I unlatch the door behind me.
‘Where are you going?’ The Fig asks, its sad little mouth turning down at the edges.
I hear footsteps and kids’ voices coming, so I lock the door again.
‘Please, don’t leave me!’ it cries. ‘You weren’t going to abandon me, were you? I was only trying to help. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ll die. I need food.’
‘Quiet,’ I whisper. ‘What do you eat, anyway?’
‘Whatever you eat,’ it says. ‘And on that note, if you could steer clear of bread, that would be marvellous. I’m thinking of going gluten-free.’
‘Who are you talking to in there?’ a voice asks from the other side of the toilet door. It’s Jack. There are lots of other voices in the change room now, too.
‘No-one,’ I say. ‘Leave us alone.’
‘Who’s “us”?’ Jack asks.
I look at The Fig, my lifelong shame. I could unlock that door and walk away now, but I need to make sure it never finds me. I won’t sleep at night knowing that The Fig is out there. And if it can read my thoughts, it’ll know where I am.
‘Are you okay?’ Jack asks. ‘That was pretty brutal out there, but no-one’s talking about it anymore. It’s the last race. Just come out. Wear a T-shirt.’
‘Give me a minute,’ I say, reaching around to grab the toilet brush. I poke The Fig with it and it dances out of the way. I stab again and it hops to the side, hiding behind the half-flush button. You might think a Fig would be frail or sluggish, but this thing is agile and quick, in peak physical condition. I swing the toilet brush sideways, determined to whack him, but he leaps over it easily, doing a forward somersault and landing on his feet again.
‘Help!’ The Fig shouts.
‘Help who? What are you doing in there?’ Jack asks.
I look The Fig right in the eye. He is standing on top of the flush button. There is no way that thing is ever touching me again. I will finish him now. I move in with the brush raised like a lightsaber. I bring it down hard and fast, but The Fig dodges out of the way. I take another swipe but he ducks. Then I go chop-chop-chop with three fast little whacks, but he weaves. He pauses in a half-crouch, reading my next move before I even make it.
I try not to think. My gut takes over. I take one last swipe at The Fig and I make contact. It overbalances and falls into the toilet, just managing to hang on to the edge of the seat with one tiny hand. It’s looking up at me, scared out of its mind.
‘Help. Please!’ it begs.
I rest one finger on the button.
‘Please,’ The Fig pleads. ‘Don’t flush.’
All I have to do is poke his tiny Fig-fingers with the brush, press that button and it will be gone. My shame will be no more. As I press down lightly on the button and the water begins to churn he looks into me, and I can’t help feeling a connection. I can feel the panic inside him. It’s like I’m looking into my own eyes, like I’m flushing myself.
His fingers start to slip from the toilet seat and, without thinking, I reach for his hand … but it’s too late. He goes under the water and I panic.
His head emerges and he takes an almighty breath. ‘Can’t … swim, Old Chap!’ he wheezes before the water swallows him again. This is horrific.
There are voices and footsteps outside, kids coming into the change room.
The Fig is down for a few more seconds before he resurfaces, thrusting a desperate hand up towards me. I reach into the grimy bowl, grab him, careful not to crush his cookie-thin body, and I haul him to safety.
There are lots of kids in the change room now, some in cubicles either side of me.
Jack knocks. ‘Carnival’s over. Let’s go, man.’
I take deep breaths. I slowly open my dripping hand to look at The Fig, expecting to see his thankful little smile. But, instead, I find him crouched and angry. He growls and launches himself upwards. I try to catch him midair with my left hand, but he’s too quick. Slap. He attaches himself to my face. I try to peel him off but he won’t budge.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, but he doesn’t respond. ‘I saved you!’
Nothing.
Another kid knocks on the door of my cubicle.
I scratch at my right cheek, trying to lift the edge of The Fig. I run my fingers over its rough surface. But it is stuck hard.
A head pokes over the wall from the next toilet cubicle. ‘What’s goin’ on, Weekly? People need to go to the toilet.’ I look up. It’s Brent Bunder, the biggest kid in our year. ‘Errr. What’s on your face?’
I cover my cheek where my dirty-no-good-big-brown-birthmark is. I unlock the door and head out, slamming straight into Jack.
