Gary Bonn's Blog

The Perfect Pirate

When little children overcome terror their faces can still register it. Claire’s eyes and mouth were as round as can be the first time she descended the slide. Once I’d attached my hose to the top and placed her paddling pool under the bottom the afternoon flew by.

Claire became a pirate and, bless her, decided that she wanted to walk the plank (slide), into the sea (pool) and among the sharks (various objects) virtually non-stop.

Then her crew joined in. A medley of humanoid or animoid toys suffered among the sharks and in turn became sharks themselves to eat the next victim.

The sad thing is that I’m 91 and cannot ascend the climbing frame to access the slide. If I did either the paddling pool or my hips would break.

Still, Claire is such fun and I’ve had the best afternoon for ages. She’s even invited me to her birthday party.

I can hear her parents’ car drawing up. The tyres spit gravel with a hollow pinging noise.

Claire descends the slide head first. This is her favourite but empties the pool rather fast. Water, infected with her joy, leaps and dazzles in glittering droplets spangling in the sun. The grass around sparkles as I squelch through it.

Mike and Imogen don’t speak as they get out of the car. Mike has probably opened his mouth without thinking again. That is especially dodgy at a funeral. Black ties and black looks. I wonder how many relatives he’s offended.

Imogen laughs when she sees my hose and slide arrangement. She and Claire come together for a huge hug. Imogen disregards the fact that Claire is soaking wet.

Imogen’s holding Claire up and blowing a raspberry on her stomach amid a flurry of squeals and windmilling pudgy arms and legs.

Mike squats down and Claire tells him not to get too near the sharks. Then she’s struggling out of Imogen’s arms and showing Mike which dolls are sharks and which ping pong ball is a deadly jellyfish.

Mike smiles, shakes his head and asks me if I have had the hose running all afternoon.

I say yes but it doesn’t matter because it’s coming from my tap from my kitchen. Imogen rolls her eyes and says, Mike…

Mike says, sorry, I didn’t mean… He thanks me for looking after Claire.

Claire says I’m not allowed to stop playing yet. We’re going to fight pirates and she’s getting a sword. She asks me if I need her water pistol.

She’s off, running into the house.

Imogen thanks me too and I tell her I’ve had a wonderful time. I say Claire is a super girl. She has so much self-esteem and confidence. She knows her parents love and admire her. For everything you give Claire she gives ten times as much back. And, I add, she knows she’s a lovely person.

I say that if Imogen and Mike can keep her like that she’ll become one of those adults that people flock to. She’ll live by her own rules and show others how to break theirs.

Mike asks if I’m trying to tell them how to bring up their daughter.

Imogen hisses and says, Mike…

I can hear the thunder of feet descending stairs. Claire will be back in a second.

Putting my hands on Mike and Imogen’s shoulders, I say, no, I’m not telling you how to bring up a daughter – you should be telling the whole world how to bring up a daughter.

.

©Gary Bonn 2013

Corridors and Confessions

Madeleine of Hyperborea

What the hell have you done now?
Come to the college and sort it out this minute!
Or die

Bella: Donna of the college of witchcraft

Madeleine, unaware that she’s in for a bad day, stands in a domed room carved into rock – the canteen of Muffy College, Cambridge. Dim light shines from candles in wall-sconces and illuminates tables and waiters. She reads the Donna’s message, rolls the scroll up and tucks it into a sleeve of her somewhat battle-scarred wedding dress. She looks at the face of her lover shaded by the huge floppy brim of his hat. He’s waxing his long moustache and twirling it into horizontal spikes. Madeleine groans. “The Donna wants me in the college. Stupid woman. As if I’d ever go back to that world – or that place. The bell of the gods would ring, all magic would fail for a while and everyone would blame it on me.”
“Dearest Madeleine...”
“You have another Madeleine?”
“I prithee you allow me to finish, sweetest lady.” He winks, rests a hand on the hilt of his rapier and adds, “The Donna indeed must be at her wits’ end and in the direst extremity to summon you. I suggest we offer our assistance forthwith. We can summon the College of Witchcraft merely by naming it three times in one minute?”
“Yes, the chessboard of transportation would come and suck us in. Do not name the college again or I’ll tie your moustache round your testicles and throw pepper up your nose. Besides you are a man and cannot enter.”
“Fear not, I would never do anything you would not have me do. You know this. However, I am certain to be welcome there even though I am a man now. After all, I am a graduate of the College of Witchcraft.”
Madeleine stamps her foot, boot crunching on flagstones. She screeches, “Don’t you dare name it again!”
Cadwallader winks and replies, “Merely winding you up, my love.”
A short plump man, Professor Mike Robe of Muffy college, rises from a table nearby, weaves between tables and asks, “Excuse me, did I hear someone say ‘college of witchcraft’?”
“Shit! Mike, you total git. I’m going to kill you!” Madeleine draws two sabres while Cadwallader wraps both arms around her waist in restraint. The professor leaps back, alarmed, as chunks of wood are hacked from nearby chairs.
“Oh gods are you in for it!” Screeches Madeleine.
Visible only to herself and Cadwallader, a black and white vortex appears, distorting the room into a spinning maelstrom.
Madeleine’s still struggling against Cadwallader’s grip as they are sucked into the whirling pattern and land on a giant chessboard surrounded by verdant countryside bathed in midday sun.
The board’s only queen, wielding a raised and glittering mace, races towards Cadwallader, apparently intent on crushing him into a sticky mess.
Madeleine finally breaks free and launches herself at her. “Die!”
The queen pauses looking confused. “Stop there! No man may enter the college!” She raises an imperious hand.
“Back off. He’s not that much of a man … and anyway he’s a graduate.”
“Quite impossible.”
Cadwallader sweeps his hat in a low bow. “Your Highness, may I humbly suggest you summon the gatekeeper who will verify?”
She narrows her eyes and shouts, “Gatekeeper, you useless ball of feathers, come here.”
A robin chirps into the chessboard, lands on the queen’s head and says, “Not impossible, queenie, oh yes, very possible. That’s Cadwallader, nee Carla Waddle.”
“That...” The queen almost spits with contempt. “Is a man and will not enter the College of Witchcraft.”
“Actually, he does.”
“You can see into the future?”
“No but I can shit in your hair.”
“What?” The queen’s hand flies to her head as the robin screeches with laughter and flaps in circles around her. The queen’s hand comes away covered in slippery goo.
The robin cheeps with laughter. “A massive squelchy one...”
The queen howls with fury but her manic two-handed swings of the mace never quite connect with the darting robin.
Madeleine and Cadwallader sprint from the board and hurtle down a lane, through a gate and enter the college grounds.
Safe from the murderous queen they settle to a gentle walk. At the bottom of the hill lies a stable, some cottages, the college sporting flags and pennants on gleaming white towers, and a small village in the distance.
Cadwallader says, “Let us go forthwith to the Donna.”
Madeleine shakes her head. “Quite a lot of the things I don’t want to do is that.”
“We are here to give the Donna succour in her time of need.”
“The two things wrong with that are it’s not true and it’s wrong. I’m going to the tavern in the village. Let’s go.”
Cadwallader raises an eyebrow. “Last time you took me there you made first-aid potions just in case.”
“Potions? That means going back to the college. Stop this infatuation with returning there.” Madeleine stops walking through rustling grass. “But I suppose Potion of Inhuman Strength is something that would be helpful in the tavern. You make it and can smash through walls when you need to get out of a place fast – but you feel exhausted for ages afterwards. The potion borrows your strength from the future.” She slaps her forehead. “But you can do it the other way, rest and draw on the strength you could have used. We could totally chill for a couple of weeks and then make it.”
“Or we could rescue the Donna now.”
“I don’t believe you are still on about that. You men need to think of more than one thing at a time. You’re obsessed. Multi-tasking is good.”
“Is this the multi-tasking that is singularly focussed on going to the tavern?”
“No, it’s multi. It involves going there and drinking … arg!” Madeleine beats Cadwalladar’s back as he scoops her up, throws her over a shoulder and jogs towards the huge arch of the college entrance. “Rape! Abduction! Idiot loose in the college!” She falls silent and reflects that she’s never met anyone in the college who wasn’t an idiot. “Danger! Intelligent person coming!” She reckons that will shake them up.
They are welcomed by the usual scene of a quadrangle abandoned in panic. Food grows cool. Partially developed potions drip from dropped bottles. Half-made spells hang in the air. Madeleine says, “They saw us coming...”
Cadwallader replies, “However, my adorable lady, you have entered the quadrangle and the bell of the gods has not rung. That is rather mysterious.”
“Put me down!”
“In just a moment when I reach the mistresses’ table where there will be wine, beer and food to stop you running away.” He stops and eases her onto a bench.
“Bastard.”
“Dearest.” He scoops up a jug full of wine. “May I fill a glass for you?”
“I’ll just take the jug. Fine … then we’ll find the Donna.”
Madeleine is into her third leg of roast duck when a young pupil appears out of thin air by the bench assigned to hex spells. The girl sees Madeleine and runs over. “Who are you? Why are you wearing a wedding dress?” The girl disappears into thin air before Madeleine can answer. She looks at Cadwallader. “Disappearing pupils?”
“The best kind, my dear. So, we have another mystery.” He frowns and scans the deserted area, empty dark windows and lofty towers. “Look...” he points. “Some students have appeared...” He tails off as the students race across the quadrangle and head for a door but fade into nothingness before they reach it. “They appeared to be in a panic about something...”
Madeleine takes a last drink from the jug, holding it almost vertically upside-down. Wiping a sleeve across her lips she drops the jug on the grass and opens her mouth to speak. Instead, the tiniest burp emerges. She bangs the table with a fist and says, “Let’s go find the Donna.”
“You are ready now?”
“Wait … no...” She frowns. “Oh yes...” Leaping up she draws her sabres. “Now I am.” Turning to the zigzag staircase winding up the front of the Donna’s tower, Madeleine dashes across grass and cobbles. She takes the stairs three at a time.
Cadwallader follows, his cloak flapping out behind. They reach the balcony of the Donna’s suite and, crossing it, enter the office. All is as they last saw it, the desks, long-case clock and shelves of books. What’s missing is the Donna. What’s new is a message splattered over a wall and apparently written in blood:

