Ostrich Boys (17 page)

“So what are you going to do?” Kayleigh asked me.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “Those two there, they’re the brains of the outfit.”

She gave me a funny look, which I chose to ignore.

“Where’s your pal live, anyways?” Kat asked.

“Kirkcudbright,” I said before Kenny or Sim could say anything else.

“Where?”

“Kirkcudbright.” I showed her on the map.

Kat laughed at me. “Ker-coo-bree. That’s how you say it. Ker. Coo. Bree.”

“Kur-cub-ray,” Kenny tried, his Scottish accent not quite up to it.

“Kenny-coo-bree, Kenny-coo-bree,” Kat whispered,
nuzzling up to his ear. He looked at her like she was an angel come down from heaven in a hovercar.

“Yeah, well, whatever it’s called,” I said. “That’s where he lives and that’s where we need to get to. The sooner the better.”

“It’s ten o’clock on a beautiful summer Saturday night,” Sim said, slipping his sunglasses on. “Chill, okay? Either we find a place to stay here, or we go there and still have to find somewhere. Let’s just stay here.” He said to Hayley: “Don’t suppose you’ve got room enough for us three lonesome wanderers?”

“Aye, that’s right,” Hayley said. “My mum really wants some English weirdos staying with us. Who says I even care if you stay or not?”

“So forget those two. How about just somewhere I can lay my weary head?”

“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

He grinned, clicked his tongue.

She elbowed him in the ribs.

“But we don’t live in Dumfries either,” Kat said.

Kenny looked confused.

“We never said we did, did we? And we’ve got to get the bus anyway.”

“You live in Kirkcudbright?” I said, ever hopeful.

She shook her head. “But if you come with us I know somewhere you can stay the night.” She grinned at her friends. “We can take them to the Tramp’s Hotel.”

That didn’t sound good. “Do what?”

“It’s just a nickname,” Kayleigh said. “It’s an old house, really. No one lives there.”

“Like, derelict?” I asked.

“Like, abandoned and haunted,” Kat said, eyes wide and rolling, grinning like a madwoman.

I looked at Kenny and Sim. I was pleased to see Kenny wasn’t overjoyed at the thought of it, but Sim said: “Hey, come on. We keep saying this is an adventure, right? I don’t see what your problem is.”

“Tramp’s Hotel.
Tramp’s
Hotel. There’s kind of a clue in the title to what my problem is. Why don’t we just wear T-shirts saying: ‘Please bugger me and leave me in a ditch’?”

Sim tutted, raised his eyebrows at Hayley. “So melodramatic,” he said. He swung his rucksack over his shoulder and with one hand gathered up Hayley’s big shopping bags. “So, are you scared of ghosts, then? D’you reckon you’re gonna need protection?” He slipped his other hand around her waist as they walked toward the bus stop.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, wriggling away from him—but not too far.

“Kenny?” I asked, appealing to the chicken-shit I knew lurked inside him.

“It’ll be fun,” Kat giggled.

Kenny was torn for almost as long as two seconds. Then, apologetically: “It’ll be fun.” He let Kat drag him away.

The two of them followed Hayley and Sim. Which left
me and Kayleigh. She brushed back her long hair with her hand, letting it fall over her shoulder. She shrugged, half smiled, then picked up her bags and followed the others.

I swore under my breath. Just when I thought things were going to get easier. I couldn’t believe that we’d stood shoulder to shoulder right up until girls got in the way. But what could I do? The bus came round the corner, pulled up at the stop. I hefted my rucksack onto my shoulder and trailed along too.

Hayley said, “Parrots.”

“A company.”

Kat shouted, “Kangaroos.”

“A mob. Come on, someone
please
give me a difficult one.”

“I’m brilliant with computers,” Kenny said to Kat, not wanting to be forgotten.

The bus took us through the center of Dumfries. It seemed smaller than Cleethorpes and looked quieter, older. It was the kind of place my mum would call pretty. We drove across an old stone bridge over a wide, shallow river. It looked like a piece of the countryside plonked right down in the middle of the town. I spotted signs for places called Cargen, Kirconnel and New Abbey, but like every other bus I’ve been on, the route was too convoluted to follow. So when we got off about twenty minutes later, I didn’t have a clue
which of the place names we’d arrived at. If any. It looked too much like the middle of nowhere to me. Now we were walking along a narrow country road with hedges on either side of us, getting further and further into the middle of nowhere, as the sun went down. And three lots of bus fare poorer too. We were down to just over a tenner. Best not to even think about how we were supposed to get home again on that.

