Like a soldier he did an exaggerated about-turn and scuttled away in a half-run.
I braced myself for the dramatic entrance to come, and pushed open the door.
‘Oi, oi. Backs ter the wall, lads. Here’s batty-boy!’
‘Where’s your boyfriend, Gay-guy?’
I ignored the taunts and walked towards my usual seat next to Simon.
‘You can’t sit here, you queer.’ Simon gave me a dirty look. Others were giggling and smirking as I stood there feeling lost and empty inside. Mr Fairclough looked up.
‘Ah, Luke. Welcome back. Sit down, lad.’ He gestured for me to sit. ‘Good to have you back again.’
Ignoring Simon, whose feet were on my chair as a warning to keep off, I sat down anyway. He sneered and moved his feet away.
‘Don’t touch me. I don’t want AIDS.’
Mr Fairclough ignored us, more intent on peering at his laptop, which meant my former friends could continue their sudden torrent of abuse. Eventually, the tutor snapped his laptop shut and wandered over towards me, completely oblivious to the enmity aimed at me from all directions.
He called for everyone’s attention. ‘I just wanted to say, welcome back, Luke. I realise it’s been tough for you. Mr Saddler tells me you’re coming back initially on a half timetable. The rest of the class here have promised to help out and get things quickly back to normal.’
‘He ain’t normal, sir.’
‘Um, thank you. We’ll have none of that. We’re a team, remember. Like one big happy family and we should always pull together. It’s not easy for Luke. Help him out, folks, and go easy on him for these first few days.’
‘Sounds like he needs to man up a bit, sir.’
‘Yeah. He just ain’t man enough.’
‘Have you got any man in you? ’Cos I bet you’d like some!’
The whole group exploded into jeers. Mr Fairclough tried and failed to retain some kind of order until, to my relief, the bell rang, signalling for everyone to get up before being told to. Half the class had already gone, with Mr Fairclough still shouting over the noise of scraping chairs and raised voices.
I was left alone with him. He smiled sheepishly, looked like he wanted to say something, but then walked past me.
‘Have a good day. See you later, Luke.’
Getting through that day proved a matter of survival. I remembered a picture that, ironically, Simon had sent to my phone of a fox marching surreptitiously in the middle of a group of hunting-hounds with the caption, ‘When you are in deep poo, look straight ahead, keep your mouth shut, and say nothing!’ Good advice. I hurtled through the day, ignoring all comments and lurching from one lesson to the next.
This must have been exactly how Guy had felt every day at school, and it really made me appreciate the weekends even more.
It felt like it would never stop. Each day was going to build on the one before and compound the problem, resulting eventually in abject misery. When complete despair and loss of all self-worth possess you, it’s impossible to see a way out, even when parents and teachers tell you to ‘Hang in there’ or try to persuade you it’ll be over soon and you’ll look back on this time one day and laugh. None of that eases the pain because you simply don’t believe it’s true. Feeling wretched about yourself is the worst sensation. You start to believe what people tell you. Perhaps I am worthless and disgusting.
I kept an eye out for Cheryl but didn’t see her. She’d not been returning my texts.
Connor was the worst of all. After school he found me and pinned me to my locker. He had a big crowd of tough lads around him and as he shouted he spat all over my face, his voice full of unexpected malevolence.
‘Shirt-lifters like you make me sick! You need to learn how to be a real man. You should be ashamed of yourself, gay-boy. All you queers should be shot, man. Put down at birth. It’s a disease! You keep your gay-boy arse away from me. My dick is only for the babes, you get me? And there’s plenty of them seen it in action. You ever talk to me or touch me, I’ll kill ya.’
Then unexpectedly, he wrenched my head to one side, cricking my neck painfully. Connor had my hair in his fist and had jerked my head right down. His mouth came within an inch of my eyes. I watched it open and shut angrily but couldn’t make out his final words as it took all my energy to overcome the agony. A white sheen flashed across my eyes and I realised that I was about to faint, so I shifted my stance haphazardly and groped for something to hang onto. My hand felt only shoulders, hands, and blazers. The crowd scattered quickly amid cries of derision.
‘Ugh! He’s trying to kiss me!’
‘I think he wants to shag you!’
‘Get out before he bums us all!’
‘Run for your lives!’
Within seconds I was alone with just enough energy to lean light-headedly against the lockers. I closed my eyes and breathed heavily, the white fog gradually dissipating until my sight fully returned. I tipped forward, which pushed me away from the wall, to give me some momentum to begin my slow trudge home.
Chapter Twenty-seven
‘I think I’ve done it!’
Before hearing what he’d done, I felt quite keen to persuade Guy to put on the clothes I had ready for him. The transformation occurred once more before my eyes – a miracle; as if his very being, or essence, changed into a gas, and then condensed into a liquid before finally solidifying.
It was two in the morning and I hadn’t seen him for a while. I was glad he was OK. He didn’t seem too keen on the jeans and T-shirt I held up for him, although he nodded vacantly when I reminded him about being quiet and being ready to hide or change.
‘I can be more than just Pica! Yesterday it finally happened. I changed into Bufo.’
