by David Jester
‘Murdered?’ I said, taken aback.
‘Oh, it’s such a sad story.’ Lisa wriggled out from under Peter’s protective arm. Peter looked offended but tried to shrug it off with a stretch. ‘It happened a few weeks ago, maybe a month, I’m not sure. When was Susie’s birthday again?’ she turned to Max as she delved into another subject. ‘Because it was around that time, maybe a few months later.’
‘March, or May,’ Max loved this sort of inane conversation, no doubt the reason Lisa asked him and not Peter, who barely liked to talk at all. ‘It definitely wasn’t June,’ Max said with a broad I know things smile. ‘Or was it?’
‘Not important!’ Olly snapped, throwing his arms wildly in the air. ‘Look,’ he grasped me on the shoulder, ‘someone ran over his cat. He was upset, very upset.’
‘He loved that cat,’ Lisa added.
Peter looked sternly at his girlfriend, apparently only just realising that she had also fallen for Lenny’s charm.
‘He was heartbroken,’ Max uttered.
‘Diddums,’ Olly stabbed, cruelly.
‘Don’t be mean,’ Lisa warned.
I sighed deeply. ‘Can we get to the point?’
‘Okay,’ Olly said, shooting a frustrated glance at Lisa before turning to me. ‘So the cat gets run over, he thinks it’s murder.’
‘It was mur--’
‘Shut your face, I’m talking here!’
‘How dare you--’
‘Peter, deal with your girlfriend would you?’
After a few squabbles, a lot of shouting and some random offerings from Max, I finally learned that Lenny had found his cat dead on the road one morning. It had been run over the night before. No one came forward to admit flattening the feline so Lenny decided she had been murdered.
His mother tried to talk him out of going to the police and asking for a manhunt, but his dad, in another slice of drunken wisdom, affirmed and expanded on his beliefs. He told his son that a serial animal murderer was staking the streets and poor little Fluffy had been his next victim. It seemed apparent that Lenny’s dad was either insane or a total dickhead, but Lenny loved his father and, unfortunately for him, listened to everything he said.
Whilst Lenny hunted down the killer, his mother bought him a small fluffy toy as a memento and replacement. Things had being going well for Lenny, he had stopped crying for his lost pet and he was well on the way to doubting his father’s theory about the perverted pet killer.
‘It makes you wonder don’t it?’ Olly said, looking philosophical. ‘There must be a pet serial killer out there. First it kills Lover-boy’s cat and then it taunts him. I mean did you see the blood on that little toy? Sick man, sick.’
The others sounded their agreement, I gulped down a large slab of saliva and guilt. My heart sank even further when I recalled what I had written in the letter, scrawled in glaring red ink:
L, It was a mistak. It was ment 2 b u, nt her.
It was supposed to be Laura’s bag. The letter was supposed to go to her, not Lenny. But I couldn't tell anyone that now. I didn’t think there was a law against writing letters but who would believe me? I’d look like an idiot; I’d probably get the blame for making Lenny pass out, if not from the teachers then certainly from the kids. They’d hate me if I was responsible for scaring him.
I just have to play innocent, I thought. Stay cool, don’t tell anyone, don’t even--
My eyes widened. My heart practically jumped out of my chest. I remembered the second letter, the one I had written for Jenny. It had been in the same handwriting, I had used the same pen, the same notepad.
I turned my head anxiously on my shoulders, spanning the playground, looking for Jenny. I couldn’t see her.
‘Where’s Jenny?’ I asked, still scanning the concrete field.
‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ Max jumped in. ‘She’s your girlfriend now,’ he said, rolling his tongue mockingly around the word girlfriend.
‘Really?’ Olly said, shocked. ‘You picked her?’
‘Where is she?’ I said, growing increasingly impatient.
‘You miss her already?’ Lisa asked, without a jot of sarcasm.
‘Something like that.’
‘She’ll be hovering around Lenny as usual, she’s obsessed with him,’ Olly said. ‘You picked a winner there mate.’
