‘Guy tells us you’ve been very good to him at school,’ Ernest said with a tone of gratitude. ‘Thank you, Luke. It’s so difficult starting a new school and he tells us how you’ve made things much easier for him.’ He looked at my parents and nodded. ‘Seems your son has made all the difference for Guy.’
Guy kept his head down. Mum and Dad’s looks and mutters of appreciation made me glow a bit inside and helped me decide my next step.
‘No problem. It’s a pleasure.’
‘After last time, I was a little concerned …’ Celia added, but then stopped when her husband placed his hand on her arm.
‘Guy’s doing very well in lessons too,’ Ernest said instead. ‘He tells us he got top marks in a Maths test just yesterday.’
Now I knew that was a lie. I just smiled and caught Guy finally looking at me with narrowed eyes.
The rest of the meal became quite dull, with the adult couples swapping anecdotes about holidays and work – as if those two things were the only important aspects of life. A definition of modern life is, according to them, work your butt off so you have enough money to go on holiday so you can get away from the work you’ve been doing while getting the dosh together for the holiday in the first place. Our family holidays haven’t always been the most relaxing either, and Dad always seemed grateful to go back to work after we’ve been away. It doesn’t take him long to start complaining about the stress of work, though, until he’s making comments about needing another holiday. This is the vicious cycle of adulthood.
I was last to finish my apple crumble and custard – probably because I had three portions.
‘Luke, why don’t you take Guy upstairs and show him your room?’ Mum suggested. ‘You can leave us adults to continue our boring conversation.’
What? Even more boring than the last hour, you mean? I wanted to blurt that out, but didn’t.
‘OK. You coming?’ These were the first friendly words I had ever directly spoken to Guy. He grunted and stood up.
Taking another boy to my bedroom wasn’t the coolest thing to do, but the thought of finally talking to this freak certainly intrigued me. I felt I had the advantage on my own territory. I wanted to know why he’d defended me when he’d have every right to grass me up and get me grounded for the rest of my life.
There wasn’t a great deal to do without my games console, so I put on some music and let him perch on the end of my bed, while I sat sumptuously with the pillows against the headboard.
‘Tell me about the rabbits then.’
He looked uncomfortable and I let him squirm through the silence for a few moments as I stared at him without blinking.
‘OK then. Why are you bunking school?’
I had opportunity, at last, to study his features. His lank hair had been washed but still lay in wispy, flaccid clumps over his elongated head. Hair didn’t seem to suit him particularly – in any style. His eyes were small and blue; the only part of him that ever seemed animated. His mouth’s default setting was agape, giving him a gormless look, which belied his piercing gaze. Tufts of light fluff dotted his upper lip and the underside of his chin. I knew he was my age and yet there was something wizened and ancient about him. It wasn’t just his rough skin or his gnarled and curled fingers but something in his demeanour or aura that seemed archaic.
‘School’s not for me,’ he said simply in his strange high-pitched voice. His voice rasped slightly in a breathy whisper.
The more I saw and heard of Guy the more I warmed to him. If only I could not look at his gross hair and allay the image of him sniffing me. He clearly offered me no threat and I instinctively felt he liked and trusted me.
‘Mmm. Respect. The question is – is it really for anyone? Just a form of torture devised by adults to get rid of us for most of the year, isn’t it?’
He smiled broadly and it transformed his face entirely. He offered no other response.
‘And teachers are either psychotic sadists who want to hurt children in some form of revenge, or are completely deluded idealists, brainwashed by all the other adults into believing they’re doing something important. What do you think?’
‘It’s true that most teachers are ignorant of the truth,’ he replied, staring intently at my window. The ghost outline of the magpie and its bleached guano were still there.
I got up and wandered over to it, tracing my finger around the filigree shapes left by the wing feathers.
‘Must have hit hard.’
Guy’s voice made me jump, having become so used to him being silent until prompted to talk. I still hadn’t got completely used to his whiny tone either.
‘Yeah. So hard it shat itself.’
