Bitter Sixteen

by Stefan Mohamed

  ‘He does,’ smiled Sharon.

  ‘A bit,’ said Connor. He sat cross-legged, put the guitar strap around his neck and played a chord. It sounded wrong, and he quickly re-tuned the instrument then played the same chord again. This time it sounded fine.

  ‘Play us one of your songs,’ I said.

  ‘What? A Doggerel number?’ Connor shook his head. ‘No, no, no. God no. Nobody needs to be subjected to my post-shoegaze neo-Britpop hangover. Um . . . this is really hard. I’m drawing a total blank.’

  ‘Do you know any Red Hot Chili Peppers?’ asked Daryl.

  ‘Not to play,’ said Connor.

  ‘Do some Zep,’ said Eddie. ‘You used to smash the Zep.’

  Connor frowned slightly. ‘OK . . . come on, memory, don’t fail me now.’ He adjusted the levels on the amp and played a few practise chords, then started to play ‘Dazed and Confused’, which happened to be the only Led Zeppelin song I knew. More than a bit fitting as well. Connor played loosely but accurately, bending strings to approximate the yowl of the original, and he sang in a tuneful, slightly gravelly voice. Even stripped of percussion, bass and everything else it sounded really good, and I glanced at Sharon, who looked entranced. I got the feeling that she missed listening to him play.

  He followed it with ‘Not Fade Away’ by The Rolling Stones, and a few more random numbers. We attempted to sing along to the ones we knew, listening and tapping our toes to the ones we didn’t. And as we sat there, Connor and Sharon and Eddie and Daryl and I, singing and smiling, I had that feeling of belonging again. That feeling that seemed so odd and faraway, that I’d properly experienced for the first time only three days ago. Already, Tref-y-Celwyn and Romeo and Juliet seemed so distant, and only Kloe’s face stood out with any real clarity. I needed to see her. To speak to her, at least. But maybe I shouldn’t? Maybe it hadn’t been meant to be? Maybe, if I stayed away long enough, time would do its fixing thing. For me, and for her.

  I kind of doubted it. But between my job, my new friends, my superpowers and the possibility of monsters, at least I had plenty to be getting on with.

  Time did its moving thing, but didn’t seem too bothered about its fixing thing. I only thought about Kloe, on average, once every two or so minutes, and each time it brought that stomach pain blossoming outward and upward, spreading to my chest, tightening brutally. I was still working up the courage to give her a call, having discovered her number buried in my notebook, but an overwhelming combination of shyness, anxiety and the fear that I would have a full-on nervous breakdown if I heard her voice conspired to stop me. I picked up the phone on the third of April, but immediately put it down again. I’ll try again in a week, I thought, but I didn’t.

  Connor and I still worked odd hours at 110th Street, Sharon carried on with her nursing and Eddie was bouncing. Or bouncering, or whatever. He was around a lot and actually appeared to be lightening up, which suited him. I enjoyed my work and I liked Skank’s company, and Daryl liked having the house and the neighbourhood to roam – he was getting more adventurous the longer we stayed – and having his pick of Connor’s extensive library of DVDs. There were no more kidnappings and I didn’t think about home too much, although my mother had spoken to Eddie again briefly. It had gone like this:

  Eddie: Yeah?

  Mum: Is he OK?

  Eddie: Yeah.

  And that was it. She didn’t even ask about the car, which was still sitting outside Eddie’s house.

  In between working and doing power-related exercises, Connor, Eddie and Sharon took it in turns to show me around the city. I got the general hang of it surprisingly quickly, despite its frankly mind-boggling size, and in a pretty short space of time I had a solid grasp of London’s geography, as well as a good grounding in the mechanics of the underground system and the buses, and I could navigate my way around using major landmarks, with Tube stations and street names rattling around in my head and rolling off my tongue like I’d been living there for ever. I really started to feel like I belonged in this place where no-one belongs, and that I understood it in a way that I’d never understood cities before. My idea of them from films had been as simple places, easily navigated on one level. Places where superheroes and gangsters and bumbling comedy buffoons went from A to B to do their business, or where Jack Bauer could traverse any distance in as short a time as the plot required. London had hundreds of levels, thousands in fact, and some of them fitted and some of them didn’t, and I loved losing myself in it, finding random streets and little parks and tangles of graffiti, and strange grimy tangents, safe in the knowledge that I was never too lost, and that I could always fly away if necessary. Life was actually threatening to be good.

