One Hour Earlier

Barry seemed to have been circling the same three roundabouts for years, but finally he took a turn and went down a dark street. If it had been daytime, Isaac might have been able to see where they were. Then again, maybe not- he wasn’t even sure how long they’d been in the car. Maybe they were halfway to Scotland now.

The houses all looked identically yellow and shabby under the streetlamps. As the car slowed, Isaac saw a woman walk up to them and unlock the front door. “There she is,” growled Barry, “There she is.” The car swerved into the woman’s front doorway just as she slammed the door.

“Barry, don’t…” said Shona, but he was already out of the car. “Barry, it’s not worth it! Barry!”

Barry was already at the door. He hammered on it with both fists, then moved onto the ground-floor windows and did the same thing there. “Where’s my son, Charlie? Where’s my fucking son?”

In the back of the car, the boys didn’t look at each other. It was probably too dark to see, even if they had. Shona just watched Barry move, and groaned. “That bloody temper of his…”

There was a voice from inside the house- the woman had shouted something. In response, Barry turned around and went back to the car. Initially, Isaac thought he was going to get back in and drive away (onto the next adventure, he thought gloomily), but instead, Barry opened up the boot and took something out. Isaac didn’t get a proper look at what it was until he started smashing the windows.

There was another shout from inside the house. This time, Isaac heard the words, “I’m calling the police!”

Great! thought Isaac, You do that! With any luck he’ll be too mental to run away before they arrive, and this whole thing would be over. But deep down, Isaac knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Even if the police did arrive in time to arrest Barry, they’d probably make a point of taking in Isaac, Chris and Tommy, too. As accessories to window-smashing, or whatever.

Anyway, it didn’t come to that, because as soon as she heard what the woman in the house had said, Shona got out of the car. “Barry…” He didn’t turn around, so she went up to him and put her hand on the back of his arm. “Barry, please…”

“She’s got my son, Shona!” snapped Barry… but he sounded a bit quieter than he had before, which probably meant that he could be persuaded.

“She’s going to call the police, Barry. Just come back. Please.”

Isaac looked at them, in the orange light of the streetlamps. He couldn’t hear much more than grunts- pleading grunts from Shona, mildly defiant ones from Barry- but he got the idea. Long before the police arrived, Barry was going to get back in the car, and away they’d go.  The night wasn’t over yet.

 

Forty Minutes Earlier

They were at the top of a hill, setting fire to things- bits of grass, bits of rubbish, stuff like that. None of them particularly wanted to set fire to things, but Barry wouldn’t let them stop.

If Isaac had been thinking straight, if he hadn’t been frozen-solid-terrified of taking any risks, he’d probably have been able to think of a hundred different ways out of this. As it was, he could only be grateful that Barry was making them set fire to grass and crisp packets instead of someone’s house. Or an actual person.

And if he did try to make them do that? They’d probably go along with it. Because there was no way out.

(To Be Concluded)

Twenty Minutes Earlier

“We just need to wait til he’s got his guard down,” whispered Chris, “There’s three of us and one of him.” Chris glanced over at Barry, who, for now at least, wasn’t looking at them. He was busy paying for the petrol and throwing in some beer and crisps while he was at it. “All we need to do is wait til he’s distracted, and all go in at once.”

Tommy nodded. “We can work out a signal. One of us moving our hands in a particular way. And then…” He broke off. Barry had finished paying and turned round.

Isaac wanted to use the last few seconds to say something. He wanted to talk Chris and Tommy out of it, tell them that the only thing they were going to achieve was making Barry even angrier. But what was the alternative? Sitting quietly in the back of the car until Barry saw fit to let them go?

It was too late now, anyway. Barry was looming over them, beer and crisps neatly tucked under one arm. “We’re done,” he told them, “Move.”

The three younger boys skittered out of the door like frightened mice. But in the dark, halfway between the shop and the car, Isaac felt himself being pulled back. So that was why Barry had kept one arm free.

“Saw you three chatting away in there,” came the whisper in his ear, “Before you start getting clever, remember, I know about you. I can ruin you in this town.”

And Isaac, like an idiot, was this close to opening his stupid mouth and saying, “What, by telling them you caught me scribbling on a bench? Compared to what I’ve seen you doing tonight, that’s nothing.”

But, in that microsecond between thought and speech, Isaac remembered that he was completely at Barry’s mercy. And not just him- Chris and Tommy too. If Isaac even hinted that they had something to hold over Barry’s head, Barry’s first thought wouldn’t be trying to appease them, it would be making sure they stayed quiet for good. So instead, Isaac just mumbled, “I know. Sorry.” And Barry dragged him back to the car. Where no-one knew where they were, and no-one would come to save them.

(To Be Continued)

November 2002

Isaac didn’t remember much of the walk home. Just that it was dark, and long, and seemed to involve a lot of wrong turns. But he got there in the end.

His parents were out. He had his own key. He walked into the house and went straight up to the bathroom to clean himself up. He didn’t bother to turn any of the hallways lights on. Just walked up the dark stairs as if he was on autopilot.

There wasn’t much damage. Just a few cuts and scrapes. Probably some nasty bruises, come tomorrow morning. Nothing huge. You’d think going through a windscreen would leave bigger marks than that, but apparently not.

Isaac patched up all the places that were bleeding, then went into his room. He didn’t bother to get changed. He didn’t bother to turn the lights on. He didn’t even bother to pull back the duvet. He just laid down on the bed, fully-clothed, and wondered what the fuck he was going to do.

 

One Hour Earlier

The car was weaving around on the road. Isaac didn’t know if that was because of the wind, which had got strong enough to blow entire metal rubbish bins across the street, or because of Barry, who was singing along to the radio and thumping the dashboard with his right hand as he tried to steer with his left.

“Barry, slow down,” said Shona, from the back seat. She’d swapped places with Isaac back at the service station, because Barry had said he wanted to keep an eye on him. Now Shona was squeezed in between Tommy and Chris, and Isaac was trapped. The only escape he could think of was if he opened the passenger door and rolled out onto the road, and at this speed he’d probably break every bone in his body.

He knew he might have to risk it anyway. Isaac kept his hand on his seatbelt button, braced for the moment when it got more dangerous inside the car than outside.

“Barry, slow down.”

“What? Come on, woman! The party’s just getting started!” He thumped the dashboard again. “Oh! My! Starry-eyed surprise! Sunlight to sunrise!”

The car swerved from one side of the road to the other. Isaac braced himself to undo his seatbelt. He’d decided- the moment he saw another car on the road, he was going to do it. He was going to take his chances with the tarmac.

But in the end, that’s not how it happened.

Just as Barry steadied the steering wheel, taking a breath so he could belt out another chorus, Tommy reared up behind him, put his hands around Barry’s neck, and squeezed.

(To Be Continued)

(I owe an apology for how slow “Woe to the Giant” has been lately.  I’ve been in Berlin.  I’ll try to get the last two pages of this chapter up by Friday.)