Guy smirked. ‘Good aim though.’ He nodded his head at the white smear that covered half the window pane. ‘He was aiming at you and didn’t see the glass.’ Then, to my embarrassment, Guy folded up into squeals of laughter. I left him wheezing and gasping for some minutes with a fixed scowl on my face. Eventually Guy regained his self-control and I tried to get things back on keel with a joke that had popped into my head, inspired by the guano.
‘Two chavs were walking down the road when a bird crapped on the head of one of them. The other said, “Wait here, I’ll get some toilet paper”. The first chav replied, “No need for that. By the time you return that bird will be miles away”.’
I gazed back into the silence at Guy’s mystified expression. Jokes are never improved by having to explain them. I decided to leave it.
‘The rabbits seemed to like you,’ I tried again. His neutral expression caused me to be unnecessarily explicit. ‘The other day on that roundabout. You and the rabbits?’
‘Thanks for not getting me into trouble.’
‘Sure. No sweat.’ Getting answers out of him would be difficult. Guy clearly wasn’t the talkative type. ‘You did the same for me. You could’ve told them I’d been a bastard.’
He didn’t respond.
By this time I’d returned to the luxury of my pillows, leaving him to stare at the magpie imprint.
‘Do you have any pets?’ he asked out of nowhere. Was that sudden look he gave me an accusing one?
‘Only my parents,’ I blurted out, trying to keep the atmosphere buoyant. His slight wince at my words made me feel guilty when I remembered his mum was ill. I didn’t know any details or the extent of her condition, but I racked my brain for a quick cover-up. ‘And a flat magpie.’ I gestured to the window. It didn’t improve things. I was going to say ‘ex-magpie’ but that would be thoughtless and it only reminded me of my own ex-cat and my guilt.
‘Have you?’ I enquired, as coolly as a teenage boy sitting on his bed and talking to a frankly odd bloke could manage. I imagined he possessed a menagerie at home; his bedroom a jungle of rodents, lizards, and stick insects.
He shook his head. ‘Nuh-uh.’ He finally ripped himself away from the window and turned his head sidewise to read the names of my games and DVDs on the shelves of my bookcase. ‘Animals and birds should never be kept in cages. Fish kept in small tanks only live half as long as wild fish. Birds need to fly.’
‘Right,’ I nodded, feigning interest. I kept with him for the sake of politeness, though. ‘What about cats? They lead pretty great lives in the warmth, sleeping, eating, crapping, and … well, that’s about it for some cats.’
‘Yeah, but the problem there is that they’re dependent on the owners and have lost the skill and cunning needed when living wild. They become fat and lazy.’
‘Great life, though. I read something funny once: something like “cats don’t have owners, they have staff”.’ I laughed, and I swear Guy’s lip flickered slightly – or perhaps he just had a twitch.
‘Maybe cats have it good,’ Guy sneered in submission. ‘House cats do live longer – usually because they’re pampered. But dogs are often kept for the wrong reason. It seems cruel to me teaching them tricks as if they’re circus clowns.’
‘We had a cat but it died recently.’ It felt good saying
it our loud – almost like making a confession.
Guy just stared at me with serious eyes and nodded slowly.
‘Does a spider count as a pet?’
‘Hard to train a spider.’ Guy’s eyebrows dented in the middle. ‘Most people want to kill them on sight.’
‘Too right,’ I chuckled. ‘I love to feel the squirming body burst between my fingers.’
‘I’ve never understood this human desire to destroy everything.’ Guy scanned the room and made an almost imperceptible sound with his lips, as if blowing tiny bubbles. ‘You’ve got about thirty spiders around this room in various hidey-holes.’
He went to my lamp, put his finger under the shade, and to my astonishment a small black spider suddenly scurried out and walked along his bony hand. My instinct was to knock it on the floor and crush it underfoot, but Guy’s gaze of admiration as he followed the creature up his arm forced me to stand stock still and see what he did next. Guy smiled as if the spider had whispered something amusing in his ear. It reached his face, scampered onto the bridge of his nose and up between his eyes, and then stopped on Guy’s forehead.
