J - Food and thorns

Mary came back today with hair Manley's length, shorter than
Kettle's, a whipped up black coffee swirl pinned down by iron
hairclips. Everyone loved it. They weren't to have much time to love
it, however, as Mary suddenly decided to go on a Christian Union trip
that set off in half an hour, and disappeared into her room to
pack.

"Mmm," said Hen - he was swabbing lime marmalade on a toasted bagel,
over wide licks of cream cheese. "That's what your hair will look like
when I'm done sophisticating it, Manley."

Manley put down his coffee mug and clutched at his own ash-gold
curls.

"Yeah - girly. Eugh. If you come near my hair I'll send you to
hell."

Hen took a munch on his bagel, and mumphed through it, "I'll take you
with me, you slinky otter. That's right, Manley - you look like a
slinky otter. All tall and supple, and slimed over like a sewer."

Manley experimented with his new otter paws, wiggling them about in
front of his neck.

"I think," Hen mumphed some more, "that we should get Mary some red
ribbon for her hair. She'd look very pretty."

"I don't know - can you put ribbon in short hair?"

"Worst comes to worst, you can staple it."

Hen finished eating his bagel, while Manley leaned back in the fixed
kitchen chair and pretended to play with a stone on his chest. Olly
Kiff, manc-via-Essex, blasted into the kitchen and made for the
freezer, licking his lips.

"Is Seb being a rabbit?" he asked the room.

"A rabbit?" Manley was brazenly perturbed. "No fear. I'm an otter,
playing in the water. Not a stinking rabbit."

Olly hauled out a pizza box, brushed the frost dust from its face and
said, "Shame. If you were a rabbit, I could've caught you and won the
bet with Besse. One rabbit, one witness, and she's got to get
pissed."

Manley sat up, finished his Colombian coffee and began roving.

"I thought she only had to drink something alcoholic?"

"Yeah, but she's a lightweight, in't she? Thing is, they've got holes
everywhere, and just when you think you've cornered one, the little
bastard disappears down the hole. But I reckon if I find their holes
and put a coat or something over them, then they'll have nowhere to
run. Easy."

He tore into the pizza box, satisfied. Hen moved over to the window,
out of his way, and looked out across the Waveney lawn. There were two
rabbits grazing, and one looked particularly fat and stupid. In fact,
it was the fattest, stupidest looking rabbit Hen had ever seen. Rabbits
like that deserve to be shot.

"I'll get you a rabbit, Olly."

Manley stopped his roving, and Olly turned from the Microwave,
inspired.

"Yes!" he said, raising his pizza as if to kiss it, "Yes! A
two-pronged approach."

"Horns of the bull," Hen agreed. "Zulu fashion."

"We could be a great team. Your tactics and my sheer determination.
Besse'll have her head down the porcelain throne yet!"

Manley hmmed and swivelled in doubt. Hen made a victory sign at Olly,
who returned with a wink before attending to the microwave. Hen hauled
open the sliding window with both hands, stepped up onto the sill and
jumped out. The rabbits flinched and went still, leaping up and
unfolding like concertinas as Hen bolted toward them. The fat one went
left, into the bed and between the bamboo canes, seeming to stall in
panic as Hen came charging through after it, his raincoat flapping
behind him. Under a bush it flopped.

"Ha!" went Hen, and made to follow it. His foot went into some
concealed hole, and he fell forward. His hands were impaled with dozens
of thorns.

So now it's half past two in the morning, and Hen's sat in Mary's room
with Manley, digging out the black speck-spears with one of Mary's
needles and trying not to sob. Most of them are just under the skin,
but some have only their heads visible. Mary, meanwhile, had missed the
bus to her Christian Union trip, so she'd come back, unpacked and sat
down at her desk to write an essay on soil.

"I saw a little girl today," Manley murmurs. "She tumbled down a small
hill. It was really sweet. She reminded me of you, Mary."

Mary perks, looking up from her soil essay. She moves a loose cowlick
of hair to the side, and pats her temple.

"Why did she remind you of me?"

Hen answers: "Because you're so very small, Mary."

Her freckles glow a little, and she seems, to Manley and Hen, to be
quite flattered. Her eyes fall to the carpet and her teeth show.

"Well I'm not that small."

"Yes, you are. You're the teeniest, tiniest harpy."

"As small as a mole," says Manley.

Mary goes back to her work.

"You're a mole and Manley's an otter," says Hen. "And you don't have
breath like a dogass in a cat."

Mary looks up again.

"I'm not like a what?"

"You don't have breath like a dogass in a cat," Hen repeats.

"Who said that?"

"No one. I read it in the toilets today. The ones in the Bowl. It was
written on the water tank above the urinals."

"Oh. Well, I should think not."

She turns back to her desk, but springs back again, looking
bewildered.

"I think someone's stalking me!"

"Stalking you?" Manley asks.

Hen notes, with a deep frown, the lack of scoff in his ally's voice,
and stops picking at his fingers with the needle.

"Well," says Mary, "this guy keeps ringing me up, and asking for Judy
or someone. And when I tell him it's the wrong number he asks me if I'd
like to meet up in the Hive for lunch. I think he might have found my
email address as well, because yesterday I found I'd got an email from
someone called Mark."

"What did it say?" asks Hen, leaning forward and nearly falling off
the bed.

"Just 'hi.'"

"And you don't know anyone called Mark?" says Manley.

"No. No one. It's quite scary."

A strong trace of Welsh accent comes through on the 'quite.' Manley
and Hen settle themselves, move the mattress back against the wall, and
ponder deeply.
Eventually, Hen taps his nose and says, "Maybe he regrets his mistake
to such an extent&;#8230;" (Manley snickers) "&;#8230;that he
thought he'd invite you out to apologise and, well&;#8230;"

"Oh, no, I don't think so, Hen," says Mary.

"He might! I mean&;#8230;"

"No&;#8230;"

"I could understand. I've been in situations akin to that I
mean&;#8230;"

"Oh, no, no - you're serious? No. Not at all. It's not like he even
pretends he's phoned the wrong number, he just asks me out to
lunch."

"I see."

Hen goes back to picking at his hand, more brashly and deliberately
than before. Manley shakes his head at the floor and wipes his
eyes.

"Do you know his number, Mary?"

"Well, yes, but I don't want to ring him."

"Hmm."

"It's&;#8230;quite a dilemma."

"Hmm."

"Oo!" she says, half-assedly. "Well then!" And turns back to her
work.

"Ow!" growls Hen. "Shiiit."

He's gone and been too adventurous with the needle.