Madeleine, get your arse down the corridor of confession – now!


Madeleine reads it and says, “I’m not going anywhere near there. She’s mad.”
“I doubt she’s mad, though she can be a little odd at times...”
“And who are you to judge sanity?”
The robin darts across the balcony and lands on the back of a sofa. When it finishes howling with laughter and wiping its eyes with a wing it says, “I haven’t had such fun … or diarrhoea … in ages. Pity I ran out really...” Catching its breath the robin looks from Madeleine to Cadwallader. “Do something! The Donna’s gone into hiding and I’m in around fifty places at once.”
Cadwallader twirls his moustache. “Would it be possible to clarify that a little?”
The robin tips its head to one side. “Be my guest.”
“I was hoping you would do the clarifying.”
“I would have to know what Madeleine’s done to this place.”
Madeleine snarls and says, “What makes you think it was me? I wasn’t even here!”
The robin rolls its eyes. “I know what you are. Some god made you a force of creation but you are as chaotic as a … a … I can’t make a comparison. Nothing in the world is remotely like you. Where have you been and what have you been doing? The college is fragmented into a random number of pieces that drift through each other. Time, space and people... Look, this has every indication that you’ve been using your weird magic and making more mess than an exploding frog spell in an overpopulated pond.”
Cadwallader says, “He may have a point, Madeleine dearest. In leaving this world to attend to the other you may have in some way...” He pauses, tapping the hilt of his sword. “Maybe going into the corridor of confession is the best way to resolve this. You will be forced to write your deepest secret on the wall and in doing so reveal...”
“No!”
“Or you could tell us the secret now...”
Madeleine screeches, “Like I even know what it is!” Hands on hips she adds, “Fine then … follow me...”
She stops dead as, dressed in ceremonial black robes, the Donna appears out of the air, bottle of gin upturned, her Adam’s apple working hard. Lowering the bottle and lurching, she snatches weapons from a wall rack, cries, “I want to kill myself!” and vanishes.
The robin flaps so hard he sheds feathers. “Disaster! No … not the Donna. We need her to run the college!”
“It’s alright, Robin,” says Cadwallader, “I don’t think she can kill herself with a bow and arrow.” He ponders, tapping a lip. “If only we could get the fragments of the college together and get to talk to her for a moment.”
Madeleine marches across the balcony, down the stone stairs, her scabbards clattering on stone, and heads across the quadrangle. She pauses only to snatch up a baked swan pie. Cadwallader joins her. “Problem?”
“Yes, this pie’s too big. Much too big … I’m going to need more gravy.”
He takes her elbow. “Let us proceed.”
They enter a corridor, pass racks of glass vials, caged newts, things that squirm in tanks of mud, and take the first turning on the left. Cadwallader draws quills from a leather tube on his belt and says, “I’m nervous. I don’t want to write anything that would damage our relationship.”
Madeleine takes a quill and narrows her eyes. “What are you trying to tell me?”
He brushes his lips against hers and murmurs, “That I love you.”
“Good boy. I’d hate to actually stick a sword through your throat rather than just wanting to every five minutes.”
He takes her elbow. “Come...”
The walls are covered in graffiti – often smudged by the tears of the people forced by the corridor’s curse to write their innermost secrets:

I turned Miss Anthropy’s pubic hair into tentacles: Dora Jarre

I think the Donna’s a stuck-up bitch: Vera Cross

I fed the gatekeeper a laxative hex: Nicola Cash

Cadwallader turns to the right wall and writes. He says, “Interesting...”
Madeleine turns to the left. “Yikes!”
“Do you want to know what I’ve written?”
“Probably not.”
“I wrote ‘I want to get married. Madeleine brings so much excitement into my life’.”
Madeleine whirls round. “Really? She drops the quill, rips open his shirt and kisses his chest. “I wrote ‘I want to get married. Cadwallader keeps me sane’.”
He looks over her shoulder. “Even though he’s poncy effeminate toff... That is your writing.”
She hugs him hard. “Yes.”
“There’s our answer!”
Releasing him she looks back at the wall. “Where?”
“Remember God gave creation, change and balance to three teams … in the last world?”
Madeleine turns back and leans her forehead on his chin, goatee tickling her nose. “Creation was … is our team. You and me. We’re different bits of creation. I reckon I’m chaos.”
“Not a bad guess. I must be order. We must marry and become one thing. This could bring stability here.”
She runs fingers through his chest hair. “I’d marry you this minute if I knew how. No-one’s ever married in the college. Everywhere has it’s own rules. Maybe we could ask the gods... No way. That bunch of nutters make a mess of everything.”
Cadwallader muses. “In Elysia you’re married as soon as the first cock crows after the ceremony. Then you have to eat it. They have some very quiet poultry there.”
“In Ionica it’s when the...” She pulls away.
Simultaneously they say, “The bell of the gods!” Hand in hand they race for the tower containing the legendary bell that only responds to Madeleine.
The rope that has hung for centuries and utterly failed to even move despite many a first-year student being bullied into climbing it until they were covered in noxious and encrusted bat droppings.
Madeleine peers up into the darkness. “We’re going to get covered, aren’t we? You pull it. I’ll stand over there.”
“We both pull it.”
“I knew you’d say something stupid. Right, grab it with me, husband.”
“As you wish, wife.” They heave until their bottoms touch the stone floor. The resulting clamour shakes the tower and is only slightly muffled by the pile of droppings that covers them.
A bat, still vibrating, is the last thing to land. It says, “Will you shut the fuck up?” and passes out.

~

Madeleine and Cadwallader have applied washing spells to each other. They’re sitting at the mistresses’ table in the quadrangle. With a napkin Cadwallader dabs a dot of cream from his lips. Madeleine wipes her mouth on her fingers and licks the resulting smudge of gravy.
The college is back to normal, although most of the staff, pupils and students fled at the sound of the bell – but given Madeleine’s input into the college in the past that’s unsurprising.
The Donna totters down the stairs. Her usually immaculate clothes are ragged, stained and torn.
Reaching Madeleine she says, “I’ve had enough.”
Madeleine nods. “ I think you have. Give me that bottle and I’ll finish it for...” She gasps and points. “What?”
The Donna looks down. “It’s been hell, chaotic, confusing and … did I say ‘hell’ already? Like I said, I’ve had enough.”
Madeleine asks, “What happened to your feet?”
“I was cutting my toenails.”
“I think it’s easier if you take your boots off...”
The Donna lifts a heavy, elaborate pendant and chain from her neck and drops it on Madeleine’s lap. Sunlight sparkles on blue and green gems. “I’m retiring. Best of luck … Donna.”
Madeleine looks down at it. “I’m the new Donna? Oh shit.”



©Gary Bonn 2015

Madeleine and Cadwallader first meet in an uneasy alliance:
http://www.amazon.com/Curses-Foiled-R...
Curses Foiled

Final Moments

“Hello.”

Juliet stops dead in the pavement and looks around. “Who and where are you … and how would you like to die?”

“I’m me … you … in spirit form. From another world. I want to see what a universe with real gods and magic is like and what it’s like for me to live in it. Mind if I tag along?”

“Uh...”

“I’ll slip behind your eyes, feel you thoughts and senses. You can come to my world instead if there’s not much going on here. We can have fun.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on – my final assessment starts in a mo. Fun it will be. There will probably be screaming and bloodstains. Come on board.”

Mitch, possibly the least intelligent dog the world has ever seen, bursts from the undergrowth by the road. Perpetually drooling, wagging his tail and getting overexcited about nothing in particular he bounds along the pavement and drags clinging foliage with him.

