Attack of the Cupids

by John Dickinson

  ‘Or blond,’ said Billie. ‘And he doesn’t have to be tall-tall, so long as he’s good at sports and has got a lean face and chin.’

  And that was Alec Gardner.

  Scattletail coughed. ‘A lot of scope, there. Lot of room for manoeuvre, you might say.’

  ‘Couldn’t we keep it to Year Nine?’ pleaded Ismael. ‘We’d see so much more—’

  ‘Not on your life,’ said Billie. ‘The Year Nine boys are all hopeless. I want someone I can be proud of and who will bring me liquorice.’

  Ismael tested the arrow with his finger. It was loaded, all right. There was enough power there to make his princess fall in love with any passing frog (or Year Nine) no matter what her wish-list was beforehand. Good job he was the one who was holding it . . .

  Scattletail must have read his thoughts. As if by magic, a pack of cards appeared in his hands. ‘Guess we cut?’ he said, grinning evilly.

  ‘Cut?’ Ishamel grimaced. ‘Not with your deck.’

  ‘We’ll play for it,’ said Billie, promptly sitting up. ‘Deal me in.’

  ‘Sure, Queenie.’ sighed Ismael. ‘You’re the boss. What game?’

  ‘Hearts, of course.’

  Come on, thought Sally. Come on. Come . . .

  The handle of the boys’ changing room turned.

  Oh no! thought Sally.

  Here they come!

  Here they came, Zac and Alec and Tony. Three rangy forms, lightly swathed in half-buttoned shirts and loose ties, grinning to each other about something one of them had just said. The air of gods was about them.

  And Sally’s knees were trembly as she stepped out into their path. Her palms prickled and her heart was going thump and she wanted to swallow. Nerves, she thought. Just nerves. Why am I so nervous?

  ‘Um . . . hi,’ she said.

  Alec passed her and he hadn’t heard.

  ‘Hi,’ said Sally again.

  Tony ‘Hi-Hi’d back. Though Sally wasn’t sure he knew who had spoken to him.

  ‘Hi, Sally,’ Zac said.

  Zac was nice, but he hadn’t stopped walking.

  They were walking by her, going somewhere she wasn’t. If she let them.

  ‘Um . . .’ she said.

  Zac stopped. So did Tony.

  Alec looked back. Then he stopped too.

  Zac and Alec and Tony.

  They were looking at her.

  ‘So this,’ said the Angel of Love, ‘is where I take over.’

  Love can strike like lightning. She can leap out of a rosebush, yelling and firing gold tipped arrows. She can pluck all the fibres of the human soul and make them sing like the strings of a harp. But she doesn’t have to.

  She can wait.

  She can wait like one of those beautiful, carnivorous flowers – the sort that beckons insects and spiders into its sweet-smelling petals (ever thought why it’s called the Venus flytrap?) and then catches them there.

  She waits, standing silently, while the busy little creature goes left and right and up and down, following what it thinks are its own purposes. Until it persuades itself that there’s a reason, a very good reason, why it should go to one particular place, alone.

  And say, ‘Um . . .’

  And push forward, into the soft, yielding, deadly embrace.

  Sally stood, open-mouthed, lost in the middle of her own mind. Two cupids had caught Muddlespot from behind and wrestled him silently to the floor. About twenty had dropped out of nowhere on top of Windleberry and buried him under a squirming mass of naked bodies, which shuddered sporadically and emitted the occasional muffled Hai! but nothing to any effect.

  And before her, tall and slim and lightly clad, stood Eros himself. He held a mask in front of his face. Through the eye-holes she felt his gaze burning into her, all the way down to her heart.

  Everything stood still.

  ‘Did you know the world is about to end?’ said Eros softly. ‘It’s going to end very soon,’ he added. ‘A star will fall and everything will burn. Sally, you will burn with it.’

  His words burned as he spoke them, and at the same time they sang. Sally nodded slowly. She believed him at once but she did not feel very upset. After all, it hardly mattered. How could anything matter, except him?

  ‘You haven’t very long, I’m afraid,’ Eros said. ‘Not long at all. Time is precious. What do you want to do with it?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Schoolwork?’ he said. ‘Really?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Or save the world? Nice thought. But it can’t be saved. Not this time. These days are all you have . . . they are all you have, Sally,’ he said. ‘So what do you think you are here for?’

