Fish Boy Read online

  I run upstairs and slam my door. Mr Minnington bangs his pan.

  I stick my face into my pillow.

  Mum calls after me. ‘It’s not forever, Billy, it doesn’t say it’s forever.’

  She pushes a sheet under the door. I pick it up. There’s lots of words, the only ones I see though are right at the top. ‘There is no Cure for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,’ it says.

  Sounds like forever to me.

  The wind rattles the window. I shut my eyes. All I can hear is air sucking from one place to another, howling in my head, smashing up the world.

  Then I see it.

  A tsunami wave. Full of fish. Fish in the froth, in the foam, in the waves, in the spray.

  They say, leaping into my face, bubbles popping out of their little mouths. I reach out.

  All I want is to be there. Spinning with them again. Away from everything.

  ‘Yes,’ I say out loud. ‘Okay,’ I say and nod.

  It sounds perfect.

  The wind laughs its head off and leaves.

  I open my eyes and blink hard.

  The fish are gone.

  Don’t Worry

  I get out a sheet of paper from the printer in the spare room and a black Rotring Fineliner out of Dad’s don’t-even-think-about-using-these box.

  I take How to Live With a Neurotic Dog off the red metal bookshelf, as it is properly A4 size and lock myself in the bathroom. I sit on the black and white checked lino, my back against the bath. I look at the flying man, not flying. Waiting to fly. As if he’s just looking for the right moment to shoot out of the window. To come alive. I look at the flamenco toilet roll holder. In my head I ask her for some advice. ‘Que pasa?’ she says and stares right back at me.

  The first line is easy enough.

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  The rest is trickier. I sit with the pen on the paper for a while and think. An ink blob leaks out and spreads. There’s too much to say. I don’t know where to start. So I write:

  I have gone swimming. Sorry.

  I might be a while. I don’t know how long.

  Don’t worry about me. I will be okay. The fish will

  look after me.

  Love Billy

  Then I draw a picture of a bean tin in the sea with fins and a tail, swimming under the waves. I prop the note up on my pillow, put my goggles round my neck and go downstairs. In the kitchen the clock sings like a snipe. I pick up the howling wolf towel, realise I don’t need it and put it down again and head off out the back door.

  Disappear

  There’s no one in at Zadie’s. I look through the dried-out starfish section but there’s just a big empty space where people should be. Maybe they’ve gone out like normal people do.

  I walk down the cliff path. The sky gets dark. Slabs of cloud are hiding the sun. The wind blows them away and sends in reinforcements. Gravel digs into and between my toes. My skin is full of goosebumps.

  When I reach the bottom the sand is cold and slaps under my feet.

  I walk over to the water and stop. I wonder if Sir David’s safe in the bunker, if he’s come out yet. I look at the beach and think of rain frogs living under the ground. They stay there all year till it rains. Then the ground erupts. They all come out, find a mate and take them back down. Sometimes life is all about timing. Sometimes you know when the time is right.

  I look up at the bone rocks. Chewed up and spat out in the water.

  I’ve never been up there.

  There’s a sign that says ‘DANGER: RISK OF EROSION’ and a big black hand in a red circle. I look up at the ledge, at the crumbling, at the rock all chipped off and worn away. I look at the toe holes, the finger cracks, and I think, I’m going up there. I’m not wading in, not today. The time is right, I’m going to jump.

  There’s a hole in the middle of the bones, the sweet spot, the blood drip. If you jump off and hit that you’re okay. If you miss it you’re on the rocks, smashed up. Peter Rydon said he did it last summer, told everyone he did. Not that anyone saw.

  The wind nudges into my back. Go on then, it says, go on.

  I turn and walk over to the edge of the beach, to the base of the crocodile. I put my hand up the stones, feeling for a hold. I find a crack where the rock has split, jam my fingers in and haul myself up. My feet scrabble around, trying to find something to grip on to. They find a ledge, a thin one, I put them sideways to make the most of it and look for a new handhold. On the next pull up my hand slips and my elbow grazes and starts to bleed. I tighten my toes, grip into the gaps, keep my stomach flat, my body pressed against the face. I move up again. A shower of rocks slips down and smashes. My heart goes crazy. I walk my fingers over, on to the lip of the ledge. I don’t look down. I put my other hand on. I pull my body up on to my elbows, breathe and pull again. My chest flops down on to the ledge and I swing my legs over. I look at my knees, the skin turned white. I look at the sky, the clouds turned purple.

  I look around for Sir David but he says nothing, is nowhere.

  I look down over the edge and think about barnacle geese. The only way to protect their young is to nest 400 feet up. On a cliff.

  The chicks hatch and walk towards the edge.

  The dad flies off and calls. They look down. They back off. They don’t follow.

  The mum tries, flies to the bottom. Cries out. They come closer to the edge. They can’t fly, they won’t be able to for another eight weeks. But there’s no food at the top of the cliff.

  They come closer to the edge. Closer. They have to jump.

  The mum cries out again.

  They follow. It’s their mum. They have to.