(I’m also sorry it’s taken me nearly two months to finish this story.)

July 2003

Amelia phoned her with the news one morning not long after GCSEs ended.  The demolition work at Crowe’s Wood had been halted.  There was a front-page article in the local paper.

“They’re saying it was because the council ran out of funding,” said Amelia, “But that’s because it would be too embarrassing to admit it was because of dancing robot trees.”

Natalie spent the rest of the day at Amelia and David’s, sitting out in the garden, drinking wine and staring up at the sky.  Their plan had worked.  Crowe’s Wood had been saved.  It was as if they’d created a new world.

As the evening wore on, Amelia suggested going down to the river a little way behind their house, just to dip their feet in and enjoy the atmosphere.  They stayed there for a while, chatting happily, until Amelia got up and went back to the house.  That left Natalie and David alone on the bank, oddly silent.

David stretched out on his back.  “Shame you can’t see the stars from here.  Light pollution.”

Natalie nodded.  Tonight, light pollution seemed like just another problem they could solve with a bit of imagination.  Just get the lot of them together for a couple of hours, and they could do anything.

Night smelt different from day, even in a city.  Maybe it was the smell of the earth cooling after the sun went in.

Natalie took her feet out of the water, and shifted up so she was half-sitting, half-lying next to David.  For a moment, she was worried that he’d turn into just another stupid boy, with a sneer and an Eurgh, what do you think you’re playing at?  Instead, he reached out and touched her cheek with his fingertips.  “Perfect,” he said, with a blissful smile.

The planets were aligning tonight.  History was being made.  For years, Natalie’s body had been nothing but a series of minor irritations- nose too flat, shoulders too wide, legs too thick at the top- but now, it felt right.  As if it had finally finished cooking.

Destiny.  Magic.  Words like that felt too small.  Tonight was just different.  Tonight, she’d stepped into a new world.

She lay down in the grass, cupped David’s face in her hand, and kissed him.

 

July and August 2005

“Look, Natalie, you can’t hide from us forever.  All we want to do is meet up and clear the air.  Come on, you owe us that, at…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“I get it, alright?  It got too tough to stick it out, and you couldn’t take it.  You got scared.  Well, fair enough.  But maybe, just maybe, you’ve lost out on something important.  I think later on, you’ll look back and realise…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“Wow, so you’re just going to ignore us forever?  What a great attitude.  The next time you try and paint yourself as tolerant and open-minded, remember…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“OK, so, we’ve all been talking, and we’ve decided this is for the best.  We don’t need this ugliness in our lives.  Deep down, you’ve always been quite a manipulative…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“This is fucking childish.  You know that, right?  This is…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

Over the next couple of months, Natalie spent a lot of time with Abbie.  The two of them seemed to have broken off from the main group completely.  Natalie didn’t know if Johnny and Amelia had told Abbie that their final argument had been over her, or if the two of them had just got sick of the others at the same time by coincidence.  They didn’t really talk about it.  They drove around to interesting places, sat at home watching old cartoons, and went shopping for stuff they might need for university.  There was always something to take their minds off it.

Natalie also checked in on Micha Lewis now and then, just to see how she was.  Her treatment had finished, and her parents were just starting to let her go out and see people again without worrying that it would tire her out.  Natalie still usually met her at her house, though.  She’d got into the habit.

One day, they were sitting around chatting when Mischa said, “Oh, I meant to tell you- I ran into Amelia Moody in town the other day.”

Natalie gave a start.  It was easy to kid yourself that just because you weren’t speaking to someone, nobody else around you would either.  “Really?  What did she say?”

Mischa grinned.  “She said she thought I ought to know that you were just using me like you did her.  And I said, ‘using me for what?’ and she just made this disgusted snorting noise and walked away.”

“I think I know which noise you mean,” said Natalie.

Mischa leaned back against the sofa.  “What I should have said was, I already got my end of the bargain.  Anyone who helps me pass my A-levels can use me as much as they want.”

Natalie laughed.  “I’m glad you didn’t say that.  Amelia’s got a dirty mind, you know.”

*

Natalie spent the first two weeks of August in Portugal with her family.  No Johnny and Amelia to bother her there.

Even besides that, she enjoyed herself.  They hadn’t been sure until the last minute whether or not her older sister Andrea would be able to get the time off work to come along, but it all worked out and here she was.  And maybe it was just because Andrea knew Natalie was about to leave home and she wanted to pass down some advice, but the two of them seemed to talk more in those two weeks than they had for the last two years.

One evening, while they sat out on one of the villa’s balconies trying to see if they recognised any constellations, Andrea mentioned something that had happened when she was twelve and Natalie was eight.  “Worst thing I ever did.  Kicking you two out of my friend’s house and making you walk home in the dark?  You could’ve been killed.”

Natalie remembered the night in question.  It hadn’t been great.  “Yeah, but… we weren’t.  And it was a long time ago.”

“I still feel sick when I think about what could have happened.”  Andrea had clasped her hands in her lap, and her fingers seemed to be trying to wrestle each other out of the way.  “You were only little.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly grown-up yourself.”  Natalie thought back to another holiday.  “Hey, remember when we were in Berlin five years ago, and there was a guy in the subway playing… I guess it was traditional German music… and Dad tried to get me to dance with him?”

Andrea grinned.  “Yeah, and you really didn’t want to.”  That had pissed Dad right off, and Mum had joined in.  That could have been a fun holiday memory, but you had to ruin it by acting miserable.  Why can’t you just lighten up?

“Well, the main thing I remember is that you stood up for me.”  She’d told Dad that just because something was fun for him didn’t mean he could browbeat everyone else into finding it fun too, and that if he seriously expected any thirteen-year-old on the planet to want to dance with her dad in public, then he was setting himself up for a whole lot of disappointment.  Dad had then spent the next half-hour grumbling about how on earth he’d been saddled with two such humourless daughters, but that didn’t matter.  “I think that taught me something about trusting my own instincts.  Before, I’d been assuming that Dad was automatically the reasonable one, and I was just a sulky brat who didn’t know how to have a good time.  But if you were taking my side, then maybe that wasn’t true.”  Natalie lifted her glass of cola in an impression of a toast.  “And honestly, after the kind of year I’ve had, I’ll forgive you pretty much anything for that.”

*

A-level results came out a few days after they got back.  Natalie’s mum drove her up to the school to collect them.  She did quite well (two Bs and a C, enough to get her into Berrylands), and, if she was a little put out that Abbie and Mischa had both scored higher than her, it was hard to dwell on that when Mischa was sweeping her up in a hug and declaring that she’d never have to buy a round of drinks as long as she lived.

Natalie didn’t find out what grades Johnny and Amelia got.  She didn’t get close enough to ask.

She did see David, though, just outside the school as she prepared to head home.  “Hey, Natalie,” he called out, with the same dazed, contemplating-the-universe smile that he’d always had.  The one that made her heart ache a bit.

She smiled back, faintly.  “Alright?”

“So you were going to go off to university without even saying goodbye?”