‘Watch this,’ Guy, said with a near tone of excitement.
The spider suddenly leapt off the boy’s head and onto the curtain. I could just see the faint line of silk now connecting his head to the drape. Guy lifted his hand and lightly brushed away the thin thread, all the while laughing to himself.
‘Luke?’ The disembodied voice came from downstairs. It was Mum. ‘Time for Guy to go now. Come down and say goodbye to Celia and Ernest.’
‘Guess you’re off then.’
Guy nodded. ‘Meet me tomorrow in the roundabout.’
‘Are you not going to school?’
He shook his head and exited my room without another word.
At the bottom of the stairs Celia held out Guy’s coat for him to put on.
He might well be the weirdest person I’ve ever met, but there was something about him that really intrigued me. Perhaps it was because he was different from everyone else at school. In those few moments upstairs and at Coney Island he’d got me thinking about things. Weird.
‘Well, thank you for a lovely meal. We must get you round to ours at some point.’ Celia beamed at me. ‘Thanks for being a friend to Guy.’ Ernest patted my shoulder and the three of them left the house, walking in silence away from us.
Dad closed the front door.
‘Well done, mate. Your improved manners were noted and gratefully appreciated.’
‘Guy’s a nice young man, isn’t he? A bit shy, but seems pleasant enough.’
I stepped up onto the fifth step in one big stride.
‘Yup. He’s … um … interesting.’
Chapter Thirteen
So I went back to Coney Island the next day. I just had to. Guy had done enough to make me feel terrible about treating him so badly. Mum and Dad had given up on looking after me and returned to work. I should have done the schoolwork emailed to me. Those damn teachers were way too efficient and at first Dad took great pleasure in printing off the reams of paper detailing fascinating exercises and essays for me to attempt. Sod that. Even though I knew my parents would question me about it, I felt sure I could con them into believing I’d done it all as they never really looked at my books, and I remained convinced that Dad hadn’t even read the sheets he’d been merrily printing for me. I even became fairly confident the teachers wouldn’t remember to ask me for it either.
I ran across the dual carriageway and found the gap I’d used on my previous visit. I had to hold my hand out in front of me again to stop my face getting covered in cobwebs, but it didn’t stop flies going into my eyes and up my nose. Briars and thickets scratched at my jeans; wet grass made my socks soggy. I found the hollow in the middle and there was Guy, surrounded by bunnies; holding a little one in his left hand and stroking it with two fingers.
Although I still felt wary of him, I couldn’t help but be fascinated. He was certainly the strangest person I’d ever met, and at least ‘strange’ wasn’t boring.
‘The babies are called kittens – or sometimes kits. Beautiful.’ Guy spoke in that odd high-pitch without even glancing at me. He lifted the little rabbit up for me to get a closer view. ‘Did you know that rabbits aren’t native to Britain? Probably brought over by the Normans from France and Spain, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. They’ve done well though. One doe can have about thirty babies a year, you know. They don’t all survive, of course, with so many predators around, but that’s pretty amazing survival tactics, eh?’
I’d never heard him speak for so long or so eloquently. I made a face which I hoped expressed a vague sense of interest.
‘Not many people know about their eating habits. They eat their own droppings to make sure they extract all the goodness from their food. Not so cute and fluffy now, eh? It’s not that different to cows and ruminants who chew the cud. Just sounds gross to ignorant humans who judge everything against their way of doing things. Nature often flies against what we’ve been socialised into believing.’
He put the bunny down and it hopped off towards what I assumed was its mother.
‘Come on,’ Guy said, climbing out of the hollow and pulling my arm. ‘I want to show you something.’ He held on to my sleeve and tugged me along at his own fast pace. I thought about pushing him away, but he sounded so insistent and I gave in to curiosity. Only as I looked down at my own feet, getting tangled in grass and twines, did I notice his bare feet. He seemed unaffected by any thorns or nettles and had even rolled his trousers up above his ankles.