Olly did pile on the sarcasm, but I thanked him anyway and quickly walked back towards the school building.
I took a deep breath before pushing open the door to the cloakroom. I imagined Jenny standing on the bench, the letter in one hand, a megaphone in the other; surrounded by teachers and organising them into a mob to get back at me.
When I entered the cloakroom there were no angry teachers with pitchforks. No shouting; no calls for blood. Jenny was sitting quietly on one of the benches, she was alone.
‘Hey--’ I squashed up my face, looked to the ceiling, to the floor, to Jenny’s watery and expectant eyes. ‘Sweetie,’ I continued, happy with the choice of word, regardless of how dirty it made me feel. ‘You okay?’ I sat down next to her and hovered an arm above her shoulders. I had seen this sort of thing done on television when adults were trying to sooth other adults, but quite a few of those television programs ended with the soother and the soothee kissing or hugging, and I didn’t want that. I pulled my arm away and scooted an inch away from her, just in case.
‘I’m worried about Lenny,’ Jenny said, she looked up at me and did a double take, her eyes saying I could have sworn you were sitting closer.
‘He’ll be fine, go outside and play, get on with your life. Lenny would want it that way.’
Jenny looked genuinely confused. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
I shrugged. They never asked that on television.
‘I think I’ll just sit here for a while,’ Jenny said, lowering her head.
I had to get her out of the cloakroom; I had to get my letter back.
I eyed the Barbie backpack; it was directly opposite her, a metre or so away from her feet.
‘Someone wants to see you outside,’ I said, in lieu of anything else.
‘Who?’
‘Max,’ as usual Max had been the first name in my head. That had never served me well in the past. It was often the reason I ended up with him as a partner, and certainly the reason he ended up as my best friend.
‘Max?’ Jenny asked. She was either shocked or disgusted, I couldn’t tell but I could sympathise, Max had a way of doing that to people.
‘Yeah, he has something to show you, said it’d cheer you up.’
Jenny stared at me with doubtful eyes. I tried to smile earnestly, but with each passing second I was sure my face would break and the words “I’m lying” would be spelled on my forehead in anxiety riddled acne.
She nodded and stood up. I allowed myself to breathe again.
Halfway to the door she turned and asked: ‘You just gonna sit here?’ with a hint of surprise.
‘Just gonna have a think,’ I said, nodding slowly to add a sombre tone to my words. ‘A think about Lenny. Life. You know.’
‘Hm,’ Jenny sounded unconvinced. ‘Okay.’
She disappeared out of the door and I stood up immediately, moving for her backpack.
I pulled open the zip and yanked out the letter. I thought about tearing it up there and then, I thought about hiding it. I even thought about eating it, but before I could do any of those things, the door swung open and Jenny’s head popped around the corner, her eyes beaming like a bird of prey on the prowl.
‘Shit,’ I mumbled. The letter was still in my hand, the bag open in front of me.
‘I knew you were up to something,’ she let the door slam behind her and she stormed forward. ‘What is that?’ she gestured towards the letter, her eyes hot, her face angry.
I thought she was going to hit me. I sensed another cloakroom beating.
She snatched the letter from me with one hand and then shoved me back with the other. I stumbled over a backpa
ck and crashed to the floor, protected from the fall by my elbows which crunched under my own weight.
I looked up dismally, watching Jenny open the letter. I thought for a moment that I should have eaten it as soon as I had it, but then reasoned that she would have probably ripped open my stomach and retrieved the letter anyway.
‘It’s you?’ she said, waving the note accusingly.
‘No, not me,’ I said, keen to worm my way out of the situation. ‘Someone else, I’m helping them. I mean, not helping them, I’m, I’m, I’m trying to show them -- yeah, that’s it -- I’m trying to show them that animal murder is wrong, and that you shouldn’t--’
‘It says your name, Kieran,’ Jenny turned over the letter and thrust her finger at the hastily scribbled word at the bottom.
‘Another Kieran,’ I said.
