Alex in Wonderland

by Simon James Green

  “Sorry, Kem.”

  “And I’m talking to one right now!”

  I smiled at him. “Flirt.”

  Kem tutted and rolled his eyes. “Flirt.”

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Bella bounded up to me. “I’ve been looking for you!”

  “I had stuff.” I hadn’t, I’d just been keeping out of the way all morning because I didn’t know what Ben would have made of my little sandwiches gift. I only wanted to cheer him up, and let him know someone was thinking of him, but it’s possible he might have seen it differently.

  Bella smiled. “Why don’t you come and see what we’ve done to the Roswell Experience?”

  “Where’s Ben?”

  “He’s in there, with Efia. He’s just getting the lighting right in the alien lab section. Thinks it’ll be better if it’s a bit darker.”

  I sighed and glanced over towards a couple of kids pointlessly trying to win a toy from one of the claw machines.

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your thoughts,” Bella continued. “Plus, I’ve bought a twelve pack of Krispy Kreme, in case you need any more persuading.”

  “Do it!” Kem said, jabbing his palm on the “nudge” button. “Krispy Kreme? Why you even hesitating?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, OK then. Um… Is he OK?”

  Bella nodded and lightly touched my forearm. “Yeah. He had a little wobble yesterday, just couldn’t face anyone, but he’s OK.”

  I exhaled. “Good.”

  “Are you all right, Alex?” she asked.

  I nodded, grimly. There was too much on my mind to really be OK. And it wasn’t just The Ben Issue – it was the identity of the person with the vendetta against us, and the nagging fear of those damn tarot cards. In the sense that I was imminently about to be stabbed in the back and be hanged, yes I was OK.

  She led me through into the exhibition room, which I had to admit did look pretty cool. A projector had been rigged up at the far end and was playing the film Ben had made, and there were some benches for people to sit on and watch. Along the other wall, there were big photos of the supposed UFO crash site, along with “copies” of classified documents, with certain lines blacked out. In the middle of the room, a piece of twisted metal was displayed on a wooden pedestal, with a sign telling visitors it was an actual bit of UFO. Only those of us “in the know” would recognize the tailgate of a Renault Clio.

  It was looking really good, but when Bella opened the door into the “lab” it actually took my breath away. Dry ice billowed over the floor and green lighting illuminated a solid stainless steel plinth in the centre of the room, with a cordon around it made from biohazard tape. And on the table was the alien. And my god, it did look like it could be real. The thick, leathery skin I knew to be made from condoms, split open and stretched over the plastic moulding of the mannequin, and painted grey – simple, but really effective. But that was nothing compared to the intestines that were proudly on display – red and bloody, and completely gross. I leaned forward to get a better look at our handiwork, and BAM! A mound of gore burst straight out at me, blood shooting in the other direction.

  OK, I knew it was coming, sort of, but I screamed.

  Bella laughed.

  “Shit!”

  Efia emerged, laughing, from under the table, pulling off a long rubber glove that was adorned with bulging lesions and bulbous growths. “We got you good, Alex!” she said. “Did you wee yourself a bit?”

  “Goddam, nearly,” I said.

  Ben walked out of the shadows. “Reckon we’re good to open, then.”

  “It’s really good, Ben. Really excellent—” I attempted to catch my breath. Wow, he looked cute. Aside from his uniform yellow polo shirt, he was wearing grey jersey shorts and was just in his white socks, for some reason, no trainers. “I really—”

  Ben nodded, flicking his eyes shyly down to the floor. “Well, team effort.”

  He glanced back up at me, but quickly looked away again when he caught my eye.

  “We’re gonna need extra condoms,” Efia said. “The guts keep splitting when I thrust my hand through them.”

  “No worries, I’ve got some,” Bella said. “And I can go and buy some more.”

  I watched as Ben raised an eyebrow at her. Did he smirk a bit too?

  “Stop it!” Bella said, clocking Ben’s face and smacking him on his bottom.

  “Didn’t say a thing!” Ben chirped.

  I glanced at Efia. “Well, I should… Maggie wanted me to clean the Mirror Maze.”

