Rimsky-Korsakov (Part One)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

It was the beginning of the main school holidays, and if the last couple of weeks' weather was anything to go by it was going to be a long, gloriously hot summer. It was almost one thirty in the morning, and it was still warm enough to sit around in a t-shirt and shorts.

The three boys feeding the camp fire at the bottom of Nigel 'Banjo' Jones's garden were having a whale of a time. They had been ordered to call it a night and climb into their sleeping bags in the tent by twelve thirty at the very latest by she who should be obeyed, Nigel's mother, who said if they didn't do as they were told the bogeyman might come to get them, but the boys were all fourteen years old and they had stopped believing in the bogeyman years ago. Anyway, Nigel's parents would be none the wiser because they had gone to bed well before midnight, and the camp was far enough away from the houses for their wild banter not to be overheard and complained about the following morning. The lads had just shared a king's feast of sausages, bacon, eggs, beans and fried bread that Nigel's mother had provided and they had cooked themselves in an old saucepan and a cast iron frying pan, and the farts were coming thick and fast.

“You dirty fucker, Banjo,” Paul 'Knocker' Green said, looking at Nigel through the smoke.

“It wasn't me, it was Bumble,” Nigel replied, looking accusingly at Alan 'Bumble' Jones.

“You lying bastard, it was you,” Bumble said. “That was a Chernobyl fart, and it knocked up a good cloud of dust. It killed all the worms and beetles in a forty mile radius, it de-feathered loads of innocent sleeping dicky-birds and blew them out of the trees to be gobbled up by prowling foxes and pussy-cats.”

The boys' nicknames had become legend on the estate, and many of their friends had long since forgotten their real names (if they ever knew them in the first place). Nigel 'Banjo' Jones had received his nickname after one of the lads had watched Deliverance and claimed that he was the spitting image of the retarded kid who did the duelling banjo riff with John Voight. Paul 'Knocker' Green was considered a bit of a hard case, and though he was a gentle soul at heart he wasn't averse to using his fists if he had to. Alan 'Bumble' Jones received his moniker because a couple of years back he had poked a stick into a mouse-hole in a grassy bank that he saw bees flying in and out of - the bees took offence to the intrusion, and he received a couple of dozen stings on his face and scalp for his sins.

“Hey,” Knocker said, “do you two fancy having a séance? You know, see if we can rustle up a ghostie or two.”

“We know what a frigging séance is, we're not stupid,” Bumble replied. “Why would you want to do that? Banjo's mum has locked the back door, and the only way we can rouse her is by calling her mobile - if she's deeply asleep or she's forgotten to take her phone upstairs with her we're stuck. What are we supposed to do if we do rouse a real ghost?”

“You cowardly little queer!” Knocker said. “Ghosts can't hurt you, don't you know anything?”

“We could draw a magic circle in the dirt,” Banjo said. “I saw it in one of my dad's DVD's, the ones my mum
makes him hide in his bedroom drawer so I won't get my hands on them. You draw a protective circle with a pentagram in the middle, and you don't leave the circle whatever happens. You also draw a triangle outside the circle that the spirit appears in, and you command it to do your bidding.”

“We could evoke a demon!” Knocker said. “We could order it to burn down the school so that we don't have to go back in six weeks' time. We'll set up a Ouija board in the middle of the circle and send an open invitation to all the demons in hell to appear.”

“I don't know if that's a good idea,” Bumble said. “What if we evoke something we can't control?”

“I already told you, spirits can't hurt you,” Knocker said. “As long as we all keep our heads and stay in the circle we'll be safe.”

“I dunno,” Bumble said.

“If you chicken out we'll change your name from Bumble to Pussy,” Knocker said. “All in favour raise your hands and say 'aye',” and he and Banjo did exactly that.

“Oh, all right then! But I want to make it clear that if it was half one in the afternoon instead of half one in the morning I'd go straight home – I don't like this supernatural stuff, and I thought we agreed ages ago that we'd never try to force each other into doing anything we're not a hundred percent happy with.”

“Pussy,” Knocker mumbled.

*************************

An hour or so later the boys had drawn a pentagram within a circle in the dirt around the fire, plus a triangle outside the circle. They had also knocked up a makeshift Ouija board in Nigel's father's shed with a piece of plywood and a marker pen, and they knelt in a tight cluster by the fire with the board on the ground and their fingers on top of a drinking glass, which they were using as a planchette. “Aren't you supposed to say something?” Knocker said.

“Like what?” Bumble said.

“I dunno,” Knocker replied. “Is there anybody there?”

“Is there anybody there?” Banjo said in his best ghostie voice. “Are there any spirits willing to make contact?” The glass started wildly circling the board under their fingertips. “That's you, Knocker, isn't it?”

“No, it's Bumble.”

“It ain't me!” Bumble said. “I didn't want to fuck around with stuff we don't understand in the first place – folk have been driven mad by contacting spirits with Ouija boards.”

“Don't be so bloody soft, man,” Knocker said. “You're such a pussy!”

“Will you stop calling me that?” Bumble said. The glass continued travelling round in circles, lingering near letters but not actually touching them, and then it headed straight for the word 'YES' that Knocker had drawn on the forehead of an amateurishly rendered skull next to the word 'NO' on another skull.