The field could be anything they wanted it to be. It could be a football pitch, a lonesome prairie, an alien planet, an unexplored jungle, a battlefield; it could change from day to day, or even hour to hour. But whatever the field was, the small copse of hawthorn trees was always the camp.
Adam sat on the lowest branch of the biggest tree. He liked to be there early, before Gary and Simon. He liked to have the quiet time, time to think of what they would play that day. He wondered why it always seemed to fall to him to decide what they would play. He had grown tired of trying to think up new games as the long summer holiday had dragged along. Now it was almost over, he found it hard to think back to where all the time had gone.
The worst time for him had been the one week he had been on his own, when Gary and Simon had been away on holiday. Adam sometimes wished he had a brother, someone to play with all the time. Although, Gary and Simon always seemed to be arguing and fighting.
Adam glanced up. All around the camp were tall plants with red flowers. About this time every year the flowers seemed to turn into cotton wool - or something like cotton wool - which blew everywhere, even into his mouth. It tasted horrible and his mother always moaned about the amount of the stuff that stuck to his clothes. He had once asked his mother what the huge red-flowered plants were called. "They're just weeds," she had said, and turned back to her washing-up.
Adam could hear the sounds of argument coming through the long grass. He stood up on the branch and held on to the trunk of the tree. He could see Gary's head as it bobbed through the grass. Occasionally, the head would stop and turn. Adam could see the grass parting for Simon, but he was too small to be seen above it. Adam sighed and sat back down on the branch, hoping that the argument would wear itself out before too long. He hated it when Gary and Simon were sulking at each other all day. He changed his mind about wanting a brother to play with.
"It was mine, and you broke it." Gary sat down under the tree. Simon had been crying, Adam could see the grey muddy tracks down Simon's cheeks as he stood, uncertainly, at the edge of the camp. Simon wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt and sat down opposite Gary, well out of his reach.
"What are we going to do today then?" Adam said.
"I don't care as long as he doesn't play," Gary said.
Adam thought about asking what had happened. He decided he did not really care. He was tired of getting involved in their constant disputes. He would be going to the junior school at the end of the holiday. He began to wish that he would find some new friends there, friends without brothers.
"Let's explore the jungle," Adam said, jumping down from the branch.
"I'm not exploring with him." Gary crossed his arms.
Adam turned to look away from them. "There was this man, an explorer, he was called Stanley - I think. He found this other man: Livingson, who was lost in the jungle. He'd been captured by cannibals, but he escaped and Stanley rescued him."
"What was his name, Stanley what?" Gary said.
"I don't think he had another name," Adam said doubtfully.
"Knife," Simon said quietly. "I heard our Dad talking about Stanley Knife. I asked Dad who he was, but Dad just laughed."
"Don't be stupid, knife isn't a name," Gary said.
"Anyway," Adam said to Gary. "If you be this Liverson, then we can come and rescue you."
Gary was silent for a moment. "Yeah, right then," he said and got to his feet. He turned to Simon. "I think the cannibals are going to capture you, and eat you." He laughed and ran off into the long grass.
Simon smiled weakly at Adam and began to trace lines in the loose dirt with a stick. "I hate having a big brother sometimes, everything is always my fault. Anyway," he smiled again, "I bet it was knife."
Adam nodded and looked away. He thought the whole thing was typical of grown-ups; they never answered your questions properly. They were either too busy or they said they didn't know. Adam wondered what was the point of being grown-up if you did not know the answer to everything. He decided that when he grew up he would know the answer to every question in the whole world.
"Come on then, let's go and rescue Liverson," Adam said.
"Are you Stanley Knife?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Who am I then?"
"You're, ...you're his faithful servant," Adam tried to think of a suitable name for a servant. "Passport Two."
"Passport Two?" That's even sillier than Stanley Knife." Simon laughed.
"It's the name of the servant of someone who went all around the world in a balloon. They made a film of it," Adam said defiantly. "Come on."
Simon followed Adam out into the field. "I'm not going to get eaten, I don't care what he says."
Adam and Simon wandered through the thick jungle, fighting savage natives and ferocious wild animals. Stanley Knife was wounded in the arm by a poisonous spear and Passport Two was mauled by a man-eating tiger, but they bravely struggled on in their desperate mission to rescue Liverson, despite the overwhelming odds against them.