  The door to the lab pushed open and I gasped as Caleb poked his head round. I really can’t deal with seeing people out of their usual context. I screamed when I once saw Ms Willow, my English teacher, rounding the dairy aisle in the supermarket, for example. Like, why the hell wasn’t she at school? Why was the natural order of things in such disarray? “Knock, knock,” Caleb said. “Oh … wow. This is cool.”

  “We’re not open yet,” Ben told him.

  “Yeah, no, I know, sorry to barge in.” Caleb nodded. “That guy at the prize booth told me you were all in here, and I just wanted to give you all one of these…” He held a bunch of flyers out. “Aqua-cadabra!”

  We all looked blank.

  “That’s … what they’re calling it this year. It’s the end-of-season pool party at Splash Down! My mate works there and he asked me to spread the word. There’s a DJ and all-you-can-eat street food in with the ticket price, and they’re opening all the rides this year too, so it’ll be like a private party for all the summer season workers in Newsands. It’s gonna be … moist.”

  “How appealing,” Efia said.

  Caleb grinned as he handed each of us a flyer. “Does that guy in the booth offer weed to everyone who comes in?”

  Efia rolled her eyes. “Pretty much.”

  Caleb handed me a flyer. “Hey, Alex. You gonna come along?”

  “I dunno.” I shrugged. “Pools make me nervous. As you know, I can’t really swim.”

  “I can teach you,” Caleb smiled.

  I stared at him for slightly too long as I tried to work out if that was a good idea or not.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. “What part of that was tricky to understand?”

  “Oh, no, none of it, that’s great,” I said quickly.

  “I got a membership at the leisure centre, so we can go sometime,” he said.

  I nodded. I really didn’t need to embarrass myself in front of a load of other people from the town. And the idea of being in a pool made me so anxious, even the smell of chlorine made me feel sick.

  Ben crossed his arms. “I used to be a lifeguard there for a bit.”

  “Oh right?” Caleb said. “Small world, I guess.”

  Ben nodded. “I guess so. How much are Splash Down! tickets this year then?”

  “Twenty quid.”

  Ben whistled.

  “But,” Caleb said, “everyone’s gonna be there, and you guys know it’ll be the party of the year, so what else you gonna do with your hard-earned cash?” He looked between us all. “Efia? You gonna come?”

  “How do you know my name?” Efia said.

  Caleb’s eyes widened. “Wow. Alex told me.”

  “Huh,” Efia said. “I don’t know, it’s a lot of money.”

  “Ben?” Caleb asked.

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  Caleb blew out a breath. “OK. Tough crowd. Well, it’d be nice to see you all, but no pressure.”

  I felt even worse about Ben paying for pizza now. How bad is it when you can’t even use the money from your summer job to go and have a good time for one night?

  “Seven at the leisure centre,” Caleb said to me, backing out of the door.

  Oh, OK, that was definitely happening, then. But I supposed I ought to learn to swim sometime. If we did end up at Splash Down!, I’d want to be in the pool, and inflatable armbands are never gonna get me a boyfriend.

  “I’ll be the guy in Speedos!” Caleb told me.

  “Ha!” I said.
“And I’ll be the guy in the knee-length, baggy swim shorts.”

  “You should definitely get some Speedos,” Efia said, once Caleb had gone.

  “I may not be sure of much in my life,” I said, “but I’m positive you will never see me in Speedos.”

  Efia laughed. “Aw, Alex…”

  I held my hand up. “Stuff to do!” And hurried out.

  No sooner was I back on the main floor than I walked straight into Carl Hudson and his stupid dog, which was finally on a chain.

  “Um, Tyson can’t be in here,” I told him. “Dogs aren’t allowed.”

  Carl looked apologetic. “Sorry, son, I had no idea.”

  “There’s a sign on the door,” I said.

  “My eyesight isn’t what it was,” Carl said. “One of the curses of old age!”

  I nodded and looked at him expectantly. Why exactly was he here?

