Superheroes

Chapter Two - Andrew Godfrey

                                       Chapter Two – Andrew Godfrey

One of Andrew Godfrey’s few merits was his predictability. During every free period and the odd lesson, he could always be found sitting down in the stairwell, be it with friends or alone.

The stairwell was to the teachers simply a disused staircase that went below ground level, leading down to the drama closet backdoor. Enclosed by whitewashed walls, it hid all inhabitants from those above ground, and was never visited by anyone over the age of eighteen. As a result, it had come to serve a more creative purpose than being just a simple passageway. The stairwell was generally populated by those who were hell-bent on dying early from lung cancer, or those dappling in more illegal drugs, and the smell clung to the walls and soaked the air. Being prone to violently coughing just when I came into contact with second-hand smoke, it was not somewhere I went regularly.

However, Andrew Godfrey practically lived there. You didn’t have to be psychic to know where he’d be, so in my first free period I set off across the school grounds after him, a specially chosen crime-solving notebook in hand and a speech in my head. First lesson had been spent composing it, and I was pretty sure that he couldn’t say no to my carefully constructed words.

Located on the far side of the football field, the stairwell was fairly secluded from the rest of school, another one of its many attractive features. The drama theatre was separated from the main school block by the sports facilities, putting several hundred metres between the two.

Crossing the sports fields, I walked quickly, keeping my head down. A couple of students were lounging around in the sun on the lawn, but none gave me a second glance. Being invisible certainly had its uses when you didn’t want to be disturbed.

Ever since Trent’s death, the school had been blanketed with mournful quiet, which was now only just beginning to lift, facilitated by the recent streak of sunny weather and the healing of time. Those sprawled on the grass were chatting freely and everything was beginning to feel a little more relaxed. It was nice out that morning, which I took to be a good omen.       

A couple of metres away from the stairwell I was hit by the musk of fumes and smoke, the inside of my throat tickling in response. Swallowing, I ignored it and walked forwards to the top of the stairs, peering down into the shadows to try and spot my target.

“Fuck off, Ash,” muttered the deep, gravelly voice of Andrew Godfrey. He was sat on one of the lower steps with his back to me, clicking a lighter and tilting the flame to the end of a cigarette. He didn’t turn round to look at me.

“You must be psychic,” I said, smiling nervously. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t laugh at my lame attempt at humour.

Braving the claustrophobic clamminess of the stairwell, I descended down a couple of the steps and took a seat, keeping to the side of Andrew. “Those things will k-kill you, you know.”

“Good,” Andrew replied, the cigarette finally catching alight. He pocketed the lighter and pressed his lips to the butt of the cigarette, inhaling deeply. He coughed upon exhaling.

Feeling my eyes water as the smoke drifted my way, I tried not to look like a total idiot by spluttering, and instead attempted to remember my speech. I drew up a mental blank. “Do- do you remember T-Trent?” I asked, my stutter slipping back in as I started to panic, struggling to remember what to say. I’d been having speech therapy since the start of the year, but in times of stress it all went to pot and I sounded like a twit all over again. Great help that was.

Finally twisting his head around to face me, Andrew gave me a glare. He had a face well-suited to it, all dark eyes, high cheekbones, and gaunt handsomeness. He looked like he’d been born to brood in stairwells and glare at people. “If one more fucking person tries to talk to me about Trent fucking Buchman, I swear I’m going to add to the death count,” he said. He also happened to be the kind of person who didn’t sound like they were bluffing.

It wasn’t a great start to my cunning plan of getting him on my side, maybe even convincing him to help me solve all this. It took me a moment to summon the courage to speak again, during which Andrew looked back away from me, tending to his cigarette. “He didn’t kill himself,” I said quietly, proud for managing it all without a stammer.   

“He jumped out a window, Ash. He wasn’t just trying to see if he could fly,” Andrew said, tapping cigarette ash down onto the step below.

“He was killed,” I said. In my grand speech, I had planned to get around to that point gradually, with tact. I’d forgotten that tact was pretty wasted on Andrew.

Groaning quietly, Andrew rocked back on the step and tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling in despair. “Oh for fucks sake, you’re not going to tell me this is your psychic gut instinct, are you?” When I said nothing in response, he swore again and kicked his legs out before him, whacking them against the stone steps. “Ash, Trent killed himself. I get it; you saw the body, freaked out, and want it to be something more than him offing himself. You’re just going to have to accept that some people don’t want to live anymore. Some more actively than others.”

“He- he didn’t k-kill himself, Andrew,” I said through my teeth, clenching my fists. “I can tell.”

“That’s just your head playing tricks on you,” Andrew snapped back, turning on his step to glare at me again. “I don’t feel a damn thing wrong with it. He jumped, he’s dead. To be honest, I’m surprised this school hasn’t had a suicide sooner, considering how fucked up-”

“I told you, he was murdered,” I shouted, cutting him off. His know-it-all attitude was seriously starting to piss me off.

“Ash, they had a police investigation and everything. Mr. Wrong said it was an open and shut case,” Andrew said, speaking more gently this time, although I still heard it as patronising. Mr. Wrong happened to be the hilarious and terribly witty nickname the student population had bestowed upon our headmaster, Mr. Wright. Unfortunately, apart from the name altering, Andrew spoke the truth. Psychic gut reactions aside, there was no evidence supporting the idea that it was a murder.

“He was killed,” I repeated, standing, “and I’m going to prove it.”

“Good luck with that,” Andrew retorted with equal defiance, a glower back on his face. I returned it with an equally filthy look before turning and storming off up the steps, stalking back across the school grounds.

It had been stupid to presume I could count on Andrew to believe me. The psychic connection element of our relationship - if that was the correct word for it - had never extended outside of the subconscious. In the real, waking world, he rarely went beyond being anything other than a prick.