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Back Man at the Window Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Thirty-Four
  36. Thirty-Five
  37. Thirty-Six
  38. Thirty-Seven
  39. Thirty-Eight
  40. Thirty-Nine
  41. Forty
  42. Forty-One
  43. Forty-Two
  44. Forty-Three
  45. Forty-Four
  46. Forty-Five
  47. Forty-Six
  48. Forty-Seven
  49. Forty-Eight
  50. Forty-Nine
  51. Fifty
  52. Fifty-One
  53. Fifty-Two
  54. Fifty-Three
  55. Fifty-Four
  56. Fifty-Five
  57. Fifty-Six
  58. Fifty-Seven
  59. Fifty-Eight
  60. Acknowledgements
  61. About the author

He’d lain awake in bed for the two hours since lights out. He hadn’t moved for an hour. He knew people were still when asleep. He had often stayed awake while all around him slept. Tonight he didn’t have to wait so long. He heard the third formers getting ready for lights out, they were the noisiest; the fourth formers had deeper voices, there was a lot of volume but it wasn’t noisy. The chooks were noisy, the cows had volume. The fifth formers were the quietest but they were the bossiest. Some of them slept in lower school dorms, one slept in their dorm. The fifth formers in their dorm picked on the weaker boys. The fifth former knew Carmody had spoken to the boy, the boy saw it in his eyes; they looked cagey like their mongrel dog’s when it had done something wrong. He didn’t care about the fifth former anymore, he wasn’t frightened of him. He heard the fifth former come in, he heard him slide his locker door, he heard the coat hangers striking the back of the cupboard, he heard shoes drop to the floor. A sixth form boy would place his shoes, the fifth form boy dropped his. A sixth former didn’t have to impress anyone, he was at the top. The boy wondered if he would ever get that old. He knew he would be a different fifth former to this one, he would help the weaker boys and he would protect them, like Carmody did. He felt the tears tickle as they ran from his eyes. Some plopped onto the pillow. Some stuck to his ears and gathered before more pushed them onto the pillow. It seemed very loud, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t draw attention to himself. He knew he was good at that. Once he used to be noisy and run around like the other boys but now he could lie perfectly still for hours, like a stone. Stones don’t sleep, they just sit there, eyes open. They don’t blink either, they don’t have eyelashes, they don’t need them, their eyes, too, are stone. Like a stone he lay in his bed. Like a stone he sat at his classroom desk. Like a stone he ate his dinner. He remembered sitting like a stone in his father’s car as he was driven home last holiday and more tears came. Stones must still be able to cry.