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CHAPTER 1

SALVATORE FORRESTOR

O ne week later

I run to my classroom and hang my school bag on the hook near the door, then I check to make sure Justice’s bag is next to mine. At my school, when we’re in grade five, we have to be buddies with the little kids who are in prep.

Miss Tanner chose Justice as my buddy for the whole year. That means I have to look after him at playtime, show him things around school, and every Friday, Justice is in my classroom for the whole day.

When I get inside, Miss Tanner is smiling and talking to some of the kids in my classroom. “Good morning, Sal,” she says with a big smile just before the bell rings.

I copy her smile, but my words don’t want to listen today, and they come out the same as hers. “Good morning, Sal.”

Miss Tanner doesn’t get angry at me copying her words because she knows I can’t help it.

I walk to my seat that’s right next to Justice. Justice has light brown hair and green eyes that always scrunch up when he looks at me with a happy smile.

“Hi, Sal,” he says when I sit beside him.

“Hi, Sal—” I shake my head very hard, and say, “Hi, Justice.”

One day, when I was little, Mum took me to see Doctor Hart. He said that my brain is different, and that sometimes it makes me say things I don’t really want to say. Sometimes, it even makes me do things like smacking my head, copying other people, and kicking my legs out, and I can’t stop any of it.

Doctor Hart said it’s called Tourette Syndrome. He said that I can go to see him lots of times to help me get a little bit better, and there’s even some medicine that might be able to help me, but Mum said “No, no, no,” to everything. She said it’s my dad’s fault because he didn’t want to come to our house, and that’s why I don’t stop “this attention seeking behaviour . ” I don’t know what that means, but Mum says it all the time to every single person she talks to. That’s why I don’t like my mum now.

“Attention seeking behaviour. Attention seeking behaviour…” The words keep spinning around inside my head and telling me I have to say them, so I press my teeth together as hard as I can to try to stop.

“What?” Justice asks, and he looks at me with a scrunched up face that makes me do a big smile. Justice has lots of tiny spots on his face called freckles, and when he smiles, I can see them all across his nose and cheeks.

“Nothing, nothing,” I say. I shake my head to stop all the words mixing up and falling out of my mouth when I don’t want them to.

“I’m using a blue pencil,” Justice says, holding up the pencil. He leans over his paper and writes his name at the top of the page.

“I’m using a blue pencil.” I pull my hair until my head hurts, but the words keep coming out. “Blue pencil. Blue, blue, blue.” I smack my head again and again, and make an angry, growly sound in my throat, but it doesn’t make the words stop.

Miss Tanner comes to the table and leans down to me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and rubs it softly. “Do you need a break, Sal?” she asks. “I can call Tracy to take you for a walk outside.”

Tracy is my helper in the classroom. Sometimes, she sits with me while I do my work, and sometimes, she helps other kids then comes and gets me if I need to have a break.

I shake my head quickly. I don’t like going outside without Justice. I have to stay here to look after him. “No, no, no, no,” I say.

Miss Tanner smiles and pats my shoulder again before she walks to the front of the classroom and points to the words on the board as she reads them out. When she asks someone to tell her what word she’s pointing to, Justice puts his hand up and bounces up and down in his seat.

Miss Tanner doesn’t pick Justice, and it makes me angry. When I get angry, I think about making fire. Inside my head, lots of pictures of fire move around with orange and yellow flames. I blink very fast to make the pictures go away, and so I don’t remember Mum’s lighter that’s in the bottom of my school bag.

“Do you like fire?” I ask Justice.

He shakes his head fast. “Noooo, I’m scared of fire.” He pushes up his long, blue sleeve and shows me his arm. His skin is all wrinkly and has lots of squiggly lines. Some bits are pink and a little bit red, and some are whitish coloured.

“What is that?” I ask him.

He shrugs and says, “It’s a scar. My brother did it with a stick that had fire on it. My brother likes fire.”

“It’s a scar. Scar, scar, scar,” I say, copying his words. “A stick that had fire on it. Can I touch it?” I ask.

Justice nods and holds out his arm. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. The doctor said I’m so, so brave.”

I touch it softly with my fingers. “So, so, brave,” I say. I like the bumps and lines and marks, and I keep moving my finger around all the weird, bumpy scars, then I make my hand flat and press it over Justice’s arm. “You need to have lots of these,” I tell him.

“Salvatore!” Miss Tanner calls out. “Back to work, please.”

“Back to work please. Back to work please.” I punch my head because I don’t want her words in my mouth anymore.

When we’ve done all our work and eaten all our lunch, the bell rings, and Miss Tanner says we can go outside to play. Justice smiles a lot when we’re outside. He likes the slide and the swings the most.

He runs straight to the swings and points to the red one. “I wanna go on the swing!” he says, jumping up and down. “Will you push me, Sal?”

“Will you push me, Sal? Yes.” I jump up and down too, but when I see the other kid on the swing is Miles, who lives next door to my house, I stop jumping and walk closer to the swing. “Get off, Miles,” I say.

“No, it’s my turn.” He kicks his legs so he goes higher and higher.

