John Babbershanks
by Philip J. Davies
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
John Babbershanks is nearby. Alfie can smell him. That stink of damp soil and rotting leaves chokes the air whenever he’s skulking around. It gets thicker when he’s looking for mischief, too. The thicker the smell, the more wicked his mood.
No one else smells it of course. The thirty other children in the classroom all remain engrossed in the complex long division Mrs Marshfield has set them. She doesn’t look up, either, even for a second. She remains at her desk at the front of them all, head bowed, red pen slashing relentlessly at their essays on the Tudor kings and queens of England.
A fresh waft of that stink, and Alfie risks a glance around the room. Still no sign of him. Perhaps he’s found something else to do, some other kid upon whom to inflict his misery. After all, just because they can’t see him doesn’t mean John can’t torment them. Alfie hates himself for it, but he always feels a rush of a relief when John decides to ruin someone else’s day.
A movement by the window, though. The shape of a boy rising up slowly from the flowerbeds. A paper-white face pressed against the glass. A mop of curly hair all tangled up with leaves, and twigs, and seeds. A baggy jumper with holes in it.
No, John, not now. Please, not today.
As if he can read Alfie’s thoughts, John Babbershanks grins and nods. With soil-stained fingers, he pulls a yellow seed from the mess of his hair and places it on his palm. He strokes it like it’s some tiny pet of his, kisses it, then blows on it.
The speck floats up through the open window, into the classroom, a shimmering thing dancing on unseen eddies in the air as it passes over the heads of the children. It hangs there an inch or two in front of Alfie’s face, just for a moment, then shoots up his nose.
Alfie winces as it twitches in his nasal cavity. He gags as it slithers down his throat, deep into his body. He feels it passing through his membranes, probing his organs deep inside him. A wave of urgency hits him as it finds his bladder. A vast globe of water forms from nowhere, swelling and shifting inside him, desperate to get out. He opens his mouth to speak, nearly calling out, but then quickly swallows his words. Good boys don’t call out, do they? Good boys don’t get noticed. The pressure builds though, until he can hold it no longer.
‘Mrs Marshfield!’ he cries out, standing up, metal chair legs scraping across the hard floor.
Around the room, heads snap up from their work and peer at him. His teacher looks up, too, eyes stabbing at him, savage and cruel. “What is it, boy?” she says.
Alfie doesn’t need to answer her. The sensation is almost pleasant at first: the sweet relief, the warmth washing over him, spreading out, running down his legs. The other kids stare at him, smirking, as the yellow liquid gathers by his feet. She sees it, too, and slams her pen down on her desk.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, boy! Haven’t your parents toilet-trained you yet? Go and see Mr Price and get some spare clothes.’
Her tongue lashes out at some of the braver boys who laugh out loud as he squelches past them on his way out, threatening them with missed playtimes and long essays if they don’t stop that right now. It’s too late for any of that though. Far too late.
‘Alfie Pee-Pee Pants! Alfie Pee-Pee Pants!’
His new name is already passing from child to child like a germ eager to move from host to host. Alfie feels a sob welling up inside him, but he sucks it back down. Crying won’t help. This new name is going to stick. It’s going to be bouncing around the playground for weeks or even months.
‘Get a bucket and a mop, too,’ Mrs Marshfield calls after him. ‘You can clean up that mess yourself.’
He glances back at the window as he leaves the room, but John Babbershanks has gone.
* * *
Lunchtime and the playground is a fresh kind of hell. News of what happened has spread around the whole school along with his new name. He tries to get away from it all, but a group of lads follow him around chanting: ‘Alfie Pee-Pee Pants! Alfie Pee-Pee Pants!’
A careful scan of the playground reveals nothing. No refuge for Alfie. No friendly face who might stand up for him, or teacher to hide behind. There is nothing. There is no one. Well, that’s not entirely true. There is one place. The dark place where most kids fear to go. In the shadows of the corner of the playground, half-hidden by a low wall, sits The Bin of Eternal Stench.
Why is it there? No one knows. Why doesn’t someone just take it away and empty it? This is one of the world’s greatest mysteries. It’s been there for as long as anyone can remember. Some kids claim their brothers and sisters, who have long since left the school, talk about it. Others say that Mr Parker, the caretaker, leaves it there to scare kids away from where he buried the body of the last caretaker whose job he took.
Alfie thinks this is rubbish and that it just gets left there because no one wants the job of dealing with it. Who would want that job? The Bin of Eternal Stench is a foul thing indeed. A vat of stagnant rainwater with rotten apple cores and mouldy, half-eaten sandwiches floating in it.
It’s not just the smell of that bin which makes everyone keep their distance from that place, though. There is a fear greater than that of the eternal stinkiness which haunts that dark corner. You might run into Billy Price and his cronies there. Whenever they are not on a lunchtime detention, one of their favourite pastimes is dumping kids headfirst into it. You can kick out and thrash around as much as you like, but it won’t do any good. Once Billy and his gang of scumbags have got hold of you, you’re going in. It’s worth the risk today though, Alfie decides.
Sure enough, the dark place is too much for his tormentors, The gang follow him, but the vigour behind their tormenting fades. It’s half-hearted now. Someone mentions Billy. He is out and about today. He has been seen. One by one, they drift away until Alfie is left alone with the stink.
‘Having fun, Alfie?’
