I had to take this easy.
I pondered the egg, steaming in its cup. A whole slice of toast waited for me too, buttered thick. I cut the toast into soldiers and dipped one in the creamy, soft yolk. I ate just one corner. It was good. I could feel nourishment coursing through me. It was energising. My body craved more. But I knew too much, too soon, was going to be the end of me. I had to take this slowly. I could feel the sick rising in my throat. I sat back and let my fingers bounce across my ribs. No. That wasn’t going to be enough. I had to do better, and not just for me. I held the nausea back and ate some more.
‘Hello Monty,’ said the dog.
‘Do I smell like I’m dying?’ I asked.
The dog paused a while, as if considering how much information it could tell me.
‘That’s a matter of degree,’ it finally said. ‘Everything dies. Eventually.’
‘What about me? Do I smell like I’m dying?’
‘That’s not for me to tell you, even if I could.’
What was that? Doubt? Maybe it didn’t know anything after all.
‘You look different,’ said Eliza.
‘Yeah? How?’
I was almost proud. I was bursting to tell her about my morning success. She shrugged, suddenly non-committal, and lit up a cigarette as she waited for the bus. She flicked her hair back as she breathed the calming smoke in. She looked beautiful, like one of those old time movie stars when they filmed them with the soft lens, surrounding them in that dreamy, far away look. Everything about her was perfect—except for the cigarette. She noticed my look.
‘What? You don’t like smokes?’
I shook my head timidly. It wasn’t my place to judge. Eliza narrowed her eyes and took a long, pensive drag. She blew the smoke in my face.
‘Fine,’ she said defiantly and tossed the smoke down and butted it out with one shoe. ‘See? I can do it too.’
I was full of panic. Was I that visible? Was I that transparent? I had eaten one boiled egg and she had understood me. She had seen right through me. Nope. I realised I still had some egg on my chin.
The bus came and went. Eliza disappeared with it. We wouldn’t spend the day together. I had been a fool to hope.
I sat by myself at lunchtime. Once, years ago, I had a friend who used to sit with me. His name was Tim Smith.
Tim Smith was a good guy. He was honourable, friendly, trustworthy and all that. But those qualities weren’t why we became friends. It was his name. Tim Smith. That name was so incredibly ordinary that nobody took the slightest notice of him. He blurred into the background, literally disappeared when anyone else entered the room. He was such a forgettable person that, if you asked around, nobody could remember ever laying eyes on him. He was nothing. Invisible. Not even the teachers could put a finger to him. Tim Smith knew how to get through school, that’s for sure. Tim Smith. I longed for a name like that. What did I have? Montgomery Ulysses Ferguson? I swore, one day, I’d change my name but, no matter what, I couldn’t think of anything better than Tim Smith. The world wouldn’t care if there were two Tim Smiths in it, surely? If I were a Tim Smith too, I could be just as invisible. But the more I thought about it, changing my identity jarred with me. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t rub out my existence that easily.
I never really knew what happened to Tim Smith. One day he was there, eating his salad roll, the next he was gone. I never saw him again. Perhaps he fell down a mineshaft somewhere and nobody could hear his paper-thin cries, or maybe he’s still at school, going about his studies so quietly that he’s practically a ghost, a walking corpse among the living.
I was knee-deep in thoughts about Tim Smith when I did something stupid. I was on autopilot again. My body must have enjoyed breakfast and decided more food was in order. The fact that I didn’t have money wasn’t going to deter it. Before my brain knew what was going on, my body lumbered up to the canteen window and pushed in line.
Tony Papadopoulos never left the canteen during break times. He’d eat all the food from his mother’s lunchbox then spend all the money from his father’s wallet. And he didn’t like being pushed. The pain was instant. I was pulled back into existence as something hard struck my back. I blinked and took a second to work out which way was up. I found myself pushed over a long, metal handrail. The cold steel had belted into my spine. It was like being king-hit with a baseball bat. The pain was intense. Tony stood over me, grinning.