  And then came the twentieth of May.

  The twentieth of May comes every year. It’s inevitable. You can’t stop a day from coming, and it shouldn’t be a surprise when it arrives, but sometimes particular dates sneak up on you, like they’re doing it on purpose. Like this one did.

  I woke up and I just knew. I hadn’t been in school since March, and even then I’d only really kept track of what day it was because of the play, but I knew. Today was the last day, the last day for my year group before they started study leave and exams. Today they’d all be getting their school shirts signed, picking up their official yearbooks, having their own personal leaving books signed with messages in multicoloured pen, taking photographs, pissing about on the field, just like we’d seen so many top-year students do since we’d started school. The top-year students had always seemed so much older, impossibly older, but now that was us. Well. Them. The ones I’d left behind. Today everyone was supposed to be friends. Everyone getting a piece of cake. I should have been there, having people sign my shirt and write in my book.

  But I wasn’t. I was working in a comics shop for an eccentric millionaire. I lived with two people I barely knew and a talking dog. My cousin was a bouncer. I could move things with my mind and fly. I was living the kind of fantastic story I’d always dreamed of, and I wanted to be back at school, doing normal, boring things. It was ridiculous, stupid, and if the Stanly of four or five months ago could travel through time and see me now, he’d probably have a few choice words to say on the subject.

  The fact that I’d missed the Prom also upset me unreasonably more than it should have, considering the stance I generally took on such cheese. I wondered if Kloe had gone, and who with. I was struck by a mental image of her signing everyone’s shirt and everyone signing hers, and her dancing in a beautiful dress with some faceless new boyfriend.

  Well, you haven’t called her in two months.

  She’s got every right to find someone else.

  My stomach was bubbling. I clenched my fists and the bookcase in my room fell forwards, emptying its contents on the floor in an avalanche of heavy thuds. I caught the bookcase with my mind before it could hit the floor and shoved it roughly back against the wall, but I left the books where they were. Daryl jumped up, woken by the noise. ‘Woah!’ he cried. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. My voice sounded strangled. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or scream. There was just too much going on in my brain. Different strains of anger wrapping around one another, anger at what I was missing, anger at myself for caring so much, anger for the time I was wasting, the powers I was wasting.

  Misery at what I was missing out on. Who I was missing out on.

  Anger at that misery.

  Round and round and round.

  I refused to let myself cry, though, even though it seemed like the thing to do, and got out of bed just as the door opened. Connor and Sharon came in, looking worried. ‘What happened?’ asked Connor, looking at the books.

  I shook my head and waved my hand, and the books flew back onto their shelves in the wrong order, some backwards, some upside-down. ‘Stanly?’ asked Sharon. ‘What’s wrong? What are you —’

  �
�Bad dream,’ I muttered. ‘Books fell off. Sorry. I’ll clean them up properly later . . .’

  Neither of them were convinced, I could tell. ‘Stanly, mate,’ said Connor. ‘Seriously. What’s the matter? ’Cos if —’

  ‘I just want to make a call, please,’ I said.

  They looked at one another. ‘OK,’ said Sharon. ‘That’s fine, go ahead.’ I walked past them, down the stairs to the phone, and dialled Kloe’s number. I had it committed to memory now, after so much time staring at it.

  The phone rang and I rose off the ground, barely aware that I was doing it, rising towards the ceiling, counting the rings and clenching and unclenching my free fist, the shoes and coats in the hall rustling, the pictures swinging from side to side like pendulums. Connor and Sharon appeared at the top of the stairs, with Daryl between them, and and I knew they wanted to say something, but they stayed quiet.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  My coat fell off its peg on to the floor, and I immediately sent it back up again. A picture fell, but I caught it before it hit the ground and replaced it on the wall. Another ring and I bumped my head on the ceiling.