Juliet rolls her eyes. “Mitch, you are a ball of burrs. Look at you. It’ll take hours to get that lot off.”

Mitch comes to a halt, shakes his head until his ears look as if he’s attempting to take off but lacking the necessary coordination. Apparently satisfied with whatever he’s done he bounds up to Juliet and tries to sniff her bottom.

“Mitch, bugger off. For a familiar you’re way too familiar.” She snatches at lengths of goosegrass attached to his tail as he races off to abuse the next telegraph pole.

Her phone vibrates. She pulls it from her knapsack and looks at the screen.

You have reached you destination

“Oh really?” Juliet looks around. A tall white wall extends either side of a metal gate. Branches, heavy with summer foliage hang over the top. She decides the wrought iron gate, black, ornate, a demons-eating-cherubs design is the way to her end of year assessment. The iron letters at the top of the gate read:

Intrantes ego occidam

Juliet pinches her lower lip and groans. “Mitch, I’ve only been sent to the moron that calls herself Lady Madeleine Usher. According to gossip she has that Latin stuff written on her knickers too.”

Mitch scratches his ear and dribbles on the pavement.

“OK, brainless one, why her? She doesn’t assess people usually. She must have requested this. Why me? Given that she’s a malaevolent scheming bitch who loathes undergrads I doubt it’s going to be fun. It’s also rumoured that she’s got hold of two ten-year bottles of aqua vitae. Even the gods can’t afford that stuff these days.”

Mitch sniffs his pool of saliva and licks it up.

Juliet goes on, “I’m also told she keeps a barghest in the grounds of this mansion; we may have to dash for the front door. Can you run without tripping over your ears?”

Mitch lifts his leg to urinate on the gate. Juliet whips out her wand, changes her mind and pulls Mitch away by his tail. “Possibly electrified. Inadvisable to piss on the gate, dear dog, unless you want your genitals tanned tangentially. We need to be very careful here.” She taps her wand against the gate and says, ‛Open or I’ll change your design to baby bunnies dancing with butterflies.”

As the gates swing open she calls, “Mitch, follow me and be prepared to leg it. A barghest is a big hound made of spectral fire and looks like...” she pauses and points, “that bastard there.”

The gates clang closed behind them.

Juliet, twirling her wand in an attempt to look as relaxed as a tigerskin rug, strolls towards Lady Usher’s four metre high front doors set between Corinthian columns. “Mitch, the barghest is out to scare us. That’s what they do. They feed off fear and they’re very talented at causing it. You see that rippling fire that runs from nose to tail? That’s to confuse you, like it’s running at speed when it’s only walking.” Juliet, despite her reputation for cool being commonly associated with liquid nitrogen feels her mouth go dry, heart race and a fine tremor zinging in her fingertips as the monster approaches.

Patterns of sparks flicker on its fur; only the eyes and maw are black, portals to the depths of Hell.

Mitch sniffs its bottom, and yelps. Lying on the ground, eyes closed and paws over his nose, his body jerks with every sneeze and snort.

The barghest could have attacked them both by now and Juliet decides it must be under orders not to. What really bugs her is the way the word “Yet” seems to want to creep into that sentence.

Mitch, still wuffling and shaking blobs and loops of snot from his nose, reaches the doors as Juliet pulls them open. The barghest lies down on the lawn and lays its head on crossed paws. There’s a certain 'Catch you later' aura about the monster hound.

Passing over the threshold means moving through a holding spell so strong it could trap the moon. Juliet’s puzzled until she realises it’s to keep the barghest out of the house.

Juliet thinks, Hmm, now that’s interesting. Lady Elanor must be scared shitless by it if she’s prepared to spend that much energy keeping it out... She closes the doors behind her and Mitch. Doors on the other side of the vestibule open and two figures waltz towards her in silence. A skeleton butler in threadbare rotted livery and a housemaid similarly deceased and dressed stop before her. She gets a bow and a curtsey.

The butler says, “Lady Elanor is ready to see you. Please follow us.” Juliet struggles to hear exactly what he’s saying as his teeth are loose and rattle as he talks flipping back and forth like accordion keys.

The butler takes the maid’s hand, puts his arm round her waist and says, “Foxtrot.” They dance away completely unphased by Mitch’s leaping and barking among their legs.

Juliet runs a quick eye over the flawless full-length mirrors either side of the entrance, puts her head on one side, taps her wand on her eyebrow, nose and lip studs and adds a diamond to each. Ruffling her spiky hair and tearing more holes in her leggings, rendering them more hole than legging, she nods at her reflection and races after the sound of Mitch.

She’s just about caught up with them, after an aerobic sprint along two corridors, a balcony and up a curving stairway, when they dodge into a room. Juliet, still at full throttle, skids past and into a sculpted marble priapus.

“Sorry, I can see you’re up for anything and fascinating in so many ways but I have an assessment.” She turns, dives through the doorway and enters an octagonal gallery. Overhead is a dome of stained glass, featuring pictures of the Seven Hells. The final section is an artist’s portrait of Satan. Juliet appreciates good art, particularly imaginative, magical art. She smirks while she looks at the painting. Satan not only has her face but the piercings are correct too.

On the blood red walls hang more scenes of Hell tastefully framed in carved wood covered with gold leaf. Lady Madeleine Usher, tall and thin, wearing black to go with her skin, hair and nails and teeth, stands looking up at a painting. She says, “Over here, girl.”

Juliet scans, wondering where Mitch is. Of course, there’s a fireplace and he’s already asleep in front of it. She walks to her assessor. “My lady, delightful to meet you.”

“No it’s not, and it’s going to deteriorate from here.” She turns. “For you, anyway.” Looking Juliet up and down she adds, ‛You must know my opinions on dress code. You’ve come like this just to wind me up? think you can take me on? Your assessment starts...”

Juliet interrupts, “Ts and Cs; first things first.”

“There is no need...”

Juliet whips a parchment from her sleeve. “By what sign will I know if I have passed or failed?”

“That is the second time you have interrupted. I do not need to follow petty...”

“And this is the third interruption. You will follow petty like the rest of us.” Juliet snaps the scroll open. “Don’t try to intimidate me. I know the game as well as you. Answer the questions here.” She holds the parchment in front of Lady Elanor’s face.

Elanor intones, ”Pass will be achieved by the student leaving this house and surrounding grounds alive having successfully passing the test I give her. As required by the statute of Cambridge University Science and Magic faculty, 2013, there is no charge for those that pass.” Her answers write themselves by the questions. She goes on, “The cost of failure is the life and youth of one Juliet of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. The nature of the test is to catch my house brownie.”

Juliet gets in there quickly. If she learned only one thing in her first year at Morgan Le Fey College it’s that grey areas are treacherous in contracts with professors or other sociopaths. “And if he’s not to be found in this room?”

“Then I’ll eat my hat because I’m buggered if I can find the bastard anywhere else.” Elanor frowns though the lines are difficult for Juliet to make out in that matt ebony brow. “Erase that last answer. If the aformentioned student gives up looking she may only attempt to leave by casting a twenty year vitae spell on me.”

Juliet gasps, “Twenty years? That’ll leave me with a magic deficit so big I’ll be catatonic for months and I have to hand this,” she waves the parchment, “in two days or I fail the year.”

“Then you’d better finde the brownie. His one and only talent, other than theiving is to hide in paintings and mirrors. It is well known in the college that you, Juliet, can in theory cast just about any spell. That you have little more magical power than an ordinary human is your problem. People like you shouldn’t be let out of magicians’ clubs.” She points at the paintings of Hades hanging on the walls. “The brownie will be in one of these. Nab him and pull the bell rope when you have him,” she pauses, “or ... you give in and go for the second option.” Skirts and cloak hissing, she glides from the room. “Have a good day.”

“Wanker,” snarls Juliet and scans the six vast paintings of death and damnation, horrors and tortures, all in the most minute detail and each containing thousands of figures, human and demonic. “Bollocks, this could take weeks.” She marches to the fireplace, scoops Mitch up and says, “Sorry but sleepy time is over. Go and find that brownie.” Mitch yelps as he’s tossed into a two dimensional hell.

Juliet collapses in a high-backed velvet easy chair. “Right, there’s no brownie; Elanor wants me to perform the vitae spell.” Looking up at her reflection in the angled mirror over the fireplace, she says, “Time for lateral thinking, missus. Let’s work together.”

Her reflection frowns and sinks further into her chair. “All we need is a way out of here.”

“Past a barghest.”

“Yeeeees ... arg. There’s probably a way.”

“She wants to look twenty years younger and take my youth and life. Hmm, I’m going to have a long think. When my Mitch has finished in that painting, I’ll stick him in another. You go for a different one with your Mitch. Between us, we can work twice as fast.”

