Weird

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘Tyrannosaurus?’ suggested Mrs Cameron.

  ‘More like triceratops – you know, big, bulky, lumbering about. Matron is huge, isn’t she, Josh? I mean, she’s got a bust the size of Mount Everest – well, two Mount Everests I suppose.’

  ‘I think I get the picture,’ Mrs Cameron nodded. ‘I guess you’d better get on with your work then. Be careful as you go upstairs. The last time I went that way there were two Polynesian Tree Snails trying to find a tree or possibly Polynesia itself. Oh, and keep a look out for Milligan. I still haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Chameleon,’ Josh informed Fizz as they reached the stairs. Halfway up he let drop that chameleons exploded if you put them on something red.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Fizz, a bit horrorstruck.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Josh said seriously. He was beginning to enjoy himself. Outside his bedroom he did a quick check to make sure that there wasn’t a queue of creatures waiting to dash on to virgin territory and claim ownership, then opened the door and ushered Fizz inside.

  ‘Wow!’ she breathed, taking in the abrupt change of scenery. ‘Do you have a cleaner or something?’

  ‘I keep it like this.’

  ‘Wow!’ Fizz’s gaze was drawn to Escape IV and she went straight over. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A rock-et,’ Josh intoned slowly. ‘And be careful, it’s fragile.’

  ‘Mmm. I got that. Tell me more. What’s the story?’

  ‘I built it. It’s taken three months. It’s what I do in my spare time. Not all the time, obviously, but, you know…’

  ‘Escape IV,’ Fizz read. ‘What happened to the other three?’

  ‘Escape I fell apart on the launch pad. Escape II barbecued itself by mistake and Escape III reached the record-breaking height of four metres before exploding.’

  ‘Why do you call all of them Escape?’

  ‘Look out there,’ said Josh, beckoning her to the window. He waved a hand towards the back garden where his mother was trying to dig over a patch of ground while Larkin repeatedly butted her and two geese attempted to trip her up. In the far corner a donkey was peeing noisily on the rhubarb patch.

  ‘I guess it does make sense,’ Fizz said quietly. She was standing so close she could feel the heat from his body. She looked back at the room, at the walls covered in drawings. ‘Are these the plans?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you get them from magazines?’

  ‘No. They’re my plans.’

  ‘You drew them? Are you sure? I mean, they’re so… technical!’

  ‘Technical plans usually are so… technical,’ laughed Josh.

  ‘Let me get this right,’ said Fizz, going to Escape IV. ‘This isn’t a rocket kit you bought? It’s your own design?’

  ‘Yes, but I have to buy some components. I bought the fuselage for example, the engines, the electrics, but it’s my design. This is the only Escape IV in the world.’

  ‘Wow. Clever. When’s the grand launch?’

  ‘Any day now. Rocket’s ready. It depends on the weather.’

  ‘You’re a dreamer really, aren’t you?’ said Fizz. ‘I mean, like, you’re always kind of organized, just like this room. It all seems so straightforward.’ She glanced at the big red rocket. ‘But this, this isn’t straightforward at all.’

  ‘It’s a rocket,’ repeated Josh.

  ‘It’s a dream,’ Fizz told him. ‘Your fourth dream.’

  Josh shrugged. He couldn’t look at her eyes. All at once they seemed too knowing, too close, so Fizz stood there admiring Josh’s work and Josh stood admiring Fizz admire his work. Then he broke the silence and switched on his laptop. ‘We’d better get this project done.’

  Thursday

  Today was a very busy day. I was asked by Mrs Ogweyo to help her get Freddie down from her wardrobe where he was hiding. (Freddie, as you already know, is Mrs Ogweyo’s non-existent cat.) I had to stand on an armchair to reach the top of the wardrobe and my feet slipped. By mistake I pulled the wardrobe over on top of me. The door broke and the non-existent cat ran away. (That’s what Mrs Ogweyo said.)

  Matron came in and she was not very pleased. I am writing this down now because she might report the incident to the school but it was an accident caused by a non-existent cat. Matron made me drag a new wardrobe to Mrs Ogweyo’s room, by myself, which is, I am sure, a breach of Health and Safety regulations, not to mention an invasion of my personal human liberty. (See our complaint in Monday’s report.)