‘What’s the matter? Don’t like being pushed, huh?’
I scrambled to my feet and was about to leave, but Tony felt like adding salt to the wound. I guess he was still angry about his ruined soccer shirt so he punched me in the face. I didn’t expect it. Nobody did. There was a gasp of shock from all the kids watching as the punch landed home. Tony generally just hit you in the guts. Usually he was too smart to leave any clear evidence. He didn’t want trouble from the teachers, so bruises were best avoided. This was a clear violation of that unspoken code.
I landed on the concrete floor. The hard surface stung the back of my skull. I’ve heard of people getting killed from this type of thing. It’s not the punch that kills you. Death comes from the crushing blow as your head hits the ground. Your skull cracks open like a split watermelon, and your brain simply bleeds out while everyone stands around to watch, wondering what to do. Lucky for Tony, I wasn’t quite dead.
He wanted more. That thing with the shirt must have really bugged him. He pumped his fists and ordered me to get up. I tried to obey, I really did, but my legs just wobbled underneath me. I looked like a broken puppet. Tony grabbed the front of my shirt.
‘Leave him alone!’
Eliza pushed her way in between us. Tony instantly obeyed and wiped back his hair in an effort to make himself look palatable.
‘He started it,’ he explained.
He was right enough, I guess. I had started it. It all started with those eggs. The dog and the eggs. I could see a pattern forming. A pattern I had blindly followed.
Eliza led me to the safety of the teachers’ office. Not to look for help from them of course, I could just hide out in the toilets nearby. I had a shiner on my eye like a pro boxer.
‘How do I look?’
Eliza smiled. She liked it, I could see.
Chapter Six
Some ants were busy building an entire civilisation using nothing more than brains the size of a speck of dust. There were leaders and followers. The followers worked in perfect harmony, mindlessly going about their duties. The larger soldier ants quietly stood guard over the trail, protecting their weaker brethren. This was a revelation. Those tiny creatures had put their thugs to good use, for the betterment of the tribe. It was a simple survival strategy, but if the bigger soldier ants decided to push the other ants around for a bit of fun, soon the tribe would come under attack. The queen, hidden away in her mansion somewhere, would die a slow death. That would be the end of the tribe. Ants never questioned their purpose. They just performed it. Maybe that was our problem? We weren’t meant to be self-aware.
‘Monty! Hello! Are you there?’
Eliza stood beside me. How long she’d been there, watching me watch the ants, I didn’t know. I was sitting on a bench outside the school, partially hidden by a row of bushes. All around us, kids were delivered home on a never-ending stream of school buses.
I knew Tony would be looking for me after school, but I also knew that his parents drove to pick him up. My plan was to lie low, camouflaged in plain sight, and keep an eye out for his parent’s car. Once he was gone, I could walk home safely. My plan had one obvious flaw.
‘Tony left half an hour ago,’ said Eliza. ‘I think you can go home now.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What’s with the ants?’ she asked curiously.
What had started all this was the school sign hung above the gates. A motto was emblazoned on it: Vade Ad Formicam. It was Latin and roughly translated to ‘look at the ants’. Obviously some arrogant school founder came up with this quaint li
ttle quote to inspire students into an industrious work ethic. It hadn’t worked. Our school had one of the lowest grade averages in the country. Most kids wouldn’t even know what that sign meant, or care if they did. Who spoke Latin anyway? It was an extinct language. Still, it made me look at the ants. Eliza seemed to get bored waiting for an answer.
‘I’ve got to go.’
Some girls turned a corner nearby. They were friends of Eliza’s and flicked their hair with such perfect unison I could’ve sworn it was choreographed. They were headed straight for us. Eliza quickly avoided them and made sure she wasn’t seen with me. I watched her scurry away. That wasn’t right, I thought. Eliza Robertson didn’t scurry.
‘See what you’ve done to her?’ hounded the dog.