Her reflection leaps from the chair, says, “Even then you won’t have enough time,” and starts pacing to and fro across the fireplace. Juliet, still slumped in her seat, looks at the rip in her reflection’s leggings. Her right buttock is slightly exposed. She wonders if she should do the same for her left.

She’s pulled from her thoughts, hours later, by the appearance of the zombie housemaid who grins while pushing a trolley into the room. The grin reveals gaps in her teeth. The housemaid says, “Dinner by the grace of her ladyship.” She lifts covers. “Peacock soup.” More silver clatters. “Penguin souflee, wren niblets. My lady eats only two legged things on Tuesdays.” The housemaid grins again.

Juliet’s appetite, momentarily stimulated by the smells, dies when she realises she can’t be sure the maid left with as many teeth as when she entered.

Mitch leaps out of the painting and hits the mosaic floor. His spinning and scampering, drooling and uncontrolled tongue, slapping his eyes and the floor, give Juliet a strong message that he’s not inclined to worry about other people’s dental problems but wants to get stuck in. She rises and puts the soup bowl on the floor.

Looking up at her reflection she asks, “How’s it going? I’ve hit more dead ends than an octopus with major amputation problems.”

“Bitch, I was going to say that.”

“You did.”

“Let’s bounce ideas off each other in silence, you never know who may be listening.” Juliet’s reflection pulls something that looks like a speech bubble or inflated condom from her head and throws it. Flying down from the mirror Juliet nuts it back. Conclusions and mysteries ping between them.

The reflection throws, “If she has those two vials of aqua vitae, she can take twenty years off her age. Uh ... that would her eighteen.”

“She wants me to cast the same spell.”

“And she wants to take your youth.”

“Anomaly. She’s already killed students and taken their youth. She’s currently running at thirty-one years old.”

“Thirty-one minus twenty, minus twenty ... suicidal maths.”

“So she doesn’t have the aqua vitae.”

“The brownie exists and has nicked it. Elanor said, “His one and only talent other than theiving...”

“I think he may have another talent.”

“No, a quality: intelligence.”

“Exactly. That puts him way above her league. Can you stop throwing ideas so hard? I’m getting a virtual bruise on my forehead.”

“So, he’s not hiding in a painting.”

“Ouch! Nope. Be gentle with me. So why does a house brownie steal something worth squillions and hide in the house he stole it from?”

“The barghest stops him getting out.”

“But he must have know the barghest was there ... right ... he knew I was coming.”

“Nicked the aqua vitae as payment for getting him away from that awful cow.”

“So why’s he still hiding?”

“Because you’re being watched? Because he thinks you can’t pull it off?”

“Because he thinks I’ll distract the barghest while he escapes with the aqua vitae. I doubt if it’s payment for freeing him. Let’s get weaving. You put Mitch at the door and set a web spell. I’m going to walk over here.” Juliet taps her fingernails over a lacquered birdseye maple box on the mantlepiece and says, “If I were a very clever brownie that had stolen some aqua vitae I’d hardly hide in a painting. Everyone would know it’s my skill and look for me in them. No, I’d hide somewhere else. Maybe in a little box like this not expecting anyone in this household to think I was too intelligent to use my power. Except I can hide in mirrors and maybe the relfection of this box.” She stares up at the mirror. The reflected box trembles a little, flies open and the brownie leaps out, dives through the mirror and into the waiting mouth of Mitch.

Juliet says, “Mitch, swallow but don’t chew -- the same way you treat your food.” Looking up at the mirror she says to her eflection, “OK, time to get out. I’m gonna synch this mirror to the one on the left as you face the front door.” Behind her, Mitch chokes. Juliet grins; cloud mirror systems are her favourite now she’s worked out how to use them. She says to her reflection, “Make yourself scarce. I’m taking Mitch and the brownie.” Her reflection disappears as the butler and Lady Elanor enter the gallery.

Juliet scoops up Mitch and shoves the food trolley across the room, leaps on it, jumps to the top of the high backed chair and hurls herself at the mirror.

Landing with a roll on the vestibule floor, in a tangle of knapsack straps and a variety of Mitch’s limbs and other attachments she spits out a furry ear that’s made its way into her mouth and says, “Mitch, they’ll be after us. We’ve only seconds. Cough up the brownie now!”

But Mitch is too busy working out which way up he is, which way up he’d prefer to be and what he’s going to be excited about next.

“Mitch, this is important. You want me to stick my fingers down your throat?”

A saliva-covered brownie, rolled up and whimpering, pops out of Mitch’s mouth and into Juliet’s hand. The brownie clutches two tiny glass vials that glow as if someone’s trapped a little star.

“Brownie, get a grip. You want to get out of here as much as we do. The butler and lady will be here any moment now.” She puts her hand out. “Payment?”

The brownie scowls, a mess of hairy warts and carrot nose. He tosses a bottle to Juliet.

She tucks it in her pocket, rises, taps each corner of the mirror and lifts it from the wall. “Here, brownie, steady this while I open the front door.” She looks at her reflection in the mirror and puts a holding spell on it. “OK, refection, twenty seconds, that’s all the magic I have left.”

The brownie, a mere twenty milimetres tall, struggles to keep the mirror stable. Juliet throws the doors wide and lifts the mirror through the barghest restraining spell. “Here, little barghest, you can kill me now. Here, barghesty-gesty, bargy-wargy ... woof, woof.” She looks back into the room. “Mitch how are you supposed to talk to barghests?”

Over the lawn streaks Hell on legs, smoking turf ripped from the ground by mighty claws and tossed higher than the trees. Juliet squeaks, “Shiiiiit!’ and ducks behind the mirror. “Brownie, tell me when I can open my eyes.” She draws her lip stud out.

The brownie screams in terror, like a piccollo attempting to explode, gasps, and says, “The barghest disappeared into the looking glass!”

Juliet opens her eyes, reaches round to the front of the mirror, and grinds the diamond of her stud into the surface. A screeching moment later, she’s dragged a scratch from bottom to top.

She rises, “If the barghest is foolish enough to jump back out, it’ll cut itself in half. OK, gang, run like fuck!”

Pounding down the gravel drive makes almost enough noise to cover Lady Elanor’s screams from within the house. Juliet reckons the lady is currently too preoccupied to be a problem.

Juliet slams the gates closed behind herself, Mitch and the brownie. “Bloody hell that was a close shave ... more like a waxing.” She pulls the parchment from her sleeve. “Let’s see what the professors think.”



Pass: First class: with style, lol :)




©Gary Bonn: 2013

Yalda - a short story

‛Yalda, female thirteen year old. In February last year she was found in a street trying to sort out bits of bodies after a bomb blast.’ Andrula lays a thin set of notes on my desk. Her head goes to one side straightened hair following gravity, a pearl earring swaying. ‛Can you imagine trying to reassemble your mother and siblings?’ She sits on a spare chair, stares at the wall and chews a knuckle. ‛It’s what you’d do, isn’t it? You’d have nothing else to do.’ Her eyes meet mine. At nearly sixty, she’s seen so many cases of post traumatic stress, helped so many people and seen way too much emptiness and howling grief.

Andrula scrambles my brain, contrasting with the calm musty office overlooking the perfectly tended garden in this section of Trinity College. Whereas the history of this place suffuses me with a tranquil detachment Andrula is very much here, now and intense. I’m twenty six, masters degree tucked away and working through my PhD. I hope, when I reach Andrula’s age I don’t have the same torment in my expression – or is that her secret? Is it that she’s let the thirteen year old in her empathise with Yalda and will let her experience and wisdom help the girl cope? find a way out of whatever torment she’s in? Maybe that’s how she can work so well with clients.

My supervisor said I would be working with a genius. I agree but it’s a little like handling explosives and having no protection. Andrula lives on the incandescent edge of burnout. Do I have to do the same to achieve as much good as her? She’s a role model, sure, but do I want to roll my soul in fire? Another problem is her OCD way of looking into my research and rooting out anything she thinks is not absolute scientific rigour – even though my work has little to do with her.

She snaps me out of my thoughts. ‛The girl’s foster father is waiting. Shall I send him in?’

I look at the notes but leave them untouched. ‛Yes. I want to hear it all first hand.’

Andrula pats my hand, rises and says, ‛Best of luck.’

I’ve hardly time to collect my thoughts when a man bursts into the room, slams the door and marches to a seat. ‛I am so sorry, so sorry we are late. There is only one road to Cambridge, the M11, and we were delayed. We only arrived twenty minutes...’

‛Take a seat and relax, Mr Kabbani. You’ve had a long journey.’

He sits and raises his hands. ‛It is not the journey, not the journey. Yalda exhausts us, torments us. It is ... how do you say it?’ He pauses, hands still raised, ‛I don’t know what you say but it goes on and on. She behaves ... all the time. Out of control. Talks about people who aren’t there.’

I say, ‛My colleague told me about Yalda’s chaotic sleep pattern, lack of self esteem, occasional obsessive compulsive behaviour ... but my work is in atypical epilepsy. This has been going on since last February?’