  ‘Hello?’ said Kloe’s mum’s voice. She did that thing where people say their phone number back to you. I’ve never understood that.

  It took me a moment to regain the power of speech, and when I did I still didn’t really sound like myself. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I . . . is . . . can I speak to Kloe, please?’

  ‘Kloe’s at school. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘It’s . . . I . . . sorry, I —’

  ‘Is that Stanly?’

  I dropped from the ceiling like a sack of meat, causing Connor and Sharon to take sharp intakes of breath, but I stopped myself a foot from the ground. The pictures, shoes and coats stopped rustling. ‘Hello?’ said Kloe’s mum. ‘Is that Stanly?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Please don’t call for Kloe again.’

  Now I hit the floor. ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever happened, whatever you think . . . it’s better for Kloe if you don’t speak to her. Please don’t call again.’

  ‘But . . . but I . . .’ My eyes dropped to my feet. They looked weird. Do my feet always look weird? ‘I miss her.’ The last three words were a whisper.

  ‘I’m sure you do. And she . . . well, it doesn’t matter. Please don’t call again.’

  ‘But, please, can you just tell her I —’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, Stanly. Goodbye.’

  Click.

  Not much happened for a few hundred years. I replaced the phone on the cradle. Slid slowly down to the floor. Closed my eyes and squeezed out a few burning tears. Heard Connor, Sharon and Daryl edge their way down the stairs towards me. I couldn’t face them. Couldn’t even think about opening my eyes. I just sat there and fought to control myself, to stem the tears before they could start in earnest, not wanting to break anything. My whole body was shaking, and my chest hurt with the effort. Sharon and Connor sat and put their arms around me and Connor said, ‘It’s OK, mate. It’s OK.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Sharon’s voice was soothing. It felt like it was inside my head. Maybe it was.

  When I was confident that the tears had stopped, I opened my eyes. They were all sitting around me, Connor and Sharon and Daryl, all concerned, all loving, and I managed something that was almost a smile. ‘Sorry.’ My voice was barely there.

  ‘For what?’ said Sharon.

  ‘This. It’s . . . embarrassing.’ God, how embarrassing. Horrendously, howlingly, hideously embarrassing.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Connor, standing up. ‘It’s all good.’

  Some superhero.

  None of us spoke again until Connor returned with a glass of water. ‘There you go.’ I sipped it gratefully, and it soothed my throat.

  Finally I felt able to speak. ‘Today was the last day of school for my year.’ I told them everything, about the shirts and the books, and the Prom, and finally I told them about Kloe. I hadn’t mentioned her to either of them, or to Eddie, barely even to Daryl, and it felt good to talk about her, despite the less than satisfactory conversation I’d just had with her mum. ­Everything just came rushing out, including our last goodbye in the rain, and Connor and Sharon listened in silence until I’d finished.

  ‘You poor thing,’ said Sharon. She hugged me again, and Connor patted my knee, but he didn’t speak. Neither of them seemed to be able to think of anything. Daryl looked helpless but he was doing what he could, just being there. I didn’t think I’d ever felt more like a child. I’d thought I was on an equal footing with Connor and Sharon, like we were friends, that it wasn’t just them and their friend’s little cousin who they had to look after. But now I was just a walking superpowered tantrum, stomping around their house making a big psychic mess. Ugh.

  Presently Connor looked at his watch. ‘Skank wants us at the shop soon. Do you feel up to going in?’

  I nodded. ‘I want to . . . it’ll take my mind off stuff.’

  ‘Good.’ Connor turned to Sharon. ‘Do you have to work today?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ said Connor. ‘Well, how about we all go out for a meal tonight? All of us, to celebrate the end of school? How does that sound?’

  It sounded really good. ‘That’s great,’ I said, smiling. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Can I come too?’ asked Daryl.

  ‘I meant all six of us,’ said Connor. ‘Wouldn’t be right without you. I know a really good place, and more importantly I know the owner – he’ll let you bring pets so long as they’re on their best behaviour and stay well away from the kitchen.’

