Artoo Dogtoo looked pleadingly at Ben, the battle-of-wills in progress again, until Artoo dropped the sock with a little disappointed whine, then spun around in a couple of tight circles and lay down next to it.
“Good boy,” Ben said.
“Uuuuumm – maybe we should speak to Maggie about all this?” I said. “Tell her the theory?”
“Maggie’s just got her head in the sand about everything,” Ben said. “Like, I love her, she’s good to me – she’s good to us all – but it’s like she’s just carrying on as normal, and the place is slowly going bust. You’ve seen the bills that come in – that’s been going on for as long as I’ve been there, and before that as well, I’m sure. The bailiff today – that’s a scary new development. She created the place, she set it all up, and it’s like she’s oblivious to how serious this stuff is.”
“Sometimes … I think it’s sometimes hard to face the truth.”
Ben looked at me.
“And so, it’s easier just to carry on like always, and kind of ignore it,” I continued.
“Like, if you don’t acknowledge it, it’s not real,” he said, looking down at his trainers.
“Something like that.”
I watched him, and then he looked back up at me, and honest to god, I thought we were going to kiss.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Are you shivering again?”
“Huh. Guess so. Maybe I’m cold.” In July. When it’s still twenty-three degrees outside. But yeah, I told him I was cold.
“Maybe you’ve caught something? From being wet in the sea?”
“Oh, no, I feel fine,” I said, not wanting him to think, in the infinitesimal chance he was planning on kissing me, that he’d catch anything.
Ben nodded and shifted back over to the beanbag, clearly not taking any chances. “Maybe,” he said, flopping back down on to it, “we should do more to help Maggie turn things around. I know we’re only part-time and temporary, but don’t we owe her that at least?” He sighed. “If she set the place up in memory of her son, and she lost it, it’d destroy her. I know it would. Like when I thought we were going to lose our house.”
I looked at him, open-mouthed. “Are you going to lose your house?”
Ben shook his head. “Hopefully not. But the house is Mum, you know? It’s not much, but she loved it. Memories, all that stuff. Dad fell a bit behind on the mortgage after she … and, well, it’s OK, it’s kind of why I’m doing as many hours as I can, to help out a bit. All I’m saying is, I know it’s only bricks and mortar, but sometimes places and things are just as important as flesh and blood. So, I think we should help Maggie. Who else has she got?”
I nodded. “So, what like?”
“I dunno, we can think of things, surely? Little ways to increase revenue for the place, get more punters in, make them stay longer.” He shifted position on the beanbag. “Like, the bingo, for example. That’s usually attended by just two people at the moment. If we could reinvent it somehow, do something with it that captures people’s imaginations, it might draw them in.”
I pointed at him, and his eyes lit up, expectant. “Themed bingo,” I said.
“Exactly!” he said. “But what theme?”
“Cowboys! Disney! Ahhh!” I gasped, “Gay bingo!”
A little smile crept over Ben’s face. “Okaaaay…”
“So, maybe we do special gay-themed bingo calls?” I said.
Ben smiled. “Come on then, Alex,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Two cute twinks – sixty-nine!”
I admit, I wish I hadn’t gone right in with something sexual and suggestive.
Ben burst out laughing.
“A twink is a kinda boyish-looking gay guy,” I said. “It’s just a joke.”
“I know,” Ben said. He was staring right at me.
“There are others, they don’t all have to be about sex.”
“Sex is kinda fun, though.”
“Huh,” I said. “Yeah.”
So at that point we sat in silence for what felt like hours, and I seriously didn’t know if I was imagining him flirting with me, or if this was actually happening. Or maybe it was all my fault for mentioning “69” where I should just have used something else completely stereotypical that gay guys might get up to or like – interior design, or musical theatre, for example.
Artoo Dogtoo made a little grunt and rolled over on to his back, paws in the air.
“I think we should make a list,” Ben said, reaching over and tickling Artoo’s tummy. “Brainstorm ideas – we can chat to Efia too, maybe get Eve on board with her tarot stuff, and present it all to Maggie next week.”
