Noah Can't Even

by Simon James Green

  “Wait…” he gasped, sucking on his asthma pump, pressing the little canister down to spray the Ventolin deep into his tight little lungs. He held his breath for a moment, then jumped as he felt Jess Jackson’s hand on the small of his back.

  “All right?” she asked.

  Noah nodded, still holding his breath. She took her hand away and started laughing.

  He exhaled. “What’s funny?”

  “Who’d have thought it? Me and Noah Grimes, on the run from the law!”

  “See? I’m not just into books and stuff!”

  “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “What you doing out, anyway?”

  “Had to see someone about something,” he said, all mysterious and Mafia-like.

  “Oh, yeah? Had to see your little boyfriend, you mean?”

  Noah was about to launch into a response but remembered his gran’s advice and stopped himself, giving only the slightest hint of a smile. He watched Jess’s face as she awaited his reply, smiling curiously herself when she didn’t get one. She was intrigued.

  “Dirty boy,” she muttered.

  But again, he remained silent. And there was no follow-up from Jess, no additional teasing. Nothing. It was quite possible that Gran was right. Old people really did know what they were talking about.

  “Well, you basically walked me home … ran me home, I suppose, so thanks for that,” she said, indicating her rather plush detached house with a BMW parked on the brick driveway. Noah reckoned there were more bricks on that driveway than in his entire house. “Guess I’ll see you at school and we’ll both pretend none of this happened,” she continued. “Don’t want people to think we’re hanging out, Noah, no offence.”

  “Feeling’s mutual,” he said.

  In the not-too-far-away distance, a police siren started wailing.

  “Shit!” said Jess. “The old bitch grassed us up to the cops!”

  “Oh no!” Noah said, again resisting the urge to inform her they were not “cops” but in fact “the Constabulary” or “police force”. They were not in America.

  “Quick,” she said, pushing him towards her front door, “get your ass inside!”

  “But I have to go home now!” Noah protested. He couldn’t set foot inside her house! This girl killed hamsters, provoked swans and stole horses! She would probably tie him up in the cellar and torture him…

  “Noah! If she really did call the cops, she will have given your description and they’ll be out looking for you… God knows if they pick you up you’ll blab your mouth off in no time, and I’m already on a warning. If there’s any more shit I’ll be in court; you’ll have to come in and lie low for a bit.”

  “But why? What have you done?” Noah wailed, wondering if he would be guilty of whatever it was by association.

  “Shut up, get in!” she said, pushing him in through the door and slamming it behind her.

  They both stood breathless in the hall as the police siren wailed in the distance. Noah took in his surroundings. He had to admit, it was an impressive residence. There was art on the walls – proper art, not just some framed print from Ikea. And the furniture in the hall was made of some sort of solid, dark, highly polished wood. And in fact, the hall was big enough to actually have space for furniture in it, more to the point. Cream carpet. Very fluffy and soft. This was nice. But it was also a trap, surely? A hallway designed to lull him into a false sense of security before she hit him over the head and dragged his unconscious body downstairs.

  “I can’t hear the siren any more, should I go?” Noah suggested, desperate to get out of there.

  Jess shook her head. “They’ll be out on patrol for at least an hour. They’ve got naff-all else to do round here.”

  “An hour?!”

  “Chill out,” Jess said, with an edge of annoyance in her voice. “Pity my folks aren’t here – they’d love it if they thought I’d come home with a boy like you.”

  “A boy like me?”

  “Good at school. Neeky.” She looked at him for longer than she needed to, and a smile gently played across her lips, like she was momentarily thinking of something else, and then click! Back in the room. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Um … Robinsons Barley Water? Or Kia-Ora?” he suggested, reckoning she would probably have the sort of mum who could afford quality branded squash.

  “I mean a drink-drink, idiot!” she laughed.

  “Oh! Oh, a drink-drink. Oh … like, alcohol?”

  “Yeah. But what?”

  “Well … what are you having?”

  “Pear cider.”