Babbershanks is perched on the wall behind the bins, grinning at him. Alfie turns his back to the playground. The last thing he needs now is for people to see him talking to John. Well, they wouldn’t see John, would they? They’d see him talking to himself.
‘Get away from me, John,’ he says. ‘You’ve ruined my life.’
‘What’s the matter? Can’t you take a little joke?’
‘I’m done with you. We’re not friends anymore.’
Babbershanks kicks off from the wall and floats down to the ground, landing close to Alfie. So close that Alfie can see see several worms wiggling in his hair.
‘I decide when we’re done being friends,’ John says. ‘Besides, you need me.’
‘I do not! You cause me nothing but trouble and I don’t need that.’
John look’s up and starts to talk to the sky. ‘Trouble? I cause him trouble he says when all I ever do is try to help him.’
‘How have you ever helped me?’
‘Everything I do is to help you. You’re just too stupid to see it.’
‘Yeah? How does making me pee myself in class help me, John?’
He grins. ‘I’m helping you build character. I’m helping you toughen up.’
‘You sound like Mr Watson.’
Mr Watson, the PE teacher, likes to pick on the kids like Alfie, the skinny ones, the weak ones, the ones who prefer books to ball games. The phrase was indeed like something Watson would say. It’s not just the words John said, though; it’s how he says them. Sometimes, when he talks he sounds like a grownup. An old grownup, like his grandfather, barking at the world and the way it’s gone wrong.
‘You know I can see things, don’t you, Alfie? I can see what you’re going to become. If you don’t toughen up, you’ll end up a smelly old man all alone with no one to love you.’
‘Leave me alone, John. I mean it.’
‘What are you going to do if I won’t leave you alone, Alfie? Fight me?’
Alfie almost does it. He almost takes a swing at John, but then he thinks better of it. There is no way he can win a fight with John Babbershanks. He spins around on his heals and stalks off across the playground back towards the school. The kids who were mocking him just moments earlier shrink away from him as he passes. He doesn’t look back at John. He can hear him crowing, though.
‘See you later Alfie Pee-Pee Pants! See you later!’
* * *
‘You look sick,’ Alfie’s mother says.
Alfie puffs out his cheeks. Why now? He’s been sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework for at least an hour while she clattered around. His sister Jessica is here, too, playing a game with some dolls. Up until now, his mother hasn’t noticed either of them. A state of affairs which suited him perfectly.
‘I’m fine,’ Alfie says. ‘Just had a long day,’
‘You look like you’re coming down with something.’
She bustles over to him, wiping her hands on her apron, muttering curses about how busy she is and how she doesn’t have time for any of his nonsense. She grabs his chin with coarse fingers, pushes his face into the light, inspecting him, then she presses the back of her hand to his forehead.
‘A sick child is all I need right now,’ she says.
Alfie pulls away from her. ‘I told you I’m fine,’ he says.
Lorraine Brooks throws up her hands and then lets them drop down again, slapping against her sides. ‘Have it your own way then,’ she says and she returns to the sink and the dirty dishes languishing in it. Then she stops what she’s doing again, looks at the ceiling, then back at him.
‘They’re not your trousers,’ she says. ‘Why are you wearing someone else’s clothes?’
Alfie’s sister grins at him. He tries to silence her with his best angry big-brother stare, but it’s no good. He can no more compel her to keep quiet than he can make John Babbershanks stop visiting him at night.
‘He wet himself in school today,’ she says. ‘Everyone’s talking about it.’
‘Alfie!’ his mother says. ‘Still wetting yourself at your age? You are a ridiculous boy.’
‘That’s exactly what Dad said,’ says Jessica.
‘You told Dad?’ Alfie shouts. ‘You little bitch!’
His mother spins around and lurches towards her son, soapy hand raised in the air, ready to rain down pain upon him.
‘Don’t talk to your sister like that!’ she bellows.
Alfie braces himself, but when she gets within striking distance, a muffled voice calls out from upstairs. She stops, shrinking a little as if someone just let the air out of her. Her arm drops and she wipes the soap off it with her apron.
‘All right, darling,’ she shouts. ‘I’m coming.’
She takes off the apron, and starts to straighten herself out, fiddling with her clothes and her hair as she walks towards the door.
‘Your father asked for you again this morning, Alfie,’ she says. ‘Why didn’t you go and see him yesterday?’
Alfie cowers back into his chair and picks up a glass of milk, which his mother had poured for him when he got home from school. It’s tepid now and makes him gag when he sips it. He hates tepid milk. Milk should be drunk when it’s ice cold or not at all. Milk at any other temperature, in his opinion, should be banned.
‘Alfie, did you hear me?’
‘Yes, Mother!’ he hisses. ‘I heard you. I fell asleep early.’
‘Tonight,’ she growls. ‘You go and see him before you go to bed.’
‘You’d better make sure you do what she said,’ Jessica says when their mother has stomped up the stairs.
‘I don’t feel like it,’ he says, his voice so soft it’s almost a whisper. ‘I don’t want to spend the night with a sick old man.’
‘Alfie, don’t say that! You don’t mean that.’
Over by the kitchen window, a flash of movement. John Babbershanks presses his face against the glass, grinning, his skin looking even whiter in the fading light of the day. He breathes out, fogging up the window. Then he licks it before shooting off up into the air.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Philip J. Davies