Natalie, back off.  You apologise to Amelia right now.

Bite me.

Natalie sighed.  “I think I already did.”

David nodded, acknowledging what she’d said in a way that meant he didn’t have to react to it in any way whatsoever.  “If you want to know a secret, I’m not going to stick around here much longer, either.”  He looked around at the nearby buildings- the school, the fire station across the road, the old people’s home on the corner- and shivered.  “Suburbia… it gets to you.  I need to be among people whose biggest concern isn’t their paycheque.”

“Yeah?” asked Natalie, “And where do they live?”

He smiled again, and Natalie remembered the night they’d made their stand for Crowe’s Wood.  She didn’t know how much of an impact they’d actually had on construction being cancelled, but she did know that it had been something worth doing.  None of the unpleasantness of the last month could cancel that out.  “I’ll find out,” he told her, “Just give me enough time.”  And Natalie was surprised to find that she believed him.  If anyone was going to find and live among a group of people who always focused on more important things than money, it was David.

He took a step back, as if he was appraising her, then added, “What if you came with me?”

Natalie stared at him.  “What, to look for the no-paycheque people?”  She was trying to pass it off as a joke, but she saw how it could work.  She was a legal adult, done with school for good.  She was expected to head out into the world.  And who said there was only one way of doing that?

“Exactly,” David said softly, “Just you and me.”

Just Natalie and David.  No Amelia, no Johnny, no Daisy.  No need to worry about Abbie or Mischa.  They could leave behind all the stupid crap that had built up over the last year and start a new life somewhere else.  Instead of thinking about student loans and the Freshers’ Fayre, she could be travelling the world in a life of swashbuckling adventure, by David’s side day and night.

Natalie, back off.  You apologise to Amelia right now.

What would happen the next time she went against what he wanted?  Or even against what someone he liked wanted?  Would he be willing to talk things out with her, or would he start talking like a disappointed parent again the minute she stepped out of line?

She wouldn’t be by his side after all.  She’d be trailing along in his shadow, expected to be constantly grateful for being there.

“David,” said Natalie, with a smile that felt a little apologetic, “You really need to make some friends your own age.”

He left pretty quickly after that.

 

September 2003

On the first morning of term, Natalie woke up at five-thirty and couldn’t get back to sleep.  She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, and made plans for the day ahead.  The days, weeks, and months ahead.  Everything around her seemed ripe with potential, and she was going to explore it all.

It wasn’t just that she was starting Sixth Form, with school uniforms a thing of the past, her timetable whittled down to four subjects she actually enjoyed, and the whole of the next two years basically a rehearsal for university.  It had more to do with how much she’d changed over the last three months.  It felt as if the whole Crowe’s Wood thing had altered her DNA somehow.  The others at school might not be able to see it, but Natalie would.

People weren’t going to know what had hit them.  Natalie and her friends working together were like nothing they’d ever seen before.  People wouldn’t even know the words to describe them.  After the summer they’d had, with Crowe’s Wood and everything that had happened afterwards, they all knew they were capable of anything.

Natalie grinned into the darkness, and stood up.  No point staying in bed now.

The End

(I would have posted part 7 a lot earlier, but then I went and finished part 8 first.  So here they are together.)

May 2003

The plan finally went into motion on the second Friday in May.  By then, GCSEs had already started- Natalie and Abbie had had a French Listening exam that morning- but now it was the weekend and they were free.  They met on the edge of Crowe’s Wood, just across the road from Sainsbury’s, and then they walked through the woods to meet their destinies.

The sky was just beginning to get dark.  A hush had fallen over the wood, as the daytime creatures gradually stepped aside to give the nocturnal ones their turn, and everything around them, animal and plant alike, seemed to be whispering in case somebody nearby was trying to get to sleep.  David took a deep breath, savouring the night air.  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Natalie looked around, and had to agree.  At night, Crowe’s Wood turned into a mysterious, primeval forest straight out of every nightmare you’d ever had and every fairytale you’d ever heard.  And she’d never have been here, in this particular time and place, if it hadn’t been for her friends.

“I don’t get why we spend so much time trying to get away from nature.  Hiding from the sky…  Trying to convince ourselves that we’re supposed to smell of spices and chemicals…”

Johnny laughed.  “Well, they’ve got to convince us to consume more stuff somehow…”

“Too right!” came a shout from behind.  This was Daisy Sparrow, who was a friend of Amelia’s from another school.  She looked a bit like a cartoon- small, round and enthusiastic, with big glasses and almost canary-yellow hair.  Natalie hadn’t met her before, but she was growing to like her.  “Like the adverts plastered around the bus stop.  I’m trying to catch a bus, I don’t care about what brand of L’Oréal Neutrogena some random model uses!”

Abbie smiled, and said sweetly, “But I’m sure she cares about you.”

They’d all managed to find little motors from one place or another- old toys, blenders and can openers their parents had thrown out, and one or two things smuggled out of the CDT classrooms.  Johnny was also carrying a string of lights, a little like the ones you got on Christmas trees.  “No use breaking our backs making this if the drivers can’t even see it,” he’d explained.

David was happily ambling along.  You got the impression that he’d be just as happy- no more, no less- if he was on his own.  “You know, I strongly believe that life is a naturally sexual and impulsive thing.”  He gave a gentle kick to a couple of pebbles.  “That’s why any attempts to restrict it…  They just lead to people’s minds being twisted.”

“And that’s where the paedophile priests come from,” said Amelia.

Natalie sighed.  “Not to mention all those fundamentalists in America.  With their revival tents and their purity balls…”

“Purity balls?” asked Amelia, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s something I read about on the internet.  It’s a party for girls who’ve promised not to have sex before marriage.  Only it’s set up like a wedding- the girls have to wear white dresses, and their dads give them rings.”  She grimaced.  “It’s set up like they’re marrying their fathers.”

Amelia made a delicate retching sound.

“Seriously?!” asked Abbie.

“Oh, yeah.  The girls make vows to their dads that they’ll save it for their wedding night, and the dads make vows to their daughters that they’ll do their best to protect their virginity.  Which would be fine if they meant acting out vigilante justice on any potential rapists, but what they actually mean is controlling every aspect of their daughters’ lives so that they don’t accidentally get a boyfriend.”

Johnny shuddered.  “And how many of those fathers do you think are secretly sneaking into their daughters’ rooms at night?”

“I don’t want to think about it.”  Natalie liked to think that she had a fairly decent relationship with her father, but if he ever bought her or her sisters rings and started banging on about protecting their virginity, she’d run screaming for the hills.  Luckily, it didn’t seem to be in his nature.  He had been a little snotty about some of Andrea’s boyfriends, but Andrea’s boyfriends tended to be a bunch of whiny manchildren, so that was fair enough.

“So that’s decided, then,” said Abbie, “We are never, ever going to America.”

“Damn straight,” said Amelia.

