Meadowbridge

Meadowbridge stood at the edge of London on a wooded hill that would have been pretty if Meadowbridge hadn't been standing there. The dull brick building with its tall, narrow windows and wrought-iron fence had been there as long as anyone could recall, and it had worn many faces over the course of a century. It had been a children’s home, a reform school, occasionally both at once; after that, it was a hospital, in a time when phrases like “eugenic virtue” and “benevolent sterilization” represented the forward-thinking progress of the medical profession. The oldest residents of the local borough remembered being frightened of the place when they were growing up, and as children they had dared each other to press their faces against the wrought iron fences and try to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that happened behind the grimy plate glass windows. Some of them swore, to this day, that they had seen things that defied the laws of man and God.

Eventually the compound had been abandoned. Even when German bombs laid waste to whole neighborhoods of the town during the war, no one had opened up the cold, sepulchral halls for refugees. The Meadowbridge complex simply festered on its forested hill in the north quarter of town, a cold and silent monument to the misery and injustice it had witnessed, destined to be condemned and blotted out of the borough’s memory forever. Until the Jericho Foundation acquired it.

But Jack Niven wasn’t so much concerned with the past as he was with the very immediate future as the squad car carrying him rolled past the wrought iron gates of the Meadowbridge Home for Mutant Youth and into the roundabout before the front entrance. One of the officers in the front seat stepped out and strolled through the rain-streaked sodium lights and into the front door, leaving the slender boy alone in the back seat with only the driver for company.

“Well, here it is,” the cop said, completely needlessly. “It’s really not so bad, it’s not like going into young offender's. It’s more like... well, it’s just a school. And a good school, at that.”

There was no answer from the back seat - just the squeak-and-shudder of the wipers clearing the rain off the windshield. The cop glanced nervously at the front door and dearly wished for a cigarette.

“Anyway... you’re a good kid, Jack. You just mind your manners, and do as you’re told, and you'll be back home for the holidays.”

Jack only stared at the forbidding brick edifice, his eyes watering in the glare of the florescent lighting that spilled out from the front office windows. For a moment he fantasized about what he might do when the cop returned to take him inside. Maybe he could hit the man hard enough to break free. Then he could find his way back to his flat in South Croydon. It was only about five miles through the pounding rain. After that... after that...

Well, it didn't really matter, did it? His life was over. He was a freak. Even his own mother was afraid of him.

The other officer returned and beckoned Jack out of the back seat. He didn't bother resisting on the way in.

It was dark out, but curfew was still a half an hour off when Susie wandered downstairs. Most of the kids were upstairs in their common rooms - one for girls and one for boys - but she never felt comfortable 'hanging' with the others.

She lingered at the bottom of the stairs like a wraith, watching the new boy enter and head to the headmaster's office, and then blinked. The front door was closed, shadows on it from the lights outside, and then it opened, admitting a wet teenager and a policeman in plain clothes, also drenched. Susie smiled a faint half smile, taking a step toward the newcomers before a hand was laid on her shoulder.

Mrs. March tsked, her thin fingers like claws on Susie's flesh. "Lets not scare the boy away before he's properly settled in, now." She spun the girl around, standing on a stair behind her and forcing Susie to crane her neck to look at the matron. "Almost curfew. You are supposed to be in your dorm."

Not until 9 pm, Mrs. March, Susie almost said, but she simply bit her lip and nodded seriously. Then she said, in a soft clear voice, "Perhaps I could show him to the boys dorm. Once he's ready."

The matron narrowed her eyes, and then nodded. "Yes, that should be fine. Go report to the headmaster's, I'll let him know you're coming."

"Yes ma'am," Susie said, affecting a small curtsey in her heavy grey woolen skirt. She waited for the entryway to clear of bobbies and boys and Mrs. Marches, and then slowly walked through the darkened halls to the headmaster's office.

The door to the headmaster's office suddenly opened and poured a warm glow into the corridor, setting the newly-varnished floor ablaze. In the doorway stood a portly middle-aged man, he had an untidy flop of pale yellow hair and a pair of round spectacles which glared like small suns. When he spoke, his words came out a melodic wheeze:

"Let's make this our last meeting before term, shall we?"

