Bill and the UFO27

Rab was just to the side of the overgrown part of the path, looking over the railway tracks onto Dumbarton Road. He was ahead of the others as easy to pick out as xxxs around last weeks copy of Spot the Ball. With the red light of his sunburnt back he glowed like an off duty traffic cone. His white Addidas top was scrunched around his waist and bum and, in the straggly haired junior Geronimo competition of life, he was ready to show them the way forward.

Despite the heat making Bill’s head feeling like an empty rabbit hole he kept on the peeked baseball hat and glasses. He ambled along in his disguise; a slow moving wreck of a human wardrobe: a warning to gawking children that openly stared as their parents looked away and tut-tutted as only adult lips could.

Todger in his shaggy coat should have been oven baked, but the prickly or non-prickly versions, didn’t seem to affect him. He fur- balled beside his master; panting, rolling his tongue out like a mat and sometimes dropping back to sniff at a particularly interesting bauble of gaudy yellow broom, or the serrated pistol green leaves of witch-hazel, or bounding forward with the same enthusiasm as Questing knight to pee on the nettled overflow of a the chain link fencing on the railway side of the path. His pièce de résistance was a squat-thrust with bulging doggy eyes. His little back legs folded down like a deckchair as he let loose a splurge of meat colour shit on the cinder path as a grey haired cyclists zoomed past almost hitting him.

Summy’s nose crinkled and wilted. ‘That’s absolutely minging. Now I know who Todger takes after.’ He looked at Bill as if it was his bony white arse that had buckled.

Wendy was caught between catching up with Rab, or waiting for Phil and the others. She was within touching distance of the sidetrack where the Sea Scouts had a yard, which somehow made her want to pee. She observed an upside- down boat; the hull a land-locked crab that never moved closer or further away from their barrack hut. Her eyes darted to the rusting chain, with links the size of Todger’s head, which could have docked The Titanic. In case the boat grew legs, it was tethered to a rock the size of Gilbraltar. She’d passed this way countless number of times, but had never seen the boat moving, or the whitewashed flagpole bearing any trace of a flag. She figured if Bill could capture a photo of Ufos, the least she should be able to see was a Sea Scout.

‘Whaaaat?’ Bill tried to sound aggrieved, but couldn’t help grining. He’d smelled a lot worse than Todger’s jobby squirt.

Wendy head sagged and she sat on the grass. She picked at a buttercup, her index finger and thumb stroking its silky yellow petals into a dry purse paste that flaked on her fingertips. ‘I’m dying for a drink of lemonade, or something.’ She made a space for Phil to sit beside her. A flickering of her long eyelashes was the only indication that she was annoyed that he’d splurged himself down away from her and made a space on the longer grass that Bill and Summy quickly filled.

Bill took his cap off and put it down on a tussock, an ant making a line for its rim. He took off his specs, worked his way out of his coat and lay back with his hands behind his head. ‘Just take a drink out of the canal.’

‘Very funny.’ Wendy watched a wasp circling. She crouched ready to move if it got any closer.

‘It didnae seem to bother Todger.’ Bill had a yawn and the sun in his voice.

‘It would give you worms or something.’ Wendy sounded jumpy, like the wasp she watched circling. ‘Ow.’ She sprang up on her heels, because it was getting closer and danced up behind Phil.

Phil looked at her briefly. She was sweating and smelled of untouched ebony ledges and musky-damp girly crevices. He looked away before she caught him looking at her, but it didn’t stop his face from going red. He hoped no one would notice. He tried to act gallus by saying something he’d just thought of, but his voice had the open and down reedy sound of childish uncertainty. ‘Anybody using worms for fishing has to wrap them in tin foil first.’

‘See.’ Wendy watched the wasp and finally made her choice and sat cross-legged in front of Phil and Summy using their thin pliable frames as a wasp screen.

Bill didn’t even bother opening his eyes, but a half smile played on his lips. ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm.’

Wendy snorted. ‘You take a drink then.’

Bill blinked his eyes open, taking in their uncertainty, but he made them wait. ‘Nah.’

Phil knew Bill was daft, but he just wanted to see how daft: ‘Go on. I dare you.’

Wendy goaded him. ‘Shitebag.’

Bill sat up. Everybody was watching. First he put his hat back on. He fumbled with his specs before placing them on the bridge of his nose and tapping them into place like a snooker ball that was just off the mark. ‘I’m no’ thirsty.’

Wendy wasn’t going to let him off that easy, especially since it was him that started it. ‘Shitebag. Tell you what. I’ll give you a fag if you take a drink out of the canal…but you need to swallow.’