‘What’s up?’ he asks.
‘Hey, it’s the kid with the poo on his back!’ says Wingnut, the pipsqueak who started all this.
‘It’s not poo!’ I scream. ‘It’s my birthmark. See!’
I rip my hand away from my cheek, showing everybody. Forty boys fall silent and stare. A couple in the back start to giggle.
‘Is that funny? You wanna laugh at the kid with The Fig on his face? You want a piece of me? Do ya?’
Some of the boys look scared now.
‘I was born with it and I’m stuck with it, all right?’
Kids shift uncomfortably. A couple turn away.
‘Sorry, Weekly,’ Chris Meade says.
‘I’ve never even noticed it before,’ another kid mutters. ‘Has it always been on his face?’
I breathe hard, trying to settle myself as the boys go back to getting changed. Jack rests a hand on my shoulder. I touch my face and turn to the mirror. It’s worse than I thought. I have to come to terms with the fact that I might look like this forever. Or at least until The Fig calms down and we can talk it over.
Wingnut shuffles forward and stands in front of me. He stares at my cheek.
‘That thing is reeeally ugly. And how’d it get on your face anyway?’ he asks.
I feel the anger rise up in me again. I want to throw him in the deep end. The Fig feels the anger, too. I know it. He’s growing warm on my cheek.
‘You want me to get a knife and chop it off?’ Wingnut asks with a smile.
My cheek starts to burn and, in that instant, something magical happens …
The Fig tears himself off my skin in a fury and launches through the air towards Wingnut’s face.
Part of me is ecstatic, but part of me misses my old friend already.
When I hear the satisfying smack of The Fig landing in the middle of Wingnut’s forehead, there seems to be just one thing to do. I point and say, ‘Ewww, you’ve got poo on your face.’
Wingnut’s fingers fly to his forehead and he runs his fingers over The Fig’s bumpy surface. He turns to the mirror, mouth open in horror.
‘It’s not poo!’ he says, quietly crying. ‘It’s a birthmark!’
‘Ahoy, me hearties,’ says a bored pirate voice over the speakers. ‘No mates over the age of seven are allowed on the climbing equipment. Or I’ll make ya walk the plank. Arrr.’
A Very Large Man wearing purple-and-black striped pirate pants pulled up to his armpits finishes the announcement and flicks off his headset microphone. He shouts at a kid who is wearing shoes on the giant inflatable shark.
‘Dack!’ a voice screeches from high above us.
My best friend Jack’s three-year-old brother, Barney, is at the top of the highest slippery dip, waving to us like a madman. Jack rolls his eyes, forces a smile, waves back.
‘That kid is so annoying,’ Jack says.
Barney squeals down the yellow slide into a pit of colourful balls and disappears. I secretly hope he might not resurface. But he does, bursting from the balls and smashing his head on another kid’s chin. The other kid starts bawling and pinches Barney on the neck.
‘Happy birthday,’ I say, clinking milkshake glasses with Jack.
He grunts.
Jack’s mum had to work this morning so, even though it’s Jack’s birthday, she made u
s bring Barney to KidsWorld: a three-storey, pirate-themed indoor play centre. We have to keep him out till midday, and then we can go to the movies. That’s the deal. So Jack and I are crammed into the Jolly Roger Cafe with about fifty coffee-guzzling parents tapping madly on their phones.
Up on the pirate ship dozens of crazy kids are firing cannons and climbing the tower that stretches all the way to the ceiling. Rain pounds the roof high above us. Happy pirate songs warble from giant speakers.
‘I never want to have kids,’ Jack says, wiping milkshake from the corners of his mouth.
‘Parents are so weird,’ I say. ‘Why do they do it to themselves?’
‘Barney’s bad now, but pretty soon he’s going to be like us, and I definitely wouldn’t want to be our parents with all the weird stuff we do.’
Barney pushes through the crowded cafe, red-faced, howling, snot cascading into his mouth.
‘What’s wrong this time?’ Jack asks, slurping the last of his milkshake and looking at his watch. ‘Actually, don’t tell me. Ten to twelve. The movie starts in half an hour. We’re going.’