They stopped just short of the fence at the side of the road- no sense in the drivers seeing them this early- and gathered an armful of twigs each.  They’d all put on gloves before coming up here, even though Johnny didn’t think it was likely that anyone would dust a bunch of twigs for fingerprints.  Better safe than sorry, that was the consensus.

“I don’t see why we have to cover our tracks anyway,” muttered Abbie, knotting a length of twine around two twigs and a motor, “This wood’s supposed to be public property.  We’ve got as much right to be here as anyone else.”

Johnny snorted.  “Well, obviously not, if the council’s got the right to bulldoze it and none of us can stop them.”

David looked dreamily at his twigs.  He and Natalie had spent a few minutes trying to work out the right angle to get them to dance about in the right way, but they seemed to have cracked it now.  “It’s all artificial,” he told them, “The council only think they can bulldoze this wood because we let them think that.”

“Yeah,” said Natalie.

“I mean, we all come from the same reference point.  We’re all eaters of food and breathers of air.  We were all made when one random sperm hit an egg.  There’s no reason why any of us should put ourselves above each other.”

Sometimes, when David spoke, it was as if Natalie could feel herself floating in the air, up above anything that could bother her or bring her down.  Still, she had to say what was in her head.  “Yeah, but try telling that to the Prime Minister.”

David turned round, giving her a big, bright grin.  “I think someone should try telling that to the Prime Minister!  I think someone should try telling that to everyone in power!”

Daisy sighed.  “If more people thought like that, there would be no more war.”

It was darker now.  They had to be careful when they moved around, in case they tripped over randomly-placed roots and holes in the ground.  Soon it would be time to start putting things in place.

At one point, David went over to talk to Amelia, and Daisy, glancing after him, whispered, “Do you think he’s… conscious of his beauty?”

Natalie grinned.  “No way.  He’d be unbearable.”

“But… do you think he knows he’s special?  Or do you think he gets up in the morning, and goes about is day assuming that everyone else is just the same?”

Natalie thought about David, about how, when you first met him, he seemed like a normal, artsy boy, but then he’d come out with something that made him sound like a 500-year-old Buddhist monk.  She thought about how different life had seemed since she’d met him, almost as if the air had a different flavour to it.  She thought about how his smile made her heart feel as if it was going to explode.  “I don’t know,” she told Daisy, “I don’t think anyone really knows how they affect other people.  You’re too used to yourself- you don’t know what might be surprising everyone else.”

Daisy nodded, wide-eyed.  “That is so true.”

When it was time to go, they went quickly, fumbling a little in their movements.  They placed the twig models where they were meant to go, spread the banners carefully through their hands, and threw the lights up in the branches of the trees above them.  Then they set everything off and ran, going at a hundred miles an hour.  The whole thing had barely taken a minute, and they hadn’t looked at the road once.  If any of the drivers looked at them, if they made eye contact, they’d freeze in place and be easy pickings for anyone in authority.

After they’d got a safe distance away from the road, David led them to a road on the other side of the woods where they could get a good look at it.  As they approached it, Natalie felt her stomach turn upside down.  Something would have gone wrong.  The motors wouldn’t have gone off.  The twine would have broken and the models would have fallen apart.  Everything would have fallen out into the road and caused a massive traffic pile-up.

Instead, it was perfect.

From a distance, it really looked as if four of the trees had come to life and started doing a clumsy, jerky dance.  The lights shone above them, illuminating the sign.  SAVE CROWE’S WOOD, in letters big enough to be read fifty yards away.  Cars were slowing down to look at it.  Natalie’s heart was beating so hard that it felt as if it was going to break her ribs.

They all walked home.  It was too nice a night to get the bus.

About halfway back, David put a hand on Natalie’s shoulder.  “You know what?  I believe that everyone is born with a certain light.  A talent they have to share with the world.  It’s up to them to decide what to do with it, but everyone has it.”  He smiled.  “Natalie, you used your light to try and help people out of the pits they’ve trapped themselves in.  You should be very proud of that.”

And if Natalie had died at that exact moment, she’d have had no regrets whatsoever.

 

 

June 2005

Amelia had called everyone over to David’s place that Saturday.  In theory, it was for a bit of last-minute A-level study, but in practice, they were mostly just drinking Bacardi Breezers and trading gossip about people from school.  They all sat on the floor in the main room, with their notebooks in front of them for the look of the thing.

Abbie wasn’t there, so Johnny started talking about her.  “It’s as if it’s her only topic of conversation these days.  Squealing and drooling over boys like a twelve-year-old.  It’s embarrassing.”

Amelia laughed, and leaned back against the wall.  They’d pretty much had to sit on the floor, because there were five people here and David only had two chairs.  In fact, he hadn’t bought much furniture in general.  He said he’d been thinking of other things.

“I don’t see why it bothers you so much that Abbie fancies people,” muttered Natalie.

Johnny snorted.  “Listen to her talk sometime.  It’s all drooling and moaning over packages and trouser bulges.  It’s embarrassing to listen to.”

“That happened once.  And it was a joke.”  Natalie could feel her nerves being pulled taut, like an elastic band.  It seemed to happen every time she was in the same room as Johnny lately.

Amelia gave her a sagacious look over the top of her Bacardi bottle.  “I can tell who you’ve been hanging out with, Natalie.  If you think obsessing over trouser bulges is healthy.”

“I’m just telling the truth,” added Johnny, “If tummies are turned, boo hoo.”

“OK, I’m getting pretty sick of this…”  Natalie got to her feet, picking up her stuff.  She wasn’t completely sure that she wanted to leave, but she got the impression she was going to have to.

“Oh, right!” crowed Johnny, “And I thought you were the one who was all about free speech!”

“There’s a difference between ‘free speech’ and ‘being a smug little tosser’!”

A few feet away, David watched, deep in thought, as if he was assessing them so he could give them marks out of ten later.  Just next to him, Daisy had the exact opposite reaction.  “Guys!” she said, waving her arms, “Guys!  What’s with all the hate!”

Amelia ignored both of them.  “Natalie, just drop this subject before we start dissecting your bad habits.”

“Ooh, yeah, my bad habits.  Some of them are even worse than ‘occasionally fancying a boy’.”

Amelia rose to her feet.  “OK, Natalie, if you want me to come out and say it, I will.”  She put one hand on her hip, and used the other to point at Natalie’s face.  “I don’t think you’ve been you the last few months.  You open your mouth and I hear Mischa Lewis talking.”

“Like when?!”

“Oh, if only it mattered!” cried Daisy, rolling her eyes.

“You just called Johnny a smug little tosser!” snapped Amelia.

“Because he was being a smug little tosser!” said Natalie.

“Oh, if only it mattered!” cried Daisy, a bit louder this time.

Johnny frowned.  “I’m sitting right here…”

“Yeah, and you heard what I said the first time,” said Natalie.

“Oh!  I see!”

Daisy got up and got between them.  “Guys!  Guys!  Why are you taking all this so personally?  We’re friends, remember?”

Natalie looked at Johnny, and narrowed her eyes.  “Hmm.”