  ‘That’s good, I like that,’ said Fizz. ‘It sounds official. Did you hurt your back?’

  ‘Only a bit.’

  ‘I could give you a massage later.’

  ‘I think maybe after what happened yesterday…’

  ‘I didn’t mind. They just laughed at me. Anyhow, you’ve got a nice back.’ She began kneading his shoulders. There was a mirror to one side of where she was standing and as she glanced at it her eye was caught by a small movement. Escape IV had just wobbled. She was sure of it. She continued pressing her thumbs into Josh’s skin until she saw the rocket quiver again and a small, green, iguana-like creature appeared, clinging to the base of the red fuselage, just above the tail fins. Her whole body froze.

  ‘Why have you –’ Josh began. Fizz clapped a hand over his mouth, bent down and whispered, her breath hot on his ear.

  ‘Don’t move, don’t speak,’ she warned. Taking her hand away, she took a step toward Escape IV, and another. The creature took two steps further up the rocket, which trembled awkwardly on its stand.

  By this time Josh had quietly swivelled round to see what Fizz was up to. The colour fell from his face as he saw months of work about to be destroyed. Everything he had worked towards, slaved over, puzzled out, everything was about to be wrecked by a LOUSY CHAMELEON!

  And what on earth did Fizz think she was doing? She didn’t know how to handle a chameleon. Josh reckoned it was more than likely she’d never even seen a chameleon. Probably couldn’t even spell it. On the other hand he didn’t dare move in case Milligan took fright. If the chameleon climbed any higher, or worse, leaped from the fuselage, that would be the end of Escape IV. At least his other rockets had died honourably, but KNOCKED OVER BY A CHAMELEON was hardly going to be a glorious epitaph.

  Fizz made a cautious approach. Milligan shifted a foot. The rocket shivered. Fizz drew nearer. Milligan shifted again and one eye rolled in Fizz’s direction. The rocket wobbled. Fizz took three more silent steps. Milligan began to climb higher. The uneven weight distribution was reaching a crucial point. The rocket could topple at any moment and yet, despite the impending doom, both Josh and Fizz were fascinated to see Milligan slowly changing colour. He was trying to go red. Fizz’s heart stopped. What if Milligan blew up!

  She took another two steps. That did it. Milligan moved straight for the top. As he did so the rocket teetered and fell. At the very same moment Fizz leaped forward, clasped both hands round rocket and chameleon, then froze, holding her breath, wondering if the chameleon was going to explode in her hand. He was already a deep muddy-brown. He struggled against the pressure of her grip.

  Josh raced from his chair and clasped his hands over hers. ‘OK, slip your left hand out slowly until I’ve got Milligan… that’s it, good, I’ve got the chameleon. Now put your hand on the rocket just beneath Milligan so I can pull him away and leave you holding the rocket with both hands. Keep it absolutely steady. That’s it, easy, brilliant. Hold it there while I take Milligan to Mum. Back in a sec.’

  Josh flew downstairs and out to the garden. He thrust the chameleon into his mother’s astonished hands and raced back, climbing the stairs three at a time. He almost fell into the bedroom. Fizz was in exactly the same position, crouched over the rocket, holding it safe. He gently settled it upright. At last they stood back and let out sighs of relief.

  ‘Phooey – thanks,’ said Josh. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘I hardly think your rocket is your life, although I dunno – maybe it is? Is it
all right?’

  ‘Can’t see any damage. Panic over.’

  ‘I thought Milligan was going to explode.’

  Josh burst out laughing. It was relief as much as anything. ‘That was just a story Mum told me. You saw what happened. They go muddy-brown.’

  ‘You sneaky trickster!’ Fizz tried to slosh him but he caught her wrist and pointed at the computer.

  ‘Time to finish off. Put something about Mr Winkleberry.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘School should know,’ said Josh. ‘It shouldn’t have happened. It might not have turned out as well as it did. You could have been in danger.’

  Fizz felt a warm glow inside and went to the computer.

  This afternoon I was introduced to the effectiveness of the alarm system in the bathrooms. All bathrooms in care homes are fitted with alarms in case a user finds themself in difficulty, such as falling over and drowning. This is a sensible precaution because having drowned residents would not be a good advertisement for the home concerned.