Barney leans forward, opens his mouth and vomits on Jack. Bright-red creaming soda vomit. All down Jack’s white T-shirt and jeans.
‘No!’ Barney screams. ‘Not go home!’
Jack jumps up from the table.
‘We have a vomiting incident at table sixteen,’ says the Very Large Man over the speakers. ‘Can I please have a pirate helper to swab the deck?’
Every single person in the cafe turns in our direction. I hand Jack a wad of serviettes from the middle of the table. He dabs at his neck and T-shirt.
‘Why did you just vomit on me, Barney?’ Jack says, barely containing his rage.
‘BARNEY. NOT. GO. HOME!’
‘I’m not asking about home. I’m asking about the vomit.’
‘Barney says NO!’ He shakes a balled fist at Jack like he is about to punch him.
A couple of mothers nearby try not to laugh.
Jack throws the serviettes onto the table and grabs Barney by the hand.
‘No, you big Boobyman!’ Barney shouts, stomping on Jack’s foot.
Jack drags him out of the crowded cafe, squeezing through the maze of parents and prams.
‘LET ME GO!’ Barney shouts.
‘Don’t think so,’ Jack says. So Barney bites him on the hand. Hard.
Jack screams. Barney bolts across the blue rubber mats. He throws himself at a rope ladder on the side of the pirate ship and scrambles up onto the deck, where he stops, wiggles his bottom at us, blows a big raspberry and races towards the climbing tower.
Jack chases him up the ladder onto the ship. I follow. A whistle blows and there is a voice over the speakers. ‘Would you two scallywags please get OFF the ship!’
The VLM (Very Large Man) is pointing at us.
‘Jack!’ I say. ‘We’re not allowed.’
But Jack keeps going.
I look down at the VLM, shrug and follow Jack across the ship’s deck to the bottom of the tower. It soars high above us – a three-storey colourful column of climbing tower with netting to fence the kids in.
‘Jack, we’re not allowed. We’ve got to go down. That pirate guy is scary.’
But Jack is already on his hands and knees, crawling into the bottom of the tower.
‘Jack?’
He keeps going, so I follow him. The space is tight and twisty, made for kids a quarter of our size.
‘Barney!’ Jack screams.
No response. Just the wild cries of a hundred toddlers.
‘He is so dead,’ Jack says, knocking a couple of kids out of the way as he climbs up onto the first-storey platform. As I make it onto the platform I see Barney crawl into the bottom of a bright-red slippery dip tunnel that leads up to the next floor.
There is a shrill blast on the whistle. I look down and the VLM, with plastic sword drawn, is on the ship’s deck below us, bounding towards the tower, his short sausage legs moving double-time. He points a finger at us. ‘Arrr! You two scoundrels, off NOW. That be a one-way tunnel violation!’
‘Jack, we’d better go down,’ I say.
But Jack is already twisting his body into the slippery dip up to level two.
What am I supposed to do? Follow Jack or listen to the VLM, whose face looks ready to explode as he blows his whistle again. Parents in the Jolly Roger Cafe are watching us and pointing. I am not going to face them alone, so I follow Jack into the red slide. The tunnel is hot, moist and thick with kids.
I start to climb over them. I worry that I might get stuck. I panic and am about to back out when I see light ahead. I smell fresh air through the dense fog of toddler bum-stench. I see Jack’s legs at the top of the slide. I press one foot to each side of the tunnel and climb, spider-like, over seven kids before throwing myself onto the next platform.
There is a blast on the whistle. I look down through the blue netting to see the VLM climbing an emergency ladder on the outside of the tower. I bet he’s loving this. Guys like him wait their whole careers for something like this to happen.
I look around to find Jack. He’s at the top of a fireman’s pole. There are five or six fire poles in a variety of colours leading up to the third platform, the top of the tower. Most have two or three kids on them, desperately trying to pull themselves up to the top.
I see a pole with only one kid on it. I peel her off, set her aside and start up the pole. Just then the background pirate music stops. The speakers squeal and kids below me clutch their ears.
‘Would you two scurvy dogs please remove yourselves from the play equipment?’ announces the VLM on his headset as he climbs the ladder. ‘You may have the brains of five-year-olds, but you don’t have the bodies.’