Daisy looked from Natalie to Amelia, and back again, and forth again.  “All this over a difference of opinion!” she proclaimed, shaking her arms again, “Since when did different beliefs make somebody less of a person?  Flinging around insults and losing your tempers…”

Amelia seemed to take this to heart.  She stopped scowling, shrugged, and sat back down.  After a moment or two, so did Natalie.  Daisy briefly looked as if she might insist on them shaking hands and apologising, but then she decided against it and went back to where she’d been sitting before.  Beside her, David still sat watching.  His expression hadn’t changed.  “There’s no reason to worry about Mischa Lewis, Amelia,” he said, “A-Levels will be finished in another two weeks.  After that, Natalie won’t need to spend time with her anymore.”

Natalie looked at the floor.  He hadn’t bothered to replace the old carpet, either.  It was worn nearly transparent in places.

“Right, Natalie?” said David.

She looked up.  “Maybe, maybe not.  Why do you care?”

Johnny made a noise like a wounded animal. “Oh, God, did she promise to give you a makeover or something?”  Amelia didn’t say anything, just rolled her eyes and made a disgusted face.

David sat on the carpet, his legs crossed like he thought he was Buddha.  “It can get to you, you know,” he said, in his usual tranquil voice, “Spend long enough swallowing your real opinions and accepting things, and you’ll start to forget there’s a real you under there at all.”

Natalie laughed.  “David, this is Mischa Lewis we’re talking about, not Hitler.”

Amelia raised her upper lip in an impressive sneer.  “I guess I just don’t like ignorance.”

“No,” said Natalie, meeting her gaze, “Me neither.”

“There’s plenty of people with cancer in the world, and most of them don’t have half the advantages Mischa Lewis has had.  Why don’t you try helping some little kid dying of leukaemia through no fault of their own instead of a girl who fried her skin on tanning beds for years and then wondered why her moles started changing colour?”

Natalie thought of Mischa’s pale pink complexion.  “What makes you think Mischa’s ever been near a tanning bed?”

“But no, apparently I’m evil because I don’t feel sorry for somebody who treated her body like a fucking garbage dump.”  Amelia was shouting now.  More than that, there was something about her voice that suggested she was about to burst into tears.

Johnny gave them a weary look.  “Hey, do you two think that maybe you could take your catfight somewhere else?”

Again, Amelia didn’t seem to hear this.  “Oh, I can ruin as many organs as I like!” she said in a plummy voice that didn’t sound anything like Mischa’s, “Mummy and Daddy will get me new ones!”

The words were out of Natalie’s mouth before she could properly think them through.  “Other people just aren’t real to you, are they, Amelia?  You fucking narcissist.”

Amelia recoiled, as if Natalie had slapped her.  Shocked, she looked around at the others, all of whom were sitting around in stunned silence.  No doubt about it-Natalie ad gone too far.  This was going to be bad.

It was David who spoke up.  The tranquillity had finally gone out of his voice.  “Natalie, back off.  You apologise to Amelia right now.”

“Bite me,” said Natalie, and walked out.

(To be continued)

(Posting this in lieu of the next page of “Woe to the Giant,” which should go up tomorrow.)

May 2005 

Sometimes Natalie hung around for an hour or so after giving Mischa her homework.  It made more sense to get started on it straight away than to wear herself out walking home and then only be in the mood for watching TV.  Besides, Mischa’s room was quite a nice, restful place, with its rose patterns and perfume smell.  It could calm you down after a hard day at school.

“What are you doing for the “How To” coursework?” asked Mischa, who was sat cross-legged on the floor with a laptop resting on her knees.  She was thinner now, but her hair was the same as ever.  Unless her parents had just managed to find her a really convincing wig.

“Um…  ‘How to Be In An Indie Band.’”  Natalie flicked through the course booklet, trying to find the page that went with the notes she’d made earlier.  “You know, lyrics, musical style, how to avoid obnoxious fans….”

“Aw, I wish I could think of something interesting like that.  All I can think of is boring stuff like ‘How to Change A Lightbulb.’”

Natalie folded back the corner of the page she wanted.  “Well, they won’t mark you down for being boring.  If anything, they’re more likely to mark you down for trying to be interesting in the wrong way.”  That was what Johnny had found out when he’d tried to write an essay about Anton LaVey in RE.

“Yeah, but I wish I could think of something that stands out, you know?”  Mischa rested her cheek on her hand.  “Something that goes the extra mile.”

“Well…  You could always write something like, ‘How to Get All Your A-Level Coursework In On Time While Also Going Through Chemotherapy.’”

Mischa’s face twisted, as if she’d just tasted something sour.  “As if.  They’d just think I was going for the sympathy vote.”

“Hey, you want to get into Durham, don’t you?”  Natalie smiled.  “I say use every weapon you’ve got.”

Mischa snort-laughed, and looked back down at her notes.

Natalie glanced at the gossip magazines on her bedside table.  There always seemed to be a new one around.  They creeped Natalie out a bit- it was something to do with the sticky-sweaty finish there always was on the front cover, and something to do with the way they spoke about famous people as if they were a bunch of melodramatic thirteen-year-olds, constantly thinking up ways to spite their exes or steal their rivals’ thunder.  She’d mentioned that to Mischa once, and she’d just said that you had to imagine the whole thing was a soap opera.  “Or you could use these as inspiration.  ‘How to Go Through A Divorce If You’re Famous.’”

Mischa laughed.  “‘How Not to Marry Tom Cruise’…”

*

That Friday, everyone ended up in Amelia’s living room after school.  They lolled all over the sofa and carpet like beached jellyfish, flicking through the music channels as they recovered from a hard week at school.  The only ones with the energy to talk at the moment were Abbie and Daisy, who were sitting closest to the TV.  Abbie’s History class had gone on a trip to the V&A the previous week, and she was still full of stories about it.  “It’s amazing.  All those Ancient Greek statues with their perfectly-carved muscles, and then you look between their legs…”  She bit her lip in a cartoonish way.

Daisy grinned.  “Not so much in the boner department?”

“Not much of a package, no.  Maybe the sculptors got too embarrassed and rushed it.”

“Uh-huh,” said Johnny, sourly, “And that’s all you got from the Victoria and Albert Museum?”

Daisy didn’t seem to have heard that.  “Not many hotties in Ancient Greece, then?”

“Well, no…” said Abbie, “But then again, if there were, it would be necrophilia, wouldn’t it?”

Amelia gave a low chuckle.  “This conversation started on the wrong foot, and the gutter seems deeper than expected.”  She lay back on the sofa as if she was preparing to go to sleep.

Johnny hadn’t taken his eyes off Abbie and D0aisy.  “Seriously, how old are you two?  You need to get out more.”

Cowed, Abbie and Daisy stopped talking.  The group of them flicked through a few more music channels before settling on an Alien Ant Farm video that Natalie hadn’t seen before.  The video showed the band performing on a rooftop outside something called “The BET Awards,” while people like Nelly and Eve looked up, amused.

Johnny pointed at the screen.  “Most talent in the whole event,” he declared.