He leaps from his seat. ‛No, no! She is ... she sees...’ He waves then wrings his hands. ‛Is ... er ... sees the dead, sees spirits.’

My face must have hardened at that point because he wrings his hands again and says, ‛Really, really you must believe. You must help us. We cannot cope. She scares people and brings humiliation and embarrassment on us.’

So, lots of plates spinning in my head even from his first sentences. Yalda may be psychotic. She may have found a weakness she can use to pass some of her pain onto her foster parents or ... Yalda is drawing them into her psychosis either to help her out of it or to confirm her delusions are real. There’s a tiny niggle that Yalda may be a sociopath and manipulating gullible people for some other reason.

I say, ‛Sit down, Mr Kabbani. Tell me about how she scares people.’

‛All the time. In Homs she sees torture and rape and slaughter. It all happened so long ago. She sees history.’

‘Can you describe a typical seizure for me?’

‘She screams at people we can’t see. Runs around even among traffic. Then it’s over. She can’t see or talk. We have to carry her home. When we were in a cafe she saw her grandmother’s best friend shot.’ His hands go up again. ‘That had happened two months before. Yalda wasn’t there to see it but described everything perfectly.’

I let that pass. ‘And after she’d seen the event?’

‘She curled up in a ball as usual. Not seeing us, not speaking.’

‘Is she tense or relaxed at these times?’ It all falls together. I love it when that happens. So, some brain damage during an explosion caused epilepsy. Simple. It’s the nature of the fits that interests me.

‘She’s tense, shaking. Sometimes her eyes are open, sometimes closed.’

‘Does anything precipitate these seizures? Do you get any warning?’

‘No, but it’s about places and people. If her grandmother hadn’t been with us at the cafe she wouldn’t have seen the shooting in her mind. You see it’s because her grandmother was there. Yesterday it was the Tower of London.’ He looks away still wringing his hands. ‘We shouldn’t have gone. But it’s what you do when you visit this country ... no?’

‘How often are the seizures happening?’

He shrugs, ‘You can’t tell. Not for weeks sometimes. Sometimes three in one day.’

‘Can I speak to her?’

He rises. ‘They, Yalda and my wife, are settling into their rooms. I will go and get them.’ He almost runs to the door.

‘Thank you, Mr Kabbani. Please don’t rush.’ He leaves and I flick through the notes. No record of birth or any resulting trauma. Some possibility of febrile convulsions related to streptococcal infection early in her life... Hmm, maybe that was epilepsy misdiagnosed.

The brain scan is clear but that’s so often the case.

The office is getting too hot. I fight the leaded light windows open and a blast of early summer brings with it the smells of cut grass and baking earth.

The lawn is virtually empty of people and there’s no trace of undergrads. It’s the summer break and the colleges can get on with their real work.

‘Come in,’ I call in response to a tap on the door. A woman dressed in far too many clothes for this weather and with only her eyes visible, and a girl in jeans, T-shirt and red scarf enter. Two different cultures perhaps.

I say, ‘Mrs Kabbani, Yalda, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming all this way.’ I point to the seats. ‘Make yourselves comfortable and don’t be formal; you can call me Laurie.’

Mrs Kabbani looks as agitated as her husband had. She says, ‘Will you be able to do anything for Yalda?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say sitting and unscrewing my pen. ‘Let’s find out.’

Yalda glares. ‘I’m not having any more bloody poking and machines so you can forget that.’

‘Yalda!’ Mrs Kabbanin says and puts a hand on the girl’s arm.

Yalda snatches it away. ‘No, I’m sick of it. It’s always men and they always want to touch you.’

I try to diffuse it all. ‘I trust you are comfortable in your rooms?’

‘Yes ... thank you,’ says Mrs Kabbani still looking at Yalda.

I say to the girl, ‘Yalda, I can assure you there will be no poking or machines. Tell me about yesterday. You were at the Tower of London?’

She looks down. ‘Oh that... I don’t want to talk about it. This is about fits. That’s all I’m going to talk about.’

Her foster mother says, ‘She saw people from a long time ago. She passed out shouting at them. She...’

I raise my hand, ‘Please go on, Yalda. I need to know everything. Can you tell me all that happened from how you were feeling before you saw these things right through to afterwards when you felt better?’

‘There was a man,’ she stands, her hands behind her back. ‘They tied him like this and lowered him from the walls on a rope round his wrists. He was moaning with the pain. If he went quiet, they yanked the rope until he screamed...’ She sits again, eyes closed, wiping a tear squeezing from her eyelids.

‘Did you feel unusual in any way? Any unusual smells or other physical sensations?’

She jerks, fists clenched and staring at the ceiling. ‘It’s not about that. A boy, a boy my age, shot him with a bow and arrow. He wasn’t a very good shot and it took him three tries before he ran away. The guards started chasing him.’ She hunches and looks at me. ‘It was his son... The son knew his father would die in agony. He killed his own father...’

There’s something in her glare, something important. Is this her trigger? Extreme emotion following some sort of psychotic episode? If so this is all going to be useful material. There’s so little research regarding this. I ask, ‘What happened next?’

She looks away, stares out the window. ‘I don’t know.’

Mrs Kabbani says, ‘She lay on the ground. We had to get a taxi and lift her in.’

‘How long did that...?’

Yalda leaps from her chair and runs to the window. ‘A butterfly and another: lots of them!’

I rise. ‘Yalda, would you like to go for a walk in the grounds while we talk? It’s lovely out there and stuffy in here.’

She turns, ‘Yeah, it’s boring in here.’ She scans the bookshelves, ‘Really crap.’

While her foster mother remonstrates and straightens her clothes, I hold the door open and say, ‘How about we get cakes and go to Christ’s Pieces? There’re butterflies, birds and all sorts there.’ People skills ... cream cakes in the sun. Maybe Yalda will relax.

In the quadrangle she stops by a fence, tilts her head to one side and grabs her foster mother’s hand. ‘What’s he...? That man...’ She giggles. ‘He’s tripped over his own bike.’

Mrs Kabbani says, ‘I can’t see anything, baby. Do you think you should lie down?’ and puts a hand on each of Yalda’s shoulders.

Yalda jerks away. ‘No... He’s up to something, looking round.’

Mrs Kabbani flicks a worried glance at me and shrugs.

I’m studying Yalda, she’s happy, slightly excited, seeing something that doesn’t exist.

She claps her hands and whispers to Mrs Kabbani. ‘It’s so sweet. He’s pretending to fix his bike. He must have know she was coming to put a chain on hers. Hey, cool T shirt. Mum, can I have flowers in my hair and a leopard skin print T shirt like hers?’ She looks at me, ‘Can you get them here?’

I say, ‘Sometimes, at the market. Haven’t seen one for a while.’

She giggles into her fingertips, ‘He kissed her hand... Come on, where are we going now?’

The porter nods us through the ancient doors from Whewell’s Court that open into the junction where Bridge Street, Sidney Street and Jesus Lane come together. Yalda’s hardly down the two steps when she looks up, shielding her eyes from the light. ‘What’s that? So bloody loud,’ she cries and runs forward, scattering swearing cyclists. Metal screeches on metal. Bikes clatter to the ground; the contents of wicker baskets roll among the shouts and curses.

Yalda jerks, arms stiff, fingers splayed and cowers, arms across her face. ‘No! Stop! there’s a little boy ... stop, stop, don’t do this,’ her words turn to a piercing screech of terror.

Fallen cyclists rise and stare at her. Mrs Kabbani weaves among the spinning wheels and shopping bags. ‘It’s all right, Yalda...’

Yalda screams, ‘Stop shooting!’ she points across the road, ‘He’s over there. Oh ... oh ... yes, stop him running ... yes... He’s all right.’

She rises, turns to her left and waves a fist at the sky, ‘You total wanker. What the fuck was that about? Piss off and don’t come back.’



~



Andrula intones in a low growl, ‘We are gathered here today...’

I shrug, smirk and turn to Lois. ‘Well, what do you think?’

Lois pulls the zip of her waterproof right up. ‘I think you’re mad. We could have looked at this in the afternoon when the showers have stopped. Instead, you pull me out of my nice little ... dry ... office to look at holes in a wall that I’ve passed nearly every day for thirteen years and never even noticed.’ She looks up. ‘The official records say that this is bomb damage from around 1940. The official records say that Cambridge was never bombed. That’s historians for you.’

I say, ‘Well, what do you reckon?’ People passing, huddled from the rain and occasional hail stone, stare as Lois climbs a ladder while a porter steadies it for her.

I offered to hold it but the porter said, ‘Health and safety.’ Apparently, you need a degree in ladder holding before insurance companies will cover you.

Lois says, ‘If it was a bomb ... it must have exploded above.’

The porter says, ‘Nah, not a bomb. None of the other buildings were touched.’

Lois looks round. ‘You have a point, mister.’