I heave myself onto the third-floor platform. It smells real bad up here, like farts and party pies. Twenty or thirty little kids shove each other and pull hair, fighting to get to one of the four slippery dips that slither down to the ball pit far below.
‘He’s coming!’ I tell Jack.
All the kids look up at us like we’re escaped criminals.
‘What are you staring at?’ Jack snaps at a three-year-old girl dressed in pink with a chocolate smudge for a mouth.
The girl starts crying.
‘I’m dobbing!’ another kid shouts, pointing at Jack.
‘Belt up,’ Jack says. ‘I just want my brother.’ He moves, slow and steady through the kids, towards Barney. ‘We’re going home, you little brat!’
‘Barney says NO!’
‘It’s my birthday, and Tom and I need to be at the movies in twenty-three minutes.’
‘You stupid pumpkin pizza head!’ Barney screams.
‘Leave him alone!’ shouts a four-year-old boy with an eye patch and a scowl. He steps in front of Jack and raises his pirate hook hand.
‘The jig is up,’ says a voice. I turn to see the VLM unlock and unzip the emergency opening at the side of the platform.
‘You’re a naughty boy!’ the kid with the hook says to me, pointing.
Then all the other rugrats join in, chanting, ‘Naugh-ty! Naugh-ty! Naugh-ty!’
‘Barney, let’s go!’ Jack demands.
‘NO!’ He looks wide-eyed and crazy, with creaming soda vomit all over his shirt.
‘Barney!’
‘No!
Jack moves to grab his brother.
That’s when I hear a ripping sound. Velcro. A three-year-old girl to my left is holding a yellow-stained nappy. Steam rises from it.
‘Wee-wee on your head,’ she says, laughing.
‘Wee-wee! Wee-wee!’ a couple of others chant.
Jack takes Barney by the wrist and there is another ripping sound. A red-headed two-year-old is also holding a nappy. This one has poo in it.
‘Whoa,’ Jack says, letting go of Barney. ‘No need to get weird.’
Rip, rip, rip, rip. Another four nappies. Two with poo, one with wee and one with something I can’t even recognise. Some of the nappies lo
ok so heavy the kids can barely hold them up.
They move towards us, an army of angry, armed toddlers. Jack and I back off.
‘Show’s over,’ says the VLM.
Three storeys below, a crowd of worried parents looks up at us.
One kid throws his nappy and it smacks Jack in the face. It is only wee, luckily.
‘Hey!’ Jack shouts, pointing at the kid. ‘You’re going down!’
Another kid throws her nappy. Poo this time. It drills Jack in the chest, right in the middle of the red vomit stain on his white T-shirt. It looks like modern art.
‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘That is not cool.’
Right away I wish I hadn’t spoken. The toddlers turn on me. A brick-heavy wee-nappy hits me in the guts. Then a poopy one splats me in the ear and slides down onto my shoulder.
The VLM watches on, a mean smile creasing his lips.
I’m hit in the back by another missile as I dive onto the slippery dip. Jack jumps onto the one beside me and we glide, side by side, down into the colourful ball pit below.
The last thing I hear is a kid screaming, ‘Bye-bye, Poo-poo Heads,’ before I disappear beneath the surface of the balls.
Everything is quiet. It is good down here. I hope they never find me. I want to stay down here forever.
BOOOM! An explosion and my face is pinned to the floor. My skull is being crushed, and I am pretty sure I will never breathe again. It is something big and soft, like a beanbag. But heavier. So much heavier.
It is the VLM’s enormous backside. It finally rolls off and I suck in an almighty mouthful of air. A very large hand plucks me out of the balls and, for a moment, I remember the terror of being born.
Jack and I are suddenly face to face with the VLM.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says in a husky voice.
He is so close to my face I can see the red blood vessels and giant blackheads on his nose.
‘You filthy buccaneers deserve the cat-o’-nine-tails.’ The VLM looks up to the top of the tower where the kids are laughing at us. He presses a button and speaks into his headset. ‘Could I have a pirate helper to swab the poop deck, please? Pirate to the poop deck.’
My Life and Other Stuff That Went Wrong Page 4