A young man sauntered from the office, a broad silhouette against the soft lamp light. Dressed in sagging jeans and a dramatically stretched jumper, he had the look of a man who wrestled with his clothes and lost. A pair of arms, like tree trunks, hung heavily at his sides, they were so abnormally long that his sleeves barely passed the elbow and his hands swung by his knees. Upon sighting the new arrival, he beamed and lifted a great swollen hand, then just as quickly snatched it away to flatten a rebellious tuft of hair. He approached the silent blonde looking rather smug.

There was a falter in his step, he plunged a hand down the front his trousers and started to rummage, his faced creased in concentration. He hobbled closer and prized his hand free once again, revealing a crumpled packet of cigarettes. In his chunky digits, he worked the packet open with practiced dexterity and extended it Susie's way.

"It's alright - they're still fresh."

The inside of Meadowbridge was no more promising than the outside. The floors were slate and felt freezing right through Jack's shoes, late August be damned; the walls were black tile up to waist-level and white plaster above that, and they were full of bulletin boards crowded with postings from the previous school year about films and fundraisers and prize-winning essays on the topic How Mutants Like Me Can Benefit the Human Community; the ceilings buzzed with florescent lights and cameras behind glass globes, and here and there in the corridor were mounted flatscreen TVs that currently were showing some kind of nature program where ants with huge pincers were doing horrible things to smaller ants.

As soon as Jack had set foot in the lobby, Mrs. March emerged from the hallway with a rigid smile. She was incredibly tall and thin with a face that was all right angles and skin that didn't wrinkle even where it should, and the best Jack could do with her age was to put her somewhere between twenty and sixty-five. When she spoke, he learned that her voice was much deeper than his.

"Hello, hello there, you must be Jack. My name is Mrs. March, I'm the Assistant Director and house mistress for the girls. How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," Jack mumbled, eyes dropping to the floor.

Mrs. March's eyebrows came together. "I'm sorry. I heard about what happened at home. Are you ill? Injured? Do you need the nurse to look you over?"

Jack shook his head. He'd already been put through the wringer with the police, and now that he was here, he didn't want to be examined, questioned, or coddled any further. He wanted to be left alone.

But Mrs. March walked up and laid a hand on his narrow shoulder, enveloping it completely. "I'm sure you're frightened, Jack," she said. "But you need to know that we're here to help you. With anything."

Her hand was shockingly strong. Jack suddenly realized he'd have a better chance breaking away from the plainclothesman.

"I think I can take him from here, Officer Hill," the woman said. "Thank you so much for bringing him by."

"My pleasure, ma'am," said the cop, and he backed out of the door without a second look back.

"Come on, then," Mrs. March said with another angular smile, "Dr. Winters's office is just this way."

With Mrs. March's hand perched like an iron falcon on his shoulder, Jack turned the corner into a corridor that seemed to stretch forever past identical wooden doors. Parts of the walls were set with frosted glass windows that looked into the rooms beyond - they were all dark and empty and uninteresting. But that only made him wonder what was in the rooms that had no windows.

At last they came to a corner where there were two kids standing outside a door marked HEADMASTER'S OFFICE. Upon seeing Mrs. March the boy moved quickly to hide something, but Jack hardly noticed because he was too busy looking at his arms.

"Good evening, Mr. Lankey. Miss Quinn," Mrs. March said without a variation in her smile. "This is Jack Niven. You'll have a chance to meet him later, but now he has an appointment with the headmaster."

The office door cracked open. "Yes, in a moment, Mrs. March, but first I need to speak with you privately."

Mrs. March's smile disappeared, and she looked at Susie and Tom with trepidation. "Perhaps we should acclimate Jack first, Dr. Winters."

"Jack? Oh, yes." The door swung open to reveal Dr. Winters, shorter and a good deal rounder than Mrs. March, with protruding eyes that were enlarged even further by his spectacles. "Hello, there, Jack, I'm Dr. Winters. Welcome to Meadowbridge. And I'm afraid it's late, and the rest will have to wait. Mr. Lankey, I'm sure you can see that Mr. Niven finds his way to the boy's dormitory? Mr. Niven, I will see you in my office at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Now, Mrs. March, if you please?"

Mrs. March threw another wary look at Tom and disappeared into the office, leaving Jack alone with the other two students. Jack stared at both of them and, unconsciously, took a step back against the wall.

She'd known Tom would be there, and she examined the offered cigarettes unsure whether she'd take one or not. He popped them back into his pocket as Mrs. March and the new boy appeared, no doubt crushing them even more. Susie watched the exchange between March and Winters impassively, her blue eyes finally settling on Jack as she canted her head to the right.