  Carl cast his eyes over the fruit machines, then over past the driving simulators, the Mirror Maze, and finally the Roswell Experience. For a man with bad eyesight, he was certainly doing a lot of looking. “Heard you folks were having some sort of makeover?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Carl nodded. “Be good for the place, I expect. Lick of paint. Bit of TLC.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Carl sighed, clearly picking up on my hostility. “Listen, son, Maggie and I may have had our differences in the past, but it’s time to bury the hatchet. Am I right? There’s plenty of trade for both my pier and Wonderland to coexist, and hey, a little healthy competition never did any harm, did it?”

  “Healthy competition?!”

  I whipped round and was faced with Maggie, brandishing a fire extinguisher. “Get out of it!” Maggie hissed, pointing the hose at Carl “Spying on us, are ya?!”

  Carl raised his hands in submission. “Just dropping by to offer my good wishes!”

  “Like hell you are!”

  “I’m seventy-five this year, Mag,” Carl said, backing towards the exit. “Just looking for a quiet life, no trouble, I promise you!”

  “I will pull this pin out and hose your sorry OAP arse unless you leave NOW!” Maggie bellowed.

  Carl shook his head, pulled Tyson out with him, and hurried away.

  Maggie stared after him. “Scum.”

  I cleared my throat. “I mean, he seems … OK?”

  She turned to me. “That man would steal the shoes off my feet if he could. Mark my words, Alex. Do not trust him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I was polishing the smudges off the mirrors and glass panels in the Mirror Maze, mulling it over. What exactly was the deal between Maggie and Carl Hudson? Other than his dog (and maybe that was just an accident), he seemed pretty … old and harmless. And Maggie refused to elaborate on their history, so I only had her word for it that he couldn’t be trusted. Fine, I wouldn’t let him in again, but I felt bad, being mean to an OAP.

  I jumped as I saw Ben looking at me from the other side of the glass panel.

  He smiled and held his hand up in a little wave, then pushed through the panel to his left and worked his way round to where I was.

  “What’s with the socks?” I asked.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Guess who had another dog-based trainer accident?”

  “Oh no. Worse than last time?”

  “Much worse,” Ben said, grimly. “Just what I needed this morning.”

  “Never rains, it pours, huh?” Man, I knew what that felt like.

  Ben nodded and sighed. “Anyway…” He held up a paper carrier bag with “RAW” printed on the side in bold black writing. “I bought you this.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Dropping those sandwiches off at my house was really sweet of you. I mean … it was such a nice thing, Alex.” He looked a bit sheepish. “I actually cried.”

  My eyes widened. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, I’m such a—”

  “No, just because it was so lovely, that’s all!”

  “Oh. And … how are you doing?”

  He gave me the smallest hint of a smile. “I’m OK.”

  He handed me the bag and I pulled out the T-shirt inside. It was a distorted chequered design, in black and lime green. Not my usual thing, because I’d never be brave enough to pick out something like that, but I loved it. I looked up at Ben. This was from RAW. It would have cost loads. “This is so nice of you, but I can’t accept it—”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, I love it. Thank you. But—”

  “You said when we went for pizza that you found it hard to find anything that looked good on you – well, I reckon this will. I’m also kind of sorry for being weird in the cleaning cupboard.”

  “That’s fine, you weren’t. I think it was me. Sometimes I … it doesn’t matter. I enjoyed our dinner. I loved it. All of it.”

  “Yeah, it was really nice.”

  He flicked his eyes down to the T-shirt in my hands. “You could wear it for your date with Caleb.”

  I snorted. “Well, (a) it’s not a date, and (b) we’re swimming, and you don’t usually do that in a T-shirt.”

  Ben smiled. “I think it’s a date.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Alex, he came in here on the flimsiest of pretexts and arranged to go swimming with you. Swimming. There will literally just be some Speedos between you and him.”

  “And my swimming shorts too,” I added.

  He ignored me. “Factor in the free lemonade and all the little chats you’ve been having, I think the writing’s on the wall. I’m happy for you.”

  He didn’t look particularly happy. There wasn’t a dimple in sight.

