Pedigree Crush with a Twist of Passion chapter six

Chapter Six

18th July, 1979

The residents didn’t go on trips very often.

They weren’t called children on Hathaway wing. Simon didn’t like moving to Hathaway when he was eighteen, he was happy on Bronte. He was very worried that Mummy wouldn’t be able to find him. She always waited in his bedroom. But it wasn’t his bedroom anymore. It belonged to somebody else now. He worried that his mummy belonged to somebody else, too. Maybe part of him even wished she really did, and that made him feel bad. Simon loved his mummy and was a bad boy for thinking bad things.

Sometimes, when she was shouting at him, Simon imagined his mummy burning in a big orange fire. He tried really hard to not think bad things about her because she often seemed to know what he was thinking and if she knew he was watching her burn in a big fire, she would be mad with him again. She pinched him sometimes, when his tongue flopped out, and he couldn’t help that. Simon couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she knew about the fire stuff. He was good at imagining fire stuff, but not good at knowing what Mummy would do. He just knew that she was always mad at him.

They were going on a big bus. But it was Tuesday. They always banged drums and tangerines and sang This Old Man He Had One on a Tuesday.

Simon didn’t want to go on a big bus, he wanted to go on the school bus to school and bang drums and sing This Old Man He Had One. Sharon Peat always got sick on big buses that went far. Gloria said they weren’t going far, only to Lancaster and that Sharon would be fine, because she’d given her a tablet. She said he’d like it at Williamson’s Park. But it was Tuesday. He began to move from one foot to the other, and Gloria sighed and gave him a tablet, too.

David, one of the helpers, pushed Simon from behind while Gloria and Helen pulled him from the front. He didn’t want to sit on the fifth row back; he always sat on the second row. That’s where he sat when he went to school. Mike didn’t mind moving from the second row seat. He couldn’t talk and he didn’t mind about anything much. Simon sat quietly on the bus. His eyes glazed ever so slightly and his tongue lolled out of his half-open mouth. He thought about drums and hummed This Old Man. Gloria began to sing it and some people joined in until Sharon started to be sick. It wasn’t the same without drums and his blue tangerine, anyway.

Williamson’s Park was lovely but there were too many hills and lots of steps and his legs hurt. Gloria said he’d complain about the colours in paradise. Simon had never been there so didn’t know if he’d like the colours or not, but he knew that he was hot and that his feet were hurting.

They had a picnic in the shadow of the Ashworth Memorial building. It was a beautiful day. Sharon had stopped being sick and wanted lots to eat but Gloria wouldn’t let her have lots because they still had to go home in the big bus. Simon thought that Sharon should walk home, because she made the big bus smell really bad.

After lunch they went to see the butterflies. The butterfly house had some lizards and bats and was hot. Simon liked them but was glad they couldn’t get out of their homes. Gloria was fascinated by all the plants but Simon didn’t like the way the butterflies were just there, not fastened up or tied down or anything. He started to wonder what it would be like if one of them fluttered near his face. He started his low moaning that sometimes came just before and during an epileptic fit, but sometimes he just did that noise anyway so Gloria held his hand and promised him that nothing would hurt him. Up to that point they had only seen little butterflies.

Rounding a corner, they saw the most beautiful orchid, but the exquisite beauty of the flower paled into insignificance next to the enormous butterfly that was resting on it. Simon couldn’t understand how something so big didn’t make the flower bend all the way over until its head fell off.

Gloria was in her element. She scrambled through the guidebook that had a section on identifying all the species of butterfly. It cost her three ninety-nine at the door and Simon thought that was probably more than a pound. He wasn’t impressed. Gloria let go of his hand to find the big butterfly. Simon was scared. If the big monster fluttered near his face it would cover him completely and he might not be able to breathe. It was hot in the butterfly house and he could feel his chest tightening and thought that he’d drown.

A man called Callum was taking them round. He was a guide and told them all about the different species of animals and flowers. He was very interesting and Gloria listened to him while scrabbling through the book for a picture of the massive butterfly. She liked to do things herself sometimes and didn’t wait for the man to start telling them about it. Simon was bored. He was hot and uncomfortable, too, and he was uneasy and nervous, all symptoms that led to his agitation.

‘Ah, here we are,’ said Gloria, grinning like a fool. Couldn’t she see the danger? ‘It’s a Goliath butterfly and guess what, Simon? It’s the second biggest species in the world and has a wingspan of almost a foot. They can only be found in Indonesia. Aren’t we lucky to see such a beautiful thing right here in Lancas—?’

Unfortunately, the butterfly chose that moment to flex its wings. It fluttered lazily, once, like a tablecloth lifted in a breeze and then it rose resplendent into the air. As it lifted, Simon saw its ugly little face and realised that butterflies aren’t pretty at all, it’s just an act they put on to fool people they want to drown. The butterfly had the face of a bluebottle only much, much bigger. Its beady little eyes peered into his and the long black things called antennae twitched towards his face.

They hadn’t seen the birds yet. As if on cue, there was an enormous batting of wings that Simon thought was coming from the butterfly. Simon didn’t like wings, they sounded dry and feathery. The hot house smelled bad. It smelled old and green and rotten. He knew the butterfly was big but he couldn’t understand that it could make so much noise just by flapping its wings. If he’d looked up he would have seen the real culprits, but Simon was transfixed on the butterfly that was coming to suffocate him.

