by Gary Fry
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
———
As soon as his dad steered into the museum’s car park, Will tugged his horror comic out of one pocket and started reading a story about a vampire fighting a werewolf. For some reason, whenever he was nervous, tales about monsters made him feel better.
“There you go, ” said Dad, and let his large hands—whose fingernails still had lines of dirt beneath them—fall from the steering wheel. “I’ll be back in about four hours, after you’ve had a good time. ”
When Dad had returned home from work last week, announcing that Will had been invited to a Sunday get-together of his employer’s son’s friends, Will hadn’t had the heart to say that he didn’t want to go. He didn’t know the children and was nervous about meeting them all. Will realised, however, that his dad was eager to get involved with better people than those who lived in their rundown street. That was why he’d stopped working for the council and got the gardening job at a big house in a nicer area of town. Will was simply caught up in this adult game.
“Er, thanks, Dad, ” he said, putting his horror comic back in his pocket. The story he’d been reading hadn’t got going yet—not a single drop of blood had been spilt. He unlatched his door and swung out his thin legs, before adding in a tremulous voice, “I’ll…I’ll see you later this afternoon. ”
He couldn’t even propose calling his dad early if he got bored or scared, because his parents were unable to afford to buy him a mobile phone. As Dad’s car jerked away with the rattle of a loose component, Will had an opportunity to look at the other vehicles parked outside the museum. They sparkled expensively in chilly autumn daylight. He bet none of the boys and girls he was about to meet lacked money to buy whatever they needed.
With creeping apprehension, Will turned to enter the museum, one hand clutching the comic he’d stashed in one pocket, his other wrapped around a few pound coins he’d been given for the trip.
Will had met one of the boys before: Freddy, the son of his dad’s employer. Freddy and his friends went to the town’s only grammar school, which surely meant they’d all be well-behaved and polite to strangers. Whenever Will had helped his dad tend Freddy’s parents’ enormous garden during school holidays, Freddy had rarely acknowledged him. But, the tall, blond boy had often smirked in his direction, making him feel inferior. In fairness, however, Will commonly felt this way, even at his own horrid school.
After entering the museum, he felt the building’s hugeness envelop him. The sound of his heels clicking across a tiled floor echoed with nerve-shredding persistence. Will had been told by his dad that the other children would meet him in the café, which, he now noticed, was located to the right of the ticket office. He headed that way, eager to get the dreaded introductions over with. His dad had told him that a few girls would also be here, and Will had never been comfortable around girls.
Inside the café, only one table was occupied—by six chattering, sniggering children about Will’s own age whose bodies appeared fast-moving and unpredictable. Slowly approaching the gang, this was Will’s first impression and it worried him. The boys and girls all looked…cleaner than the children who attended his state school. And as their noise grew louder in the otherwise deserted room, Will also realised that they spoke in posher voices. This would make the introductions even more difficult for Will, whose own accent was little better than his school mates’, despite his parents’ attempts to make him try harder with pronunciation.
“Hello, ” he summoned enough courage to say. “I’m Will. Freddy’s mum and dad said I could come today. I…I hope you don’t mind. ”
It was as if he’d just pressed the mute button on a TV’s remote-control box. The six children at the table fell silent, each turning with what appeared to be larger-than-life faces, which bloomed with vibrant colours as Will looked on. Just then, the museum’s sweeping gardens beyond the window behind the table appeared sweet and desirable, like a painting somebody had made of the word freedom…But then Will looked back at the gang of children and realised that everything was about to start.
“Ah yes, mater and pater mentioned something of the sort, ” said Freddy, rising from his chair like a giant in its early, formative years. He was holding a mobile telephone, which reminded Will of the sort of goods he lacked in this eminent company. Then the bigger boy put an arm around Will’s shoulders, turned to the others, and announced, “Dear friends, this is Will, our gardener’s offspring. He scrubs up well, I have to say? Why, he doesn’t smell a bit like weeds today. ”
There was laughter from the gang, but Will didn’t think it was the mocking variety—not like what he’d endured at his state school, often prompted by his insurmountable shyness among other, abrasive pupils. No, this laughter was of a different sort, one he’d never come across before. It was giddy and unusual, and it convinced Will, if he hadn’t already realised, that it would take a while to get used to his new acquaintances.
