Weird

by Jeremy Strong

  Then Mum told me I looked gorgeous and didn’t need improving.

  ‘They’re like pimples,’ I muttered, so Mum started telling horror stories about women who came to her health clinic with massive scars, or boobs that didn’t match because they were different sizes or shapes or colours. (Maybe not colours, but definitely sizes.)

  ‘And I’ve heard about women going on planes and their breasts have exploded,’ she added, quite unnecessarily, obviously trying to scare me. Which she did.

  I sat down heavily.

  ‘Your mother means that the silicone implants exploded,’ Dad corrected. ‘It’s the pressurized air in the cabin at great heights. Even so, not very nice.’

  ‘I promise I won’t go on planes,’ I offered. ‘I’m only going to school.’

  ‘You won’t be at school for ever, darling,’ Mum said. ‘You’ll need to get on a plane sometime.’

  ‘I promise to only take low-flying ones.’

  They looked at me sadly. I’m not surprised. Even I knew it was pathetic.

  ‘Come on, Fizz, you’re a gorgeous girl and there’s nothing wrong with you,’ insisted Mum.

  ‘So how come Josh won’t look at me?’

  PARENTAL CHORUS: ‘Josh?’

  How could I have been so stupid to let that one out? I ignored their gaze, but felt my face rapidly turning into a beetroot.

  ‘Josh?’ repeated Dad.

  ‘Boy at school,’ I muttered.

  ‘Pardon?’ asked Dad, leaning forward.

  ‘BOY AT SCHOOL! BOY AT SCHOOL! SATISFIED, ARE YOU, NOW YOU’VE WINKLED THAT OUT OF ME? THE GESTAPO WERE LIKE TEDDY BEARS COMPARED TO YOU!’ And I stormed upstairs. And slammed the door.

  That’s style for you, and funnily enough they didn’t pursue me.

  And I’ve still got a face like a, like a… probably like an exploded boob. No wonder Josh doesn’t pay any attention. Josh, my man of mystery. I know nothing about him. Everyone calls him Goat. Why’s that? Mysterious. Cool, that’s what. He’s really tall and walks with a long, loping stride, like he could walk for ever, to Australia and back probably. I tried to follow him once but couldn’t keep up. I was puffed. He’s so neat, which is very unusual for a boy. All the others have their shirts hanging out and ties that seem to stick out of their ears. They think it’s cool. It isn’t. It’s crap. They’re all noise and action and scruffiness. Josh isn’t like them at all. He’s quiet and gorgeous.

  I had this dream about him once where he was drowning and I had to plunge into the waves and rescue him and I hauled him to the beach. I have actually done life-saving classes, you know, with pyjamas and bricks, so there. Obviously it wasn’t very exciting jumping into a cold pool to rescue a brick but dreaming about saving Josh was. I got him to the beach and I gave him the kiss of life and IT WAS BRILLIANT and I saved him and he came to but we just carried on kissing until I woke up, which was so stupid of me. Anyway, like I said, he’s quiet. I’ve asked him loads of questions and he hardly tells you anything.

  ‘Why does everyone call you Goat?’ I asked.

  ‘How do you explain why people do anything?’ he answered. That’s a bit cryptic, isn’t it? What was that supposed to mean?

  ‘Where do you live?’ He nodded in one direction, which could mean, basically, anywhere between where we were and the other side of the world.

  ‘Right,’ I nodded. ‘What does your dad do?’

  ‘Office.’

  ‘My dad works in a laboratory – oh, you know.’ I was so nervous I couldn’t even speak properly and was making a right fool of myself. ‘He puts things under microscopes and pokes them until they do something and then he draws an inference or a conclusion. He says conclusions are usually better than inferences because then you know where you are. I don’t know what he’s talking about either, I’m just telling you what he says so you know what I have to deal with at home. Bit of a mad scientist, but without the hair. I mean, he does have hair – some – but not mad scientist hair, you know?’