“Too right!” said Amelia, coming back to life, “A hundred percent real, too.  Look at all the posers below!”  The screen now showed Snoop Dogg and Li’l Kim, plus a couple of other people Natalie didn’t recognise.  “They’re all looking up and thinking, ‘Oh, so this is what real music sounds like!’”

Daisy let out a loud, honking laugh.  “Yeah- ‘Oh, it’s not talking about hoes and bitches, and encouraging kids to join gangs?  Is that even allowed?’”

Johnny snickered.  Apparently Daisy was forgiven.

“When I hear shit like that, I think, ‘Thank God there are golddiggers in this world, who can fleece guys like that in their sleep!’”

“Amen!” said Amelia.

Daisy had got into a rhythm.  “They’re so shit, shitter than shit, so shit, heaps shit, so much shit that I wish they would get cancer and die just so they’ll stay the hell away from my TV screen and radio!”

Johnny gave her a funny look.  “Er…”

“Whoops, bad karma!”  Daisy giggled.  “But they’re so shit!  What is wrong with people these days?  They’re the shit ones!”

Amelia settled back on the sofa, hunching her shoulders up so that her head could settle comfortably.  “Oh yeah, Natalie, speaking of cancer…”

The others all burst into scandalised laughter.

“What?” snapped Natalie.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering, really,” Amelia said airily, “When has Mischa Lewis ever cared about her grades?”

Natalie thought about how pleased Mischa had been when she’d suggested bringing her her homework.  OK, it had been because she was bored, but still.  “You don’t know the first thing about it, Amelia.”

Johnny snorted.  “Oh, charming…”

“Hey, whoa.”  Amelia held up a hand.  “I think it’s very kind of you, what you’re doing.  I just don’t want to see you taken advantage of.”

She smiled, and Natalie couldn’t help but smile back.  “Well, I’m not.”

“Good!”  Amelia went back to watching TV.

*

Abbie offered to drive Natalie home.  She’d only been able to drive for a couple of months, so the car still had that smell, all new and you-are-not-worthy.  Abbie sat in the driving seat, wearing her waistcoat and sensible trousers, and almost looked like a responsible adult.  It was a worrying sight.  It reminded Natalie that they only really had a month of school left.  In six months’ time, they’d have all scattered to the winds.

Natalie had spent the last five minutes trying to think of ways to start this conversation.  Eventually, she decided just to be direct.  “Johnny was being a real dick to you earlier.”

Abbie adjusted the mirror.  “Yeah…  Well, you know what he’s like.”

Natalie did know what he was like.  That didn’t mean she had to excuse it.  “Seriously, what harm does it do to him if you make dirty jokes now and then?”

Abbie glanced at her.  “I don’t know…  He had a point.  We were being a bit immature.”

“So?  Everyone acts a bit immature now and then.  Who’s he to elect himself the sole authority on who can joke about what?”

Abbie grinned.  “If you ask me, he just doesn’t want us discussing any penis that’s not his.”

Natalie chuckled.  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”

“Nah, you’re OK,” said Abbie.  But just because she said it didn’t mean that Natalie had to agree.

(To Be Continued)

April 2003

Natalie only had the idea because, on Wednesdays, she had CDT right after English, and one particular scene from Macbeth was fresh in her mind as she filled in the section of her coursework that had to do with robotics and motors.  Macbeth thought he was safe because the witches had promised he’d be king until someone moved Great Birnam Wood across the country, but then Malcolm’s army went and did exactly that.  Natalie looked at the motor part she was sketching, and thought, Fear not, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane.

Then she thought, Holy shit.

Abbie Chamberlain was the first person she told about her plan.  Just before registration on Thursday morning, Natalie took what she’d made out of her bag, and got it to walk across the table.  Abbie watched its jerky movements, totally mesmerised.  A remote-control figure made entirely out of twigs.  “That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

Natalie nodded.  “The remote and the mechanical bits all come from an old toy me and my sisters had.  This robotic tiger thing.”  Natalie had felt a bit guilty about that, in case sometime this week Stephanie decided- as she sometimes did- that she wanted to play with an old toy, and found it dissected.  She’d compromised by taking out as few of its parts as possible, and hoping that Stephanie would put its lack of movement down to the fact that it was five years old and the gears had probably rusted.  “I was thinking we could use this down at Crowe’s Wood.  A bigger version, I mean.”

Abbie grinned.  “What, like Treebeard?”

“Yeah!  If we do it right, we could have an army of hawthorn trees moving towards the builders.  It’ll really freak them out.”

“Especially if it’s dark,” agreed Abbie, patting the twig man on the head with her finger.

*

It was three more days before they got everyone together at David and Amelia’s, discussing the plan.  Natalie had barely been able to think of anything else- it had been like a fever burning through her.  Whenever she’d had a spare moment, images of walking trees and terrified builders filled her head.  If they were lucky…  If they did it right…

“Are you sure you can get it to work with the bigger branches?” asked Johnny.

Natalie nodded.  “I think it’s mostly a matter of knowing where to put the motors.  As long as the joints move OK, the rest should take care of itself.”  Beside her, Abbie was calmly drawing something in her notebook, but Natalie felt like her heart was about to burst.  She’d wanted to impress Abbie, and she had.  She wanted to impress Johnny and Amelia, and it looked as if she had a good chance of doing so.  But David….  Who knew what it took to impress him?  Who knew what was going on in his head?

He sat in the big armchair in the corner of the room, deep in thought.  As if it wasn’t just a matter of listening to what Natalie had said and saying whether or not it was a good idea, as if he’d have to take the vibrations of the universe into account before he made his decision.  Then- wonder of wonders- he smiled.  “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth,” he quoted, “But where are you going to get enough motors to do it?”

Amelia waved a hand airily.  “We can scrounge up enough between us.  We’ve all got some old toys in the attic.”

Abbie finally finished what she’d been drawing, and turned her notebook over to show the others.  It was a gang of trees line-dancing, holding up a sign that said, SAVE CROWE’S WOOD!

“I’ve been thinking,” she explained, “We’re going to want to do this at night, right?  So that people won’t see what we’re doing in advance?”

“Yeah?” said Natalie.

“Well, the builders will all have gone home by then, won’t they?”

“Oh.”  That thought was like running up against a brick wall.  Natalie could only mumble, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Abbie continued.  “So I thought, instead of trying to freak out the builders, we could pick a place next to the main road and have the trees dance and hold up signs where people driving by can see them.”

“Well…”  Natalie was torn.  She’d really wanted to freak out the builders.

“It’d get more attention,” said Johnny, “If it’s just the builders, they might just get embarrassed and decide to keep it quiet.  Not much chance of that with the great British public.”

“And we’d be less likely to get caught,” added Amelia.

Fair enough.  Natalie let her dream of terrified builders go.  “So… is everybody in?”

The others nodded.  Even David gave them a sage smile and a thumbs-up gesture, which gave Natalie butterflies in her stomach.

