, sir? What did I do wrong?” I was wailing like a first-year.
    “I warned you, Kitson.”
    “What, sir?”
    “What was the last thing I said to you, before the exam?
    “You told me not to score a hundred percent, sir.”
    “Well, that’s what you did wrong.”
    “I thought you were joking, sir.”
    “Well, I wasn’t. You scored a hundred percent and they’ll never forgive you.”
    “What’s going to happen to me, sir?”
    “That I’m not allowed to say. The Head …”
    We walked as in a nightmare up that endless oak-panelled corridor, hung with silver cups and shields, rowing pennants, team photographs. A nasty thought struck me. I remembered Madden, Head Boy in my first-year. I’d been Madden’s fag. He was kind; I hero-worshipped him, drooling over his face in the team photographs. Then, one Parents’ Day, Madden vanished through the Wire. The following term, heartbroken, I looked for his face in the team photographs; it was no longer there.
    Some bastard had taken each photo from its frame and cut Madden’s head out. Replaced it with a smug, smiling Est’s face…
    “Will they cut me out of the team photographs, sir?”
    “That’s the least of your worries, now.”
    He stopped at the Head’s door. Pondered, then decided to shake me by the hand. It made me feel like a leper he was doing good to.
    “You won’t like where you’re going, Kitson. But I hope you’ll display your usual guts.”
    “Thank you, sir,” I said, stupidly. But he was gone. I knocked on the Head’s door.
    “Come.” The Head was signing papers. Pink, manicured hands, below white shirt cuffs, moved each paper with distaste, then slashed it with a ballpoint. Like a gentleman-farmer wringing chicken’s necks with his gloves on. He paused, giving me enough time to read a typed name, upside down. Roger’s. He was consigning the new Unnems through the Wire.
    He was also trying to needle me. I studied at leisure his white, newly washed hair. The heavy tweed suit, creamy like oatmeal. The red-veined cheeks, like a healthy, elderly farmer’s. The polished old brogues sticking through the desk, shiny as conkers. I’d never realised how much I’d hated him.
    He glanced up suddenly and caught my look; returned it with interest.
    “Hundred percent, Kitson. Well, you’ve done it at last.”
    “Done what, sir?”
    “Don’t you think it rather vulgar to score a hundred percent?”
    “I only wanted to get things right.”
    “And be damned to the feelings of everybody else?
    You think we’re all mediocrities here, don’t