Rab dropped back. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He was bursting to tell somebody and he almost tripped over Summy. He pointed across to a spidery white blob of paint on the dark Duke blue engineering brick on the Singer’s side of the canal.

‘I did that.’ Rab voice filled with the kind of emotion usually associated with scoring a cup-winning goal.

Summy’s brain eventually deciphered the paint blob as a preNeanderthal message: ‘I love Lucy forever.’ His brow knitted a full Angora wool jumper as he thought it over. The only Lucy he knew was Lucy Carruthers. She had the kind of face that would make a hyena throw up. He shuddered, but diplomatically just nodded his head as if he didn’t know whom Rab was talking about, but agreed with him anyway.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Bill, dragging Rab away from admiration of his artistic bent and making him wonder what he was talking about, ‘but I want two fags. Not one.’

Wendy tapped on her teeth, like a woodpecker. She didn’t want to chew on her nails as they’d grown quite long and soon she’d be able to put pink nail polish on them to be like other girls, but she needed time to think. She’d only five fags left. ‘You need to drink a gallon.’

‘Fuck off. You said drink. And I’ll do it for two fags.’ Bill slowly looked around to the others for support.

‘A gallon.’

‘What about a pint?’ Summy was trying to be diplomatic again.

Wendy gave Summy one of her looks. ‘What if you go and fuck off.’

‘I’ll do it. I’ll drink a pint of canal water.’ Bill snatched at the chance. He felt cheated as if the fags were in his gob, practically lit and somebody had stolen them off him.

‘We’ve no’ got a pint glass.’ Wendy tried to sound apologetic.

‘There’s a gingy bottle over there in the long grass.’ Phil pointed to where it was.

Wendy slapped him on the back of the head, but not very hard. She could never stay mad at him. ‘A pint is only one fag.’

‘That’s no fair,’ said Bill.

‘Hmmm,’ she sounded out of her nose and shoulder shrugged.

‘I’ll do it.’ Bill with his long coat flapping around his legs, practically ran to get the gingy bottle.

Todger sensing a new feeding game bounced after him, barking around his legs. Bill tentatively picked up the gingy bottle. He was getting eye-balled, but it wasn't a bad feeling. He squinted his eyes almost shut, like a gunslinger, and looked into the canal as if trying to select the cleanest bit of dirty water.

There was a collective holding of breath as he started glugging the canal water down. They looked to one another with half smiles on their lips that said we know he’s daft. This proves our point. He's dafter than even we thought.

Phil watched open mouthed. His lips twitched in disbelief and curled up in disgust, wondering if the canal will leave a shit coloured stain in his mouth like a dripping tap.

Bill blinked hard; his mouth a closed door. He focussed on not tasting or feeling anything. Water started filling up his nose and his legs shuddered, almost giving way at the knees. ‘Ahhhhh,’ he said, just keeping the door shut and flinging the empty bottle into the canal with a two fingered flourish.

‘Lovely.’ Bill, the victor, took a few short steps and punched his hand out towards Wendy.

‘Fag.’ There was a mocking smile on Bill’s face.

Wendy delicately put her hand on Phil’s shoulder to help herself up. She stumbled about like an old person from one leg to another, searching both her front pockets before finding the fag packet in the back left hand pocket of her denims, where she knew it had always been.

‘A need a light,’ said Bill standing in front of her.

Wendy shrugged.

‘Here,’ said Rab, slapping him on the back and pulling out his personalised lighter. ‘You’re a madman.’

‘Twos,’ said Summy.

Everybody, but Wendy, seemed to flop down at once on the grass and chatter up enough of a storm together to beat the heat.

Wendy tried to concentrate on making a daisy- chain and not listening.

‘I wish it would rain,’ said Bill. ‘My hearts beating like a banjo and I think I’m goin’ to die.’

She looked over and wished he would.

Bill was looking at her. It was too late to look away and she tried to think of something to say, but she just couldn’t think, not with everybody watching.

Bill scoured her face, trying to fix on the right expression that would explain it all. There was indecision in his face. ‘Did you see the Hunchback of Notre Dame?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve got hunchback hair.’

Wendy’s right hand automatically shot up and patted her hair like a bald man making sure.

Everybody was laughing at her, even her brother Rab and Phil. Her face felt as red as a brazier. She got up quickly and stormed away. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

‘Well. Don’t take my word for it, just goin’ look in the mirror. Bill did his stupid fake yodel laugh, that had the gang even more in stitches.

‘You are the mongolest of fuckin’ mongols.’ Wendy didn’t need to look back to know that he would still be grinning.