Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel)

by Jester, David

  ‘Kerry wants to see you,’ she said with a wink and a smile.

  I made a gesture of looking around the playground.

  ‘She’s behind the bike-sheds,’ Laura inserted.

  I frowned at her, unsure what she was suggesting.

  Her mild manner changed to frustration as I remained standing. ‘Just go would you?’ she pushed.

  Laura had judging eyes that bore the hallmarks of prepubescent psychopathy and windowed the mind of a future dominatrix. I didn’t want to obey her but I didn’t want to disappoint her. I found myself following her sternly pointed finger and drifting towards the rear end of the school where a shaded corner housed three bike-sheds and an unused, dilapidated, janitors shed.

  Kerry was waiting by the side of the bike-sheds with her hands on her hips, chewing her lips as she surveyed the playground with anticipated disappointment and annoyance.

  She often wore her golden-blonde hair in pigtails, but Peter Bell -- an effeminate, mini metrosexual who passed his break-times playing Hopscotch and skipping games with the girls -- had spent his morning braiding her golden locks into three long strands that swung pendulously down her back.

  Her hazel eyes twinkled with delight and she ambled towards me.

  ‘Laura said--’

  Kerry grabbed my hand and quickly turned away, not interested in anything I had to say.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, careful not to trip over the heels of her scuffed black shoes as she pulled me across the playground.

  ‘Come on,’ she urged without explanation.

  The side of the furthest bike-shed was bordered by a thicket of outstretched bushes. A thin, wood-chipped alleyway led to the rear of the sheds and a secluded spot used by the older, more delinquent, juveniles.

  Cigarette butts covered the floor like a carpet of discarded cancer. I stepped through the slalom of filters -- blackened and soggy from the rain -- and found a patch of clean mud to rest my tattered trainers on.

  Kerry didn’t seem to mind the ashy assault course. She waded through the butts with tiptoed glee and rested her back against the shed, her hands tucked behind her backside. She eyed me with a sly smile.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked, wondering why I had followed her this far.

  She giggled, looked away awkwardly and then exclaimed: ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,’ without lifting her eyes from the pavement.

  I let a smile creep onto my face. I didn’t know she was interested in that, if I had I wouldn’t have been so reluctant to follow her. This was what my schooldays were made for after all, this was the reason I became exited at the thought of going to school.

  I looked around to double check that no one was looking. There was no movement in the bushes, no eyes peeking through the many holes in the back of the shed.

  ‘Okay,’ I said with a prepare yourself for this inflection.

  I pulled it out and beamed a broad, dimpled smile.

  Slowly, preparing herself for what she was about to see, she lifted her eyes from the ground.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ she declared, twisting her face.

  I looked down at my hand. I turned it this way and that, examining the grasped item.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ I said, worried, ‘It's perfect.’

  She shook her head as she stared at me, disbelief in her eyes. ‘A football sticker?’ she spoke slowly.

  ‘Not just any football sticker,’ I said proudly. ‘It’s Andy Cole. Leading Premiership goal scorer, record breaker, signed from--’

  ‘I’m not interested in bloody football!’ she spat, annoyed.

  I looked around, visibly aware that she had dragged me to the middle of nowhere. ‘But you said--’

  ‘I didn’t mean that!’ she spat.

  ‘I have Teddy Sheringham, but it’s nowhere near as--’

  An exasperated sigh stopped me short. ‘You’re useless!’ she said, throwing her hands in the air. She barged forward, knocked me aside, and trudged angrily back towards the playground.

  That’s hardly fair, I thought to myself as I watched her stomp away. I never got to see hers.

  Synopsis:

  Kieran McCall has never been lucky in love. This socially awkward, intellectually impaired Romeo has had his fair share of relationships, but none of them have ended well.