Moments later, Freddy spoke again.
“Come and sit yourself down here, my boy. ” He steered Will into a chair at the centre of the group, so that he had a good view of them all. Then the unfailingly confident boy (his dad was involved in banks, Will had learned recently: a branch manager or something even more important) added in a brisk voice, “Now, as you’re the newcomer, you get to buy lunch. How much money do you have?”
Before Will had chance to reply— he’d been about to tell the truth by saying he had only the few pounds his parents could spare—another of the children interrupted, this one a girl. She had dark hair, blue eyes, and when she lifted her hands from the table top, Will noticed how long her fingernails were. He thought of the werewolf in his comic, with its flesh-ripping claws…but then thrust aside this notion to focus on what she had to say.
“But that’s not fair, is it? After all, there’s six of us and only one of him. We can’t expect him to buy enough food for seven, can we?”
“Mayhap not, ” admitted Freddy, and this time tapped his mobile phone against his forehead. He didn’t seem happy, the pale flesh under that blond mop of perfectly groomed hair developing a touch of rouge. Then he jabbed a thumb over one shoulder. “Okay, let’s compromise. We’ll all pitch in with the lucre, but he has to fetch the grub from yon chef. ”
The person in question was a fifty-something woman dressed in white garments and standing at the café’s till-point, alongside food displayed in glass-fronted cases. This woman’s face was wrinkled, as if she—like Will’s mum—was too fond of smoking to quit. Will sympathised with her, and decided that the sneering arising from the gang of children was unfair. It was hardly the woman’s fault that she was stuck in a low-paid job, just as it wasn’t Will’s dad’s fault that he had to work all day in other people’s gardens. Dad liked beer, this woman liked cigarettes. There was no law against that, was there?
“I hope she washes her hands before putting food on our plates, ” the only other girl at the table said, and as the rest of the group started scrabbling in the pockets of finely made clothes, Freddy told Will that the first girl who’d spoken was called Maggie and the second Florence. Maggie’s mother was involved in local politics, while Florence’s father was a medical doctor. All the children seemed eager to provide Will with information about their parents’ occupations.
Once cash had been accumulated on the table, Rupert took charge of events. This boy—who was plump but too frightening in appearance to be teased about it—produced a Swiss army knife to deal with the money stacked in an unruly pile, using the point of a blade to pick out each coin.
Everyone had put in a different sum, and the total came to nearly five pounds. Rupert used the blade to push the pile Will’s way, and even though Will felt annoyed—after all, he’d contributed a pound to the collection, and some of his richer peers had offered less—he gathered up the funds and rose from the table.
“What do we all want?” he asked once on his feet and ready to move to the till-point.
�
��Fries, ” Freddy replied, and this led to a chorus of agreement from almost all the group, including a slender, gaunt-looking lad called Martin who was playing with a squeezable bottle of ketchup standing between salt and pepper cellars. The only exception to the rigorous nodding was a boy called Harry, who appeared shy and refused to join in the hubbub with the same zest. Will made a mental note to talk to Harry if an opportunity presented itself later; he thought he might make a friend of him. But then he turned and stepped across to where the old woman was stooped.
After ordering enough chips for seven, he handed over the cash and was given a handful of change to return to the table. After getting back, he put the coins—about eighty pence in silver—on the table top and looked around the group. Seven into eighty didn’t work out, of course, even though Will felt he was due more change than the others, having contributed most of the original sum. Still, he didn’t want anyone to turn against him; he had another half-day to survive in this company. He said, “What shall we do with what’s left over?” Just then, an idea occurred that felt satisfyingly egalitarian. “How about we save it for later? It could buy us all some sweets to share. ”
However, that was when Freddy reached across for the sum, sweeping it back across the table with his mobile phone. With puzzling incongruity, Will remembered something he’d once heard about mobiles, how they emitted magnetic waves that interfered with your brain and gave you diseases. But then he was forced to listen to what the bigger boy had to say.