“Right,” she said, “So when are we doing this?”

(To Be Continued)

March 2005

Mischa Lewis had skin cancer.  The Year Thirteen form tutors had broken it to them this morning.

To Natalie, it felt as of she’d been slapped.  She tried to remember the last time she’d seen or spoken to Mischa.  Last Tuesday, probably, when they’d all been talking about dystopian fiction in English.  She’d seemed fine.  She’d probably seem fine if you saw her right now.  You’d never know that, underneath, there was something poisonous eating away at her, something that didn’t want to stop until it had completely finished her off.

She didn’t know Mischa that well, but she’d always been there.  Around.  Today it was as if there was a cold, empty spot in the whole fabric of the school.

In the common room at break, though, it turned out that Johnny had a different opinion.  “It’s so disgusting,” he sniffed, “She gets sick, and suddenly we’re all supposed to act like we’re her best friends.”

Abbie made a little agreeing noise, and carried on eating her sandwich.

“I mean, God, it’ll be treated easily!” said Amelia, “She just needs to go to the hospital and get the mole removed!  She could even get a boob job while she’s at it!”  She looked around at the others, waiting for a laugh.

She got one from Daisy.  “I’m sorry she’s ill and everything, but most of the things she says just make me want to smack her.”  She smacked the table to demonstrate.  “When she said, Oh, we’re seventeen, we can act as stupid as we like now and leave being intelligent for when we’re older…”

“God…”  Amelia rolled her eyes.

“To me, that’s like saying she’ll do porn for now as a means to a serious acting career later!”  Daisy said this with a flourish, breaking into a laugh on the last word.  La-ha-hater!

“Well, she’s supposed to be quite good at hockey…  I mean, if we’re going to comment on her ball control…”

Natalie was still thinking over that conversation after school, when she looked up Mischa Lewis’ address in the phone book.  She was still thinking about it when she went into town for a Get Well card, and she was still thinking about it when she knocked on the door and Mischa’s dad opened it.

Mischa’s dad was tall and thin, and looked down at her through thick glasses.  Natalie almost lost her nerve.  What could she have to say to him or Mischa that wasn’t completely inadequate?  She had no idea what they were going through right now.  How could she do anything other than interfere and make everything worse?

Don’t be an idiot.  She swallowed and said, “Hi, Mr Lewis?  I’m Natalie Clements- I’m in Mischa’s class at school.”

Mischa’s dad nodded.  “Oh yes, Natalie…” he said thoughtfully, “I’m sure Mischa’s mentioned you…”

“She might not have,” said Natalie quickly.  She could see him starting to worry that she’d been round their house three or four times, and he’d just forgotten about her.  “We don’t really hang out much.  But, um, we’re all worried about her, and I’ve got a…”  She looked down at the card in her hand, and imagined Mr Lewis saying, Oh, you’ve got a card for her!  Well, that makes it all better, then, doesn’t it?  “Well, I thought she’d want to know we were rooting for her.”

That sounded pathetic.  In fact, everything she’d said so far had sounded pathetic.  But every time she wished she hadn’t come, she remembered what Amelia had said.  She can even get a boob job while she’s at it.

“Um, I remembered…”  She looked back up at Mr Lewis.  “Sorry, nothing I’m saying sounds like what I actually mean.  Is Mischa around?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding as relieved as she was, “I’ll try and track her down.”

Five minutes later, Natalie was in Mischa’s room, marvelling at how tidy it was.  There was nothing on the floor and barely anything on the surfaces- a tissue box and a couple of gossip magazines on her bedside table, but that was it.  Everything else was neatly packed away into drawers and cupboards.  The walls had a pink-and-white rose pattern around the edges, and there was a faint smell of perfume in the air.  The whole room looked a bit like a display in a furniture shop.

“The doctors say it’s probably not too bad,” said Mischa.  She was sitting opposite Natalie in her desk chair, ankles crossed as if she was posing for a photograph.  “I’m getting it removed next week, and then they’ll see if it’s spread. But they reckon they can usually cure it… Treat it, I mean.”  Her expression wavered, and Natalie thought about the massive gulf between the words “treat” and “cure.”  One was definitely good news; the other could mean just about anything.

“That’s good,” Natalie replied.  She couldn’t help looking at Mischa’s hair.  It was dark and shoulder-length, with the fringe cut straight across like Charlotte Church.  Natalie tried not to wonder how long she’d keep it.

“It’s just the waiting, you know?”  Mischa shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.  “All this time in between one bit and the next, and all I can do is think too much and panic.”

Natalie forced a smile.  “Well, if you want me to bring you your English homework tomorrow…”

“See, you’re joking, but that would actually be really great!”  Mischa let out a nervous laugh.  “It’d give me something to think about that isn’t… you know, terror.”

Natalie tapped her fingers on the bedside table.  “Alright then- I will.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Your house is on my way home- I’ll drop it in.”  Natalie thought for a moment, feeling a little bit of weight ease off her shoulders.  “What other subjects do you do?”

“Um…  French and RE…”

“I’ll see if I can get someone to pick up homework for them, too.”  She glanced back at Mischa, worried that she’d taken things too far.  “Wait, unless you think that’d be too overwhelming?”

Mischa put up her hands.  “No, no, that’s be great!  I mean, I don’t know how much energy I’ll have once the treatment starts, but right now, I just need something to do.”

Natalie smiled.  “I understand.  Completely.”

(To Be Continued)

February 2003

Natalie had been noticing lately that most people seemed to have the same conversation over and over again, like clockwork.  Every week or so they’d find themselves in a specific set of circumstances, and it would happen again, as if they’d forgotten all the times before.

Take Mum and Aunt Polly, whenever they went out for lunch:

 

“Oh, I shouldn’t really…”

“Go on, treat yourself!”

“Oh, alright, I will then.  You’ve got to have something nice now and then, don’t you?”

“Yes.  Otherwise, what’s the point?”

 

Take her little sister Stephanie and her best friend, whenever somebody in their class had annoyed them:

 

“At the end of the day, you know, I don’t really care what they think of me.”

“Yeah.  You’ve got to know who your real friends are.”

“Yeah.”

“Cause real friends don’t talk shit about you as soon as you turn your back.”

“Yeah.”

 

Take her dad and the guy at the newsagents, whenever he went in to buy a paper:

 

“I just think it’s such a shame when you see children stuck inside watching telly all day.”

“Yeah, kids need to run around a bit now and then, don’t they?”

“It’s just breeding a generation of couch potatoes.  You know, in ten years’ time, books won’t even exist anymore.”

“Mm.  It’s sad, isn’t it?”

“Sad.”

 

Natalie mentioned it to Amelia, and she laughed.  “It’s easier to talk than it is to think,” she told her.

“It’s not just that,” said Johnny, who was lying on the floor looking through Amelia’s videotapes.  Natalie had had a look through some of them earlier- half of them were old sci-fi shows, and the other half were films that Natalie had heard vaguely mentioned throughout the years but didn’t know anything about.  “It’s because they’ve fallen out of the habit of considering opinions different from their own.  Once you’ve done that, your mind starts to stagnate.”

