On the Strawberry Moon - 22. Chapter 22

The gang looked up. It was break time and they were in the library, and they heard herds of horrified screams and crying.

‘What the hell?’ muttered Tom, standing up.

A bunch of students threw themselves into the library, hysterically crying. Some of them were slamming their bodies up against the door, while other boarding up the door with tables and chairs.

One of the students turned around, with teary eyed glared at Kalum and pointed at him, ‘It’s the other one.’

Kalum had a horrible feeling of panic whack him hard in the chest. Robert’s hand fell on his shoulder as he stood up firmly next to him.

‘What,’ Robert demanded.

‘The other twin,’ a girl started sobbing. ‘He walked into school. Started shooting randomly in the science corridor.’

The gang looked at Kalum as Kalum could feel the colour draining from his face.

‘I haven’t seen him this morning,’ he said, his voice weak. He still remained frozen in his seat.

‘You’re twins, always identical, he’ll have a gun too,’ declared another student.

Kalum wished he could move out his chair, but he was still stuck.

Billy pipped up, ‘Kalum’s been with us all morning, just because they’re twins doesn’t mean they are the same.’

‘Are you sure it was Jasper?’ asked Ronny.

Loud banging interrupted them. The students screamed and pushed more chairs into the door.

Kalum and Robert exchanged looks.

‘I didn’t know,’ Kalum whispered to Robert.

With his legs shaking, Kalum managed to stand up and announced, ‘I have to talk to him.’

‘Why would he do this?’ Daz’s voice was soft and weak. Her head dropped down as she was fighting tears. ‘I didn’t see anything in him to do this, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ repeated Kalum, as he went to walk to the boarded-up door.

Robert yanked him back hard.

There were tears in Robert’s eyes as he shook his head with fear.

‘You can’t go out there,’ Tom stood next to Robert, grabbing onto Kalum’s other shoulder.

Kalum looked at them both and carefully took both Robert’s and Tom’s hands off him.

‘Who else knows him better than his twin,’ he gave an uneasy smile. ‘I have to go out there.’

‘You didn’t cause this,’ blurted out Robert. ‘Don’t go out there. Please.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ Kalum just replied and turned around and walked past the students.

Silently, they pulled some of the tables and chairs back and let him out the door. The gang stood there in the library, just watching, powerless to say or do anything.

Once he was outside the library, Kalum noticed that the corridor was eerily quiet. Kalum’s legs were shaking.

How the heck did Jasper get a gun? He followed the sounds of gun shots. It was such an awful deafening sound.

The only target Jasper wanted was Kalum and Kalum knew that.

No need for anyone to be accidentally hurt in the crossfire.

Kalum made it to the maths hallway where the banging noise was the harshest to his ears. Out of all the rooms in the corridor, there was only with an open door. All the doors were shut. A fire alarm began ringing out.

Kalum walked towards the open room and peered in.

Jasper was sat against the wall, with gun resting in his hand. All the desks had been pushed around and chairs were upside down and scattered. Jasper was completely alone.

Without saying a word, Kalum walked in, shutting the door behind him and sat next to him.

‘Did that twin thing work or did you just guess?’ Jasper said, aimlessly.

‘Have you hurt anyone?’

‘Not sure, I just shot out randomly, not sure if anyone got hit. I was just shooting at the walls.’

‘Okay.’

Jasper turned to him, ‘Okay? That’s all you are saying?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Are you not going to ask me where I got the gun?’

‘I don’t understand why you are doing this.’

Jasper paused and snorted and tuned his head away, ‘Did you have any more dreams about Simon?’

‘No,’ Kalum paused. ‘Did you push him? Did you push both of us.’

Jasper paused. Then he said, ‘No.’

‘You didn’t push both of us?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Accident,’ Jasper snorted again, ‘Big messed up accident. That’s what happened.’

Kalum paused again, staring outwards. They could hear policing sirens swirling outside, blaring loud. Blue lights flashed from the window next to them and danced on the wall.

‘You didn’t have to do this,’ Kalum said.

Jasper rolled the gun about in his hands.

A flutter of panic flittered inside of Kalum, and he burbled, ‘I’ll never disobey you again, I’ll work harder being a twin and I won’t see Robert anymore. Just please don’t hurt anyone.’

‘You’d give up Robert.’

‘You can be in charge of my life, I will go back to the care home and say everything is fine, we are fine. We don’t need anyone else. Just please don’t shoot anymore people. People are traumatised enough. Please. No one else needs to get hurt.’

‘Mm,’ Jasper looked at him. He looked at the gun then looked at Kalum. ‘You need to take this gun off me. We’re switching places.’