  Sally could not answer.

  ‘Let’s play a little game,’ said Eros. ‘You’ll see what I mean. Let them up.’

  The cupids lifted Muddlespot to his feet. They stood behind him, holding his arms. Slowly the pile on top of Windleberry rearranged itself. Windleberry’s head and shoulders appeared, poking out of the masses of pinky flesh.

  ‘Let them up,’ Eros said again. ‘They won’t fight. She won’t allow it. Will you, Sally?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Sally.

  Grimly, Windleberry climbed to his feet. His suit was rumpled. There was a bruise on one cheek. Some cupid had remembered the last time they had met and had put the heel in. He folded his arms and faced Eros.

  ‘Game?’ he said.

  ‘A very old game,’ said Eros sweetly. ‘But a good one. We each offer Sally what we have to offer, and then she will choose between us.’

  ‘And the winner?’

  ‘The winner wins.’

  ‘Don’t listen, Sally!’

  ‘A disappointing opening,’ sighed Eros. ‘Amateur, really. I had expected better from you, my dear.’ He turned to Muddlespot. ‘Would you like to try next?’

  Muddlespot opened his mouth and shut it. He knew the game all right. Everyone from Below and Above knew this game.

  He just hadn’t seen it played three-sided before. That was what was throwing him. Suddenly there were a lot more angles and he couldn’t work them all out fast enough.

  ‘Do be quick,’ said Eros mildly. ‘The world is about to end, you know.’

  Muddlespot panicked. ‘All the kingdoms of the world and their splendour,’ he gabbled, going straight to his bottom line. ‘If you will only bow down and worship me!’

  ‘Ah, the “Wilderness Gambit”,’ said Eros happily. ‘So nice to see it played in the classic manner. Unfortunately, the lease on those kingdoms is about to expire very soon. Along with everyone in them. It’s not your fault – well, it is your fault, as it happens, but don’t let that bother you. It’s just that if a kingdom is about to go up in smoke, then maybe it isn’t really so worth having after all, is it . . .?

  ‘. . . So, Sally. Shall we think about it? Shall we think about what you really want?’

  The mask turned in his hand, in one neat movement. It became his face, and it was the face of Alec Gardner. He smiled at Sally, a beautiful, white-toothed smile, and her heart went thump!

  ‘Well?’ said Alec.

  Sally’s mouth was dry. ‘Let’s . . . let’s play again,’ she managed to say.

  The mask twirled in the fingers of Eros. Once more it was as blank as the face of a statue. He turned it on Muddlespot.

  ‘Do you want to improve your offer?’

  ‘Eeeeerrrrrrrhhh . . .’ said Muddlespot.

  ‘I don’t think you can, can you? Once you’ve offered all the kingdoms, there aren’t any more to offer. Awkward for you.’ He turned to Windleberry. ‘Would you like to go next?’

  ‘Sally!’ Windleberry’s voice was urgent. ‘You mustn’t think about yourself. Think about Truth. The difference between what is True and not True is the only thing worth knowing . . .’

  ‘Ah, wisdom!’ said Eros. ‘That’s better. I thought we should drag it out of you eventually. And what can I possibly say to that?’

  The mask twirled in h
is hand. It became his face, and it was a living one. Lean, brown, curly-haired. Tony stood in the middle of Sally’s mind. He gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Except this?’ he said, and grinned. Sally’s heart trembled.

  ‘Sally!’ cried Windleberry. ‘Remember what happens! Remember the play and the city that burned!’

  ‘Hey!’ said Tony. ‘How was that my fault?’

  ‘What about Ameena’s ankle?’ said Muddlespot, who could play the blame game better than any angel. ‘That was because of you!’

  ‘Guilty!’ cried the oboe case from somewhere.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Eros, twirling his blank mask in his hand. ‘Shall we have one more try? Who are you, Sally? In your heart, who are you? Who are you for?’

  The mask seemed to slow as he spun it. Sally felt a tingling just below her ribs. It seemed to lift her, as if she had no weight at all. Which was just as well, because her knees were shaking. They had no strength. Her blood was water. Or maybe it was fire. Something in her chest felt as if it was about to burst. She knew who was coming. They all did.

  ‘Riches!’ shrieked Muddlespot desperately.