“You had a long enough turn,” I tell him, then I hold Justice’s hand. “Justice wants to go on that red swing.”

Miles keeps swinging, but it’s slowing down because he’s dragging his feet through the sand on the ground. “He can use the blue one,” Miles says. He points to the blue swing while he holds onto the chain of his swing with his other hand.

Justice’s face looks sad, and big wet tears fall down his freckly cheeks. When Justice is sad or crying, my head tells me to remember the pictures of fire, and Mum’s lighter in my schoolbag, and I get angry again.

I reach out and grab the chain of the swing and pull it very hard.

The swing spins a little and makes Miles go from side to side. He puts his feet down so he doesn’t fall. “Stop it, Sal,” he shouts at me.

“Stop it, Sal. Stop it, Sal,” I shout.

When Miles laughs, I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut to tell my stupid brain to shut up.

“Stupid!” Miles jumps up and down and points at me. “Sal is stupid, Sal is stupid.”

“Sal is Stupid, Sal is stupid, Sal is stupid.” The words won’t stop coming out, and the angry feelings make my head and my stomach hurt. My whole body gets hot like fire. I feel like Mum’s lighter is in my hand and I flick my thumb like I’m lighting it up.

“That’s mean,” Justice says. “Miss Tanner said you gotta be nice ‘cos Sal can’t help it.”

Miles laughs and jumps forward, then he pushes Justice onto the grass. Justice falls over and lands on his bottom. When he cries, all the angry feelings get worse, and I push Miles over and jump on top of him. I hit his face and his mouth and his head, and when he’s screaming and crying, my mouth copies all the sounds he’s making.

“Don’t touch Justice!” I shout at him. “Don’t touch Justice!”

“Salvatore!” Mr Bennett’s loud voice shouts. Mr Bennett is the principal of our school, and sometimes, when I do bad stuff, he makes me sit in his office and I don’t get to see Justice.

My hands keep hitting Miles, even when I don’t want to, and even when Mr Bennett yells at me, and even when his big, strong hands pick me up and pull me away from Miles.

Five days later

“Hello, Salvatore, how are you feeling today?”

I kick my legs out, swinging them off the end of the bed while I watch Doctor Hart look at the papers in his folder. “Justice. Justice. Justice. Where’s Justice?” I ask. “How are you feeling today?” I hit my head with my hand to make it stop copying Doctor Hart. “I wanna go home.”

“I’m sorry, Sal, but you can’t go home yet. We need to talk about what happened at school. Can you tell me about the fire?” Doctor Hart asks.

I shrug. “Can you tell me about the fire?” I nod and shake my hands. “There was a fire. Some of the kids got killed. Not Justice. Not Justice.” My legs keep kicking and I smack my knees with my hands to make them stop.

Doctor Hart writes on a piece of paper. “That’s right, Justice didn’t get hurt.” He looks up at me again. “Do you know how the fire started?” he asks.

I look at his face, and make my face look the same. “Do you know how the fire started?”

“No, I don’t,” he says. When his forehead gets little wrinkles across it, I scrunch up my eyes like Doctor Hart and press my finger into my forehead, trying to feel the little lines, but there’s nothing there. Doctor Hart clears his throat, and I copy him. Then he says, “It looks like the fire started in the paper storage room. Someone locked the door and trapped the students and Miss Tanner inside.”

I open my mouth and eyes very wide, like when Miss Tanner was staring at me through the little square window. She was banging on the door and screaming, and lots of flames and smoke were swishing around her.

Doctor Hart reaches out and pats his hand on my knee. “Can you tell me how they got trapped, Salvatore?”

“Can you tell me how they got trapped, Salvatore?” I nod. “I think someone closed the door and locked it with the key. Look at my hand,” I say, and I hold out my hand that’s covered in a white bandage.

“I see your hand. It must be very sore. Can you tell me how your hand got burned?”

I shrug. “My hand got burned. The handle was hot.”

When he tilts his head to the side, I do the same thing. He writes something on his paper, then looks up at me again. “Salvatore, can you tell me why you told Justice to get out of the classroom?”

“Justice. Justice, get out.” I smile. “Justice is scared of fire.” I shake my head. “He doesn’t like it.” I put my arm out to show Doctor Hart my smooth skin. “Justice has scars here,” I say, swirling my fingers all around my arm. “Justice is very good. He always lets me copy him.”

“How does he let you copy him?” he asks.

“I copy his face, and I copy his talking all the time. He doesn’t say stop it, stop it, stop it, Sal.” I laugh like Justice does, then I put my hands on my face to feel my cheeks and my eyes. I can feel my face move when I smile, and when I stop smiling, it feels different. “I can copy you too,” I say to Doctor Hart. “Sometimes I copy people when my head doesn’t tell me to.” I sit up straight and cross my legs like Doctor Hart.

Doctor Hart nods. “Yes, I know. You’re very smart, Sal. Now, let’s talk about the fire again. Can you tell me how it started?”