“Good, I agree,” I said, although I would have said the same thing if he’d suggested sitting here debating the use of literary devices in Macbeth – anything to spend time with him, basically.
“I didn’t know about Comic Con happening in London,” Ben said, looking up from his tickling, as I took some paper and pens from my desk for us to make notes with.
“Oh, yeah, end of August.”
“Do you want to go, then?”
I looked at him, and tried not to drop the pens in some rom-com-worthy moment that awkwardly revealed my innermost thoughts and utter shock.
“Since it’s not Caleb’s thing,” he continued.
I nodded. “Very much I’d like would that great be yes.” I opened my mouth again, but no further words came out. OK, good.
Ben smiled. Argh, dimples. Argh, god, this was too much, too much, too much. “Cool,” he said.
“Cool. So cool.” I swallowed. “Comic Con.” I did the American movie trailer voice again when I said “Comic Con”.
“It’s a date.”
I dropped the pens.
“Aaaand,” he said, going back to stroking Artoo’s belly, “talking of dates, we mustn’t forget we need to fix you up with Caleb – if he’s into guys. So we have to find that out. It’s criminal for a guy like you to be single, especially over the long summer break – think of all the fun you could be having.”
He looked up and winked at me.
And all at once I just wanted to scream and cry.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
So, it turned out I was sick. The next morning I was shivering and wrapped up in my duvet with aching eyes and limbs. Kendra brought me what was billed as a “miracle health drink” containing lemon, ginger, Manuka honey and turmeric. It was fully gross and had zero effect. By the afternoon, Kendra was claiming my illness was “all in my head” or certainly “being made a meal of” because I couldn’t hack two days in the workplace. The following day, she absolved herself of all responsibility towards me and told Dad that he’d have to take a day off work because I was being too demanding. Point of note: I had literally only asked for a throat lozenge. Anyway, in the meantime, Ben, Efia and Eve had set up a group chat with me and we had been busy discussing options to present to Maggie in our “Save Wonderland” scheme. It had started quite well:
BEN: Revamp the Museum of Curiosities?
ALEX: Hard YES.
EFIA: Eww.
ALEX: ??
EFIA: Stop talking about being hard.
But soon became a little more complex:
EFIA: Gay bingo? Why not LGBTQ+ bingo?
BEN: Good point.
EFIA: What about other marginalized people?
EVE: Straight people like bingo too.
And eventually entered the realm of the ridiculous:
BEN: Pin the tail on the donkey.
EVE: No to animal cruelty.
BEN: Pin the tail on the Eve.
EFIA: Snail racing.
BEN: Guess the length of Alex’s…
EFIA: BEN!
ALEX: omg
BEN: Arm. What?
By the Thursday I was back and feeling much better. And we were ready to hit Maggie with all our brilliant plans.
“OK,” Ben said as we stopped just outside the door to the office. “So, the key points are: it won’t cos
t much, but the return on investment will be worth it.”
I nodded. I wasn’t entirely convinced that Maggie operated under the same set of principles as most other business people – why would you even bother going to the expense of running bingo when only two players ever turn up? (And one on the days when Barbara has to be at the foot clinic.)
“And I had another idea,” Ben said. “Free drinks.”
I frowned at him. “Really?”
“It’s what all the Las Vegas casinos do: keep the drinks flowing, whatever you like, so you stay there – and spend your money.” He clocked my doubtful face. “I’m only talking free sodas – the crappy post-mix stuff. It costs pennies anyway.”
“She’ll never go for it,” I said.
“Bet?”
I shrugged. “Sure, I’ll bet you. How much?”
Ben’s eyes lit up. “Pizza at that new pizza place that’s opened. I win, you pay. You win, I pay.”
“OK.” I played it cool, but I was already the winner because either way, I’d be having pizza with Ben – and that was a row of gold bars and the jackpot right there.