It peered at me from under some bushes nearby. It kept its head low, as if it were stalking.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Those girls,’ it said. ‘They used to hang off her every word. Now she hides from them. She is desperate to remain unseen. Remind you of anyone?’
A sick feeling washed over me. I had turned Eliza into Tim Smith.
Normally, I’d walk home on autopilot. My body could usually handle this daily chore by itself. It knew how many steps to take, when to turn and when to avoid a pothole. It’d only have to wait for me to guide it across a busy road. My body would often be spotted loitering aimlessly around pedestrian crossings, waiting for my brain to drift back to consciousness.
Not this day. I was firmly in place. I walked to the other end of my street and stood looking at Eliza’s house. The two-storey mansion was clean and fresh. The front lawn was mown tight and happy topiary bushes were clipped into perfectly round shapes. Everything about it was new and perfect. Even the windows were clean. I never knew windows could be clean.
I rang the doorbell. The cheery ding-dong that sang my arrival made me smile. It was so simple, yet effective. It announced my presence with sheer delight. We never had the happy pleasure of a doorbell at our house. Visitors to our house sometimes looked around for a doorbell, but in its absence were forced to knock. For some reason they’d always bang extra loud, like they were trying to scare away the ghouls.
A middle-aged woman answered the door. Eliza’s mum I guessed.
‘Yes?’
She had a fresh hairdo, crisp features and wore pearls. I’d only ever seen a woman wear pearls in the movies. They caught my eye. I was transfixed, desperate to dive into thoughts about the lifecycle of a mollusc whose only purpose in life was to make a shiny ball for some two-legged land animal to wear around its neck.
‘If you’re selling something, I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ she said politely and moved back to close the door.
‘Is Eliza home?’ I asked tentatively.
She looked me up and down for a few seconds, considering her options. I was obviously not Eliza’s usual type of visitor. They would mostly be those girls from school: well dressed, perfectly preened and confident. Any boy to ring that doorbell would have been so handsome your eyeballs would shatter at the sheer sight of him. Not me. Lank hair drooped over my face. My pimples shone. My teeth jutted. My black eye bulged like a warning beacon. My entire body was slumped in under itself, trying not to be seen.
‘She’s upstairs,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
I entered the house. It smelt of lavender and air freshener and bleach. There was carpet underfoot. It was so springy it was like walking over freshly mown grass. The furniture was all brand new, and each piece matched perfectly. I had no idea furniture came like that. Our house was full of whatever mismatched pieces of junk we could get our hands on. Eliza’s house had style.
I walked in carefully, trying not to disturb the order. Eliza’s family smiled in their portraits, hung on the wall in perfect rows. Her father and mother stood behind her solemnly. They didn’t look very happy in those photos. Being clean and having money didn’t necessarily mean you had everything in life, I guess.
Past the household cleansers, I could smell something wonderful cooking. I suddenly realised I was hungry. I tried my best to ignore it, but my body was about to mount a military coup and take over for good. I broke out into a sweat. I was in a panic. I wrestled for control. If I lost, I knew my body would go feral and devour whatever it was in that kitchen like some mad animal. I wiped a little saliva from my mouth. Eliza’s mother looked at me curiously.
‘You have a nice place Mrs Robertson,’ I said in my best attempt to appear normal.
She suddenly looked self-conscious and glanced down to her feet. In that split-second, I swear I could see her nervous system pump adrenaline through her body. The flush was momentary but vivid; the slight redness in her cheeks, the sudden quick energy in her step, the elusive tightness in her throat were giveaways to the trained eye.
‘I’ll just get her for you,’ she croaked and backed away.
I wondered what I had done to offend her. Maybe I was drooling more than I thought. Eliza came down the stairs, her eyes wide in astonishment.
‘Monty? What are you doing here?’
I realised my visit wasn’t wanted. I had to leave but the front door suddenly looked far away. I stood there in no-man’s land, waiting to be shot down.
‘Why are you here, Monty?’
‘I just wanted to say sorry, for turning you into Tim Smith.’
‘Who the hell is Tim Smith?’