  ‘Pets?’ repeated Daryl, coldly.

  ‘What?’ said Connor. ‘Do you not self-identify as a pet?’

  ‘Have we known each other long enough for me to say “screw you”, yet?’

  ‘Hey, screw you, Poochie,’ smiled Connor.

  ‘Dinner sounds . . . what’s your word, Stanly?’ asked Sharon.

  ‘Um . . .’ Drawing a blank.

  ‘Bendigedig?’ offered Daryl.

  ‘Yes!’ said Sharon. ‘Bendagiddig.’

  The dog laughed. ‘Good try.’ He looked at me. ‘The Welsh is strong with this one.’ Now I couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘Great.’ Connor got up. ‘I’ll call Eddie and Skank.’ He left the room.

  Sharon looked at me, and the concern was still there in her deep blue eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, truthfully. ‘Not hugely happy about what Kloe’s mum said . . . but at least I worked up the bollocks to ring. Which is something.’

  ‘She was probably just shocked. She’ll come around.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I knew there was something,’ said Sharon. ‘I knew there was something you weren’t telling us, and now I think about it, what else could it have been but a girl?’ She smiled.

  I had a shower and shaved with the electric razor that Eddie had insisted on buying for me after I got the job at 110th Street, and headed back downstairs for breakfast. ‘I spoke to Eddie,’ said Connor. ‘He’s free tonight. So’s Skank. We’ll all meet at the restaurant at eight.’

  ‘Great.’ I sat down and Sharon put some toast in front of me, and I ate quietly. Eating felt good. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, again.

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Connor. ‘It’s fine. You’ve been through a lot . . .’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘About . . . you know. My powers. The bookshelf. All the . . . the stuff.’

  ‘You didn’t break anything,’ smiled Sharon. ‘And God knows, I’ve made some messes with my powers in my time. Windows smashing during nightmares, broken plates after an argument . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Connor, smiling wistfully. ‘Good times.’

  ‘It wasn’t just . . .’ I tried to find the
words. ‘Um. I’ve been . . . obviously all of the training and stuff I’ve been doing with you guys has been great. But I can’t . . . I can’t say I’m not frustrated, still. I’ve got these amazing abilities, and not much I can really do with them. We’re not going out and fighting crime or anything, after all. And . . . I don’t know. I kind of lost control a bit.’ They both looked more concerned now, and I hurriedly said that it wouldn’t happen again.

  ‘I do understand,’ said Sharon. ‘It is frustrating. You’ve no idea how often I’ve wanted to use mine at work.’

  ‘Have you ever?’ I asked.

  Connor looked sharply at Sharon, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Once or twice,’ she said. ‘A long time ago, and as subtly as possible. So subtly that nobody could have known, but even that was dangerous. We need to keep them a secret. There’s so much about them we don’t understand, we don’t know how people would react, what the authorities might . . .’ She smiled, and it was as reassuring a smile as anyone could have asked for, but it didn’t really help. ‘Look,’ she continued, ‘we’re all in the same boat with this. We’re all got these bizarre gifts, but we live in the real world, where there’s just not that much scope for using them, not without being noticed. So we can definitely try to do more training stuff, keep in practise . . . but you do need to try to control them too.’

  ‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘And no more apologies,’ said Sharon. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Connor. ‘Ready to go?’

  I nodded. ‘Ready to go.’

  But despite our chat, as Connor and I walked down the path, a not insubstantial part of me was desperate to just kick off and see how high I could go.

  Not yet, kiddo.

  Not yet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I SAT AT THE counter failing to read a magazine while Skank fiddled around on the computer. Connor was fielding questions about Alan Moore’s back catalogue from a persistent customer, and Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds was playing on the new sound system that Skank had installed a few weeks ago. It was an album I’d listened to a lot – for a while, when I was a child, it was the only thing that would get me off to sleep – and I loved it, but today I couldn’t concentrate, just as I couldn’t concentrate on the magazine, or on anything else. All I could think about was what Kloe’s mum had said.