“I’ve got a better idea. There’s a bar in the museum, just across the hallway from this café. That’s where my parents are at the moment, partaking of the old vino, if you know what I mean. Now then, I suggest one of us sneaks in there…”—he looked at Will while speaking these words—“…and while the prole at the pumps is looking elsewhere, this person should put the lot in the fruit machine. If luck’s on our side, that might lead to a tidy profit. ”
By ‘prole’, Freddy had presumably meant a barman or barmaid. Will’s mum worked behind a bar at the weekends; she had no choice, because dad’s wage wasn’t high enough to allow them to live comfortably. Will was also troubled by another issue, however. If Freddy’s parents were both drinking wine, which one would drive home later in one of the big cars he’d seen during his arrival? But maybe they didn’t have to worry about that. Perhaps a banker and his wife could bribe the police into silence concerning any misdemeanour.
Will’s ruminations were curtailed when Rupert responded to his friend’s proposition. “That’s not a sound investment, ” he said, like the high-flying businessman he’d earlier claimed his father was. “In fact, I have a better suggestion. You see those crisps on sale next to the till?”
Everyone turned to look, Maggie and Florence inclusive. Will had an opportunity to admire the girls’ fine white necks. These were shapely and boasted flawless flesh. He couldn’t remember viewing such pretty necks at his own school. The girls there were all mostly chunky or too thin or covered in blemishes…But he was growing distracted again. Everyone around him glanced back as Rupert waved his Swiss army knife and continued.
“What say we buy a couple of packets of crisps at forty pence a bag, and then take them outside to sell at fifty pence? That way, we make twenty pence by simply acting as go-betweens. No doubt we’ll be playing in the gardens later, so the profit can cover handling charges, even though we’re headed that way anyway. Shrewd deal, what?”
“I like the sound of that, ” said Maggie as soon as her friend had finished. Will had the impression that she and Rupert had a special relationship which was less than apparent to the others. He had to keep quiet about this, however, because that was when the food arrived.
The business scheme was scrapped the moment they all caught sight of the pile of chips on a single plate which the fifty-something woman in the white outfit delivered to the table. Harry, who up until now had hardly said a word, asked the woman, “How are we supposed to share them all out fairly?”
Before the woman could reply, however, slender Martin took hold of the plate and pulled it towards him. Then he dropped his head in his folded arms, the ketchup bottle disappearing amid this unexpected manoeuvre. As he continued concealing his face and hands, the rest of the group—including the increasingly self-conscious Will—looked on, both intrigued and wary. And moments later, the onlookers’ patience was rewarded. Martin cocked up his head and smiled a vicious smile.
He was wearing vampire teeth. Under each hooked fang he’d smeared a line of red liquid, which could only be ketchup but actually resembled thick, dark blood. There was uneasy laughter among the group, and then someone asked in an excitable voice, “Where did you get those from?”
Talking from behind the dripping fangs, Martin replied, “My father picked them up from a stall outside his office. He thought you’d all appreciate them. ”
“But your dad’s a solicitor, isn’t he?” Florence asked, still choking on laughter, as the rest of them were. “Where’s his office? In some dirty market square?”
Just then, Will realised that the girl called Florence smelled of cough sweets. While he’d been ordering the food, a few of the children had changed places, so that Will was closer to her. Her breath bore the pungent aroma of menthol; perhaps with autumn approaching, she feared getting a cold.
Pushing the plate of chips back into the centre of the table, Martin removed the vampire fangs. “My dad’s a dude. He takes on a lot of state-funded work for plebs with legal needs. ” He looked at the cash on the table. “Now what say we divide the spoils fairly, eh? I don’t want to have to borrow Freddy’s phone and call my dad to seek advice on laws of ownership, do I?”