  “OK, pear cider it is, then,” he said, figuring it was safest to drink whatever she drank, in case she drugged it or something. Perhaps he would secretly switch their bottles, or quietly pour the contents of his into a pot plant – anything to thwart the wicked scheme she was doubtless plotting,

  “Go through to the lounge,” she said, cocking her head towards an open door that appeared to lead into a vast space. “Make yourself at home.”

  And with that Jess Jackson smiled a cheeky little smile and ushered him inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jess was an absolute rascal, bringing bottle two before he had even finished bottle one. And even if the conversation had been desperately awkward to begin with, about halfway through that second bottle he had begun to delight her with witty repartee and sparkling observational comedy. He felt charismatic and confident and utterly brilliant.

  Mmmm. Cider.

  This was nuts. Normally Jess Jackson wouldn’t give him the time of day. Normally she would only make jokes at his expense. She would not, normally, be sitting next to him on a sofa, sharing her pear cider with him, whilst laughing at his jokes.

  Mmmm. Cider, cider, cider.

  Something else was weird too. Jess had somehow morphed from being a terrifying horror-clown from hell into a rather charming and beautiful young woman, who was capable of funny jokes and almost-intelligent opinions. And in the warm glow from the floor lamps (which Noah was pretty sure he recognized from the Conran Shop website), her hair looked natural blonde, so maybe it just looked fake under the harsh glare of school strip lights? Her lips were a dark, voluptuous red, and he became hypnotized by them, watching them move as they spoke words. Words of agreement and mutual respect, because somehow, she was acting like they were friends.

  It felt so good to be on the inside for once. One of them. No teasing now. No life being made hell. Harry wouldn’t approve, but sometimes you’ve got to think of yourself… Why should Noah be made to feel miserable all the time? He and Jess would never be best mates – God, no – but couldn’t they at least get along? He sat back into the sofa with his legs obscenely far apart, which he assumed would give him the look of a confident and capable man. He wanted Jess to see that he really wasn’t just a geeky little virgin. He was one of the lads. One of the straight lads.

  “Why were you out by yourself crying, anyway?” he asked.

  “Kirk dumped me.”

  “How come?”

  “We had a row at Melissa’s party. He wanted me to … he wanted to do stuff.”

  “Oh. And did you … do that stuff?”

  Jess sighed in a depressed sort of way. “Of course not. Never done nothing with anyone. Kirk was like, ‘What’s the problem?’ and I was like, ‘We’re at a house party!’ I dunno, guess I just wanted the first time to be right and … special, or something. Anyway, seems he’s sick of waiting, because he didn’t speak to me for the rest of the weekend, and this afternoon, he dumped me.”

  Well, that’s unexpected news, he thought.

  “Everyone’s wrong about me, Noah,” she continued. “Like they’re wrong about you, I guess.”

  “They are! They’re wrong about me!” Oh my gosh, they were so alike! A bit. Well, not really, but at least there was some common ground.

  “But, I mean,” she continued, “you’re a virgin too, right?”

  “What?” he asked, nervously trying to buy time –
as if a few seconds would make any difference anyway and someone would shag him in the time it took to answer.

  “I mean – unless you and Harry really are…”

  “No! No, not at all. We’ve done nothing. ’Cause all that is crap,” he assured her, grasping his chance to set the record straight and stop the gossip. “It was the alcohol. Harry and me are best mates, but that’s all. He’s nice, and we weren’t properly holding hands, he was … helping me get a splinter out, but it was misinterpreted… So, yeah.”

  “So … why were you out so late tonight? If you weren’t seeing Harry?”

  “Well … you see, that’s the thing…” he began. What was he going to tell her? He was certainly not going to tell her that he had been out buying video footage from evil Eric, which he could potentially use to blackmail half the year. “I just needed to get some air, you know? Man, I needed some air!” he said, adding the “man” part for extra cool points, because that was definitely a word that cool people said a lot. “Mum … doing my head in, man.”

