Alligator and me

Alligator and Me

"Lally Pants!"
"Baby wee wee!"

I hopped from foot to foot fighting the urge to shove my hand in my
pants. I couldn't hold on much longer before I peed myself right there
in front of them, which of course was exactly what Henson and his thugs
wanted.

I was eight years old and they had been making my life miserable for
the past three; since I started school and mum had had to send her baby
out into the big dangerous world. She compensated with home-knitted
scratchy sweaters and a conspicuous kiss at the school gate. Every
day.

That was when Alligator saved my life. He just stood on the roof of the
bog block and relieved himself liberally all over Henson and the gang.
They disappeared faster than pizza for supper and I wet myself after
all from laughing so hard. From that day, we were inseparable.

He was new at the school, a couple of years older than I was. He lived
in a lay-by in an old bus painted flaky blue with these symbols all
over it. "Ban the Bomb" my mum said. "Filthy layabout crusties" my dad
called them. "Weirdoes".

Other folks called them names too. There were meetings in the Town
Hall. I think my parents went. I stayed home with Mrs Hendy's Bridget
and watched the police on the TV news dragging vans and busses like
Alligator's out of fields near Glastonbury.

I thought he was neat. I didn't brush my hair for a week trying to make
dreadlocks, but then mum made me shower.

After that we ducked school a couple of times till school broke up for
summer. He may have been new to the area but he knew the best places.
We made a den in the garden of this big empty house and nicked bottles
of milk off doorsteps. We stopped doing that when we didn't go to the
den for a couple of days; the half empty bottles had turned into this
lumpy cheese stuff and stank the place out.

I went to his bus once. It was dark inside and smelled funny, kind of
earthy and spicy. Alligator's mum was the most beautiful woman I had
ever seen. She had red hair, not ginger but proper red with these
purple and green beads woven into it. She wore gold earrings and had
silver rings on every finger, even her thumb. She looked at me with
these gentle green eyes and I tried to look back and not giggle at her
chest where her nipples were pointy through the khaki T-shirt she was
wearing.

She was making a meal and asked me what I liked to eat. I said chicken
nuggets and she smiled; Alligator told me they were vegetarian. They
were having this sloppy bean casserole. In the end I had just bread and
butter for tea. It was brilliant.

When I got home I could hear mum and dad from the kitchen

" ? place is a rubbish tip. Those old vans and not one of them with a
tax disc! Why should honest people subsidise dole-scroungers sitting
about smoking goodness knows what? Weirdoes."

"Yes, dear. Keep your voice down. But what can we do? You know what
Councillor Morgan said?"

Dad made a noise through his nose. "The Council are bunch of wet
lefties. No, Margaret if we want this sorted there's only one way to go
about it. Jim Richards has the right idea. He's called a meeting at the
Red Lion tonight."

The kitchen door opened and I scurried up the stairs into my
bedroom.

I spent the rest of the evening mending an old lantern I'd picked up
from a tip on the way home. It worked fine with a new bulb and battery
and I taped up the handle so you could hang it up. I was going to give
it to Alligator for the bus because they had no electric lights.

I heard my dad come back in very late after I'd gone to bed. I couldn't
hear what they said this time but my mum's voice sounded worried. Next
morning he had scratches on his hands like he'd been gardening and a
bruise over his eye.

After breakfast I ran to the lay-by with the lantern, but when I got
there it was empty. There was just this junk lying around and a black
sooty mark where Alligator's bus had been.

My parents never mentioned that night, and after the holidays I went
back to school. I was never bullied again and I did quite well in my
exams. When I told my parents that I was going to be a social worker
specialising in travelling families my mum gave me one of her "Where
did I go wrong?" looks.

My dad said "What do you want to be a social worker for? Bunch of lefty
weirdoes."