“Not nasty,” I said, “or they wouldn’t want you to be there. It’s probably boring.” I wanted to get him to say he didn’t want to come and then I could tell Mum and Dad that I’d tried, and that would be that. But he didn’t. He said he’d once had a toastie sandwich in Lampwick’s and he wouldn’t mind one again. He went to the house to tell his mum he’d be out for lunch.
Timmy loved Lampwick’s. He loved it because of the sheds. That was funny because at home he took no interest in Don’s shed at all, and he hadn’t been interested in our other shed, either—before we moved. But maybe it wasn’t so funny. The sheds at Lampwick’s were something else.
At Lampwick’s, yes, there were toolsheds and potting sheds, storage sheds and mower sheds and sheds to keep your bikes in. But also there were summerhouses—playhouses and Wendy houses—even a gingerbread house, painted with giant gummy diamonds for roof tiles and rows of giant sponge fingers for walls.
I used to like all that, too. When I was little—and Timmy was littler—we’d always beg Mum and Dad to go to the shed section first of all. And they’d always say no, we could only go after we’d traipsed round the boring stuff. Sections like Compost and Tools and Pest Control. When we finally got to Sheds, we’d be in such a state, we’d race up and down the rows (we called them streets) dashing in and out of different doors, as if we were doing a house-to-house search. And we’d choose our favorites. Some had real little staircases, leading to real upper floors; some had verandas; some, window boxes planted with plastic flowers.
Oh, I used to love Lampwick’s. Not anymore, though: I’d outgrown it. And outgrown it, apparently, without Mum and Dad noticing.
Because today, as soon as we’d parked, Mum said, “Right, then!” and led us to Sheds straightaway, which was unheard of. I think she expected us all to be excited. Only one of us actually was.
Timmy began trying doors at once. I stuck my hands in my pockets and shuffled along behind Mum and Dad. I didn’t dare look at Bogsy. I could hear Dad asking him what his favorite subjects were at school.
We wound up in front of a largish structure called “Shed ’n’ Playhouse under One Roof.” Dad called Timmy to come, and he emerged from Little Red Riding Hood’s cottage and joined us.
“What d’you think of this one?” said Dad.
“Quite nice,” said Timmy. “But Little Red Riding Hood’s is better. It’s got curtains inside.”
“You haven’t even looked inside this one,” said Dad. “Go on. Go in and see.”
The Shed ’n’ Playhouse under One Roof was divided into two. Half was clearly a normal shed with a normal window and door; half had a child-sized door and a heart-shaped window with bright red shutters. Timmy went into this half. Even he could only just get through the door without stooping. He closed it behind him.
We waited in silence a while, then, “Go and see what he’s up to, Alex,” said Mum.
I stepped forward and peered through the window. Timmy was sitting on a small wooden chair, at a small wooden table, talking to a brown teddy bear sitting opposite him.
“He’s playing bears,” I said. “There’s a bear in there.”
“Good. Very good,” said Dad, rubbing his hands. “Timmy! Come out now! We’ve got something to say! Something to bring a smile to the faces of all you shed connoisseurs!”
Timmy came out with the bear in his arms.
“Guess what!” said Dad, all excited. “No, you’d never guess!” He raised his eyebrows. “Mum and I have decided to buy this! Have it delivered and set up in the garden. How about that? We’ll keep gardening stuff in the shed half and the other half will be yours, to do with as you like. What do you think?”
I heard a choking sound behind me. Bogsy was trying not to laugh.
Mum said that if we felt heart-shaped shutters were over the top, they could be removed.
Timmy started to say that he still thought Little Red Riding Hood’s cottage was best, but Mum cut him off: “The bear comes with it,” she said quickly. “The bear will be yours.”
“Really?” gasped Timmy. “Does she, really?” He said no more.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Have I got this right? You two have the grown-ups’ bit, Timmy has the playhouse, and I get Don’s shed to myself?”
“Not quite. You and Timmy share your half … ” said Mum.
“If you can fit in!” said Bogsy.