‘Bufo?’
‘Watch.’
He closed his eyes, yet nothing happened immediately. He crouched down on all fours and began making a noise like he was going to be sick. His cheeks blew out and I saw his skin begin to ripple and spasm, and the familiar shimmering and discolouring occurred just before he vanished.
No, he didn’t vanish. He just shrunk quicker than my eye could follow. Then there on my carpet, about a metre away from my bare feet, sat a squat, slimy creature with warty, lumpy brown-grey skin. A toad.
Stooping right down I placed a hand on the floor before him and he waddled awkwardly onto it. I’d expected him to hop. For a few moments I watched his throat pulsate in and out. His back throbbed at a different rate to his throat. His eyes were yellow with black slits.
Then he belched. It sounded like a bubbly fart. He repeated the sound. The third time sounded vaguely different and I held Bufo close to my ear.
‘Window,’ he seemed to rasp. Then again I heard, ‘Window.’
It was still open from when I’d let him in as Pica. I placed him on the window sill, noting that his skin didn’t feel slimy. He flopped towards the open window and I was concerned that he’d jump or fall out, but he settled himself in the gap and I watched him for a few minutes, before I realised he was eyeing a large moth which had landed close by on the adjacent window. It must have been a good ten centimetres away. Bufo shuffled slightly, and with a sudden jump it released its spring-coiled tongue in a flash and was suddenly munching on the moth, whose wings now hung limply from the toad’s jaws. A few jerks of his head and the long wings disappeared. I left him dining on insects for a while, trying to ignore the crunching, crackling sounds.
I crept back into bed, glad to rest and lie down as my body still ached from my tiring and soul-destroying day. I must have dozed off, as the next thing I knew Bufo was belching next to me. And he stank.
‘I want you to help me find my numen.’
I’d been thinking about this for days – wondering if Guy was just a freak or whether we all had the same potential.
Then he transformed before my eyes. I reached out for the previously discarded clothes. He sighed but seemed to understand my reasoning, then he sat at my feet, leaning his back against the wal
l.
‘You want to find and become your numen?’
‘Yeah.’ I sat up too, unable to pull the duvet with me to keep warm as Guy was weighing it down. ‘I want to find out which animal I’m spiritually linked to. Is it just one, or do I have many? You have Pica and now Bufo. How come?’
‘There’s one which we are all naturally attuned to. For me, it’s Pica. But there are other shapes that we can also become as we become more sensitive and adept. I was certain I can recall my own mother becoming more than one animal, but I was never sure and never had the chance to ask her.’
‘How long has she been ill?’
‘For years now.’
‘Do you still see her?’
‘Not for a long time.’
A silence encircled us and for a while seemed appropriate.
With my lamp on I noticed how wiry and wrinkled Guy was; old before his time. His craggy face was not that of a boy and the angle of the light accentuated these lines until I couldn’t be sure if it was an optical illusion or not.
‘How do I go about finding and becoming my numen?’
Guy considered this deeply.
‘By searching inside your own soul.’
I grimaced and twisted my mouth to one side.
‘O-K … But what does that mean? How can I do that?’
‘By working out who and what you really are, and by experiencing the elements of nature.’
I nodded, as if doing so would help me make sense of these vague instructions.
‘Yeah, but how can I do that?’ I tried not sound too exasperated.
‘Rock, air, water, fire, vegetation, and then animal.’
‘What? I have to become those?’
‘In a sense.’ Guy had become unhelpfully enigmatic.
‘What, a literal or a metaphorical one?’
‘In a real sense.’ He closed his eyes as if starting to meditate.
‘So I have to become a rock and a vegetable? Right, I choose to become a stick of rhubarb, then. Or maybe a potato. At least it’ll be quiet underground and I won’t have to put up with your pretentious crap any more. That is, before I get cut into quarters, smothered in tuna mayonnaise, and eaten in my jacket.’
‘You need to be like the rocks and become a part of the world. Be a tree by slowing down and being patient while you listen to the ancient truths. Fly through the air to feel the power of nature. Become like water as you flow over different strands of the truth, connecting with all parts of creation, and then you are fire as you die of yourself and transform into the shape of another; your souls uniting and melting together. Once you’ve done these then your numen will become alive in you and you in it.’
As no sensible response to this occurred to me, I kept quiet. I thought through his words. They kind of made sense. The idea that I might get the chance to fly again filled me with excitement. This time I might be able to appreciate it a bit more.
‘So what’s the first step then?’
‘You’ve already taken it,’ Guy replied quickly.
‘Oh. Have I? When?’
‘When you decided to listen and chose to learn how to tune in to yourself,’ Guy answered. ‘You were kind to me and allowed me to be myself. Because you’ve seen this in me, you’ve changed and now want this reality for yourself. That’s the first step.’ Guy scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘You’re beginning to realise that you are not just an individual with your own struggle through life. You are a part of this world. An essential part of a much greater whole. What happens to you affects others, and what happens to them affects you. You exist because other people and animals and plants and elements exist. You are not on your own – but part of something living. You are an element of nature just like any animal, plant, mountain, air molecule, cloud, or grain of sand.’