  I was fiddling with my own hair, pushing it about, pulling at it and messing it up. Must have looked as if a giant collection of twigs had fallen on my head from a great height. Josh was staring at me with a strange expression on his face so I hastily began patting it back down again. I think he thought I was actually mad instead of just pretending.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And my mum’s a beauty technician at Karmarama, you know, the posh health club, which means, really, well, really what she does is nails and stuff. And eyebrow tweaking and waxing legs and bikini lines, which is so, so gross, I don’t know how she does it, and tanning and so on. And sticks cucumbers on people’s heads. And she does private treatment at home because then she can charge twice as much. What does your mum do?’

  ‘Gotta go,’ he said, and he did. In a flash. Like I said, man of mystery. Big sis, Lauren, reckons he’s weird, but she thinks almost everything is weird except herself and her friends. She says he looks at her in a funny way.

  ‘What sort of way?’ I asked.

  ‘Sideways,’ she said. ‘As if he’s not looking, but he is. Weird.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got something wrong with his neck.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got something wrong with his head, more like.’

  So I asked him if there was something wrong with his neck and he looked at me like I was a lunatic and didn’t answer. That’s why I say he’s quiet, like one of those monks that take a vow of silence. I asked him about that too.

  ‘Are you a monk, or something?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  He’s lying. I know he’s lying. Obviously he isn’t. If he was a monk he wouldn’t be at school, would he? And besides, I don’t think you’re allowed to be a monk when you’re fourteen. Unless you’re the Daily Llama or whatever that Tibetan bloke is and, anyway, that’s a different kind of monk, I think.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I laughed and he shrugged. Didn’t say a word. Just shrugged.

  I can’t stop looking at him – but he won’t look at ME! Not even sideways – not even when I wore that REALLY low top to the disco – it was Lauren’s but I sneaked it when she wasn’t there but she’s got bigger boobs than me so it was a bit loose. Everyone else was looking. Even the Head. And she’s a woman. Anyway, he went and danced with Evie instead. Evie’s my best friend. She’s been my best friend for three years. However, if she gets off with Josh I shall have to kill her.

  So anyway, how am I going to get Josh to look at me, let alone go out with me? MY BIG OPPORTUNITY is coming up. It’s work experience next week and I am being packed off to Marigolds, the old people’s care home. Am I looking forward to this new experience? No. Well, yes, too. Yes and No. I am NOT looking forward to having to work with the elderly. Now I know, because we have PSE at school, that there is this thing called political correctness and it’s not the olds’ fault that they’re ancient and past it and wrinkled beyond rescue by any plastering company known to man, but I’m afraid that it can’t change my general feeling that I am being packed off to a Death Camp for the Terminally Deranged. I mean, they’ll all be doing their special classes, weaving raffia coffins and such. That’s not for me. I’m young. I’m fourteen. I need people my own age.

  But the good news is that Josh has been sent there too. Result! I’ve got a week to get him to notice me, a week to make him fall hopelessly in love with me, a week in which to SEDUCE him.

  Maybe if I put tissues inside my push-up bra they’ll look bigger.

  Josh

  What’s biggest – hugely massive or massively huge? I felt life itself being sucked out of my body, like what happens when a small planet gets too close to a giant one and is ripped apart by the overwhelming gravitational power of the giant. It wasn’t that Matron was fat; she was gargantuan.

  ‘Yes?’ she snapped. Very welcoming. Before I could answer she added: ‘Oh. You must be the boy from the school.’ She spat the words out like nasty pips. ‘Where’s the girl?’

  ‘I don’t know.’


  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? She’s supposed to be with you. The school said there’d be the two of you, together. I can only see one, on his own.’

  ‘We are in the same class,’ I offered. ‘But we were told to make our own way.’

  ‘And I was told there’d be two of you. She’s late. Nurse Evans is on a week’s leave, which means I have to do her work and mine, and it’s only Monday. What’s her name?’

  ‘Nurse Evans?’ Why ask? She’d just told me.

  ‘Wake up, lad! You’re not at school now. You can’t sleep all day. The girl. What’s her name?’

  ‘Felicity.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Felicity Foster-Thompson.’