She flashed him a look. “You’ll find it’s quite spacious inside. Anyway, now you two big boys have interests elsewhere, and David’s shed … ”
“So who gets Don’s?”
“The new shed is going where Don’s shed is now.”
“But you can’t move Don’s shed!” I exclaimed. Why were they being so stupid? “It’s made of bricks. It would fall apart.”
“Alex, it’s falling apart already,” said Mum. “Haven’t you noticed? There’s some sort of infestation in the walls—a creature that gnaws the mortar. Maisie’s son told us about it. It isn’t active during the winter, but it’ll be back.”
The nibbler, yes. Donald’s mason bee. He had started to tell me about it, too, that first time I met him. Suddenly I remembered his voice being drowned out by Maisie’s strange coughing. He’d been starting to tell me about Mum’s big idea.
I knew what the idea was now. Why Maisie had stopped Donald going any further. Mum had stopped herself on the very same subject when I interrupted her talking to Dad in the kitchen that time.
“Let’s get rid of the creature, then!” I could hear my voice rising. It seemed like years ago that I’d thought of the nibbler as my friend.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that now,” said Mum. “The brickwork’s in a terrible state.”
“Well, repair it!” I shouted, not caring that Bogsy would see me getting upset. “That’s easy. Get someone to come and fill in the holes.”
“Alex, Alex, calm down. If that were practical, yes, we would. But your dad and I believe the simplest solution is to start again from scratch.” She glanced toward the stupid Shed ’n’ Playhouse.
I tried very hard to calm down. “Mum, don’t buy it yet. Please. I’ll fix Don’s shed, if you give me a chance. I’ll do it! I will!”
“How will you?” Mum said gently. “Be realistic, Alex. You wouldn’t know where to begin.”
True. I wouldn’t. But somebody would. Right now he was staring uncomfortably off toward the restaurant area, embarrassed by the scene unfolding around him.
If only his dad hadn’t left, there’d be no problem; Don’s shed would have been a nice job for them both. Now I’d have to try to persuade him to help me on his own. I probably could, though. When we’d finished the wings, we’d be looking around for the next thing to do.
“They used to do toasties here,” said Bogsy to nobody in particular. “Do they still? I fancy a toastie.”
They did do toasties. All of us had one, not just him. Mum and Dad didn’t buy the Shed ’n’ Playhouse, either. They might have been planning to, after lunch, only Timmy felt ill, so we went straight home. He felt ill because they’d let him have this massive slice of chocolate cake. They’d offered a slice to me—and Bogsy—or a doughnut or anything we wanted. But I wouldn’t be bought off: I had an apple. (Bogsy had an apple, too, but only because he liked them.) I knew if I didn’t waver, then Mum and Dad would give me a chance. Although they often didn’t get the point, they weren’t unfair. When we’d finished work on the wings, I’d speak to Bogsy.
Bogsy was not only proud, he was also a very secretive person. Over that week, we had a great time, but still there were things I was not allowed to know. I knew that the Icarus Show was coming. November 2 was next Monday: that soon. I knew that Bogsy was going to fly, though I didn’t know where.
Maisie was still against it, but seemed more relaxed than she’d been before. It would all be all right in the end, she said, now Bogsy and me were friends.
But were we? He still wouldn’t tell me the plan.
Also, there was a
secret in the freezer.
The wings were in the freezer, of course, one on top of the other, but they were our secret. We shared them. I mean there was something else, a secret Bogsy was keeping from me. I knew this because every time we brought out wing number two to work on, I noticed it seemed higher up than before. We no longer had to reach in so far to get it.
“What’s down there?” I said to Bogsy. “What’s under that one”—I pointed to wing number one—“right at the bottom?”
“Not much,” he said.
Having let me in on such a lot, perhaps he’d had to come up with something else he could keep hidden. Old habits die hard.
Although I spent most of my time next door, I realized, as the week went on, that Timmy was getting excited. He kept going out to the shops with his friends and coming back with plastic axes and severed fingers and tubes of fake blood. Mum looked alarmed at the blood and said did he realize it wouldn’t wash out? He was only—only—to use it in the kitchen. She herself had bought a big bag of chocolate spiders, which she put at the ready, beside the front door.