  I was working upstairs when I heard a resident shout for help. I went into the bathroom that was the source of the noise. Mr Winkleberry had got into difficulty. He said he had pulled the alarm cord but it didn’t work. At first I thought this was careless of the home, but when I pulled the cord it did work. In the meantime I gave Mr Winkleberry a modesty flannel…

  ‘“Modesty flannel”!’ sniggered Josh. ‘That’s priceless.’

  … and Matron came at once and sorted out the problem. In fact, Matron informed me later, Mr Winkleberry had done it on purpose, and not for the first time. I had not realized that antique people could behave like this and while this particular incident did not disturb me too much because I have been on a French nudist beach and seen everything…

  ‘Really?!’ asked Josh, sounding rather like Matron.

  ‘Don’t worry, everything was in French,’ giggled Fizz, and went on typing.

  … I mention it because I am disappointed that adults, who are always telling us to behave like adults, then go and behave like this. What kind of example is that for impressionable young people? Fortunately I am not that impressionable.

  Fizz sat back. ‘Can’t do any more,’ she groaned. ‘I’m knackered. Must be all that excitement.’ She did a word check. ‘Four hundred exactly. Brilliant. I’m going home. See you tomorrow – it’s a big day – the great escape!’

  Josh

  I have spent fourteen years living with I don’t know how many different species of animals; fourteen years with animals doing animal things. I have seen it all. Mating goats on my bed, sex-starved stick insects, bonking badgers, fertilizing frogs, even a pair of copulating chameleons (not Milligan, he’s divorced, apparently). And every single one of them was naked! But humans, female of course, no sightings.

  And then there’s Fizz. Seen everything. She’s been on a nudist beach.

  I

  feel

  SO

  inexperienced.

  And that’s not all. When she saved my rocket and I put my hands over hers she was so warm and I could smell her skin and it was peculiar because she’s weird and I’m not supposed to like her. She’s OK, but I mean, I’ve never liked her. But now, when I think about her, my brain goes fuzzy and can’t think at all. And what is even more disconcerting is that she seems to know more about me than I do. How is it that girls always make you feel as if you’ve got half a leg missing and you can’t keep up and you’re hopping round in circles?

  I wonder where that beach is.

  I checked the weather forecast and Sunday is going to be clear and calm – bit of a breeze for most of the day but should have dropped by evening so it should be fine for Escape IV. I’ve prepared the launch pad, tested the electronics and rocket controls and everything is on line. All I have to do now is get Friday safely out of the way. My last day at Marigolds and the Escape Committee’s too. I hope they make it safely.

  I can’t believe it – one thing after another. Sometimes it felt like three or four things after another. Where shall I start? OK, Friday morning. I got to Marigolds as usual. I saw Mrs Kowalski once or twice, drifting past with an enigmatic smile on her face, but the goons were around and she didn’t stop to talk, although she did wink at me when I slipped her the map she had requested. I wondered just when they would make the break for freedom. I guessed it might be after lunch, when the prison guards sneaked off for their siesta.

  I saw Fizz too. Late again. What a surprise. No, actually the surprise was her hair. She’d dyed it black. It suited her.

  ‘My hair is black anyway,’ she said.

  ‘So why did you dye it blonde?’

  ‘Blondes have more fun, so they say, although I think that whoever “they” are must have very small areas of experience in their lives because I have been blonde for three months and nothing like “fun” has happened to me. So where’s it all happening? I’ve had about as much fun as a potato.’

  ‘Sorry? Potato?’

  ‘Ever seen a potato having fun? Of course not. Their life is totally medieval. They have their skin flayed off them with potato peelers. Then they’re boiled, or fried or roasted or baked, and then, on top of that, they get eaten. Eaten! Would you call that a fun life? No. Neither would I. Standing in front of you at this moment is a potato. An ex-blonde potato. So I have decided to forget about pretending to be blonde and just be me, which is black. Black is my natural hair colour.’ She flicked both hands under her hair. ‘Dah-dah!’

  ‘It suits you.’

  ‘Really? Can I have that in writing? In blood, I mean – written in blood. That proves you mean it.’