  “Do you want to come with us?” I suddenly blurted out, like an idiot.

  He stared at me. “Alex—”

  “Sorry.”

  “No.”

  “It was just an idea.”

  “It’s your date.”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’m still saying it isn’t a date, but OK.”

  He rubbed a little smudge off one of the mirrors with his sleeve. “So. Mates?”

  I took an unsteady, shallow breath. “Definitely.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded, then backed away through the Perspex door and disappeared into the mirrors.

  I’d meant to tell him about all the weirdness with Carl Hudson and Maggie. I’d meant to say to him, “Hey, did we nearly kiss, or what?!” And also, “So, Maggie said you knew you’d lose the bet, so what gives?” but that boy makes my brain turn to mush and all I can think about is AAAAARRGGGHHHHH!

  “AAAARRGGGHHHHHHHH!”

  Efia brought over two glasses of Coke and sat down next to me in the Bellevue Café next door, whilst I repeatedly banged my head on the Formica table. “That boy has led me right down the rabbit hole! I’m so confused! This is such a nightmare! I’ve no idea if he likes me or not and anyway he’s with Bella, so all of this speculation is utterly pointless!”

  “And yet here you are, speculating!” Efia said, sipping her Coke through a straw. “Did Ben say anything else during your amazing maze conversation?”

  “No. What like?”

  “Did he seem … jealous?”

  “Of what?”

  Efia lowered her voice. “You and Caleb!”

  “Right. I’ve already had this discussion with Ben, and it’s not a date. It’s just swimming.”

  “Two boys swimming.”

  “Yes. That’s just … factual. We’re two boys, swimming.”

  “Sounds like the title of a gay porno to me.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”

  That was sort of a lie, because I did know, but that wasn’t the case here. I sipped my Coke.

  Efia shook her head. “He’s jealous.”

  I sipped my Coke again.

  “For a start, did you see how he got all defensive when Caleb was talking about swimming? Mentioning how he used to be lifeguard? That’s classic male posturing during
a courtship ritual, as the boys try to impress the other boy, hoping he’ll pick them for mating season.”

  “Mating season?!” I spluttered. “We’re not … antelope!” I don’t know why I picked “antelope”.

  Efia waved my objections away. “Animal, human, gay, straight, it’s all the same principle. The interested party will always try to do things to impress the quarry.”

  “Can you quit with the weird animal and hunting references? It’s really off-putting.”

  I sipped more Coke.

  “Anything else you haven’t told me?” Efia asked.

  I avoided her eyes and sipped more Coke.

  “Maybe he bought you something? A small gift? Some little trinket or love token, perhaps?”

  I sighed. “He bought me a T-shirt.”

  Efia beamed. “I knew it! Actually, I did know it, because I saw him heading to the Mirror Maze with the bag from RAW, and when I asked Bella, she told me what he’d done. That’s so sweet. Isn’t that sweet?”

  I sipped my Coke.

  “The boy has mixed-up feelings, that’s my diagnosis,” Efia said. “But this little date that’s not a date with Caleb might work in your favour. If he thinks there’s a chance he’s going to lose you, it may spur him into action.”

  “AAAAARGGHHHH! He’s got a girlfriend!”

  “And he might not have by next week!”

  “I can’t split them up!” I said. “Bella is literally the nicest person in the history of humanity. If I wasn’t already, I would go straight to hell for doing that.”

  “Alex, people change their minds! OK? Sexuality is fluid. It’s not all, ‘That’s it, I’m straight and always will be!’ – what do you think this is, the twentieth century?”

  I shrugged.

  “OK!” Efia chirped. “Let’s take your mind off it all with something else.” She glanced over towards the entrance. I was just about to ask what could possibly be more interesting than my massive boy obsession, when Drake walked in.

  “What’s he doing here?” Drake asked as he ambled over, looking about as shifty as anyone can look.

  “He has a name,” Efia said.

  “Alex,” I added.

  “Thought this was just gonna be me and you, babe,” Drake said.

  I immediately stood up. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’ll—”

  Efia pulled me back down. “Sit down, fool! Really, Alex?”