  ‘Wisdom!’ cried Windleberry.

  ‘Love,’ whispered Eros, putting the mask to his face.

  ‘Anyone want a burger?’ said Charlie B.

  ‘Um, what?’ said Sally. She had hardly heard him. Zac’s face was looking down on her. For an instant that might have been a hundred years she had not been able to think or say anything. Thoughts reeled in her brain like snatches from dreams, without start or finish or sense. Where am I? Here. Where is here? Looking up at Zac. Who is looking at me.

  Except he wasn’t looking at her. Something else had caught his attention.

  ‘Burger?’ he said.

  Charlie B had joined them in the corridor. He had three foam burger cases in a stack in his hands.

  ‘My birthday. My brother brought a load to the school gates. These are left over.’

  ‘Hey, cheers,’ said Alec, taking one.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Tony. He took one too.

  Zac hesitated. He looked at Charlie B. He looked at Sally. ‘You want a burger, Sally?’

  Sally said ‘Um . . .’

  Tony lifted his burger from its case. There was a smell. Burgers always smell.

  But . . . like that?

  And far away, a voice from the calendar corridors of her mind shrieked, ‘It isn’t Charlie’s birthday!’

  ‘Just check they’re the kind you like,’ said Charlie offhandedly.

  Tony paused, his mouth already open. He lifted the top half of his burger. Charlie grabbed Sally by the arm. Within, Muddlespot grabbed her too.

  Both yelled, ‘RUN!’

  Tony screamed.

  Charlie yanked Sally half off her feet. She staggered and nearly fell. The boys jumped back. The burgers fell from their hands, spilling green and leggy contents that hit the floor with soft plops and – this was the worst – hopped when they got there. Alec let out a yell.

  ‘Come on!’ yelped Charlie, although really he had not needed to say this because the two of them were already halfway down the corridor and accelerating fast.

  ‘You . . . what did you . . .?’ gasped Sally.

  ‘Just run!’

  ‘Get them!’ roared Zac.

  ‘Get them!’ roared Eros in Sally’s mind.

  ‘Just—’ began Muddlespot.

  ‘I know,’ moaned Sally. ‘Run!’

  They bolted together through the arched doorway that led from the central chamber. An arrow, wickedly tipped with gold, flew past them. Behind her Sally could hear the voices of Zac, the voice of Eros, calling. She fled him down the labyrinthine ways of her mind.

  ‘Fifteen . . . minutes . . . to the . . . bell,’ gasped Charlie B. ‘Need to . . . get out of . . . sight . . .’

  They careered down the English corridor, crashed through the double doors and took the corner at full speed with their feet slipping on the linoleum floor.

  ‘Hey!’ cried Sam Gosling, as they barged past him.

  ‘What the . . .?’ fumed Amelia, as they kicked over her bag and scattered her books along the floor.

  ‘Sorry!’ yelled Sally, disappearing in the direction of the library.

  ‘Hey!’ wailed the thoughts in the war rooms as Muddlespot and Sally tore through it, upsetting the tables and sending charts of climate change fluttering through the air. ‘What about us?’

  ‘Need to . . . think again . . . anyway . . .’ Sally gasped. ‘If there’s an . . . asteroid . . .’

  ‘What?’ said the thoughts.

  ‘Tell you lateeerrrrr!’ cried Sally, receding in a red blur.

  Into the war room burst the cupids, cooing and hallooing, trumpets high and harps waving menacingly. And all those cool-headed, world-saving ideas, all those Plans and Appeals and Calculations of the Carbon Cycle and Good Resolutions Not to Have Too Many Hot Baths, took one look, shrieked and scattered, as such thoughts always must before the power that rules the human soul.

  Deliberate speed! Majestic instancy! The golden hunt poured through the halls of Sally’s mind. Horns blew, arrows flew. The corridors heaved and twisted. The crystal columns coloured pink and purple and gold, like trees that catch the sunset. Thoughts wailed and clung to one another, cowering in corners as the cupids passed. Sally and Muddlespot fled before them. As they flew down a corridor, a memory of Greg wandered aimlessly out of a room ahead of them.

  Greg! I was going to tell him he had to . . .

  The thought of Greg looked around, wide-eyed, intact for just an instant. Then it shattered in a hail of badly-aimed golden arrows and disappeared under a tonne of rose petals. And all the while the voice of Eros beat upon Sally’s ear.