Natalie nodded.  It made sense- once you’d forgotten any possibility that you might be wrong, all you could do was repeat the same opinion, back and forth, until the end of time.  “So if I really want to do my mum a favour, I should tell her that you don’t have to have something nice now and then?”

“Try it,” said Johnny, with an inscrutable smile, “You might be surprised.”

Natalie lay back on the bed.  Every time she came here, Amelia’s room took her breath away.  There was an awning along the top of her window designed to look like roses and thorns, as if they were all in a really odd version of ‘Sleeping Beauty.’  The walls were dark blue and covered in chalk designs of wolves and deer, as if it was the sky and they were some particularly vivid constellations.  There were boxes designed to look like treasure chests and little figurines designed to look like mutilated voodoo dolls.  There were more types of candles and incense than Natalie would have guessed existed.  And despite all of this, it was still only the second most spectacular room in the house.

Amelia nodded towards her videos.  “You know, there’s an episode of Armchair Theatre that has Gandalf from Lord of the Rings in it.  Do you want to watch that?”

Natalie shrugged.  “If you like.”

“Or we could go downstairs and see what David’s working on,” added Amelia, as if the two options had equal weight and they weren’t obviously going to choose the second one.  Gandalf in a murder mystery sounded like fun, but David’s work was something else entirely.

When David had moved back home after university, his and Amelia’s parents had spent a lot of money converting the cellar into a studio for him.  That had been last summer.  Since then, he’d filled it up with so much stuff that you couldn’t take all of it in.  It reminded Natalie of visiting Santa’s Grotto as a kid, and spotting a strange new detail everywhere she looked.

This time it took them a couple of minutes to find David- the studio was so packed that it became a kind of maze.  A lot of it was a series of paintings on giant canvases- naked people in blues and purples, giant claws reaching out to rip you to shreds- but there were bigger obstacles, too.  They found him at a table in between the mannequins made up to look like plague victims and the giant fibreglass flea.  He was reading the local paper, and looking crestfallen.

“They’re going to bulldoze half of Crowe’s Wood,” he said, without looking up.

Natalie and Amelia looked at each other.  “Crowe’s Wood?” asked Natalie, “That’s the big country park place near Waitrose, right?”

“Yep,” said David.  He sighed.  “They say they want to improve the roads.”  There was something about David’s face- even at times like this, when you could only see it in profile and in shadow- that seemed otherworldly.  As if it was too pale, or too smooth, or too clean… but none of those things really.  It was more like he always had one foot in another dimension.  As if his thoughts were so different from everyone else’s, he might as well have been a different species.

Amelia shook her head.  “Typical,” she said, her voice dripping with acid, “More progress.”

“It’s the way of the world,” said Johnny, keeping a neutral expression.

David finally looked up.  He was probably looking at all three of them, but to Natalie, it seemed like he was making direct eye contact with her.  Which, of course, drew her into making direct eye contact with him.  Natalie couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone with eyes as deep a blue as David’s were.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he said, “Sometimes it actually, honest-to-God hurts. Just to know that beautiful things can be destroyed right under our noses, and we’ll never be able to save them all.  You just don’t know where to start.”

Natalie thought about the rainforest.  What was it people always said- an area the size of a football pitch destroyed every… hour?  minute?  And it seemed to go on happening no matter what anyone did.  Every day, more species became extinct, more medical breakthroughs became impossible, and the air became harder and harder to breathe.  You couldn’t think about it without feeling totally powerless.

David continued.  “The people who decided to destroy Crowe’s Wood… they didn’t think of all the wild creatures and plants that live there.  They didn’t think of all the happiness it’s brought to people, or how important it is to have a little oasis of peace in the middle of all the concrete.  All they thought about was their bottom line.”  His hair fell in his eyes, partially hiding them from view.  He looked defeated.  Crushed.  You wanted to burst into tears just looking at him.

Natalie heard herself say, “We’ll do something about it.  We just need to come up with something.”  And why not? she thought, The rainforest’s three thousand miles away, but Crowe’s Wood is just down the road.  It’s within our reach.

David looked right at her and smiled. In that moment, she felt as if she could have single-handedly saved the rainforest too.

(To Be Continued)

January 2005 

They were sitting in the Wimpy, weighing up the merits of Suede and The Tears, when Amelia’s eyes went wide with horror.  “Natalie,” she said, through gritted teeth, “Please tell me that girl’s trousers don’t say what I think they say.”

Natalie turned around.  There was only a short wall sealing off the Wimpy from the rest of the shopping centre, so it was easy to look around at passers-by as you ate.  And walking past New Look, absorbed in her phone, was a girl with the word “JUICY” embroidered, in gold, on her arse.

“I’m afraid so,” Natalie told Amelia.

Abbie Chamberlain and Daisy Sparrow (sitting next to Natalie and Amelia respectively), craned their necks to try and see the JUICY girl, but she’d disappeared into one of the nearby shops.  Amelia made a hissing, spitting sound, like a cat coughing up a hairball.  “God!  What is it with young people these days?  I mean, do they seriously think that looks good?”

Abbie laughed.  “Amelia, you’re not even eighteen ‘til next month.  You’re ‘young people these days.’”

Natalie tried to work out whether the JUICY girl had been their age or younger.  She hoped younger.  If you got to the age of eighteen and still thought dressing like that was a good idea, there was probably no hope for you.

Amelia shook her head.  She was wearing a white shirt that looked like something a jockey might wear, and her hair (the kind of brown that made Natalie think of cinnamon sticks) was so perfectly brushed that it looked like a solid mass, with every strand moving in unison.  She was easily the most stylish of the four of them.  “The more I see of this world, the more I understand why David lives like he does.”

Natalie nodded.  A few months ago, David had moved out of his and Amelia’s parents’ house, and bought a little place, not much more than a cabin, in the woodland on the edge of town.  He said it was so he didn’t have to deal with people, but luckily, “people” didn’t include Amelia, Natalie and the others, so they were up there all the time.  If you wanted somewhere to drink and listen to music where no-one would bother you, David’s cabin was the place.

Daisy was still craning her neck.  The JUICY girl was long gone, but Daisy was a natural optimist.  “It’s irresponsible!” she announced to the rest of the table, a decibel or two louder than she really should have.

“What is?” asked Abbie.

“Going round with something like that written on your clothes.  You might as well just get ‘up for it’ tattooed on your arm.”

Abbie grinned, resting her chin on her hand.  “It could just mean she really likes orange juice.”

Daisy didn’t acknowledge this.  “I think it’s very irresponsible,” she said, still looking over her shoulder, “especially considering that syphilis is on the rise.”

And something about that- maybe the strangeness of the situation, maybe Daisy’s outraged voice, maybe the thought of the trousers giving the girl syphilis on their own, by magic- made the other three dissolve into giggles, slowly collapsing onto the table as they tried to regain control.

(To Be Continued)