  There was the time behind the bike-sheds, his first time, when he kissed little Kerry Newsome, vomited on her and then received an arse-kicking in the cloakroom. The time he found himself embroiled in an animal murdering plot after trying to acquire his first girlfriend. The ‘bulge’ incident in front of a naked class of showering classmates, and then there was the time he lost his virginity to an unenthusiastic sociopath in the supermarket stockroom; but these things were merely incidental in comparison to the others, because as bad as growing up was for this persistently unlucky idiot, adulthood was worse.

  An Idiot in Love is a fictional piece written in an autobiographical style, following the car-crash life of protagonist Kieran McCall to a happy ending with the one girl who he didn’t insult, maim or hospitalize.

  Buy @ Amazon.com

  Buy @ Amazon.co.uk

  The Line the Itch and the Rabbit Hole (Memoir):

  Sample Chapter: “The Sniffles”

  ‘Where are we going?’ I pleaded with my mother, desperate for an answer she had given many times.

  ‘I told you a million times, it’s a safari park,’ she replied patiently.

  I was eight years old and had the attention span to match. Information went in clearly enough but it was soon diluted by a million other things and then quickly forgotten.

  ‘Christine is taking you and your brother,’ my mother went on to explain as she pottered around the kitchen making dinner, with me hot on her heels.

  Christine lived just down the street from us, her house nestled in the middle of our tidy little cul-de-sac. She had a son, Rob, who was a couple of years younger than me. My brother Graham was exactly eighteen months older than me, but we all often played together on the street with the other kids in the area.

  ‘Graham is coming?’ I wondered. I looked into the adjoining living room, my brother was in there watching television, his face almost pressed up against the screen. ‘Can’t you leave him here?’

  He shot me an angry look and stuck two fingers up at me when he thought our mother wasn’t looking.

  ‘Or on a bus somewhere,’ I mumbled.

  ‘David! Don’t talk about your brother like that,’ Mum snapped, Graham laughed a silent and mocking laugh. ‘And Graham, don’t stick your fingers up at your little brother.’

  A mother was always looking.

  Later that night we all sat down to watch television after dinner. Coronation Street, not exactly a favourite of mine but the heavy rain ruled out any chance of playing outside.

  With my eyes on the screen and my attention everywhere but, I suddenly felt an odd urge. A strange feeling crept through me and I felt anxious about refusing to meet its demands, like needing to scratch an aggressive itch or blink moisture into dry eyes.

  Sniff.

  It was a small inhalation of air, it was what my brain was telling me to do yet it wasn’t quite right.

  Sniff Sniff.

  I did it again, but it still wasn’t enough. Now deepening my interest in this experience and forgetting that I was sandwiched between my parents, I concentrated.

  Sniff Sniff-iff Sniff.

  The elongation on the second one made me feel better. Maybe that was the way to go.

  Sniff-iff-iff.

  There was something else.

  Sniff Sniff.

  This time I exhaled at the end. I was getting closer to what I felt needed to be done.

  Sniff-iff-iff-iff.

  Louder this time, pushing out so much air that I left myself breathless.

  Sniff -- Urghhh.

  I sucked the air back in through my nose with force. A grunting noise ratted out from the top of my nose. Th
at felt much better, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

  Sniff-Snort-Sniff-Sniff-if-if.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  My dad was looking at me. I had a pleased look on my face, momentarily content that I had achieved something and satisfied some inner part of me.

  I looked back, puzzled.

  ‘It sounds like he’s coming down with a cold,’ Mum said warmly, reaching across to feel my head. ‘He’s only just gotten rid of one as well. I hope you’ll be fine in time for the safari park next week,’ she said, removing her hand.

  I settled into the sofa disappointed. I really didn’t want to get a cold and miss going to the safari park, I loved animals and my experience never went beyond seeing them in cages, this place sounded far more exciting.

  As the week progressed so did the sniffing, but it never worried me and was always forgotten about. It came and went and I didn’t let my mind dwell on it. On the day of the safari trip I ran downstairs with a spring in my step and vaulted straight to the back door and out into the garden.