“Ostriches,” I said.

Sim glanced back at me over his shoulder. It was the first time I’d joined in the conversation since we’d got off the bus. And while on the bus I’d only ever tried to remind them of where we were meant to be going by pointing at my rucksack every time they looked at me.

“Yeah, a bit trickier, I suppose,” he admitted. “Most people reckon it’s a flock. But I know it should really be a pride.”

He then said to the girls: “Did we tell you Blake did a bungee jump today? How high was it again?” he asked me. I knew exactly what he was trying to do.

And I let him. “Hundred and sixty meters.”

“Really?” Kayleigh was impressed enough to look at me like I was crazy. The other two girls started asking questions as well, and Sim gave me a grin, a wink.

I guessed I could have stayed moody if I’d wanted to, but in the end I couldn’t see the point. This trip had a life of its own. It was like trying to ride on the back of a giant snake
as it wriggled and twisted beneath me. There was no way I could control it—it was far too unpredictable and dangerous. All I could do was cling on and keep my fingers crossed we’d make it there and back again in one piece.

I had to remember why I was doing this—the reason I was here in Scotland instead of back home in Cleethorpes. That reason was the one and only thing that mattered. And I hefted my rucksack higher up on my shoulders.

“Where exactly is this Tramp’s Hotel place?” I asked Kayleigh, who was walking closest to me, a step or two behind the other four.

“Not that far,” she said.

“Near where I live,” Kat told me over her shoulder. “See, it’s in this field where the fair used to come. And we used to dare each other to go inside when we were wee. Everyone said it was haunted back then. So you had to be real brave and go in or the older kids’d beat you up.”

“Have you ever been inside?” Kenny asked.

“Oh, aye. Plenty of times. But those two never have.”

“You only went in so’s you could get off with Malky Smith,” Hayley said.

“Aye, so?”

“Who’s Malky Smith?” Kenny asked.

Kat gripped Kenny’s hand. “I never really liked him that much anyways. See, I just wanted him to show me his thing because everybody said he’d the biggest in Dumfries and Galloway.” She shrugged. “It was okay, I suppose.”

Kenny looked anxious.

We walked by a dilapidated barn, just skeletal planks and a lopsided roof. Out front was a rusty lump of farm machinery thick with weeds—a plow or something. There was a silent, murky pond. Dark, crowding trees. Then the hedgerows grew tall again. But guarding a gap in the hedgerows was a low, wide wooden gate. The gate was chained and padlocked so we climbed over. The field beyond was up to our knees with dry grass and weeds bearing yellow or purple heads, even some thistles. It was maybe the size of a footie pitch, maybe a bit bigger, enclosed on three sides by a high, patchy wall of bushes. But there was more of a mini-wood separating it from the pond and the rundown barn. I spotted a sharp glint of light, like a prolonged camera flash, in amongst that copse of trees and realized it was the reflection of the sunset on a window. There was a house hidden somewhere back there. At a guess: Tramp’s Hotel.

But it wasn’t our overnight accommodation that had caught Kenny’s eye. “What’s that?” he wanted to know, pointing right to the very back of the field.

“It’s the whirligig,” Kat told him.

We waded through the thick grass toward it. I wondered if it was more abandoned farm machinery. Slumped, rusty and fast becoming overgrown, it was some kind of massive silver and red metal octopus.

“But what is it?” Sim asked.

“See, I told you the fair used to come here,” Kat said. “But the people in the village complained about it. And when they built the new houses, where us three live, my dad started this petition going.” She put on an impression of what she reckoned her dad must sound like.
“Hello. I’m angry from Dumfries and Galloway and I hate fun. Please ban the fair. It’s far too much fun for me
. Anyways, it stopped coming. But they left the whirligig behind.”

Its four giant arms were half buried in the grass, covered with a nasty rash of rust and flaky paint. The seats were like small sofas in cages and most were still attached, but they’d become matted with grass and weeds where they rested on the ground. A few of the seats had come off altogether—busted and broken by years of vandalism and decay. I’d always thought there was an engine underneath these things but this was just the structure of the ride itself. And as it lay there, its arms sprawled, it looked dead.

“How long’s it been here?” I asked.

“Ever since the fair left it,” Kat said, as if I was stupid.