  ‘Oh – Felicity Foster-Thompson,’ said the woman, sucking in her cheeks and putting on an oh-aren’t-we-so-posh voice. She rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m Josh,’ I said.

  ‘Did I ask?’

  I shook my head and gazed down the road. Fizz should have been here by now.

  ‘Call me Matron,’ said the woman. ‘That is what I am and that is what you call me. Do you understand?’

  I wanted to say: Yes, and I’m human and you can treat me like one, but I didn’t because she’s a giant planet and very scary. She’s so massive you could probably make three normal-sized people out of her.

  We stood staring down the road, but there was no sign of Fizz. I wondered what she’d be wearing. Hopefully nothing like that outfit she had on at the disco. Unforgettable. She had this minuscule top. The Head couldn’t take her eyes off it. I think she thought something might pop out at any moment, and she wasn’t the only one either. You could see everything, almost. I couldn’t not look and I kept thinking any second now she’s going to notice and think I’m perving on her, staring at her chest all the time – look somewhere else, look somewhere else. Shame really, I mean there she is, nice figure, but she’s got a mouth full of nuts and bolts, not to mention the specs, which make her look like a cross between a vulture and a very prim secretary. Plus the fact that she speaks fluent gibberish. I’ve had more intelligent conversations with some of Mum’s rescued animals. I went and danced with Evie instead. She’s OK.

  I’d like to ask Evie out, but she’s going out with my friend Charlie and also there’s the problem of my chaotic house. I suppose I could always try shrugging my shoulders and telling her it’s genetic but I don’t think you can have a genetically compromised house. Would Evie realize? She might just nod sympathetically and say: ‘Oh dear, that’s a shame,’ because she’s not scientifically minded. When we were dancing I told her I knew all the periodic table and she said, ‘Really? I didn’t think boys had them.’

  Matron was still staring down the road. ‘Dreadful,’ she muttered. ‘Can’t even get here on time. I can see she’s going to be as much use as a wet blanket.’

  I was going to say, ‘You could put out a fire with a wet blanket,’ but I didn’t. I was in too close an orbit at the time.

  ‘Can’t stand here on the doorstep any longer, there’s work to be done,’ snapped Matron, and she pushed me inside the house and slammed the door. I heard the lock slide automatically into place. Matron saw me glance back. ‘Security. We keep everything locked. You never know what They might do.’ Matron emphasized ‘They’ as if it meant the enemy. ‘They’re always up to something. There’s one rule here, and that’s never believe anything They say. They live in their own fantasy world. They’ll tell you all sorts of nonsense. Ah, here’s the Major.’

  Well! I thought Matron was big, but the Major was gigantic. My English teacher, Mrs Taylor, says we should avoid creating stereotypes when we write stories. I remember it well because Charlie shoved his hand up and said, ‘But you always wear very pointy boots!’ And everybody laughed because everybody knows Mrs Taylor wears pointy boots because she thinks it’s sexy and sexy pointy boots are kind of stereotypical in themselves. Mrs Taylor went a bit red and told Charlie not to make personal comments. Charlie said you have to make personal comments when you describe people. Mrs Taylor said, ‘That’s right, Charlie – in stories. Not in class to your teacher.’ He shut up after that and just had a grin on his face for the rest of the lesson.

  The thing is, the Major was a stereotype. He was probably a stereotype of a stereotype. If you were asked to draw a picture of what you think a major looks like it would look like this one. He had a ginger moustache like one of those bellowing sergeants you see in films about the army, only his moustache was even bigger, which was probably why he was a major, and he had massive shoulders you could stack chairs on. Not that you’d want to. And then there was the way he talked.

  ‘Major Trubshaw,’ he announced, holding out a hand. ‘I run the place. Like clockwork.’

  ‘Ow!’ I tried to whip my hand back but he was still busily crushing it, fixing his beady eyes on me.

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘You’re squeezing my hand,’ I winced. He let go and his eyes narrowed.