Kalum felt his stomach drop, a sickening heavy drop. ‘What?’

‘I’ll only not hurt people if you pretend to be me. You’re the new Jasper. I’m giving you the gun. You’re going to walk out there, and they you will arrest you.’

Kalum looked at him, ‘We are wearing different shirts today.’

Jasper rolled his eyes, he put the gun on the floor and pulled his shirt off, shoving it in Kalum’s hands. He picked the gun up again.

Kalum stared the shirt in his hands.

Jasper lifted a gun and shot at the wall behind Kalum. Kalum jumped out of his skin, the gun still ringing like an explosion in his ear.

Jasper smirked ‘Oopsy daisy.’ He offered him the gun.

Shaking, Kalum took his shirt off and handed it to Jasper. He then stood up, pulling Jasper's shirt over him and taking the gun off Jasper.

‘Now be a good brother,’ Jasper said and nodded towards the door.

With tears in his eyes and his legs shaking, Kalum carried the gun and walked the room. He felt the earth move so still as he pressed on; it was as if he was walking through thick mud. The gun felt so odd, strange in his hand. On the handle he could feel the warm sweat of where his brother’s fingers had been.

He walked towards the door just as armed police raided in screaming at him with black hats and shields.

‘On the ground!’

***

‘Are you doing okay, Kalum?’ Billy asked Jasper.

‘So glad no one died,’ said Sammy, her voice quiet. ‘Can this sort of stuff even happen here?’

Robert sat next to Jasper as Jasper kept quiet.

‘I wish I had known what was going through his head,’ Jasper said as Oscar reached over gave him a hug.

They were at Oscar’s parents’ house, sitting around the living room. TV was turned off as they couldn’t watch any more news coverage. Their school all over the news.

‘We all do,’ Ronny said. ‘You know if you need to talk, we’re here.’

Jasper gave him a sad smile, ‘Thanks Ronny, appreciate it.’

Robert nudged Jasper shoulder and Jasper looked instantly at Tom instead, ‘I’m sorry for what he’s done.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ Tom shook his head, he lifted his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Don’t say sorry, man.’

‘He wasn’t great for a while, was he,’ Robert said.

Jasper looked at Ronny, not responding to Robert, ‘Yeah, Jasper had been acting like really odd for a while.’

Oscar sat up, ‘I know you guys won’t have an appetite but I’m just bring some food in, okay?’

Sammy and Daz both nodded getting up to help her.

The guys sat around the living room in silence, unable to look at each other. The silence wasn’t too tense though.

Robert went to touch Jasper’s hand and Jasper flinched it away.

Robert didn’t say anything, Jasper flinched too hard and it caught Robert off guard. But then Robert though it had a really hard day so didn’t want to judge too much.

‘I thought you said you were getting nibbles,’ said Billy with a sad smile, nodding over to the girls bringing in bowls of meat.

‘Hot dogs? From the can,’ Ronny gave a soft laugh.

‘Honestly, I love you guys,’ Tom just said, they all turned to him. He gave out a little laugh, ‘You are the only people that I want to be around after such a day like this.’

‘We are not bad people. If we knew that he was thinking of doing that,’ Billy trailed off.

‘I didn’t even know and I’m his brother,’ said Jasper.

The girls put the bowls out on the table. It was streaming with hotdogs, buns, sweets, spam.

Robert nudged Jasper, ‘You want me to get you a bun for the hotdog?’

‘I’m not a big hot dog person, actually,’ Jasper muttered. ‘Thank you, though.’

An unsettling feeling starting creeping in Robert’s stomach.

It couldn’t be what he was thinking but he needed to double check.

‘Yeah, they’re a bit slimy, aren’t they, especially at ice rinks at that,’ he said, as he gathered a hotdog himself as the gang grabbed at some food. ‘Always got too much onion and sauce on.’

Jasper pulled his knees to his chest and murmured, ‘Ice Rink, that’s weird, but yeah.’

‘Not much of an ice skater?’

‘Too cold for me,’ replied Jasper with a quick smile before turning to Billy, ‘Only cold I like is on roller coasters.’

‘Yeah,’ Billy gave a sad droopy smile, ‘I can’t believe we can’t do anything as a gang anymore.’

‘We’re still the gang,’ protested Ronny.

Robert tried one more time and turned to Jasper, ‘Think Barney would be better as an orange dinosaur, wouldn’t he?’

A look of confusion fell over Jasper’s face, he tried to hide it but Robert saw it.

Jasper just shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’

‘That’s where you are wrong, sir,’ Sammy said.

While they were talking about dinosaurs, Robert’s gut feeling was screaming at him,

He stared at the food in his hand as the awful realisation was hitting him.