“Six or seven years,” Kayleigh said. “I don’t think anybody knows why they left it.”

“Can you imagine the people who run the fair when they arrived at the next town?” Sim said. “Helterskelter? Check. Big wheel? Check. Octopus ride? Octopus ride? Aww, shit! Who forgot the octopus ride?” It cracked us all up. “What d’you mean you’ve lost it? Go backward in your head. When was the last time you remember seeing it?”

“It’s just bizarre,” I said. I walked around it, touching the metal struts and picking at the crispy paint. I could see hundreds of empty sockets along the length of the arms where all the colorful, flashing bulbs should have been. “The day fun died,” I said.

“Piss off being so miserable,” Sim told me, dropping his rucksack to the ground. “You sound like Ross. Look, this is still fun, this is.” He nudged Kenny toward one of the seats. “Get in. And you, Kat.”

The safety bar was jammed down and the two of them had to squeeze and wriggle to climb in.

Sim set off on a quick walk, circling around the contraption. “Hold tight, ladies and gentlemen. Keep your hands and feet inside the seats at all times.” He made a complete lap and started to jog. “Scream if you wanna go faster, Kenny!”

Kenny gripped the safety bar tight.
“Yee-ha!”

Sim did another lap, running faster. He grabbed Hayley and Kayleigh as he passed them, dragging them round with him. “Scream if you wanna go faster, Kat!”

She shrieked and held her hands to her face. And Sim, Hayley and Kayleigh ran as fast as they could, sprinting as they circled the whirligig. Round and round. Kenny and Kat pretending to hold on for dear life, both screaming. The two girls waving their arms as they ran. Sim put his head down and tried to haul them even faster.

“Whoo-hooo!” Kenny yelled.

And we were all shouting and cheering. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

Until Sim stumbled in the grass, tripped and fell in a headlong roll. But that was funny in a different way. Hayley and Kayleigh collapsed in panting heaps next to him. Kenny and Kat whooped and applauded.

I went over to help Sim up. “How much more fun d’you need?” he panted as I pulled him into a sitting position—he was too knackered to stand.

“Okay, you proved me wrong,” I admitted. I took my rucksack off and propped it upright in the grass.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got any drink left in there, have you?” he asked, sticking out his tongue to show me how parched he was after all that exertion.

I shook my head. “But there might be a shop that’s still open where we can get something.”

“You’ll be lucky,” Hayley said. “The nearest one’s miles away.”

“I can get something from my house,” Kat said. “Let’s have a midnight picnic. Eat under the stars and the moon and the black holes. I’ve always wanted to do that anyways.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sim said. Kenny was eager too. And who was I to argue?

The three girls headed back across the field together, taking their shopping bags with them. We watched them go.

“D’you think they’ll come back?” Kenny asked, his face scrunched with anxiety.

Sim gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “No worries. You’re in there.” He rolled his eyes at me but said to Kenny, “And good luck to you too.”

“And you really like Hayley, do you?”

“Don’t tell me you wanna swap. You’re my best mate, but, Kenny, I’m telling you—”

Kenny shook his head. “No, no, I really like Kat.
Really
, really. She’s perfect, isn’t she? But Hayley seems kind of, I don’t know … kind of
spiky?”

Sim clicked his tongue. “That’s just the way I like them. But it’s not me you should be worrying about. It’s Mr. Celibate here.” He hooked a thumb in my direction.

Kenny said, “Kayleigh’s really pretty too, Blake. I reckon you ought to—”

I cut him short. “Shut up, Kenny. And you,” I warned Sim, who held up his hands as if he didn’t know what on earth I was talking about.

I sighed. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go check out where we’re supposed to be staying the night.” I knew they were raising their eyebrows at each other and giving me funny looks behind my back as I strode off toward the trees, but I ignored them. Let them think what they liked.

Tramp’s Hotel lived down to expectations.

We had to fight through a heavy tangle of undergrowth to get at it underneath the trees, stamping down waist-high nettles and snapping off low branches. It was a squat dirty-brick cottage with half a pointy roof. I guessed it was a hundred years old—maybe more. Graffiti had spread across its walls like a dose of chicken pox in primary school. What I’d earlier thought was a pane of glass reflecting the sun was actually a sheet of metal that filled the gap where a window should be. The metal was pocked and dinted with the scars of dozens of chucked stones, but still shiny. There was no door. Just a dark, door-shaped hole.