  ‘They’ve . . . split up . . .’ puffed Charlie B. ‘Gone round the quad . . . to catch us. What are you . . .?’

  Sally had her mobile out of her pocket and was frantically pushing buttons. ‘Got to . . . remind Greg . . . get flowers for Mum,’ she panted.

  ‘You . . . crazy!’

  ‘No! Must do this . . . now!’

  ‘There they are!’

  ‘Aaaaaaargh!’ cried both Sally and Charlie, as Alec appeared in the corridor ahead of them. They swerved to the right and pounded up the stairs. Little showers of invisible stray arrows poured from Sally as she ran. One caught Viola as she loitered haughtily on the landing with her bag over her shoulder. She barely saw Charlie and Sally. She had just time to register Alec pounding up the steps towards her before something thrilled in her heart and she knew that she cared nothing for Tony or Billie or even for standing around looking haughty, but only for flinging herself into his arms, which she did. Both duly fell back down the stairs.

  The pursuit tore around the top floor of the school. Miss Tackle and Mr Kingsley, sitting one in his classroom and the other in the staff room, heard the noise. They rose from their seats and came out to restore order, Miss Tackle towering like a thundercloud and Mr Kingsley slithering like an offended snail. They emerged at the exact moment that Sally passed emitting invisible gold arrows in all directions. They saw Sally. They saw each other. Their eyes met.

  Mr Kingsley felt sudden confusion. All at once the riot seemed distant. There was chaos and disorder going on somewhere, but strangely it did not matter. The air was a haze of golden things. The face of Theodora Tackle swam before him, a face he had seen every day and yet had somehow always failed to see before this. He had no idea what was happening to him or what he could do about it. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t dare. He couldn’t possibly bring himself to address her. She was an angel, an image of perfection . . .

  So it was just as well Miss Tackle looked at him and decided on the spot that she didn’t want to be ‘Miss Tackle’ any more. After that, there was only one way things were going to go.

  Still the hunt rioted down the corridors and the golden voices hallooed in Sally’s mind, more instant than the feet that were pounding themselves to inchthin tenderness on the floors of Dar
lington High.

  ‘Oi-oi-oi-oi!!! There they go!!!!’

  ‘Run!’ screamed Muddlespot.

  ‘Run!’ screamed Charlie.

  And Sally wailed ‘But what if I want to get caught?’

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ panted Muddlespot. ‘Trust me!’

  There was a place, at last, where the world stood still. Unlike all the other places in Darlington High, unlike the tossing and disordered passages of Sally’s mind, this place, strangely, strangely, did not go tumbling off anywhere to become somewhere else.

  It was the very unromantic and slightly smelly corner behind the bike sheds to one side of the main parking area. Sally and Charlie sat against a concrete wall and tried to remember how to breathe.

  ‘I think we lost ‘em,’ panted Charlie, who (given the chance) would always talk in lines from certain kinds of film.

  ‘What was . . . (gasp) in those burgers?’

  ‘Frogs,’ said Charlie. ‘Got them . . . biology lab . . .’

  ‘You . . .’ Sally gagged. ‘Charlie!’

  ‘Ta-daaahhh!’

  ‘But . . .’ (gasp) ‘they’ll think . . .’ (gasp) ‘I was part of that!’

  ‘You were. You said to give one to Tony.’

  ‘I said forget it!’

  ‘Oh, I knew you didn’t mean that bit.’

  ‘But . . . Alec and Zac . . .’

  ‘Had to do three. Tony’d have been suspicious if I’d just picked him out.’

  Goodbye, Zac, thought Sally sadly. To you, I shall always be the girl who set you up for a frogburger.

  She drew another breath.

  Oxygen starvation did funny things. It dulled pain of all kinds. The fact that she would now have to spend the next year and a bit trying not to get seen by the three coolest boys in the school seemed, strangely, to be less impossibly dreadful than it should have been. At least, that was how it felt when compared to her immediate and overwhelming need to swallow more air.

  She checked her watch. She was astonished to find that there was another ten minutes before the end of break. She felt she had been running for ever.

  ‘Coast’s clear,’ said Charlie, peering round the corner of the shed. ‘No one – uh – Mr Singh’s up in the Physics lab. He’s looking out of the window.’