Halloween was on Saturday. In the morning, Timmy carved a pumpkin (badly) and put it outside to show we were happy to join in the fun. There was no pumpkin outside the Marshes’, though Bogsy, I thought, would have carved a good one.
I didn’t go round to The Laurels; I went round his, to work on wing number two, instead. And when I got there, even he seemed excited. I thought it was because we were so near the end.
“Will we finish today?” I said.
“Easy!” He actually clapped his hands, just once, which he’d never done before.
“You should stick some green feathers on this one, then. You know, to match the ones on the other. You haven’t put any on this one, so far.”
“None left,” said Bogsy.
“Yes, there are,” I said. I picked up the duster which had been tossed into a corner. A lot of the feathers had gone by now—and, yes, all the green ones. He was right.
“That’s funny,” I said. “I could have sworn … ”
But Bogsy wasn’t listening.
“When I’ve finished, I’ll do the harness,” he said, and clapped his hands again.
The very last feather was gray, like the first one I’d found in my bag, going home on the bus, that long-ago day.
“Dummy,” said Bogsy later. “You!” and just for a moment, I felt insulted. Then I realized he meant a tailor’s dummy, or one of those life-sized figures you see in shop windows, modeling clothes. He got me to put on an old rucksack frame and do up the buckle over my chest. Then he offered up the newly finished wing and I had to hold it against my arm. It felt light and scratchy.
And then he was fiddling about with bits of string and a pair of scissors. He even had a needle and thread, which he seemed quite good with. He sewed on a wristband and two wider straps, above and below my elbow. He stood at my shoulder and prodded and stitched and pulled. He was sewing me in as I stood there, stitching me up. And when he drew back, the wing was attached to my arm in three separate places and—up by my shoulder—to the rucksack frame. It hurt me, where the straps bit in, but I didn’t mind. It was like a dream. I didn’t dare speak. All I could do to express my feelings was wiggle my fingers.
He noticed at once.
“Handholds!” he said, and got to work again with his needle and thread. He sewed on an old dog collar for me to grip.
And then he repeated it all with the other wing, fixing it onto the opposite side. It was lucky they were so light because the whole operation took ages. Each time a thread broke or a knot came undone, he grunted, went back, and redid that bit. But at last he stepped away and said, “There!”
I was Bird Boy. At least, I was proof that Bird Boy’s time had nearly come.
He told me to bend my arms, and I found that the wings were jointed in just the right places. (They pinched a bit, but nothing too bad.) He told me to flap them—slowly—to test the strength of his stitching. “Don’t worry, you won’t fly away!” he said. “Just mind you don’t break them.”
And so, nervously at first, I started to move my arms up and down. There was hardly room in the shed to stretch them out. When I did, the tip of the wing on the right brushed the painted suns on the wall. But the stitching was strong and, although the wristbands slipped slightly, I tightened my grip on the handholds, so that was okay. I could feel real air resistance and wondered if birds feel something similar (only a thousand times more) when they fly.
Bogsy was triumphant. “Perfect!” he said.
But I wouldn’t have said so.
Don’t worry, you won’t fly away seemed an odd reassurance. Don’t worry, you will fly away, more like! But Bogsy was right, though the wings were great, they’d need to be a thousand—no, a million—times more powerful before they’d lift someone off the ground. I was a boy, not a bird, and although I was skinny, I’d never been so aware of my weight.
Had he overlooked something? No, he was far too clever. He had a plan. And if he wasn’t revealing it, well, never mind. I already knew the most important thing: that it would work.
“Throw yourself forward,” said Bogsy, “as hard as you can.”
With one hand, he’d grasped the strap that went over my back; with the other, he had a hold of the door frame. He braced himself.
“Try to break free! Go on, use all your strength!”
I lunged, but was held in check by the harness—that and Bogsy’s restraining hand. Nothing snapped, nothing gave.