  The first one tips over the edge. Flaps its wings to slow its body down as it falls. If it hits a rock belly first it might survive.

  I dunno.

  The second one goes. It does better. Belly first. BHAM. It flips over. BHAM BHAM BHAM. It tips and flips all the way to the bottom. It doesn’t move. Yet.

  The third one goes. BHAM, tip, flip, BHAM.

  It gets about halfway down.

  The last one jumps. It’s the best yet. A perfect drop. It BHAMs and crashes but it gets there, it makes it to the bottom and stands up and wobbles about, but it’s okay. It’s actually okay.

  The one that wasn’t moving gets up too. It looks wonky, but alive. It walks over to its mum. If they don’t go now the foxes will come and eat the survivors. They have to move.

  I look back over the edge. I just stand there, on the ledge. Breathing hard.

  ‘Billy!’

  I jump, but not down. I pull back and turn round. I see something. Someone. They’re hunched up against the far side of the ledge, in a black sweatshirt, black jeans, black coat.

  ‘Hey, Billy,’ it says. Patrick. ‘Ninety-eight per cent chance of storms. Didn’t you check the forecast?’ His face looks dark under the hood. It totally freaks me out.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘They want you to stay forever?’ he says.

  I didn’t think he’d even heard that. I nearly fall off.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he says. I look at his eyebrows. I thought you might need me but there’s no way I’m going to say that, they say.

  The clouds are squeezing together, puffing up. The sea’s not calm either. The tide’s coming in. Waves smash on the shore, claw everything back, shells, stones, everything, then slam down again. In and out, over and over.

  I think of Hurricane Katrina – so powerful it could power the whole electric grid of America, so wild it rips up one hundred miles of coastline.

  I look down into the spray and see the fish tsunami, I see Jamie Watts’s face like a killer whale opening up, rising out of the wave, I see Dr Winsall, I see There is no cure. I see Dad’s head on the worktop, his tea towels on the floor, Mum crying in bed, the wheelchair. I see her slipping away, fading, into something see-through, fading away into nothing. I see the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, signposts pulled out of concrete smashing up windows, flood
water rising, filling the streets. Cars bobbing upside down. I see the fish, the calm quiet nothingness. The way it feels to be there. One of them. Looked out for.

  ‘Once they’ve got you, they won’t let you go,’ Patrick says. ‘The fish.’

  ‘They will,’ I say. ‘I’ll come back. Later.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else down there?’ He gets up and starts walking over. He stands in front of me, his hair blasting from behind, covering his face. ‘You’ll sink. You’ll drown.’ He’s shouting it against the storm. ‘You’ll just … disappear.’

  The wind thumps its fists on my chest, into my back. Go on, it says, go on go on. There’s a proper boom in the sky and a flash. We look up. For a minute it feels like the whole world shuts up. We’re in the eye of the storm. The rain starts, hard and fast. Big drops, really big fat ones. I watch them bouncing off the white foam of the waves.

  Patrick reaches into his pocket. I back off. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ he says and snaps a set of handcuffs over our wrists. ‘If you’re going down, you’ll have to take me with you.’

  Losing it

  I look at Patrick. There’s another flash, close, really close. So pure and bright it blinds me. When I open my eyes I see him wobble. His free arm swings round in circles while he tries to get his balance. He tips forwards. I reach out but it’s too late.

  We both fall.

  Back and over we go. Down and down. Past the gulls’ nests, past the peeling cliff edges, white stains running down the grey. I think of our heads landing on the bone rocks, splitting open. For a minute the wind seems to hold us, to lower us in its hands. I hold on to Patrick. I shut my eyes. I harden my back into a shell and get ready to break.

  Smack. Our backs hit the water.

  We hit the sweet spot.

  I breathe out as we go down and the bubbles fizz around us.

  Patrick totally freaks out, starts thrashing his arms and legs around. I grab him round the chest, like we did in life-saving class. I pull us up and get our heads out. He struggles as if I’m trying to drown him. Like he’s scared out of his mind. I keep tight hold, even though I’m going under. ‘Stop, stop it,’ I shout when I can. I think of how a drowning person can pull a swimmer under, by the fright in them, by the panic. I keep hold of his chest and pull, kick away from the rocks. The water’s in his coat and boots and trousers, dragging him down. I kick his boots off with my heels.

  The waves get bigger. I hear them smashing on the rocks. I mistime one and get a mouthful of water. I choke with the salt but keep my head up, keep kicking. I feel how far the ground is beneath us. Gravity pulls us down. The tide pushes us back, as if it wants us out, like skin pushing out a splinter. It’s trying to put us back on to the shore. I feel another boom and a flash straight after. The storm’s bang overhead.

  Patrick’s so heavy he’s slipping out of my arms. His legs kick. I try to keep his head up.

  I pull right back, put my knee under him and try to pull him out.

  I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. I keep saying it in my head, over and over.

  But I can’t.

  I feel like I’m losing it. I know I am.

  Patrick’s still thrashing.

  We start to sink.

  My head’s going under and that’s when I see them. Out of the gloom.

  A long, silvery trail like a tentacle.