At that moment, the six children—including, more hesitantly than the others, quiet Harry—started attacking the plate of chips. Will had an impression of blurred hands and munching mouths, like in nightmarish scenes from his comics whenever zombies settled down to dine. Runnels of ketchup splattered hither and thither; Martin’s fangs hardly seemed necessary to devour the food with such savage haste. When the group was done, there were just a few scraps left—the burnt, badly-cut chips—and then these were pushed across for Will to enjoy…if enjoy was the right word. Nevertheless, he reached out to grab what few remained…but that was when Rupert brought down his army knife’s blade.
The point caught one of Will’s fingers, causing blood to well up in a ragged hairline wound.
“Sorry, old sport, ” the plump boy explained, hoisting the last decent looking chip he’d spotted on the plate. It was now skewered by his knife, a blob of ketchup giving it the illusion of a severed human finger. Then he ate it whole—a moment’s chewing followed by an emphatic swallow—before winking at Will with bloated indifference. “I pulled together the necessary capital, ” he explained with ruthless logic. “You merely collected the goods. That gives me the right to consume more. ”
“That’s the case for all of us, actually, ” added Freddy, pointing Will’s way with his brain-frying mobile phone.
“Yes, such is life, ” said Maggie, dismissing the issue with a wave of one, long finger-nailed hand.
And then Martin finished, “C’est tout, c’est la vie, ” which, as far as Will was concerned, might as well have been spoken in Latin. In any case, he was more concerned about the injury he’d sustained. A bullet of blood stood proud on the table top, and it was surely this that caused Florence to move across, take his hand and then ask the other children whether anyone had a spare tissue.
Will had gone off the idea of finishing off the few scrappy chips. It wasn’t seeing his bleeding finger that had reduced his appetite; it was the sudden proximity of a girl that rendered the appeals of food unimportant. As a few of the other children stood from their chairs, Harry the quiet boy shuffled across to hand Florence a tissue he’d produced from one pocket. Then, as they both started tending to the newcomer’s wound, the rest of the group sneered and taunted, clearly ready to leave.
“Oh, look at them, ” said Ruper
t, the one who’d inflicted the injury. “It’s goody two-shoes Flo’ and the state scholarship boy doing their best for comm-uuu-nity. ”
“Did your father teach you how important it was to be kind to proles?” Freddy added, clearly speaking to Florence. In truth, however, he bore a look of envy, as if the girl had always been unobtainable, even after he’d tried and failed to attract her in the past.
“My father treats everybody equally, ” Florence retaliated, and while doing so breathed a mouthful of menthol-smelling breath over her latest patient. Will was now uninterested in the squabble around him. He felt insulated by the girl’s attention, by her warm, enveloping presence. The other boy—Harry—was helping, too. His calm, quiet attitude implied understanding and sympathy…Indeed, it might be this that the others had detected and decided to attack.
“You’d better think carefully about which side you’re on, ” said Maggie, looking down at Harry with a knowing gaze as her lengthy fingernails clicked together. The tone of her voice had been diplomatic and conciliatory, but the message was nonetheless clear: When we’re all back at school next week, you’ll have only us as friends to turn to, and few other state-funded peers…
“Leave him alone, ”replied Florence on Harry’s behalf. She’d staunched the blood from Will’s finger with expert speed and was encouraging him to press the tissue to the wound until the flow dried up. “In fact, why don’t you leave us all alone?”
“Oh yeah, we forgot, ” added Martin, jostling the vampire fangs he’d retrieved from the table. “You and Harry’s parents know each other, don’t they? They work in the same field. That’s why you’re both in a do-gooder’s mode all the time. ”
The slender boy had clearly been referring to Florence and Harry, because Will’s mum and dad’s only connection with anybody’s family was with Freddy’s. The debate soon fizzled out, however, leaving the aromatic Florence—Will thought he’d associate the smell of cough sweets with intimate proximity for the rest of his life—and sturdy, uncommunicative Harry at Will’s side.