  ‘You’re not a wimp, are you? Think you need some strengthening medicine, eh? What do you say, Matron? Bit of the old strengthening jollop would do this young man the world of good. Can’t have the youth of today cringing when you shake their hand. Won’t do at all. Now then, relocation duties for you, young man. That’ll get those muscles working, what?’ I already wanted to send him on front-line duty.

  I was propelled down the corridor until we reached a door, which Matron unlocked. It was a storeroom, piled high with towels on one side and on the other, bathroom-type stuff – toilet rolls, tissues, bars of soap, multipacks of shampoo and so on.

  ‘List please, Matron,’ barked the Major, and she handed over a piece of paper. ‘Your checklist,’ he told me. ‘Go to every bathroom and check for missing items. If there’s no soap left, come down here, get a bar of soap. Take it to the bathroom. Got it?’

  So this was work experience – dishing out bars of soap? I was so excited I almost wet myself. ‘I can’t wait to get started,’ I told the Major. Ffwissh. Went right over his head.

  ‘That’s the spirit. Jolly good.’ He propelled me back into the corridor. As I emerged I thought I saw a vague movement at the far end but when I looked there was nothing there. A ghost? That might perk things up. I headed for the stairs, while the Major and Matron disappeared elsewhere.

  Upstairs it was eerily quiet. There were two long corridors, stretching away in opposite directions. I walked down one. Most of the doors had numbers, but some said ‘Bathroom’, or ‘WC’. I began checking my list and time passed, slowly.

  I must have been working away for about half an hour when I heard a commotion downstairs and realized that Fizz had arrived, at last. It sounded like she was getting a bit of a bawling out, which wasn’t all that surprising. I went to the top of the stairs but I couldn’t see anything, only heard raised voices. Then things went quiet. I got back to work. It was not exactly exciting work, but at least it kept me busy. At that point I was startled by a small voice.

  ‘Hello.’

  I wheeled round. A prune was standing right behind me.

  ‘I never heard you,’ I said. The old woman looked down at her feet and smiled.

  ‘Stealth slippers,’ she whispered, putting one finger to her lips to indicate it was a secret. She leaned forward. ‘The Americans have a stealth bomber, you know. I have stealth slippers. Don’t tell them. If the Americans knew, they’d kidnap me.’

  I nodded and looked around frantically for help. She was obviously mad.

  ‘They’re top secret, you know. They mustn’t fall into the wrong… feet.’ She stifled a chuckle and her eyes slowly searched mine and then I understood that, no, she probably wasn’t mad at all.

  ‘You’ve met the Camp Commandant and his sidekick?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you make of them, young man?’

  ‘My name’s Josh,’ I told her.

  ‘And I am Mrs Kowalski. You haven’t told me what you think.’

  ‘Well, they
, um, they’re, er… big?’ I struggled. Mrs Kowalski touched me gently on one arm.

  ‘I shall tell you what I think,’ she confided. ‘They are keeping us prisoners here. You’ve seen the locks on the doors and windows? You be careful, Josh. Be careful what you say and do. Now then, what I need to know is – uh-oh, here come the goons and I shouldn’t be out of my room.’ She must have seen my puzzled expression. ‘Goons. It’s what POWs used to call their prison camp guards in the war. My husband told me that. He was in one, you know.’ She leaned closer and whispered, ‘Whatever happens, don’t be surprised.’

  ‘Which war?’ I began, but I already knew. The Second World War. Good grief, that was ages ago. I glanced at Mrs Kowalski. Was she really old enough to have been in the Second World War? Had her husband been in a prison camp?

  And then the goons arrived – Matron and the Major – and they didn’t look happy.

  ‘Mrs Kowalski, you’re out of your room.’ Matron made it sound like a capital offence.

  ‘Am I?’

  I was astonished. The old lady’s voice had gone all querulous, like a little lost girl. The Major heaved a sigh.

  ‘Mrs Kowalski, have you been taking your tablets or have you forgotten, again?’

  ‘Oh no, Major, I mean yes, I have, with some water, like you said, with some water and my tablets too, I’ve taken those. You told me.’

  ‘And have you taken anything else, Mrs Kowalski?’ snapped Matron, narrowing her eyes.