Jenny glared at me, as if she were trying to bore holes into me with her eyes. She sighed heavily, lifted the note to her face again, and, keeping one eye on me in case I tried anything, she read: ‘I don’t like you, I made a mistake. I don’t want to go out with you anymore.’
I pulled myself up from the floor and slowly rubbed my right elbow which burned with a steady pain. I cleared my throat and grinned at Jenny. ‘Okay, it was me.’
‘No, you don’t say,’ she spat sarcastically.
‘But it went to the wrong person. I mean, not that one, that one was supposed to go to you, coz I really don’t want to be your boyfriend. You’re nice I’m sure, but not my type, I’m not even sure I have a type but if I did,’ I paused, scratching my head and gauging a reaction, there wasn’t one. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be you. It wouldn’t really be Laura either but the letter, the other letter, was supposed to go to her, not Lenny. I didn’t kill his cat, I didn’t even know he had a cat, and as for the blood, well.’ I held up my thumb, the blood had been sucked dry. ‘Well, there was blood there before, there isn’t now. Never mind, just please don’t tell anyone.’ I finished.
Her anger had turned into realisation, more of the fact that I was too stupid to be a taunting serial killer than anything else, but it was better than nothing.
‘Please,’ I repeated, sensing trouble in the silence. ‘I’ll be your boyfriend.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly, the anger completely gone now. ‘I won’t say anything,’
‘Phew, thank you.’ I wiped an imaginary line of sweat from my forehead. ‘I don’t have to be your boyfriend though do I?’
She shook her head and handed me the letter. ‘This has made me realise how much I like Lenny. I want to be his girlfriend again.’
I folded the note, tore it through the middle several times and then scrunched up the pieces before sticking them into my pocket. It would have made more sense to do it over a bin, something I realised when picking a few stray pieces up from the floor, but I managed to get the majority in my pocket regardless.
‘So, some good came of all this then,’ I declared happily. I scuttled towards the door, eager to get out before she changed her mind. ‘What are you going to tell Lenny about the animal murderer?’ I asked.
Jenny shrugged. It seemed she wasn’t going to tell him anything. That was good enough for me.
3
Lizzie
During every summer holiday, without fail, my parents took me on holiday to a fairly dim caravan site. It usually rained and we seemed to spend the majority of the holiday bungled into a small caravan watching a tiny pixelated television and eating microwave meals.
There was nothing to do except play board games and wait for the rain to stop, after which we would move on to the arcades, walk the beaches or play in the park.
The arcades were cheap, claustrophobic and rang with the incessant noises of luck and misfortune. The beaches were stony, dirty and rife with seaweed. The local bars stank of fake tan and tears and were packed with middle-aged women beyond their prime and older men too drunk or decrepit to try and chat them up. The poorly maintained parks were months away from becoming death traps. The gift shops stacked items designed for local use -- plastic footballs, buckets & spades, kites -- which weren’t made to last beyond purchase. Bingo halls oozed with the melancholy of despairing tourists with nothing better to do, and, in the onsite club, the finger of an apathetic bartender perpetually hit rewind/play on a Hi-fi haunted by the ghosts of Discos long since dead.
It was the epitome of a classic British holiday. It was miserable, gloomy and depressing. I loved it.
I saw everything through rose tinted spectacles and adored it all. Through the ages of five to ten I looked forward to those holidays more than Christmas. I loved to fly my kite in the fields, come home to the ping of a microwave and tuck in whilst watching the television fire a blizzard over whatever was on.
I loved to blow my parent’s money on the arcade games and penny-slots. I liked the rocky beaches, the pier which was cold and windswept even in the height of summer, and the sweet shops that stamped a local logo on every product and sold it for twice as much.
I made friends in the parks, vowed to be their friend forever and then promptly forgot their names the instant we left, and I played bingo with old people who tried to give me sweets and persuade me they used to be young once.
It was a highlight of my childhood, but I had no interest in it when I was eleven and another trip to the caravan site was arranged. I wanted to stay home; I wanted to play with my friends in the fields by the house. Two weeks felt like a really long time, and I didn’t want to miss anything.