  Jess nodded and smiled like she knew what he meant. She didn’t know the half of it, though. He clenched his jaw as he thought about his mum’s heinous duplicity. How could she possibly justify what she had done? Even if Eric hadn’t texted him, Noah probably would have needed to go out to clear his head anyway. Either that or there was a high chance he would have slipped some cyanide into her tea … or thrown a live hairdryer into her bath.

  He felt Jess’s hand on his leg, stopping it from bouncing up and down. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered. “I was just thinking about … stuff.”

  She smiled again. “Chill out, yeah? Parents just don’t get it.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. But his parent not only didn’t “get it”, she was hurtful, selfish and had totally screwed him over.

  “So, if the Harry thing was just a thing, do you like girls, then?” Jess asked, downing what was left of her drink.

  “Love ’em,” he said quickly, feeling really quite rebellious for dropping the “th”.

  “That’s good.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly, snuggling up to him on the sofa, apparently pleased about that.

  He knocked back the remainder of the cider in a terrible panic. Jess Jackson was now snuggled into him. Her hand dropped on to Noah’s lap. He looked at her in surprise, but her eyes were closed and she had seemingly drifted off to sleep, snuggled into his shoulder. He bit his lip. This was most awkward. If he was going to be in close proximity to a girl, it should really be Sophie. Not Jess. He and Jess weren’t even proper friends. He was almost the only boy in the school that Sophie liked. He felt like an unfaithful husband.

  “Mmmm, Noah … how about we both stop being virgins, huh?” Jess slurred gently into his ear as she stirred again.

  He must have misheard. “Say what?”

  “You know,” she purred, “we could stop being virgins.”

  “How?” How?! How do you think, you UTTER KNOB!

  “Oh, Noah!” she giggled as she struggled on to her knees and ran her hands haphazardly through his hair. “Geeky boys are so cute. But, really, you want it just as bad as the other boys.”

  “No… I really don’t…” he assured her, his pulse quickening. What was she on about? There was absolutely NO WAY he would ever consider sex with a girl.

  Like her!

  A girl like her. Yes, he would probably like to have sex with a girl, but a really nice one. Like Sophie, maybe. Not Jess.

  “Mmm, you’re cute!” she smiled.

  He had to stop this. And, like any upstanding teenager in this situation, he must draw her attention to the legal ramifications. “Look, I’m still only fifteen and stuff, so…”

  “Big boy now. So I’ve heard!”

  Damn! Of course she didn’t care about the law! She planted a drunken, slobbering kiss on his lips, which he immediately wiped away with the back of his hand before doing the buttons on his shirt back up as fast as she was unbuttoning them.

  “We can’t do it with our clothes on, silly!” she giggled.

  “No, well, that’s fine…”

  “I’m hot for you, Noah!” she purred, like a bad porn actress.

  “Oh, God!” he screamed, panicked by how fast things were happening and trying to fling her off him. It was no use. She was stuck like a deranged, sex-mad limpet. “Look, if you’re hot, maybe you should cool down?” he said. “I could run you a cold bath? Or maybe hose you down in the garden? Have you got a hose?”

  “You’ve got a hose!” she grinned, making a grab for his trousers.

  “Oh! Urrgggh! No, God, no you don’t … no. It’s not for you!” he wailed, batting her away as she tugged at his belt in an utterly cack-handed manner. “No, please… Pull your shorts back up! Jess! Your shorts have come down, I can see… No… Jess! JESS! Jess – this is serious now, that is something I do not want to see, because it’s actually illegal? That is illegal what you are showing me now! Illegal. There are laws, and you are breaking those laws! You’re on a warning, remember?! One more thing and you’ll be in court…? Well, this is that thing!” He hoped the clear threat of a substantial prison sentence would deter her; did she really want to end up in a borstal for bad girls?

  Apparently she didn’t mind. They continued to battle it out on the sofa, him trying to keep his clothes on and her doing everything possible to get them off. And then, it being evident that ALL of Noah’s clothes were going to remain firmly attached to his body, a new and dangerous look came into her eyes as she shuffled up towards him, pressing and grinding herself into his crotch.