Ben smiled and knocked on the office door, then since it was ajar anyway, pushed it open. “What the hell?” he said, crossing his arms.
I peered around his shoulder and saw the kid who licked the machines by the desk, shifty as hell, and quite obviously caught red-handed. “Can’t you read?” Ben said, pointing to the “Private” sign on the door.
“No,” said the kid. “Door was open.”
Ben stared at him.
“Didn’t nick nothing,” the kid continued, making to push past Ben.
Ben stopped him. “Empty your pockets.”
“Can’t make me do that,” the kid said. “Get out of my way.”
“Empty them or you’ll be barred.”
The kid laughed. “Yeah? Gonna bar one of the few customers this skanky place has left?”
The kid’s eyes seemed to twinkle. I glanced at Ben, checking if he’d clocked what the kid had said and made the connection to the second note.
“Maggie will bar you,” Ben insisted.
“Doubt it,” the kid sniffed. He patted Ben gently on his cheek. “Be a good lad and step aside now – don’t want things to get nasty.”
I was getting nervous. Yes, the kid was younger, but he had a really nasty streak, you could see it in his tired, hollow eyes that exuded pain and hate. He was shorter than both of us, and skinnier, yet his confident swagger suggested he wasn’t scared – he knew he could take us on, if he had to. I’d known a few boys like him at school, and they usually have nothing to lose, so they don’t hold back.
“Billy, why are you in here?”
I turned, and breathed a silent sigh of relief as Maggie pushed past me and into the office. Even at my age, it’s nice when an adult arrives to calm a situation down.
“Just lookin’,” Billy smiled, revealing a set of teeth I was surprised hadn’t all been knocked out.
“Empty your pockets,” Maggie said. “NOW.”
Billy rolled his eyes and removed a stapler from the pocket of his trackie bottoms.
“What you doing with that?” Maggie asked.
Billy shrugged. “Reckon you owe me something, the amount of cash I’ve wasted in here.”
“Right,” Maggie said, “get out of it, and this office is private, so if I catch you here again, you’re for it, mate. Final warning.”
Billy pushed past us all, back into the main room.
Maggie sighed. “Yes, boys?”
“You should lock the office,” Ben said.
“Nothing worth nicking, Ben,” Maggie replied.
“Maggie,” Ben said, pulling me inside the office and closing the door, “those notes we’ve been receiving? The threatening ones? The second one mentioned that we’re doing badly with getting customers in. Have you thought how they know that?”
“Because it’s true?” Maggie said.
“So they must know this place well then?” Ben said. “Maybe they come here. Maybe they work here?”
Maggie openly laughed at him. “I think that’s a huge leap to make, Ben. And anyway, there haven’t been any more notes, not for a week now. Whoever it was must have got bored.”
Ben sighed and looked down at the floor.
“But I’m loving the Nancy Drew vibe, boys,” Maggie smiled, as Efia walked in.
“Ooh, is there a mystery?” Efia said. “Is it the mystery of Ben’s missing girlfriend?”
“She’s not missing,” Ben replied.
“The mystery is why you’re all in my office and not working,” Maggie said, sitting down behind her desk.
At which point, Ben launched straight in with his pitch. And, let me tell you, Ben was really, really good at this pitching business. I’d gone through all our shortlisted ideas with him the previous night, but now, hearing them out loud, as presented by Ben, they weren’t just ideas any more – they were bloody brilliant amazing solutions to all the problems at Wonderland.
“…And the pièce de résistance,” Ben said, “will be transforming the Museum of Curiosities into…” He swept his hands out in front of him, painting the words in the air. “The Roswell Experience.”
A flicker of interest passed over Maggie’s face. “What’s that, then?”
“That,” Ben said, “will be an opportunity to see up close and personal, some of the embalmed bodies of the aliens that crash-landed at Roswell, the existence of which was covered up by the CIA, but that we’ve managed to get hold of and display for your horror and pleasure, here today, thanks to a rogue agent, or something like that.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows.