He goes on, ‘Look, there’re two types of holes, big shallow ones and small deep ones. The small ones all have a smooth bit just lower than centre, usually a triangle...’

Lois looks down. ‘You’ve looked at these? You actually noticed they’re here?’

‘I work here. As I was saying. Only some of the bigger ones have triangles and the like. If this happened in 1940,’ he nods at me, ‘As you said, Laurie, then that would be a BF 109, or 110. They had two 12.5 millimetre machine guns and one 20 millimetre cannon. I reckon the big holes are from cannon. They had soft shells that exploded easily. Good for damaging delicate aircraft like spitfires and hurricanes.’

Lois leans forward and presses her forehead against the top rung of the ladder. ‘Why did I bother to get a doctorate in history, when I’m outclassed and upstaged by a porter? You should be on television, young man.’

‘Andy ... and I was on TV. Just back from the kite surfing championships in Chile.’

‘How exciting. How did you get on?’

‘I didn’t; my girlfriend did.’

‘OK, Doctor Andy. Tell me more about your deductions here.’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno but shrapnel from a bomb would be all shapes not the same sized triangle most of the time. If it was a Messerschmitt I reckon that it was a 109 as there are twice as many bullet holes than cannon. A 110 had more cannon. Either way it would have dived from the south east. The spread is about fourteen metres wide but goes all the way to the top of the tower. I’d say a burst of around one to two seconds. Waste of ammo if you ask me. There can’t have been that much action that day. Can’t see why he picked on this building except it stands out. Maybe he didn’t get a place at Cambridge and was pissed off.’

I look back up at Lois. ‘What do you think?’

She climbs down. ‘Don’t ask me, ask Andy. He’s got it covered. Can I go back to my office now?’

I shiver, should’ve brought a jacket. ‘Let’s get out of this. We bustle into the dry of the gatehouse.

Andrula makes way for Andy carrying the ladder. A set of keys dangles from his mouth. He makes a grunting noise and waggles them at me.

I take them and lock the door as Andrula says, ‘Well, out with it...’

‘Yeah, go for it,’ says Lois.

‘Wait!’ Andy shouts. I wanna hear too.’

I say, ‘It’s confidential.’

He slams the ladder against the wall. ‘So am I.’

I say, ‘OK, people. I’ve been working with a subject on and off for two weeks. All this time she’s been seeing what should be put down to hallucinations, but...’ This is where I’m about to put my scientific foot right in it.

‘Go on,’ says Andrula.

I point to railings inside the court. Steam rises from them now the sun’s come out again. ‘The subject stopped there. She said she saw a man tripping over his bike. He pretended to fix something on it. A woman with flowers in her hair and wearing a leopard print T-shirt arrived to put a new chain on her bike. He offered to help and kissed her hand.’ I pause.

Andrula says, ‘Go on...’

‘In my first year as an undergrad I saw Inga buying a new bike chain in Kings Street. I raced back to my room, grabbed my tools and cycled here. I did trip over my bike as I hurried to find Inga’s. I got there in the nick of time to make my presence seem accidental. She had a daisy chain in her hair that I’d given her the day before. She must have kept it in water. She wore a leopard print T-shirt. I kissed her hand as a joke ... you know.’

Oops, I’m blushing. Time to change the subject. ‘When we went through that door, Yalda screamed and passed out. Later she said a plane had dived from the sky and fired on the tower. A little boy panicked and his grandfather chased after him and lay over him to protect him with his body.’

Andrula’s glowering at me. I put my hands up. ‘I know ... none of this happened. I’m only researching epilepsy.’

She growls, ‘Make sure you keep it that way.’

Lois throws her head back her hood rustling and shedding water. She pulls it down. ‘Lol, science buries it’s head in the ground once again.’ Turning to me she asks, ‘Can any more of these visions be verified?’

‘I have no idea. That’s your department.’

‘I can hardly wait. When do I get to see this subject of yours? We arts aren’t scaredy cats like you lot.’

‘I’m supposed to be meeting her and the foster parents at the entrance to Emmanuel in a few minutes. Cream cakes by the pond and all that.’

Lois slips her arm into mine. ‘The cakes are on me and don’t let the big bully Andrula scare you. She went to Magdalene and they end up all anal and hoity-toity. You want to set up a faculty of the paranormal with me? I’d do it just to freak her and bring shame on the whole university.’

I unlock the door again and throw the keys to Andy. ‘See you later, people.’

Lois and I stand in the sun and look at the wall. I say, ‘Lois...’ and shake my head.

‘What?’ she pulls me across the road to the patisserie.

‘Lois, she didn’t see the holes. She ran straight out with her back to them ... and that thing about the bike was all too convincing.’

‘What sort of cakes?’

‘Just a range, five altogether.’ She goes in and I lean on a pillar and stare at the wall. Yes, scientists can’t cope with anything that can ruin their reputation. Little green men won’t exist until they pop out of nowhere and shout BOO! Still, Yalda fascinates me.

Lois emerges with a box. ‘Let’s go. On the way, you can tell me everything.’

‘I expect you can guess pretty much all of it.’

She yanks me back onto the kerb. Cyclists can be fast and silent. ‘If you get killed between here and Emmanuel, I get your cake, OK?’

‘You are so mean. Can’t I be buried with it?’

‘Well, half then. You were saying?’

‘They’ve been here two weeks. Yalda has almost constant hallucinations, many more than she had before but refuses any psychiatric treatment. The foster parents are very supportive of that. They think they are visions and not an illness. Other than that it’s all tragic...’

‘What?’

‘When they came they told me individually, when she wasn’t there, that they couldn’t cope. Despite the foster mother being her aunt they’re thinking of sending her to someone else.’

‘And...?’

‘Yalda was scratchy and foul mouthed and pulled back from her aunt as if she hated any physical contact. Mind you, she’d been though hell in her own country. None of them are in a hurry to return.’

Halfway to Emmanuel I get a text from Mr Kabbani, “Waiting in the Paddock.”

Lois asks, ‘So what about her epilepsy?’

‘I’m struggling there. A 24 hour EEG showed abnormal activity. Nothing like epileptiform brain activity as I know it. I’m not sure what’s going on.’

Lois quickens her pace. ‘I want to meet this girl.’

‘Don’t be too hasty. Their permit expires in two days. They’ll be going back to Syria.’

‘What? Don’t you dare. Did you sign it or Andrula?’

‘I signed it but the cost of accommodation comes out of her budget.’

‘Extend it. I mean it. You said you didn’t understand what was going on. You want more time too?’

‘Well, yes but I can’t justify it really.’

Lois tosses her leonine locks. ‘I’ll work on Andrula. You extend the permit.’

That wasn’t a request. She may be arts but she’s still university and juniors like me aren’t in a position to make enemies. Sadly, if it’s a choice between Andrula’s wrath or Lois’s, Lois is going to lose.

We enter Emmanuel, march through the Front Court and the sound of traffic dies. Entering the Paddock reveals Mr and Mrs Kabbani sitting on a bench way past the library and looking towards the pond.

Yalda comes into view, sees us and runs towards me. ‘Quick. Come with me!’ She grabs my hand and I break into a jog to keep up with her. She points ahead to the edge of the water. ‘Look, chicks. Look at their feet. Their feet are so big. Why do they have such big feet?’ She releases my hand, leans forward, hands on knees, and giggles. ‘They look so funny.’

Introductions and cream cakes. Yalda wants to feed the chicks. She and her foster parents have changed. Mystified I ask Mr Kabbani how he and his wife are coping.

As Lois and Yalda go back to the pond, ostensibly to feed the moorhen chicks so their bodies can catch up with their feet, it’s Mrs Kabbani that answers, ‘Yesterday, she hugged me and told me she loved me. That changes everything. Now I will cope with whatever life throws at us.’ She points to Yalda. ‘Did you see? She took your hand. I didn’t expect to see that. You are doing her good, Mr Kingston.’

‘Laurie, please. Mrs Kabbani, I haven’t done a thing. Whatever’s happening is down to you two and her.’

Mr Kabbani slaps his thighs. ‘I think it is this city. It is a city of healing.’

‘Any more incidents?’

‘Yes a big one this morning. A fight. People with swords. She didn’t pass out afterwards though.’

I tap his shoulder. ‘Hang on there. Do you mind if I speak to Yalda and Lois about this?’

‘Go ahead, go ahead. She probably won’t tell you that she ran out in front of a van during it. We try to hold her hands all the time but she gets away sometimes.’

Lois squats beside Yalda. Five chicks walk in jerks in front of them, while disapproving mother hens look on.

I squat too. ‘Hey, Yalda, what happened this morning? A fight with swords?’

Yalda pauses minutely while aiming a crumb but she throws anyway and still looks calm and happy. ‘A man and his wife or girlfriend. Five men ran at them from the darkness. The man drew his sword but was beaten down. His wife took the sword and went mental. She attacked the muggers but they were only laughing until she hit one in the neck. Two men came out of a house, saw what was going on and attacked. They killed two and the other two ran away.’