  “Mmmm, you’re hard, baby,” she cooed, pressing herself up against what was actually the Mini Maglite in the pocket of his trousers. What was he going to do? She was clearly hell-bent on engaging in some form of horrific sexual activity with him. It was terrible. Terrible because it was her and terrible because he felt like it was about the worst thing that could happen to him, but then WHAT SORT OF BOY DID THAT MAKE HIM? A GAY ONE?! Oh, GOD! He should be enjoying this! He should be all horny for it! His head was chaos, and, just like with Harry, there was no time to properly think because everything was happening so quickly.

  She kissed him on the lips again, broke away and sashayed over to a small clay pot on the mantelpiece, from which she extracted a condom.

  A condom.

  Who the hell kept condoms in a pot on their mantelpiece?!

  There was no time to ponder the question. She tore the packet open with her teeth, in direct contravention of every sex ed class they had ever had.

  “Now! Make love to me!” she exclaimed, hurling herself at him with renewed vigour. Terrified, and by reflex, he pushed her away, and she staggered backwards, tripped headlong on to the sofa, slammed her head on the wooden armrest and passed out unconscious.

  Mouth open, arms still outstretched in front of him – it was like Noah was frozen in time and space. He didn’t even dare breathe. He waited in the pin-drop silence for any slight stirring from Jess. A murmur, a twitch, a breath? But there was nothing. Oh, God. She wasn’t moving. At all. He cautiously edged nearer. Was this a trick? Would she spring up like a horny jack-in-the-box and try to shag him?

  “Jess?” he whispered. “Jess? You OK there?”

  Nothing.

  “Jess … it’s been fun, but I do need to go home now…”

  Nothing.

  “It’s been nice having a chat, and all that stuff just now was just the drink-drink, right? We can put it all behind us. A misunderstanding. Like what happened with me and Harry. Like grown-ups. Jess? Can you hear me?”

  He poked her, and her arm dropped down and hung limply off the end of the sofa. He stared at her, shaking, his mouth dry.

  She did not appear to be breathing.

  There was every possibility that Jess Jackson was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “What the merry hell are you doing now, Noah Grimes?”

  He looked up from the flames to wher
e his mother was standing, in her baby-doll nightie with fur trim and fluffy pink mules. She looked like mutton dressed as poodle.

  “Just burning some stuff,” he snapped, resisting every impulse to hurl her into the flames too.

  “It’s two in the morning! The neighbours!”

  “Best time to burn stuff. Doesn’t disturb anyone!” he said, like everything was totally fine with this situation and there was nothing odd happening.

  Of course he hadn’t just left Jess. After placing her in the recovery position, checking her pulse and establishing she was in fact breathing, he’d made an anonymous call to 999 from the phone box at the end of her road. Posing as a “concerned passer-by” he told the operator he had seen Jess Jackson “doing a gymnastic display” through the window of her lounge, and she had “apparently slipped whilst performing a split leap into a Yurchenko loop and they should send paramedics ASAP”. Adding detail, he knew, was what makes lies believable.

  Hiding in a bush, he watched in terror as the ambulance arrived at the same time as her parents, sure they were about to bring her out in a body bag. But they didn’t. They didn’t even take her away on a stretcher; her parents just shook the hands of the paramedics and waved them goodbye instead. Not the actions of grieving parents.

  Then again, this was Jess.

  Oh, she probably wasn’t dead or seriously injured. But she clearly couldn’t be trusted. She had lied to him and tried to seduce him. What else was she capable of? What if she claimed he pushed her with intent to kill? What if she planned to press charges against him? What if the police wanted to investigate? He could not be linked to the scene of the crime!

  Mum made her way across the patio and towards the shabby excuse for a lawn, where Noah stood, wearing just his boxers under his dressing gown, using a large stick to prod the bonfire. “These are your clothes!” she declared. “Why are you burning your clothes?!”

  “I was sick of them.”

  “Sick of them?! They were perfectly decent clothes! Frigging mentalist!”

  “They didn’t fit!”

  “Don’t give me that! You’re a short-arse, just like your father!”