Bill and the UFO4

Phil and Summy were squeezed into one side of the tent, which was marginally cooler than outside. Wendy and Rab were on the other side, sitting touch-tight on their sleeping bags, their legs almost touching when they moved. Phil and Summy sneaked a look at each other, out of the side of their eyes, to see if the other had noticed how disgusting they’d become; all lovey-dovey, brother and sister stuff. After about ten minutes of holding their breath because of the smell of tent rot and to show who was best, the skunk heated air began to broil and a sweat droplet ran off Summy’s big conk and sat on the platform of his square chin, waiting for reinforcements. They each gulped down air and looked at each other as if they were in an algae coloured canvas aquarium and every one of them was a different kind fish, but only one of them was normal. Only they couldn’t decide whom.

The metal tent pole, held together with two bits of wood, slid down because Summy banged into it and one of the guy ropes supporting the back of the tent gave way again. Rab groaned and turned to Wendy, but said nothing because everything was her fault. Only his spring loaded feather cut hairdo, poked up against the canvas ceiling, kept his side of the tent upright. But they ignored it because they were concentrating. There was a space in the middle, The River of Blood, where they kept the 29 playing cards, two of which were Jokers which counted as Aces if Rab picked them, but counted as 2s if anybody else got them. It was called The River of Blood because they were playing Knuckley. It was quite a simple game; the highest card got to swipe the pack off the knuckles of the loser with the lowest card. Statistically, everyone had an equal chance to win or lose, but because Wendy was a girl they couldn’t blooter her knuckles the same way they did each other, especially since she kept winning and gloating so much that she even pissed off Rab. It was almost a relief, even though everyone groaned at the same time as if they’d been harmonising, when Todger pressed his wet nose through the gap in the tent, looking for food.

‘Fuck off.’ Summy stuck his foot out towards Todger’s nose, who sniffed it carefully before licking the toe of his grass stained Samba sanny as if it was a delicacy.

‘Uhhh that’s,’ Phil couldn’t think of a word to describe how bad it was.

Bill’s stupid grin pushing into the tent saved him thinking too much and overheating the synapse space between his ears. Todger pushed his way in, his oversized head and slobbering snake tongue making everyone instinctively cringe and pull there feet away. Rab’s head dropped and the roof of the tent caved in, so that they were pushed ever closer together; shoving and elbowing, like ghosts trying to share the same green canvas spook sheet. Knuckly and the River of Blood dried up as Todger revelled in all the new found fun; sniffing the cards then pointing his shovel snout at Wendy’s bum. She kicked out at him and he yelped in delight at another new great sniffing game.

‘Only you could have a dog like that.’ Rab smoothed down his hair. It looked black and oily, a bouffant slick when he got too hot. He’d been greased, the first to get out of the tent, burrowing underneath the groundsheet and ripping up clothes pegs like The Hulk. He’d salvaged his denim Wrangler jacket and put it on instead of a t-shirt over his bare torso. He liked to think of himself of as a biker type and would have cut the arms off his jacket if it hadn’t been so expensive, his mum would kill him and he’d having nothing else to wear, but brown hairball, Great Uncle Bulgaria Womble jumpers that his granny had knitted every year for them since they were tots. Even though the only pedal bike they had, which was kept parked up against the painted pink cupboard with chipped paint in Wendy’s room, was the poor man’s Chopper, her Chipper, with the wonky back brakes, he felt he pedalled it with a certain machismo swagger.

‘Hanks.’ Bill’s tendency to bite off Ts, or just being generally weird was resurfacing.

Wendy chewed her lip and started dragging the tent with all her and Rab’s belongings to another corner of the garden. At first Phil had scrambled to get out, but then just gave up and played along, running inside the tent tomb, his high-pitched maniac laugh reverberating around the garden. Summy swung at boot as the tent passed, but barely connected. He was too busy sniffing and sneezing.

‘You’ve probably heard me and Todger are a team now. The police and FBI and everything are looking for us. But they’ll never get us.’

‘What’s he talking about now?’ Wendy sounded peeved, which was normal. ‘Fuck off.’ She aimed a boot at Todger who whined, changed his point of attack and tried to park his square head on her lap and sniff her fanny.

Phil crawled out, wearing the entrance to the tent like a woman’s bonnet. ‘He just needs to be loved.’

‘You fuck off as well.’ Wendy looked down the garden at the sun on the dark windows to see if her mum had been listening.

‘I need a smoke,’ said Rab, ‘lets go to Johnny Grahams and get a single.’

‘I’ll need to get supplies for me and Todger.’ The dog, upon hearing his name, looked up at Bill and ambled over expecting to be fed.

‘Have you got money? You’ve never got any money.’ Wendy sounded shocked.

‘I’ve got 55p.’Bill’s hand snaked down to his sock to feel the pound notes his mum had lent him. The coins jangled in his pocket. If aliens searched him he was sure they’d never look in his socks. They were always too busy doing things with people’s heads, or putting implants in their back, feeling them up, or using tendrils from their nose to have bug-eyed sex with them. Even if they did all that, Bill figured, they wouldn’t need money because they didn’t smoke.

‘That’s enough for a packet of 20.’ There was awe in Rab’s voice.

Johnny Graham’s whole business model was based on selling sweets and single cigarettes to people over 16, people that looked 16, people that were getting single cigarettes for their poor mother or father, who were sitting in their big car just waiting for them to come back, or people that could reach up and put 6p on the counter. Bill’s 55p could put him out of business, or make him a partner.

‘I just came here to borrow a sleeping bag and say bye-bye.’ Bill was getting all tearful and Todger was getting more and more hungry, his pouch jaw hung open like a drawbridge, dripping drool over the grass and Wendy’s leg.

‘Fuck off,’ said Rab.

‘We’ll sell you one.’ Wendy pushed Todger’s head away from her. ‘It’s the same as a sleeping bag only it’s black and plastic.’

Summy and Phil looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

‘You want to sell him a black bag. That’s brill,’ Summy laughed then he sneezed. Sneezed then laughed.

‘Does the same job as a sleeping bag, only its waterproofed. And the good thing is you don’t need a tent when you’ve got a black plastic sleeping wrap.’ Wendy pushed Todger’s head away again. ‘Roll over and die.’ She smacked Todger on the nose, but she was looking at Bill.