  Coming straight for us.

  For me.

  Now or Never

  I feel the first one under my back. Then another under my arm, then my neck, my foot, my head. I look down and see the shoal wrapping round us.

  The water’s thick with fish.

  I twist my head to look at Patrick. He’s stopped thrashing. His eyes are closed. His hair is flowing out, his legs and arms spread open. The water pulls and pushes us. A sandstorm blasts underneath. Pieces of ripped-up plant and rock and shell fly up and around.

  They shout and split around the handcuff chain, then back in a loop to face it. Hundreds of eyes, staring. Confused. They poke my hand. They poke the chain. Bob looks at Patrick. Then back at me.

  He says. The shoal pull back and shudder.

  They think he’s dead.

  Sharks are the only fish with eyelids.

  Bob looks at me as if he’s passing on the bad news.

  A fast-dark has pecked out Patrick’s eyes.

  He’s sorry but that is how it is.

  They swarm around Patrick. I keep hold of his hand.

  They chant.

  I look at Bob. He looks at Patrick. He looks at our hands.

  He says. The shoal looks at me.

  They start to push Patrick away.

  ‘Stop!’ I shout. But no one’s listening.

  The handcuffs start to stretch. Patrick drifts away.

  Lightning buzzes in the distance.

  They stop. They stare at the light. My eyes get floaters.

  The thunder hits.

  The fish start up again. Push, push, push.

  They push Patrick down.

  I try to kick them away. ‘No! No!’

  They keep coming.

  Hundreds of them.

  Thousands.

  They say. Altogether. They swarm round Patrick. They’re so thick I can’t even see his face anymore. I think of how brave he was. Is. That he came here to help me. He doesn’t deserve this. SNAP. The handcuffs break like plastic. They push me backwards, out to sea.

  ‘No,’ I shake my head.

  NO

  I turn my back on them. I can’t stay down here with them forever.

  I’ve got to save Patrick. I swim over to him and reach out.

  Pure white cracks through the whole of the sea. It’s not a beam. It’s a light bomb. They look terrified.

  They pull back. I see Patrick. He’s falling. Slowly. Down and down. Like a puppet with all its strings snapped off. I grab his hand and pull us up.

  Soft-it, they say.

  They want to hide.

  We need to get out of here. We need to get to the shore.

  ‘Go,’ I say.

  GO? Bob says.

  ‘Go,’ I say.

  They look at each other. Head flick right. Head flick left.

  GO, Bob says.

  Go

  Go, they say.

  And we go.

  Fast.

  I feel slow and weak.

  The fish aren’t. They’re flying.

  They’re muscle and bone, I think. Same as me. Muscle and bone. I say it in my head.

  Muscle and bone

  Muscle and bone

  I am muscle and bone.

  I feel the muscle stretch from my hip to my knee, from my knee to my ankle, from my ankle to my foot. I am a body that was born for this.

  I feel my shoulders to my elbows, my elbows to my wrists, my wrist to my hands. I grab the water, hand straight, fingers curved. I pull it. Away from me. From us.

  I am muscle and bone

  I am muscle

  and bone.

  I kick through shadows and sea fog and blur.

  Hard-it

  We split through rock.

  Soft-it

  We dodge a current.

  I’m too slow. It pushes me back.

  I stretch out again.

  Soft-it

  I keep reaching.

  Hard-it

  I keep pulling.

  We scrape over gravel and sea spit and sharpness.

  I swipe it away with my hands.

  Soft-it

  We dive through sand smoke. It grits up my face.

  Kick.

  My legs ache.

  Pull.

  My arms are gonna snap.

  Patrick’s so heavy. I shuffle my hand around his chest. His ribs are sliding.

  Kick, pull, kick.

  Flash.

  The light slices through.

  I blink.

  The water’s thick and dark.

  I have no idea where we are. T
he fish are slipping away.

  I breaststroke kick.

  I get a fingertip further.

  I’m so slow.

  The cold shark bites my stomach. I can’t keep going. The fish flash pulls away.

  My head is heavy. I think of me and Patrick sinking to the bottom.

  Spinning.

  Snowflake boys.

  Twisting.

  And landing.

  And rotting.

  And turning into bones.

  And hag fish sliding in and out and picking us clean till we are white shiny skeletons.

  Skeletons that sink into the sand.

  And just disappear.

  Patrick was right. We’ll disappear.

  The water pushes my hand off his ribs.

  My brain is black and long and full of tunnels. I slip down one, into warm fuzzy easiness.

  It’s soft and flowing.

  It’s like a finger. A beam of light. Light like the moon.

  It pulls me in.

  Sea-caller

  Sea-caller

  Yes. I drift.

  I float.

  I drop.

  And we fall.

  Go

  Bob slaps me in the face. I open my eyes.

  They shut again.

  He nibbles my ear.

  I try to swat him off.

  He whacks my nose.

  OW

  OW!

  His bubbles lick my cheeks.

  *

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I blink into the shine and look around.

  Everything is wobbly.

  I look down. We’re on the seabed, on the bottom.