The miniature murmuration of starlings rose as one. They did a circuit of the hothouse before looping the loop and swooping down on the visitor’s heads. People squealed in delight as the birds landed on them hoping for pickings from the specially prepared bags of birdfeed. The cheeky birds were gentle but greedy and they dive-bombed the visitors with aeronautical precision, never missing their mark.

Simon didn’t have a bag of food but he had begun to wave his arms in the air and that attracted the bird’s attention. Three of the starlings flew towards him. He wasn’t moaning now, he was screaming. The birds landed on him, two on his arms and one on the top of his head. They were screeching. The noise was cacophonous, echoing in the stillness of the hothouse.

Gloria tried to calm him, but he was a large man-child in a frenzy of terror and easily fought her off. People stopped what they were doing to watch the Downs bloke having some sort of a fit. Mothers grabbed their children protectively to them. The world slowed down.

Callum ran towards Simon, their female Goliath was right in front of the Mongol’s face. She was their most valuable exhibit. He made three steps while Simon thrashed. The starlings took flight and rose into the air, adding to the mayhem, their wings beating, beating, fluttering and beating. The noise was too loud, amplified in his rush of adrenaline. Simon beat them off, catching one on its tail feathers and knocking it into a spin. It landed safety on the floor, shook itself and rose again to perch somewhere high up and safe. Still there was the beating in his ears, loud droning. Too hot, the place was too hot. He couldn’t breathe.

His arm came down fast, smashing into the valuable Goliath. She fluttered to the floor and lay twitching for a second, broken. Simon didn’t notice. He was too far into his panic to see. His feet pounded on the dying butterfly, ripping its delicate wings and turning it to dust on the floor.

The crowd gasped. Gloria moaned just the way Simon did when he got upset. A piece of green wing with a black ‘eye’ blot looking towards him hung over the front of Simon’s shoe.

Callum reached out to Simon. His fingers made contact with the sleeve of his shirt. Simon batted him away as though he was just another butterfly.

He was running for the exit now. He didn’t mean to knock the children over. He didn’t see them. All he could see was wings flapping around him. All he could hear was the beating, thrumming boom of wings. All he could feel was his terror. He pushed a little girl. She lost her balance and her father’s arm shot out too slowly to catch her. She teetered for a moment on the brink of the edge before falling with a loud splash into the water with the Koi carp. A warder jumped in to save her before she was hurt or came to any real harm. Simon came into contact with four children, innocent children, and several adults, all of them with wide frightened eyes, all fighting to get out of his way. The children were knocked to the ground, into water or bashed into walls. Adults were screaming about assault and yelling for the police to be called.

Callum was still chasing him. He saw the beautiful Goliath, so gentle, so serene, cut down and killed by the Mongol. People like that shouldn’t be allowed out in public. They should be locked up and kept away from decent folk. He had cared for and tended all the butterflies for four years, but the Goliath was his favourite. He didn’t tell any of his mates, but he called her Lotus, sometimes she’d rest on him and he talked to her. People would probably say he was mad, but he liked to think that she knew him and waited for him coming in each morning.

He was so mad that when he got hold of him, he was going to punch in that stupid retard’s face. All Lotus ever did was make people happy. What had the spastic ever done to make anybody happy with his fat body and mongy face? Where was the beauty in that great useless lump of humanity?

He caught up with Simon by the face painting stall. Clowns and tigers, monkeys and vampires, turned to stare with wide, innocent eyes. A second throng of panicked parents, sensing danger, drew their young into their embrace.

Callum, tears of anger and loss stinging his eyes, let out a bellow and flew through the air towards Simon’s legs. He caught him in a rugby tackle and Simon turned to face his danger before going down on his back. The rucksack he always wore protected his back from the hard concrete but his head made contact with a sickening crunch. Again the world seemed to slew, tilting off-kilter and Gloria was in time to see Simon’s head bounce off the paving. He’d bitten his tongue and a line of spittle and blood hit Callum in the chest. Simon’s eyes were wide and pleading for mercy.

People were screaming now, a crowd forming a circle round the action. Ghouls moving forward to better see what was happening. Callum straddled Simon and drew back his right arm to punch him full in the face.

He stopped mid swing, appalled at what he was about to do. Beating a handicapped person? All the fight left him and his fist fell limply to his side. People jumped at him to pull him away. He rolled off Simon and held out a hand to help him to his feet.

It was too much. Simon’s eyes flickered erratically before turning up and rolling backwards, showing only the whites. His body began to jerk and spasm. Pink, foamy spittle frothed out of the corners of his mouth. He made the low cow noise. It looked as though a demented puppeteer was pulling at his arms and legs to make them jerk. But Simon was away from it all, he was in the peaceful place now.

He woke up several times in the hospital. He’d taken a nasty knock to the head and done more damage during the seizure. He asked for his mummy and Gloria promised to get her.

But Mummy was too busy to come. It was Tuesday, not Wednesday, so she didn’t have a window.

When she did come, she was angry. She called him names and said that if she’d known what he was, the good Lord could strike her down stone, stiff dead, but she’d never have had him.

Simon didn’t blame his mummy for not wanting him for what he was. It was horrible being a butterfly killer.