Lois looks up, ‘What happened to the fifth?’

‘He was dying from the wound on his neck.’

Lois is really fired up, wide pupils... ‘Where was this?’

‘By the market.’

‘And it happened at night?’

‘Yes, but I saw it this morning. Mum says I nearly ran in front of a van.’

‘Lois tips her head to one side. ‘What were they wearing?’

‘I couldn’t see that much. She had a long dress on. She kept tripping on it. The men were all in tights and cloaks and funny little shoes.’

‘Thank you, Yalda. I want to make a phone call; won’t be long.’

She goes away. I take Yalda’s hand and drop a few crumbs into it. ‘Well, you seem much, much more happy. It’s lovely. Something must have changed.’

She shrugs, ‘Maybe, I dunno.’

‘Tell me. What’s changed?’

‘I don’t have to hide any more.’

‘Hide?’

‘You know, seize up, roll into a ball and shut it all out.’

‘You did that on purpose?’

‘No it just happened. I couldn’t stop it.’

‘But this morning it didn’t.’

She throws the last crumb and looks down. ‘I dunno what to say. It’s like ... all I saw was cruelty and violence. But if you don’t look at that you see the bravery and love instead. People helping each other, people putting their lives at stake ... a boy killing his father to stop the torture.’ She chokes, sniffs and puts her arms round me, burying her face in my shoulder. I hug her back, trying not to cry too.


~



Yalda walks in the middle holding her foster parents’ hands. Lois is doing my head in. ‘Laurie, you must extend that permit.’

‘Lois, not now. I just spoke to Yalda. I’m pretty sure those so-called seizures were a hysterical reaction. I’ve no reason to spend Andrula’s money. Have you a budget for this?’

‘Don’t be daft. I’m arts remember.’ Her phone goes and we walk together in silence. She slips her phone back into a pocket. ‘About that attack. 1671 two men charged with stabbing people in the back in Market Warde, now Peas hill. Several men attacked a man for meeting one of their sisters after dark. Two men came to assist. They were acquitted.’

‘Lois, you know as well as I do that doesn’t amount to anything. Going on men wearing tights you’ve probably three centuries to draw from.’ I squeeze her arm. ‘They’re here for two more days.’

‘Like that would be enough time. Bloody scientists,’ she hisses.

Yalda and foster parents wait for us at the gate and Andy lets us in. He says to me, ‘How’s it goin?’

To my surprise Yalda answers. ‘Goin good. Moorhen chicks have had their first chocolate, shoe pastry and cream.’ She looks at his face, and frowns. She starts to talk but the words die.

‘What’s up?’ says Andy.

‘You had keys in your mouth...’ she turns to me, ‘no, you took them ... and locked it...’ she looks back at the door, then at the keys on Andy’s belt. ‘Uh...? She shakes her head. ‘Weird, what was that about?’

My composure nearly cracks. Fine... I give in and say, ‘Andy, meet Yalda. She’s going to be around for a few weeks.’



©Gary Bonn 2013

Letter From The Editor

Dear Client

I love your creativity and enthusiasm and I’d like to point out the following.

The first word ‘Little’ is very ‘tell’. How about ‘Bo looked up at the thimble towering over her. She cowered, hugged herself and failed to evict feelings of pitiful insignificance. A tear rolling down her nose reflected the Pole Star/sun/headlights/candle light/luminous penguins.’ (You need to choose – don’t use all of them.)

The surname ‘Peep’ is exclusively confined to Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex. Are you wanting this work to appeal to a universal audience? Everyone outside these areas may find it confusing.
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin...

‘Lost her sheep’ is similarly ‘tell’. I’ll leave the rest to you.

‘And doesn’t know where to find them.’ Is tautological and needlessly repetitive. Saying things more than once is unnecessary. How many times do I have to tell you?

‘Leave them alone’. What? Who is saying this? There’s no attribution! The reader may think you are breaking the fourth wall. Spike Milligan did it and he is dead now. I’m not sure if these two facts are related – but you may wish to reconsider this line.

‘And they’ll come home’. ‘Go’ home would be OK because that all seems perfectly natural. Though it does call into question ‘lost’ as that implies Bo is emotionally distressed but now there is no obvious reason why.

‘Come’ home is fraught with problems. It implies that Bo lives with sheep in her house. This may cause children to think this is natural. I think this could lead to legal/health and safety issues.

“Wagging their tails behind them’. Have you totally lost the plot? Can a sheep wag its tail in front of it?
‘Wagging their tails’ works. No one’s going to be confused . However, by employing the unusual choice of words you imply something else – but neglect to clarify. Have the sheep removed their tails and have a choice of wagging them in front/to the sides/etcetera by some paranormal remote control? Have they unnaturally long prehensile tails? There’s a whole supernatural element needing to be developed.
A quick internet search informs me that ‘docking’ (chopping off) sheep tails saves them from all sorts of nasty things. Is this about Bo neglecting her livestock? There is an obvious link between this and her losing the sheep. This could really be explored and would be a perfect opportunity to develop and explore Bo’s abusive and cruel character.

I’m looking through the rest of your work.

The statement ‘These need to be sung in a low calming voice to a young child when they are tucked in bed’ is one I don’t understand at all.

I know about children. They are going to fall asleep if you do this. What sort of a literary experience is that? If they fall asleep while you read/sing – what’s the point in any of this work?

I look forward to your revisions and many further payments.

Stop Indoctrinating Writers! (Or Die)

I’m really going to scream if I read another set of misleading instructions on how to write well – especially those intended to educate new writers.

As the best selling author Stephen Godden used to say (while beating me over the head) ‘There are no rules in writing – just things you can get horribly wrong!’

There are a lot of doctrines whizzing around at the moment.

‘No head-hopping! People will say you’re a poor writer and you’ll sell nothing.’

Hmm... That makes Mervyn Peake and Sir Terry Pratchett poor writers who sold nothing. Let’s chuck that rule in the bin straight away.

Never use ‘alright’.

Alright – I’ll tell the Oxford English Dictionary they’ve got it alwrong.

Don’t use adverbs.

We all hate to see adverbs used gratuitously, overly liberally and frequently. You still reading? well, you survived that sentence. Bin time again.

Seriously, (lol) I once had to disabuse one writer who thought she couldn’t even use them in dialogue.

Use show not tell

This is probably the very worst of the lot. Young adults are rumoured to like the immersion it encourages – but they’ll happily read a good story with good characters even without much in the way of show.
In ‘Expect Civilian Casualties’ I used lashings of it because Jason is an extreme and unique person and the whole point was to get inside his head and find out what was going on in there.
Ernest Hemingway wrote a whole book in which you only saw the heroine’s arm once, her hair once and that was all. I’m quoting (possibly slightly misquoting) a trusted friend here. I have no idea to which book she referred but we can probably rule out explicit erotica.

Write what you know.

So … who actually knows a pixie? OK, I know … just saying.

Right – that’s the bin full for the moment :) See you soon!

Hive Mind Interview with Firedance

How did you come to write Hive Mind? Where did the story come from?

It came out of the blue. My son, Christy, was playing a online community game (UFOAI) that was asking for help. Neither of us are programmers, so I offered to write short stories immersed in the game. Christy did a huge amount of research while I developed story lines and characters. The community loved them and a book developed … then two more.


It’s quite a departure from your Y/A novels. Do you think you’ll return to that genre or is your imagination dragging you to new vistas as we speak?

I would probably have stuck to Y/A had I not been a member of Firedance. Some of the other writers there challenged me to try other genres. As a result I have a pile of manuscripts from humorous fantasy to post-apocalyptic speculative fiction.


How much of your own background influences what you write? Is it homage or therapy?

That reminds me of an editor returning a manuscript and telling me to get therapy before writing another book.
All writers draw from their experience and personality, they are part of the medium. My experiences of working with the mentally ill and teenagers in family therapy certainly helped when I wrote “Expect Civilian Casualties” and “The Evil and the Fear” as did my experience of living as a hunter-gatherer.
You can draw on other people’s experience too. I’ve had friends and relatives immerse me in the culture of Cambridge University (from the perspective of a student) – and have drawn on that for another book.

You have distinctly magical or paranormal elements in your books. Would you prefer to live in a world with magic?

That’s very hard to answer without confusing myself and everyone else. I think there’s more than enough magic around as it is. It depends on how you look at things. Some people may find life bleak and mundane; others may never cease to be in awe of the wonders they live among. I swap between the two.

What did you enjoy most about this book?