I had no choice in the matter and that put me in a bad mood on the two hour car journey. I gave my parents the silent treatment the whole way; they were delighted with the break.
We left just after dawn and when the car pulled into the caravan site it was still pleasantly warm outside. The sun belted down beats of bright hot light through the back window. I shaded my eyes from the glare as the car weaved through the mass of caravans and pulled up alongside the one we had rented.
My dad jumped out of the car first, desperate to stretch after a couple of hours behind the wheel. My mother was still half asleep and took her time. I darted out before her, eager to show them both that I was still annoyed.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said, quickly regretting it.
‘Oh, you’re talking now are you?’ Dad beamed at me. He had tiny wrinkles on his chin, his forehead and his cheeks, these stretched with individual grins when he smiled. His stubbled beard -- flecked with differing stages of grey, white and silver -- reflected the sunlight and glistened at me.
‘I--I--no,’ I stuttered defiantly, storming off.
A boundary of trees and thickets lined the caravan site; I cut through these and entered onto a small park which sat at the edge of a large empty field.
A carpet of gravel chips covered the floor of the park, with patches of softened tarmac under the equipment.
A set of swings in the centre of the park was the only fully intact piece of equipment. The climbing frame in the corner was rusted and looked unstable. The rocking horses next to it hadn’t rocked for many years. Three rungs had been plucked from the centre of the monkey bars, denying even the most limber of primates a fighting chance. The sandpit was more stone than sand; the slide was streaked with what looked like mud, but could have been something much worse; the merry-go-round didn’t go at all.
A small blonde girl was sitting on the swings. She had turned her head sideways to look at me as I surveyed the broken park. She had a smile that stretched from ear to ear. I could almost see her iridescent eyes twinkling under the glare of the sun.
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- my experiences with Kerry and Jenny, I had never warmed to the opposite sex. I had never found my first crush, had never experienced something I still wasn’t sure was real, but when I set eyes on the little blonde girl, swinging gently back and forth, her hair lifting and relaxing in the faint breeze, I knew that things were about to change.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Lizzie, what’s your
s?’
I tried to reply but the words caught in my throat. I coughed, cleared and repeated as best I could: ‘Kieran.’
She continued smiling, her eyes never leaving my face. ‘Do you want to swing with me Kieran?’ she asked pleasantly.
I took a seat on the swing next to hers, she watched me while I tucked myself in between the chains. Then she turned to face ahead, out over the expansive fields which stretched to the horizon.
‘It’s a lovely day isn’t it?’ she said.
I grunted in reply, unable to take my eyes off her. I wanted to talk to her; I wanted to tell her everything about myself. I wanted to ask her an infinite amount of questions, to find out everything I could about her. Where did she come from? What school did she go to? What year was she in?
We swung side by side for a while. Every now and then she would glance at me and pick up the pace with a smile. Then she would giggle when I tried to match her swing for swing.
I didn’t know what she found amusing but I was entranced by her laugh and I giggled along with her, happily watching her features explode into delight.
I wanted to stare at her without interruption but didn’t want to come across as weird. I tried to get as many looks as I could, sneaking sly glances when she wasn’t looking, admiring her smile, the dimples on her fair cheeks, the shine in her glistening hair, the brightness in her eyes. I turned away when I saw her head moving to me, not realising that she was trying to sneak the same covert looks at me.
I felt so comfortable with her. So happy. It didn’t dawn on me that we had been sitting in total silence for ten minutes until she spoke again.
‘How old are you Kieran?’
‘Eleven,’ I said, locking eyes with her. ‘You?’
‘I’m eleven as well.’
‘Okay.’
‘Isn’t that weird?’
‘It is yes,’ I said, happy to believe it was because she said it was.
We swung side by side in silence. The bright morning began to fade to a dull afternoon. A thick veil covered the sun and the merriment it had brought. A greyness descended on the horizon that my new friend loved to adore.