‘Exactly,’ I said.
She looked at me as if I was crazy. She was probably right, I thought. I couldn’t think of one good reason why I should be there.
‘Did anyone see you?’
She looked furtively out the window and peered up the street. There was nothing out there.
‘How long were you standing out there?’ she asked.
‘Dunno. What time is it?’
‘Nearly six.’
‘I came straight from school. I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘It could have been a few hours.’
She hissed angrily and checked the street again. I had gone too far, coming over and all. I went to leave but she held me back.
‘Wait. You’re here now. You might as well stay. At least until it gets dark.’
Eliza’s mother eavesdropped from the kitchen, pretending to fuss with the cooking. She was obviously keeping a close eye on developments and peered around the doorway to check on us. Mrs Robertson was a touch shorter than Eliza, her features more bird-like and pulled into an anxious, thin line. Little creases in the corners of her eyes betrayed a secret sense of humour, or perhaps she grew up in a really sunny place and was left with a permanent squint, or maybe her eyes were just half-closed to the world, fearful and suspicious. Eliza noticed her and pulled at my shirt. She led me upstairs towards her room. My heart raced. My breath quickened, as if I’d just run a marathon. In reality I’d only taken two steps but I was already out of air. I heard Eliza’s mother drop a spoon.
Eliza’s room was not what I expected. I didn’t really know what to expect, I guess, but I had imagined a few possibilities. One vision was bright pink with hundreds of teddy bears on the bed and a large mirror so wide it could reflect her perfect face from any angle in the room. Stupid I know but, to me, it was more like a childish, romantic dream. Another vision, one that I expected to be closer to the truth, had her room painted black with the walls plastered in posters from some underground industrial rock band.
In reality there was nothing. The walls were painted dull beige, just like the rest of the house. There were no teddy bears, no posters; nothing to give the impression this was a teenager’s room at all. The closest thing it resembled, I guess, was a hotel room. It was devoid of personality. That really threw me. Even my own room had certain objects that would give away something about me: science magazines, old toys, drawings I did when I was a kid. Eliza’s room had nothing. It was barren and cold.
‘Sit down,’ she ordered.
I obeyed and sat on the end of her bed. This was the bed she slept in. The bed she disappeared in
to dream. My hand felt the sheets, in some vague attempt to touch those thoughts.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘The eye? Yeah, a bit,’ I admitted.
She smiled. That wasn’t a smile containing pity, or empathy. She enjoyed the idea that I was in pain. She moved to a small ensuite off the bedroom and wet a face washer. She returned to sit beside me and wet my face with it, soothing that puffy dark bruise. My greasy hair fell down in front of my eyes a little and she had to push it aside to complete the task.
‘Who cuts your hair, your mother?’
‘Me actually,’ I admitted, feeling like a total idiot.
I had cut my own hair for a long time. I’d sit in front of the bathroom mirror with a pair of scissors. It wasn’t easy but I thought I was pretty skilled at it. When I was little, my mother used to take me to a barber at the local shops. Later, she tried to save money and cut my hair herself. I couldn’t stand it: she’d always manage to burn me with her cigarettes, dropping hot ash onto my scalp. I remember hiding from her whenever she threatened me with a pair of scissors. Finally she gave up. After a few months of my hair growing wild, I took to tidying it up myself. It took a while to get used to moving your hands in reverse in the mirror. The back of your head is the hardest part to cut. I used a small hand mirror like a periscope to peer around the back. It was a disconcerting feeling, to look at the back of your own head. If you looked long enough, it began to look like the head of a completely different person.
‘Who’s in there?’ I’d ask.
‘You are,’ said the head.
‘Oh. How do you like your haircut?’
‘Could be better,’ said the head. ‘Don’t think I’m going to pay!’
Eliza touched my hair and flinched in disgust. She stared at me with contempt. I think she was simultaneously repelled, and compelled, to look at me. I was like some horrible car crash. You couldn’t look away, no matter how horrible the scene.
The Hounded Page 5