“Good to go!” he said.
Those were the tests he ran. That was how he satisfied himself that the wings were ready.
When I got home it was dark and Timmy had lit our pumpkin and gone. He’d left the contents of the dressing-up box all over the kitchen floor. He’d gone with his trick-or-treat friends—and Dad. Dad’s job would be to hover, so people knew someone responsible was in charge. That’s what dads did. That way, no one got scared (neither the people who opened their doors, nor the trick-or-treaters themselves). I could hardly remember a time in my life when Halloween had been scary.
So when someone rang our bell, it wasn’t exciting, just the first in what I guessed would be a long series of tedious interruptions.
“Get that, will you?” called Mum. She was trying to tidy up the kitchen. “Don’t let them go before I get there!”
I opened the door, resolving to be unavailable next time she asked.
“Trick or treat!” chorused two small ghosts, a witch, and a little tiny zombie.
Mum bustled up. She loved this kind of thing.
“Ooh, how frightening!” she said. She hugged herself and shivered.
In the background, I saw Mr. Tanner from over the road.
“Don’t worry, it’s only me, Mrs. Meadows!” came little John Tanner’s voice then, and up went the zombie mask and there he was.
“Well, thank goodness for that!” beamed Mum and handed round spiders.
The next time the bell went, I was watching TV and said, “Sorry, I can’t, I’m busy!” when she asked me to get it. By the third time, she didn’t even ask, but hurried straight into the hall to get it herself.
She was having a ball. At each visit, she gasped in fear, then amazement and, ultimately, relief. I only hoped she’d bought enough chocolate to last the night.
Because callers kept on coming. Here was another ring on the bell. I started unwrapping a spider I’d found dropped down the side of the sofa. It was only the foil that made it a spider; inside it was just a smooth chocolate ball that could have been anything. At Christmas they probably wrapped them in red, to look like Rudolph’s nose. Typical, I thought, and popped the chocolate into my mouth.
And that’s when Mum screamed. It wasn’t a long or a loud scream, but I could tell it wasn’t put on. It was real.
“Alex, come here a sec, would you,” she called, trying to sound as if it was nothing, but not succeeding.
There was only one caller, not a group. And no r
eassuring dad in the background. It wasn’t a little kid, either: The figure at the door was as tall as me.
I knew who it was straightaway. He was wearing the wings.
But the wings hung down at his sides and weren’t what you noticed.
It was the mask.
No wonder Mum was frightened.
The head of a bird, with a huge, hooked beak and bulging, vengeful eyes. In secret, he’d made something monstrous. A bunch of green feathers stuck up from the top.
“Who is it?” said Mum, though whether to him or to me wasn’t clear.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I know who it is.”
And the bird said, “You coming?” His voice was muffled but echoey, too.
“I don’t think Alex … ” Mum said weakly. “Here, let me give you a chocolate spider.”
While she was fiddling with the bag, I nipped back down the hall to the kitchen. She hadn’t gotten far with the tidying job. I grabbed up a Frankenstein mask from the floor, then nipped back. “I’ll be fine!” I said, slipping past her to join the figure on the step.
Poor Mum—she’d had such a good evening, till now. “Don’t be long!” she told me, but she must have known I’d be just as long as I liked.
“Don’t worry!” I said.
As we went down the path, “Get your bike!” said Bogsy in his new bird voice.
“We don’t need bikes.”
“We might,” he said, and I saw he’d gotten his, propped up by the gate.
So I went round the side of the house to fetch mine and, when I came back, he was already ringing the bell at the Tanners’ front door. It was too late for me to go with him.
I saw the door open; I heard Mrs. Tanner scream, just like Mum. Then I heard the door slam.
He came back and got his bike. “She shut the door.”
“Of course she did!” I said. “She was frightened. You should have waited for me!”
We wheeled our bikes up the road till we came to the next lit jack-o’-lantern. Old Mrs. Chittenden’s house. She’d had her grandchildren for half-term.
The Icarus Show Page 10