  It was the biggest garden in the street and I loved it. My dad could be a grumpy and seemingly careless person at times but that was just a facade which hid a really thoughtful and caring father. Years ago, when we moved to Yorkshire, he picked the house because of the garden, so that when me and my brother grew up we would always have a place to play.

  A large deck, fitted with paving slabs, adorned the top of the garden and overlooked a huge lawn. To the right of the lawn, and at its bottom, there were patches of mud and ground we rarely touched. Rockeries and fish ponds would cover these areas in later years but the focal point was the lawn.

  The top end of the grass had been ripped apart -- the end we used for a goal and a cricket stump -- but the rest was well maintained. In the middle of the garden, off from the centre by a few metres, was a huge stump of a bygone tree. It was my seat when resting and my fort when playing but I could never remember the tree when it was alive.

  On the deck were two wooden cages, different styles but both bought at the same time and for the same purpose. On the top of the cages were several folded sheets of tarpaulin and plastic which were used to shield them from the wind and the rain at night. The sheets had been lifted and stacked an hour ago, my parents beating me to the morning unveiling.

  I ran to the first cage and ducked my head down, frightening the black rabbit inside. ‘Good morning Blackie,’ I cried, sending it running into the sleeping quarters where a slab of wood blocked it from my view. I sighed and shifted along to the other cage. A tame white albino rabbit greeted me, excited.

  ‘Morning Snowy,’ the rabbit looked genuinely pleased to see me and allowed me to stroke it through the mesh on the cage. If I had tried that with Blackie she would have bitten my fingers off.

  My brother had brought the two rabbits home from school a month ago, a teacher had been giving away a new litter and he had managed to trick her into believing that he had our parents’ permission to bring home two. A good way to trick parents who refused to have pets in the house was to show up on the doorstep with two tiny rabbits and an innocent smile.

  ‘But why two?’ Mum had pleaded.

  ‘I didn’t want David to feel left out,’ Graham had announced.

  As brothers who were separated by a mere year and a half we were always close, even if that did mean countless arguments and fights, destroying the house and our mothers’ nerves.

  I picked the black rabbit straight away. We were told they were both females so we kept them in the same cage for a while, but then they started to fight -- or at least my parents told me they were fighting. In later years I would learn that my mother and her bewildered friends considered the possibility that the rabbits were lesbians before they concluded that the white one was male.

  ‘I can’t let you out,’ I told Snowy. ‘I’m letting Blackie out and I don’t want you two fighting again. Mum says to never let you fight ever again.’ I walked across to Blackie and opened the door to the sleeping compartment, she looked at me with something resembling fear and disgust as she hid in the corner of the hay-filled room.

  ‘Come on,’ I said meekly, trying to usher her out. She snapped her head forward, ears lowered, and tried to bite me. I quickly pulled my hand away, ‘Ha-ha!’ I pointed at her, teasing her with my unbitten fingers. ‘I’m too quick for you.’

  ‘David!’ my mother was shouting at me. I turned to the open door to see her walk into view. ‘What are you doing?’.

  ‘Playing with Blackie.’

  ‘She’ll bite you and scratch you again,’ she warned. ‘She’s made a mess of your arms.’

  She was right. It was summer and I always wore a T-shirt. Whenever I picked her up she kicked, flipped and bit until she drew blood or dug her claws into my skin. My arms were a testament to bunny abuse.

  ‘But if I don’t let her out she won’t be able to play.’

  ‘And how are you going to get her back in?’

  I smiled a cheeky smile. ‘With your help?’

  ‘Okay,’ she nodded, falling to my manipulation. ‘But you’re picking her up,’

  I tried to smile, victorious, but the rabbit had flesh in her sights.

  ‘Ow!’ I screamed, yanking my hand out of the cage and holding it to my chest. ‘She bit me!’

  My mother smiled, her face said, ‘I told you so.’