"We don't bite," she said, her voice sweet and whisper soft. "I'm Susie." And she held her hand out knowing that the boy wouldn't reach out to take it, finally letting it fall back to her side. She turned a bit to regard Tom, who was predictably fishing out his rumbled cigarettes and patting his pockets for a lighter.

Susie reached into her cardigan's front pocket and procured a bic lighter, holding it out silently.

"Oh, nice one. Susie, you're a peach."

Tom plucked the lighter from her dainty fingers and lit his cigarette. After quaffing a couple of hearty mouthfuls, he exhaled a thick stream of smoke and regarded the cheap lighter. It took only a second for him to decide against pocketing it, by which time Susie was already holding out an open hand. He frowned and planted it in her palm.

"Don't ever become a teacher," he muttered, "Winters has me empty my pockets everytime he lays eyes on me lately. Yeah, I bet he'd like to see what's hidden in my pants. Dirty old pedo."

He gave a hoarse snigger at that, spewing grey clouds, and then noticed the nervous twink stood across from them. Kingly in posture, he surveyed the boy with an unmistakeable air of expectancy, then prodded the glowing end of the cigarette in his direction.

"Show us yours, then."

"Mine? Show you my..."

It took a dizzying moment for Jack to realize what Tom was talking about. Like it was some kind of calling card, proof of membership in the club of Homo peculiar...

Jack shook his head quickly. "No, no, I can't," he said. "Not... not here. You're smoking? With the headmaster right in there?"

"Scandal, innit?" he said through a shit-eating grin and blew another plume into the rafters, then with a glance at Susie, added, "A tenner says it's his balls."

Python arms coiling over his chest, he fixed his gaze on the twink's crotch, and wisely pondered the mystery of his mutation:

"Probably sprouted limbs or something. Maybe they're sentient, with fully developed personalities. Can you imagine having a conversation with your nads?" he asked Susie, "Mornin' boys, how's it hanging? Oh, things have been a bit hairy, mate, been feelin' a dickhead lately. Oh, classic!"

Fighting off a fit of laughter, Tom once again returned his attention to the newcomer's groin, rapt with wonder:

"Maybe they're peppermint flavoured..."

Susie took one step to the left, separating herself from Tom just enough. She looked at Jack a little apologetically as Tom went on his stream of consciousness rant about sentient testicles, but merely tucked the lighter back into her cardigan.

Jack nearly moved to cover the crotch of his jeans before he imagined how that would play with the grinning idiot in front of him. "God, you're a bit obsessed with people's junk, aren't you?"

His eyes darted between the two teenagers, both of them visually dissecting him in their own way, and he realized this was all the hospitality he was going to get tonight, and he'd be better off not making enemies of them no matter how much he wanted to tell them to sod off.

He glanced around quickly and saw a utility lamp on the floor probably left over from a maintenance crew, a powerful incandescent bulb under an orange metal cage and plugged into a coiled extension cord. "Okay, look," Jack said, and, with a furtive glance at Dr. Winters's door, he knelt by the light, switched it on, and put his hand over it.

It got hot in a hurry, and Jack winced as the palm of his hand began to sear, but just a few seconds was enough. He switched the light off again, and then he turned to face the other two and showed them his hand. The flesh now burned with the same white-hot light as the lamp had a few moments ago, and the bones of his fingers were pale shadows like an X-ray negative. Gradually the light faded, yellow, then a red glow, and then it was normal again.

Tom snatched at the boy's wrist and pulled him closer for inspection. Stupefied, he studied the small pink palm which had just illuminated the corridor, and gave it a clumsy prod. It was still warm. He beamed with delight, nodding approval, and finally relinquished his grip.

"Man, you're such a freak!" he crowed, sweeping in to clap a heavy arm around his shoulders, and clamped him in a half hug.

"Whatcha say, Susie Q? Twinkie's a human torch!"

She looked at Tom, only moving her eyes and not her body to regard him. "I could have told you that."

Susie's lips twitched up in a crooked half-smile. She was trying to get better at humor, but it was still a work in progress. "We should go." She started walking down the hall toward the stairs, the sound of rain increasing as the storm strengthened. They didn't want to still be around when Mrs. March came out of the office.

Jack stumbled under the weight of Tom's oversized arm - it was like being hugged by a gorilla. He could feel the force of the big, steely muscles seeping into him the way the light had a moment ago, and after the events of the day that made him uncomfortable, and he pushed away. "Hey, all right... Um, yeah, Susie's right. We should go."