Suddenly, they burst into a clearing. The long grass had been flattened, as if by a huge roller. In the centre of the clearing was something black.
"Careful, it might be a tranquilliser spider," Passport Two whispered.
Stanley Knife drew his sword and crept slowly up to the deadly spider. Before it had a chance to leap on him, Stanley sliced it in half.
"It's a pair of tights. Look," Adam pushed at the black nylon heap with his toe.
"Why would someone leave them here," Gary said looking around.
"Perhaps there's been a murder," Adam said. "Look, it looks like they were fighting and squashed the grass down flat."
Simon looked around nervously. "There's no body and there's no blood," he said with relief. "Anyway, why would he need to take her tights off to kill her?"
"I dunno," Adam said. "But on the telly, when they talk about murders, they always say they found some bits of clothes and things."
"Look, what's this?" Simon poked at something on the ground with his stick.
"It's a balloon."
"I know that, but what is that stuff in it?"
Adam screwed up his face in disgust. "Looks like someone's blown their nose in it."
Simon turned away. Adam looked down at the pale pink balloon. It looked like it could be blown up quite big. He moved closer, the stuff inside did look a bit like snot. But, he decided, it looked more like the stuff snails made their shiny tracks with. He thought it was probably something - some sort of trap - people used to catch snails and slugs. His Granddad was always complaining about how the snails and slugs ate all the cabbages on his allotment. Adam had decided he quite liked snails and slugs because of that, and he secretly hoped there would be a plague of them and they would eat all the cabbage in the world.
Adam looked carefully at the balloon. He was relieved to see that the snail, or slug, had escaped. He wondered if it was something he could ask his Mum or Dad about. There were some things he could not ask about; things that made his mother's face go red and her voice go strange. "Rude things" and things that he would "understand when you are older", things like why there were girls and boys and why they had different toilets at school.
But the biggest rude thing had been the day Gary, Simon and Adam had found a magazine, which seemed to contain nothing but pictures of ladies without any clothes on. They had puzzled over the magazine for several hours. There were pictures of women, standing in fields and on beaches, with no clothes on throwing balls to each other, or just smiling at the camera. But there were no cartoons or stories; none that made any sense anyway.
Adam had decided to take the magazine home to ask his Mother about it. But he only just managed to hold the magazine up to show her, before it was snatched out of his hand and ripped to shreds. His Mother called it rude, disgusting and - strangely to Adam - filth. He knew that showing, what was called, his private parts to anyone except doctors and nurses was rude, but the ladies in the pictures had not looked filthy to Adam. They had looked clean, shiny even, with nice bright smiles. He wondered how anyone could be called filthy when they were photographed in the bath or in the sea, like the women in some of the pictures. There had even been a part of the magazine called Bathing Beauties.
Adam and Simon left the small clearing without looking back. They turned onto a small path.
Gary ran up to them. "Come here," he whispered, "and be quiet."
Adam and Simon looked at each other in puzzlement, but followed Gary, trying to be as silent as possible. Gary led them to a small hedge; he crouched down and pointed through the hedge. Adam and Simon crept up beside Gary and looked through the hedge.
A girl, somewhere around Adam's age, with long, dark red hair, was sitting at the edge of the field. In front of her, a row of dolls lay on the grass. The girl had a toy stethoscope around her neck. She crawled along in front of the row of dolls checking each one with the stethoscope. Adam and Gary looked at each other and nodded.
The boys burst through the hedge, and stood in a rough semi-circle around the girl. She looked up at them.
"We are cannibals," Adam said. "And we have captured you."
The girl looked at each of the three boys in turn. She nodded and stood up. "I'm Florence Nightgown, a nurse," she said.
"Don't try to run, there is no escape," Gary said, stepping closer to the girl. She shrugged and nodded again.
Adam and Gary looked at each other and stood either side of the girl. Adam reached out to grab her arm, but found himself unwilling to touch the bright pink wool of her cardigan.
"Put your hands behind your back, so we can tie you up," Adam said quietly. "Please."
Florence Nightgown submitted to the orders of her cruel captors, knowing escape was impossible. Simon led the way, followed by Gary, who kept turning back to check the captive was still there. Adam brought up the rear. As the girl was about to step through the break in the hedge, she turned and looked back at the patients in her hospital. "You're all dead," she said to the dolls.
[….]
[An extract from Field, a short story published in How I Became the Fat Bloke and Other Stories]
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