Grief … which book were we talking about? Ah yes, Hive Mind. That’s easy. Collaboration with my son – we had such fun.
He had an enormous input. We developed the threads, arcs, acts, planned the narrative tools and every last scene together. He also did a fair quantity of the writing. He learned a huge amount about how books are constructed. It was the most enjoyable creative collaboration in my life. A remarkable achievement for us was the development of invisible threads – each book is a complete novel but if you read two in sequence you find another complete story – likewise if you read all three.
Part of his involvement was “reading aloud” (a great way of editing). He read out everything I wrote while I watched his expressions and looked for the frowns and hesitations of misunderstanding etc. He would put on heavy Yorkshire/German/Welsh/Russian and other accents inappropriate to the characters. It was hard to concentrate and I had to throw balls of paper at him until he stopped (not very effective – we were on Skype).

What drew you to your MC? What qualities do they possess that made them fun to write – and even better fun to read?

In Hive Mind there are five main characters. Jeanette dominates. She’s a caring, overstressed fighter-pilot. She’s also a mother caught in a war – with her children on the front line.
That her struggle became the central theme of the story was a surprise. The story was mainly aimed at young men; you’d expect them to want the male characters to be the focus. However, they loved it and loved Jeanette. It’s hard not to fall in love with her – we all need a Jeanette in our lives.

What’s most difficult about being a writer?

Writing – or finding time to do anything else. It either eludes you, or takes over everything and is utterly exhausting.
Due to having five first-person views Hive Mind was unusually complicated. Managing the time line was the least of the problems. By far the greatest was developing each person, how they related to each other, how these relationships changed and making them all feel and sound different. The best-selling writer Stephen Godden was superb in coaching me through the last.

What’s next for you, Gary. What are you working on now?

I have a backlog of books to edit, but I’m really pleased with the series I’ve just completed (Rude Awakening). It’s set (loosely) in Cambridge University and the main character, Juliet is heaven to work with. I love her caring but blood-axe approach to life. I also love her relationships with her best friend and her strange mother. Juliet falls in love with a man she feels is absolutely the opposite to her dream partner – and that’s been hilarious.
A wonderful memory is that of a book-signing in the Paddock at Emmanuel. I was surrounded by students and baby moorhens.
Some of the students had Kindle copies so I signed Muffy College, Cambridge bookmarks – the humour wasn’t lost on them.
I must stop writing. I have more books waiting for publication – and they all need attention. Don’t let me write another!

One last word...

Hive Mind is to be published September 2015 – it will be free as a Kindle download on the 11th and 12th.

Free parallel chapters can be found here: http://garybonn.com/scifi/

Editorial Input!

If you are unfamiliar with the terms beta reader, structural editor, copy editor and proof reader or you don’t see the need to have your book edited – this is probably a most important blog for you to read.



A BOOK IS A TEAM EFFORT.

I don’t know of a single (current) great writer who doesn’t depend heavily on editorial input. Terry Pratchett allegedly used seven trusted and skilled editors. I'd say that’s about right.

You are blind to your mistakes. Maybe you’ll self-publish and what could have become a priceless gem, cherished by readers, will join the millions of books that sell less than ten copies and sink into obscurity.
Recently I was asked to review a friend’s already published book. I couldn’t get past the first page let alone review it. I was gutted that someone had put so much effort into something only to have produced a work that people would reject as unreadable.

To make matters worse I phoned the writer and offered to edit it for free. The writer was profoundly shocked that I would even suggest that the book wasn’t completely perfect.

As an artist I can paint a picture and not have to pass it round several people for comments and adjustment before I finish it. Books don’t work like that.

In an ideal world you’ll pass early chapters, scenes, even whole manuscripts to friends skilled in editing or critiquing fiction. These people are beta readers and you need about half a dozen of them.
What makes these people valuable is their knowledge of fiction writing and their supportive comments regarding your work. From the very beginning of the editorial process to the end you need people who respect you enough to tear your work apart.

“I don’t understand that sentence.”
“Why did she do that? Am I missing something?”
“I don’t think he’d do this – he’s not that sort of person.”

That’s the polite stuff :) When beta readers are highly skilled you’ll get...

“Those three chapters have to go. Why are they even in there?”
“These characters all sound like the same person.”
“Too convenient. It looks like you ran out of ideas there.”

And my personal favourites...

“Gary, there’s probably a story in there somewhere, and I know you wrote it in a rush but look, this first line isn’t even in English.”

“It’s lovely to see this character back in action; she’s a real favourite of mine but didn’t she die in chapter four?” (Beware cutting and pasting errors.)

“Gary, are you writing for readers, or working through a personal issue here? Consider therapy before writing another book.”

As you can see from the above, profound and lasting friendships can emerge from critiquing. Beta reading doesn’t only strengthen someone’s book; it is a valuable tool to improve your own writing. Offer to beta other writers’ work and you’ll see what I mean.
Think of the first draft of your manuscript as a lump of rock vaguely resembling a human form. Now your betas have helped you turn it into a half-finished sculpture. It’s time to move on.

Structural Edits

Structural/copy edits vary in style, take more effort and are a much bigger ask of someone.
An editor will look at a lot of elements including:
Time line
Story arc
Pace, tension, immersion, humour
Character arcs, consistency, development etc
Is the book correctly written for the intended audience and suitably accessible?
Are the right narrative techniques used?
Ambiguities: where does it need to be made clearer?
Is it the right length?
Sentence structure, attributions
And tons of other stuff

The golden rule is to listen to what editors say. If someone asks for a change (and they all ask for lots of them), they’ll often give a reason.

“You’ll need to explain why the bus took so long to get there. As it is, the reader will be confused: I was.”

If you can’t give a solid reason why a change should not be made – make the change. The editors are your friends. They see your work through other people’s eyes. If they don’t see what you are trying to say, you must change it until they do.
It’s worth pointing out that for every hour a reader reads, the writer has spent over a hundred hours* producing that hour’s worth of reading and went on to add another hundred or more in editing.

*Muffy College, Cambridge can be read in 5 hours. Each hour of reading took me 272 hours to write and edit or 1,360 hours in total – more than half in editing. In addition structural editors put in about 110-140 hours (between them) for a ~50-70,000 word book.

Some changes can be made with quick fixes, “The bus was caught in roadworks. I did mention that but I’ll stress it again so it’s clearer.”. Others mean changing the whole book into a different narrative style or building an entire new thread throughout the story.
You soon learn to give in and make changes – particularly when you see how much better the book is going to be.


Some notes of caution – you are the captain of the book: retain control.
You don’t need to make every change suggested: don’t make any unless you’re sure they are necessary. One editor may suggest things that conflict with others.

If two of them point out the same flaw, it’s probably time to make a change. If they all say different things, sift through and choose what you think are those changes that will work best for the intended audience.
If possible, get the editors together, in person, on the net or whatever and talk every last detail through. Let them argue among themselves – it really helps sort out the suggestions that are objective and those that are subjective. Structural editors are human! and can make mistakes in what is a complicated and taxing activity.
Sometimes they will miss something you thought obvious – maybe they were tired. But your readers will have had long days at the office, or whatever, too. If an editor missed something critical – your readers may: do something about it.
Last ... some editors will just not get your book or cope with your chosen narrative style for it. It happens. It is only an issue if they’re the sort of people you are aiming the book at – then that editor becomes your most precious resource.

Now your book is looking so much better. As a sculpture it is recognisable, not just as a human form, but a particular person, with all their gesture and form clearly visible.
But it’s not finished by a long way.


Copy editing:

Looks at sentence structure, clarity, minor ambiguities, repetition, choice of words etc. This is painstaking hard work and requires training, practice and a deep understanding of grammar and language. Don’t be surprised if your copy editor finds structural errors too.

Your copy editor will require a detailed style sheet clearly stating your choices – and will sometimes challenge them.


Proofreading

Really? after all that?
Yes, this is the final polish. After all the work above there will still be errors in spelling, spacing and punctuation etc. Please note that very few works, even from the best publishing houses, go out without some errors. Since the recession I’ve noticed more and more even in best-selling books. We’ve all seen them. Two spelling errors in one book is pretty good going, just a bit tragic if they’re both on the first page.
More often than not these are errors that a spell check won’t find. “She”, rather than “He”, “To”, rather than “Too”, for instance. Double spaces, wonky indents, “”, rather than “, can be found; there are loads of things that a proof reader will pick up on.

Proof reading requires the concentration. and pedantry of a computer programmer. (Proofread that last line – two errors.) Proofreaders will need your style sheet.

There are no shortcuts and it pays to go through the manuscript several times using your ‘search’ function. For instance, check every ‘it’s’ is correct and check for double spaces. There are many of these little tricks, but they don’t replace the real thing.
Read you manuscript at least once with non-printing characters visible.

People develop the most complicated systems to proofread. One particularly brilliant proofreader (now retired) read each sentence from beginning to end but read the book from back to front – upside down. This way she was never distracted by content.

In self-publishing there is another stage of editing. Preparing a book for electronic and print-on-demand requires formatting. Formatting can produce some ghastly errors. You’ll need to check everything (and get others to check too). That does mean reading the whole thing through again – thoroughly.

Note: style choice: British English, US punctuation, no proofreading, lol...