‘I think I’m beginning to understand,’ I said, lying back down. ‘But what can I actually do? Practically, I mean. You need to show me what to do next.’
‘Once you’ve accepted that you are an animal – a creature like an ant, an elephant, a magpie – then you need to understand how to be a human. Humans have imaginations; an ability to empathise and show emotions. They can love and be selfless and not just out of instinct or self-protection. People can create complex inventions and put theoretical ideas into practice and apply ideas to different situations. People communicate and write down ideas for future generations to learn from. This has created something unique called our soul or numen. But they are not just for us. We must use these gifts to give something back to nature. We do this by sharing our soul with other living things.’
‘Other animals.’
‘Or plants. Or stones, or drops of water, or flames. Everything in our world is alive, just in ways we can’t always understand.’
‘Religions talk about souls or spirits. Is that what you mean? Believing in God? A creator?’ I did my best to keep up with Guy, but I was quickly losing his drift. I said this to show I was thinking it all through carefully.
‘Sure. If it’s a way to help you understand it, that’s fine. But I’m not sure believing because you’re scared of being pitch-forked into hell is very useful.’
‘So where does God fit into this?’
‘Wherever you want him to. Although once you get into religious beliefs all the little rules and regulations start to get in the way of the truth, don’t they?’
I wasn’t sure as I only had a rudimentary understanding of the various religious faiths from school assemblies and RS lessons. Guy didn’t strike me as weirdly religious anyway. Weird, sure, but not a religious nut. He’d never mentioned God before.
‘Right, then,’ I said, attempting to sum up what I understood from all this so far. ‘I’ve done the “rock” thing by accepting my place in nature. Right? So now I have to be a tree, yeah? So grow really tall, lose my leaves, and drop fruit on passers-by?’
Once again, the irony was lost on Guy.
‘You need to learn the patience and inner strength of the mighty oak, who listens to the wind and the rain. His roots stretch far outwards, reaching for the truth and soaking up elements of nature. Then he’s inhabited by birds, mammals, and insects, who all confide in him their unique stories for hundreds and thousands of years. The oak waits and observes and never casts judgement.’
‘But I can’t live for hundreds of years.’ I was starting to sound moody, and felt my frustration returning.
‘You can by being patient.’
‘So how long will it take?’
‘Until you fully understand.’
‘How do I know when that is?’
He actually smiled at me before replying. ‘It will be when you stop having to ask me such stupid questions.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. We actually shared a moment of laughter.
‘Fair enough. I think I’m ready to try the next step then.’
‘Good.’ Guy stood up and changed into Pica. ‘I’ll return in a few days.’ He flew out of the open window, which I shut quietly before returning to bed.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The weekend afforded me some quiet time to reflect on the way my life had changed in the last few weeks. I still had some time to go before half-term. How school days dragged. Thank God for weekends. I spent a bit more time with Mum and Dad and even started to enjoy walks with them. Dad took me to a wetlands bird reserve and explained the many species of wildfowl and waders; it was completely fascinating. I was so engrossed I didn’t want to leave, and enjoyed the magical sound of the names of the birds. Peewit. Turnstone. Merganser. Avocet. Gadwall. Smew. I repeated these like a mantra. We saw skylarks rising vertically then hovering as they warbled and shrilled beautifully; he pointed out buzzards and yellowhammers whose song sounded like a lunch order; ‘A little bit of bread and no cheese!’ How stupid had I been, not appreciating these wonders?
The way I looked at the sky and the horizon had also changed. The clouds were beautiful and peaceful, like whales floating in a tranquil sea. The shap
es of the trees intrigued me, as did the outlines and patterns of the leaves which looked like giant fingerprints. Had I been blind before now?
I continued to appreciate Frisky too. There was no knowing how long we’d have him. Would he die again at some point, or live forever?
Then Cheryl called me on Sunday morning.
The shrill ringtone made me jump. Nobody had called or texted me for a few weeks now. In fact, sometimes I didn’t even bother to turn my phone on. Yet now Cheryl’s name flashed on the display and I contemplated leaving it unanswered, but then changed my mind. I felt I could take her on.
‘Hiya, darlin’. I’ve missed you, sweetie.’
This comment disarmed me completely.
‘Hi, Cheryl. I wasn’t sure if you were still talking to me or not.’
‘Yeah, course, darlin’. You’re my new BFF, intcha? Just had a bit o’ me own business to sort out.’
‘Really? Oh, OK then.’
‘You wanna meet up later?’
‘Sure.’ I was excited to hear from her and I had to remember she viewed me as her gay friend, and try to keep it cool. ‘I’m free from two. Shall I come round to yours?’ I pictured myself sitting in her bedroom surrounded by her underwear.
‘I’ll meet you in town. By the war memorial at two thirty. See ya then.’
I didn’t say anything, but she’d already rung off. Two thirty it was then.
Even though I was nervous about seeing others from school, I walked confidently into town. On the way it occurred to me that this could be a set-up. Perhaps Cheryl was tricking me and she had Connor, Simon, and the others waiting to pounce on me around the corner.
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