He dragged me through bushes and thick undergrowth before coming to a sudden halt. Then he dived onto his front and with both hands, carefully made an opening in some tall grass. He looked up and indicated for me to get down next to him on the damp floor, so I resigned myself to getting wet and dirty and slid down on my knees, peering into the low opening. There, looking back at me, was a snake – a sodding huge one. This was definitely unexpected. Was it poisonous? I knew we had one poisonous snake in the UK. The adder? Or viper? This had black stripes around its bright yellow eyes. The length of it was brown-grey with black diamond patterns and behind its head was a yellow band.
Guy put his hand flat on the floor in front of it, palm upwards. The snake moved its head, flicked its long tongue over Guy’s hand, and unbelievably slithered its head voluntarily over it, allowing him to lift its whole body off the ground. I couldn’t believe the size of it; it must have been about a metre long.
‘Grief! He’s a monster,’ I said, aghast.
‘It’s a female,’ Guy replied, matter-of-factly.
‘I didn’t know we had snakes that big in this country.’
‘Oh, yeah. She’s a grass snake. Just as beautiful as the rabbit kitten – in a different way.’
‘Can it hurt you? Do they bite?’
‘It won’t bite me.’ Guy looked up at me and smiled as the snake wound itself around his arm and waist. It seemed content. ‘It’s unlikely to bite and it’s definitely not poisonous. And before you ask, no, it’s not a constrictor.’
I started to feel less nervous as Guy handled the creature like a pet. He tickled its throat and allowed the snake to dart its tongue all over his face.
‘Ah, it just licked my eye!’ Guy giggled with delight. I couldn’t help but laugh. This was truly amazing.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
‘’Course. It’s not actually licking me. It uses its tongue to smell and sense things.’
I looked on, stunned. The image before me of this odd, shy boy holding a massive snake made my head spin. What the hell was going on?
‘What do they eat?’ I heard myself ask and realised that it was a genuine interest.
‘See if I can show you.’
Guy got down on his haunches and, holding the grass snake in one hand, pressed the fingers of the other hand into the soft, mulchy soil. After doing this a few times he found what he’d been looking for – a long, w
riggling, pink earthworm. Guy pinched the worm between his thumb and forefinger and held it near the snake’s mouth. At first the tongue sprang out and flicked over the wriggling mini-beast a few times, then the snake’s mouth opened and gulped it down whole – with Guy letting go at the last millisecond.
‘Awesome,’ I cried out involuntarily.
‘They love frogs and small birds or mice. They swallow them whole, just like that worm. I should put her back, really.’
‘Can I hold her? I mean, do you think she’ll let me?’ I couldn’t believe what I was saying.
‘I’m not sure.’ Guy’s forehead wrinkled somewhat. ‘She might dart off suddenly, or even –’
‘What?’
‘Give it a try.’ Guy slowly passed over the serpent. I tried to copy what he did. I placed one hand behind the snake’s eyes and put the other hand under the heaviest part of its body. It wasn’t slimy at all. Its skin was smooth and silky. It shifted and I could feel the tightening of muscles as it moved. I became concerned when the snake began to thrash about, as if struggling to escape my grip, and I had visions of giant fangs engulfing my face, and of venom being stabbed into my eyes, when the creature suddenly went limp and fell from my arms into an inert pile on the floor.
‘Oh God! I killed it! What the hell happened? I didn’t do anything. What’s going on?’
I looked at Guy, who was studying me intently. I expected him to attack me and accuse me of murder, when I realised he was holding his stomach with laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Thanatosis.’
‘What?’
‘Classic grass snake behaviour. It’s a predation defence mechanism. It’s playing dead.’
‘What? Pretending?’
‘Yeah. It saw you as a threat and to avoid being eaten it’s now playing dead. Any sensible predator will give up and find something fresh to eat. Get closer and try smelling it.’
Without questioning him, I bent down and took in a big whiff. Big mistake. The snake smelt worse than a stink bomb.
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