  ‘You are beyond weird,’ I said.

  Fizz nodded. ‘Right. And who lives with six million animals, tidies his bedroom without being threatened with death and barricades himself inside it at night so he can construct rockets that don’t go anywhere?’

  ‘Escape IV is going to work,’ I said through gritted teeth. I shall never understand women. I thought I’d just paid her a compliment, saying her hair suited her, and now she was going for my jugular.

  ‘I was going to show you, but I’m not now,’ she said cryptically.

  ‘Show me what?’

  ‘What I’m not showing you because I’m not going to.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Aren’t you interested?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not in the least?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, I’ll show you then.’

  See what I mean! Where is the logic in that? Fizz was struggling with something in her bag and eventually she pulled out a toy black-and-white cat – something she had presumably selected from the massive collection in her bedroom. She clutched it lovingly to her chest, like she was about two years old.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Durr! Freddie.’

  ‘Freddie?’

  ‘Mrs Ogweyo’s cat, right? I thought I’d give it to her.’

  ‘Fizz, Mrs Ogweyo is about three hundred and eighty. Why would she want a toy cat?’

  ‘Because every day she pretends Freddie is still there. I am going to give her something that will actually be there. It won’t leave her. It won’t run away. It’s hers until, well, until she dies.’

  ‘Then it’ll be homeless,’ I pointed out. So she hit me with Freddie and went off to find Mrs Ogweyo.

  The morning was such a drag. I was jumpy. I kept expecting to hear of the breakout, but nothing happened. At one point Matron got me cleaning loos. I had to squirt disinfectant round them. Disgusting! No wonder everyone wants to escape. It can’t happen soon enough. She’d have me scrubbing the bowls with my toothbrush next. Anyhow, it was vile. I wore two pairs of rubber gloves on each hand in case I caught something horrible.

  Lunchtime couldn’t come soon enough, and I escaped down to the shops with Fizz.

  ‘When do you think they’ll make a break for it?’ she asked.

  ‘Siesta time, or maybe this evening as it gets dark.
That’s what I’d do. Although, Mrs Kowalski said Jack made his bid for freedom in broad daylight. He must have had some nerve.’

  ‘Was he spotted?’

  ‘He and his friend disguised themselves as women. Apparently they were pretty effective and looked quite dishy.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘They got as far as the end of the road and a small group of soldiers stopped them and started to chat them up and when one of the soldiers attempted to kiss him Jack sloshed him one and an almighty fight broke out and of course the pair of them were discovered. They ended up in solitary. Later on Jack helped on another tunnel but the war ended before the tunnel was finished so it never got used.’

  Fizz pulled a face. ‘I don’t think I could ever do anything like that, risk my life and so on. They might have been shot.’

  ‘Mrs Kowalski says you don’t know what you might be like in a war until it happens.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s like saying you don’t know what you’ll do when you have a shower, but you do, cos you get in and get wet so you do know all along really, and in a war you’ll probably get shot and killed so it won’t matter what you thought you’d be like anyway. I’d stay in the shower. It’s safer.’

  ‘Fizz, do you ever stop and wonder if you’re making any sense at all when you open your mouth? Your explanations are about as helpful as the rocket-building instructions I once got that were all in Russian. Completely useless.’

  ‘A Russian would have understood them,’ Fizz said. ‘So they weren’t useless. By the way,’ she grinned, ‘what are we actually talking about? I’ve forgotten. Hey, you haven’t asked about Mrs Ogweyo and Freddie.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘She loved the cat. I knew she would.’

  ‘They’re all mad,’ I grunted.

  ‘I know. Great, isn’t it! Anyhow, listen, I’ll see you back at Marigolds. I’ve got to nip home quickly to get my cossie – I’m going swimming this afternoon.’

  I almost choked on my sandwich. ‘You can’t just bunk off and go swimming!’

  ‘I’m going in the physiotherapy pool, yoghurt-brain. Nurse Evans usually goes in with a bunch of wrinklies while the visiting instructor tells them what to do. It’s just to hand out the floats and equipment and be there if there’s a problem. It’s not swimming, but hey, it’s a change from teapots and toilet rolls. Matron says she saw from my school info sheet that I’ve done life-saving. See you later!’