‘Yabba-Dabba-Doo!’ Terry yelled as he launched himself off the springboard and flew. High above me he stopped – impossible, I know. Then he swooped and landed so close I felt his breath on my face.
‘Wicked!’ I said.
Terry dusted himself down, growled, ‘Yours weren’t all bad.’
‘Nowhere near as high as yours, Terry.’
I must not sound too keen. I mustn’t blow my big chance to be Terry’s mate.
I said, ‘My go!’
He said, ‘We’ve finished that.’
I didn’t mind Terry giving out the orders on account of I didn’t have any ideas of my own. Terry filled your head, kept your mind off the badness. A holiday from Daniel missing, from Mo and Pa, the row and the itching for something to do.
He yawned, pulled back his arms in a long, lazy stretch. He had bumps in them, muscles, they’d be hard if you touched them.
‘I’m gonna give you a present, Harry, a reward.’
He stood so close it hurt my neck to look up at him. I expect it was so the gardener couldn’t snoop on our manoeuvres. Enemy spies come in all sorts of disguises. Terry reached into his battle fatigues, pulled out his fist, unfolded it one finger at a time.
‘Look.’
He turned the prize in the air. It caught the sun. I was dazzled. My mouth fell open. I tried to control it, felt my face twist.
‘I said look, not touch.’ His cold, blue eyes in his hot, freckly face, there was something weird about them. Like if you got your finger in and touched one, it would stick to you like prickly ice and hurt you.
‘Pay attention, Pickles. Commando weapon. Top secret.’ He snapped it open at scissors, the pointy ends so close to my eyes they were blurred.
Some kids might be frightened. Not me. I was a commando at a top secret SAS training centre, Terry, the world-famous weapons expert taking me through the drill.
Snap. Tweezers. ‘In case of scorpion bites.’ They looked just the kind Mo used to weed her eyebrows.
Snap. Snap. A bottle opener, screwdrivers – for bomb disposal, Terry said.
Peter would puke if he knew about me and Terry, all this top-secret stuff. Tough luck on him. He should have thought of that before the three-legged race.
Snap. Chisel. Snap. Dagger.
That’s what got me excited, the dagger.
‘Fantastic. Thanks a million, Terry.’
‘Not so quick, Pickles. Forfeit first.’
* * *
Terry was one of those super-lucky orphans you read about. He lived in a white mansion by Holland Park with a gigantic garden that was virtually Terry’s own on account of his neighbours being away all summer on their Caribbean islands. He had a servant, called Consuela, who had to wear a uniform and do everything he told her. His parents weren’t dead exactly, just so rich they were never at home, plus his dad had to go on these SAS special manoeuvres that were so completely top secret they had to keep Terry’s mum in the dark.
‘Put this on,’ he said.
A silky balaclava. Probably used in a siege or something. I pulled it over my head. Through the hole I watched the gardener sharpening a blade. You could hear the scraping on the breeze that brought the smell of just cut grass. Terry twisted the balaclava round, shoved something scratchy over the top, a woolly hat, it felt like. I couldn’t see a thing and I couldn’t hear much neither.
He spun me round and whispered, ‘Find me.’ Then, without any noise, he was gone.
It’s hard to consider your strategic strengths like commandos are supposed to with the sun beating down on your woolly-hatted head.
I shouted, ‘I know exactly where you are!’
Which is what I would have yelled at Daniel.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ he’d sing back at me. Then I’d go get him. Grown-ups said Daniel was a bright spark. What did they know?
It didn’t work on Terry, obviously, and I felt the idiot, my words floating out there. Was that how Dan Dan felt, now, shouting out and no-one coming?
‘Harry!’ snapped Terry from right next to me. I nearly wet myself.
‘One more thing about the SAS info. One single word to anyone, I have to kill you.’
Then he really legged it, far, far away. I listened for the gardener, heard traffic grumbling and a plane high above, packed with happy people on their holidays, most likely, going somewhere like Barbados. My face itched with sweat. My mouth was dry. I felt lonelier than when I played all alone, and so completely crap, I mean, it was supposed to be fun and this was no fun at all.
‘Kid, you don’t have to go along with this,’ said Biffo. ‘Don’t seem right to me unless the guy’s prepared to take turns.’
‘But he’s the leader.’
‘And what are you, Kid?’
‘I’m –’
‘You do everything a person tells you where I come from there’s a word for what you are.’
‘You’re not helping.’
‘I’ll help you, Kid. OK. That’s what you want, run.’
‘You must be crazy!’
‘I may be crazy but I’m not blind. Run. I’ll be your eyes. Have faith.’
I thought of the weapon and being Terry’s mate and I ran. The fastest blind boy runner in the world!
‘Veer left,’ said Biffo. A twig thwacked my face.
‘I said left, you klutz! Left! Now, slow down. Take it easy. Wooo. Use your nose. Think with your nose.’
I breathed in and really thought about it. I smelt sweaty hat, the dark solid scent of earth rising up on the heat. Eucalyptus oil Mo rubbed on Dan when he was wheezy. Then, somewhere over there, just over there, I was sure of it, the smell, I don’t know what you call it, the smell of boy. Terry’s own special tanginess arrived next.
‘Gotcha!’ I said.
Out of him came a heat so fierce I thought he’d punch me in the face.
But he didn’t.
‘Harry, you mad bastard. Sprinting at trees like that. You could have brained yourself. You’re really wild, you know?’
He pulled off the blindfolds. Colours rushed in on me. The sun had scorched the grass brown, turned the earth dry and dusty, how Africa looked. Terry’s freckles seemed to glow in the heat. Terry in his orangey kingdom. A tiger in the jungle. My mate.
He said, ‘Some guys talk like they’re wild and some guys really are. Know what I mean?’
Peter was the talking wild kind of guy.
Terry took my face in both his hands and rubbed his nose against mine, not just the tips, both our whole faces seemed to be involved. I tasted salt and oranges. I didn’t pull away.
I half-wanted the gardener to see us, see that I was Terry’s mate and someone special too, like Terry. And if the gardener was an enemy spy, so what? He could write all about me in secret code to the enemy top brass, I wouldn’t mind.
Out loud I said, ‘About that weapon, Terry.’
He laughed. ‘That wasn’t the forfeit! Nah. The forfeit happens later. But you won’t know til after. How does that sound?’
‘Wicked,’ I said.
‘Don’t sound good to me,’ said Biffo. ‘Looks like this joker’s got you just exactly where he wants you.’