“Let’s talk about the fire. Okay. To make fire you need fire water like my uncle Don has in his shed.” I do a big sigh like Uncle Don does when I say fire water . “It’s called lighter fluid, Sal. Lighter fluid, lighter fluid. Sal, Sal, Sal.” My head goes side to side and my eyes blink very fast. “I think someone put fire water on the floor and on the shelves.” I scratch my head and say, “I think they sprayed it everywhere.”

“Can you tell me how you got the lighter fluid?” he asks.

“Fire water. It’s called lighter fluid, Sal. My uncle Don has little and big bottles of fire water. You can put it in a lighter, or you can squirt it on some wood and paper.” I lift my hands up very high and tell him, “Then you light up matches or a lighter, and whoosh, the fire starts.”

Doctor Hart does some more writing. “Your uncle Don showed you how to start a fire?”

I kick my legs out and open and close my hands. “Uncle Don showed me. Did you know it was my birthday? Mum made a cake with candles. Candles can make fire. Mum said Dad was coming to see me, but he’s not coming. He’s dead. Your Dad’s dead, Sal. Dead, dead, dead.”

Someone knocks on the door and opens it. I look up and see a lady, and on the other side of the hall, I see a boy in another room like this one. He has black hair and brown eyes, and he’s sitting on a bed like me, but he has a white jacket on that has no arms. I wrap my arms around myself and smile, and the other boy stares at me.

“Who’s that boy?” I ask the lady.

She turns her head to look out the door, then she tells me, “That’s Darius, you’ll get to meet him in a few days.”

“Darius. Darius.” He has a good name like Justice, but Justice is the best name. “Did Darius make a fire at school too?” I ask.

Doctor Hart does a big sigh like my mum when I ask her why I don’t have a brother like Justice does. “No, he didn’t,” Doctor Hart says.

“I wanna play with Darius,” I say.

The lady shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Salvatore, for now, you need to stay in this room.”

Two days later

“This isn’t a good idea, Loren,” a big man says to Doctor Monroe. “These three should be kept separated from each other, and from the other children. We don’t know how dangerous they are yet.”

Doctor Monroe crosses her arms and smiles. All her long, blonde hair goes all swishy wishy when she shakes her head. “Well, Colin, that’s not your decision now, is it? And I’ll be supervising the entire time.”

Doctor Monroe reaches for my hand, and I hold onto hers. “Come on, Sal, would you like to meet some new friends?”

I nod. “Come on, Sal.” When I punch my head, Doctor Monroe holds my other hand. “I’m going to help you stop doing that, okay?”

I nod. “Okay. Okay. Is Justice here?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry, he’s at home with his family.”

“I’m sorry. I wanna see Justice. Sorry, sorry,” I say.

Doctor Monroe takes me to the big playroom where there are blocks and toy cars, and some books and a giant teddy bear. “Darius, L, come and meet Salvatore.”

When I see Darius, I smile because I remember him from when he was wearing the white jacket. “Darius. L,” I say.

Darius looks at me and his eyes get very squinty. “Do you like dead blood?”

I shrug. “Dead blood. Do you like dead blood?” I don’t know what dead blood is, but Darius says yes. When I look at L, he’s standing near the window, looking outside.

“Doctor Hart said you didn’t make a fire at your school. Are you scared of fire?” I ask Darius.

Darius shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t go to school. I did school at home with my mum, but she wasn’t my real mum. Just a lady. She’s dead now.”

Darius’ words come out of my mouth very fast. “She’s dead now. She’s dead now. Dead. Dead. Dead.”

Darius nods. “Yes.”

He doesn’t care that my words are the same as him, and I smile because he might be my friend like Justice. “Justice is my friend,” I tell him. “Do you want to be my friend?”

He scrunches his nose. “What does that mean?”

“What does that mean?” I punch my head so many times, and Darius grabs my hand.

“Stop it,” he says.

“Stop it,” I say, and I lift my hand up to hit my head again, but Darius holds it very tight.

“Stop it,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself, only hurt other people. You can hurt me.”

“You can hurt me,” I say, but I don’t want to hurt myself, and I don’t want to hurt Darius. My words are getting all mixed up with his, and it’s making me angry.

“No,” Darius says. He pulls my hand closer to him and punches it into his arm. “Like this. Not you, only punch me.”

“Not you. Not you,” I shake my head.

Darius shakes his head too. “Do you know that I killed my dad and my mum and Max and Maisy. They’re all dead now.”

My eyes go very big and wide like my mouth, and I whisper only to Darius. “Do you know I made a fire?”

I look at the boy called L who’s still looking out the window. “Did L kill his mum and dad?”

Darius shrugs. “He doesn’t say any words. Loren, that’s Doctor Monroe, she said he’s got something hurting in his head and he can’t remember words or his name. I just called him L.”

“He doesn’t say any words?” I make a shocked face, and Darius shakes his head.

“Come on,” he says, and he holds my hand and makes me follow him to the window where L is standing.

“L, can you say any words?” Darius asks.

L looks at us, then nods, and looks out the window again.

“Why don’t you wanna talk to us?” I ask him.

“Shhh…” he says, and he pushes his finger to his lips.