An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (5 page)

              My eyes drifted over Jenny’s coat-peg in the cloakroom. A short white duffel coat with fur trim hung over a Barbie branded backpack.             

              I hesitated, stopping short at the sight of her belongings. I shot a glance over my shoulder. I could hear the rumbling excitement of a class of schoolchildren preparing for a fifteen minute break, but none of them were in sight. Unlike me they had all participated in the painting; there were brushes to clean, pictures to show off, hands to wash.

              Feeling indecisive but knowing I had to act quickly; I dug through my own backpack and pulled out a notepad. There was a split second where what I was about to do seemed logical and felt like a good get-out clause, for each millisecond after that it grew exponentially ludicrous. I only paid attention to those first thoughts, ignoring the niggling doubts that grew inside my mind like a rapid cancer.

              My pencil case was full of biros, felt tips, crayons and pencils. In class I spent more time doodling fanciful drawings than I did writing, so I liked to be prepared.

              I pulled one out at random, scribbled on the top corner of a sheet of paper and stuffed it back when it came out dry. I did the same with another two pens before I found one that worked, it was red, but it would do.             

              I ripped the top sheet off the pad and folded it in half.

              Through the door, around the corner from where I sat, I could hear the sound of doors being closed and cupboards being shut. Wood on wood, metal on metal. The noise of taps gushing water onto paint covered hands.

              The class was finishing up, they would be out soon.

              I panicked. I quickly scribbled a short message in large, bold letters on the top sheet of paper, tore it off the pad and stuffed it into the front compartment of Jenny’s bag.

              The classroom door opened, the noises increased.

              I quickly jotted down another note. Messier, shorter, bolder. Cramming scrappy shorthand onto a small pre-folded piece of paper. I stuffed that into Laura’s bag and then quickly tried to seal it back up again. A strip of flesh from my thumb caught in the zip, I moaned in surprise and pulled back, feeling a tear as my skin ripped away from the metallic zip.

              The thumb instantly turned red, a white perforated line appeared across its tip and was quickly filled as the blood seeped through. I hissed through gritted teeth and squeezed my hand, trying to ease the pain. The blood trickled through my clenched fist and dropped into Laura’s bag, a couple of drops dripped out of sight, one hit the folded paper.

              Cursing under my breath I quickly closed the zip and stuck my thumb into my mouth, catching it just as another drop of blood fell from the paper-thin wound.

              Lenny was the first to enter the cloakroom, and as usual he was followed by a line of females.

              ‘That nice Kieran?’ he asked, motioning towards my suckled thumb.

              ‘Shut up,’ I mumbled back with a mouthful of thumb. I brushed past him, heading outside.

              A startled scream made me turn around. The noise was feminine, and instantly a part of me hoped that Jenny had been sucked into a black hole or had stepped into a one-way dimension, but the attention seemed to be on Lenny. Everyone was looking at him, and whilst this wasn’t unusual, the horror on his face was.

              He was standing over a backpack, peeking inside. The colour had drained out of his face. He had something in his hand, something he had removed from his bag.

              I moved closer, nudging a fellow pupil out of the way to get a better look.

              Lenny stood upright. I could see the object of his horror; it was a small, white fluffy animal. He gripped it tightly, like his life depended on its safety.

              A line of crimson ran down the animal’s back, from its small head to its fluffy tail. It was so stark, so red, that it looked terrifyingly out of place on the pristine toy.

              Max was standing a few feet in front of me, I hurried up to him and nudged him in the back, preparing to ask him what all the fuss was about, but just as Max turned around Lenny pulled another blood stained item out of his bag. A letter. My letter.

              ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ I mumbled.

              Lenny read the letter, looked up at the gathering of his fellow pupils, and then fainted.

              In the playground I stood on constantly shifting feet and tried to look innocent. ‘I don’t understand, why faint? It’s just a letter.’

              The commotion had died down. Almost simultaneously the room of children had shouted for a teacher. Suspecting the worst, three of them had rushed in.

