Page 13 of Mercury Rising

“Then I am your humble student, Mr Campbell.”

They both laughed.

“That’s a good answer, Mr Morrison. I can see there’s more to you than your public image would have us believe. This could be very interesting.”

Was he flirting? Again, there would be no time for that. Mercury had to stay focused. He didn’t need any more trouble in his life.

“What do you need me to work on?”

“See that stack of logbooks?” Nick asked, pointing at the pile on the desk. “The staff here are required to keep notes of relevant things. So, we write them down in these books. The idea is that we make documents for each child so their social workers or other professionals who work with them have all the information they need. The kids are aware of this, believe me.”

“Staff?” Mercury asked.

“Yes, there are two other people who work here with me. You’ve met Gavin.”

Mercury tried his best not to shudder. He supposed he should have taken a drink up to him. He didn’t much fancy getting another icy blast of disapproval.

“Who else?”

“Cath is my saviour. I wouldn’t keep his place running without her. We have people come in and do things like art classes. They’re amazing. The kids really get their emotions down on paper.”

Mercury shuffled his chair to the desk and lifted the first book up. He opened it and was greeted by a lot of practically indecipherable writing.

“Wow,” he said. “I hope none of them are teaching handwriting.”

“Hey, that’s one of my entries,” Nick replied.

Mercury turned to him. “Then maybe I can be a teacher as well as a student while I’m here.”

“I welcome your skills,” Nick replied. “For now, perhaps get cracking. There are a few other boxes when you’ve got through those.”

“What am I doing with them?”

Nick looked at him. The stare was quite off-putting.

“Go through each book and extract passages to do with each child.”

The pile of books was overwhelming. Never mind a ton of other boxes waiting in the wings.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m so relieved my criminal checks came through so quickly. Imagine if I’d not been able to do this. All the fun I would have missed.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun,” Nick replied.

Mercury flicked through the book. If he stared harder, the scrawl did become a semblance of words. He should have brought his glasses though. Not that he usually wore them outside of the house. Still, he certainly wasn’t trying to impress with his sartorial choices at Bodhi House.

“What’s the matter?” Nick asked.

“Nothing,” Mercury replied, rolling his sleeves up.

He hadn’t quite expected to be faced with such an undertaking. Still, he had every intention of succeeding at Bodhi House. He would give it his best.

An hour passed with them both getting on with their tasks. Mercury had worked out that if he had a document per child, he could flip between them rather than going through each book multiple times.

Soon he found quite a lengthy entry about a young man called Eddie. His mother had multiple sclerosis and he was her main carer at only fifteen. It appeared he came to the House for two hours every weeknight.

The entry focused on Eddie’s love of cooking. They had been running a class and he had been the best by a long way. They’d made scones. The teacher had noticed that Eddie’s behaviour had changed hugely. He had engaged and produced double the amount of his classmates. It also mentioned that Eddie had recently been suspended from school for truancy.

Anyone with half a brain could see he had been staying at home with his mother. This poor kid had more responsibilitythan Mercury had experienced in his whole life yet the world seemed against him.