Not that he had any idea where to go. Out the front door appealed to him as much as anything. He didn't even have any of his belongings with him, not so much as a toothbrush.

He glanced back at his two companions. Tom's peculiarity was pretty obvious, but Susie remained a mystery. Jack couldn't help but wonder if her mutation was half as weird as his own.

"Where are we going?"

"Pedobear Winters will be making his rounds soon and we gotta look like we're settled down for the night, you know, all snug as a bug in a little old rug?"

Tom punctuated his sentence with a dramatic, all-knowing, waggle of the eyebrows, implying all was not as it seemed. They reached a broad spiral of stone steps wrapped in a rickety paint-starved bannister which climbed to the next floor. Clasping the cigarette stump between his teeth, Tom disappeared from view in a sucession of swinging leaps, the metal rails rattled violently and echoed in the drafty halls. Hidden from view, his voice sounded like a roll of thunder:

"And it's your lucky day, Twinkie - we're gonna be bunk buddies!"

Susie found herself alone in the stairwell with Jack, and she hesitantly put a hand on the younger boy's arm. "He deserved it, you know." Her eyes were suddenly focused and intense as she searched his face, and then she broke contact with him, drifting slowly up the stairs like a ghost.

"Girls are on the left, boys on the right," she said. "No fraternizing after 9 pm, lights out at 9:30. Mr. Collins, that's the house master for the boy's dorm, he'll sort out your uniforms in the morning." Susie barely made eye contact as she spoke, and Tom quickly swooped back in to her rescue, a belittling remark about the small and doughy Mr. Collins on his lips.

She blinked and found herself standing on the last landing. Tom was no where in sight. "Did I - did I tell you about the uniforms yet?"

Jack nodded, looking at her strangely, and then there was a thump on the floor above them.

"Oh, pudgy Collins is gonna love you, Twinkie. You're just his type. And remember to squeeze into the smallest pair of games shorts you can find for extra credit."

From the top of the stairs, Tom smiled like a shark and gave the newbie a wink. It was common knowledge that every teacher in Meadowbridge was either a greasy pedo or a frigid bitch, there were no exceptions. His eyes drifted to Susie and the corners of his mouth flickered with amusement. He snapped his fingers.

"Oi, Susie, don't start spacin' out without me. All in good time, princess."

A gesture beckoned her up the last flight of stairs, newbie in tow, to whom he explained:

"Don't worry, she does that a lot, but she can't help it anymore than I can find a shirt that fits proper. Watch out for the glassy eyes, that's when you know - anyways, it keeps me honest. Don't it, Susie love?"

Susie wasn't the only one spacing out - Jack had hardly heard anything else since she'd spoken to him with that unsettlingly earnest look in her eyes, as if she'd read him like an open book that held secrets even he didn't know. It was... it was like... well, it just wasn't possible, was it?

It was when his foot hit the top of the stairs that he realized he wasn't sure how he'd gotten there, and he looked around to see himself standing at the corner of two dormitory hallways, one marked for the girls, one for the boys. Both were enormously long, and both turned corners again at the end. The place was huge - even bigger than it had looked on the outside - and yet it was oppressively empty. Half the ceiling lights weren't even on.

"Where is everybody?" Jack said. "I mean... I know it's late, and I know it's still the holidays, but... well, I mean, we're here."

"Common rooms watching movies," Susie said quietly. "There are a few of us who don't have anywhere to go during break so we stay year 'round."

She pulled her cardigan tight, wrapping it around the front of her and crossing her arms over its grey bulk. "Tom has some titty magazines under his mattress."

"Aw, come on, Susie!" Tom blurted despairingly, "You don't just go and blow up a bloke's porn stash! What if I went around tellin' people about your fuckin'... lavender-scented hope chest?"

Dragging a heavy hand down his face, Tom sighed, and sized up the newbie with narrowed eyes. He gave him a nod.

"Alright, I'll share. Just keep your hands off my Asian Fanny Fun!"

While his voice tolled like a doomsday declaration in the blackened recesses of the hallway, Tom glanced at his watch. It was almost time for lights-out. He prized the cigarette from his lips and extinguished it on the palm of his hand.

"Parting of the ways, chaps. Susie Q, same time and place, yeah?" he said, and clapped Twinkie on the shoulder with a grin, "It's you and me now, bud."