              Lenny was roused before they even got to him; the kids were told to
get the hell outside
seconds later.

              ‘Didn’t you hear?’ Olly seemed to light up whenever a potentially morbid subject sprang into the conversation. ‘His cat was murdered,’ he said with the intoned mystery of the Crypt Keeper.

              ‘Murdered?’ I said, taken aback.

              ‘Oh, it’s such a sad story.’ Lisa wriggled out from under Peter’s protective arm. Peter looked offended but tried to shrug it off with a stretch. ‘It happened a few weeks ago, maybe a month, I’m not sure. When was Susie’s birthday again?’ she turned to Max as she delved into another subject. ‘Because it was around that time, maybe a few months later.’

              ‘March, or May,’ Max loved this sort of inane conversation, no doubt the reason Lisa asked him and not Peter, who barely liked to talk at all. ‘It definitely wasn’t June,’ Max said with a broad
I know things
smile. ‘Or
was
it?’

              ‘Not important!’ Olly snapped, throwing his arms wildly in the air. ‘Look,’ he grasped me on the shoulder, ‘someone ran over his cat. He was upset,
very
upset.’

              ‘He loved that cat,’ Lisa added.

              Peter looked sternly at his girlfriend, apparently only just realising that she had also fallen for Lenny’s charm.

              ‘He was heartbroken,’ Max uttered.

              ‘Diddums,’ Olly stabbed, cruelly.

              ‘Don’t be mean,’ Lisa warned.

              I sighed deeply. ‘Can we get to the point?’

              ‘Okay,’ Olly said, shooting a frustrated glance at Lisa before turning to me. ‘So the cat gets run over, he thinks it’s murder.’

              ‘It
was
mur--’

              ‘Shut your face, I’m talking here!’

              ‘How
dare
you--’

              ‘Peter, deal with your girlfriend would you?’

              After a few squabbles, a lot of shouting and some random offerings from Max, I finally learned that Lenny had found his cat dead on the road one morning. It had been run over the night before. No one came forward to admit flattening the feline so Lenny decided she had been murdered.

              His mother tried to talk him out of going to the police and asking for a manhunt, but his dad, in another slice of drunken wisdom, affirmed and expanded on his beliefs. He told his son that a serial animal murderer was staking the streets and poor little Fluffy had been his next victim. It seemed apparent that Lenny’s dad was either insane or a total dickhead, but Lenny loved his father and, unfortunately for him, listened to everything he said.

              Whilst Lenny hunted down the killer, his mother bought him a small fluffy toy as a memento and replacement. Things had being going well for Lenny, he had stopped crying for his lost pet and he was well on the way to doubting his father’s theory about the perverted pet killer.

              ‘It makes you wonder don’t it?’ Olly said, looking philosophical. ‘There
must
be a pet serial killer out there. First it kills Lover-boy’s cat and then it taunts him. I mean did you see the blood on that little toy? Sick man,
sick.
’

              The others sounded their agreement, I gulped down a large slab of saliva and guilt. My heart sank even further when I recalled what I had written in the letter, scrawled in glaring red ink:

             
L, It was a mistak. It was ment 2 b u, nt her.

              It was supposed to be Laura’s bag. The letter was supposed to go to her, not Lenny. But I couldn't tell anyone that now. I didn’t think there was a law against writing letters but who would believe me? I’d look like an idiot; I’d probably get the blame for making Lenny pass out, if not from the teachers then certainly from the kids. They’d hate me if I was responsible for scaring him.

             
I just have to play innocent,
I thought.
Stay cool, don’t tell anyone, don’t even--

              My eyes widened. My heart practically jumped out of my chest. I remembered the second letter, the one I had written for Jenny. It had been in the same handwriting, I had used the same pen, the same notepad.

              I turned my head anxiously on my shoulders, spanning the playground, looking for Jenny. I couldn’t see her.

              ‘Where’s Jenny?’ I asked, still scanning the concrete field.             

              ‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ Max jumped in. ‘She’s your
girlfriend
now,’ he said, rolling his tongue mockingly around the word
girlfriend
.

              ‘Really?’ Olly said, shocked. ‘You picked
her
?’

              ‘Where is she?’ I said, growing increasingly impatient.

              ‘You miss her already?’ Lisa asked, without a jot of sarcasm.

              ‘Something like that.’

              ‘She’ll be hovering around Lenny as usual, she’s obsessed with him,’ Olly said. ‘You picked a winner there mate.’

              Olly
did
pile on the sarcasm, but I thanked him anyway and quickly walked back towards the school building.

              I took a deep breath before pushing open the door to the cloakroom. I imagined Jenny standing on the bench, the letter in one hand, a megaphone in the other; surrounded by teachers and organising them into a mob to get back at me.

              When I entered the cloakroom there were no angry teachers with pitchforks. No shouting; no calls for blood. Jenny was sitting quietly on one of the benches, she was alone.

              ‘Hey--’ I squashed up my face, looked to the ceiling, to the floor, to Jenny’s watery and expectant eyes. ‘Sweetie,’ I continued, happy with the choice of word, regardless of how dirty it made me feel. ‘You okay?’ I sat down next to her and hovered an arm above her shoulders. I had seen this sort of thing done on television when adults were trying to sooth other adults, but quite a few of those television programs ended with the soother and the soothee kissing or hugging, and I didn’t want that. I pulled my arm away and scooted an inch away from her, just in case.

              ‘I’m worried about Lenny,’ Jenny said, she looked up at me and did a double take, her eyes saying
I could have sworn you were sitting closer
.

              ‘He’ll be fine, go outside and play, get on with your life. Lenny would want it that way.’

              Jenny looked genuinely confused. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

              I shrugged. They never asked that on television.

              ‘I think I’ll just sit here for a while,’ Jenny said, lowering her head.

              I had to get her out of the cloakroom; I had to get my letter back.

              I eyed the Barbie backpack; it was directly opposite her, a metre or so away from her feet.

              ‘Someone wants to see you outside,’ I said, in lieu of anything else.

              ‘Who?’

              ‘Max,’ as usual Max had been the first name in my head. That had never served me well in the past. It was often the reason I ended up with him as a partner, and certainly the reason he ended up as my best friend.

              ‘Max?’ Jenny asked. She was either shocked or disgusted, I couldn’t tell but I could sympathise, Max had a way of doing that to people.

              ‘Yeah, he has something to show you, said it’d cheer you up.’

              Jenny stared at me with doubtful eyes. I tried to smile earnestly, but with each passing second I was sure my face would break and the words “
I’m lying”
would be spelled on my forehead in anxiety riddled acne.

              She nodded and stood up. I allowed myself to breathe again.

              Halfway to the door she turned and asked: ‘You just gonna sit here?’ with a hint of surprise.

              ‘Just gonna have a think,’ I said, nodding slowly to add a sombre tone to my words. ‘A think about Lenny. Life. You know.’

              ‘Hm,’ Jenny sounded unconvinced. ‘Okay.’

              She disappeared out of the door and I stood up immediately, moving for her backpack.

              I pulled open the zip and yanked out the letter. I thought about tearing it up there and then, I thought about hiding it. I even thought about eating it, but before I could do any of those things, the door swung open and Jenny’s head popped around the corner, her eyes beaming like a bird of prey on the prowl.

              ‘Shit,’ I mumbled. The letter was still in my hand, the bag open in front of me.

              ‘I knew you were up to something,’ she let the door slam behind her and she stormed forward. ‘What is that?’ she gestured towards the letter, her eyes hot, her face angry.

              I thought she was going to hit me. I sensed another cloakroom beating.

              She snatched the letter from me with one hand and then shoved me back with the other. I stumbled over a backpack and crashed to the floor, protected from the fall by my elbows which crunched under my own weight.