“We back all this up with a social media campaign, getting the word out there, and watch the customers flow in. We’re not even on any of the social media sites yet – but we’re gonna remedy that.”
“There’s a Wonderland MySpace account,” Maggie said sniffily.
Efia screwed her face up. “Wow.”
Ben turned to me and I unfolded my bit of script and read out my lines: “With these ideas, we’re tapping into multiple markets – conspiracy theorists and UFO enthusiasts with the Roswell Experience, hipsters with the retro gaming and dairy-free coffee offering, those interested in otherworldly spirits with Eve’s tarot readings—”
“How much will it cost me?” Maggie interrupted.
“I haven’t …”
“Minimal outlay,” Ben said.
“… finished,” I muttered, folding my script away again, it becoming apparent no one cared.
“In fact, the Roswell Experience can pretty much be set up with things we have now, plus a few child-sized dummies from a clothes shop,” Ben continued.
We all turned to look at Maggie, who was staring into the middle distance, absent-mindedly flipping a paperclip between her fingers. And then I glanced at Ben, who had this look in his eyes, like a kid on Christmas morning, just hoping for that one present he really wants.
Maggie finally took a long suck on her electric cigarette. “Well…” She blew out a plume of steam. “Spend any more than three hundred pounds and you’ll be responsible for the remainder.”
Ben’s eyes widened. “Is that a—”
Maggie nodded. “Give it a try, why not?”
“Boom!” Ben shouted, punching the air, then slapping my back.
“Plus, it’ll be one in the eye for Carl Hudson and his manky pier.” She gave us a quick smile, then turned deadly serious. “Screw it up and you’re all fired. When can we relaunch by?”
“Two weeks?” Ben said.
Maggie nodded. “Done. Now get out of here.”
Ben grinned, moved to the door, then quickly turned back. “Oh, one last thing – free drinks—”
“No.”
“But—”
“Absolutely no way, Ben,” Maggie said. “This is Wonderland, not Caesars Palace.”
“But—”
“Out!” Maggie insisted.
She
shooed us out the door, shutting it behind us.
“Huh. Pizza is on me, then,” Ben said, sheepishly.
I smiled at him. “I think, since you did such a great job, we could agree to split it.”
Efia’s eyes were gleaming. “Are you two…”
Ben shook his head. “Just a lads’ pizza night.”
“Brilliant!” she practically squealed. “I mean, ah, lads’ pizza night, that’s great. Nice to have some boy time, just the boys. Good idea!” She looked like she might explode with excitement. It was kind of sweet. “Bex! That’s your ship name. Huh? What? I didn’t say anything.”
Ben and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes at the exact same time. But the truth was, I loved Efia right then. I loved her and her totally brilliant ship name for me and this lovely boy who I could never be with because he wasn’t gay and had a girlfriend.
Ben had written a sign (he seemed to be fond of signs), which read “Closed for Redevelopment – New Attraction Coming Soon!” and taped it to the door of the now cordoned-off Museum of Curiosities, and Efia and I sat on the floor while Ben described the vision for the place. The first room was to be an exhibition, featuring photos of the alleged Roswell incident, some dubious artefacts, like bits of an actual UFO (the plan for which was to find some likely-looking scrap metal), and a short film, which Ben was going to edit together on his laptop, which purported to show the aliens undergoing an autopsy. Like all conspiracy theory “evidence”, this would all be suitably grainy and hard to verify, and any bits he didn’t have, or couldn’t get online, would just have a screen which would read “Redacted – Top Secret Confidential, By Order of the CIA” or words to that effect. Visitors would then be invited one by one into what was previously the “gorilla room”, which was now the alien autopsy room, where they would encounter a dead alien on a medical table, it’s stomach cavity opened up and its guts on display.
“And here’s the great part,” Ben grinned. “Hiding underneath the table is one of us, and just as the punter leans over to get a good look at the alien guts, we thrust our hand up through the secret hole in the table, up through the alien and out of the guts – like that scene in the film!”
Alex in Wonderland Page 11