  I looked into the cage as the rabbit finally moved, jumping out now that I was out of the way. As she scurried past my feet I was sure I saw a glint of satisfaction in her eyes.

  ‘Get washed and ready when you’re finished,’ my mother had drifted back into the kitchen. ‘You’re leaving for the safari park in four hours,’ she called.

  I smiled, a small torrent of excitement crept up in me. I felt giddy and then:

  Sniff Sniff.

  I ignored the sniffing and looked at the rabbit who was currently weighing up the options of leaping from the deck and onto the grass, a fall of about five inches. ‘I’m going to see some more animals later--’ I told her, pausing.

  Sniff Sniff Sniff-if-if-if.

  ‘--Ones even more vicious than you.’

  The rabbit leapt down and ran away. After breakfast I would be forced to chase her around the garden and try to usher her into my arms, using my mother as a sheepdog and bracing myself for a world of pain.

  We made the short journey to Christine’s later in the day. Fresh marks adorned my wrists which were covered by a light jacket, it was a hot day but my mother wasn’t going to let me out of the house without a jacket for its entirety.

  I walked side by side with my brother, a few seconds passed before we began exchanging blows. Throwing soft side-punches, hidden from the view of our mother.

  ‘You two will behave when you’re with Christine now won’t you?’ she warned.

  ‘Sure,’ Graham said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, slightly thrown off as a punch landed on my thigh.

  ‘If I hear that you’ve been getting into any trouble I’ll ground you both for a week,’ she continued, fearful of leaving us alone with the single mother of an only child.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Graham said before landing a shot on my arm. ‘I’ll look after David, don’t worry.’

  I looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘They do have lions there don’t they?’ he asked sarcastically.

  ‘What are you planning?’ I stopped to ask.

  He held up his hands defensively.

  ‘Boys! Not now!’

  ‘But he’s going to throw me to the lions,’ I pleaded.

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Both of you shut up,’ she began to walk away and urged us to follow. I rushed to walk by her side.

  ‘Git,’ I whispered to my brother.

  ‘Play nice with Rob,’ our mother continued to dish out her warnings.

  ‘Will do,’ Graham assured, kicking me gently on the shins just to annoy me as we walked. ‘How long does it--’ he paused, yelped, flew forward, stumb
led and then correct himself. ‘He kicked me!’ he accused loudly, straightening up.

  I stood with a smirk which was quickly wiped off my face by my mothers angry stare, her eyes cut through my soul and said more than a lecture could.

  ‘In my defence,’ I began, ‘he started it.’

  ‘And as usual you took it too far,’ Graham argued.

  He was right and he lived by those words on a weekly basis as small fights and arguments often ended with me losing my temper and reaching for a weapon or fighting dirty. He was a good older brother, we did fight and it wasn’t all me, but no matter what, he would protect me and he never took things too far. Which often meant that he couldn’t fight back after I had taken things too far.

  Our mother pulled us both close and bent down, she was a short woman and would soon be outgrown, but for now she needed to bend down to get to our eye level. ‘If you do anything to embarrass me on this trip then so help me God I will kill you both,’ she warned.

  Sniff Sniff.

  ‘Christine has offered to take you and is paying for it.’ She paused to look us both in the eyes. ‘Be good.’

  ‘We will,’ we said simultaneously.

  Sniff Sniff.

  She looked at me questionably as she rose to a standing position again, ‘You still have the sniffles?’ she asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders, my head held low after being told off.

  She felt my forehead and shrugged it off. ‘You’ll be fine.’

  We made it to Christine’s in one piece and after she shared a coffee with her neighbour and friend, Mum gave us both a kiss and a quiet word of warning, and then walked back across the street to our house. We were in the car and on our way to the safari park within minutes.

  As the car rolled out of the cul-de-sac and began the journey to the safari park I asked how far away it was and received an answer that I wasn’t too pleased with. The park was in Merseyside and we lived in West Yorkshire, we were travelling the breadth of the country and it wasn’t going to be a quick ride.